Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?

Jessica was leaving for the week, off to the jungle with an old friend. I was spontaneously appointed the task of meeting April's retreat participants at the airport. She gave me their names as she was heading out of cell phone reception. I asked if she had a photo of them... she did not. So I scribbled "Darren" down on a piece of notebook paper, hopped on the bus and raced to the airport. I waited outside of baggage claim. With no idea what they looked like, I held up the sign to every man and woman who walked out the door together. Their flight was delayed, so this went on for over an hour, but eventually I found Darren and Cathy.

I called a taxi and directed the driver to their hotel. They were both incredibly friendly Canadians, and from our brief conversation in the car I could tell we were going to be friends. We ended up spending the bulk of the week together. I showed them around the historic part of Cusco, and we took two day trips. One was through the Sacred Valley...

As well as the amazing ruins of Ollantaytambo.

Another was to the ancient concentric circled terraces of Moray...

Then to the Maras Salt Mines.

By the end of the week we'd gotten to know each other very well. We had a meeting with Jessica when she returned, then took off for the jungle early Sunday morning.

That night we had a long talk at the hostel in Salvación. Jessica was able to ease some of Cathy's anxiety about drinking ayahuasca for the first time. She has a very no-nonsense down-to-Earth approach to shamanism, and a wonderful way of explaining her work with the medicine.

The next day we arrived at Parign Hak. The apparent lack of effects in the last two ceremonies confused me, and I was curious to see what would happen that evening. I took two naps, determined to be well rested and alert. Lying on the cot under a mosquito net, I was flooded with strange and vivid dreams.

That night, the ayahuasca took a long time to kick in... but when it finally did, it was as strong as ever. I saw flashes of an immense holographic creature moving sluggishly below me, bigger than a hundred blue whales. Possibly some kind of serpent, but impossible to tell since I could only see a tiny sliver of it.

Then I saw a series of assassinations; John Lennon, JFK, MLK, Robert Kennedy, Ghandi... It triggered a violent purging episode as I thought about the fragile state of the world. In an instant, I could feel George Harrison and John Lennon with me, then Jim Henson, then Terence McKenna. It sounds impossible... Maybe it is. But they do call Ayahuasca the Vine of the Dead.

The next day we went on a long jungle hike after breakfast, retracing the same path we walked with Katie two months prior. We saw tons of beautiful plants, and more jaguar prints. This time I put my hands in the picture for scale. It was a small big-cat (comparatively).

Vicky collected chicken mushrooms. At the end of the walk we had to hop on a precarious little raft. Slowly, we made our way across the river to where Vicky's son Steve was waiting with a motor boat.

Back at Parign Hak, Yordi (the cook for the week) had prepared the biggest catfish I'd ever seen. Alberto had caught it that morning, a true ballena or whale. We ate it along with the chicken mushrooms.

During the pre-ceremony meeting I relayed a story to the group about how I attempted to purchase anti-itch cream for insect bites at a pharmacy in Cusco, scratching my arm for visual aid. However after a Google search the night before the trip, I realized that the man at the pharmacy sold me cream for a yeast infection... and that my hand gesture had been severely misinterpreted! Jessica helped translate, and the group thought it was hilarious. A cross-cultural joke I suppose?

We received traditional Harkmbut body paint, made from the pulp of a jungle fruit. I felt like a warrior.

"Are you thirsty Kat?" Jessica asked, as she was pouring the medicine that night. Yes. Of course. Always.

That evening, I had a vision of the jaguar who's prints we'd found twice at Parign Hak. She was a young female, and she was protecting the retreat center. Then I saw the jungle through her eyes. A funny thought came to me... what people see on Ayahuasca, cats can see all the time. Maybe that's why they stare at walls? I saw very clearly the fact that Grandmother had brought me to Jessica, and that my tutelage under her was fated. I also saw peace in the Middle East... then all of Earth. How it's not an impossibility. It just requires a shift in human consciousness.

As the effects were fading I felt something fluttering above my hair. For a second the squeaking creature landed on my head, then flew off. It was pitch black, but I knew with complete certainty it was a bat we'd seen flying around the maloka before the ceremony.  

The next morning I relayed my experience, then asked Jessica about the symbolism behind the bat. I'm not afraid of bats, in fact it felt like good omen to me! Nope. According to traditional Amazonian shamanism, they represent black magic. Bats, and other creatures of the night are the animal allies of sorcerers and brujas. Hmmm... well gee, sorry I asked!

We spent the next day resting, and in the evening we took a boat to the nearby hot springs. There is a resident cat there, perhaps the cuddliest I've ever met. I took this picture of Cathy, which immediately became one of my favorite photos from the week.

On the last full day we embarked on a long hike up a river.

We set up camp and began cooking a traditional Harakmbut meal. Catfish smoked in a bamboo stalk, manioc, jungle potato and a variety of other wonderful things. It was delicious, and we ate it off of cartoonishly enormous leaves.

The last Ayahuasca ceremony was that night, and the experience was strange. Once the medicine kicked in, it quickly evolved into a heavy lesson on Amazonian sorcery and the nature of good and evil. I could see two sides to this dimension, good/evil, light/dark. I understood how easily a shaman could fall to the "dark side". The Ayahuasca herself seemed to have a very zen-neutral attitude about the whole issue. Both light and dark were in perfect harmony and balance. It was like seeing both sides of a coin.

The line from The Wizard of Oz kept echoing in my head.

"Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"

Over and over it asked me this. The Wizard of Oz was my first "favorite movie" as a child. I was then looking back on my childhood, and my lifelong fascination with darkness. Perhaps it stems from being born on Halloween? I've always been interested in magic, animal transformations and general spookiness. Where others shy from darkness and evil, I can't seem to look away.

I thought of the black jaguar. Ever since I was a kid I was obsessed with them... perhaps to an unhealthy level. I dislike the phrase "spirit animal", it's a bit too New-Agey for me. But for some unknown reason I've been inexplicably drawn to these creatures my entire life. The jaguar is the mammalian representation of Ayahuasca. So what of the black jaguar? Did they represent black magic? Was my "spirit animal" actually evil? Concerned, I made a mental note to ask Jessica later.

Weeks prior, back in Cusco she and I had a long talk about sorcery and black magic in the Amazon. It's a topic which is rarely discussed among the "love and light" Ayahuasca circuits in the West, but is very real in the dark jungle where the medicine comes from. Some ayahuasqueros battle each other, shoot psychic darts and steal each other's icaros. Some even use their magic to hurt or kill for money. At the time, I didn't understand how that was possible. The Ayahuasca seemed a complete force of good to me, how could it be used for evil?

That night it finally clicked. Any tool can be used to hurt or to help, depending on the hands that wield it. In the throws of the Ayahuasca, I pictured myself going down the "dark path". How easy to use this power for personal gain, for money, for revenge or even to force love...

Without warning, I was about to shit my pants. The "Purge" as it's called can come one of two ways. I quickly stumbled outside through the dark woods to the baño. Hunched over the hole in the ground, there was a lot of apologizing mentally on my part....

"Ok, ok I get it! No black magic. I'm sorry! Entiendo!" Stuff like that.

The next morning I wrote this down in my journal:

Trying to understand and contextualize my experience. While I didn't perceive any negative entities, I believe now that they can exist, and I wonder if the demons people battle in those states are always their own. I went into the experience hoping to see clearer, and while I expected to go further into myself, instead I saw deeper into the nature of Ayahuasca.

On the bus ride back I told Jessica what had happened the night before. I was a little distraught and confused. After patiently listening, she explained that it was a very common experience for an Ayahuasquero-in-training to have. When one embarks on this path, at some point the medicine confronts them with a question. How are you going to use this power? Are you going to heal or harm? Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

Speaking with her helped, but I still felt strange about the previous night. While the ayahuasca had posed this question to me, I knew that I hadn't given a definitive answer. It felt unresolved.

I inquired about the black jaguar, worried about it's possible association with the "dark side" like the bat. Not so. The black jaguar, Jessica told me, is neutral like the Ayahuasca herself. However it is one of the most powerful spirits an Ayahuasquero can call upon. She invokes this cat very rarely, only at times of great need, for personal protection during a ceremony. The proverbial "big guns" of the Ayahuasca spirit world. Huh.