When the ceremony started and intentions were expressed, I said just that, that I felt gratitude for this space and these people. And that there was energy in the air. And that tonight would be special. And it was. In the strange way that only a vine ceremony can be: wonderful, painful, and frightening--at the same time.
I came armed with more intentions to this ceremony than to any of the others I've been a part of. And in case the vine caused me to separate from myself, these intentions were manifested in physical objects in case (as had happened in Costa Rica) I forgot about everything and was looking for clues of my past self. In this regard, I brought with me my Buddha symbol to remind me of my Buddha nature and my zen practice, my onk cross for the promise of reuniting my natural self with my false egoic consciousness, and a rosary, in case the shit really hit the fan again and mother aya trounced me down to the ground again where all I could do was pray for deliverance and relief.
However, the totem that I would clutch to most fervently to this ceremony was an Indian feather necklace for courage that I picked up in St. Louis on the way to the ceremony. I clutched this tightly in my hand during most of the ceremony. Indeed, I put the cross in with the pictures of my family away from me to be purified in the ceremony.
After we took the first cup of the sacrament, and completed a wonderful yoga/energy/breath practice led by Sandstar we all held hands standing in a circle and I listened to MetaStar speak. At this time, I begin to enter medicine space. Time slowed down and when she spoke to the group, it felt as if she was speaking to me alone outside of time and space. As if the whole play of my life could now be understood without illusion: as if I was waking up from the dream of my past life into something else that was more real. Then, as happened before in Costa Rica, the shaman's face turned dark and into a death mask. And the participants next to her in the ceremony in my peripheral vision turned into wild animals, like standing Buffalo. When I looked at them directly they returned back to human form.
My first instinct at seeing the death shaman was to turn away in fear like I did before. But I clutched the Indian feathers and reminded myself that this was my journey. This is what I came here for. This is what I was supposed to see. As soon as this intention manifested, the death mask vanished. Fear was replaced with gratitude. Then I remembered my intention to expressed gratitude to those in my life: starting with my mother, and moving through a long list of other people. Then I looked around me to those in the circle and felt an outpouring of love to these people that were hours ago strangers. Some where happy, some sad, some self absorbed. There were lovers holding hands gazing into each others' eyes.
And when the second cup was consumed and we meditated in darkness, I was pulled down into the darkness and I purged again and again. And my mind told me repeatedly of something in my past that was too horrible to be true. So I stood up. And I tried to dance with the darkness even as the swaying more me more sick.
And in the meantime, we talked about Plato's cave. And we made rhymes and made jokes:
If you think your something better let it go
lest your mind remind you that its just not so
let the strong grow weak
and the smart grow dim
here comes the cycle all over again
verse 2
fuck them if they can't take a joke
joke them if they can't take a fuck.
and we learned funky dance moves.
Epilogue: Katherine Maclean's description of her psychedelic experience in the podcast that we are all a dream dreamed by a vast jungle entity.
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