In my second Ayahuasca ceremony at the Bolivian retreat, I experienced a profound journey into the dimension of spirits.
An experience that fundamentally changed my understanding of life, death, and human existence.
June 19th, 2019
This morning at 7:30 am, we were allowed to help with the preparation of the Ayahuasca drink.
As the preparation of the Ayahuasca drink is generally a well-kept secret, it was a great honor for us to assist our shaman “Niño“ in the preparation.
The preparation is quite simple.
The Ayahuasca plant is a special type of liana that grows in the Amazon rainforest, which is boiled in hot water together with the leaves of a bush called Chacruna, also found in the jungle.
The exact amount was not revealed to us, but the quantity and the mixing ratio are likely based on experience.
Over time, a moss layer (not soft, rather hard and quite thin) grows on the Ayahuasca liana in the jungle, more or less covering it.
This layer must be carefully scraped off with a blunt knife or the back of a knife without damaging the thin brown skin of the Ayahuasca liana.
Once the plant has been cleaned and carefully prepared, it must be split into small, fine, thin fibers in the direction of the fibers to extract as much juice as possible.
This is best achieved by taking a piece of Ayahuasca plant (30-40 cm long), laying it on a tree trunk, and hitting it with a relatively large wooden club until the individual fibers almost separate on their own.
Then, the fine work can be done with the fingers, pulling apart fiber by fiber while suppressing the itching of the mosquitoes and sandflies, otherwise, it will never get done. 😉
Then, everything is placed in a large pot, water is poured over it, and it is boiled for at least 24 hours.
Depending on the strength, it is boiled either longer or shorter.
The evaporated water must be refilled to ensure that everything is properly cooked.
One-third to half of the plant mixture should not be left uncooked in the hot water.
In the end, the water is reduced from 30-40 liters to 1/2 liter to achieve the correct amount (concentration) of the finished Ayahuasca drink.
With the completion of this process, the magic was created!
For the rest, one needs a shaman. 😉
Then it was time for breakfast.
Afterward, we went on a small boat tour with some plant knowledge around the adjacent lake.
It was very beautiful.
To be honest, there were too few animals, but here it is exclusively about plant and medicinal knowledge.
In the jungle, there are many more medicinal plants than poisonous ones.
One just needs to know which ones they are and how to prepare them.
Then, the jungle is a single pharmacy!
After the boat tour, some retreat participants and I helped our shaman with the remaining processing of the Ayahuasca.
We were finished just in time for lunch.
Now it just had to simmer.
In the afternoon, we will meditate again for an hour.
Especially before the ceremonies, it helps to calm the mind and mentally prepare for the upcoming ceremonies.
Our second Ayahuasca ceremony is tonight again at 8 pm.
June 20th, 2019
When everyone had gathered in the Maloka at 8 pm and had taken their seats on their mats, the ceremony began like the last Ayahuasca ceremony, until everyone had received and drunk their first “chalice” of Ayahuasca.
After an hour, our shaman asked if anyone wanted to drink Ayahuasca for a second time and how they felt.
It was important not to lie in one’s answer, so that the shaman knew how much more to give or could give.
Since I didn’t feel anything at all, the shaman handed me another full 4cl “glass”.
Then I went back to my mat to make myself comfortable again.
After repeating my question/s over and over again for a while and increasingly experiencing more and more stomach cramps, but still not feeling any effects from the Ayahuasca itself, I lost hope of having any effect in this ceremony at all.
Then I threw all my questions and hopes for today’s ceremony out the window, because I had no hope that Ayahuasca would give me any answer.
To be honest, I was pretty disappointed because I felt worse and worse, could suppress the urge to vomit a few times, and had to keep thinking about all the money I had paid for two encrypted messages that raised more questions than they answered and a ceremony for nothing but making me feel bad.
Great!
Then I remembered something our shaman had said before today’s ceremony: “Have faith in the medicine. It knows what is good for you. It will give you what you need.”
That’s exactly what I focused on.
In my head, I repeated over and over again, “Ayahuasca, I trust you completely. Do with me whatever you want. I give myself completely into your hands.”
But nothing happened, absolutely nothing!
When our shaman asked if anyone wanted a third glass, only four people were willing to drink again, including me.
Although I really didn’t feel like it anymore, as I had felt nothing for three hours and the likelihood of feeling an effect was very low in my opinion.
I also had to move slowly as any wrong movement would have driven me to vomit.
After drinking my third full glass and sitting on my mat for about 15 minutes, I suddenly had to go to the toilet.
I had to get up immediately to make it just in time.
Fortunately, everything went well again.
What a relief! 😀
On the way back to the Maloka, I suddenly felt extremely bad, and when I reached my mat, I made sure that the bowl to vomit into was very close and within reach.
This time, I had to concentrate particularly hard not to vomit.
Until that point, I had only felt bad, nothing else… absolutely nothing else, and I kept telling myself that I just had to trust the medicine.
Trust in Ayahuasca!
And all of a sudden, it started!
But before I even attempt to write down what I saw and experienced, I must say that it’s almost impossible to understand if you’ve never drunk Ayahuasca yourself.
It’s even nearly impossible for me to put into words what I myself saw and experienced!
Simply impossible!
However, I will do my best to describe it to you as detailed as possible.
BEGINNING:
While one participant was already dancing in the room to the chants of our shaman, lines (colored> one line, three colors (blue, red, yellow), along the line) suddenly appeared in my field of vision throughout the room.
All in different patterns.
The lines and different colors flickered in various rhythms and increasing frequencies, like an old TV set when you adjust the signal correctly (you probably only know that if you were born in 1995 or before).
When “my signal” was properly adjusted, I found myself for a brief moment in a completely black dimension.
But it didn’t last long at all (just a brief moment) until the dimension of the spirits (the world of spirits) built up in seconds.
I can’t think of a better example than the movie Green Lantern with Ryan Reynolds.
In the scene where a helicopter crashes at an event caused by the villain, Green Lantern builds a kind of green runway piece by piece in the air to slide the helicopter onto a safe place so that no one gets hurt.
If you haven’t seen this movie, imagine a kind of Tetris game with falling tiles that form a 3D graphic in the black dimension in a matter of seconds.
It was created on an unimaginable scale, so big and so fast… okay, I can hardly put the size of the dimension into words.
Since I was floating somewhere in the air, I can at least describe the shape of the dimensions, as I was able to witness the complete construction of the dimensions: each individual chamber (oval or egg-shaped) was its own dimension.
One was for our existence on our planet and in our universe, one dimension was for the happy, joyful, and friendly spirits, and one dimension was for the evil, dark, and unhappy spirits.
I’m sure there are other dimensions (countless), but those were the three that Ayahuasca showed me.
Last night, Ayahuasca allowed me to spend 99% of the time in the dimension of happy, joyful, and friendly spirits.
All dimensions were connected by a kind of tunnel system and no dimension was too far from the other.
It almost seemed as if after death, one would enter or cross over into the next dimension.
It would also make sense since many people who are on the brink of death see a kind of tunnel with a bright light.
The bright light “at the end of the tunnel” could be the “entrance” to the next dimension.
No living person in this world has ever made it through the light tunnel to report what exactly is waiting for them “on the other side.”
The dimension of happy, joyful, and friendly spirits was so bright and colorful that it is impossible to describe.
Extremely shimmering and bright colors, but not unpleasant.
There was no sun, as it would have been completely unnecessary with all the shining colors.
The dimension shimmered in bright green-yellow light and it never seemed to get dark.
Everyone danced with full energy to the singing of the shaman, which could be heard throughout the entire time.
No one had any worries.
Everyone was happy, including me!
No one had any evil thoughts or intentions, no one wanted to harm anyone.
Words were not necessary.
During the entire ceremony today, I didn’t speak a word, and neither did Ayahuasca.
But in my feeling, I knew exactly what Ayahuasca was trying to tell me, and Ayahuasca knew that I understood it.
There was absolutely no reason for words!
Words are a very limited form of communication.
I realized that too.
All the questions I wanted to ask Ayahuasca don’t need to be answered because it doesn’t make any difference.
It’s not important whether you can trust people 100%, why there is so much violence, crime and fraud, or why humanity is the way it is.
You don’t have to have all the answers.
If you want, you can strive for material things, success, power, fame, and freedom to make life here on earth in this dimension more beautiful and varied.
In the end, none of it matters because there are no differences in the next dimensions that follow.
The only thing that counts, really counts, is treating all people around you and those you meet in life with respect, equality, justice, and fairness.
We should not differentiate between age, skin color, origin, poor or rich, healthy or sick, Down syndrome, or whatever.
Everyone has the right to be treated equally because all people are equal and we are all connected.
We all come from the same race and inhabit the same planet.
Towards the end, I could see the dimension of the good spirits through the eyes of different people.
Through the eyes of a person with Down syndrome, an old man, and a person with paraplegia.
At this point, my own spirit (my soul) had returned to my body, even though I was still traveling in the other dimension.
But I could feel my own body again.
So when I could look through the eyes of a person with Down syndrome, an old man, and a person with paraplegia, two things became clear to me:
No matter which eyes I looked through, absolutely nothing had changed in the dimension of the spirits.
Everyone ended up (after death in this world) in the same dimension, and everyone was happy there.
And everyone got along great with each other.
Secondly, since my soul had returned to my body, I had all three of the above “illnesses” myself at the same time.
I was old, had Down syndrome, and was paraplegic all at the same time.
The only thing I could feel was my face, which was grinning from ear to ear.
Although I couldn’t move my body even an inch (not even a finger), drooled while grinning, and worms crawled out of my lips (which all felt extremely real), I was extremely happy.
Although I wanted to know if I was really drooling and if worms really came out of my lips, since I just couldn’t move, I decided to just drool… it was dark anyway, and no one would see it. 😀
I didn’t care about anything, I was just happy, even in my “hopeless situation.”
A short time later, the shaman performed the final ritual and I could slowly but surely see the spirits dancing away because of the shaman’s ritual.
The further the spirits danced away, the more I was able to slowly move again, bit by bit.
And when I was finally able to check if I really drooled, I found out that despite thinking I was drooling, my entire mouth was intact and completely dry.
I was so overjoyed and blown away by what Ayahuasca had shown me that night that I couldn’t thank Ayahuasca enough… I thanked her for this enlightening experience at least 100 times.
During the entire final ritual, I had my eyes closed the whole time because I wasn’t ready to open them yet.
Once “Niño“ and Josefine had finished my ritual, I suddenly had huge cramps in my stomach and had to go to the toilet immediately > diarrhea.
Since the last Ayahuasca ceremony in Colombia, this was the worst diarrhea I had had in a long time!
On the way to the toilet, I could make out a few evil spirits with red eyes watching me.
The next one was sitting right under the stairs of the Maloka.
When I came back from the toilet, the ceremony was already over and people were talking again.
Since I wasn’t in the mood to talk, I just listened and an incredible feeling of happiness overcame me again and again.
I laughed so hard that it was almost impossible not to burst into a huge laughter.
Quite a few participants had a similar experience today, which further confirmed my own experience.
We were offered the opportunity to sleep in the Maloka tonight if we wanted to.
Which I had also planned to do until three mosquitoes had bitten me in a short time.
So I decided to go back to the bungalow to sleep under the mosquito net.
The way back to the bungalow was longer than expected and thanks to my balance problems, it wasn’t easy to find my way back without having an accident or being eaten by wild jungle animals. 😀
Upon arrival, it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep, happy and satisfied.
This morning, I woke up around 6:00 am, still feeling happy and content, watched the sunrise from my bed and reflected on my experiences from last night.
I couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear.
Aside from breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I’ve only been trying to process and make sense of what I experienced yesterday by putting it down on paper.
While I’m excited for tomorrow’s ceremony, I currently feel as if there are no more questions left unanswered.
Ayahuasca answered them all indirectly yesterday.
Everything was explained and answered! It’s simply incredible!
This is the third part of my diary entries from the Ayahuasca retreat in Bolivia.
If you want to learn more about my experiences, follow me on my social media channels for updates on new posts.
