The answer is always LOVE (or sometimes, "42"!)

The answer is always LOVE (or sometimes, "42"!)
My philosophy is LOVEISM...

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Kelly’s Ayahuasca Ceremony #2


I highly recommend you peruse “Kelly’s Ayahuasca Ceremony #1” before attempting to read or understand this personal account of my second Ayahuasca ceremony.  However, do as you wish (which, incidentally, is one of the many insights of my second ceremony!)

This intimate documentation of my second Ayahuasca ceremony highlights the general “themes” revealed to me by “Grandmother”; clear statements-- such as “Stop picking on the Christians!” (What?! Me?!!); reliable resources for more in-depth information; and some of the entertaining aspects of my ceremony—such as, I exhausted 3 boxes of tissues, but not without thanking each tree that contributed to making each tissue (yeah, it was like THAT.)

I now realize my first ceremony was a TRAP!  Meaning, my first ceremony was comparably “light” and at times, “fun”; I spent most of the time LAUGHING at my ridiculous self, when not puking (aka, “purging”) in a bucket.  My first ceremony was relatively “gentle” on my EGO, body and spirit.  The morning following my first ceremony I felt super-conscious, energized, and We-Are-the-World warm-fuzzy about everything and everyone.  No one would ever suspect I had been awake, all night, on highly psychoactive chemicals; had not eaten in 3 days (fasting is required for ceremony); and operating on maybe 2 hours of sleep.  You would think I just woke up, drank 3 cups of espresso and did a Kundalini yoga class with the Dalai Lama. Which is exactly why my second ceremony experience came as such a shock. In all brevity, I got my ASS, my EGO and my SOUL kicked.

So here we go again, DEEPER down the rabbit hole…

Ceremony #2

Much to my surprise, this ceremony had a consistent biblical motif, which is surprising since I have not identified with Christianity since my early adolescent years. If you recall from Ayahuasca Ceremony #1, in high school, I publically renounced my Catholic inheritance from my parents, and yes, inconveniently while attending a private Catholic High School.  Quotes and scenes from the Bible fell like rain throughout the whole ceremony.  And at one point, I got to eavesdrop on Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before his famous execution.  Yeah, this IS going to get heavy!

1.     Ayahuasca helped me excavate my “true calling” or mission in Life.  I say “excavate” because it was always there (She would lead me through another vivid power-point presentation, complete with time-lines)—my “purpose” buried deep below infinite memories, song lyrics, my internal calculator, personal shadows, and “ROYGBIV”/wash-your-hands-after-using-the-toilet kind of stuff.  

Through a biographical montage, Grandmother showed me how many times I had directly “danced” with Death (in THIS lifetime alone.)  Some encounters were obvious (such as having 14 AK-47’s pointed AT me in the African jungle) to not-so obvious encounters with Death, such as cliff-diving in Hawaii or speeding down a highway at 85 mph.  The best of the montage was a SCUBA scene, where I am TRYING to remove a moray eel wrapped around my gear without touching it (you have NO IDEA how challenging this is!  It is not like you can grab a stick at 40 feet below in the ocean!)  Just watching my SCUBA buddy and I silently freaking out, in mime, was priceless entertainment—and just when I thought I got it, She panned down to show me a WHALE SHARK sitting not even 20 feet below us!  WOW!

Grandmother reminded me of witnessing a truck drive over a landmine in Mozambique; of course, all the disease-related deaths I witnessed in Africa; how I was almost impaled by a beach umbrella caught up in the wind; covering all the natural disasters I have lived through…ending her presentation with Max and I, in Costa Rica, literally SURFING on a 7.1 earthquake, while our neighbors are praying in their doorways.  And we are HOWLING with joy, “Dude!  We’re surfing an earthquake!”

The message was clear:  I have NO FEAR of Death, and half the time, my response to death was LAUGHTER.  WOW!  Which, of course, makes me the perfect candidate to SHOW people how NOT to fear death, aka “The Ultimate Transition.” Only when the fear of death is removed from collective consciousness, will there truly be PEACE on EARTH.  Think of all the current (tragically flawed) systems that would naturally fall away—from military organizations to dismantling the weapons, pharmaceutical and “security” industries, and then some!

She also showed me that it is exactly my lack of fear (of death) that enables me to live MY life so fully; and wouldn’t it be nice, if everyone could experience this kind of freedom?  Therefore, my purpose, starting with MY life as an example, is to help remove the fear of death from collective human consciousness, while at the same time, liberating and encouraging people to live fully as they wish. 

 **Two months later, to come full circle, I would be inspired to start my own radical transformation coaching business, dubbing myself the Goofy Guru, with the mission to SHOW people how to integrate JOY, PLAY and LAUGHTER, on a daily basis, into ALL aspects of their lives, from the mundane to the “tough stuff” like death, divorce, war, poverty, disease, etc.

2.     We create EVERYTHING in our lives, literally.  Since I am a writer, Ayahuasca revealed to me through literary metaphor, that each one of us is writing our own story, as we go.   Every thought is a sentence that becomes a person, place, thing, or experience in our lives (so choose your thoughts and words wisely!) And quite frankly, WE ARE BRILLIANT!  We choose the setting(s), the actors (even the “bad” guys), the drama and “tragedies”, the love scenes, the musical score, the adventures we wish to take, the lessons we WANT to learn—everything!  We are all self-writing BOOKS and collectively, we are a (human) library! 

I saw clearly how I (subconsciously) brought certain “characters” and experiences into my own story-- sometimes to teach/remind myself, sometimes to teach/remind others;  sometimes purely for scientific observation—“What happens when I (insert verb)?” ; sometimes for pure entertainment purposes (A LOT of THAT in my life!); and then sometimes to prove a point.  With this insight, I realized I have the ultimate power to edit, delete, re-write, and most importantly, write a NEW story for myself, and I can change it at any time! 

And the best part?!  There is NO EDITOR!  I AM both the writer and the editor (just how I like it!)  Therefore, I can write WHATEVER I want!  *Think of the dude who recently said, “Hey, I want to parachute from, you know…Space!” Guess what?  He DID!  And if we ALL wrote a new, more enlightened story for ourselves, we could collectively change our world as we know it!   We have the power to change our “world story” at ANY TIME!  (How about NOW?!) *This is in alignment with the whole idea that world peace starts with the inner-peace of each individual.

Grandmother showed me how we “forget” we are the writers/creators of our own stories and how this impacts the collective human story (we are seeing this now clearly reflected in our world.)  We get “lost” or “trapped” in our “stories”  (script-writer Charlie Kauffman expressed this very concept in his film, “Adaptation”—well-done, Charlie.)  When people and events appear to be repeating in your life (i.e., every boss/boyfriend/housemate/neighbor you get is an “asshole”, one after another), then you are “stuck in the loop” (like an MC Escher drawing or the film, “Groundhog’s Day”) and need to “wake up” in order to get out (like in the film, “The Matrix”.)  

Ayahuasca showed me a montage of films, books, plays, and visual arts-- from Shakespeare to Michael Jackson to Salvador Dali-- that were ALL trying to express this very sentiment:  “WE are the writers/creators of our own stories.  Wake up!” Bottom line: Really, WE ARE BRILLIANT!  Life IS the best-written story ever and no, there is not a “happy ending” because there is NO ENDING, we just keep getting better and becoming better writers/creators.


3.     Science and “Spirituality” are just two different languages saying the same thing.  Proof?  Just watch the documentary “The Black Whole”; or read anything by Carl Sagan, Nikola Tesla, Deepak Chopra, Fritjof Capra, or Albert Einstein—Grandmother confirmed these are reliable resources of information.  *And know, that technically, every single person you encounter, every animal that crosses your path, every experience of your life (no matter how mundane) has the potential to TEACH you something about you and our world; and ultimately, YOU are your most reliable resource for information.

4.     And lastly, the importance of creating personal boundaries.   Through a very long and torturous journey (ending with 3 empty boxes of tissues, swollen eyeballs and a raw nose), Ayahuasca allowed me to feel ALL the pain and suffering of humanity (throughout history, I might add—starting with Neanderthals through 2012.)  To say it was a brutal experience would be a gross understatement.  At some point, the suffering became so unbearable, I actively tried to make myself spontaneously combust, and when that did not work, I started begging (out loud) to be “put out of my misery.”  I even interrupted the whole ceremony to insist my fellow participants help me die.  (Note:  Those Bitches did NOT help!) 

Naturally, I became FURIOUS because no one was helping me die (I kept moaning over and over, “I’ve had ENOUGH!  I’m TIRED!  Just let me GO!”); I would rather die than feel this collective pain and suffering another picosecond.  Grandmother communicated the term “Empath” and showed me how my extraordinary empathy was not just limited to humans, but also to plants and animals and that I needed to learn how to create personal boundaries to protect myself—lest, I want to continue to FEEL ALL SUFFERING. 

Jesus! Really?!!!
I suppose She was trying to make me feel better by showing me that some of my personal heroes, like Jesus, Gandhi, MLK, Jr., Biko, etc. all felt just like me, at some point (thus the whole Jesus and Garden of Gethsemane scene.)  And being the smartass I am, I pointed out that at least THEY got their wish, they were all assassinated!  Yes, I was “arguing” with Grandmother!  And I do believe I was “scolded” because I was shown just what a petulant child I really am, constantly throwing tantrums; a gleeful trickster and ebullient troublemaker/instigator; the most clandestine of all outlaws; the joker, the fool and by no means a saint—but I hate to brag ;)


Unlike my first ceremony, the next day, I not only felt physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally exhausted, I could not even think of common words in English—I struggled to say, “cigarette”—instead, I said, “Can I have a…lighty thing?” --using sign language to show smoking.  When I got home, I slept for 6 hours, woke up to eat, and then slept another 8 hours.  I did not leave my house, or my pajamas, for 3 days. 

So, how did THIS ceremony change my life? 

As soon as I was able I researched “Empaths”; this definition gave me a lot of insight into myself and why I act the way I do, as well as useful resources and coping tools specifically for Empaths.  I immediately implemented boundaries in a very public way—starting with “no more drop-in’s” at my house (call or text first!)  

My friends and I use THIS sign language to signal someone is getting "stuck" in their "sad/mad/old story"
I now practice stopping people “caught” in their “sad/mad/old stories.”  Among my friends, we created playful sign language to communicate whenever one of us is getting “stuck” in his/her story.  The signal?  Picking the nose.  Brilliant!  It is effective because it is a gentle, playful way to let someone know he/she is “stuck” in a “sad/mad/old story” and about to slide down the negative spiral—if you really want to “help” someone, it is better to seek a SOLUTION than allow them to replay the sad/mad/old story again and again.   The longer you allow someone to tell their sad/mad/old story, the further you are taking them away from the solution.

I identified “emotional vampires” in my life and have distanced myself from them—unfortunately, some of them are not (currently) happy with new arrangement (“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do”, echoes from ceremony.)   I am patiently waiting for them to realize they are “stuck” in their stories and able to write a new story for themselves.  *I cannot wait until they all “wake up” and then we all can co-author a new, better more JOYFUL story for all of us.

I now operate on the “15 Minute Plan” (*credit to Nancy MacPhail), where I am constantly checking-in with myself (How does this FEEL? Do I really want to do this?  Does this feel good?) before I make any decisions, say anything, or take action—by the way, through the 15 Minute Plan, I have already reduced my caffeine and nicotine intake—without even trying!  I am practicing constant awareness of my thoughts, words and actions, because they are the script of my future.  (But note: This IS a work in progress and I don’t always succeed.)

These are just a few daily tools inspired by my second ceremony.  There are many others that I am actively introducing to my friends, family and community, and eventually, the world through my new developing role as the Goofy Guru

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