AYAHUASCA, YOPO AND OTHER AMAZONIAN MEDICINES: A PORTAL TOWARDS ANOTHER REALITY.
Testimonial of a participant at retreats with psycho-therapeutic use of Ayahuasca.
The first night that I drank Ayahuasca I knew that she would be part of my path. My first retreat was very liberating and revealing, and on top of that my second made me lose my inhibitions. I proposed to Ayahuasca that she show me the archetypes that I have been using, the ones I have refused and the ones I need to find in order to myself. An encounter with my unconscious mind. And…so wise and perfect Ayahuasca took away my rational foolishness and showed me what I really needed…mental liberation!!
She showed me through images on the first day; snakes that came from the ground, the roof and the walls creating a sea of snakes. The flight of a bird that has broken its cage, a girl who lets go of the tree when a hurricane arrives and allows herself be carried by the wind, flowing with it, and like a temple of white marble, it crumbles and only Nothingness remains, the Absolute Void. And so that night, Ayahuasca showed me FREEDOM to BE and stop pretending.
The second day was key at this retreat. We were doing a rapé (snuff) workshop and then we started with the session. That night the click that changed my life took place. The psychedelia, made of snake scales, came on very quickly (in 20 min.). As soon as they appeared I knew that I had seen them before, and Ayahuasca showed me how at each retreat we have the opportunity to go up an octave and go transcending. We have the option to continue in the same loop or to be aware that we have the power to get out of that loop. This was presented to me while I vomited. I saw the scales of a black snake with golden dots in the centre that produced more vomit, and suddenly, to my bliss, I perceived a golden light. I had, however, remained anchored in my thoughts and emotions of resentment and rage, and although I glimpsed golden light, the other dark serpent was stronger for me and then I saw it very clearly. Ayahuasca proposed a choice to me; stay anchored in these thoughts or go to the golden serpent. I had a hard time bringing the golden image to the centre, and once it was focused it was a radical change. I returned to the scales of bright colours and my snake began to rise sinuous, feminine, while I felt accompanied by Melina, the girl next door with whom I felt a lot of sisterhood. Elián started to sing a song that I love. “Little drum help me sing, so that the voice comes out and I’ll get where I have to go” and suddenly he submerged his voice like a mermaid from the depths of the sea and the voice raised and my own voice was recovered. It was amazing to hear myself for the first time with tones that I had never produced before. After that I spent the whole night singing. I felt that my throat chakra had opened and while singing I kept images and clarity kept coming to me. For example, an image were roots under the earth that were intertwining expanding love and wisdom. Ayahuasca told me that all those who have taken Ayahuasca already have a connection with medicine and that we are all connected through it.
There were also moments of my past, present and even future life, and I began to see all the synchronicities that are present, I started tying things together and I felt the perfection in each thing and the interconnection with many people, and I felt a great union with my twin flame. Time was represented to me as a ball which we can access from a high conscious state, because it is not linear at all. And I became aware of all of this space/time illusion. During the retreats I do not sleep because once the session is over my mind is very alert, it is as if I am integrating everything I have lived. Yopo was added on my third day. We started taking Caapi around 4pm and when I draank Ayahuasca at about 10.30pm. Both medicines worked at the same time and I didn’t take a booster. In fact I only took boosters on the 1st and 4th days. The Yopo takes you into a very subtle world. I had a lot of anxiety in the first half an hour because I didn’t want to recognise my fears. My heart was pounding. Yopo told me I was afraid but that part of my warrior did not want to accept it and I felt so afraid throughout all that process! Until I accepted my fears I could not open myself to the sensory world of my snake. That evening/night my snake became reality in me, it was no longer me, it was a snake that did not stop expressing itself with some noises shaaa tsaa pa ta uahhh, shhh amm haa. That night of Ayahuasca was an integration with my snake and everything it represents, sensuality because I felt sensuality in every musical tone, the music filled me with sensuality, I became one with the music that Elián put on. At the same time I started laughing with a companion who was in a process of love towards everything! I felt the urge to express myself and I went dancing. I also withdrew my devil, it was a she-wolf or a feline because I interchanged them expressing whatever I did not accept, which, with big teeth, made me feel angry, and when I expressed myself I felt the need to do it through the bucket. I sat there and took out all those emotions but this time without vomiting, being aware of that dark part of me and I liked being able to express it and release it. It was a very subtle night, full of sensations that filled me in such a way that I felt totally ecstatic.
I felt presences near me. Before taking Yopo I invoked all my guides, beings of light and ancestors. That night I felt them and from that night I feel them during many moments, and I feel their love so much!! The fourth night before the session, we were really fortunate to do a Temazcal guided by Elian. It was very liberating to say goodbye to everything that we no longer feel brings anything to the Being and to bring everything that is more in line with our essence. I had difficulty going in to the experience after the first drink because I was cold. I had not dried my hair and even though I had 4 blankets on, I was shivering. As soon as I took the booster it started and I vomited and suddenly Indian music began to play and I lost control of my body. My snake emerged and all I could do was let it express itself. I still wanted to vomit and that song made me eternal because I could not control the body and the body just wanted to feel the music and express itself, there was an internal struggle to get something out, to vomit, and at the same time to express physically… Ayahuasca proposed two ways, to enter the psychedelia or to express myself through music.
Personally I do not like psychedelia and I chose the second option, and that night was just about letting myself go, total abandonment… There came a moment when I was physically very tired but she kept on, dragged me onto the floor, dancing on my mattress. I looked for a place to merge with my twin flame but there was something that prevented me, my mind. There was a moment that I had a tremendous clarity of the first retreat when Ayahuasca suggested the game of leaving my body to me, and that she would move for me. Previously I had thought that this game was only for that night and yet it has not been like that. I say this because from the first retreat my body spasms with or without music, even with music while I’m lying down… and that last night I felt that the game continues. I also felt the duality of my two snakes, because one was seductive, provocative, sharp, hypnotising and the other is sensual, loving, participative, understanding and more connected from the heart. That night I became aware of my duality and I loved both parts, I love them both. They are part of me, there is no internal fight, there are no faults, there is no ego; the ego that used to point at me with its finger has completely vanished. The sensory world has awakened, the hum drum mental world of the is over. I feel like a totally different person, sharing this illusion/reality with all my brothers and sisters, because yes we can and have in us the capacity to feel and perceive a whole world full of Love, Light and Magic beyond this world .
For me, Ayahuasca is the High Priestess that takes us into the world more in line with our essence, which brings us to the precise moment of expression, which guides us, but we are the ones who have to act and integrate it in our day to day life. If we do not the loops will continue to exist and we will repeat the same guidelines. She gives us lucidity but we are the ones who process it and who decide what to do with it. Ayahuasca, Yopo, Bufo, Kambó, Rapé, Ambil, Sananga…the ones that I have experienced, continue to show me the transcendence of humanity and my own inner world. They are great guides of the path and I recommend them to everyone who is in this process of getting together to experience these ancestral medicines. I want to thank all my brothers and sisters who were at the retreat. I felt a great connection with those who drank Ayahuasca and those who were very present with us. I especially want to thank Laura, our integrator, from my heart, Iciar and Alberto Consola who were unconditionally supportive and above all Elián who with his music, his songs, his great sensibility, immersed us in the magnificence of our essence, and Joha a student of the school who is all love. When Joha said in the integrations that he loves everything, I did not understand it… Now I am in that same process, and I understand it because I love everything, all my brothers and sisters here and there, everything that comes to me, I love my two snakes so deeply that it has freed me of all the burden of guilt I had been carrying. I love Ayahuasca and all the other ancestral medicines.
My dreams are amazing, my snakes are still there, showing me the way. The symbolic dreams connect me again with Ayahuasca, it is in me as well as in all of you who have received this master plant which continues to show us step by step our inconsistencies in order to be evaluated from the no mind and from the heart. I’m looking forward to my third retreat in March! Meanwhile, may all the gifts that all the medicines are giving me continue. We are one. THANKS INNER MASTERY for opening the portal to another reality.
Lupe Gonzalez Martinez