A week after the Ayahuasca ceremony it is time to try to put that experience in words. I feel a bit intimidated to do so because there's so much to say but no capacity to write it all. I will therefore limit myself to describe the three gifts that this experience has given me and which I would like to carve deeply into my memory. Hopefully the experience itself will shine through them.
I remember that night in the small apartment in Amsterdam in May 2019, during the last days of Aus LICHT, when I listened to Rudolf Steiner for the first time and experienced the revelation of the Christ Impulse within me. Ever since that night I've been trying to find my way (back) to the Spiritual World, searching in so many places, thinking about it, reading about it, talking about it, practicing its ways, but never quite experiencing it. On the first night of the retreat, after drinking (and throwing up) my second cup of Ayahuasca, I closed my eyes and started seeing visions, a cosmic concert of audiovisual perceptions. At first I was reluctant, feeling that I came here to face my demons and instead I'm just having fun. But then I surrendered to it, saying to myself that if this is what the medicine wants to show me then I will give it my full attention. On the second night, again after the second cup, the message was clear: the green glowing neon lights, the energies flowing through us and making us sing and dance, the warmth extending between our bodies – these were all spiritual beings celebrating with us, through us and inside us. The first gift was to experience the Spiritual World in full consciousness.
Shortly after this realisation I felt lighter. The music changed, someone was playing an upbeat song on the guitar and singing in devotion. Others felt the call too, they got up and started dancing, and I joined them. We danced simultaneously together and apart, for our being did not end in the circumference of our bodies, and each movement we made was an expression of pure freedom. When the song was over we all bowed to the musician in gratitude for sharing this special moment together. Not feeing like going back to my mat I instead went to one of the helpers of the retreat and asked her to give me a bit of Rapé, a sacred tobacco which helps to focus the mind and cleanse the body. As she was administering the powder she asked me if I can feel the effect of grandma (a nickname for ayahuasca), and I told her that for the first time in a year I feel happy again. That was the second gift.
As both nights went on I experienced some difficult moments of feeling the medicine flowing inside my veins and my stomach, struggling with inner resistances but also softening them and creating a space where the ego is no longer the supreme ruler but rather a backseat passenger, impressed by the creativity that flows out of a deep connection with the source. There and then, at the border between the physical and spiritual worlds, I hovered above the crowd and looked as if through the eagle's eye at this living spectacle and I knew... I knew that this is a seed for the future; that if we let what we created together in this limited space and time inspire us, shape our deeds and actions not only here but out there, then we will be able to heal the world and transform it into something more beautiful than anything we could ever imagine. This knowing was the third gift.
To the spirit of Ayahuasca - thank you - I am ever grateful for your gifts.
