The Night Ayahuasca Showed Me My Demons

My honest experience - the good, the vomit, and the beautiful.

Photo by Valdemaras D. on Unsplash

I’m on my back, lying on an old halved slab of a eucalyptus trunk. Above me, the stars are in their full glory, miles away from the light pollution of the nearest city.

“Do you see how beautiful they are?” an Iranian accent asks me, given the name Nicky by the Brazilians - the hard consonant ending of his anglicized name foreign in their mouths.

“They’re gorgeous,” I respond. They are. How come I’ve never seen how beautiful they are? Twinkling down at me, a smattering of the great beyond that takes over the sky each night.

He hums, a small laugh in his throat. “Yes, I did the same my first time.”

I start to reply. He cuts me off. “Just enjoy this moment. Look at the stars.”

I do.

I feel as if my heart, or perhaps even my soul, might rip out of my chest for the chance to fly up and join them. It is as if the connection between the great beyond and my small life, with each second, becomes smaller and smaller.

“Do you feel it yet?” he asks, after a few moments of quiet. He takes sipping pulls of pure tobacco from an ornate, hand-carved wooden pipe.

“I’m not sure,” I tell him. It’s the truth. “Do you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What does it feel like?”

“You’ll see.”

He’s older than fifty, and for the past few weeks, I’ve been his translator. Right now, I feel the usual, comfortable power dynamic shift, and I am suddenly reminded that to him, I am still but a child. He watches over me, already a pro in the realm I’m throwing myself into.

Even though the shamans warned me the ayahuasca tasted terrible, I wasn’t prepared for it. Even still, the idea of that taste sends a full-body shiver through me. A thick, almost gelatinous black liquid, with a taste I can best describe as sludge.

Ahead of me, the cosmos begins to organize themselves into geometric patterns, and my consciousness, normally in the front of my mind, sinks into a deeper level. Everything feels delightful, more intense, more full of love.

The sudden rush of energy to my left breaks me out of my trance.

A trio of men shuffle more kindling into the giant bonfire they’ve spent the week building. It takes a second to catch, and once it does, it’s immediately skyward.

Automatically, I rise to sitting, leaning forward and losing myself in the flames.

It reminds me of all the campfires and bonfires I’ve built and watched over the years, the small Aries tattoo on my pinky finger, the smell of late summer nights on the other side of the world. Immediately, I feel comfortable, as if my true home is and always has been at the hearth.

As the dry banana leaves begin to burn, small embers break up, floating up to the sky, and leaving delightful trails of light in their wake. Every section of the fire is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen - the base and its shifting of light and shadow from second to second, the mid-fire, blazing hot, bright yellow, and the tips, reaching impossibly high upwards, dozens of trails of floating embers rising and falling in mesmerizing harmony.

“Have you forgotten your power?” a voice inside of me asks.

I stare deeper into the fire, feeling the heat warming my cheeks. My hands, ice cold, seem almost like alien limbs, slow on the uptake.

A man nudges a fresh log into the heart of the fire. A thousand embers take flight, and the flames pause for a second as if wondering what to do before they consume the dry outer bark and blaze even brighter.

“Have you forgotten who you are?”

The words seem to write themselves into my chest, sending shivers down my arms as I consider the idea. Have I forgotten my power? Was there ever any power to forget?

I steel myself, breathing in deeply and elongating my spine. I look up to watch the trails of light, dancing as if just for me. I am stuck wordless, a simple witness to the miracle in front of me.

The heat gets to me, and I peel off my overcoat. I sit for a second, still too warm, and strip myself of my sweater, dressed in only a thin tank top, balancing on the frontier of a freezing winter night and a bonfire just mere inches from my face.

As the warmth begins to kiss my shoulders, I remember her.

That flavor of me that has only flowered and bloomed in small, separated moments of my life. The intoxicating, charismatic, glowing piece of me that occasionally surfaces and wraps the world around her little finger. The girl who can walk into any room and make any passerby fall in love with her. The one capable of making the impossible look easy, the one full of smiles and full-bellied laughs, the one who even strangers trust enough to open their hearts to.

Her.

Joyful, caring, and enigmatic.

“Welcome back,” the voice says, pleased.

Suddenly, my proximity to the flames is a problem. The flames shift from their coy dance to an authoritative demand. The glowing orange and yellow ball in my chest shifts into a dark, royal purple, and I am all at once overwhelmed and sick with the realization of my own power.

I lean back. It’s not enough. The pressure is rising. My limbs are freezing and my soul is boiling. I can’t hold it in anymore. Quick, I’m on my feet. Walking as fast as I can. My feet are automatic, my eyes are no help.

I throw myself in a white, plastic lawn chair. I keel over, my elbows digging into my knees, my hands supporting my forehead.

There’s a few seconds of delay as I try, once again, to swallow it all back down. The shaman, having waited two weeks for this moment, stands silently behind me. I know he wants it to be comforting. I find it suffocating.

Finally, I lose the battle.

I haven’t eaten in hours, but something keeps coming up, falling into the dry grass between my feet. At some point, I’m sure there’s nothing actively exiting my body, but the motions continue.

The shaman takes a step closer. He puts a hand on my shoulder, and in Portuguese, says, “Get it all out.”

The negativity, he means. All that I’ve swallowed. Everything I use as a buffer between a comfortable existence and the truth of who I am. All of it, as he’s been saying for weeks, needs to come out.

He’s right, but I want to hit him. I feel naked and vulnerable against my will. Can I at least vomit in my first language for a second?

When the physical act of hurling gradually passes, I’m too weak to move. I stay there, stuck leaning over my vomit, trying to catch my breath.

It’s black. The vomit, I mean. Pitch black. The registration of this makes me shudder.

Suddenly, the geometric patterns return, occupying the black void beneath me. Slowly, it forms into a face, shaded and defined with shifting technicolor lines. It’s laughing at me, slowly raising itself to me.

“I’m not afraid of you,” escapes me, almost doubtful. I’m shivering violently. The face is unphased. I swallow and try again. “I’m not scared of you,” I yell. I breathe deeply once again, putting on my best battle face, feeling the burn of my newly reclaimed power surging through all of my extremities.

I’m convinced it’s something demonic. I’m also convinced if it came down to it, I could kick its ass easily. It stops laughing at me, sinks back into the ground, and neutrally stares up at me for a second.

“I’m not scared of you,” I repeat, a thin line of diluted black drool dripping from my mouth, breaking my line of sight. It breaks and drops into the black pile. The face does not reappear.

I breathe again. A blanket finds its way around my shoulders. I sit back into it, pulling it around my freezing body.

A few hundred meters in front of me, the row of tall eucalyptus trees marking the property line meets the glittering night sky, bathed in the light of the still raging fire behind me.

I sigh, crumbling into myself. I feel safe.

The simple beauty of the scene in front of me, something I’ve seen dozens of times before, is overpowering. I can finally see and appreciate it for the miracle it truly is. How all of this is a huge miracle, a giant blessing - this whole living, falling, and getting back up gig we’ve all got going on.

I feel tears stinging my eyes, and the reminder of my capacity to cry itself feels like a miracle, too. I can’t hold it in. I cry loud, heart-wrenching sobs just for the blessing of being able to feel an emotion so intensely, to be so caught off guard by the sublime beauty of the moment around me.

The shaman puts a hand on my shoulder, an inquisitive look on his face.

Oh yes, I did just violently vomit in front of him, scream at my vomit in a language he doesn’t understand, and then promptly start sobbing. It feels like lifetimes have passed between each of those moments, though, to an outsider, I’m not sure how quickly they seceded another. In his place, I would also likely have some follow-up questions.

“I’m okay,” I whisper to him in Portuguese. “I would like to lay down.”

He nods, quietly offering me his hand. He helps me stand, helps me put on my sweater and coat again, re-drapes the blanket around my shoulder, and leads me back inside the temple.

Almost everyone in the cohort is outside, crowded around the fire that I too was mesmerized by just a few lifetimes ago.

He helps me onto my mat, puts a vomit bucket in front of me, and takes his place in the center of the floor. Illuminated only by the orange light outside, he picks up a long, wooden instrument and begins to blow air into it.

I lay down on my stomach, folding myself over my legs, and resting my head on my hands. His flickering silhouette on the wall reminds me of a papa bear kindly and patiently watching over his most precious offspring, playing her a soothing song to help guide her through her demons.

And the demons come.

Invading the space behind my eyelids, they visit me one by one, whispering all the worst combinations of words they can think of. And one by one, a tiny brave warrior with a child’s sword in hand, I beat them off.

You deserved it. You lied. No one could ever love you. You wanted it. You know you don’t deserve any better. Anyone would’ve done the same to you. Do you really think you’re special? That you’re strong? Capable? Look at you.

I remember who I am, and I fight back.

They try to jam their thumbs into whatever weakness I have, attempting to distract me from myself, tempting me to follow them into their darkness and submit myself to a life of oppression by their hands.

It leaves me breathless and shaking, and now and then, I have another dry hurling session over my bucket. But every single time, without fail, I push the bucket aside, lay back down, and pick up my sword to await the next battle.

I couldn’t tell you how much time I spent in that little pocket of my mind. It was inescapable, and its exploration long overdue. When I finally come to, the fire has been put out, and all of the mats are occupied once again by twenty or so people lost in all sorts of inner adventures. I hear someone sobbing in the corner closest to me. Across the temple, a voice is whispering an Our Father in Portuguese.

The soft, wooden music continues, now accompanied by the other shaman and a set of small silver bells as well as the quiet lyric-less singing of a young woman whose name means Sun.

I slowly sit up, stretching my legs out in front of me, pushing clumps of hair off of my sweat-soaked forehead, and watch the show.

Perhaps there should be a bit more of a feeling of ceremony in me, but there is nothing left. All has been drained from me. The facade, the falseness, all of it has dissolved in this moment.

All I can do is pay attention to the music in front of me, feeling the rhythm and flow in my heart, reaching out for it with all that is delicate in me.

I sleep on the mat that night, or rather, the rest of it, and at dawn the next morning, I rise with the group for breakfast.

“You’ve been changed,” the shaman says to me. “I can see it on your face.”

“I don’t feel any different.” As I say it, I know, deep down, it is a lie. Something has been broken and a new garden has taken root.

“Nothing will ever be the same for you now,” he whispers, grabbing my hand and rubbing my knuckles.

He was right. Nothing has ever been the same since.