Hey, want to read an intense story?
I’ve been combing through old journals to assess my life and try to figure out where the wrong turns went. What has been an emotional time machine has unearthed a story I promised long ago and never got to share. It took me years to build up the courage to share it because it is so intense and personal.
So how about it?
Five years ago today I drove up the mountain path and through the end of a double rainbow to have a really unique experience. I was destined to meet a Shaman and to try ayahuasca. Since then, I haven't been able to forget what I went through. In hindsight, it foreshadowed major events that happened during the start of my Saturn Return. I learned some of the biggest life lessons this year, and yet when I look back in time I see an echo right before even getting started learning! It all feels like a preemptive warning for when the real deal events take place years later. I survived!
There are drawings in this journal that I would like to share with you another day, to help you envision things as I saw them. I wish to be able to paint these one day in a much larger scale.
12/19/2011
"What a night! This experience has been a major turning point in my personal development and life. We sat at the river for hours, basking in the sun and enjoying ourselves. After a quick splash in the river, we gathered out own placement in what later came to be the site of the sacred circle. We gave thanks for what was about to happen, opened the circle, invoked the spirit guides, and so it started. Paula was first, then my Mom, then Doris, then me. When my turn came, I sat before the shaman and stared. He offered me many blessings and safe travels. I was still for a moment, then I took a sip. Gulping the brew down afterwards, it was like bad tobacco. Gross.
We all sat in silence to wait while the Shaman sang icaros and prepared the environment for us, shaking his rattles and beating his drums. The high vibrations pounded in our chests, synchronizing our hearts to the divine energy of the brew that was filtered through our inner universes. And slowly we started to turn into the trance state of mind. I lay there in the forest floor for what felt like an eternity, yet nothing happened. The lady next to me was singing, singing, singing. She started to laugh and said, “all these colors!” Next thing I know, Mom is puking and Patricia instructed the shaman to give me more ayahuasca. Sitting in the middle of the circle again, I took another shot of the brew. I was worried about Mom after the second shot, and then the trip hit me instantly.
I looked up at the clouds and there were bunnies with teeth looking down at me. I was seeing evil things in the sky, so I closed my eyes. I saw a bird of fire come to me and embrace me. I saw Archangel Michael. He was yellow and orange, and he was vibrant. I closed my eyes while I covered them with my hands and then it all began. It starts with tunnel vision and then a massive quilted blanket of warm colors spinning like a kaleidoscope, turning, spinning and dividing. I was drenched in overwhelming despair, the anguish that I would never be happy again . I was suffering and I kept trying to open my eyes to go back to reality. It spun on for ages, and then suddenly it started turning grey and purple. Then the sequence repeated itself 6 or 7 more times. Stuck in what felt like an endless loop.
I woke up briefly, then returned to my trance. Suddenly I was bathed in pink and purple accents. I felt an overwhelming sense of time for my then boyfriend. It left me in ecstasy and I smiled the biggest smile, repeating vocally how much I loved him and yearned to be one with him. Then the sadness came again and I told him that I was sorry. I begged him for forgiveness, and then I sat up and puked. The loop of ecstacy and sadness happened many times, and I secretly feared I’d be stuck in this mindset forever.
This was the climax of the trip. I kept dying and coming back to life, then I had some massive dramas. Boys, Father, online habits and self-esteem. I kept purging it, and re-living it, like a hard lesson not to mistreat myself. I got scolded by Facebook on my computer for my Internet addiction. I said I was sorry multiple times. I felt like my life had come to an end at that point. The desperation welled up and I screamed in agony, but to everyone around me it sounded like I was singing.. The emotional beatings kept on coming and I kept on puking. I got stuck in a cycle of spitting, puking, touching the ground, touching my forehead, saying I couldn’t take it anymore and then puking again. When I became self-aware I realized that everyone was staring. My Mom asked me if I was okay.
Night was falling and everybody was anxious to get back before the stars came out, but I was too immersed in that world to come out of it. The shaman and his partner tried to wake me. They passed nettle leaves over my wrists and on my lower back so that the itch would help bring me back to consciousness, but I was too far gone. I had physically gone unconscious. I was floating through space, seeing novas and plants I never knew existed. I ended up seeing Shiva with rings of life and destruction cycling behind. I went with Shiva to the origin of the universe. I spun through that place, which looked to me like an old Microsoft interface with color and shape. When I opened my eyes, I saw Patricia in the river. The Shaman’s partner Meika came up to me and told me I had to stop letting people drain me and steal my energy. She kept telling me to find my center, and she also tried to wake me up. I couldn’t respond.
Night fell fully, it was cold and we had to go but I was stuck in the cosmic whirlwind of sacred revelations. I heard voices talking to me and saw staggeringly beautiful light beings that were showing me my psychic gifts. I had clairvoyance, and so they showed me a wall of hundreds of eyes in blue and purple in what looked like a net. Then they showed me clairsentience, empathy, mediumship and visions of the past. I pleaded them to take my gifts and told them I didn’t want them anymore. The voice told me I had a purpose in life and that I should forgive my Father. [So many years later, I am shocked at the relevance of this teaching. The plant knew what it was doing.]
I opened my eyes as the Shaman poured ice cold water from the river on me to wake me up. Then they forced me to stand, and off we went. We ran for what felt like an eternity and I came in and out of consciousness. My ears were buzzing like an arcade. One moment my feet were in the muff, the next I was back in the cosmic vortex.
At one point the forest came alive with thousands of fireflies. It looked like a scene out of an avatar movie. Since I couldn’t stay conscious, I only saw it for a second. It was the most beautiful natural event I have ever seen in my life.
Meika’s family took me to a bungalow and helped me shower, then slipped me into clean clothes. I stared at her brother Kahlil in the eyes, and he stared right back. I knew he wanted to say something, but I had no idea what it was. As it turns out he had the same experience just the week before and had nearly passed away, and there I was reminding him of how dark it got for him at one point in time. Then the Shaman came in and told me to get some rest, that we would have a serious talk the next day. I heard the arcade sounds the entire night, and they as well as the voice left me around 4 A.M. the next day.
The night was spent pouring my heart out to my Mom about my inner fears and secrets. The coqui frogs were very loud, and in the room next to ours Doris listened in on our entire conversation without adding to it. Everyone was so wonderful in taking care of me. Meika came around yelling in my face that I should never let anybody drain me again, and she had this fierceness to her that made her light up with life.
The next day, the Shaman sat me down and warned me about my then boyfriend J. He told me with lots of concern that dark times were ahead and that I should separate from him, no matter how much I thought I loved him. He warned me that I would get hurt. We sat by the mountain path on a mossy bench that sat peacefully between two trees. He told me I have had by far the most intense ayahuasca trip that he had seen to date. He told me I was lucky because the plant doesn’t choose everybody for messages like that. He said he saw me purging a lot of negative energy in the form of spider webs, and that a lot of it wasn’t mine. That I had picked it up as I tried to help all those that got close to me. It pained him as he told me, but he said that the guy I was with benefit from my presence, but that I would end up in a huge rut.” — Diary entry.
In hindsight, he was right. I got pretty crushed, but it was also my own doing. I have to take responsibility now. Funny how life works! — It has certainly changed my mindset to read over these journal entries. You always get clear understanding of your circumstances when you look to the past for answer. The path you strayed from and forgot sends you into the thick of the woods to learn some valuable life lessons.
Right now I am prioritizing my spirit and taking care of myself. It seems counterproductive to unearth the past, but what I am really trying to do is face it in my own way. I want to make peace with my demons, and so far this is the only way accessible to me. I’m trying!
Up until now, I have only ever shared this experience with a handful of people. It is very personal and deals with some inner dilemmas that I wasn't prepared to publish back when it happened. While this will likely sound really crazy to anybody reading, it absolutely happened back then. And it is still relevant today. I am contemplating going for a second try, it feels like now that I understand the messages, I’d be able to have a different experience. Maybe I'll be able to close the chapters and the book forever. My soul is ready.
Onwards to healing and working internally to greet 2017 with a fresh face and open arms.
♡♡
