My mother once told me about a time when I was about five or six years old and I was riding on the subway train with her when something had caused me to start laughing. She said I laughed continuously and within minutes almost everyone on the train was laughing too.
I would love to go back to being that child, to regain that sense of innocence.
As an adult, I don’t laugh often, as family and friends can attest. I have sometimes been described as very serious-minded, even overly so.
I have come to the realization that somewhere along the way, I had gained much emotional baggage I was initially unaware of. I had lost that sense of freedom that had allowed me to laugh as a child with such total abandon. It is lying dormant inside me, waiting to awaken to remind me in a visceral way of my connection and unity with the Divine and all things.
I believe the experience of ayahuasca will help me get back to being that child on the train who felt so completely free.
I do not consider taking ayahusaca lightly. I am being called in my life’s journey to this sacred experience, as I have witnessed many signs on my path of self-discovery and self-recovery. I know I cannot and will not reach my full potential, fulfill my Divine purpose and share my gifts with the world if I don’t know who I am.
Several years ago, a succession of life events, some traumatic, had brought me to a point of living in survival mode, where my dominant emotions were fear, anxiety and anger. All my relationships to others, including with myself, suffered greatly.
All my disciplines of yoga, meditation, exercise, and eating a healthy diet went out the window. I did anything I could to stay in my emotional comfort zone, creating a life I came to resent, Yet there, I didn’t have to take risks or be vulnerable. I didn’t have to deal with whatever pain I’d stowed away inside me.
And yet, I found myself more and more in extended states of depression. I had two anxiety attacks. I was weighted down with immense feelings of regret. It took me a long time to stop beating myself up and even longer to forgive myself for thinking my mistakes had been unforgivable. I am still in that process.
Though my path to growth has been rocky due to my more-than-occasional stubbornness, I have come to realize that if I do not clear out whatever baggage I am still carrying, I won’t be able to reach my full potential in carrying out my life’s purpose, which I feel I am getting clearer on every day.
I am here to love, to create and to share my love and creation. I am here to grow, to learn everything I can and share what I’ve learned in-order to spiritually evolve. I do not want to live my life unfulfilled, sabotaged by subconscious fears, in a state of habitual contraction rather than expansion.
Several years ago, I’d come across several documentaries about dimethyltryptamine, aka DMT, aka, the Spirit Molecule, which then lead me to information about ayahuasca.
For those who do not know, ayahuasca is a specific combination of two plants found in the Amazon: Banisteriopsis caapi and chacruna (or chagropanga, depending on the region). The combination of the chemical properties of both plants creates the psychedelic effect by which ordinary reality is subverted to a heightened state of awareness, allowing access to the spiritual realm.
An apt analogy to an ayahuasca experience would be the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol, in which the protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge is taken on a journey by three spirits to moments from his past, present and future. In the course of this journey, Scrooge realizes he has spent his life avoiding love due to his fear of being broken hearted like he had been during his youth. By morning, Scrooge has been restored to being a vulnerable and compassionate human being free to give and receive love and express joy.
My path has lead me to be called to experience ayahuasca as a means to continue my healing on the spiritual level and return to a state of balance.
I know much may come up during my ayahusaca experience that may be painful. It will not be easy. But I also know pain is felt when I allow myself to bury emotions rather than work through them. Suffering is staying in a situation or mindset that no longer serves its purpose and it causes pain that goes on and on. I no longer want to suffer this kind of pain.
Therefore, I must look my truth in the face and deal with it. With the guidance of the teaching plant, ayahuasca and a knowledgeable shaman, I know I will gain such a clarity as I have never had before. I am open and ready to be healed. I am ready to die to my old self, to be reborn as my true self.
I would like to travel to Spirit Vine, an Ayahuasca Retreat Center in Bahia, Brazil that administers the sacred experience with strict observance to tradition as well as having knowledgeable facilitators guide the retreat’s participants.
I am ready for the sacred plant of ayahuasca to teach me, to heal me. I am ready to die to my old self, to be reborn.
Author: Donn Swaby
