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101 - Ayahuasca Adventure

Jul 12, 2007, 60 min read

Program Notes

Guest speakers: Lorenzo & James

AyahuascaAdventure.jpg

(Minutes : Seconds into program)

07:17 James and Lorenzo begin a discussion about the fortuitous ways in which people come into contact with ayahuasca.

17:30 James describes the preparation of the ayahuasca brew the day of their ceremony.

24:05 Lorenzo and James begin a discussion of purging during the ayahuasca experience.

30:31 James explains the difference between a shaman and a yachak among the indigenous Qechua people of Ecuador.

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Transcript

00:00:00 ►

Greetings from Cyberdelic Space.

00:00:20 ►

This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

00:00:25 ►

And I want to welcome you to a sample of what I call listener-supported podcasting.

00:00:32 ►

And by that I mean it’s not only that some generous souls have donated some of their hard-earned cash

00:00:38 ►

to help keep these podcasts floating around in cyberspace,

00:00:43 ►

but today’s program is all about a little trip,

00:00:47 ►

pun intended, that one of our fellow salonners took recently. A few months back, you might

00:00:53 ►

remember, I read an exchange of emails between Matt Palomary and James, who joins us each week

00:01:00 ►

from Colorado, where he’s been a pre-med student. And what they were talking about was the various ways a person can prepare for an ayahuasca experience,

00:01:11 ►

because James was heading to the Amazon with some friends to have the experience for the first time.

00:01:18 ►

Well, I’m pleased to let you know that James has now returned from his ayahuasca adventure,

00:01:28 ►

safe, sound, and perhaps even a little transformed.

00:01:34 ►

And since there has been so much interest in this topic in the email I’ve been receiving,

00:01:39 ►

I thought that it might be interesting for all of us to hear some of his stories firsthand.

00:01:43 ►

And James was gracious enough to agree. Now one of the things I hope you’ll take away from this conversation today

00:01:48 ►

is how James’ seemingly mundane job that he needed to pay for books and tuition

00:01:55 ►

led to an ayahuasca adventure in the Amazon.

00:01:59 ►

The point being that you never know when Lady Ayahuasca may be reaching out to you.

00:02:05 ►

So pay attention to the little things in life, even casual conversations, because you never know where they might lead.

00:02:14 ►

And now, please join James and me as we talk about his first experience with the vine.

00:02:29 ►

I guess the best place to start is at the beginning. I was quite frankly really pleasantly surprised when I got your email.

00:02:34 ►

You talked about this, I guess, expedition, excursion, or class.

00:02:39 ►

I don’t know exactly what to call it.

00:02:41 ►

Why don’t you just kind of rewind for me and tell me how this all came about.

00:02:46 ►

Sure. It’s actually really strange. I’ve been into psychiatry. I’m about to take the MCAT.

00:02:52 ►

I’m going to med school. And to get through school, I was doing some carpet work. I was

00:02:58 ►

cleaning carpet to get through school. And I cleaned the carpet of a doctor that lives here in Colorado,

00:03:05 ►

and we started talking about things,

00:03:08 ►

and it kind of came up that he was interested in shamanism.

00:03:12 ►

And so the ayahuasca came up, and this was about three years ago,

00:03:17 ►

and come to find out he had been working with some shamans from Ecuador,

00:03:21 ►

and those shamans came up and actually visited here in Colorado.

00:03:25 ►

So I was able to meet some shamans.

00:03:28 ►

And after spending more time with this doctor, he was planning a trip.

00:03:32 ►

This was three years ago.

00:03:33 ►

So he said he was planning a trip in a couple of years.

00:03:36 ►

So this doctor, he organized this trip.

00:03:41 ►

And about how many people were there altogether that joined you?

00:03:46 ►

There were 20 of us.

00:03:47 ►

Wow, good-sized group.

00:03:50 ►

Yeah, it was.

00:03:52 ►

I think they were looking for about 20 people to go just to make the trip affordable.

00:03:57 ►

And then in addition to us, the 20 members that went for the trip,

00:04:01 ►

we had two guides that met us there that did everything with us.

00:04:04 ►

But for the trip, we had two guides that met us there that did everything with us.

00:04:10 ►

Now, in the e-mails we exchanged before you guys went down there,

00:04:14 ►

I know that for sure you had never had any experience with ayahuasca. Had any of the other people experienced that medicine before?

00:04:20 ►

Yeah, there were the two guides for sure.

00:04:23 ►

Yeah, there were the two guides for sure.

00:04:30 ►

And then as far as people on the trip, there were some people that had gone on trips in years prior,

00:04:34 ►

and I believe that they had had multiple experiences with ayahuasca. But as far as the whole group, very few of us.

00:04:37 ►

I think there were only two people that had prior experience.

00:04:40 ►

So I imagine there was some trepidation among all of you,

00:04:44 ►

not just going to the jungle part, but the ayahuasca as well.

00:04:49 ►

Absolutely.

00:04:51 ►

There were some people that had absolutely no psychedelic experience at all.

00:04:56 ►

I believe there are people that had never done any sort of psychotropic drug really,

00:05:01 ►

other than, you know, say caffeine or nicotine or something like that.

00:05:04 ►

So this was definitely branching out for a lot of the people in our group.

00:05:08 ►

Some of us had had, I’d say, moderate psychedelic experience, but nothing like ayahuasca.

00:05:16 ►

Was the group mixed age-wise, men and women, or how was that makeup that way?

00:05:24 ►

I would say they were mixed pretty evenly as far as gender is concerned.

00:05:29 ►

Age, there were maybe six of us,

00:05:33 ►

or six or seven of us under the age of 30, between 20 and 30,

00:05:38 ►

and then the rest were middle-aged, I would say 40 to…

00:05:42 ►

We actually had an elderly lady, a wonderful lady that came with us. I think

00:05:47 ►

she was late 60s, 70s.

00:05:50 ►

Of course, now that I’m 65, elderly doesn’t sound, it sounds a lot farther out. I’ll let

00:05:56 ►

that slide. You know, I don’t feel that way on the inside, so it doesn’t bother me at

00:06:01 ►

all.

00:06:03 ►

It’s all about how you feel. So it is.

00:06:06 ►

It’s all about how you feel.

00:06:08 ►

So do you have any idea how the organizers of this trip, how he made contact with the

00:06:16 ►

shamans?

00:06:17 ►

How did he find reputable Iowa Scarrow shamans?

00:06:21 ►

Because that’s a question that we’re getting a lot in.

00:06:23 ►

You know, I have some people I’ve been working with that nobody really likes to pass out names, etc.,

00:06:30 ►

because they don’t want people to be swamped.

00:06:32 ►

So I’m kind of curious if you know how he made contact with this particular group.

00:06:39 ►

And actually, I actually asked our guide and several other members, as well as the shaman, if it would be all right if I mentioned their name.

00:06:48 ►

They were definitely against it.

00:06:49 ►

I figured that, yeah.

00:06:51 ►

You’re right, knowing that I was going to do this interview.

00:06:55 ►

I consider myself totally fortunate to just have run into the people that I ran into,

00:07:01 ►

and via their network of connections had the opportunity to see world-renowned shamans.

00:07:07 ►

A lot of the shamans down there are definitely in it for the money.

00:07:11 ►

There’s a lot of figures.

00:07:12 ►

And so I know that’s a big deal.

00:07:13 ►

As far as finding them down there, I have no idea.

00:07:15 ►

The particular shaman that we worked with, with Ayahuasca,

00:07:20 ►

had been very good friends with our guide for 20 years, 30 years. And our

00:07:26 ►

guide was very good friends with some of the members of our group for 20, 30 years. So

00:07:31 ►

I have no idea how they actually ended up meeting. I was just fortunate enough to run

00:07:37 ►

into the right people at the right time. And I think you had said before that, you know,

00:07:43 ►

when it’s time for you to do ayahuasca or ayahuasca is calling you,

00:07:46 ►

it will find a way to find you.

00:07:48 ►

And I think that’s kind of how it happened for me and my friends.

00:07:50 ►

I was just thinking that as you were talking.

00:07:53 ►

Yeah, because my story is similar to yours, but yours is truly amazing.

00:07:58 ►

Here you are working your way through school and cleaning carpets, and ayahuasca found you that way.

00:08:04 ►

You know, it sounds like you

00:08:07 ►

couldn’t have avoided this no i mean yeah i’ve always i was always interested in it i always

00:08:13 ►

wanted to do it and just the way that every the synchronicity is involved in in us meeting the

00:08:18 ►

right people and going down there at this particular time meeting this particular shaman

00:08:21 ►

just absolutely amazing and i and i do, that really rang with me,

00:08:27 ►

rang true with me when you said that in an earlier podcast,

00:08:29 ►

that when it’s your time, I think it’ll come to you.

00:08:32 ►

I don’t think you should really worry a whole lot about seeking it out.

00:08:37 ►

Well, that’s the way it worked for me.

00:08:38 ►

I’m glad to see that it worked for at least one other person that way

00:08:41 ►

and a couple others I’ve talked to.

00:08:43 ►

So we’re going to leave it at that as far as finding the right contacts,

00:08:49 ►

although one of the key things that you did say, and it was true in my case,

00:08:53 ►

is I made friends with some guides who had been working with the same people for 15, 20 years,

00:09:00 ►

and I’d known these people for quite a long time.

00:09:03 ►

So it’s not like something that happens overnight.

00:09:06 ►

You don’t get on a plane and fly to Peru or Ecuador or wherever and say,

00:09:10 ►

I’m going to seek one out.

00:09:11 ►

I think the patience comes in handy here too.

00:09:16 ►

Absolutely.

00:09:17 ►

I think it’s really important.

00:09:18 ►

There was such a connection between some of the members of our group and the shaman and our guide

00:09:23 ►

that even though we really,

00:09:26 ►

even though we were in a place we had never been,

00:09:28 ►

in the middle of the jungle,

00:09:30 ►

far from anything that’s familiar to us,

00:09:32 ►

we really had, it felt like we had a safety net.

00:09:34 ►

We were safe with them.

00:09:36 ►

We knew that there was a connection between them

00:09:38 ►

which helped us to feel safe and connected.

00:09:40 ►

So I do think there’s something important about that.

00:09:43 ►

Yeah, that’s a really good point as far as making the safe vessel to contain your experiences in.

00:09:51 ►

Why don’t you just kind of take us through your trip?

00:09:54 ►

I know that a lot of us can put ourselves in your position of saying,

00:09:59 ►

okay, well, I’ve never been to the jungle in Ecuador, and I don’t know what I’m going to be looking at.

00:10:04 ►

And then on top of that, you have this ayahuasca experience ahead of you.

00:10:08 ►

So kind of, if you would, just take us through how you got from Colorado to the middle of the jungle.

00:10:17 ►

Okay.

00:10:18 ►

Well, I think it would probably be best if we just started from when we got there.

00:10:22 ►

Okay.

00:10:23 ►

We spent a week in the Andes,

00:10:26 ►

and this trip wasn’t strictly about ayahuasca.

00:10:29 ►

We actually saw several other shamans

00:10:31 ►

that didn’t really use many psychotropic plants at all.

00:10:38 ►

They were just spiritual healers,

00:10:41 ►

and we did many ceremonies with them prior to our

00:10:45 ►

ayahuasca trip, and this is in the Andes.

00:10:48 ►

Some of them did use other

00:10:49 ►

plants. We had the opportunity

00:10:52 ►

to chew coca leaf,

00:10:54 ►

which, that was pretty cool.

00:10:57 ►

So

00:10:58 ►

after staying in the Andes

00:10:59 ►

for a week, it was time to go to the jungle.

00:11:01 ►

We were all psyched about it.

00:11:03 ►

Did you see,

00:11:04 ►

in the Andes, did you get to any to the jungle. We were all psyched about it. In the Andes,

00:11:06 ►

did you get to any of the

00:11:07 ►

ancient sites while you were there?

00:11:11 ►

In Ecuador,

00:11:11 ►

no.

00:11:13 ►

We really were just there to see

00:11:15 ►

these particular shamans.

00:11:16 ►

This was really an investigation into

00:11:19 ►

what we would call

00:11:21 ►

alternative medicine or shamanism.

00:11:23 ►

You were really down there

00:11:24 ►

not as tourists, but as sort of curious investigators.

00:11:31 ►

Yeah, and not only in the sense of just trying to figure out what this is all about,

00:11:35 ►

but I think a lot of us went there to really be healed.

00:11:39 ►

We wanted to find out how the healing works so that we could pass on the knowledge to others,

00:11:42 ►

but on a more personal note, just to heal ourselves, to really experience what these shamans had to offer in terms of

00:11:50 ►

bettering ourselves as people.

00:11:53 ►

So it wasn’t just to, you know, look and see, but also to, you know, to cure us of some

00:11:58 ►

possible ills that we thought they might be able to help with.

00:12:00 ►

Right, right.

00:12:01 ►

And did you find that kind of like being there for a week and getting acclimatized to the

00:12:07 ►

environment and the culture just a little bit kind of helped get you set for your ayahuasca

00:12:13 ►

experience as opposed to if you’ve just flown in and the next day had the experience?

00:12:19 ►

Absolutely.

00:12:19 ►

I think everything is so different down there that it’s trippy right when you get there

00:12:26 ►

because everything is so new, especially in the jungle.

00:12:29 ►

When you get deep into the Amazon, all the plants, I mean, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.

00:12:37 ►

It looks psychedelic when you’re totally sober.

00:12:40 ►

So many colors, so many different plants and animals and things that you’ve never seen.

00:12:45 ►

So I think that, yeah, it was really important. We went into the jungle and spent three days

00:12:52 ►

just kind of hanging out and getting used to being in the jungle, getting used to living

00:12:58 ►

there. We lived just like the shaman and his family out there, we ate grubs and new foods,

00:13:05 ►

and we just kind of got acclimatized to everything.

00:13:09 ►

And I think that was really important.

00:13:10 ►

That’s a good point.

00:13:11 ►

So did they, like, encourage you to change your diet once you were there

00:13:17 ►

so that you were starting to do somewhat of an ayahuasca-type diet?

00:13:22 ►

Well, I was really curious about that.

00:13:24 ►

Me and my friend looked into that.

00:13:26 ►

And especially after hearing Matt

00:13:28 ►

Pelimer talk about the extensive,

00:13:30 ►

super rigorous diet that he

00:13:32 ►

was on. I remember him talking about

00:13:34 ►

no sugar. I can’t remember exactly

00:13:36 ►

what he was eating, but it was like simple carbohydrates and that

00:13:38 ►

was it.

00:13:40 ►

And we

00:13:41 ►

really didn’t change our diet a

00:13:44 ►

whole lot.

00:13:50 ►

In fact, most of the group had no diet restrictions up until the day of the ceremony.

00:13:53 ►

And even then, we didn’t fast the whole day.

00:13:57 ►

We fasted from an early lunch, and then the rest of the day was fasting.

00:14:07 ►

Me and my group of friends that I brought, we had abstained from red meat, alcohol,

00:14:13 ►

and tried to eat generally as many raw foods as we could for about a month prior to our trip in preparation.

00:14:15 ►

That wasn’t a requirement.

00:14:19 ►

That was something that we did on our own after just researching it a little bit.

00:14:28 ►

Yeah, I think that in particular the alcohol, and I’m not against alcohol used right,

00:14:34 ►

but that seems to be something that I’ve learned to avoid in the month leading up to it.

00:14:36 ►

So I think that was probably a good move on your part.

00:14:43 ►

Yeah, I think it did help other members of our group, you know, being in another country and they wanted to hit the bar scene a little bit,

00:14:46 ►

they had drank.

00:14:47 ►

And I don’t know that it was super deleterious to their experience at all,

00:14:53 ►

but I do know that some of those people did have a little harsher experience.

00:14:56 ►

And I think there was something in what Calamary was saying about it’s about respect to the plant.

00:15:01 ►

You’re kind of sacrificing these things, in some senses, physiologically,

00:15:07 ►

so they don’t have any weird chemical interactions.

00:15:09 ►

But on another level, it’s a spiritual kind of a, this is what I’m giving forth.

00:15:14 ►

This is what I’m giving to the plan.

00:15:16 ►

I’m sacrificing this in respect.

00:15:19 ►

And I think that kind of played a large part, at least in my mind,

00:15:22 ►

for the things that I gave prior to the trip.

00:15:26 ►

Yeah, I found the same thing, although it took me a lot longer to figure that out,

00:15:30 ►

because being a Westerner, you don’t really kind of get into the plant spirits as easily,

00:15:36 ►

but once you start kind of grokking that a little bit, it does seem to make sense as far as on some planes, for sure.

00:15:45 ►

Absolutely,

00:15:46 ►

absolutely. When I’m

00:15:47 ►

talking about this to a lot of my friends at school

00:15:50 ►

or other doctors,

00:15:52 ►

there really is

00:15:53 ►

a… they’re very wary

00:15:55 ►

when I talk about it in non-theological

00:15:57 ►

terms like that.

00:15:59 ►

Interestingly enough, I

00:16:01 ►

had seen another shaman

00:16:03 ►

who’s actually one of the heads of the

00:16:04 ►

Association of Shamans in Ecuador

00:16:08 ►

three months prior to our trip.

00:16:11 ►

And I asked him, you know, am I ready for ayahuasca?

00:16:13 ►

Am I prepared?

00:16:15 ►

And he looked at me, and the way shamans look at you,

00:16:17 ►

it’s like they look right through you.

00:16:19 ►

It’s a weird feeling.

00:16:20 ►

You’re right.

00:16:21 ►

They’re very deep.

00:16:22 ►

It’s like looking into the bottom of caves.

00:16:24 ►

And he looked me up and down.

00:16:28 ►

And he said, no, no, you are definitely not ready.

00:16:31 ►

This is three months prior to the trip.

00:16:32 ►

And I said, well, what can I do to prepare?

00:16:35 ►

And he said that I should meditate, which I meditate every day anyway.

00:16:42 ►

But it really kicked it up a notch.

00:16:43 ►

And he also said that I should abstain from sex for two weeks prior to the ayahuasca ceremony.

00:16:49 ►

So I also did that on his recommendation.

00:16:54 ►

And it seemed to work out fine because when I got there, we actually met up with this shaman,

00:16:57 ►

and he said I was well prepared and was very strong and ready to go.

00:17:02 ►

Yeah, and as you just pointed out, I think it’s a combination.

00:17:06 ►

I think there definitely are some physiological factors involved here,

00:17:10 ►

particularly with the food and alcohol, et cetera.

00:17:15 ►

But there’s also this psychological component as well.

00:17:19 ►

And so I think the more that you do to prepare,

00:17:23 ►

whether it’s following somebody else’s regimen or just doing your own preparation,

00:17:28 ►

but focusing on what’s coming seems to be the way to maximize the experience.

00:17:36 ►

Absolutely. Definitely.

00:17:39 ►

Now, I saw some pictures that you sent.

00:17:41 ►

It looked like you actually were watching them prepare the brew.

00:17:45 ►

Is that the fact? Yeah. I loved that part of the trip. That day, the day of the ayahuasca

00:17:53 ►

ceremony, in the afternoon, the shaman took us around his home, which I also sent you

00:17:58 ►

a picture of that, that big fat hut kind of house. We walked around his garden, and he showed us where he grows the ayahuasca.

00:18:09 ►

And he told us a little bit about how to prepare it,

00:18:15 ►

and he told us about five different kinds of ayahuasca vines in the jungle

00:18:18 ►

and how he only uses one particular kind.

00:18:22 ►

The kind of vine that we used was 25 years old.

00:18:25 ►

It takes generally two decades or more to become fully mature.

00:18:30 ►

And then he also showed us how they prepared it,

00:18:33 ►

into small sections, shaving off the bark.

00:18:37 ►

And they would put a layer of ayahuasca

00:18:40 ►

and a layer of phycotriaviridis or some other DMT-containing

00:18:44 ►

plant, and then another layer of huasca, another layer of DMT, another layer of psychotria viridis or some other DMT-containing plant,

00:18:48 ►

and then another layer of Velasca, another layer of DMT, another layer of Velasca.

00:18:52 ►

Fill whatever they put it in, usually a large cauldron.

00:18:55 ►

Fill that with water and boil it for several hours.

00:18:58 ►

And we got to see all this.

00:18:58 ►

Wow.

00:19:01 ►

That’s really interesting.

00:19:08 ►

I’ve never had the opportunity to actually see the brew prepared in person. I’ve seen pictures of it. So that makes a nicer connection. Is that the brew you actually drank that night?

00:19:12 ►

It was. It was a great brew. I do think there was something

00:19:15 ►

comforting about seeing the actual plant that you were going to

00:19:19 ►

partake in later that evening. Yeah, it is

00:19:23 ►

a continuation of building a relationship with the plant, I believe.

00:19:28 ►

So that afternoon, you were essentially fasting from late lunch on.

00:19:36 ►

And then what time did your ceremony start and how did it unfold?

00:19:42 ►

Okay.

00:19:43 ►

It was an early lunch.

00:19:44 ►

We had an early lunch.

00:19:46 ►

It’s not a late lunch.

00:19:47 ►

I think we ate about 11 and then

00:19:49 ►

the rest of the day we fasted. I believe the

00:19:51 ►

ceremony started probably around 9 o’clock

00:19:53 ►

or so.

00:19:55 ►

It had been dark for less

00:19:57 ►

than an hour probably.

00:20:00 ►

We all got in

00:20:01 ►

that picture that I sent you of the large

00:20:03 ►

thatched hut. That’s actually the place where the ceremony was held.

00:20:08 ►

And they laid down mats.

00:20:10 ►

And the bottom of the hut is all open air.

00:20:15 ►

There was a ceiling, a thatched ceiling, and then there were no walls.

00:20:20 ►

So around the edge of the inside of this hut, they laid down mats and we all sat down

00:20:27 ►

in a circle or a semi-circle.

00:20:29 ►

And the people, about half of our group, a little more than half of our group ended up

00:20:34 ►

taking ayahuasca.

00:20:35 ►

The other half were going to be sitters or helpers.

00:20:39 ►

If some of us needed to go to the bathroom or something like that to help us walk and

00:20:44 ►

things like that, they sat on the other side completing the circle.

00:20:47 ►

And the shaman was at the head of the circle with a table behind him.

00:20:51 ►

And on the table he had set little teacups full of ayahuasca

00:20:56 ►

prepared specifically for each person on our trip.

00:21:02 ►

I think he prepared them in terms of body weight and also what he thought that we needed.

00:21:11 ►

And one by one, he came to each person and gave them a cup of ayahuasca.

00:21:19 ►

Oh, and this is actually, he drank the ayahuasca before anyone else did.

00:21:22 ►

He drank a full cup himself.

00:21:24 ►

Right.

00:21:22 ►

is actually he drank the ayahuasca before anyone else did.

00:21:23 ►

He drank a full cup himself.

00:21:24 ►

Right.

00:21:33 ►

You know, this is very similar to the tradition that I participate in as well,

00:21:38 ►

where the shaman, particularly after he gets to know you even better,

00:21:43 ►

can adjust the dose level depending on what you’re trying to do that night or where he thinks you are, and like you say, body weight, et cetera.

00:21:47 ►

So these guys have a lot of experience with this kind of thing.

00:21:51 ►

They can kind of size you up pretty quickly, it seems to me.

00:21:55 ►

Absolutely.

00:21:56 ►

And I think this goes back to both the physiological thing

00:21:58 ►

and the spiritual-mental thing.

00:22:00 ►

I think they consider both.

00:22:02 ►

Just like the diet and preparation, when you’re about to actually take it, I think the shaman

00:22:06 ►

takes those two components into

00:22:07 ►

consideration before giving you

00:22:09 ►

whatever amount. Yeah, I agree.

00:22:14 ►

After that,

00:22:16 ►

everyone was real nervous.

00:22:18 ►

It was just like electricity in the air.

00:22:20 ►

Everyone was, you know, half excited,

00:22:22 ►

half anxious, half just

00:22:23 ►

blown away by the whole experience so far.

00:22:27 ►

After we all drank, me and my friend said a couple of personal prayers and meditated together.

00:22:37 ►

That day we had been meditating all day in preparation.

00:22:40 ►

And after we all drank, we sat up there in the dark, and they turn out all white, so it’s very, very dark.

00:22:47 ►

There’s not a whole lot of light in the middle of the jungle anyway.

00:22:50 ►

And we all sat there for about 20 minutes or so, waiting for the onset of the effect.

00:22:56 ►

And at first, I just remember being really, really nervous.

00:23:00 ►

And it came to mind, Hunter S. Thompson, you know, buy the ticket, take the ride. Well, we had all bought the ticket, and just waiting for the ride was very anxiety-provoking

00:23:11 ►

because you just don’t know what’s going to happen.

00:23:13 ►

And I would say at about the 20, 25-minute mark,

00:23:19 ►

one of the members of our group, a good friend of mine, began purging already.

00:23:24 ►

It hit her very quickly.

00:23:28 ►

And that was when we were all like, okay, we’re really starting to feel something.

00:23:31 ►

It began with somatic type feelings.

00:23:35 ►

My whole body was just filled with energy, very strong.

00:23:41 ►

And in terms of like Shulgin’s scale, I think me and my closest friend, our trip was about, I would say, between a two and a three.

00:23:50 ►

And a lot of other people had, I didn’t have a whole, whole lot of visuals during the trip.

00:23:56 ►

Some other people had, I mean, I did have a few.

00:23:58 ►

Some other people had amazing, very deep visuals.

00:24:01 ►

Mine was more, I tend to be a bit of a feeler anyway.

00:24:06 ►

very deep visuals. Mine was more, I tend to be a bit of a feeler anyway. So a lot of what I experienced were insights and insights into my life and into problems that I may have

00:24:12 ►

had and where some other people definitely were seeing all kinds of different things.

00:24:23 ►

Well, I think you…

00:24:24 ►

As far as purging is concerned.

00:24:25 ►

Yeah, okay, let’s go ahead and talk about that,

00:24:28 ►

and then I’ve got a number of questions I wanted to ask you,

00:24:30 ►

but yeah, let’s go ahead and cover the purging thing.

00:24:34 ►

Okay, well, yeah, there’s so much that happened

00:24:36 ►

and so many things that I’d like to say

00:24:38 ►

that I just don’t know where to go,

00:24:40 ►

so it might help if you ask me some more specific questions

00:24:43 ►

about different aspects of people’s trips and experiences,

00:24:46 ►

and I can kind of go from there.

00:24:47 ►

But as far as purging, our guide as well as the shaman, a lot of people were, being Westerners, very new to the idea of purging.

00:24:56 ►

We all look at vomiting like it’s this horrible, horrible thing, and diarrhea.

00:25:02 ►

But in terms of an ayahuasca ceremony,

00:25:05 ►

it’s actually a very beneficial thing.

00:25:07 ►

It’s something that people look forward to doing.

00:25:10 ►

And even though I’ve heard stories about people, you know,

00:25:12 ►

fasting for a day and having absolutely nothing in their stomach

00:25:16 ►

but still vomiting out just these massive loads

00:25:18 ►

of sort of a physical manifestation

00:25:21 ►

of all these, like like spiritual or psycho material,

00:25:27 ►

like these negative feelings that you have or negative things that you’re getting out of your system.

00:25:32 ►

And my friend, she must have had a lot of negative things.

00:25:36 ►

She pooped for about two hours.

00:25:39 ►

And this was her first psychedelic.

00:25:41 ►

So you can imagine she was definitely in a frantic state there for a little while.

00:25:45 ►

Well, you know, that brings up something I think very interesting here is that I have seen this a lot,

00:25:53 ►

and I’ve talked to other people who say the same thing,

00:25:56 ►

is that your first few psychedelic experiences are the ones particularly that are going to be the roughest

00:26:03 ►

because that’s where you’re bringing up a lot of things.

00:26:06 ►

And if, of course, your first experience is on ayahuasca where purging is normal,

00:26:11 ►

it could be a very good first psychedelic experience

00:26:15 ►

as long as you’re prepared to face the stuff that’s coming up.

00:26:19 ►

But I think that your friend probably might have had as rough a ride with any psychedelic

00:26:28 ►

because that’s often the case.

00:26:32 ►

Absolutely.

00:26:33 ►

And in retrospect, even the next day, she was very happy, felt so much lighter.

00:26:39 ►

She knew it was something that she needed to do.

00:26:41 ►

And in fact, she even said, I can relate to her experience later, it was just an amazing

00:26:47 ►

thing that happened to her.

00:26:49 ►

She felt like she had more to get out after the end.

00:26:53 ►

She said she felt like she wanted to do ayahuasca again because it wasn’t all out.

00:26:57 ►

And even though the experience of it was very, very hard, she said it was absolutely one

00:27:01 ►

of the most beneficial things ever.

00:27:03 ►

The next day, she was just happy and floating and so happy that she had done it,

00:27:08 ►

although she did say it was one of the scariest things that had ever happened.

00:27:13 ►

And I think that’s how most bad trips are.

00:27:17 ►

They’re not bad in themselves.

00:27:18 ►

I mean, the experiences can seem negative at the time,

00:27:21 ►

but the overall net effect is always good, I think, if you open yourself up to those.

00:27:26 ►

And I think that’s what she did.

00:27:28 ►

And our guide and the shaman all said that she did very, very well.

00:27:30 ►

That was what she needed to do.

00:27:32 ►

Yeah, it sounds like you had some really good guides and shamans for a young woman

00:27:37 ►

to have her first experience, first psychedelic experience, then come out on the bright side.

00:27:41 ►

Sounds like she was really in good hands.

00:27:45 ►

Absolutely.

00:27:45 ►

We all were.

00:27:46 ►

And I think that had a major benefit to all of us there.

00:27:50 ►

I mean, being in a strange place, doing a strange plant medicine,

00:27:54 ►

and just having these strange experiences,

00:27:57 ►

leaving you in a precarious mental state doesn’t feel like you have a whole lot

00:28:01 ►

to fall back on sometimes.

00:28:03 ►

And having someone like the shaman we had, it was just his presence alone just made you feel safe.

00:28:09 ►

He was absolutely the most humble person I’ve ever met, most powerful in his humility that I’ve ever met.

00:28:15 ►

And being around him, you felt safe.

00:28:17 ►

We’d also heard many stories of him being able to actually stop someone’s experience while on ayahuasca.

00:28:26 ►

I guess prior groups that our guide had taken to this same shaman,

00:28:31 ►

an elderly lady had actually passed out and become unconscious during an ayahuasca ceremony.

00:28:39 ►

It was just too intense for her.

00:28:41 ►

And the shaman came out and sucked the experience out of her stomach,

00:28:45 ►

and she immediately woke up and was immediately sober

00:28:48 ►

and didn’t experience anything else for the duration of the ceremony

00:28:52 ►

or in the days following.

00:28:54 ►

You know, I’ve heard other stories like that that really ring true.

00:28:59 ►

It’s just amazing when somebody can do something like that, isn’t it?

00:29:04 ►

Absolutely.

00:29:05 ►

It’s mind-boggling. We don’t understand how they do it. when somebody can do something like that, isn’t it? Absolutely.

00:29:06 ►

It’s mind-boggling.

00:29:08 ►

We don’t understand how they do it.

00:29:10 ►

It’s just absolutely amazing.

00:29:14 ►

And being around somebody like that really, I think,

00:29:16 ►

lets you let go a little bit more than you would if you didn’t have something like that.

00:29:18 ►

So you can really dig into your experience a little bit

00:29:20 ►

and not have to worry about, you know,

00:29:22 ►

am I going to come back or am I damaging myself?

00:29:24 ►

There’s somebody looking out for you that’s been there a million times and is confident

00:29:28 ►

in his ability to navigate these other worlds that you’re experiencing.

00:29:31 ►

I think you said just a moment ago about how you felt safe with the shaman.

00:29:36 ►

That may be one of the keys for people when they are going down to the Amazon and seeking out a shaman if they don’t have

00:29:45 ►

any pre-connection. But if they go down there, if they feel good about the guy, if they’re not

00:29:52 ►

feeling edgy, I think that’s number one. Because I’ve heard stories of some of these guys are real

00:29:57 ►

charlatans. And if you don’t feel safe with a guy, you really shouldn’t be doing a psychedelic

00:30:01 ►

journey with him, you know?

00:30:05 ►

Absolutely.

00:30:10 ►

And that was the same with all the shamans we saw were world-renowned healers.

00:30:11 ►

They’re very famous for what they do,

00:30:14 ►

and every single one of them has the same presence about them.

00:30:15 ►

I think it’s really important.

00:30:19 ►

You should really, when you’re going through a healing,

00:30:22 ►

you should really feel something, feel drawn to that person before you do a healing with them.

00:30:24 ►

I think that’s really important.

00:30:26 ►

Our shaman actually, he differentiated between, oh, I should also say that all the shamans that we saw were Kichwa shamans,

00:30:33 ►

as opposed to, I know a lot of people do ayahuasca in Peru with the shuar.

00:30:41 ►

Right.

00:30:42 ►

And so just to let people know what type of shaman and what type of indigenous people we were

00:30:47 ►

staying with is,

00:30:48 ►

is the Kichwa.

00:30:49 ►

And in the Kichwa tradition,

00:30:51 ►

they,

00:30:51 ►

they differentiate between their shamans and their Yachaks.

00:30:55 ►

Yachaks are the,

00:30:58 ►

like the,

00:30:59 ►

the highest level of attainment for a shaman.

00:31:02 ►

And actually the shamans,

00:31:04 ►

as our shaman explained to us,

00:31:07 ►

are actually people who know how to heal, who have these supernatural powers of being

00:31:13 ►

able to navigate these psychedelic worlds, but haven’t conquered their own ego enough

00:31:19 ►

to be humble in knowing that they have this power. The Yachaks, on the other hand, as our shaman explained,

00:31:28 ►

are always going to be very humble, very…

00:31:33 ►

There’s not going to be any ego in them.

00:31:36 ►

And all the shamans that we met and worked with

00:31:38 ►

really had this feeling of…

00:31:40 ►

There was absolutely no ego in anything they did.

00:31:42 ►

They really were doing it just for us.

00:31:44 ►

When they were looking at you and talking to you, it was just with you.

00:31:47 ►

There was this real feeling of caring and gentleness and humility in everything they did.

00:31:53 ►

And I think that might be something that’s important to look for, too.

00:31:57 ►

Yeah, that’s really a good thought.

00:32:00 ►

And it’s interesting to hear the distinctions they’re making in shamans

00:32:05 ►

because that really is the danger in this whole thing

00:32:08 ►

is that people can get inflated with themselves if they’re not careful.

00:32:12 ►

Let me ask a couple quick questions

00:32:15 ►

and then I’ll let you kind of finish up on your end of the journey.

00:32:21 ►

But the questions I know that are going to come up with some other people,

00:32:26 ►

not necessarily they won’t know it’s a question until it happens, but from the time in the

00:32:32 ►

afternoon after your meal until about 9 o’clock at night, wasn’t that one of the longest periods

00:32:37 ►

of your life, or is that just me?

00:32:42 ►

No.

00:32:42 ►

Well, you know what?

00:32:43 ►

We filled it up with so many things.

00:32:47 ►

It wasn’t like we were just sitting around.

00:32:49 ►

And I heard from our guy that other groups of people that he’s taken there when they’re fasting,

00:32:56 ►

they’ve actually gone on long hikes during this period,

00:32:58 ►

which to me didn’t seem very smart at all because I’m used to eating, you know,

00:33:02 ►

like most Americans every, you know, three or four hours.

00:33:06 ►

But I guess it’s not really such a big deal there.

00:33:08 ►

When you’re in the jungle and you’re living like they do and you know you’re doing this

00:33:13 ►

in preparation of something huge, I don’t know, it just didn’t seem that bad for us.

00:33:19 ►

I know we spent a couple hours meditating, but the rest of the time was spent with the

00:33:23 ►

shaman in his garden, so to speak. We couldn’t really tell where the garden ended and the jungle began, but the rest of the time was spent with the shaman in his garden,

00:33:25 ►

so to speak.

00:33:25 ►

We couldn’t really tell where the garden ended and the jungle began, but he seemed to know

00:33:29 ►

and had all these plants that he was growing and showed us around that.

00:33:35 ►

So we were doing stuff, and even though we didn’t, the people that weren’t doing ayahuasca,

00:33:39 ►

they still had dinner, and we joined them for that just to talk more about what we were

00:33:43 ►

going to do that evening.

00:33:44 ►

So it really didn’t seem that bad well that’s good i i know because as

00:33:49 ►

as you were talking uh particularly then after you took your drink and you’re sitting in the dark

00:33:54 ►

quietly waiting i i almost had the feeling coming back on me i could feel myself starting to move

00:33:59 ►

into that space because it’s uh it is sort of a strange time and then uh when the first person purges uh

00:34:06 ►

in my case i always feel okay that gives me the uh okay to do whatever i want to do now i don’t

00:34:12 ►

have to hold back i can purge you know nobody wants to be the first it seems to do that yeah

00:34:18 ►

i think we kind of had the the same feeling going on i don’t know if you know i wonder who’s going

00:34:22 ►

to feel it for us i wonder who’s going to purge first. I think we were all kind of thinking about that. And well, my friend,

00:34:27 ►

she took care of that for us, for sure. I know one time I was the first to purge,

00:34:34 ►

and I felt really proud of the fact that I made it okay for everybody else.

00:34:39 ►

Well, it was funny. My friend, she was purging, like I said, for hours. Everybody else, I think,

00:34:44 ►

a little over half of the group purged. Me and my friend actually never purged, which was funny. My friend, she was purging, like I said, for hours. Everybody else, I think a little over half of the group purged.

00:34:46 ►

Me and my friend actually never purged, which

00:34:48 ►

was weird. We thought we were going to.

00:34:50 ►

I thought for sure I would, and

00:34:51 ►

nothing. I think it was due

00:34:53 ►

to all the preparation we had done.

00:34:55 ►

Maybe, I really don’t know why.

00:34:58 ►

But I think ayahuasca, you know,

00:35:00 ►

kind of gives you what you need, and if you don’t need to purge,

00:35:01 ►

then you won’t. I think a lot of people

00:35:03 ►

get hung up. I’ve heard of people saying that, you know, you have to purge

00:35:06 ►

or you’re not getting the full experience.

00:35:11 ►

Then conversely, I’ve heard other people say that you don’t want to purge

00:35:14 ►

because you want to hold the medicine in as long as you want.

00:35:16 ►

And I think it might be smart to play it a little more relaxed than that.

00:35:21 ►

I think what will, if you’re going to purge, or if you need to purge, ayahuasca will make you purge. If you don’t need to, then you

00:35:28 ►

might not. And I don’t think there’s really any need to get hung up about the purging

00:35:32 ►

at all.

00:35:33 ►

Yeah, I’m right with you there. And in fact, the first several times I did ayahuasca, I

00:35:39 ►

didn’t purge either. And, but I went to, I was really careful about my preparation

00:35:45 ►

the first several times, and like you,

00:35:47 ►

I think that the shaman was right.

00:35:49 ►

You were ready.

00:35:50 ►

You had done so much preparation of the

00:35:53 ►

psychic material, you already

00:35:55 ►

had unburdened yourself

00:35:57 ►

somehow. It wasn’t until I got

00:35:59 ►

kind of cocky after four or five times,

00:36:01 ►

and I didn’t follow the diet

00:36:03 ►

and everything quite as faithfully, and all of a sudden I started pur purging and now I found it doesn’t really have much to do with

00:36:09 ►

anything other than what ayahuasca wants to teach me at the time and I’m either going to or I’m not

00:36:14 ►

I don’t even worry about it yeah yeah yeah you just have to let go into the experience for sure

00:36:20 ►

whatever’s going to happen it’s going to guide you. And like you, I didn’t have much in the way of visuals for a long time.

00:36:27 ►

It’s only recently now that I get visuals.

00:36:29 ►

But I think that you hit the nail on the head where you said,

00:36:35 ►

well, it’s a plus two to plus three, not many visuals,

00:36:37 ►

but the insights are the main things.

00:36:39 ►

Do you want to talk about that some?

00:36:42 ►

Yeah, absolutely.

00:36:44 ►

Right after it started to kick in and we were all just

00:36:47 ►

feeling surges of this electrical energy, the shamans down there, or all the people actually,

00:36:53 ►

refer to Mother Earth as Pachamama. And I was really, really nervous. And the shaman told me,

00:36:59 ►

just open up to Pachamama, open up to Pacham Mama. And I was feeling overly anxious, and I just asked for help.

00:37:07 ►

I said, I want to be okay through this, I want to learn something, you know.

00:37:11 ►

I really just opened myself up.

00:37:14 ►

And then I actually had an auditory hallucination,

00:37:17 ►

which is I’ve never had an auditory hallucination on any other psychedelics.

00:37:22 ►

And Mother Earth actually whispered to me,

00:37:27 ►

said, just breathe, baby, just breathe.

00:37:29 ►

And from then on, from that point,

00:37:31 ►

this was about probably a half hour, 45 minutes into it,

00:37:34 ►

from that point on to the rest of the ceremony,

00:37:38 ►

I was as calm as I’ve ever been in my entire life.

00:37:40 ►

It was absolutely amazing. I felt embraced by the jungle, embraced by Mother Earth.

00:37:45 ►

Part of the insights had to do with, I tend to be really overcritical of myself and others,

00:37:50 ►

and I just was filled with love for not only myself, but for, and not in a selfish way,

00:37:56 ►

but just the realization that I’m trying, doing my best, and so are others,

00:38:02 ►

and that everything’s really okay the way it is.

00:38:02 ►

I’m trying, doing my best, and so are others,

00:38:04 ►

and that everything’s really okay the way it is.

00:38:08 ►

I think we tend to try to force the world to be a certain way many times,

00:38:10 ►

and I think I also was just kind of telling me

00:38:14 ►

that for the most part,

00:38:16 ►

even though things seem so bad

00:38:18 ►

in so many different ways,

00:38:20 ►

there’s good people trying,

00:38:21 ►

everyone’s trying to do their best,

00:38:23 ►

and that everything in general is okay, and it’s going to be okay, no matter what happens.

00:38:28 ►

That was the overall insight, as well as many, many sub-epiphanies that I had throughout the night

00:38:35 ►

about little personal things that I had been either thinking about or working on myself.

00:38:43 ►

As far as visuals,

00:38:46 ►

this is another interesting thing about the trip

00:38:48 ►

that I should probably say, or the ceremony,

00:38:50 ►

is that night, while you’re having the experience,

00:38:55 ►

each one of you, each one of the members of the group

00:38:58 ►

are brought up individually to the shaman,

00:39:01 ►

and the shaman performs a healing

00:39:02 ►

while you’re sitting on this little stool,

00:39:04 ►

and he’s sitting in front of you, where he’s singing Icaros or spiritual songs.

00:39:10 ►

And that I had never heard of in any readings or research I had done on ayahuasca ceremonies.

00:39:17 ►

But the interesting part is, the following day, you get a personal interview with the

00:39:23 ►

shaman and he tells you what he saw in his vision regarding you and your life.

00:39:29 ►

So whereas, even though I had very few visuals,

00:39:33 ►

the visuals that I did have, he’ll explain them for you or interpret them for you

00:39:37 ►

or help you interpret them, as well as interpret his own visions regarding you.

00:39:41 ►

So you really do get a good idea of what the experience was all about,

00:39:45 ►

not only from your own interpretation, but a master shaman’s interpretation of Yacek.

00:39:51 ►

So I thought that was very interesting. That really is.

00:39:55 ►

Yeah, yeah. I thought that was amazing. I’d never heard of anything like that. And

00:39:59 ►

everybody really, really appreciated it, especially the people that were new to the psychedelic realms.

00:40:06 ►

You know, when you, in an ayahuasca ceremony, when you see a snake or a snake’s doing something to you,

00:40:11 ►

which is a common vision, generally it means something.

00:40:14 ►

And without that interview, you might not know.

00:40:18 ►

In fact, there were some really interesting visuals that me and some others had

00:40:22 ►

that turned out to mean something pretty interesting. My friend, the one who was Captain Purge a lot for the whole experience, she

00:40:35 ►

saw a huge gorilla, a huge gorilla with, she said, laser beam eyes in this tree, this huge tree that was outside of the hut.

00:40:47 ►

And the laser eyes were pointing to her chest somewhere.

00:40:50 ►

And she said she was very, very frightened of this gorilla.

00:40:54 ►

Well, during the healing, the individual healing with the shaman that night, he had said that

00:41:00 ►

he saw rows of yellow flowers stemming from her left hand up around her shoulders

00:41:06 ►

and down to her right hand.

00:41:08 ►

And one of the flowers

00:41:08 ►

that was over her heart was dead.

00:41:11 ►

And this dead flower was due

00:41:13 ►

to a difficult relationship

00:41:15 ►

that had ended.

00:41:17 ►

And it really freaked her out

00:41:20 ►

because she had just broken up

00:41:23 ►

with a boyfriend of hers

00:41:25 ►

and she was devastated by this and the shaman knew it

00:41:27 ►

and said that that was representative of this dead flower.

00:41:32 ►

Did the shaman know it in advance or did he intuit it?

00:41:38 ►

He knew it in advance.

00:41:41 ►

Do you mean in advance of…

00:41:42 ►

Did she tell him or did he intuit it on Ayahuasca himself?

00:41:49 ►

Oh, he intuited it on Ayahuasca himself.

00:41:52 ►

She said nothing regarding this to actually anybody on the trip, I don’t think.

00:41:57 ►

And so, yeah, he just totally knew this, and this kind of blew her away.

00:42:00 ►

She was just amazed that he would know this.

00:42:02 ►

But what he said was that this gorilla in the trees with these

00:42:06 ►

laser eyes was not trying to harm her.

00:42:08 ►

The visions are often very

00:42:09 ►

scary. He said to look

00:42:12 ►

past the scariness and the fear

00:42:13 ►

and that actually he was trying to point out with those

00:42:15 ►

laser eyes the flower that she needed

00:42:17 ►

to work on. During the healing,

00:42:20 ►

he said that he had given her

00:42:21 ►

a new yellow flower to place over

00:42:24 ►

the dead one that would grow strong with a new relationship that was going to come in her future.

00:42:29 ►

What’s really strange about this is my other friend that was lying to the right of me,

00:42:33 ►

he said he had the strongest open-eyed visual he’d ever seen

00:42:37 ►

that was more concrete, more real than anything he’d ever seen.

00:42:40 ►

It was that during Captain Pergolot’s healing with the shaman,

00:42:47 ►

he saw a yellow spirit go into the back of the shaman’s head

00:42:51 ►

as well as a yellow spirit between her and the shaman.

00:42:57 ►

Wow.

00:42:58 ►

And he closed his eyes for a minute or more and opened it.

00:43:02 ►

It was still there.

00:43:02 ►

He said he’d never seen anything like that.

00:43:04 ►

And this is someone with quite a bit of psychedelic experience. He’d never

00:43:09 ►

seen a vision so concrete in this reality. He was just absolutely amazed. And he goes

00:43:15 ►

right along. He didn’t find out until later after my friend, Captain Pergolot, had told

00:43:21 ►

him about what the shaman had said regarding the yellow flower and everything,

00:43:25 ►

that he was like, oh my God, you know, I saw the yellow flower he was putting there.

00:43:30 ►

I saw the spirit that he was calling upon to do this, and it was yellow.

00:43:34 ►

And so it’s experiences like that, which there were several of by several different peers,

00:43:39 ►

that people, they’re just absolutely amazing, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.

00:43:42 ►

they’re just absolutely amazing like nothing I’ve ever experienced before

00:43:44 ►

and that’s exactly what I’m sure you meant by

00:43:47 ►

a life changing experience

00:43:49 ►

having things like that happen

00:43:50 ►

absolutely

00:43:52 ►

I think for a lot of people

00:43:54 ►

the universe and reality got a whole lot bigger that night

00:43:58 ►

where we tend to see things in such a narrow view

00:44:02 ►

and I think an experience like this,

00:44:05 ►

especially someone who has never been open to ideas like this

00:44:08 ►

or experiences like this, it really opens them up.

00:44:13 ►

Well, you know, I can tell just listening to you

00:44:16 ►

that the spirit of the vine, the spirit of the jungle

00:44:19 ►

has returned home with you.

00:44:22 ►

And that’s really, I think, part of what this work is,

00:44:25 ►

is bringing the living, breathing essence of Gaia back to some of these dead areas.

00:44:33 ►

And I think that perhaps the reason it’s happening in the center of this country

00:44:37 ►

is like it’s happening everywhere.

00:44:40 ►

It is what’s bringing us all together,

00:44:42 ►

and it seems like these plants are trying to wake us humans up. Absolutely.

00:44:48 ►

I think especially with, hopefully

00:44:51 ►

I’ll be out of med school in another four years and there’s a lot of

00:44:56 ►

research. I was really glad to hear

00:44:59 ►

Charlie Grove on the show. He’s done some amazing research and

00:45:04 ►

I hope to continue in those footsteps.

00:45:06 ►

There’s a lot of research.

00:45:07 ►

So we’ve got people who aren’t into it in any scientific way that are experiencing it

00:45:13 ►

and bringing back the messages that the plant’s giving.

00:45:16 ►

But on another level, we’re trying to figure out exactly what the physical correlates of it are.

00:45:21 ►

And I think that on all these different levels, it’s all good.

00:45:25 ►

We’re trying to figure out what these plants are trying to tell us.

00:45:27 ►

And hopefully, I mean, I really do think there’s a lot to change.

00:45:31 ►

But Ayahuasca said it’s all going to be okay.

00:45:34 ►

So I think it will be.

00:45:35 ►

And I think the plants have a lot to, a big part to play in that.

00:45:44 ►

As I was listening to this with you just now, I began to better understand what Sasha was saying in last week’s podcast when he said he wasn’t creating chemicals but was creating instead a vocabulary of awareness.

00:46:02 ►

if this is exactly what he means,

00:46:05 ►

but to me, what I now see is that after having some of these experiences,

00:46:08 ►

you do develop a sort of unspoken vocabulary of awareness.

00:46:13 ►

I know it sounds strange to think about a non-verbal vocabulary,

00:46:18 ►

but in a way, that’s what sometimes takes place

00:46:21 ►

when psychonauts compare notes.

00:46:23 ►

For me, there were several

00:46:26 ►

points in our conversation where I could allow myself to be transported back to what was

00:46:31 ►

ayahuasca space for me, particularly the part where he was talking about at first starting

00:46:38 ►

to take hold. And if you’ve been there yourself, then you know exactly what I mean, even though I’m not attempting to describe the feeling.

00:46:48 ►

At least that’s how I understand Sasha’s vocabulary of awareness.

00:46:52 ►

In fact, I saw it in action again this past weekend when some friends stopped by,

00:46:57 ►

and we were discussing the differences between 5-MeO-DMT and toad venom,

00:47:03 ►

which has 5-MeO as one of the active ingredients.

00:47:07 ►

But only one of our group had actually tried toad venom, although all of us had done 5-MeO.

00:47:14 ►

And so in order to explain what was different about the toad venom,

00:47:18 ►

we wound up using a third substance that we’d all tried as a way to better illuminate the nuances of our

00:47:25 ►

conversation and it was really as if that third substance acted as a higher

00:47:30 ►

level vocabulary for us to use to talk about the experiences that are by

00:47:36 ►

definition ineffable which makes me sometimes wonder why we even try to

00:47:41 ►

describe them in the first place but I’m thankful to James for sharing his adventures with us.

00:47:47 ►

And as he told me later, he really has only just begun to process all that happened to him on this trip.

00:47:54 ►

And I have a hunch that we’ll be hearing more from James in the years to come.

00:47:59 ►

Thanks again for those stories, James.

00:48:01 ►

I almost feel as if I was there with you.

00:48:04 ►

Oh, and by the way, I will be posting those pictures, James. I almost feel as if I was there with you.

00:48:05 ►

Oh, and by the way,

00:48:08 ►

I will be posting those pictures that James sent,

00:48:09 ►

so you’ll be able to find them

00:48:10 ►

with the program notes for this podcast,

00:48:12 ►

which I’ll post at

00:48:14 ►

www.psychedelicsalon.org

00:48:18 ►

sometime in the next day or so.

00:48:21 ►

And I guess while I’m being thankful,

00:48:23 ►

I also want to be sure to send my love and gratitude

00:48:26 ►

to Zachary M, Edward Z, Kevin M, and Doug M

00:48:32 ►

all of whom sent donations to help offset the expenses of these podcasts

00:48:37 ►

I really do appreciate your support

00:48:40 ►

it means a lot to me

00:48:42 ►

and while I’m thinking of it

00:48:44 ►

there are some other fellow

00:48:46 ►

salonners who I’ve thanked

00:48:48 ►

in previous podcasts, but

00:48:49 ►

haven’t sent an email of thanks

00:48:51 ►

to you yet. I want you to know

00:48:54 ►

that I haven’t forgotten about you.

00:48:57 ►

That also

00:48:58 ►

goes out to some of you who have written to

00:49:00 ►

ask questions that I haven’t gotten a chance to

00:49:02 ►

answer yet as well.

00:49:04 ►

I want you all to know that my intentions are good, but my follow-through leaves a lot

00:49:09 ►

to be desired these days.

00:49:11 ►

There was a time in my life when I could multitask and get all kinds of things done in a day,

00:49:16 ►

and to be honest, I thought my own parents were kind of wimping out when they got to

00:49:23 ►

be the age I’m at now.

00:49:29 ►

I couldn’t understand how they could accomplish so little in a day or a week.

00:49:31 ►

But now I finally get it.

00:49:38 ►

Actually, one of my grandchildren pointed it out the other day when she called me a slowpoke. And that was when I realized that, you know, I’m just not going to get everything done each day that I want to do.

00:49:44 ►

that, you know, I’m just not going to get everything done each day that I want to do.

00:49:51 ►

And the real reason, the real bottom line here is that, hey, it feels good to slow down a little, to stop and enjoy the view once in a while.

00:49:56 ►

I think it was John Lennon who said something to the effect that life is what happens while

00:50:01 ►

you’re planning what to do next.

00:50:03 ►

So I’ve pulled back a little from the planning part and have been trying to enjoy the moment.

00:50:09 ►

Now I do read every email that comes in each day and sometimes I even get off an answer once in a while.

00:50:16 ►

But if I don’t turn off my computer each day before I get everything done that’s waiting there for me,

00:50:21 ►

if I don’t just put it down and walk away, I’ll never get another book read in my life. Thank you. It’s just that until we reach the point that Teilhard talked about when he said the noosphere awakens,

00:50:46 ►

well, until we get there and have some kind of super psychic ability,

00:50:50 ►

I guess you’re just going to have to take me on my word that I like your comments, suggestions, new ideas,

00:50:56 ►

and even your complaints, although I’m happy to report that there haven’t been many of those.

00:51:03 ►

In fact, it’s rare that I don’t agree with the sentiments in your emails.

00:51:08 ►

And I do appreciate the thought that goes into them.

00:51:12 ►

For example, near the end of a recent email from James M., he said,

00:51:17 ►

It’s just a ride, and we can change it any time we want.

00:51:21 ►

It’s only a choice.

00:51:23 ►

No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice,

00:51:27 ►

right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door,

00:51:34 ►

buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.

00:51:41 ►

Well, I think that’s very well put, James thanks for that because it really is just that simple

00:51:47 ►

and yet as they say

00:51:50 ►

the devil is in the detail

00:51:51 ►

so what that business about

00:51:53 ►

we’re all one really means

00:51:55 ►

is that we’re also all one

00:51:58 ►

with those screw heads in the world capitals

00:52:00 ►

who have led us into this mess

00:52:01 ►

and I know I must sound like a broken record but I do believe that the path out of our

00:52:07 ►

collective insanity will at least be lighted by psychedelic medicines, medicines that are

00:52:13 ►

mind manifesting, soul manifesting.

00:52:17 ►

They’re not for everybody, and they’re definitely not for the faint of heart.

00:52:21 ►

But as we heard today, those who are called and who are willing to venture

00:52:25 ►

into the unknown are often rewarded beyond their expectations. And hey, being here with

00:52:32 ►

you for these podcasts far exceeds any expectations that I had for my life just a few short years

00:52:38 ►

ago. What a psychedelic trip this has been for me, being here with you in the psychedelic salon.

00:52:46 ►

You know, as Terrence McKenna often said, ultimately, we’re all just creatures of language.

00:52:52 ►

And before I go, I want to mention that this and all of the podcasts from the psychedelic salon

00:52:58 ►

are protected under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 2.5 license.

00:53:04 ►

And if you have any questions about that,

00:53:05 ►

just click on the Creative Commons link at the bottom of the Psychedelic Salon webpage,

00:53:10 ►

which you can find at www.psychedelicsalon.org.

00:53:15 ►

And if you have any questions, comments, complaints, or suggestions about these podcasts,

00:53:19 ►

well, send them to Lorenzo at MatrixMasters.com.

00:53:24 ►

And Jacques, Cordell, and Wells,

00:53:26 ►

my friends who make music under the name Chateau Hayouk,

00:53:30 ►

thanks again for the use of your great sounds here in the salon, you guys.

00:53:34 ►

Really appreciate it.

00:53:35 ►

And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.

00:53:41 ►

Be well, my friends.

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