The Experience- Ayahuasca
opening the doors of
perception
by Christopher Cadden- for DrugWar.com
Dec. 30, 2002
image taken from Erowid
Plants Vaults
Yesterday, I met with the primo, the thing
I always wanted to do because I knew there was a place for me
within it. Somewhere in some past life I've been there, and in
this present life I've always been drawn there. So it wasn't just
a coincidence that random day I found myself visiting specialty
herb shops on the net, and happened to land right on those certain
herbs, which the shamans of South America have been using for
centuries to make something they call Ayahuasca, or Yage. Its
chemical name is DMT. It can be brewed from many things, which
can be obtained legally.
My experience was equipped with a transformation
into an animal spirit, alignment of the chakras, hearing the voices
of the spirits, entering a state of eternal now. It was the perfect
bliss, the perfect zen, and as a favor for my friend Randall,
I sought out Jim Morrison's ghost, and I can report that he's
still strong; he appears as a a flame, a deep, black/blue/red
velvet burning flame that rises from a mound of ash. And this
flame that he is, is the only light in this dark vortex he's in
now. Morrison is alone in a dark, dark place; there is no fan
or lover with him; he is alone, but he is a fire. This stuff makes
the body go numb to the point where I almost left it. I felt myself
separating from my body. To walk was to float. Have any questions
about Ayahuasca? Go here: http://www.ayahuasca.com/cgi-bin/index.pl
Oh, yes, there was the traditional vomiting right as it began.
You gotta expect it. Just put your heart into it, and you'll be
fine. I always imagine all my negative shit is being released
from me, and this makes me vomit with great gusto, as that blood
red vomit streams from within you to without you. That's what
color the potion is; it looks like ox's blood, thick, rich, and
burgundy red. Let it rip your darkness from you so that you'll
be purified. Go with the flow as your darkness comes purging out
of you, dying in a stream of blood--because when you stand straight
again, the world will be many times brighter, your body will be
warm, and and you'll start to hear the universe breathing. You
will see what Morrison calls, 'the world on fire.'
The geometry was beautiful. Closing my eyes, I saw that thing
I used to call 'the blueprint of the universe.' I saw the framework,
the thing that all life and matter is built upon. The thing a
friend of mine calls the matrix, and this thing was alive. It
vibrated and breathed, like patterned tiles on a floor, like henna
tattoos, spirals and patterns which twisted and shifted. The matrix
is alive. The universe lives.
This stuff is what acid is supposed to be. The height lasted only
about an hour and a half, but it was eternal. And it makes the
body feel good, unlike acid---and unlike acid, it unifies. Mind
merges with body, and a soul is formed. Then you get a glimpse
of what it feels like to be godly---when you are not many things,
when you are just one thing. When your spirit is so strong that
you can't feel your body anymore. It is calming as well. You experience
mind-shattering intensity, but you are very calm. The fears that
come to you are just part of the massive whole that you are. None
of them are big enough to send you over the edge--unlike with
acid. You are too big, you are too strong. So strong is your spirit
that you can feel it leaving your body at times. Such is the legend
of Ayahuasca, that it allows one to leave the body.
And in the height of the zen moment, as I stood there in my room,
there were those angelic voices, singing, "Ever since there
was me, there was no time. Ever since there was me, there was
no time."
I went in with a mission and came out when it was accomplished.
Such is another of its legends: if you need something, it will
help you find it. I wanted my power back. I wanted absolute power.
Power over some negativity that's had me weak these days. Staring
in the mirror I got this power back. Power over my own demons.
I noticed how the slightest negative thought would transform my
face towards the ugly, while the slightest bit of warmth and love
would bring the beauty back. And that's when I started to have
that transformation that the shamans of South America talk about
with this stuff. Transformation into your own animal spirit. My
face started changing once my thoughts went and stayed positive---blackening,
growing a snout 'til pretty soon I was hallucinating a black panther.
Also a baboon. I think I was becoming some kind of cross between
a panther and a baboon, but the thing is, at that point, I was
trying to concentrate on just my face--I was having some kind
of heavy interaction with my own reflection, talking to it, feeding
from it, asking it what I needed and receiving it----so I wouldn't
let the animal transformation fully take place. But the episode
with the mirror was where I got my power back, and a lot of it
had to do with that thing I love. That someone I've come to love
so intensely over the last several weeks. This is what's been
making me weak. The love has been so intense that I've gotten
weak. But as I watched my return to beauty and strength taking
place in my mirror, I had those animal hallucinations again, of
me in bed with that special someone as we both become our own
animal spirits; expressing our love with the purity that animals
do and humans want to do. And then my skin began flushing and
the beauty and redness returned. The weakness was gone as I fell
in love all over again. My power came back in a geyser of warmth
that pumped up all my veins and brightened my eyes.
Then there was the opening of my chakras
as I stared in the mirror, and here we are, hours later, and the
lessons of the Ayahuasca are still coming to pass. I saw and felt
how important it was and is to keep my heart chakra open, how
you can't feel the force of life if it's closed, how these demons
I was battling are the result of having it closed, how I had been
weakened in the first place because I was closing it off to a
feeling which was so intense that it scared the hard-on out of
me. Well, the hard-on is back, baby, and now the bitch won't go
down, and thanks to the experience, I've opened my heart chakra
now. Disease is the result of a closed heart chakra. I was coughing
before the experience, now I'm coughing no more. I understand
that I am the demons and the demons are me. There are no demons;
there is only me.
And here we are, hours later, with a totally clear mind. There
is no fog, no hangover; it enters you, takes you to the spirit
world; the sound of thunderbirds rattling their wings all around
you comes for a couple of hours. Then it leaves very softly, and
the mind is clear and relaxed and sober again; and it feels better
than before you started. It is said to clean the liver and nourish
the organs as well.
I saw how tiny my life was; how much more I could do. I can't
be bored when there's so much more to do. The bored man is the
one with no imagination, and too much enslavement to his own limitations.
Break the limits. Find more. There is always more to do. The fact
that you will never do it all can keep your life in an exciting
quest. Each passing moment is a new adventure.
Memories came that never come. Things I've never thought about,
never would've remembered came back and I thought of them in many
more levels and dimensions than sobriety allows. Picasso memories
is what they were. I'd remember an incident from my point of view,
their point of view, a slanted pointed of view, an objective one,
etc---all points of view at once. Memories from a Picasso perspective.
Ever since there was me, there was no time. It sounded like angels
singing this to me. But it was also simply me. You are forever.
I am forever. That which we are, is something which exists out
of time. Ever since there was you, there was no time. Ever since
there was me, there was no time.
Dancing out of my room...All you need is a room for this. It is
an intensely mental experience. Your visionary eye opens wide.
I call this mental eye 'the god's eye.' And when your god's eye
is opened wide, you need no scenery--just your own mind in a room.
Or just close your eyes, be alone, and you'll fly across the abyss
of the universe, but you will never fall inside of it; this stuff
makes you fly.
Dancing out of my room, first there was one
and then two me's. I stood there, then stepped outside of myself
until I was standing beside myself. We danced from our room and
then we stood there, frozen, hugging the air, as we felt the profundity
of the body, knowing, loving the body, obeying the body. Always
love and obey your body, never despise your body. Happiness comes
in part, we realized, from loving the body, as I and myself stood
there, frozen and hugging the air. I stood there, imagining the
thing I loved was there. I was finally rising with the power of
that amazing love I'd recently found, and I imagined this love
as a flame of red fire. On this potion, things you imagine become
things you see. So then suddenly that red flame was burning right
in front of me. I finally had power over this thing that had made
me weak, and so I stood there gazing, savoring that red flame
as it burned between my hugging arms.
to be continued.
