My Ayahuasca: Night 2
By: Jason Stauffer
Tags: Ayahuasca, PTSD, Psychedelics, Therapy, Growth

My Ayahuasca: Night 2

A Chronicle of my first ayahuasca journey in several parts. Names have been changed to protect the sacred. All other content accuracy approved by the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson.

I spent most of the day between my two ayahuasca nights grounding in my back yard, where I walk barefoot and mindfully over the grass, working out my own internal thoughts and communing with nature. This is when I was able to look back through my first night with the medicine and receive the greater lessons I struggled to accept the night before. This helped me to feel much better about returning for the second night.

I had also chosen to reject the no cannabis guideline and returned to my standard smoking regimen. If there was going to be some sort of negative repercussions from this, I wanted to feel it first hand. I’ve never been the kid to trust someone else that the stove is hot. I’ve always in a way preferred to get burned a little. I did not get burned, even a little.

All of this put me into a much better head-space going back. I had briefly talked with Marilyn’s son in law, Matthew, earlier that morning before leaving the ceremony about his venture into medicinal and nutritional mycology and asked if he had read Aldous Huxley’s novel Island, Huxley’s vision of a Utopian society based on the influence of psychedelic mushrooms used as social medicine. Matthew said he hadn’t but that Huxley had been on his radar for a while now and he was looking forward to reading the book.

As I set out to return to the ceremony studio, I decided to move the book off of Matthew’s radar and into his front sights so I swung into the bookstore by my house and picked up the only copy they had. I also ran into my boss from my job in the parking lot of the bookstore on the way out, a nice little reminder from the universe that my Costa Rican and ayahuasca vacations would soon come to an end and I would be back in the office Monday morning.

Thanks, universe.

I was much better dressed this evening, trading in the tighter fitting linen pants for my typical baggy green harem pants, something similar to the MC Hammer pants of the late 80’s. I still wore the white cotton t-shirt but had a feeling I wouldn’t be wearing it for long if the room ended up feeling anywhere near as hot as it did the first night. I left all other clothing and most of the blankets back as well, only carrying in my one king-sized cotton blanket that I could wrap around myself several times over if I did end up catching one of those cold spells I had heard about but yet to experience.

I arrived at the studio just after 6pm and grabbed a spot pretty close to center of the back wall. Prime real estate according to David’s advice the night before. I folded and spread my blanket over my floor pad and a pillow I borrowed from the hosts (having forgot to bring one from home). I noticed that I ended up creating a smaller version of the Army bunk bedspread fold on my little floor pad and wondered where that came from. It just seemed like a fitting way to design my space at the time.

There was a woman to my right named Jan. In conversation I learned she was 63 years old and would soon turn 64. She had a place locally in a mobile home park as well as an apartment in San Francisco she would soon be returning to. She had first arrived in San Francisco in the 70’s. I told her that I had been there a few times the past year for work and we talked about how much the city has changed even since my first visit in 2005 and certainly since she originally starting splitting her time there back before I was born. San Francisco has been going through its own purge recently and at first glance it doesn’t seem like it’s been purging the right parts.

A rapidly diminishing middle class is leaving the city dirty, dangerous and inaccessible to anyone except the very rich and the very trapped.

Before the conversation got too gloomy, I mused that San Francisco had seen hard times before and she would get through hard times again. Great cities rarely die out completely, maybe once or twice in a millennium. The great Roman Empire may have fallen, but it took a long damn time and the city of Rome still stands.

Matthew and the rest of his family came in and I gave him his book. We didn’t talk much about it, I simply handed it to him with gratitude and he accepted it graciously. Matthew didn’t seem to be much of a talker, but his eyes and his face were expressive — as if there was an ocean of language in his heart that he could not speak of, and so could only resolve himself to feel completely.

I went on to mingle a bit more.

People asked how my day was and whether or not I got much sleep. I said I had gotten a few hours but mostly spent the day in active contemplation in my yard, working through the experience and lessons of the first evening. It’s not like me to be this open with people, especially ones I barely know, about my processes. There was a marked difference in my openness to conversation and willingness to go into detail about my life, my knowledge and my philosophy.

I talked a lot about my experience with the healing and therapeutic power of cold water immersion, discussing the debilitating diseases of aging like chronic venous insufficiency and the out of whack biological discordance that our post-industrial revolution society has thrust on us. I talked about my work building cold water immersion tubs and how I was on a mission to bring something previously unattainable to the private practitioner into their grasp and their price range.

For whatever myriad reasons, I was having a really good networking night. Maybe my best ever, especially considering there was no alcohol to loosen the tongue as I’m used to.

A tall, very slender woman in her late 20’s to early 30’s named Mary settled in to my left, carrying with her many fuzzy blankets and pillows. The cold perception that most people seemed to experience was still fascinating me. I wondered if maybe my training with cold immersion might have something to do with my opposite sensation of heat when others seemed to be freezing. I also wondered if it wasn’t really cold they were feeling, but instead were longing for the security that a soft blanket provided, perhaps sending their senses and mentality back to a more protected time in childhood, swaddled in their nursery comfort.

I suppose any or all things are possible.

James arrived and settled in on the other side of Mary. I noticed he had switched the white sweat pants he was wearing the night before for lighter white harem pants similar to mine. I got the feeling that he too did not feel the cold the way others did. He, too, often baths in ice. There might be something to that.

The pre-ceremony guidelines were much more brief, everyone in the room still being familiar with them from the night before. Just a brief reminder was all that was necessary; bathrooms over there, outside over there, be quiet with the doors, don’t trust a fart…yadda yadda yadda, now let’s drink some medicine.

When it came my time to drink, I raised the glass to my head and whispered the intention for the evening I had worked out earlier that day.

“Teach me how to heal. Connect me.”

The music playing was the same as the night before, and the songs even seemed to come in the same order as if they were on the same album or playlist. They may have been. I settled into the dark and waited patiently for the Madre to show me what she had in store for the second evening.

At least, I thought I was waiting patiently. What I was really doing was anticipating the purge and even holding myself back, resolved to just get through it and then on to whatever post-purge experience I was to have. I even thought I started to feel it coming and got up to go to the bathroom, still not keen on the whole purge-in-place method that others seemed more comfortable with. I also realized, after a couple of dry heaves into my bucket, that I’m a really loud purger compared to others. When other people in the room purged, you could barely hear anything more than the sound of liquid hitting the bottom of a bucket, as if someone just poured a bowl of soup into a trash can. My process was more audible than that, with coughs and grunts and other jarring sounds. Beyond the desire to not purge in place, I also wanted to be mindful of the sounds I was creating.

I took my bucket with me and went out to the hallway near the bathrooms, hanging out there as to not take up a bathroom unnecessarily and continuing to dry heave for a few moments. Nothing substantial was coming.

There was someone closed in the side room, the one they had reserved for anyone who needed to emote loudly. They were emoting loudly. Bouncing back and forth from sounds of violent purging to awe and wonder, there was no way to tell from one moment to the next if they were in heaven or hell. Maybe it was both at the same time?

I thought maybe I just didn’t have anything left to purge and maybe I would get away with a purge-free evening, then went and headed back to my floor pad in the dark.

The room was nowhere near as hot, or at least I didn’t perceive it to be. I had no quantifiable measure of the Fahrenheit temperature in the room from either this night or the night before. I started to wish I had, if for no other reason than to compare the data. I knew I was much more comfortable in my baggy pants and without all the cumbersome arctic gear I had trucked in with me the night before. I was still quickly shirtless. It wasn’t blazing hot in the room on the second night but it still wasn’t cold and I was still on the warm side.

I allowed myself to relax a bit and listen to the icaros, the ayahuasca hymns, and although they were the same songs as the night before, somehow tonight they seemed different and I was more open to them. I could pick out more of the words and translate the general messages more clearly. A lot of them are in Spanish and others a cross between Spanish and South American indigenous languages. I didn’t miss my folk songs hardly at all and allowed myself to just enjoy the guitar and playful vocals in the dark.

My mind began to expand and there were visuals similar to the first night setting in. I still wasn’t feeling the same strong connection to my environment the way I do with mushrooms, but there was definitely more of a body feeling than the first night and I found myself sitting up on my pad kind of chair-dancing with the music and playing with the visuals behind my eyes.

I noticed that, while the visuals seemed to be inviting me towards them, playful and feminine, I couldn’t approach them too quickly or with too much force. If I did, I would chase them away and have to be patient as they returned and started inviting me forward again. I had to learn to approach and accept their invitations with grace and peace, only then would they get deeper and brighter.

While this was occurring, the soothing peripheral presence was settling back into the corner of my mind. This time, with more practice and surrender, I was able to allow her, the Madre, to settle in and start to do her work on me.

I realized that she wasn’t just entertaining me, she was distracting me, drawing my attention away with playful bliss, while she worked through my body and my mind, seeking out the parts of me that held onto trauma or sickness, tension or anxiety, or whatever it is she could find that she didn’t want me to be burdened with. Her touch and process was motherly but just like Kailani the night before, it wasn’t coddling. She was doing work on me, expert work, and was rewarding me with joy for allowing her.

I understood what I was doing earlier, in trying to anticipate the purge and get it over with, was I was trying to rush her and do her job for her. Just as she did not respond well to my sarcasm, neither did she respond well to my attempts to tell her how and when to do her job.

The Madre said, “Be calm, my boy. Do not rush me. Play with my spirit while I find the bad things in you. It may take me some time. When I have found what I can and deposited it in your stomach, I will let you know. Until then, just relax”

And so I did, dancing with her spirit in the jungle visions, while I felt her working her way through me and felt her gather all that was toxic inside me. After some time, how long I have no idea, she had finished her work and deposited all that she found. I got up and walked to the bathroom and purged. I purged more black liquid than I knew was in me. I don’t know what she found, or where she found it. But whatever it was and wherever it came from, I was glad it was no longer in me.

I exited the bathroom and Shaman Gio was there waiting outside. He asked me how I was and I remarked that I was beautiful, simply beautiful. He commended me on the amazing work I was doing and I thanked him.

I felt much more free to wander a little bit, not so stuck on my floor pad like a child in time out. I still spent most of my time there, but in much more comfort and feeling of my own free will. I also still felt more connected to the room, the music, the medicine, the experience, the tribe…I was thinking like I was having a psychedelic experience more, with less volatile and emotional thought and more introspection and wonder.

The second offering came and went and the pre-recorded music went off and the live music came in. The drum circle seemed a bit more alive tonight and Amy’s aural voice more deep and meaningful. Whether that was a function of me, the medicine, the musicians or a combination of all I don’t know. I again lacked any concrete data or measure to compare the two nights in any sort of objective way.

The time I spent on my floor pad after the second offering was pleasant, introspective and slightly erotic. Many of the visions I saw behind my eyes were of female forms, walking the line between art and pornography. I started to feel guilty, as if I was looking at magazines full of tasteful nudes in a room full of other people. I wondered if there was a lesson there for me.

The Madre said, ”The difference between appreciating beauty and lusting for flesh is respect. There is no guilt in your sexual desires, my boy. So long as there is respect.”

Soon after that the female forms became familiar and I recognized them as belonging to my wife, so that helped to solidify the Madre’s message.

David set his red light down onto the floor, pointed at a carpet that was sitting on top of the plastic, and invited those parked in their floor spots to come and sit around the campfire. The psychedelic hallucinations were not so strong that this actually looked like a campfire, I knew full well that it was a flashlight pointed at the floor, but the glow of the light was ember-like enough and the context of the situation was strong enough that it served its purpose. A handful of us crawled out and created a small group sitting in silence around David’s campfire and I felt very connected in a way that I had not before.

Around the small symbolic campfire, I found a better sense of belonging with the group. I could see the walls around the room, dimly lit by the red glow, and I understood for the first time what the small individual spaces were, the purpose they served and why I wasn’t comfortable spending all of my time in my own little spot. A heuristic phrase came to me and settled into my mind.

“Ships are safest in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”

The floor pads lining the wall appeared as slips in a harbor to me, with the human ships docked. Each ship had been out in its own ocean voyage, no two voyages being alike and no two ships needing the same repair. The importance was to hold the space for each ship and allow each captain to make the repairs needed and ready themselves to set out again. Some stayed in their harbor all night, some had repairs that would take a long time, several more ceremonies. Me, I was comfortable setting sail into the middle of the room and joining David’s fire. Here again I got the sense that my ship might be a little better equipped to weather the storms of life, and there is something I need to do with that beginning with having the courage to move out and sail, carving a way for others. Charting the waters and sharing the charts I’ve already made.

I didn’t purge on the second offering. I thought I might for a few moments, retreating again to the hallway outside the bathrooms. David sat with me and asked if the energy was too much. I said that it wasn’t and that everything was beautiful, simply beautiful. And it was. I had accepted that if there was something I needed to get well over, the medicine would do her work and let me know when she was finished.

Back in the circle, Amy had started to sing some end of the evening lullabies, of the ayahuasca variety, of course. I understood why the lyrics were so focused on surrendering and asking to be healed and shown whatever lessons we needed to learn. This is what it took for the medicine to do her work, surrender, grace and a willingness and openness to receive the message.

The rapé came and went too. This night was not at all as painful as the first, but still pretty harsh. A different assistant by the name of Jeremy administered it to me. He too was kind but guiding, not allowing me to succumb to the painful sensations to the point that I shied away from the fullness of the experience.

Then there was fruit, and socializing, and chicken soup. I stayed a little bit longer the second morning, although still not terribly long. I was tired, and looking forward to walking barefoot in my yard, contemplating the experience for all that it was.