Month: March 2018

Coming soon…

On a wet rainy day in March we arrive in Pucallpa, Peru ready to arrive at the healing retreat center. A beautiful nugget of paradise surrounded by jungle and loving faces. We met many of the other guests who already started to feel like a family. At the welcome meeting we all shared who we were, where we came from and why we were here.  Naturally, in the shame of the situation that I was living in I didn’t share my full truth as my partner was there as well. The vessel of my being was so full of this shame I honestly have no idea how I didn’t burst.

The second day came around, the ceremony day. A ‘thought’ streamed in through me during the day. As much as my intention was not to drink the thought said “Well, you’re here aren’t you? You’ve flown and traveled all this way, spent all this money. Why not just give it a go?” It was such a gentle and loving thought with curiosity flowing through it. So I decided I would give it a go. As I’d never worked with recreational drugs or psychedelics I really had no idea what to expect and as such I didn’t carry any fear or hesitation about going through this experience.

The ceremony time approached and we all filed in to the Maloka where the ceremony would commence. I sat next to my partner and got comfy and was in amazement and wonder as the ceremony began. I was completely fearless… more like a child sitting waiting for a gift to be delivered to me. I received the magical cup of ‘medicine’ and swallowed it back. The taste was intense and bitter and a bit tricky to hold down, but I managed it and snuggled in for what was to come.

As the night progressed my partner kept leaning over and asking me “Are you tripping yet?” I must admit, I was getting quite annoyed by this… one because the word tripping always struck a negative chord with me and two because he kept bothering me. One of the facilitators came over and asked how I was doing and if I felt the medicine yet. I mentioned I wasn’t quite sure and received a second dose of the medicine tea. Almost instantly after I drank it I started to feel it come on. I panicked and knocked on the floor for assistance. I mentioned how quickly the effects were starting to come on from the second cup and was worried that I may have overdosed. I was assured that I hadn’t and all I had to do was just relax and breathe.

Slowly as I breathed in and out an image started to appear behind the granulated pixels in my mind. A cartoon like picture frame with images of brown pencil lined tree trunks a front a yellow background appeared. Green moss hung lazily off the branches and just as I looked deeper with curiosity the picture went from a flat two dimensional image to a three dimensional space where I was in that moss forest walking through the trees and looking around. And then I heard it… “Are you tripping yet?” and BOOM, it was gone. I was out and back in the Maloka. I was pissed… and all of a sudden all this agitation came up from me and sweats and chills started to pour out of my body. I was panicking and I did not like how I was feeling. I called a facilitator and they started fanning me and after about 5 minutes it was over. I was back fully present and aware. I tucked myself deeper in to my mat and went to sleep.

The next day came and I was done. I wasn’t drinking the tea anymore though I knew there were 3 more ceremonies to go. I was convinces that the divine wisdom that everyone seeks was provided to me. I had to stop listening to everyone else and listen to my own truth. I was good right, I was done? I mean, that was pretty deep and profound right there.  Throughout the day people was telling me that I should drink and I kept saying, no, I’m good. Listening to my own truth and no one else. Fortunately, one very beautiful soul came to me and said don’t make the choice now for later. Come to the ceremony, sit with the medicine and make your choice then. Fare enough I thought and I proceeded to go to ceremony later that night.

Sitting on my mat a glass of the medicine was handed to me. I looked at it and as I sat with it I started to speak to this beautiful medicine. My heart opened, the tears flowed and the words came out. “I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. Please help me. I love you. Thank you.” And then I chugged it back. I noticed it was a much bigger dose than what I initially received… tricky, tricky.

To be continued….

By Visionary Artist: Mauro Reátegui Perez

One day in January (2016) when I was really feeling at a low I came home to a surprise. I was at home preparing dinner and my partner came in the kitchen and said that he’d heard from a friend of a really great retreat center in the Jungles of Peru where you could drink Ayahuasca. He said he wanted to go and asked me if I wanted to come with him.

YES!!! This was it!!! Finally the Universe, God or whatever higher power that be was throwing me a bone. Here was a opportunity for us to get away… I mean really get away just the two of us. No family, or friends… just us alone and secluded. The PERFECT opportunity to rekindle our marriage and reignite the flames, at least that’s what I was hearing. So naturally I said YES!

I’d heard of Ayahuasca a couple of times. A tea that people drank in ceremony… that’s all I knew. What it did or how it worked I had no idea. But, when I would think of it I would imagine people dressed around fires dancing and making sacrifices like a scene from some voodoo or Santeria gathering… how wrong I was in that department. But, it was a retreat center and they had yoga, meditation, body and massage workers, etc. I would go and do all that wonderful stuff and be pampered like in the spas, not drink the Ayahuasca and focus on reigniting our marriage.

The next few days were glorious. We were looking up airline travel, organizing time-off from work and applying to the retreat center. There were some snags here and there with them being fully booked for the retreat we wanted to attend and hurdles were arising and I started to feel defeated. Then, one day later in the week everything aligned beautifully. There was a cancellation at the center and I was accepted, the next day another cancellation and my partner was accepted. Both our jobs granted our vacation requests, my mom and brother agreed to fly in and take care of our son while we were away and the the airline tickets aligned perfectly with it all. We were in and we were on our way. Come Mid-March we would be in Peru together and things would be alright.

The next month and a half I was bursting with excitement. I joined the yoga studio and did a couple classes to prepare for the yoga at the retreat center, I cleaned up my eating to align with the dietary standards required and found a certain level of peace inside with all the distractions of the To-Do’s and shopping needed for the trip which made my days tolerable. I did a small amount of research on Ayahuasca and how it worked, but I wasn’t going to the Jungle for Ayahuasca, was I. I was going on a romantic destination vacation to rekindle my marriage.

The day arrived and we were ready to go. With our arsenal of organic mosquito repellant, raincoats and jungle wear we were off to Lima where we would then catch another flight in to Pucallpa where our Amazonian journey would start. Before I go any deeper in to my own personal journey I’ll take a moment out and share what and how Ayahuasca works here… Divine Plant Medicine and Healer, Mother Ayahuasca. If you are already familiar with Mother Ayahuasca you can skip ahead to the second part of this journey here  Journey to Amazonia “Enter Mother Ayahuasca” Part 1

Over the next three months life would be not quite what I thought it was going to be.

Yes, I made a choice to fight and to beat this heart-break of mine. To fix it all, save it all and make everyone happy… or so I thought. While my former partner at the time wanted to stay in our marriage he also wanted to open the door to letting other women in to his life and he continued to see this other woman as friends. I mean, who am I to tell him what he can or can not do. Who he can or can not have as friends and he assured me there was nothing going on, just a friendship.

So, what did I do? I entered in to a vicious cycle of crying a great flood of tears in front of my computer at work every day and when at home did everything I could to try and convince him that I was the one and only one he wanted to be with. I organized a weekend stay at a beachfront resort, thought up things that he would like to do, like go dancing on salsa night, started attending all his performances and shows (he was a hobby musician in a band) and tried to spice things up in the bedroom.

Even with all this going on he still continued and maintained and grow his friendship with her. He would think about her constantly. Chat with her and he wouldn’t with me. But, he kept saying he didn’t want to leave me. But, he wanted more. He wanted an open relationship  and all I wanted in return was for him to think of me, love me, commit to me and just be with me and our son.

Come Christmas and New Years I wasn’t in any better shape. As much as I tried to fight, control and fix everything it was all an illusion that was quickly crumbling. So I fought harder… Christmas came around and we went away on a family holiday. Surely here, where she wasn’t, we could really get things going. Surely now he would see what he was neglecting to see and love me and want to stay with me. But, nothing changed and the fear, stress, worry, guilt, shame, and fret just kept growing and growing and growing until I had a massive weight burdening down on my shoulders. I didn’t tell anyone… I was embarrassed and ashamed. I wasn’t enough… I wasn’t enough. And then, I didn’t want anyone to think poorly of my partner. He was lost, he didn’t know what he was doing. At least those were the excuses that I told myself.

Finally, I threw out a bargaining chip. I told him that if he really wanted an open relationship I would consider it and discuss it with him on one condition. That we fix our relationship first. We rebuild and strengthen our foundation so solidly and tightly and then we would go from there.  6 months… 6 months and our relationship would be so solid and grounded that he then wouldn’t want to consider an open marriage anymore…

And then came the Mother… my saving grace and the deepest, darkest space I couldn’t even ever fathomed to exist… the spaces within me that I discovered when I Journeyed to Amazonia… Enter Mother Ayahuasca