awakened.
chapter 3
Deeper into the Rain Forest
THE AYAHUASCA JOURNEY proved to be one of the most powerful experiences of my life, in spite of its dizzying and organized confusion. I got as violently sick as advertised and perceived many visual images during the eight-hour experience. I was later to learn that my experience was typical, consisting of many mental pictures appearing rapidly in one- or two-second intervals.
One of my most vivid recollections involved physically dashing outside into the jungle to upchuck what I had consumed earlier. As Lynne helped me hunt for the perfect spot, I couldn't understand why she, not having taken the drug, was stumbling around as though unable to see. I had no difficulty in the faint light, heeding the narrow dirt footpaths leading away from the ceremonial area into the dense overgrowth.
Unearthing the Lessons
It wasn't until twenty-four hours later, when I retraced my steps from the previous evening, that I realized it had been pitch dark in the jungle that night. There was absolutely no light from the moonless midnight sky. The next day, I asked the shaman about this light phenomenon. He just smiled and nodded his head. Our translator, who had consumed ayahuasca on many prior occasions, did not need to hear his words to tell me that night vision is a common occurrence. The spirits just make it easier for you to see, the shaman seemed to be expressing with unspoken words from behind his full smiling face.
I also remember becoming cognizant of the many friendly eyes that appeared to be a part of all living things around me. The trees surrounding our compound, the plants of the rain forest, and even the stars in the night sky all seemed to have an awareness of us—they were watching, guiding. They were friendly and, although my partner, Lynne, had faithfully promised that she would not allow me to wander away from the safety of the enclosure, I was being drawn to the outer edge of the scary unknown. Why are you afraid? the eyes seemed to be asking. Accept us . . . let go of the fear!
Later, when my logical mind returned from its sabbatical, I realized that my perception of the eyes during an altered state suggested that everything on the planet is, in effect, conscious. Certainly, the creatures of the forest have life. One could build a convincing case that the flora and fauna interact with us as well. Scientists have been able to successfully determine, for example, that talking nicely to your houseplants produces healthier specimens than shouting at or ignoring them. Even the rocks on the ground have a consciousness—of their mass, if nothing else. The planet is indeed alive and will talk to us, if only we will listen. Mother Earth is truly vital—and the shaman's ability to speak and interact with her is his healing tool.
The day after the ceremony, we all woke up refreshed, without the hangover we fully expected after what we had done to our bodies the previous night. The shaman met with us individually and shared what he had observed while accompanying each of us on our separate experiential journeys and healings. When it was my turn, he informed me that he had removed some emotional as well as physical blocks from my body. Then he mentioned both the snakes and the eyes.
"How did you know that?" I stammered.
"I journeyed with you," was his simple reply.
I was dumbfounded. Even though I had become a professional psychic as result of my unexpected metaphysical awakening, I am always amazed when someone else makes an extrasensory observation. I have been doing this psychic stuff for quite awhile and I am still occasionally astonished when I issue a psychic proclamation and my clients confirm that I am correct.
"Do you know you are a healer?" the shaman added, more as a statement than a question.
This was the same question asked of me by numerous shamans and psychics whom I have encountered on my spiritual journeys throughout the world, including a second healer I was soon to meet in the Ecuadorian Andes. It seemed that I was being repeatedly tutored to understand that I was not to neglect the special psychic gift I had been given—as if it had been loaned to me only on spiritual approval.
"Do not ignore what you have been given,” he said. "Journey into the rain forest and talk to the spirits. Do not be afraid . . ."
Then, summoning the next of our group with a nod of his head, our brief time together was finished.
A Social Call
Following our morning reflection with the shaman, John offered to take whoever wished to join him on a physical journey into the depths of the jungle to "do lunch" with a compadre of Juan Gabriel Carrasco, John's affable Ecuadorian partner and our guide. Whether we were to share a meal with or were to be the meal for this headhunting culture wasn't made entirely clear—but after having survived the previous evening's adventure and with the instructions of the shaman still ringing in my consciousness, I was game for just about anything.
We followed a narrow footpath made muddy by recent rain, slogging along in the knee-high wading boots we had purchased from the back of an old truck at the airport. Although it was not an easy hike, we were seemingly never out of breath, likely due to the quantity of the oxygen produced by the abundance of thick trees and plants all around us.
In addition to not being overly tired, I noticed how much more at ease I was in the thick forest, even though I was being led away from the security of our encampment hundreds of miles from anywhere, faithfully following a native guide I had met only days before. Somehow the entire environment was less fearful than it had been before consuming the ayahuasca. For some reason I had acquired a new sense of acceptance and belonging. It was as if the rain forest was observing and protecting me at the same time.
"Funny you should say that," I heard a female voice say from somewhere close behind me. I was immediately brought back to the present moment.
"That's the name of my first book," I responded, somewhat flippantly, perhaps exercising my newly found self-assurance and power.
"No—I mean funny you should have seen the eye-shaped beacon.”
I turned to realize that Lynne, my sober companion from the ayahuasca journey, was speaking to me in absolute seriousness about something I had said the previous night while under the influence of the hallucinatory drug.
"I work for a rather . . . shall we say . . . secure section of the government and there is a fair amount of literature detailing alien eyeshaped beacons buried all over the planet,” she continued. "I was interested in your description because—" She stopped abruptly, mid-sentence.
"—forget it," she finished, apparently realizing that she had said more than she should. She quickly moved several people ahead of me in the line of gringos forging the jungle path. Further attempts throughout the remainder of our trip to get her to elaborate on this subject revealed little more than a nervous smile.
As we continued walking in silence along the well-traveled but narrow, rain-soaked footpath, Juan Gabriel suddenly stopped and let out a loud hoot.
"It's the custom,” he responded to our questioning looks. "It's like the jungle doorbell."
I figured we must be close to our destination, although I couldn't see any signs of a hut or village. I couldn't believe how comfortable I had become in what was previously a frightening environment. What I formerly viewed as an austere jungle had become an inviting forest—the heavy pure oxygen became an elixir and the snakes elected to be elsewhere.
I
