January 2020: Wachuma in the Sacred Valley

January 10, 2020

In the roaring twenty-twenties, I find myself craving ordered chaos, and that’s something quite different from disorder. I’m regrowing my ankles, intestines, and knees in a private mustard-colored bedroom in a hamlet above Pisac, fresh paint reeking an intoxicating chemical odor that waxes over my lungs. Feeling like a novelty statue of myself, I sit in mild self-judgment at the seat of the bed, back aching as I arch over the keyboard, consuming as much entertainment and information as I can, binging, distancing myself from the reminders of sickness and age. Attention splintered, thinking of the Accelerandos and the Cuaranderos all at once. Watching numbers flash on a screen, bloody candles, gambling. Not unsure of myself, but unsure of my gut. In only six days I’ve lost touch with that other brain, the brain of brains. The zombie giardiasis outbred every one of my defenses. How many millions of me were eaten by the Incas? I need to go under a huge tree somewhere and die again. Then when I’m dead enough, find that dark crypt where the Shipibo tapestries glow with the hearts of chakruna and ayahuasca, and the rafters reek of paulo santo. Hire some locals to play the part of Desmond Tiny and lead me on a trip to the fuzzy swimming land of San Pedro.

I go for lunch in town.

Sacred Valley of timeless stone and pizzerias swarmed by the wormhole tour vans, those aluminum buffalos infested with pork-bellied and balding families, wandering with their suitcases strangled above useless wheels. The intruding class ambles among hairless dogs that fetch plastic bottles from the street hawkers of vision-quest rattles and starburst ponchos, where alpacas idle dressed like the rainbow-tasseled Christmas tree-children that corral them: young girls dressed as the Quechua ghosts that the conquistadors skewered like the doomed cuy retreating in the hollows of the mercado empanada picanterias. I am a pigeon nursing a cup of cocoa-muña tea on the balcony of a bean-bag restaurant. Dub growls from the throat of these base-blown speakers like a sad electric harmonium that pleas for anyone to notice that it feels something. The plaza kneels beneath the gaze of the citadel ruins far above and atop the fissured green mountains, down to where the motos draped in expressive rain jackets buzz and putter, front wheel barely missing the canals. Wide-eyed gringoes roam the cobbled ground, not lost, but also not here at all. They will either merge with the dreadlocked Hydrozoa or break orbit via that slow back door of a psychedelic regression, onward to haunt another place. I circuit through town for days like this, steadily recovering, mending my perspective, running ever lower on funds as I wait for my broker to perform its electronic wizardry to my bank account. In between my obsessive distractions, contemplating an oversized T-shirt with a six-armed Christ, I acknowledge the harmonium overhead with its hoarse song.

January 12, 2020

Wake, past ten already. I keep sleeping in, the racket of hammering, buzzing, barks and chatter build up until it’s warmer than the five bedcovers over me. I’ve been sleeping fully dressed lately, haven’t showered in about five days. Open the door, bedroom spills right into the lobby, a reminder that I’m not only in a hostel. I’m in someone’s house, half these people live here. Reception greets me before I’m out of bed, a small gathering of folks. The Romanian lady with the piercing sky blue eyes and white pixie hair in a mess: “I wanted to join today, but I woke up at night because of a headache. It can’t be a good day for it.”

The woman from Lima who introduced herself with a magical name, twenty-six, round-wire retro glasses: “Good morning, Bradley.”

I bug her for an espresso, now the Israeli with the thick alpaca sweater addresses me between jolly chaotic-good laughter, “Today’s big day. Wachuma! Are you going to join?”

“Oh wow, it’s happening today?”

Jorges is the owner of the hostel, always with a flat-bill baseball cap and leather jacket, the energy of an initiator. He joins: “San Pedro! This is strong medicine, very good quality. I cook it myself, each batch takes fifteen cacti.”

“I, well…” I’ve just crawled out of bed. Giardia seems to have finally passed. Beautiful day, no other plans. Need a break from work. God, is this really work that I’m doing? “I’ll join.”

“Oh good, Bradley.” Lili, that was her name, the woman with the retro glasses who always gestures as if she’s taking care of something. She puts me at ease. “We will begin at twelve when everyone is together. If you want, you can use the medicine independently, this is what the others will do.” I go for that, and around eleven I go into the cold and windowless ceremony chamber, taking off my shoes. This is the maloca, a purified place. I stretch as the Israeli laughs mischievously, cross-legged with arms outstretched, swinging like a condor over the thickening smoke of the jasmine incense and smoldering paulo santo. He plays some world music over a smartphone, “This song is very popular with the Rainbow Gathering. You know it? You don’t know it.”

The lounge area is empty of people, Lili calls me over to distribute the medicine, hands me a plastic bowl with two amber-black lumps of cactus resin. “This is a little over seventeen grams total,” she picks up the largest clump, I notice her fingers are long, brown like a latte. She’s elegant. “Break this into small pieces and take over the next hour with water. The second piece is for later.”

“The bump dose. Got it.”

“Some preparation, there is a small game.” She shifts on the sofa, I try not to think too much about her figure, visible even under all those willowy sleeved clothes and scarves. “With San Pedro, we remember twelve things.” She lifts a hand like an image of a Catholic saint would, long fingers counting through the mantra of a first-timer mescaline quest. “…Got it? Try to remember.”

I nod, assuring her that I will be fine. My anxiety is only excitement. Then I return to the ceremony room. The Israeli is flying. “Take it faster, maybe two at a time.” I roll the balls of resin together between my fingers, down it with sips of water. “Yeah! I can feel it, man.” He takes another sip from his plastic bottle of floating green powder. “I’ve already taken most of it, added more water. This will last me the rest of the evening.” He picks up a black joint, hardly a roach left of it, lights it and sways between inhales. “You want me to clear the wachuma?”

“Si,” I hand him the bowl. He blows smoke over the resin, whistling. He hands it back to me, “Ya, very good. It’s clean.”

“In the Amazon, the Shipibo curanderos do the same, they call tobacco ‘mapacho’. Big white hand-rolled tobacco cigars. And they also use this,” I take out the small vial of aqua florida from my pocket. “For pujas, they put it in their hands like so.” I pour a liberal amount into my cupped hands, then rub it all over my body. “Especially when opening or closing a dieta, or receiving a special arcana. Purifies the body, clears bad energy.”

“Mind if I try it?”

“Sure,” I hand him the vial, he sniffs it, then follows my example. “It’s also used the same way as smudging, like you did with the wachuma. They put it in their mouths, then spray it over the back, shoulders, crown, and into the hands.” I mimic the motion brought from deep in the jungles along the Ucayali. He shakes his head at the thought. “I’ve tried it, putting it in the mouth. It burns a lot. I had small bugs in my bed in the jungle, and no spray bottle, so I used my mouth to spray it all over.”

“That’s the one thing about the jungle, too many bugs.”

“Yeah, a dozen different types of fleas, biting flies, mosquitoes. But it’s worth it.” He’s just told me that he was called in a ceremony while in Israel to save money and travel to Peru, to became a shaman and help people face their traumas. If he wants to do that, he’ll have to endure some insects. But I entertain his conviction, “Many people from the West are hearing the same call. Perhaps in the past, people were persecuted, and now they are reincarnating all at once.”

“Yes, and often murdered by their fathers.”

“That’s dark,” I reach for the paulo santo and hold a lighter beneath it until the end glows red.

“No, it isn’t. Murder can be neutral, or a gift, in the grand scheme of things. When someone is murdered, the victim and the killer will have a conversation in the afterlife. There is something to be learned, and they decide what kind of relation they will have in the next life.” He unfolds a bag of snuff and clears a rappé pipe. “You want to try?” I nod cautiously. “Watch me.” He chops a line of snuff in his palm, scoops half into the pipe, “This motion only,” He makes a quick breath with a tune; enough pressure to blow the rappé into the nose. Then he blows it into the left nostril. “Then the next half,” he does the same with the other nostril, and swings his head back, “Hoo!” He rubs against his temple, a deep breath, and goes quiet for a long time. “Very grounding.” He hands me the snuff and pipe. I gesture a slight prayer, take the first half to the cranium, it is white peppery icy fire. Tears falling, I prepare the second half and blast it into the same nostril, a misinterpretation of my comrade’s instructions. Looks like I still have a lot of snuff left, I tap out, wiping the rest into an ashtray, blowing the green ice-fire from my sinuses. “Maybe again after I am deeper in the medicine.”

“Did you blow it into only one nostril?” He smiles.

“Yeah, mistake.” I complete the dose, fifteen grams in all, and settle into meditation for the next hour. The Israeli is rolling an hour deep at this point, he is pulled from the building on a force not entirely his own, I don’t see him again for the entire evening. The medicine rises slowly, I play a simple beat on a drum, entering a trance, muttering Shipibo nonsense tunes, not entirely my voice. Maybe Maestro Gilberto, Marcello, or Oscar. It’s so cold, I wander outside, the effects of the medicine are now more noticeable. It is beautiful today, the wind sweeps through the valley in a wide singing bowl, the sounds of trees and swept rock is like a river, almost like rain. I’m called to a compression of grass and clover surrounded by flowers. A couple of cows are tied up by the wooden fence I crossed to get here, they call out whenever there is a shift in the atmosphere. A small old Quechua lady hobbles into the field, wearing a bowler hat that adds a good six inches, flashing a stick at a calf that trots away stubbornly, “Chyu! Chyu-wha!”. It’s like that for a long time, the whir of the wind-streams and the unabated sun filling me up, and I can see every detail of the trees and the wind as they dance. The mountains begin to crinkle and melt, the sky is deeper. Some french ladies sunbathe nearby for more than an hour. Basking in joy and gratitude, I wander back to the cavelike black of the ceremony room.

The woman from Lima greets me, “How are you in the medicine?”

Already losing my ability to speak, “Good, very good. I feel great.”

“Very good. We’ve added some candles for you.” There’s a leathery tapestry on the floor surrounded by candles held inside lamps of aluminum foil, I light only one, turn off the lights and close the door. In about twenty minutes, I finish the second dose of mescaline. Back to my rhythmic drumming, I listen to the gut. Vibration, rising out of my heart like lightning, I sing in the voices of the Pahoyan curanderos. Half-dream, space where one feels the presence of the spirit realm, but only witnesses in the mind's eye. The presence of spirits is felt by the change of temperature in the room, a feeling deep inside, a voice without words. Many-eyed, frightening, the thunder of rising earth and uprooted moss, the ancient cobwebbed elk-call. I greet a God of Spiders.

The spider teaches patience, trust, and gratitude. There is no need to fear the spider. The requirements of patience can be unsettling. Eliminate doubt, trust the world and it will deliver to you what you need. The spider trusts the web and is grateful for what falls. The spider is not greedy, it will release what is too great for it to eat. Know when to let go, distinguish excess from satiation. The spider is not ashamed of itself, even though the world is fearful of it. The spider accepts the flow, the order of the world, it does not concern itself with misconceptions from others. These perceptions are not allowed to tangle in its web, or the web will break under the burden of other’s projections.

Then the God of Spiders recedes into the corners between corners, where it waits patiently, eternally trusting in the generosity of the world. The room is colder still, I return to the field beneath the citadel ruins of Pisac.

I find the flat patch of clover from earlier. The wind has picked up, it is a slow sunset. Pink-grey-orange clouds rise from the citadel mountain, and in my periphery and soon overhead, cirrus clusters sweep toward the mountain before evaporating on the edge in wispy tendrils, touching the sun at last.

Clouds that are not clouds. Heaven unfolds before me, Divine feminine god blooming out of the fetus that was a dying man, suffering in the steams of hell until swallowed up by the pink ether of possibility, starburst fractals that spoke: “That’s not all, wait until you see this!”

Out of the sprites and spiraling machinations upon the white-blue sky canvas, a being formed out of the periphery, paused, then when I let it go, grew to enormous size, proportionate and tangible, she danced and beckoned me, a beautiful display. And then Pachamama reached down to me, as large as the world, in that field where the clover and the purple-yellow flowers whispered in the gusts that traveled over the mountains, through the temples and citadel where Incan ghosts stood guard so high above and outside of time. Have gratitude, have joy in your heart.

I rest for a while on my bed, then join a group of French gypsies in the common area for a time while they jam on a cajón and acoustic guitar. The lady’s voice is so soft and accentuated. I notice how all of their accents are more pleasant to me than usual, it’s the accent a flower would have if only it could speak. The lady on the guitar and the man with the drum pair well together, and at one point he’s rapping in German while she sings in French, and they cover Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. I’m overwhelmed with joy, the song could go on forever. This was a priceless moment, I lack the words to appreciate it.

It is night, the stars shimmer like tearful eyes, jewels that convulse like protozoa, as above so below. I am called to that windy starfield, but it is late and I need to eat. I am still deep in the medicine, and for a long time no unoccupied moto passes by on the sleeping street, so I begin to walk. Boots untied, bundled up haphazardly with my jackets and pashmina, I feel like a heap of rags, a crazy homeless man ambling in the dark. Shit, it's really dark. Where’s the moon? A small Quechua man with a shrunken head and wide eyes trots briskly by the resort some meters outside of Gringoville. He grunts as if either annoyed or trying to look intimidating to strangers in the night. I sense that something is off about him, then he calls me with a frantic greeting. We make eye contact, I send back a vibe, “I’m not always crazy, but right now I certainly am.” And he returns, “I assure you that I’m always this crazy, but I mean no harm.” And so the two loons of the village wander off in opposite directions of the void.

It’s a long walk, can’t be more than twenty minutes, but it feels so much further from town. Where is the moon? Motorists pass by, no taxi suggests a ride. There are a couple of bends against the mountain where I’m sure people have been mugged before. I keep looking behind me, picking up the pace, anticipating someone to come out of the trees to knock me out. My mind flirts with organ farmers. Shit, go faster. Medicine is getting stronger, it comes like waves all the time. Finally a concrete path, harsh blue dream-light from invisible incandescents, humming of a generator somewhere. Dogs circle the perimeter, they bow guardedly, signaling that I’ve entered a new and significant place. Humanity’s aura buzzes ever louder until I’m in an echoing canyon that is the mercado street of Pisac. Patrol trucks roll quietly down the road, people are closing up shop, hailing taxis, taking inventory. I wander into what I hope is an open restaurant, and with every meter, it becomes clear that I’m out of place. Nobody’s around, I pick up the incomprehensible menu. It’s in some alien cursive, covered in grapevines. A wine bistro? A clean-dressed family walks by, they give off such normal energy that it throws me off. Am I homeless? No, I’m bugging out. I’ve wandered into a fine dining establishment with mescaline pouring out of my eyes. “Hello, can I help you?” A waitress, that’s good. Wait, is that bad? I awkwardly hand over the menu, she takes it and I mumble, “Uh, not the right place. Eh…food?”

She lifts an eyebrow, “Here, English menu.” Too distracted to see anything but the price. Pizzas? Expensive, it’ll take all night. My attention spins around the corner; kids are out there. I notice the waitress’s almond complexion, head like a hazelnut, turquoise beach-wave hair that splashes over her shoulders. Can’t tell if she’s scared or just giving me a hint. Was I rude just now? She knows I’m tweaking. I hand the menu back, “Uhm sorry. I’m looking for eh…” I gesture with my hand robotically and tread down the street, mind coming undone for the lack of nutrients squeezed out of me from the cactus juice.

Bingo, a corner store. I walk under the incubating orange light, place looks like a shop that devolved into someone’s bedroom and then was neglected for twenty years as the dust plastered everything. Two old women sat behind the counter, cooing at a television behind me. I fish the wall for some sun-dried sweet potato chips. Lady at the counter is not a lady. What is that? It’s like a man had aborted out of a woman, cheeks and forehead of puffy excess skin like a Shar-Pei. Her voice is orc-like but grandmotherly. “Gracias.”

I find an unsuspicious wall and devour those sweet dehydrated tubers, trying to look calm. No gringo looks unsuspecting out here past dinner in the off-season, leaning against the wall like I’m soliciting hookers. My mind kneads back together a few inches, then from the steps of the mercado adjacent the street, the most ghoulish, distressed, depraved feral dog on earth trots by, yelping as the betas snap at her when she sniffs too close to a heap of garbage. It may have been a boxer, but she was too shriveled, tits hanging like a dead animal from her belly, eyes glowing like a bat. I hallucinated it picking up its front legs and sprinting off, the locals paying the ghoul no attention. Food, got to find more food.

I wander into another shop, the man is preoccupied with directing some laborers around the shelves, place is hollowed out, must be restocking. I eyeball an opaque stained display of bread, notice there’s a shelf full of canned goods. Guy must think I’m going to steal something, I feel his eyes. Nah, just paranoid. I grab some canned tuna and an ancient bag of dried fruit with the face of Apu-punchau looking back at me from it, then try to communicate in Spanish about the bread. The man calmly corrects my confusion as I mispronounce the goods, and I see his face. Middle-aged, fatherly, indigenous heritage, stocky arms and shoulders, thin mustache. He pulls a clean plastic bag from the wall and uses it to reach for a beautiful round bun. His hands are black from the day’s work, the bun radiates with the aura of an unknown wood-fire oven. In a voice rich with decades of proud service, the shopkeeper addresses my purchase, “Hamburguesa.”

The way his face was when he served me that bread was so reassuring, collected, if not passionate, I can’t forget it. He made me feel pedestrian again, thank God. Victorious, I manage to hail a moto-taxi and rumble back to Casa Inca Huatana. The oils from that tuna hamburguesa were the most satiating morsels I’ve ever put in my mouth. I sat there blissfully eating the entire bag of sun-god fruit, knowing fully well that the excess sugar and vitamin C meant that this quest was going to last a lot longer.

I go back to the field, it’s black out there, the ground is wet from dew. I lay where the energy feels good, not allowing any paranoia of cow shit. Shooting stars, or maybe that’s an illusion. All the stars are flying, I suppose. They flicker as if communicating with one another. Sitting half-lotus for a moment, I regard what I’ve come to burn. I take from my pocket some coca leaves and the mushrooms I picked when I was lost in that heavenly field far off near Mollapata, the caps already dried and spreading mycelium in their crinkled newspaper substrate. It has to be something that holds significance, something sentimental, otherwise, the sacrifice means nothing. Could have tried to preserve these, make a spore print. I’ll give them the opportunity to grow here instead. So I say my prayer to replace fear and doubt with trust and confidence. I light all my matches, can’t keep the fire alive, so I bury the remains in a forest of clover. Gets colder, I return to the ceremony room.

In the ceremony room sits Lili, Jorges, and their musician amiga. I’m pleased to see them, though they are absorbed in their tarot readings and speaking quickly in Spanish. They pass a joint and I meditate until there is an opportunity to join, and together the three of them share with me a revelation of my past, present, and future.

It is a good hand; I asked to replace doubt with trust, and the cards revealed what that meant. It was a continuation of my sessions with ayahuasca in Pahoyan as if I was still in the maloca. The cards spoke my destiny; A great enemy had become a protector, thanks in part to the influence of my sister. My mother continues to be a haunting spirit, but I am in good fortune, and the future is bright. The world offers a fresh start through sacrifice, the opportunity for something new.

We experiment with another way to draw the cards, using simple yes-no questions. My hand produces a resounding ‘yes’. “What was your question?” Lili asks.

“Two parts; Do I have to do this alone, and can I do this alone.” I slink into the wall, reflecting with sad acceptance and rising determination regarding my lot.

I was thinking about relationships when I asked those questions, about love. But I also was not. The universe answered; No one will do it for me, but with trust, I can conquer this quest.

I watched the three of them for a long period while they stared silently in each other’s eyes. When they did this with Jorges, he whistled and made an imperceptible movement with his index finger. The party takes a break to pass around a joint. “Are you projecting consciousness?” I ask.

“No, not like that.” He laughs, “It’s concentration. Here, try it with Lili.” She moves to my mat and we face each other, she instructs me to let go, be calm, and gaze into her right eye. I enter a mindful state, within seconds our breath synchronizes, she’s quite good at this sort of thing. Then time and space dilate, Her eye becomes a shining, piercing white pearl, and her physical form is no longer entirely human, she’s a demigod, both fearsome and immaculate. Then her face, her whole body reveals more detail, she begins to take the form of other people, only slightly different from the original, and then she is an old woman. From there she regresses in age until it is her present self again, and she seems to be excited, breathing heavier, eyes wide with surprise, and I’m looking into a mirror, but there is no mirror. There is no Lili, no Brad, only a reflection of consciousness.

We snap out of our trance, perhaps it was Jorges that pulled us back to the ceremony room. I think they both ask, “Did you see anything different? What changed?”

“She…” I can’t decide who to address, then turning to Lili, “you were so many people. And your eye was so bright, like the sun.” I could hardly speak.

“We will try again when you are not in the medicine,” Lili says, and perhaps she is a little uncomfortable under that reassuring smile. The musician doesn’t speak, fidgeting with her guitar.

“Wow man,” Jorges starts. “The way she was looking at you, must have been something.”

“You have very good energy,” she says. Did we just have a moment? These two are probably a couple --- Shouldn’t think much about it now.

“Ok, now you will try with me,” Jorges says, shifting toward me on the mat. He lifts his index finger, takes a mindful breath, and whistles a spiral into the air between us. I follow the sound into his eye. I enter the same place; the candlelight against the cold walls, the imperceptibly flowing tapestries there, it all dissolves into a lucid field of possibility. And Jorges becomes my reflection, without a mirror. I feel my perception of him open up, assumptions reveal themselves as projections and my sense of compassion balloons. He then becomes an old man, and the shape of another place appears around him. “Ok,” I am reeled back into the ceremony room. “Did you notice a change? Very calming, yes?”

“You were somewhere else, or rather it was not you.”

“Wait, there’s something.” He’s alarmed but curious. “Let’s go again, ready?”

Whistle, focus recedes and expands simultaneously, no duality. This time I am a Peruvian man, I’m older now, somewhere in the mountains. There is a small hut made of clay, dung, and meadow grass. Perhaps a small hearth and the stars are bright behind me. I’m looking with surprise in the direction of…myself?

“You were older this time, far away, in a small hut in the mountain. This was long ago.”

He seemed to have had enough, I drop the subject. They go back to their tarot readings, and eventually, I catch the drift that they are babysitting me, so I call it a night. Midnight, the quest lasted more than twelve hours. Sleep comes stubbornly, hours later. No dreams tonight; I’ve already dreamt while awake.