Second Ayahuasca Ceremony

At first there were some mild visuals and then I was shown some scenes from the film, Samsara – specifically the scene where there are custom-made coffins and a family was mourning at the funeral of a young man who was lying in a coffin shaped like a gun. I was then shown another scene from the film which was a dead child in the coffin. I remember saying to myself that I am obsessed with death, which is something I am already all too aware of.

After that, more or less, the visuals more or less completely ceased and I spent the remainder of the time in a strange state of hypnogogue. Although I felt like I was in a dream-like state I kept coming back/returning to the maloca any time I heard a noise, which made me very irritable. I think I became very sensitized to noise and it was irritating me, basically everything and anything. The best way to describe it was that it felt like I was being constantly woken up all the time so I felt grumpy at whatever the cause was – I even became irritated by the Icaros.

Another strange thing I noticed was some kind of sinister energy within the maloca – at first I thought it might have been because I was so irritable but after speaking with Lin she said she sensed it as well. Later on during sharing time, I learned that other people had been disturbed by someone in the group singing along (outloud) with the Icaros which had bothered them greatly. Perhaps in some weird way I was picking up on their energy? Or maybe I was just receptive to receiving negative energy because I became annoyed at the start of the ceremony that I could hear someone’s phone beeping outside in their room?

Overall, during the dreamstate I was mainly entrenched in deep thought but there’s nothing I can really recall of any significance right now. The thoughts seemed quite non-sensical so I’m not going to bother trying to digest them now and wait until time helps me process them instead.

I’m not sure if this experience was a lesson in and of itself but more than likely since I have had anger management issues since I was young, plus I’m also impatient. I think this ceremony helped me realize that everything is not about me all the time and sometimes I am here simply to exist in the here and now for other people and hold the space for them. That just because I wasn’t having some sort of deep and profound visual experience, it didn’t mean the ceremony had gone to waste – I was still there to hold the circle for everyone else in the group who was having their own time.

On a side note, during the second seal of this ceremony it was interesting to note that I hadn’t even noticed what was happening. Don Rober and Carlos had taken me completely by surprise and by the time they reached me, I was lying flat on my back with my blanket over my head. Instead of hitting me on the head with the ceremonial plants to chant the Icaros, Carlos hit my chest instead. What’s interesting is, is that during the first ceremony I had a hood over my head and I can’t help but feel that there is (or was) something resisting the second seal. As if by putting my hood on or blanket over me there is still some barrier between myself and the shaman – albeit an arbitrary one.  I suppose it is also in some way significant of the barriers I place between myself and allowing to be healed. For the next ceremony I intend to have no barrier over me at all.

I more or less fell asleep straight away as soon as I got to bed. I left a very short while after the candle was lit again. Not before I fell asleep did I hear one of the members of the group screaming and moaning in the maloca – she obviously had a lot of emotional purging to be done so I was rooting for her to let it all out.

I woke up reasonably early in the morning and went straight to drink the limonada and have the floral bath. Today it was actually rather refreshing and pleasant and I have had the Icaros they sung me in my head for most of the day, which is nice in itself.

After breakfast I went back to bed and fell asleep again.