Ayahuasca Mind Part 1

What the Little Plastic Mouse Brought

 An Umbilical Forage

The giddy tones (“ahhh-hehe”, “hehe-ahhh”, and “aheahe”) leap and frolic from the depths of my voice box to express solidarity with my wiggling toes --- “God-damn this was a smart decision!” The distinct moments of linear time stretch into a space of momentless beyond, experienced as a giddy, toe wiggling eternity.  True contentment.

My story, however, begins well within the constraints of linear time. It begins with the confrontation of a man and a mouse --- a dead and monotone little plastic creature connected by wireless umbilical to the cage of an equally dead and monotone laptop. Inanimate as it may be, this mouse pulses with a great tension, especially as I place it over the last necessary bit of source code and book a flight. 

CLICK

I could write a whole book probing, investigating, deconstructing, and reweaving anew the manifold urges that brought me to, and resulted from, that previous all-caps onomatopoeia ...but I’ll spare you the details. Through the electro-magic of the internet, invisible binary bits whiz through cyberspace at incomprehensible speeds to subtract digital code most call “money” from an online bank account and book a flight with the aptly named, cheap, and decent at best, Spirit Airlines. 

This was the first step in my thousand mile journey, the landscape opens and holy shit it’s vast. So like any good intelligence agent, I forage for information --- scanning my infant eyeballs over hundreds of pages pertaining to ayahuasca, shamanism, Spirits, and Amazonian culture (a few sources include: Graham Hancock’s Supernatural; Michael Taussig's Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man; and Michael Harner’s website). Like the branches of a wide burgeoning tree my interests extend outwards in all directions, but it’s only through tracing back that I can find the potent generative seed I’m looking for.

Muttering Mantra Method:

So…borrowing (alright stealing) a method used in numerous magickal practices, I write out my desire, erase the repeating letters, and construct a mantric sigil from what remains --- and what remains is an absurd juxtaposition of vowels, consonants, and pauses. Slowly and meditatively I repeat this intention-dense sound until a subconsious knowing pokes through my often-stubborn conscious awareness (for FREE!).

La Dieta:

Ayahuasca has often been described as “muy celosa”, very jealous; it demands sensitivity and concentration. One method for increasing these qualities is to diet, to refrain from sugar, salt, hot spices, caffeine, alcohol, and sex. These restrictions are often placed within a larger “dietary” environment that includes a period of jungle seclusion. Seeking to emulate this within an environment far away from the jungle, I decide to renounce television, music, and restrict myself to a diet of yucca, plaintains, and quinoa (at least for this paragraph).

The chance that this commercial airline would specifically cater to ayahuasca dieters by serving a unique plantain-yucca-quinoa dish for anything less than indentured servitude seems unlikely, so I tweak my dietary restrictions a bit and concoct an experimental trail mix of hempseed, walnuts, dried plantains, and cold quinoa. The joys of culinary ingenuity quickly fade when I realize...

..... “this shit is absolutely disgusting!”.....

Buddhism prescribes a disciplined method of meditation to quiet the mind, but I find that shock does it much faster. A space of no-thought emerges as I’m forced to confront my own stupidity.

.... “why didn’t I try it before?”...

I look at four sandwich bags full of the stuff... and then my hand. Four bags. My hand.

SLAP!

A little self-inflicated violence breaks up the last battalion of arrogant iota’s still clinging to a long-gone ideal of culinary pride. With their death comes the rise of a new realization: I’m not going to eat for a while.

Pass the water!

Closed on Sundays:

The amorphous morning dew floats above the jungle canopy with shapes that mock the rigidity of Euclid. A small airplane steers through and settles down on a parking lot for things that whirl in the sky. As the door opens, a blanket of humidity with drops of falling rain climb to the top steps of the airplane to greet me. I waltz through like a sponge, soaking in the rain and sights, until I’m escorted to a patiently waiting taxi with a DIY-improvised charm to navigate through the half-finished roads alongside two strangers with totally different backgrounds who chose to make this same journey. I’m at the hotel for a few moments, just enough time to throw my bags in the room and head out, searching for food to quell my nagging stomach.

Down on the boulevard lies Dawn on the Amazon, a restaurant with a special ayahuasca diet menu designed for the booming hordes of travelers, seekers, and tourists. On the corner stands a veteran salesman working the gringo market, “you want ayahuasca?”

Hmm…drink a sacred and powerful psychoactive meant for ceremonial contexts with the first stranger I meet in a foreign land?

Tempting. What could go wrong?

And so I’m tripping balls walking around this jungle outpost with a complete stranger -- just kidding. I “just say no” as ol’ Nancy used to advocate.

Moments later a raggedly dressed gringo strides up and stares into me with penetrating eyes. A story of mugging and poverty grows from his rapidly moving lips followed by a monetary plea...“if only I had a few soles everything would be perfect”. I contemplate this for a moment, but his decaying teeth and jittery presence lead me towards fibbing, “I’m sorry but I don’t have any money”. Later I find out that he has intentionally kept his fingers broken despite offers of medical treatment so that he could sell his tragic tale to sympathetic travelers.

The restaurant is closed on sundays, no ayahuasca menu. That empty bag beneath my belly-button doesn’t care for dieting now, it just wants to be full. I break off from vegetarianism and la dieta to inhale a plate of chicken and rice.

Ahhh...

Back at the hotel a broad illustration of the coming weeks is sketched out and then we part ways. An empty twin mattress beneath a revolving fan seems like paradise after a day of “rest” on airplane seats and hard plastic floors.  At seven in the morning we head out.

A rare “sticks-out-like-a-sore-thumb” air-conditioned bus lunges through the dense city streets and down a long meandering dirt road, bouncing on potholes and eeking across decaying bridges to end up riverside in the small village of Nina Rumi, the last settlement on the map.

Our modest boat sits alongside an enormous missionary vessel that casts doubt on our intentions as they continue with their own centuries old game of “spreading the gospel”. In our elongated cresent moon we head down the sinuous waters of the jungle cosmos, floating into the borders of a new world. These borders refer to the outposts of a new psyche about to unfold as well as the conspicuous absense of green we’re steering towards. Welcome to the Mishana Community!