Psychedelic Space Odyssey: My first Ayahuasca Journeys with Om-Mij, Valencia, Summer 2020

Surrender; Accept; Love.

Surrender.

Accept.  

Love.

SurrenderAcceptLove.

With crossed legs, closed eyes and upturned palms, I softly chant the words, as I have practised in meditation, with effortless gentleness. Currents of sickness slowly encroach and gently dissipate, my mantra acting as a wave breaker on the shore of my consciousness. A smug, and admittedly premature smile plays on my lips; I’m successfully navigating the first five minutes of my first ever ayahuasca journey like an intergalactic ninja-monk!

The words of instantly likeable retreat leader Tom, echo in my mind; ‘You are all spiritual warriors, and you have my respect and admiration’.  This had been the last statement, both encouraging and ominous, to be delivered during our informative and comprehensive initiation talk at Om-Mij, a company that has been running spiritual-healing retreat centres in Holland and deep in the Spanish Valencian countryside since 2011.  I’ve come to Spain after years of research, hesitation and deliberation to drink ayahuasca, a fabled South American medicine comprised of a high dose of the extremely potent psychedelic N-dimethyltryptamine, which is said to heal depression, trauma and burnout through showing you visions of the fair and foul secrets, locked away in your subconscious.

My visuals begin in a not entirely pleasant manner. Obscene, trashy and transparent humanoid shapes with winking eyes and bulbous bottoms squat and thrust their haunches towards me, so I can almost feel the soft, oppressive pressure of their bodies.  I’ve met these figures before, the outlandish gatekeepers of what later transpire to be superb psilocybin journeys. In the choppy waters of this jolting, discordant beginning I manage to remain buoyant; Surrender, Accept, Love.

I’ll later reflect on how this refrain, so vital to my survival, adrift amongst the psychedelic waves of the DMT I have recently drunk, needs to consecrated as the presiding melody of my life. Surrender to what is. Accept what you cannot change. Love even that which brings pain and turbulence, as compassion and kindness is…everything. The first and perhaps most vital lesson of my ayahuasca experience.

Still seated, I feel pressure, like that of tender but powerfully insistent hands pushing down on my body. Ok; Surrender. I lie back into the soft comfort of my mattress, one of many, spread in a circular shape around a central candlelit altar in the hallowed ceremony space, each a bark bearing its own psychic-sailor into the uncharted territory of our subconscious minds.  Here be dragons. But here, we collectively hope, can also be found the sparkling, sea-washed treasure of our essential beings, wrecked by the ego and long-drowned by societal conditioning.  

As increasingly vibrant colours and increasingly subtle shapes play before my eyes I am captivated by the music. Ranging from Enya to Icaro-trance remixes, the soundtrack does not represent my usual music taste. Whilst one participant, having undergone a particularly difficult and emotion-laden journey, hilariously labelled it ‘Cheesy Lion-King-Shit’, most of us found the carefully composed track list to be spiritually uplifting and emotionally probing, a score of soaring and searing beauty under the influence of the powerful plant medicine. Having previously planned to travel to Peru to experience an ayahuasca retreat I now have second thoughts. Despite their central significance in Shipibo theology, I’m not sure the indigenous music could resonate with me so powerfully as the melodic experience provided at Om-mij. I mean no disrespect, here and would certainly study the cosmology and culture of ayahuasca should I visit South America. However, even now when I listen to the track list thoughtfully provided by the Om Mij team I weep and swim in love and reverence for the Universe. In one of the most beautiful moments of the ceremony, one of the guides, Gerben, a powerful guy with a resonant, baritone voice, began singing along with a track called ‘Raise your voice’ by Suyana and Mose. His lovely masculine tones harmonising with the feminine voice of the original singer; ‘In this sacred space - Where I open my heart’.  The sound was like liquid love mainlined straight to the soul. Every heart in the room exploded.

The white-clad guides flit softly around us, like angelic-medics wafting palm-frond fans over our sweltering bodies, delighting us by misting delicately fragranced agua de florida, (a liquid containing what are believed to be gently healing Amazonian plants), and soothingly playing musical instruments around us. I felt like Shakespeare’s fleshy Caliban enthralled in spiritual rapture on his magical island;

“Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears…The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again”. 

Again, I recall our pep talk, just an hour earlier, but which now felt several universes away, in which Klaudia, (one of the owners of Om-Mij), had reassuringly told us we should feel no embarrassment or inhibition in the ceremony room. We might sing, scream, shake, salsa, shout, shit, sick-up, shriek or streak; these were all normal bodily reactions to purge the medicine or repressed emotion from our bodies, and were a natural part of the healing process. ‘We’ve seen it all. There is no need to worry. You are safe’. Indeed, the dancing, dedicated guides, all smiles and patience, created an energetic-electric-tribal cradle of love and acceptance. The perfect vessel, overflowing with trust and compassion, in which to exorcise the demons of your unconscious or adventure into the outer reaches of your soul.

 

By now I’m dancing. First my arms fly upwards, circling and weaving through the air, thick with the almost visible music. Then I’m on my knees, arms outstretched, palms open to the sky, revering the love and energy palpably pouring from the heavens. Now I’m on my feet, dancing like I’ve never danced before in my life. In my younger years I experimented with MDMA but could never lose myself in the music. I often felt clumsy and rhythmically deficient. Flashing smiles from other ravers would be paranoidly interpreted as mocking. Spurned by the sweating, heaving dance floor, I’d soon wobble to the chill-out room to chat, gurn and luxuriate in the ripples of pleasure caused by my chemical rush. Now, not a single shred of self-consciousness remains. I’m liquid. There’s no me left. I’m possessed by an alien-electrical force. There’s a snake in my spine, moving my body to its own serpentine pulse, with no reference to my conscious mind. Marching to the beat of its own drum. I stretch to the limits of my being and bow to the depths of the earth and worship the sky and salute the sun. With clasped arms I tenderly rock my entire being under the streaming music-love-shower. Now my hands are in prayer to my forehead and my body sways as the room erupts with the sound of vomiting and weeping. It seems others in the room are having a very hard time. I have just enough self-awareness to reflect on my luck; my research revealed to me Aya journeys, especially first times, are not always so ecstatic. I try to send love and empathy with every cell of my body and thread of my soul towards the wailing corners and the weeping shapes.

Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void; It is shining. It is shining.

This entire time my visions (again, I feel blessed to be experiencing these, a celebrated, but by no means a guaranteed feature of Ayahuasca experiences) are very strong and beautiful, and experienced with both open and shut eyes. They were of course indescribable. A constantly churning, kaleidoscopic ocean of mosaic pieces in which pink and purple colours were particularly prominent, as if a ton of rubies and amethysts had been shattered with a glass hammer and sent skimming, glistening across a crystal-clear, sky reflecting lake. Whoever thought diamonds are a girl’s best friend hadn’t experienced this whirling wonderland of precious stones. Light of an impossible, otherworldly brightness streams from above. Vivid electricity flashes and sparks around me.

A gurgling, uneasy stomach sends me to the bathroom, tenderly aided by Rory, a dark haired, dark eyed guide, from whom spirituality emanates. Here I trip heavily as I empty my seething stomach violently. My confusion is immeasurable. Who am ‘I’? What is ‘toilet’? I’m straining to remember what concepts like ‘job’ or ‘family’ mean.  I can’t conceptualise or even remember anything about my life before or beyond this moment. No map or compass or anchor. Leaving the bathroom I cannot work out whether I have dressed myself again. After all, what is ‘clothes’? A momentary flash of panic is quickly dispersed by Rory, who seems perfectly attuned to my confused state. ‘I can’t work out…am I ok?’. ‘Always perfect’, he replies. Words that anchor me to the cliff edge and save me from free-fall.

Back in the room and back to dancing. I momentarily consider stopping but then decide that ‘dancing is my job’ and giggle liberally at the silly sounding concept. Only in the morning do I decide to interpret these words metaphorically in a blinding flash of inspiration. We are not placed on this earth to kill ourselves working, to murder our days, destroy our hours and strangle our seconds in the mindless pursuit of money or occupational status. I’ve spent the last twelve years doing just this, to the detriment of my mental health and domestic happiness. Rather, we are here to find joy and self-expression and to exercise our bodies, immerse our minds and feed our souls through this pursuit. 

Somehow, I drum up the courage to drink a second cup when the time comes. I’m already floating in the outer-reaches of space on a single dose, whist some others have had to drink several times to feel any effects. Again, I’m lucky. Sensitivity to Aya has nothing to do with build I have been instructed, and may change each time you drink it. This second dose slows me down. Now I have to dance lying flat on my back (because not dancing is not an option). But I’m wearier, sadder, sicker. I manage to vomit into my bucket. A few seconds later, I feel brand-new, having sloughed the skin of sickness.  

My attention turns momentarily to my fellow drinkers. Eleven of us. Strangers with whom, in a matter of days I would feel deep bonds of connection and respect. One of my great fears before coming to the retreat was the concept of consuming la medicina with others. I’ve long decided that for me, psychedelics are best taken in private, floating freely in blissful, uninterrupted contemplation. How would I deal with the noise of others? Would their presence cause paranoia? Oh, how I wish I could have a private ceremony! How misguided I was. The energy that built up in the room was remarkable.  It simmered in low groans and moans, imperceptibly kneading a ball of energy into existence, which linked us together in unconscious anticipation. Then suddenly, the energy would explode as somebody cried out or laughed or barked. Yes, barked. Then the tension would evaporate into gladness and everybody would feel lighter, like we had undergone a communal purge. The moment before the pressure roared and broke would feel as if there were an insane conductor, one hand a tension filled claw thrust forth, the other, white knuckled with raised baton, who suddenly swept her arm down like lightning. The frenzied orchestra would react through bursts of infectious laughter, crazed howls, guttural curses or orgasmic sighs.  We were alone on our mattresses in the mazes of our minds, but these instances hauled us into the presence of each other, to momentarily share our madness, joy, pain; then exorcise it.  And in the darkness, I would hear strong men crying. And these moments of vulnerability, alongside the open conversations and sensitivity of the men I met were so touching and beautiful.  This contradicted and healed much of the distrust of some men I have felt over the years due to suffering patriarchal abuse or absorbing toxic media stereotyping.

  

Another trip to the toilet where I empty my entire insides into the bowl. Having lost what feels like half my body weight, I face myself in the mirror. There is no iris visible in my eyes. Just disks of jet black. I like what I see. I let out an appreciative howl. That feels so bloody good. So liberating and so clear. I howl again, longer and louder. Pleasure erupts throughout my body. My clarion voice seems to take on a will of its own. I look deep into my round obsidian eyes, fill my lungs and emit a war cry, like a mounted Apache riding into battle. Pleased with this experiment, with the clarity and tone of the sound and the cathartic feel of the cry, I do it again. And again. And again. And again. Strolling out of the bathroom feeling about ten feet tall, I impulsively let myself sink to the ground.  The cold floor feels so wonderful on my back. I shriek and shout and make siren noises, experimenting with volume, tone and length. It feels like an icy drink in the desert, or a lungful of air to a surfacing free diver.  I’m not sure who or what is in control. But I let myself go and it feels so good. The entire time a watchful guide accompanies me, with supportive smiles and playful laugher.  As my cries become more plaintive and more infrequent, a soft voice says ‘Are you ready to return to the ceremony room now?’ which causes a new eruption of noise and nonsense. I had no idea what this meant until reflecting upon it in the morning. The predominant style of my journeys tended less towards instant revelation, more toward sudden light filled epiphanies that might occur the next day, the next journey or even the next week, when I suddenly was able to interpret with razor sharp clarity what the meaning of my experience was.

Back on the mattress the ceremony room begins to empty, as others begin to land their spacecraft. I seem to have one-to-one supervision, in the form of caring Rory, and I suspect this is because I’ve been lost in deep space and am only just back on the radar system.  Eventually I’m ready to walk and talk and grabbing a few mouthfuls of food on the way, I’m accompanied to a comfy seating area of throws and cushions. I’m having trouble readjusting to Earth. Although my journey seems wonderful upon reflection, the centrifugal forces were so strong that I’m feeling fractured and confused, an alien amongst the smiling faces of my fellow psychonauts. I can’t process what has happened to me; I’ve returned without a map of the starsystem.  Big hearted Mary radiates welcome and compliments and kindness, words that fly straight into my heart and help to repair my shattered sense of self, finally allowing gravity to do its work. A small group of us smoke and laugh and talk into the night, exchanging sweet, heartfelt words of praise and encouragement. Eventually I retire to bed, but not to sleep, as my overly stimulated mind is still orbiting around the mysteries of my journey.  

Here am I floating /round my tin can / Far above the Moon /Planet Earth is blue /And there's nothing I can do.

The first to rise in the morning at a shockingly early hour, I reflect and write about what I experienced. The jigsaw fits together with speed and ease. Finally…touchdown.  I have frequently read that ‘Ayahuasca doesn’t give you what you want, but what you need’. I completely concur.  One might hope and intend to explore one’s feelings about, say, a romantic relationship, but ayahuasca explores a childhood trauma instead. Whilst this may appear erroneous at first glance, at a later date a drinker may come to learn that this event caused a blockage that has impacted one’s attitudes in future relationships, or even decide that the issue Ayahuasca sought to explore had a much more pressing importance in one’s spiritual evolution.  I have also experienced a continuity between ceremonies, like the acts in a play, the first and second ceremony introduce themes and foreshadows events which the denouement of the third act or ceremony will solve or unravel. Like Chekov’s famous firearm, a glimpsed gun in Act one will be fired in Act three. When there seems such method in the madness of our journeys, as we spin through dreaming-darkness, it is not surprising that some people assign some kind of preternatural or even extra-terrestrial intelligence to the plants involved in ayahuasca, having also experienced the presence, or even conversed with a benevolent but exacting Abuela or Madre figure in their visions.  However, I prefer to believe the chemicals awaken my untapped, infinitely potent intuition; deep down I sense what I need to heal and under the influence of DMT this unbounded intelligence is awakened, stirred from its hibernation.  Personally, I think the latter explanation to be just as marvellous as the former.  However, who knows what I would begin to believe, if were to only I heed the siren call to just drink more?  

So why, when after all I had researched about Ayahuasca, and was expecting a deeply philosophical, harrowing mental exploration of the thorny forests of my subconscious, did I instead experience a bliss-filled, completely physical journey that felt, for the most part, devoid of thought? It occurs to me that my mind is often a labyrinthine dungeon constructed of malicious barbed wire and ancient, immovable brick.  My social anxiety and my raw and sensitive ego result in overthinking and monotonous mind-loops as I second guess what I should say and do, and overanalyse the responses of others. A conversation feels like a drunken jaunt into a hall of mirrors, in which I see ugly and distorted visions of myself reflected back in the misinterpreted remarks or behaviour of friends and colleagues. An exhausting, blaring monologue of self-criticism runs concurrently with many conversations, provoking and distracting me with self-destructive commentary.  But in my first ceremony, all of this fell away. I danced and howled with abandon, an essential, elastic thing glowing with sparking electrons and neurons.  A physical and vocal purge, powerful and primal.  This felt like a soulful, expressive, joyful release from the heart and core. Powerful-fluid-latent energy hollered to the stars. Infinite and unquenchable.  Aya showed me who I really am, under the smothering layers of the socially moulded self. Aya showed me who I can be, if I can quiet and ignore my self-manufactured mental shackles. We are born free, but everywhere we are in chains. I don’t dwell in this mode of consciousness often, and need to get beyond the ego to plunge into the deeper, cooler waters of being. But how to do this? Aya has shown me the glittering prize on the horizon, now how do I negotiate the chasms and cliffs to get back there? A central question I will explore.  Unbelievably, all this came from ceremony number one. What in the name of heaven, (or hell), would the next two dates with Mother Ayahuasca show me?

Most of this, the second day is given over to relaxation and conversation.  We are free to explore the large villa and sprawling outside area. The house doesn’t feel like a holiday let or hotel, but rather like the house of a very rich but very down-to-earth friend who has lent you the keys for the weekend.  Every corner and corridor is beautifully decorated with Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, bright tribal rugs and elegantly spinning dream-catchers. The whole house is infused with a vibrant, spiritual medley of colour and creativity.   A large kitchen is available for grazing at leisure. Whilst nutritious and tasty vegan and vegetarian food is laid out at informal meal times, (my troubled tummy meant I couldn’t make the most of this), fresh bread, fruit and hummus alongside tea and coffee are available anytime.   The house has a multitude of chill-out spaces; palm-tree shaded sun loungers by the very generously sized pool, hammocks swinging delicately in the breeze, roof terraces and breezy balconies and, (my favourite place), a Moroccan-tiled porch bedecked with mountains of cushions.  We could easily split into small groups to talk and reflect, or to take ourselves off for private contemplation, writing or meditation.  There were plenty of opportunities for exercise ranging from swimming to yoga to climbing the nearby mountain. When not impeded by Covid 19 related restrictions, guests take a longer outing to nearby beauty spots, though I found the villa so enticing and homely and the people so warm that I would have been happy never to have left! The Spanish Sun beamed down on our happy and eclectic little community, but as the villa occupies an elevated position in the Valencian mountains we were blessed by pleasant, refreshing winds.

And the people! I can’t remember the last time I have met such an intelligent, empathetic group of humans. We shared so many common interests, and where united by our search for completeness and purpose, which was usually accompanied by a combined desire to bring about a freer, fairer, friendlier world. I was inspired by their bravery and altruism.  There was lovely Mary, who was the life and soul of any room she brightened by her presence, but felt paranoid about the world rebuffing her. Mary, that would be like a body rejecting its heart!  Beautiful and thoughtful Sebastian, golden inside and out, whose every utterance was accompanied by a resplendent smile.  Cool and clever Ola, who had amazing journeys full of highly deserved self-actualisation.  Melanie and Rudolph, a couple completely dedicated to each other, who perfectly mirrored each other’s attractiveness and integrity. Handsome and hilarious Peter, a fearless, psychedelic pirate whose adventurous spirit awed and inspired me with its unbridled freedom and undaunted will to roam. Shining Franca whose eloquent and insightful words sang like Olympian wind-chimes.  Her beauty and ethics were flawless and shone out in every direction, like a light refracting prism.  Nikki was an archetype of grounded feminine wisdom and tranquillity. The human incarnation of Grace.  Daniel who had big blue eyes like deep mountain lakes, as unfathomable and serene as his soul. One day he may train as a Shaman, and will be magnificent.  Wojtek, mighty and muscly, who was man enough to show us the funny, playful kitten inside his heart.  As our Aya experiences chipped away at our reserve, we were able to compliment and praise each other, reaching out across the void of social distance. Aya opened up our chests and we poured love into the empty spaces. I felt pumped up on steroids of sweetness and self-confidence.  Thought this might appear to be self-indulgent navel gazing, I remember the words of Ram Dass; “I can do nothing for you but work on myself...you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!” We can change the world, piece by piece by beginning inside out.  If I can heal myself, and emit slightly reduced pollutants into the world in the form of envy, judgement and unkindness, then my karmic footprints leave but a light impression.

On the afternoon of the second day we convene for our regular post ceremony sharing session. We sit in a circle, the air pregnant with anticipation as each participant shares his or her experiences.  Each person could say as much or as little as they wanted, in an atmosphere of unadulterated acceptance and positive regard. The experiences were highly varied, testament to ayahuasca’s capricious nature. Some participants had been in a world of pain, others bliss-filled summer meadows whilst one or two people had felt very little, even after doubling or tripling their dosages. The therapeutic effect of hearing other’s internal struggles which contrast so dramatically with their seemingly happy and whole exteriors could not be measured.  I realised that my own struggles are more universal than I could believe. Hearing other’s brave admissions, I resolved to make my own confession.  I teared up, much to my surprise, as I admitted my social anxiety, something I normally try to hide behind a polished mask.  As most participants went to prepare for our second ceremony, guides Lulu and Rory stayed behind to comfort and counsel me, and their genuine concern and constructive suggestions were highly effective and appreciated.

The guides deserve to be described in more detail, as the depths of their wisdom, compassion and patience should be celebrated. Lulu is so assuredly serene and entirely sleek.  She has an old soul in a young body, completely dynamic and sophic at once.  If past lives exist, she was an Empress. Sage Rory, realises that by rejecting the material world you gain the world.   He is completely brilliant and talented in a million ways, and rather than saving those talents to serve himself, he chooses to lavish them on others. The smile was invented for Colin; his lights his face and his whole being. Colin is the easiest man to get on with in the world and made me feel like I’d come home. Huge- hearted and hilarious Gerben, has the build of a bouncer, the voice of an angel and the soul of a saint. Adam is simply pure spirited and joyful to the core. He should be forced to move to a cold country like the UK as he takes the sunshine with him wherever he goes.  Finally, we have Tom, one of the, most welcoming, funny and magnetic men you could meet.   

By late afternoon on the second day, we have assembled for our second ayahuasca flight. The ceremony room is the beating heart of the house. If feels deeply sanctified and seems to hold a mysterious vitality. Roomy and fan-cooled, decorated with tapestries and bejewelled with the vivid artwork of hundreds of previous guests, who have moaned and sung and sighed inside this room, then left a little part of their souls on small squares of canvas to delight and encourage their successors.

Soft and mystical music greets the brave pilgrim as they enter the hallowed space in wary anticipation. In our psychedelic church Tom steps forth as presiding minister, and leads the ceremony in the same manner as the preceding evening. Oh boy, if most priests were like him, then take me to church!  The gravity of the occasion stirs our spirits and hardens our resolve. At Tom’s invitation we join hands and close our eyes and breathe together, galvanising us on the threshold of our journey. Next comes rapé, a sacred Amazonian medicinal tobacco, inhaled up the nose. After you blink your tears away and shake the sharp feeling from your forehead, your mind feels serene and focused. Just the thing to tame the talons of fear that have slowly begun to creep up your back and hiss slyly in your ear.  Next, you receive a cup of the first ingredient of the ayahuasca.  Ayahuasca can be created from a number of different plants, most the famously the Banisteriopsis Caapi vine in combination with a plant containing DMT. Different combinations of plants are used depending on the geographical location. One plant will always counteract the effect of monoamine oxidase in your stomach which breaks down the DMT, meaning this hallucinogenic chemical can do its thing. At Om Mij they serve the plants separately at twenty-minute intervals which means you take off quicker.  After bravely necking the rancid-tasting concoction, which you chase with a piece of mint or pineapple, you take it in turns to set your intentions, by lighting a candle, then returning to your seat to wish god’s speed to your fellow pilots.  Next, the second, DMT containing cup; take your protein pills and put your helmet on.  On the occasion of this second ceremony you may select your starting dosage, depending on the strength of the effect of the previous night’s beverage, though a great thing about Om-Mij is that you can drink more anytime should you need it. I keep to a single shot, which last night, had catapulted me through the dark ether at warp-speed

As soon as the DMT hits my embattled stomach it lurches ominously – I’m not going to be able to hold it down. Before I receive my customary hug from each member of the team, I’m straight to my mattress, clutching my bucket. Before long, the foul-smelling liquid lands in it.  I’ve been reassured that, contrary to my impression, you don’t need to attempt to keep the medicine down to increase the effect; the moment it hits your stomach it begins to do its work, and indeed, the purging may kickstart its effect.

I lie back to await what may transpire, but psychologically I’m not in a good place, despite last night’s beautiful experience. I’ve slept little, shit a lot, eaten sparsely and my body feels so delicate, light and weak. My stomach is still gurgling and I wish I could have a night off.

But Mama Aya is inexorable. And she’s speeding towards me.

Funnily enough, the very worst time to decide you don’t want to take a psychedelic is just after you take the psychedelic.

A feeling of complete paralysis envelops me.

The room seems to fill with yellow-green mist. I feel underwater. I feel uncomfortably constrained, in the clutches of a trip I don’t want. I hold my mouth open as if to pull in additional air that my limp body desires so much. Mutely, I ineffectually tilt my head and watch the patrolling guides with my eyes – I briefly consider calling for help – which I might do if I were able to summon up the strength. I feel like a fly wrapped in the silken web of a spider, whilst she waits for her lunch break.  This episode feels close to a minor panic attack and represents the only moments of terror I felt on my three journeys. Luckily this only lasted for a very haunting, but thankfully very brief sixty seconds or so.

The visions begin. I suddenly embrace them – shooting my hands into the air. The feeling of oppression and the music seem to lift and colourfully explode simultaneously. As my old friends, the vaguely anthropomorphic shapes serenely float past, my hands make circles as if I am caressing them. I’m almost touching them. I dance with my arms, again moving them with alien vitality in an outlandish and foreign manner, swinging and swimming through the melodies and beats of the music; this continues for the entire trip. Often, I thrust my arms into the air, palms up, as if to receive the radiance of the visions into my body.

The visions have taken on a space theme and I’m surprised that the location, colour pallet and style are completely incomparable to last night’s journey.  Will Mother Aya always provide such a varied banquet? No wonder people keep drinking this stuff!

For hours, I watch a gargantuan, infinitely expanding space-station of the brightest, light-reflecting hue float past. It looks new-cast of frozen mercury, and sparkles with an impossibly bright light.  Some panels are mirrored, and embedded into its many sides are screens which blink and crackle with ethereal sparks.  I travel through the ports, chambers and tunnels of this majestic craft, which glides with heavenly grace to the hymn-like music, hanging perpetually in the sky in eternal serenity. Each room quivers and expands revealing staircases and halls more palatial and infinite than the one before.  Panels of gold displaying embossed Hindu gods unfurl towards me with a gentle-sacred motion.  Neon circuit boards of hieroglyphics and numbers flash and twinkle.

For the entire duration of the space-flight, I am immersed and saturated with feelings of complete, endless and absolute bliss, love and safely.  One thousand leagues deep, in boundless space, beautifully beset with uninterrupted waves of love and energy.  At one point I receive a message, an order concerning self-love. I kiss my own arm with a tenderness and conviction I’ve possibly never felt. An oath of self-devotion as strong as binding iron.

Then, I have a vision where we sweep away from my spaceship, through a cave to an altar in a cove before a crashing ocean. The words LET GO appear and disappear in smoke and float out of view.

This gentle, enchanting trip was also far easier to navigate physically though I still made lots of trips to the toilet to purge and some soft howling, far less violent and punishing than before.

I sleep in the ceremony room on my mattress made of clouds. I manage to get a few hours in before my restless mind rouses me, and I sit in the dark garden in the warm young morning to think and write.

The third morning begins with a great sense of satisfaction over the blissful and loving experience me and Mrs. Ayahuasca had shared last night and I contentedly listen to others’ stories.  It seems the entire group had had satisfying, loving and revelatory encounters. One girl had been talking to an alien, and shown the destiny of a yet to be conceived child! Another boy had become a tiger and talked to Madre Aya. Somebody else had travelled through the cosmos, receiving answers to all of her questions. Yet another had learnt how to navigate his relationship with his father.

My mood begins to darken.  My satisfaction begins to abate. I got lovely visions, granted. But I didn’t get many ‘messages’ directly transmitted to me.  I didn’t talk to anything, let alone Ayahuasca herself! What about those biographical videos you are meant to get on Aya? Like a cinema of the soul?  I just got a great trip full of…what…a spaceship?  That’s not what you come and take Ayahuasca for!  I’m meant to unearth the secrets of my soul and confront my true destiny and emerge newly baptised from this experience a completely changed person! I start to get stuck in an ugly and vicious carousel of dissatisfaction and confusion. Perhaps I haven’t drunk enough? Maybe I haven’t experienced it properly?  I can’t resolve whether I should drink more in my final ceremony, trying to balance my fear, sickness and my desire for a supposedly more ‘authentic’ or ‘complete’ experience.

Stuck in this mind-loop for hours with no resolution I begin to sink into a terrible, weary sadness.  I don’t want to be here.  My experience was superficial and stupid.  I’m scared of more, but I’m tired of where I am.  After hours spent like this, I’m lying under a palm tree by an azure swimming pool whose surface shimmers with diamonds. Supine, on a lounger under a smiling sun, yet depressed by crushing sadness.

Suddenly; I burst into hysterical peals of laughter.  The guys at the pool notice and laugh along with me. They might have omitted a howl or two, a noise I’ve made infamous during the previous nights’ histrionics. I laugh and laugh with joy at the absurdity of my revelation.  This episode is a metaphor for my LIFE.

I’ve had two gentle trips in which I’ve danced my arse off, bathed in beauty and awe, swathed in boundless love, and I’m looking around at others and deciding what I have experienced isn’t good enough.  In a similar vein I have a perfect life. A soulmate whose every fibre of being I adore. A perfect little house.  Good health, adequate food, heat, clothes; I am surrounded by plenty, love and fulfilment.  Yet I always, always compare myself unfavourably to others. I always downplay and demote my own achievements and yearn after what others have.  I eclipse my considerable assets, both personal and material through covetous contrast with friends, colleagues and celebrities.

If the old fables are to be believed, envy, greed and comparison made even the brightest angel in heaven fall, first into a mental, and finally into a physical hell. SO PLEASE, stop comparing yourself to others, and if you fall into that trap, reflect with gratitude on your blessings.  Recognise your life is a paradise and that satisfaction will always, always be illusive if you don’t manage to banish or ignore your self-sabotaging mental folly.  

Day four comprises our final ceremony, which, I am told, often ties the other journeys together and provides clarity and closure. This is an enticing thought.  I want to go deeper, so increase my starting dose, though as tonight’s medicine is a new batch and promises to be stronger, I tentatively increase my dose to one and a half cups rather than a double shot. 

The physical and visual effects start almost immediately, as usual, before the other drinkers. This time the disconcerting opening visions are highly biographical. A silver, convex pin-board appears, full of crisp and ultra-real close-up pictures of myself. I flinch as I often dislike photographs of myself. Immediately, my body is possessed with the same physical energy and affinity with the music I have previously experienced and I raise my arms in the sky in reverence whilst light flows around and through me. Bliss, love and happiness surround me.  Somebody sighs “I love you” into the lonely air; the word is repeated in a soft ripple around the circle, “I love you”, “I love you”, “I love you”, the winged words like an effervesce of exquisite butterflies fluttering from stillness into space.  This is going to be a lovely curtain call.

I ask to think about my relationship with my dad.

I see him as a tiny baby and I physically bend my limb to receive him. I can feel him cradled there in the nook of my arm. I’m awash with feelings of tender love and protection. His fragility. His humanity.  This moment remined me to gracefully accept his shortcomings and reminded me of his fallibility. Why do we keep expecting the world from our parents even as they become frailer? Perhaps he and I have changed places and it is my turn to protect and nurse him as he once selflessly nursed me? I need to forgive the fraught years and focus on those olden days in which he was the perfect father to an adoring child who thought her daddy was the light that rose in the east. Use the memory of this absolute love to heal the pain of estrangement the teenage girl and adult woman have felt towards her father. He’s not been perfect and nor have I. He tried his best.  Never mind. Let go the past. Now it’s my turn to repay the absolute adoration he showed me as a baby.  Before it’s too late.

So far, so good.  I ask to think about the roots of my lack of self-love and self-criticism.  I don’t know if the following happened in exactly this order, or if my memory is trying to give it significance. But then, I think, everything went black.

My magnificent, lustrous visions suddenly stopped.

I tried to keep engaged as my feelings of blissful happiness were still there, yet they slowly subsided.  I drank two more half cups, but to no avail.  I couldn’t get back to where I was, emotionally or visually.

I feel like a bird, flailing  with violently torn wings. My visions! The beauty! Where have they gone? I was soaring through the heavens, now I’m pinned, grovelling on the floor. I want to purge but nothing comes…I dry heave and groan into the bucket. I need the bathroom but I cannot summon the energy.   I’m nailed to the mattress, drained and defeated. The atrocious nausea and pain in my stomach builds.  The funny and frightening thing about ayahuasca is you can travel from the heights of elation to the depths of dejection in the same journey, sometimes without understanding why. For me, the experience is so all-enveloping that it is impossible to rationalise ‘Ok, so now the Aya has taken you to a dark place, it will pass’. Rather, you are just there, trapped in all-surrounding darkness.  I’ve forgotten all the advice about acceptance and surrender which make dark episodes in Aya journeys bearable, or can even cause the storm clouds to part.  I lie in dusky depression with only my inexplicable pain for hours. Weeks. Years. I want to cry but cannot. My eyes are so dry. I feel a little ashamed and self-conscious, feelings that were a thousand miles away in the previous two journeys. Eventually Lulu comes over. Big, turquoise, compassionate cat eyes stare down at my weak and prostate self, abject and miserable to the core of my shrivelled heart. She strokes my back, my hair and holds my hand in the most tender-hearted way, with the gentleness of a feather borne on the breath of Elysian winds. It feels so gentle, even maternal.  It lifts me somewhat. Revives me a little.

After what feels like an age I manage to be helped to the bathroom. I shit myself inside out and manage to vomit a little. That’s a little better. Looking into the mirror, my eyes black moons and my facial outline soft and indefinite, I expel (what Lulu has labelled a) baby-husky howl into the air.

It’s time to try to eat. I manage some rebirthday pie.  I try to chat to my elated friends, but something still doesn’t feel right.  I go outside alone and lie in the stillness of the chill night under the disinterested stars. 

I cry and cry and cry. Let it go (the message on the altar from my previous trip).  Fucking Finally. I hold my sides. Kick my legs. Howl and scream.  Such pain, such pity for myself. I get it out.  Then I dance. Hands in reverence to the universe, swaying and whirling through that anguish.  Eventually I feel light enough to sleep in the tranquil womb of the ceremony space.

It’s the morning of our fifth and final day.  I’m low.  Everyone else seems awash with love, in the post-coital glow of their nights spend in the arms of the Universe. I cannot understand what my dark and painful episode meant and I feel cheated of my final, climactic journey.  I seem to have been left without answers. The guides are on hand, soft eyes full of the most genuine love and concern, to counsel and encourage me.  ‘The solutions will come’, prophesises Colin; ‘Maybe tomorrow or next week or next month, but they will come’. Ayahuasca keeps working, if you preserve your connection with the plant through abstinence towards drugs, alcohol and various foods as well as avoiding toxic people, media and places. Hopeful, but not convinced, I sleepwalk through the rest of the morning.  At a final sharing session every participant expresses their feelings of deepest gratitude and contentment for the gifts Ayahuasca has conferred on them and the professionalism and expertise of the staff at Om-Mij.   After partaking in some art to celebrate our experiences, we re-join the world, feeling reborn and rejuvenated.

Except me. My ennui is anomalous, a succubus squatting on my shoulder as my friends stroll through sun-lit spring orchards.  I’m given a lift down the road to catch a ferry to Ibiza in order to meet my partner and spend a few days relaxing in the sunshine.  Peter, a gorgeous guy from the retreat tags along, and I’m infinitely grateful for his warm company.  The distraction stops me wallowing in despondency.

I awake that night to a flashback. The world is blissfully swimming and waves of colour are dancing before me.  I look in the mirror and weep; such incredible feelings of self-love and happiness for my existence are present.

The puzzle is solved. I write and write.  The meaning of that difficult trip can suddenly be interpreted in a multitude of ways, each as compelling and vital as the last. This is some of what I wrote:

I had had two and a half journeys of joy and happiness. Then I asked to explore the routes of my self-criticism and I was plunged into darkness, an inescapable prison with only myself for company. Suddenly I understood why.  You spend most of your waking hours hating yourself. There is no enemy or sadist so cruel as you are to yourself. You are your own nemesis. You are like a ravenous, murder-monkey consuming your heart, gnawing at your bones, defecating over the leaves of your future and the branches of your soul. Grunting as you dig up the roots of your past to reveal what is rotten and unspeakable, putrefying the pure air of the present moment.  How come you can have such pity and compassion for others, you do whatever you can to be kind and helpful, but you refuse to extend any charity to yourself? Every day of your life, you are combatting this negative and critical voice, battling the weight of self-loathing, avoiding the traps of self-sabotage. You need to replace this voice with self-love. Stop telling yourself you are ugly and inferior and unworthy. You are beautiful and equal and admirable. Say it every day. Say it every time a negative sentiment comes into your head. Redirect those neural pathways. Retune your brain. Restring the broken instrument of your mind. Replace that discordance with a celebratory melody.

Remember; after the tears and the pain you started to dance.  Isn’t that something? In the depths of despair, you found a way to struggle on.  You have often felt ashamed of perceived failures in your past, namely years of depression which you would seek to hide in shame.  You are not a defective person or incomplete for having low moods - you are a warrior and a survivor who can be surrounded by darkness but still weave your iconoclastic, tender-perfect song in golden thread across the empty and heartless jet-black sky. 

My experiences don't make me less; they make me greater, not imperfect but extraordinary.  To keep going, to keep trying is heroic. And it is a battle sometimes.  But you can completely flip the script. Suffering is not a smear of shame; it is a badge of honour. For you and all people –every single member of the human race – who have been knocked back but keep on going.  Stop judging yourself or perceive that others will judge you; love yourself and all your brothers and sisters whose broken pasts make them noble and celebrate your honourable battle scars. The broken, dusty and blood-smeared human who limps from a field of battle is a more rounded and more heroic figure than the naïve and as yet untested soldier who rides, fresh faced with gleaming armour towards the fight.

With these revelations, the darkness subsides. The horrible final journey makes complete and perfect sense, and I am so grateful for it. If, no when I take ayahuasca again, I will welcome the dark experiences as I now know that they have an important and healing purpose. My mood has been sky-high since this moment and is still, weeks later, up in the clouds. I have written a list of changes that I that I will try to enact in my life, to keep reaching toward a fuller, happier state of existence, after the anti-depressant afterglow of the ayahuasca subsides.  At present my self-critical narrative has all but disappeared. My mind feels tranquil. I’m praising myself frequently. I haven’t had alcohol for weeks, nor felt any great compulsion to comfort eat or reach for other stimulants. I’m happy and satisfied in my own company. I dance. I’m being creative, (like writing these words right now), lost for hours in a passionately focused state.  I feel more patience and compassion for others, and am able to celebrate their achievements without an accompanying pang of jealousy or feelings of inadequacy.  I can apologise and compromise more successfully. I don’t need to go anywhere, or have anything to feel whole. There’s no nagging emptiness inside of me. I’m just here. And I’m just happy!

Scientists believe that psychedelics can help to create new insights and perspectives.  The default mode network, that part of our brain that is associated with repetitive tasks and when overactive is linked with depression and anxiety, is temporarily quietened under the influence of ayahuasca, allowing new pathways and potentialities to form.  Thus, post ayahuasca, old habits can die and new possibilities for your life may arise.  These are still early days. But I feel optimistic and excited. Neem Karoli Baba said that on psychedelics, "you can go into the room in which Christ and Buddha exist, but you only stay a few minutes." For most people, Ayahuasca isn’t a magic cure that can solve all ills in one evening. Does Aya provide you with startling new insights? Occasionally. But for the most part, Aya made me think about things I already knew intellectually, or could read in any timeworn self-help advice, but she made me feel it deep in my heart. You emerge from your journeys like a new born baby, impressionable and malleable as putty, and the world glistens as if seen with new eyes.  Each morning used to be greeted with ‘I can’t’. Now I hear ‘YES,YES,YES!’.  If you are in a low point in your life, imprisoned in a pit of gloom, if the sides of the slope seem too steep and you have no idea how you can escape, Ayahuasca might point towards a ladder, camouflaged in the shadows, that somehow you have never noticed, or couldn’t summon the energy to climb. But you still have to make the ascent, shaking legs and straining arms hauling and lifting you over each rough rung.  But with each arduous step, you are bathed in more sunlight. Until finally, with a beat of burgundy wings you are aloft, trailing ash as you soar skyward, the fiery sunrays illuminating your feathers.

During my journeys I floated through a fantastical universe of whirling planets and streaming star-dust.  But I was also subjected to feelings of significant unhappiness, trauma and pain.  At times it felt like a physical and emotional ordeal on a grand scale.  ‘I’ll never drink this again’, I told myself in the middle of my ceremonies.  And now? I realise that the struggle provided essential lessons to lead me to the path of greater wisdom.  So, would I drink Ayahuasca again? Without hesitation. Mine’s a double.