Do you like this library? Please show your appreciation and help to keep it alive and evolving with a kind donation. E-mail paul@know-thyself.org to find out more.
Riding the Snake of Ayahuasca
Shipibo community in the Peruvian Amazon consists of about hundred villages around
Ucayali River. We were living with their largest community in the village of San
Fransisco de Yarinacoche – it is a village on the islands of the lake, which is also
called the lake of the snake.
Shipibos believe that for all the bad things there is a cure from the other side – the invisible spiritual world. This is achieved through shamanistic rituals, which normally go along with icaros and which have its sacrament – the drink of ayahuasca.
I did not even know what to expect – should it be the moment when I start vomiting, or a vision from the other side – but those minutes seemed eternal. Complete silence was interrupted only by Enrique’s croaking, Herlinda’s yawning and exotic voices from surrounding jungle outside.
About 20 minutes later, the shamans started singing icaros. These are the songs that are brought to the shaman in forms of visions. The same songs are also embroided to the skirts and doylies made by Shipibo women. The background pattern that some people think reminds DNA forms denotes the cosmic singular, and the geometric pattern on top is the melody and rhythm of the song sent to the shamans by the plant. In theory the more icaros shaman receives from the magical plant, the stronger are the powers of the shaman. Nõõska nõõska shamanee … Põvva põvva shamanee … They sing in high falsetto voice and the song consists a lot of chords and sounds deriving from pentatonic.
Rainbow colored sun rays are flying over my mental visual view, once like foamy waves of ocean, once spotted like Spanish fans or feathers of peacock tail. Between all that there are glimmering cat heads, smiles of Marilyn Monroe, Batman masks and lush fake lashes. Blank space of darkness behind my closed eye is no longer blank-black. This whole unknown world, the perception of another dimension vibrates in turbulent neon colors. Vivid shades formed some ancient Indian patterns.
I wambel my body in tune with crazy icaros, which tell me stories of Indian temples
in Peru. I was humming along with it and it seemed I have already been through it
all. Everything stands really close to me, everything is understandable, clearly
perceptible. Herlinda then asked his brother Juan who is also a shaman that we also
sing
something, our icaros.
Somewhere inside of me emerged a melody, I had never heard of before. But surprisingly it seemed so familiar, as if I had sung it before. Could it be that I have lived through the ceremony before, just in another body? Could it be a revelation from some of my past lives? With that strange voice inside of me I gave my contribution to the world of visions and energies surrounding us, the only world possible now, the only world that seems to be the totality of the whole universe, which is completely perceptible for me now. Alvaro started puking.
Enrique then stopped singing and started to tell prayers in mixture of Shipibo and Spanish language. I was able to distinguish only a few words – the cleansing, spirit, intelligence, God, energy, soul…
Yet it seemed that some inner meta-level inside of me understood him completely. I fell into complete trance, feeling spirit of ayahuasca in every cell of my body. The revel of colors was so powerful that soon I no longer understood that these were just visuals in my head – it seemed all too real.
At one point I am walking in a huge cave with a tragic view over kilometers of stoned icicles. Its wet and heavy silence is cut by a powerful voice of a woman that echoes back from rusty walls. I go along with the woman’s Björk-like voice and I feel beautiful.
I can sense there is still some bad air in my body. It wants to penetrate, it wants to leave me, it wants to get out and I release all the bad energy into the bowl in front of me. Colorful visuals start vibrating even more intensively to honor this special moment. The vomiting feels emancipating, makes my body easy, free.
Officially the ceremony has ended, but I’m still totally in trance with signals from
the other side. Suddenly I see Enrique’s soul hovering above and moving closer to
me. I get the feeling that in the energetic world of ayahuasca you can accomplish
so much more, regardless of space and time. So I focus on my dear mother, the best
mother in the world, who I love the most. I beg from the spirit of ayahuasca to send
her strength and good energy. And it seems entirely possible.
I swim around in the inner sea of Earth. A giant snake joins me. I grab her thick huge body and ride with her in a blue-pink-like colorful magma of the sea, my legs around her, feeling sexual urge. I smile as I remember what Herlinda had told me before – snake represents the soul of ayahuasca.
So that is what Jim Morrison used to sing about. Ride the snake, the snake is long seven miles…
The world next morning is no longer the same.
Source: avantourists.com