Ayahuasca Weekend

I love the synchronicities of the universe. When we visited Peru in 2006 our first flight to the Amazon was aborted due to bad weather. Lori and I found ourselves stranded at the airport in Lima with hundreds of other folks for many hours waiting for another flight. One young Peruvian man sitting next to Lori asked why we were visiting Peru and once he learned we were headed to the Amazon he said we had to try ayahuasca.  Neither of us had ever heard of it but he kept saying we had to try it.  It was some sort of hallucinogenic jungle juice made from some amazonian plants and vines that shaman brewed up and you went on some wild trip to find your animal spirit or some crazy shit. I asked how often he'd taken it. Never, he said and laughed. He'd never been out to the jungle but said if you are going you have to try it.

In our journeys we did meet a shaman and when I asked him about ayahuasca he produced a bottle of what looked like thick red wine. He let me hold it but our guide wouldn't let us try it. He said he would get in trouble letting tourists try it.

Years later I learned more about it and that it was part of a powerful ceremony of self exploration. There are vacations you can take to South America that are built around multiple days of drinking ayahuasca. I thought I'd only be able to try it if we returned to Peru, but about a year ago I met someone who was trained as a shaman in Peru and does ayahuasca ceremonies in the US. So this weekend Lori and I will finally be partaking of the ayahuasca experience. Until now the most amazing sort of self exploration trip I've had was with holotropic breathing, and I'm really looking forward to what goes down.  We've been doing a cleansing diet since Wednesday; no processed foods, meat, sugar, salt, fat... The blander your diet the better the experience.

I did a little searching of experiences but after reading a few paragraphs I decided not to read more so I could go into the weekend without any expectations.  I'm looking forward to whatever comes my way, and especially eating some good greasy, meaty food come Sunday.