The Work


           
                                       
A little over a week had passed since returning from the dieta. I found the perfect studio apartment, I ate some pizza… and then we were off to the Amazon again. This time to the Manu region instead of Pucallpa. We took public transit to get there, which went remarkably smooth without a single landslide or roadblock.

During the more harrowing parts of the drive, the entire bus would be stone cold silent, including the children and babies. Perhaps everyone was looking out the window to the sheer drop next to us. I’m not sure… we sat in the front. As we arrived in Salvacion that night, we drove past a party in the center of the community, with dancers in colorful costumes parading around a soccer field.

After we checked into our hostel, we walked over to the gathering. The costumed dancers were gone, save for a few skimpily clad women on a stage shaking their asses off to uncomfortably loud music. We walked around and then got some food. I bought chicken from a woman who was also grilling sticks of fat, living palm grubs. I watched in fascination.
We were up at the crack of dawn the next morning to catch the only bus from Salvacion to Shintuya. It was a bumpy trip as per usual, and at one point all of the passengers had to get out and walk, so the bus could make it through a riverbed and up a hill. We were greeted by Vicky and Alberto once we arrived in Shintuya, as well as a long line of locals thrilled to see Jessica again. I took a nap, and when I awoke I was instructed to gather my things. We would be heading to Parign Hak for a ceremony along with two of the community elders, an old woman and man, who reminded a bit of my own grandparents.
We all boarded the boat along with Tyson the orphaned wooly monkey. He was remarkably calm and low energy for a monkey, almost more like a toddler. He investigated everything on the boat with an intense curiosity. Once we made it down the river to Parign Hak, I followed Jessica deeper into the jungle to gather leaves for the elder’s plant bath. I grabbed some Ajo Sacha for myself, to make a tea with later and reconnect to my new plant friend.
There was no water in the tank for a shower, so I went down to the river, stripped naked, and submerged myself into the strong current. I floated on my back, holding onto the docked boat for support. The water was frigid, but much more refreshing than bathing in the stagnant swamp during the dieta.


Only three of us drank that night, me, Jessica and a middle-aged man who was the son of the elderly couple we were there to help heal. I purged too early for the effects to really take hold, and asked Jessica for a second cup. The first wave hit with a strong reminder of what I’ve come to refer to as the “song to heal the world”. The message has come many times in ceremonies, that I have to make music. My jaw used to vibrate uncontrollably during strong nights with aya, like she was trying to force me to sing. I haven’t worked out the logistics of this “global icaro” yet... I’m not a musician, although I know many talented ones. I just know that I have to do it.


Overall it was a pleasant experience, perceptible and enjoyable. At the end of the night Jessica said to me quietly (jokingly?) “Kat, now it’s your turn to sing!” We laughed and I shook my head in the darkness. “Maybe next time.” After all, I’ve got about 10 seconds of melody from my dieta and no accompanying lyrics. Hardly an icaro! And definitely not the “song to heal the world”. Jessica picked up the cup of Ajjo Sacha tea Vicky had brewed for me earlier, and blew some mapacho smoke into it before handing it to me to drink.
I spent the next morning resting, falling in and out of sleep. I saw a huge owl butterfly, along with about 100 other brightly colored species. There were 6 distinctly separate species stuck in my room at one point. The biodiversity in Manu is breathtaking. At the hottest point of the day I went back to the river to bathe. The old woman came down and started telling me something frantically. From her wild hand gestures I knew she was warning me not to get swept downstream. I smiled, thanking her, and continued bathing.
Later that evening I joined the group to smoke and talk. Jessica said I would have a job to do that night. She would give me a “double dose” of ayahuasca, and I was to help hold space with mapacho. She did give me a whopping dose, and it was difficult keeping it down. I started smoking right away, then purged early again, although this time I could feel the effects coming over me strong and fast, the first real rush since my return to Peru. I felt like laughing I was so happy, but I knew it would be inappropriate. Instead, I started crying with joy, so grateful to finally be back in it fully. I lit another mapacho and it slowly grounded me, bringing me down to earth. I thought about many things that night, like how unfulfilled and unhappy so many people in my generation seem to be. I thought about how I had “found my calling”... or maybe that it had found me. Smelled my heart beating in San Francisco years ago, and dragged me into the Amazon like a hungry jaguar.


I thought about how wonderful Jessica’s friendship was. I realized I haven’t made a friend that close since I was twelve years old. A bunch of warm memories of my pre-teen best friend came flooding back. Then, the pain when she befriended a prettier and more popular girl as we entered into middle school. I remembered finding her during lunch at the first day of class. She was sitting with a group of girls who a few years earlier had teased me for being flat-chested, then again when I came to school the next day with a stuffed bra. Hateful little bitches. She invited me to join them, but I knew I’d never be welcomed at that lunch table. Nor did I want to be. I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt me, or consciously replace me, but I believed it at the time and was devastated. It felt like the official end of my childhood. I packed away the miniature animals I used to play pretend games with. I buried myself in escapist fiction; Tolkien, Anne Rice, Stephen King. I started listening to Nirvana, and wearing a lot of black. I basically closed myself off and became an angry cliche for a while. At least until I grew acquainted with the plant spirit known as “cannabis” a few years later. Sigh. So it goes.  


It’s strange how much these moments affect our psyches... Even ones that aren’t repressed, things we can consciously remember. Certain events do much more damage than we realize at the time. Ayahuasca has a way of pulling everything significant up and reframing it in a new light. Towards the end of the night, the room started shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, or the effects of the medicine. The next morning however, it was confirmed there was a minor earthquake during the ceremony. Over breakfast, the son of the elderly couple asked me if I cried. I suppose he had heard me. Yes I said, but they were happy tears.


As I relayed my experience to Jessica later, she explained that because mapacho is also a purgative, I shouldn’t have smoked it until the effects peaked. Ah well, live and learn. We gathered some fruit and peppers around Parign Hak. I collected more Ajo Sacha leaves to take back with me. On the final night, Jessica called me into the house. We smoked and chewed coca. She gave me a much needed Shipibo style back massage/neck crack. I don’t know the name for it… but it feels amazing. We did coca leaf readings. The elderly couple’s son asked me a bunch of questions about my experience the night before, life in the states, my family, which season is best to catch my favorite type of fish etc... basically trying to prod me into talking. I did my best to answer him in Spanish, with Jessica’s help. I shyly played the little snippet of my “dieta dream song” to the group. I had plucked it out on my guitar back in Cusco and recorded it on my phone.

The next morning I woke as the group was leaving Parign Hak, much earlier than I’d initially been told. Half-awake, I packed up as quickly as possible, then raced to the boat to head back to Shintuya. We spent a night in the nearby town Pilcopata after fording many newly risen rivers. The road conditions had significantly worsened, and the following day the drive back to Cusco was brutal. What should have taken 6 or 7 hours ended up taking 12.
In Cusco the next morning, I unloaded my bag and realized in my rush I had packed a large tree frog in between the Ajo Sacha leaves. He was very crushed and very dead. I felt terrible about it, but brewed up the Ajo Sacha anyway (after thoroughly washing the leaves). Jessica told me she would be heading back to the jungle in a few days, and invited me to join her. I was hesitant at first, tired from the 12 hour drive and covered in insect bites. After giving it some thought, I asked her to book me a spot on the bus. After all, I’m in Peru to learn, not to relax in my sweet apartment.

We spent four nights in Pilcopata, at a hostel connected to an awesome ecotourism initiative. We drove down with one of Jessica’s close friends Katherine, a lovely young woman from Puerto Maldonado. We arrived later that night and met up with Vicky for another ceremony. The brother of the hostel and tour company’s owner, Jesus, was also an ayahuasquero and sat with us that night. He showed us his large bottle of ayahuasca, Matsiguenka style, much lighter in color than Jessica’s. Apparently one had to drink multiple cups of his brew to experience effects. We drank hers (thank God).


That night I saw a beautiful web of multicolored jewels, like glitter, flowing smoothly as a piece of fabric. This morphed into the walls of the most high-tech and gorgeous spaceship I’ve ever seen. Maybe alien… maybe human, but in the distant future. I stood in the control room, looking out through a large pane of glass into a starry sky. In this amazing place, all I could think about was Earth. Where is Earth? What has become of my planet? If this was the future, it was the most pressing question imaginable. The vision faded, morphing into something else. I thought it strange… My Ayahuasca visions are always very Earthen and nature centric. While I’ve encountered alien terrain on mushrooms, this was the first time Ayahuasca’s brought me into that arena.  
 

The next day we awoke early to go to the Q’ueros community. We boarded a decked out motocar, which was essentially a large wagon on the back of a heavy duty motorcycle. With us were probably 10 other women and children, mostly from one family. There was an adorable puppy too, who looked like a teddy bear. He stuck his head out through the bars of the wagon, pulling it in quickly whenever a tree branch came his way.

When we got to the Q’ueros, we sat in a rather long meeting with the community. Jessica wanted to ask them about the possibility of holding a retreat there, and it seemed to go over well. After she was done, we ate some oranges and waited for one of the men to drive us to the nearby petroglyphs.
He dropped us off near the amazing monolith. We stayed there for a couple of hours, talking and taking photos. We ate these odd purple flowers I’m still not entirely sure were food. The driver never returned, so we walked back to Pilcopata which ended up taking nearly 2 hours.
We got back around sunset, and I grumbled to Jessica about not eating a real meal all day. I asked if we could get dinner, and she told me I could either eat or drink Ayahuasca. Not both. There was a clear winner. She told me to focus that night, and instead of “space-travelling” to try to pay attention to the work she was doing with Vicky’s elderly aunt who was going to be her patient that evening.
It was a strong night. The earth didn’t feel solid. I ended up in the child’s pose for most of it, pressed against what I could only guess was the ground. I felt like I was touching on a specific past life, recalling what is was like to be a 30-something Asian man. Lots of big concepts circled around my head. Birth, death, rebirth. I saw many animals, whales, dolphins, birds. When it eased up a little I tried focusing on Jessica, next to me, singing to the old woman. I could almost see her weaving a blanket of hyper-spacial patterns.
The following morning everyone was gone, so I went and got some arroz cubana from a nearby restaurant. As I was leaving I ran into Katherine, who walked with me to the old woman’s house on the outskirts of Pilcopata. Jessica and Vicky were already there eating aguajay, I sat down on the bench and joined them. A little grey striped kitten was resting on Jessica’s lap, and soon a Siamese kitten hopped up onto mine. I was thrilled, and took a rare selfie of the two of us.
The others left Jessica and I alone, and she confirmed that yes she was creating patterns around the old woman the night before (although it was closer to painting than weaving). She then started telling me that she was disappointed with me. She felt like I wasn’t applying the lessons she was teaching me. Primarily that I’m not participating in conversations and being proactive enough with the people we encounter. That everyone we meet notices my shyness to the point of commenting on it. That my poor Spanish is not an excuse.


I couldn’t stop crying as she told me this, but I couldn’t defend myself either. It killed me to think that maybe she felt like I wasn’t listening to her, or that I didn’t appreciate her. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I worried she thought she was wasting her time on me. Tears and snot poured onto the little kitten on my lap, but he didn’t seem to care.
I walked around the fish pond and the river for a bit to compose myself, before we had lunch. As we were about to leave the old woman offered me some advice. She told me not to cry so much, because the world won’t care. And then she said something along the lines of not letting my heart become hard so young. I thanked her and we left. As we walked back to the hostel, I asked Jessica if there would be another ceremony that night. I wanted to know if I should take a nap. She said maybe I should sleep through the night to reflect on what she said. I pressed her again, and she said yes there would be a ceremony but seemed hesitant to let me participate. I was hurt, but wasn’t going to protest, and took a nap for a few hours.
After sunset Vicky and Katherine headed downstairs for the ceremony, calling me to follow. Jessica was setting up and I asked her if she wanted me to be there. She seemed annoyed and told me it was more about whether or not I thought I would get anything out of drinking that night. I debated going back to my room, but decided to stay. After we sat down, Vicky asked if I was going to drink. “If that’s okay…” I said cautiously, looking to Jessica. She admonished me for the self doubt, kinda a “Do you want to drink or not?” “Yes! I want to!” I said, resolutely and determined. “Good!” she laughed, joking about how difficult it is to face the mirror that ayahuasca presents us.


The effects came on hard and very strong. It culminated to a place I refer to as “pure spirit”. I was entirely in another dimension, completely disconnected from my body. I was lying down, legs crossed, face pressed against the mat. However, my sense of direction was completely lost. For all I could tell I was sitting up. It didn’t matter if my eyes were open or closed, the visions were the same intensity regardless. Once again, I could see in all directions. I had a strong sense of that specific past life again, this time seeing myself more clearly as a middle-aged monk in Tibet. I purged long and hard.


I kept thinking about what Jessica had said to me earlier that day. The experience then veered into extremely personal territory, memories I’m not comfortable sharing here… but it touched on some things that happened to me only a few years ago, moments that instilled deeply rooted trust issues. I could see how that fear still restricts almost every social interaction that I have. I cried harder than I have in a long time.


The medicine faded, and it seemed as if everyone was asleep. I gathered my things and went upstairs to go to bed. About ten minutes later, Jessica came in saying that the ceremony wasn’t over, and that I should have known that. I apologized, and quickly returned downstairs. I sat back on the mat, embarrassed and feeling like the biggest fuck-up ever. When the ceremony finally did conclude, Jessica lit a candle. I sat there despondent, crying silently, waiting for her to tell me to go back to bed.

She called me over. I winced expecting her to be angry that I left early, and hand my ass to me. Instead she started rubbing my back, and said something like “We still love you.” I broke down sobbing. “That’s why it’s called ‘the work’” she said smiling. Shakily I asked her for a hug, then gripped her as tight as humanly possible. Vicky came over a second later and hugged me just as hard.


I can heal the planet. I know I can. I was born for this…. but it’s directly connected to letting go of my fears. To finding my voice.


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