Ayahuasca and After: Work and Play By Charlie Cross, January 2015 We were told to show up with an intention. “It’s as if you’re going sailing — you should probably choose a direction to point your boat. The wind may not always do what you expect, but having an idea of where (or how) you’d like to travel is key.” Ayahuasca is a doozy of a psychedelic. Individuals often talk about moving through fractal-imbued spaces and meeting hyper-dimensional beings during their journeys. Others, the stories I was more attracted to, spoke of deep, cathartic purges and blissful tears. It’s a Tuesday, the night before Christmas Eve, I’m sitting in the first of two neo-shamanic Ayahuasca ceremonies in Marin County, California, and I’m ready for work. In the hours before the ceremony, sitting on a downed log on a hill and watching the slivered new moon fall beneath the coastal mountains, I narrow down my two pages of ideas for intentions into three lines: “I want to see and let go of my false identifications and self-deceptions, I want to see and integrate the repressed, rejected, and wounded parts of myself, and I want to embody the self that is moving towards Utopia.” That night, our group’s shaman, E., asks about our intentions, and I volunteer mine enthusiastically. “Woh, heavy on the heavy stuff… Focus on the light, and the dark will come up. How about you just get to know her?” E., says. “Mother Ayahuasca?” I respond. “Yeah. And yourself.” At the start of the ceremony, I offer to the altar the simpler intention, “To get to know myself and Mother Ayahuasca,” as well as “The Aeon” card from the Thoth Tarot deck. E. asks for permission from the Four Directions, from the Earth, from the Moon, the Sun, from the rest of the planets, from our galaxy, and the central star in the universe, and then pours us each some of the tea into a small, pretty, shotglass looking thing. To some it tastes like condensed bile, but I find it somewhat fruity and easy to throw back (perhaps with some help from my college social training). I adopt my straight-backed meditative posture and tell myself that I am letting go, paying attention but to nothing in particular. E. started playing some music and eventually gets us to join her in toning with our voices. About 45 minutes in things started sparking off in my body and mind, slowly and intermittently. After some somewhat beautiful flurries of lights and feelings (I don’t really remember the content), I'm taken through a weird space. It feels like a loud club playing jarring music. It makes sense that some compulsive, frenetic energy was being released from me. I was told that it’s often constructive to talk to the spirit of Ayahuasca, to relate
to what you were seeing in order to move with and through it. “Is this all you got?” I think. I can really only remember that one example, but this attitude of excited exploration continues for a spell. Visions arise, and I enthusiastically try to leap into them or otherwise prove that I’m not phased. Sometimes, when I feel that the energy was particularly strong, I ask “Mamasita” questions like, “Who am I?” And then things pretty much stop. My body and mind still feel a little loopy, but Mother Ayahuasca seems far away, no matter the effort that I was putting forth in trying to reach her, concentrating my mind and finding her in my body. E. asks, “Are we at liftoff?” A couple of my friends respond affirmatively and enthusiastically. She asked me directly, “Charlie?” "I’m trying to figure out how to board the plane to outer space.” “It’s very much more about inner space,” she responds. Not much else happens that. I eat some bread dipped in olive oil, thinking that my body was wasn’t digesting the tea (we had been fasting since lunch) or was just too tired to cooperate, but that precluded me from joining in on the next serving. I sit and wait for a couple hours longer, feeling disappointed and discombobulated. Briefly, in one moment of tired free fall, I re-experience a recent heartbreak. The next morning we close the circle, sharing what we were shown and how we felt with the group. Others experienced a heavy, heavy light, an ecstatic, expansive gratitude, and a recognition of the need for self-love. In my frustration I found the futility of being overly ambitious. I saw that my endless effort amounted to an exhausting and stunting internal battle. Beyond that, I actually feel light, optimistic and playful, largely due to some cosmically relaxing reading from that morning rolling around my mind. The following passage nicely sums up the book, called Finite and Infinite Games: “To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as though nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful with each other we relate as free persons, and the relationship is open to surprise; everything that happens is of consequence. It is, in fact, seriousness that closes itself to consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specific conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself.” This dynamic between seriousness and playfulness has defined my last couple months, an exhausting duel wrapped around my blessedly empty life. Each day, I am presented with a blank canvas. I wonder, I worry, shapes of projects, practices, and potentials flowing past. I jot things down, lightning bolts shooting out uncontrollably. Splashes of color dance across space. Some days, I do yoga, meditate, square off a nice, large piece of paper, and get my instruments in a neat row. Like a child forced to go to school, I sit down, stare for a while, and stab holes in the sheets. Other days, I let go of any plan and actually play. Often, I end up falling into the page, producing pieces that feel genuinely meaningful.
That day I mostly meditate, thinking that practicing letting go and “relaxing” is the best strategy. Regardless, realizing the possibility of play, of dancing with my partner Mamacita is a good start. In ceremony that evening I straighten up into my meditative posture. After the third serving and thinking, hoping that I might purge, I slump against the wall, where the inner space shuttle blasts off, or maybe better put, slips into the sea. Suddenly, each piece of my body is intricately and magically magnified, as if Mamasita is taking me, swirling me through the spaces of my body. Through fleeting flashes of a deep red, the Flower of Life and what felt like an elephant (Ganesha?), through bursts of intense laughter, wiggling around on the floor and exploring my face and body, I understood myself to be a child of the Earth. I realized that I am an animal, not in a diminutive way, but in the sense that there are greater potentials for joy and meaning in that ground. We are monkeys that are patently supposed to play on, appreciate, and cooperate with the Earth. The word “home” keep popping into my head, with several meanings; I experienced the richness waiting for me in Texas (and Minnesota!) when I return and become more deeply engaged with land and community. I sensed that there was a beautiful purposiveness to my upbringing, to my path so far. I experienced how exploring the diversity of the Earth — and especially her landscapes — was an act of appreciation. I ended up banging around the instruments hanging by me and nearly laying down on the floor. For a bit, I thought I needed to sleep, but Mamacita came in on another waves and things got rough for a member of the group. Going into the ceremony, E. noted that during the ceremony the energies of the group would mix together. I didn’t realize that this meant we would be going through similar emotional spaces at the same time. Because my friend was digging up really rough stuff from his childhood, I was also drawn into a very uncomfortable space. I felt like a child that had been hurt, that was sick, and maybe a little pouty. I’m not sure if I was just resisting being drawn into a similarly raw and messy space as my friend, but leaving the circle and going outside, into relative quiet and under the stars, seemed like the right option. After regaining my balance in my monkey body (hair! teeth! hands! feet!), I set myself up in a bed in E.’s outside tent. But Mamasita wasn’t done with me, and all of a sudden I started hearing a group of people talking, as if they were at a bar across the street. At first, I was kind of annoyed by them and found them to be somewhat annoying, childish maybe. They were coughing, maybe smoking cigarettes. One of them made fun of people who go to a bar, with a bartender they know and a smorgasbord of tasty drinks at hand, and orders water. Eventually, I came to really enjoy it — they seemed like really good, genuine friends, enjoying conviviality simple pleasures and simple substances. Furthermore, it was clear that they were talking about my life. They didn’t drop names or talk about specific moments—rather, they were discussing the
abstract, common dynamics of life that were fundamental to my life. They talked about families with two children, about how typically the older one would be more responsible and do some of the parenting. They talked about the obvious oddball traveler showing up at a party, and the roughness of doing a cleanse in the wrong circumstances. The conversation changed according to how I was relating to it—at one moment, when I was kind of forcing myself to go to sleep, one of the guys sounded as if he were walking away, saying, “and tomorrow will suuck..” Considering the context of my journey, I’m tempted to interpret this experience as a kind of suggestion from Mamma Ayahuasca to more deeply enjoy simple friendships, as well as to recognize the self-exploration that can happen in mundane ways. For a bit, I considered the affair an externalization of my internal dialogue, my internal selves shooting the shit, in a pointless and detrimental way. I tested that hypothesis a couple times, silencing the dialogue, but the spaces I got into felt directionless and brash, as if I were stomping out Mamasita. Interestingly enough, the next day, I discovered that another member of the group also had an auditory hallucination where he was overhearing a group talking at something that seemed like a bar, talking to their dogs and smoking cigarettes. It seems as if our group wasn't just inhabiting the same emotional spaces, but the same astral spaces as well. This chatter flows in and out for hours. My mind twirls around, thinking about, experiencing nearly everything and everyone in my life. Twice or thrice I lay down, only to sit back up. I sit and meditate, I stare into the stars. Down the hill, church bells ring, announcing Jesus’ birth. For a brief moment, I pray to him, only to realize that it feels disingenuous. I think about the people in my hallucination coughing, and notice a desire to smoke some marijuana, to reignite the now fading journey. I open the shaman’s cupboard, where I had earlier stumbled on a Mickey Mouse lunchbox containing ample supplies. My heart pounds.. Is this an acceptable step? Am I impinging on the group, on E.’s privacy? I sense my broader confusion and paranoia around Marijuana. I follow through, packing a small amount of weed in a small bowl, lighting it on fire, and inhaling. I sit and watch my breath. With each inhale, a different part of my body is clearly illuminated. On the exhale, the space around that spot opens up. Soon, awareness holds each detail in my body. It feels infinitely large, yet unbearably minute. I rest, swinging between absolute, open stillness and looking at my body, at myself, curiously and as if through binoculars. Suddenly, I hear a voice. “What is your complaint with sky god?” In a fleeting flash, I see myself as Horus (who appears in the aforementioned “The Aeon” Tarot card), and my mental balance falters. Eventually, I respond, (something to the effect of), “I’m afraid of flying away, of losing sight of reality, of losing the feeling of pain, of what matters.”
Through the rest of the night, I swing between flailing attempts to language what had occurred and failed attempts to reconnect to what was now both the spirit of Ayahuasca and Marijuana. I lay down again and put in earplugs. Occasionally I flip into a somewhat focused space. I hear what sounds like a plane taking off, a steady, airy rumble. I wonder if I, if my mind, was getting ready to fly. I find myself stuck. I'm unsure of what to do with my mind. Do I focus on the four corners of my breath (in, pause, out, pause)? Do I scan my body? Do I just listen? A few times, a voice: “What is your intention?” I had approached the altar that evening somewhat sloppily. “To let go, to let Mamma Ayahuasca do her thing, and to cooperate when it’s clear what that means,” I stated, leaving my breath on the granite surface. Relaxing and going with the flow was fruitful, but now I just feel frustrated, back at square one from a higher point in the spiral. I recognize that I was fighting myself, and relax again, letting my mind play as it wanted to. I fall asleep. The next morning, I find out that what I had thought of (and spoken to) as a plane taking off was likely just the house’s hot water heater turning on. Now it’s three days later, and I’m sitting on a friend’s spare couch. I'm trying to finish this piece of writing. Originally, I was just playing on the page, attempting to express and make sense of my experience with the tool of language. Now, I have something I should do, a finite game to be won. The poetry of my position pricks uncomfortably. E. said that integration was “85% of the work,” and I wonder where the line between work and play is in regard to something you know is meaningful. I realize that my idea of the work of integration has become entangled with the piece. I wonder, is not being able to integrate these sharp fragments keeping me from writing, or is not writing keeping me from integrating? Square one, for the third time. I wonder, am I in the first night of the ceremony again, ambitiously shooting for the stars of supreme self-understanding and ending up strained and sad? On the flip side, am I ceaselessly floating, hoping to be carried along with a current instead of swimming towards a destination, into a flow? What does that look like? How do I work, intention in hand, without making myself weary? One flat conclusion is written, and I wonder if I should just wait for the circumstances to be right, for the juices to ferment more fully. Time makes the decision. I go out for a friend’s birthday. Remembering the conviviality in the auditory hallucination, I have a couple drinks and smoke a couple spliffs. I dance. I plug poetry into my phone while I stroll the streets of San Francisco. I pick up a pidgin (pigeon) feather and put it in my hair. I fly into the dark sky. The next morning I find my car broken into, about half of my possessions stolen. I smoke another spliff. I let myself float. I say, "I’m going to play." I abandon myself at a Starfucker concert. Spaceman spliff soars off the balcony of my parent’s hotel
and on the roof at a New Years Eve Party, worrisome. I stare at some new blank canvases. 2,500 words jiggle and bang around the back of my head. I think about doing a cleanse. I play chess; I masterbate. “I’m your spirit guide, not a love interest, dear one,” she says. “When you really commit to your path, it starts to unfold in miraculous ways.” I bobble between liberated and anguished; I run joyously and then hobble, rubbing my achey legs. It has now been a week since I started writing, and I’m sitting on a fold-out bed in my parent’s hotel room, slumped against suede and sinking into springs. I’m slightly stoned and slightly sad. I accept that I want to finish the piece. The pain (of not being disciplined, of not pushing (pulling?) through the resistance, of not tending the intention) is too much. I say, strongly, "I’m going to work.” I decide to play too. I realize I can play with almost anything, including things that I want to work on. I get out of my bed and at its foot lay my computer. I dance around and do some yoga. I run my fingers through my hair, I rub my toes. Occasionally I fall to my butt, my fingers tap dancing, keying words on the canvas. It feels like swimming.