Cactus of Mystery

by Ross Heaven

  And then there are the inconsistencies.

  It never ceases to amaze me from a biochemical point of view that when taking a group of people for ceremonial, entheogenic consciousness expansion and healing, on any given day, with everyone taking the same brew and being in the same place with the same shaman and the same energies, each person has a completely different experience—both physically and nonphysically. This might be explained by individual physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual differences, but the inconsistencies do not end there. The next time this same group of people imbibe the same recipe in the same place with the same environmental conditions each will have a completely new experience compared to their last. As the Shuar say, you get what you need.

  I have extensive personal experience with ayahuasca in both the Upper and Lower Amazonian regions, and with San Pedro in the Andes. In describing my ayahuasca experiences, it should be noted, I will tend to use examples from the Shuar perspective as it is in a Shuar community of the Upper Amazon that I have spent most time. In addition, this community is remotely located in an area with no roads or electricity, resulting in less cultural pollution and a more traditional outlook. My Shuar elders or Uwíshins (shamans or “wise ones”) are from a very long lineage of uninterrupted teachings going back into prerecorded time. I have also, however, spent a great deal of time with ayahuasceros from the lowlands and have found remarkably similar reverence and practices.

  The miraculous beauty of plant entheogens fills me with awe. In this chapter I have been asked to talk about these two sacred medicines—ayahuasca and San Pedro. This will by no means be a complete treatise of the subject, but rather an exploration into the essential nature of these two sacraments.

  When befriending someone new you spend time with them and get to know them. Similarly, when befriending a plant spirit, or indeed any Earth spirit, the native way is to sit with them, getting to know the plant, developing and nurturing this new relationship. In other words, to begin to know the spirit of the plant, begin by sitting with it and communing with it as you would in the early stages of any relationship. Ask questions of them: Who are they? What is their name? Where do they live? Where do they come from? Who are their friends? You begin to share stories and songs. Your life stories. Your accomplishments and your role in your communities.

  Begin by getting to know each other body-to-body. Understanding that our essential energies are not disconnected from our life-form. Get to know the vessel in which our new friend’s spirit lives, the physical form that is home to the spirit on this planet. Sit together in its house if you are able to do so, in the plant’s natural surroundings. Ask questions. Listen and share. Learn its names, how it is called to by those who hold it most sacred—the plant shamans, called the vegetilismos, or vegetilismas, if female. Who are this plant’s other friends and how does it connect with them? What is its part in the community? What is its contribution to the world (in the case of a plant spirit this story will be long and measured in millennia)? As you sit with it, listening and communicating over time, your relationship with it will deepen. As you continue to share with this being, gaining mutual trust and understanding, it is sure to tell you more and more—its songs, its stories, and its gifts. Let us begin.

  AYAHUASCA

  Ayahuasca (also known by the names caapi, yaje, natém, dapa, mihi, pinde, la purga) is a Quechua word variously translated as “the vine of death” or “the vine of the soul,” also “the vine of the dead” or “the vine of the ancestors.” This naming tells it all. It is thought by the Shuar to open the head, to create an opening through which a new life vision can seep and the old can die. It is through this opening that, it is said, one can see true reality.

  Ayahuasca is not a loner or a dry being. It is literally a hot, wet soup. Not brewed from a single plant, it is the dance of several plant spirits together.

  The hanging forest liana Banisteriopsis caapi vine’s woody trunk is prepared and combined with the chacrona, that is Psychotria viridis and/or a host of other plants—the light. This combines the heaven-seeking vine with the Earth-based lower plants, as well as bringing together the four elements of fire, water, earth, and air in the preparation. Into the cauldron the Shuar Uwíshins will place the carefully cut vine, layered with the leaves of the plants of their choice, which are counted out between the fingers of their hands. Water to cover and place over an open fire. The brew is cooked for a full day, although each ayahuascero has his or her own recipe (added to the Banisteriopsis vine you will encounter most commonly Psychotria various species, although numerous others may join in the dance including Brugmansia species, Diplopterys, guayúsa, and others too numerous to recount here).

  Biochemically, the effects on the imbiber are also a dance and depend on a unique sparring between the mixture of plants and the person’s own body. The vine Banisteriopsis caapi contains harmine MAOI’s, or monoamine oxidase inhibiters. Without this inhibition of our stomach’s monoamine oxidase, the DMT of the chacrona would be rendered orally inactive. The dance between the plant spirits and our stomach allows the light to enter our being.

  The plants of ayahuasca also grow in a “soupy” landscape. The primary jungle of the Upper and Lower Amazon is a hot, wet, and soupy mix. The very air is a soup. The home of these plant spirits is richly dense and abundant, filled with countless entities. It is a deeply sensuous and sensual medium where life and fecundity create a veritable soup for the senses. This is not a subtle forest but filled with loud smells, sounds, tastes, textures, and sights. This is a place where plant spirits live in close community with the spirits of thousands of animals and disembodied entities. The vine, snakelike, winds its way up the trees in an uncertain course, and its very life depends on its relationship to these trees and the myriad other creatures surrounding it in this mutually supportive and destructive landscape. Although life abounds in this environment, the vine can be quite slow growing. It is not unusual to see a twenty-year-old vine growing in the remote jungle.

  Out of this soup the disciples of ayahuasca arose. The nature of this dance of just the right spiritual elements points to a divinely inspired and spiritually guided birthing. It has been said that due to the immense complexity of the jungle’s vegetation and the sheer number of species, the random selection by chance of just the right combination of plants to create the effect that we find used in the ayahuasca sacrament, even over time, is mathematically impossible. If you ask the Uwíshins they will tell you that they talk to the plants. The plants teach them how to be used and this has always been the way.

  The location where a particular vine is harvested (that is, the location where it is found and the surrounding spirits with which the vine has grown up) is thought to have a great deal to do with its potency and its unique spiritual essence. For example, an old vine found growing in a remote and quiet area away from human settlement is thought to have a more powerful spirit and a more potent effect. Amongst the Shuar the essence of a particular vine is often described by which god or goddess it is aligned with. I have often seen an ayahuascero come from a foraging session leaping with excitement at having found and harvested a vine of the Goddess Tsunki, foretelling and expounding the virtues of the upcoming night’s ceremony with this particular plant sprit.

  Ayahuasca has many stories, and I will recount one that I was told by a Shuar grandmother.

  It is said that in ancient times, when Étsaa ascended to the sky to become the sun god, the people became saddened and lonely at night time. Étsaa sent Ayumpúm on a bolt of lightning to help them.

  Ayumpúm is the god of thunder and whenever you hear this crashing sound you know that he is near. It was Ayumpúm who taught the people which plants to pick and how to prepare the sacrament of natém (ayahuasca). Through this divine gift they were made aware of all spiritual entities that inhabit the night.

  From that day onward it is said, the people were never again sad or lonely. From that day onward they learned to prepare ayahuasca at night time
to keep them aware and connected to the spirits that lived all around them.

  The ayahuasceros traditionally are the healers of the people, of the land, and of the communities. They are the Uwíshins and Pajés of the jungle. Steven Rubenstein in his book Alejandro Tsakimp: A Shuar Healer in the Margins of History describes the mission of an Uwíshin in this way: “Shamans are not supposed to act solely to augment their own power. They exist to help others.”2

  I have experienced several ways that ayahuasca is used by the Shuar to help others, both as a part of everyday life and as a catalyst involved in rites of passage and vision quests. For example, ayahuasca may be used for medicinal purpose at the time of a healing or in lesser amounts on a regular basis for a medical condition that requires continued use. For visioning and healing, the concentrated form is more frequently used by the Uwíshins. At adolescence, for example, an entire family will participate in the initiatory ceremony using either ayahuasca or aaikiúa (datura) and follow the young man or woman’s vision for their future by dreaming it together. Before visioning in this way there are preparatory practices that can be challenging and lengthy. These can include fasting from all food for periods of days to weeks combined with strenuous physical exertion and the snorting of strong sacred jungle tobacco, Nicotiana rustica. This dieta is not simply fasting from foods, but also going into nature and separating from daily chores and situations. By purifying your body and surroundings you are prepared to concentrate on the otherworld and to receive visions by coming into a deeply quiet and contemplative attitude and space within.

  Less frequently, natém (ayahuasca) is used in the natémamo ceremony. In this instance the preparation is thinner and less concentrated such that literally gallons are drunk by each person until a great purging occurs, followed by extremely strong healing visions. The natemamo ceremony is performed when a family or community has experienced a challenging event requiring a cathartic purge, such as a death or other major upheaval. At the onset of the evening’s ceremony, the communal drum is beaten and can be heard for miles. Upon hearing this call those who wish to partake with the family are summoned.

  The purgative nature of ayahuasca is deemed a gift. An important part of the healing experience, the emetic properties are highly appreciated. To put this into context, know that in many rainforest cultures vomiting is part of one’s daily cleansing practice. In contrast to our Western mind where, as nausea builds, we begin to think that we are getting sick, these peoples think of this process as getting well. The Achuar arise well before dawn and communally drink gallons of guayusa*26 3 in order to vomit as part of their everyday morning ablutions.

  Ayahuasca’s visionary potential is essential for the practice of the Uwíshins. On the other hand, although the Uwíshin shaman will always use ayahuasca during his healings on others, the person being healed may or may not take the brew, at least amongst the Shuar.

  The healing ceremonies by the shamans include chanting as well as brushing with plants. Phlegm is a complex concept that is difficult to translate into English; however, suffice it to say that unwanted energies are extracted by sucking. Amongst the Shuar this practice is enhanced by the use of tsentsak, or invisible darts. These can be seen by the Uwíshins when under the influence of ayahuasca, who will scan the patient, sending his own darts in to search out offending darts or other unwanted energies, which are then extracted by sucking. The energies removed will concretize into palpable items or “phlegm,” which are then discarded. The physical part of the healing is generally not lengthy and does not detract from the visionary healing potential of the plant spirit experienced by the patient.

  An important part of the traditional ayahuasca session is the music. Each ayahuascero has his own songs or chants (icaros in Quechua). The shape and direction of the entire experience seems to be guided by the songs of the ayahuascero. Other senses, such as scent, will also drive the experience.

  The spirit of ayahuasca is known to strongly impart a sense of unity with the All. Commonly the Uwíshins or other ayahuascero will be aware of all the visions of those who are participating with him. This attribute was even recognized by scientists, and in fact the first alkaloid isolated from the Banisteriopsis vine was termed “telepathine.”4

  Another universally experienced gift from communion with this plant spirit medicine is a sense of connection to and love of nature. Many, after first-time communion, describe to me that they felt forever changed in their relationship to Mother Earth and Father Sky, and devote their lives thereafter in some way to honoring all life on this planet.

  How the spirit of ayahuasca comes to you in vision or how you sense this spirit is highly variable. In general it is thought that a plant spirit will come to you in a form you are able to relate with in vision. Ayahuasca is said to often show herself in the feminine form, although the Tukano will describe ayahuasca as Father Aya or Grandfather. Mestre Irineu Serra, the founder of the Santo Daime Church, describes his first encounter with the spirit of ayahuasca as a female—La Reina de la Floresta, or the forest queen.

  Although ayahuasca visions are individual and varied, classically she comes in the guise of potent animals such as jaguars and as light beings from the celestial realms. And as snakes: if there is one vision that is most associated with the spirit of ayahuasca it is of the snake—the anaconda.

  Primordial snake, asleep for centuries in the fundamental waters of my material body, associated with instincts, primordial fears, my first water-demon . . . I might not see you but still you are there. . . . I fear you every time the internal wind blows, bringing me your voice . . . like you, I too would like to be close to the Earth, to feel that my heat is that which she gives me to and to emerge from her womb at night to bathe in the moonlight . . . to see values change in the world, from within my immobile ophidian blue eye, with my physical eyes closed as only animals divest of the rigid-rational wrappings of the brain are able to see: forwards and backwards further than time and distance with ears capable of hearing the voice of the serpent-mother the way Eve heard it, speaking from within oneself without words, directly to the cells, distrusting even the gods. . . .

  THE ICARO OR SHAMANIC SONG

  BY DR. JACQUES MABIT DESCRIBING

  HIS AYAHUASCA VISION5

  The course these visions take can be, like the vine itself, serpiginous. Winding through your consciousness like a snake, there is a sense that you might get lost in the randomness of the direction that your visions take—that is if you let it. The Shuar will remind you to be strong, to capture your strength by following the vision trail. A session during which you are able to focus and follow the trail of the visions, finding the inner power to confront terrifying entities, which then reveal to you their gifts, is especially welcomed and is said to impart arútam—Shuar for the vital warrior life force.

  After the sacramental session the Uwíshins will ask you to consecrate your healing by committing to certain sacrifices. It is said that the path to the sacred is through sacrifice, words with similar etymological roots coming from the word for an oath or obligation. The sacrifices asked of you will vary widely; however, they often include prescriptions for a period of abstinence from certain foods and activities such as spicy foods, meats, alcohol, and sex. After my first experience with ayahuasca I was asked to abstain from sex for six weeks although I was never again given such a lengthy prescription.

  As mentioned above, an ayahuasca ceremony in traditional usage is devoid of major fanfare or ritual at the time of drinking and is more of an internal experience with dreamtime revealing to us our truth and expanding our reality. It is most often held at night; however, there are ayahuasceros in the lowlands who hold ceremony during daylight hours.

  No discussion of ayahuasca would be complete without mention of more recent initiates—the Churches of the Santo Daime, the Uni£o do Vegetal (UdV), and the Barquinha. Disciples of these churches have taken the sacramental use of ayahuasca throughout the world, even to upper-middle-class suburban neighbo
rhoods of Europe and North America. These relatively recent syncretic churches coming out of the deep Amazonian rainforest regions are centered on the sacramental tea itself.

  In the early 1930s a Catholic Brazilian siringueiro, or rubber tapper, of African ancestry, called Raimundo Irineu Serra, or Mestre Irineu, after instruction from local shamans in the sacred use of ayahuasca, was given visions by the spirit of the plants along with instructions for his new church movement.

  Irineu’s first significant vision was of a Divine Lady, sitting in the moon, who told him he must retreat into the forest for eight days with only ayahuasca to drink and only macacheira (boiled manioc) to eat. During this retreat Irineu had visions of the “Forest Queen” who told him that he must start a new faith in which the ayahuasca drink (to be called “daime,” meaning “give me” in Portuguese) would be central. She would show him how the Daime was to be used as a sacrament and guide him through the initial hostilities he and his followers would face.

  MICHELLE PAULI, THE SANTO DAIME—HOW IT BEGAN6

  The Santo Daime religious ceremonies (called trabalhos, or works) are Christian based and consist of differing sessions—meditative, festive, healing, and commemorative. Depending on the type of work, they involve the singing of hymns, dancing, and visioning. The use of the sacramental ayahuasca is central to these ceremonies, which serve to move energies individually and communally, resulting in personal and communal spiritual evolution. Women and men are separated and there is a hierarchy of disciples within the church. The feitio, or preparation of the tea, is also segregated and is a beautiful ceremony. The women collect the leaves of the chacrona singing to the plants and give them to the men. The men collect and cut the vine, which they then pound in unison while chanting hymns. The padrinho then begins to prepare the tea.