Lessons from Mother Ayahuasca. Night 2: Love and death

This is part 2 of my Ayahuasca journey at Rythmia in Costa Rica. If you missed Night 1: My miracle, you might want to read it first as this is a continuation of the story.

Image by Jonny Lindner from Pixabay

I woke up on Tuesday feeling very vulnerable, which stayed with me until lunchtime when I had some free time to journal Monday night's experience. Writing down everything I could remember really helped me process what I'd seen and felt. Afterwards, I felt much better and ready to go into the second ceremony. I wondered what Mama Aya would show me next. I knew it would be something different since she doesn't go back once you've learnt whatever lesson you needed to learn.

I began thinking about my intentions for Tuesday night. "Keep me safe" was an intention I had every night but I needed something else. In class on Tuesday morning, we discussed trust as an intention. I can't remember if it related to developing trust in people or trust in Mama Aya. However, since I'm not an overly distrustful person, my intention was to gain trust in Mama Aya and the medicine.

Our shaman this evening was Brad. Like the ladies from last night, he too was a Western shaman. He also gave off one hell of a chilled out, sexy vibe as he talked about plant medicine and what to expect from the upcoming ceremony.

Inside the Maloka, we started with a dose of rapé followed by the ayahuasca, which was different from the night before. Not only does each shaman have his or her own way of brewing the tea, but each night at Rythmia, the ayahuasca plants used come from different parts of the Amazon.

Tonight there was a lot of music. Brad's playlist was a beautiful mix of songs in both Spanish and English. These songs are probably not ones you're familiar with unless you've done ayahuasca or some other kind of spiritual healing. It is music for your heart and soul, and each song was perfectly coordinated to what I was experiencing at the time.

Image by Speedy McVroom from Pixabay

Like last night, I took two cups, which seems to be my magic number. However, this time I was patient and did not pressure the medicine to work. I also brought an eye mask to ceremony to minimise the distractions around me.

Sometime after my second cup, I became immersed in a world of pastel coloured geometric shapes. It's like being on one of those 3D rides at theme parks but it's continuous and just for you. I remember turning on my side but this distorted my visions and I needed to turn back onto my back.

It wasn't long until the geometrics gave way to some fun, trippy visions. Although I couldn't remember them all when I journaled my experience on Wednesday, a few stood out. There was one where my arms were made of paper and weightless, like I was the inflatable man you see outside used car yards. In another, I kept touching my body which then became paint swirls. I also had a brief flash of Mama Aya's sadness for what we are doing to the planet. Then I was making energy balls between my hands like you do in tai chi. Most of these visions seemed quite short and random and I was not sure of their significance at the time. Perhaps she was just trying to gain my trust.

Image by noonexy from Pixabay

At some point the visions became more serious. Mama Aya showed me my purest self—light energy traversing the universe, where time and space are irrelevant. This vision has had a profound effect on me and now I find myself asking the following question: Do we choose to come into our bodies to experience the full range of human emotions—good and bad—and physical sensations we can't experience in our energy forms? I don't know the answer. I am not religious so I don't believe a humanistic God created us simply to judge and punish us now and in the afterlife. It seems more logical that the universe is here to love and support us as we fully experience the beauty of life, although we may have to go through periods of darkness to fully appreciate the light. What I do know is that ayahuasca is a gift to humankind from nature. She lets us explore the truth in all things, including our existence and the mysteries of the universe. She will take us as deep and as far as we are willing to go to find the answers we seek.

Mama Aya then took me on a timeline of my current life. As we headed towards my death, fear came over me. I was not yet ready to go into this vision and I pulled back. My heart was racing and I needed to use breath work to calm myself down. When I'd returned to a safe place she showed me the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and felt. The best way I can describe this is it was like having multiple orgasms. It was similar to that feeling you get just before you come but intensified and not on a human scale. Everything had been stripped away except what I can best describe as pure love. Despite having an eye mask on, I could see everyone in that room, and I saw and felt her love radiating out from above my mattress and embracing us all. At the time, a lot of people were purging and I remember thinking with such joy: "don't worry, she loves us and you're going to be fine". I believe there were two purposes to this vision. First, I have always struggled to understand what love is and how it is supposed to feel. The feelings I got were unlike I anything I've ever experienced before. She also showed me that real love is unconditional and abundant and doesn't need to be restricted, because I do hold back. Second, this was her way of gaining my trust.

As one song ended and another began, Mama Aya took me back to my death, except this time I surrendered. She took me to Palenque, Mexico. (The significance of this place is not lost on me, which I will discuss in my next post.) She lay me beside a temple in the forest. As I was lying on the ground vines began wrapping around my limbs. Without resisting, I let her pull me deep underground into the earth. As I was freed from my body I was reconnected to the cosmos. All I could see was light and energy and I had the sense that really nothing dies, which corresponds to my earlier vision. Instead, we go back into source energy, before embarking on our next journey. It's like the ultimate recycling program.

Image by Jonas Jacobsson from Unsplash

As a new song began I found myself back on the forest floor, my limbs connected to the earth with vines. It also now made sense to me, why I couldn't lie on my side! Since a recurrent theme tonight was the afterlife, I wanted to be able to speak to loved ones who've passed away. This frequently happens on ayahuasca, however, nobody appeared before me. I'm guessing this is because, in my truth, we go back to our pure energetic forms after leaving our human bodies. But that wasn't the end of the story. I was able to tap into the energies of the people I wanted to see and make emotional connections to them. This time, I got a different sense of love and a level of comfort that's hard to describe. I believe this was another lesson from Mama Aya about love. I also felt those same connections on my last night at Rythmia during the breathwork session. The feelings were just as real and just as strong as they were when I took ayahuasca.

I then had an intermission of sorts, where I got up and walked around. I remember telling Brad that I was having the best night of my life. This wasn't a lie. The things I saw and the clarity I got on how we are all connected was life-changing.

Image by Rene Rauschenberger from Pixabay

I lay down again. Although I had no further visions I did go back to Palenque, which seemed to be my base. I thought of the metronome video we'd watched in class earlier that day. If you haven't seen it, go watch it, because it's pretty cool. Within four minutes all the metronomes come into resonance with each other. At that moment, I felt like I was in resonance with the universe.

I then wanted to see who else had come into resonance. My friend Ellen was on the mattress next to me. She'd been over to the dark side earlier that night but was in a happy place now. Since I was still on the forest floor, I began drawing the Earth's energy into my body, and I wanted to see if I could share this with Ellen. We both began tapping our fingers to the next song and I could feel the energy coming out of my fingertips as I sent it towards her. She later confirmed she felt an energetic connection between us.

Something else that stood out to me around that time was a brief period of silence. There was a 20 second or so pause between each song ending and the next one beginning. At one point, the music had stopped and the purging had also stopped. It was like everyone in the room had come into resonance with each other, and it felt really special.

Since I was outside on the first night I'm not sure how the shamans closed the ceremony. Tonight's was closed with wind chimes. When this happened I was still lying on the forest floor and was seeing everything through my mind's eye. My sense of hearing had been heightened all night thanks to ayahuasca and the eye mask, but this was a new level of awesome. I'm not sure what kind of chimes they were but it was one of the most magical and delightful sounds I've ever heard. It was the perfect way to end a perfect night.

Stay tuned for Night 3, which I can only describe as Night 2 on steroids.

I have shared my whole story in Rythmia's Facebook Live video below. Note, it is long so Night 2 is discussed between 31m20s and 47m07s. I will timestamp the relevant parts of the video discussing the other nights in my upcoming posts if you don't want to watch it all in one go.

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