To Grandma's Home We Go

FEBRUARY 12th 2017

    

The next three days passed quickly. After a week in the “deep dark” jungle, I was no longer hesitant to wander the streets of Cusco alone. I snapped right back into city-mode. It was just like exploring San Francisco, except without all the human feces and hypodermic needles on the sidewalks. I couldn’t find a laundromat. Instead there were a bunch of “lavandarias”, places that wash your laundry for you. I swallowed my pride and handed over my ripe clothing and undergarments to a 20-something Peruvian man. He gave me a receipt and a time to pick them up, and I went on my way.

I returned later that evening, to find the same young man behind the counter. He smirked as he handed my clothing back. Yes, I do own Legend of Zelda panties, and yes they probably did smell like a Goron was wearing them. Give me a break, I just got back from the Amazon! For an absurdly low price, everything came back perfectly clean, folded, and wrapped tightly in plastic. I debated whether or not it was worth it.

The next morning I met with Jessica and the other retreat participant Katie. Katie was an Irish woman with impossibly curly hair and a brilliant sense of humor. I was excited to spend the week getting to know her. Jessica gave us a rundown of the upcoming retreat and we parted ways. I gathered last minute supplies and packed my bags.

I woke up at the crack of dawn the next morning, and left my hostel in the pouring rain. A huge bus pulled up, and Jessica popped out welcoming me aboard. Peruvian transportation laws are weird, so it made sense to take a giant bus even though it was only the three of us. We picked up Katie and headed out of Cusco. A few hours later we stopped by Nimarca, a pre-Incan burial site that had been ransacked years ago. When the ruins contained mummies, people reported seeing strange lights above the tombs at night.

We got out at the entrance to Manu National Park, and there stood a monument to a horribly racist prick named Sven Ericsson, along with a beautiful overlook in an Elfin forest.

Elfin gave way to Cloud and we stopped on the side of the road by a waterfall to have lunch. Butterflies of every size, shape and color flew around, occasionally landing long enough to allow us a picture or two.

Manu is considered the most bio-diverse area on the planet. There are over 1,300 butterfly species. 10% of the planet’s bird species exist in that one spot alone. I was beginning to feel it.

We passed through various small towns until the driver let us off in a muggy little place called Salvacion, where we checked into a hostel. We hiked down to a lake and hopped aboard a raft made of logs. Jessica grabbed a wooden pole and pushed us around, pointing out just some of Manu’s 1000+ species of birds.

The next morning we were up at 5 again to catch the only bus willing to travel from Salvacion to Shintuya. It’s privately owned by an incredibly hard working man and his wife. They make the gruelling journey back and forth every single day. We grabbed the back row. Some of the seats were disconnected, and I could see the dirt road moving below us through gaping holes in the floor. It was a bumpy two hour drive, and by the time we reached Shintuya it was pouring rain.

  

We were greeted by a small group who helped with our bags and took us to a nearby house for cover. We readied ourselves for the rain, then got on a boat where we were taken down the river about 20 minutes. We stopped at the shoreline and headed through a path cut into the deep woods. Over the river, and through the woods. We were finally at Parign Hak which translates to “Grandma’s Home.” in Harakmbut. We were formally introduced to our hosts. Vicky the retreat center’s owner, and her partner/fisherman-extraordinaire Alberto. Alberto’s older brother Jorge, and Vicky’s two adult son’s Steve and Jose.

Later on we took a tour to the maloka, about half a mile from the living quarters and kitchen. Jessica pointed out several plants, and asked us what they were telling us. One had bark that looked just like snake skin, it was used to treat snake bites. Another had branches that resembled human joints, it was used to treat arthritis. Apparently you can communicate with plants without ingesting them, nature is sentient, you just have to pay attention.

That night we prepared for the ceremony. I was a little queasy right after drinking, so I lay down on my mat. Relaxed, I started falling asleep (again) and as I was drifting off I heard what sounded like a jaguar roaring right outside the maloka. I bolted up, waiting for a reaction from anyone else in the room. No one seemed perturbed, so I tried to shake it off as a figment of my imagination. The medicine hadn’t kicked in yet... but the sound was so clear.

Soon the effects began washing over me, mild but definitely present. I asked Grandmother why she brought me to the Amazon. The answer came back instantly. Which was… I wasn’t quite ready to know that answer yet. There were two more ceremonies on the horizon, and I would figure that one out later when I was well-rested and ready to travel deeper than I had ever gone before. Okay, cool.

My other question, which I had formulated days before, was how in the world did Ayahuasca come into existence? It’s a complete anthropological mystery. There are thousands of plants in the Amazon, and the odds of humans stumbling on this very specific combination are astronomical. According to Jessica, when an indigenous group is asked where they learned it from, they always point to another group OR to the plants themselves. Strange. So I figured, who better to address this mystery to than the source of the mystery herself?

Once again, the response was instantaneous. I saw a jaguar eating caapi, possibly for the plant’s anti-parasitic effect. I saw indigenous Amazonian people watching the big cat from hiding, then later brewing the caapi up and consuming it by itself. From there, the vine instructed them on which plants to add.

I don’t know if this is true, after all I saw it in what many people would write off as a “hallucination”. But it felt true, and was in fact a bit of a revelation for me. I’ve vaporized DMT plenty of times, and thus assumed that the intelligence in the Ayahuasca came through the mind-blowing tryptamine. I believed that the Caapi simply allowed the DMT to be accessed orally. That’s the textbook explanation after all.

The message was that I had it completely backwards. The intelligence was in the vine NOT the chacruna leaves. The Caapi vine was using the chacruna leaves to communicate with us hard-headed hairless primates via visions made possible through DMT. It made sense, after all Ayahuasca translates to the Vine of the Soul or Vine of the Dead. Sometimes the vine itself is called Ayahuasca, and certain Amazonian groups still brew it up and drink it without any admixture plants.

I also kept seeing a very specific plant. I forget it’s Latin name but it’s commonly referred to as “Look at me but don’t touch me” or something along those lines. It’s a plant whose leaves quickly recoil in on themselves upon being touched. It was the first plant that Jessica ever showed me. She pointed it out on our last trip during a roadblock on the way to Antonio’s. Apparently it can be used as a form of birth control! As I saw this bush in a vision, I wondered if it was meant to be the first plant I would complete a “dieta” with. When I told Jessica about it the next morning, she suggested that instead the ayahuasca might have been showing me the similarities between myself and that plant. I thought back on my past relationships, particularly the "romantic" ones. Yeah, I suppose that made sense...  

The next day we had “banana soup” for breakfast. Chapo, as it was called, ripe plantains boiled and mashed, which was freaking delicious! We set off on a hike through the jungle. A little past the maloka Jessica pointed out fresh jaguar prints in the mud. I thought back to the mysterious sound from the night before, which apparently no one else had heard. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

We saw a bunch of fascinating plants, cocoons, caterpillars, mushrooms, tapir tracks, and exotic birds. At one point Alberto got a very serious look on his face and pointed to Katie’s feet as she was walking behind me. I could tell from his expression that he saw a snake. It was a Fer De Lance, an incredibly venomous pit viper. The men quickly hacked it to death with a machete.

We sat on the roots of an enormous tree, while Jessica, Vicky and Alberto had a smoke break. Suddenly a huge blue Morpho Achilles landed, about the size of a dinner plate, and perched itself on Alberto’s back. It spread it’s wings repeatedly, letting us snap some amazing photos.

We continued on our way, until we reached the river, where we were picked up in a boat by Alberto’s brother and taken back to Grandma’s Home.

As I was flipping through the little library in the kitchen, Jessica made a comment about stepping out of my comfort zone and talking more. I took a nap and had a very vivid dream about jalapeno pizza. Maybe the river fish, manioc and banana diet was getting to me? We prepared for the next ceremony. My intention was to go deeper and see further than I ever had before. I was well rested, alert, and ready for whatever was coming for me. As we walked down the dark path to the maloka, a spider about the size of my hand sat in our way like some sort of grotesque guardian. I carefully stepped around it and continued on. There were several smaller (but still sizable) arachnids in the maloka which our hosts graciously took care of, but I remained on edge, even after I drank the jungle juice.

When I finally relaxed, I was instantly transported back to my early childhood in North Carolina. I saw myself in my Southern-Baptist preschool (the only preschool in our small town), perhaps around 2 or 3 years old. There was little Kat (formerly Kathleen) getting yelled at and punished for speaking "out of turn". At the time, I had interpreted this as “you talk too much”. I realized that this moment was the root of a shyness which has plagued me my entire life. Then I saw myself at the same school, getting yelled at for touching myself, and being it told it was a “horrible sin”, then around the same age pissing my pants in public and the embarrassment that went along with it. These weren’t hallucinations. These were memories I had completely forgotten about or blocked out up until that point.

As soon as I saw these events unfold (now from an adult perspective) I realized that they’d contributed to a general sense of shame, guilt and self-hatred surrounding my body and all it’s natural functions. It was something I’d carried with me all my life. A blight on my otherwise perfect childhood. This was my 10th ayahuasca ceremony, and the first time these issues had ever been addressed. In retrospect, those early memories seemed trivial, but suddenly I could see what a profound effect they’d had on my psyche over the years. During this rapid series of images, I purged violently into my bucket, finally letting go.

Hmmm…. Is this too personal? I suppose if you care enough to have read this far, we must be pretty close. Right?

Afterwards I was in a place I can only describe as pure spirit. Cautiously, I called out to Jessica in the darkness. She came over and started singing to me. I felt as though I was a taking a shower in her icaro, and could see her soul glowing a gentle green in the darkness. There came a comforting message, that it’s okay to ask for help. I often pride myself on my my independence, my self-reliance. I’ve gone through periods where I’ve really needed help, but was too afraid to ask. It’s okay, Grandmother whispered. No one can do it alone.

As I was drifting to sleep, I realized that the early memory of being yelled at for speaking had occurred at a pizza party! An unnerving feeling hit me, and suddenly my dream earlier that afternoon felt like a delicious prophecy.

There was another day of rest, where we visited a lovely hot spring to recover. I asked Jessica what happens when you go deeper with ayahuasca than early childhood memories? “Well… “ she said, “You start diving into your past lives, and ancestral memories.”

I spent the final day resting and coloring a page from my Ernst Haeckel coloring book, as a thank you note for our hosts.

The final ceremony occurred Friday night, and for this I’m just going to copy what I wrote down in my journal the following morning:

“Last night was phenomenal. I feel like I was struck by a train of pure love. I went into the ceremony with the same intention as the prior one. To go deeper and see clearer than ever before. And while Jessica gave me a smaller dose, I did... I am the Jaguar. I have been so blessed and lucky my whole goddamn life. All I could say was thank you, dakishi, xiè-xiè, merci, danke, gracias and HOLY SHIT! I stayed in the classic pose of Islamic prayer. I was pressed into the ground, bowing, praising the forces that brought me into being. Jessica had mentioned that morning about how once you go deeper than early childhood experiences you start touching on past lives. I could feel all of mine. And my family, mom, dad, Sean, Alexa, even Jaron. We keep finding each other, over and over. I’m not sure how, but we do. Love never dies, it is reborn in new forms.

I felt the eyes of every creature in the Amazon, maybe on earth, plant and animal looking back at me. Love everyone, hate no one. Help everyone, hurt no one. I am truly at peace with it. It almost became more than I could handle, and I asked her to pull back. I saw the machine elves laughing at me, not menacingly or cruelly, but lovingly as though they finally let me in on their perfect joke. The cosmic giggle. I couldn’t tell where I was, I had no sense of space or time. It was a beautiful and shaking reminder of who I am and why I’m here. I am Kat. Every cat. The feminine is rising, fighting back, and it’s no coincidence that the Trump resistance wears cat hats. I’ve looked at every corner of myself imaginable, and the biggest skeleton in my closet is that someone yelled at me and told me not to talk when I was little. I have been perfectly groomed my entire life to receive this message. I kept getting surges of deja vu.

The word that kept coming to me was Avatar. Like the show, Ang is reborn over and over with the purpose to restore balance in the world. And like the movie, we plug ourselves into these bodies, but our true form lies elsewhere. Eternal. I was told to breathe slower, less like an anxious hummingbird and more like an ancient redwood tree. I could see in every possible direction. I became one with the jaguar at long last, or perhaps I always was. I had a dream last night as the effects wore off, I was traveling to other dimensions as though switching channels on a television.”

So there you have it folks. This picture is from the next morning, as we drove out of the jungle. Here I am, looking only a fraction as happy as I felt.

"And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." - Kurt Vonnegut