Ayahuasca: Accidentally Finding My True Identity
Fellow travelers, I’d like to share with you a pivotal moment in my life. To be more specific, a pivotal ceremony showed me who I was (am) and dramatically shifted my perception of self and reality. I’d highly recommend first reading my two previous articles, Ayahuasca: Origins & Hearing the Call, as well as Ayahuasca: How To Let Go, to give you more context and backstory.
Simultaneously, peace and excitement coursed through my veins in the darkness of the Amazon jungle as I felt the Ayahuasca tea starting to work. There was a brief moment of awareness between sober-ashamed-me (due to my failure the night before) and the entirely overtaken-by-the-spirit-of-the-medicine me. It was the awareness that I wasn’t broken or unworthy of healing.
Seemingly, in response to the gratitude that rushed into my heart, I heard the words, “Welcome home.” With my eyes still closed, I saw in my mind’s eye the image of an ancient, tribal curandero with a gorgeous multi-colored feather headdress on. He was chanting healing Icaros songs to his patients in full confidence as he calmly danced to the rhythm of his own beat. Then it hit me, this healer I was being shown…was me. Somehow, in some space and time, I was this man working with the medicine. I knew immediately that the insane coincidences which brought me there were not coincidences at all. I was called to go back to the medicine to wake up and remember who I was.
I felt the weight of my body become irrelevant. My soul expanded and filled the space around me as if it were a caged bird who was finally set free. However, it didn’t feel as though it grew to fill this space. It felt as though it had always been that size, and my whole life, I had been walking around with it shoved into this tiny vessel. “You are a goddess. You are a warrior. You are strong. You are here to bring light and love to this planet.” These firm and assertive yet full of love words demanded my attention as they echoed into my soul, activating the first of many rivers of tears I would release that night.
The crazy part was, I actually believed those words. I knew they were true. My ego had left the building, and sitting there fully exposed was my vulnerable, pure consciousness which couldn’t retort back, “Oh stop, you’re just being nice. That’s not me.” I started to understand the main reason I was called to the jungle. It was not to release my childhood sexual abuse trauma but simply to remember who I was as a soul. A multi-dimensional, expansive, strong, intelligent, and capable soul who had a mission to lead others to peace and happiness.
By that point, I started experiencing a kaleidoscope of every fragmented color of the rainbow, which folded and twisted into each other like a psychedelic VR roller coaster. Each breath took me deeper and deeper into the medicine, and it felt as though I was doing backflips in my head. However, the most exciting part was that the hypnotic state felt like my natural state of being. I didn’t feel “high”; I felt free.
Oh, wait a second, if this is what I’m seeing with my eyes closed, what will reality look like if I open them, I wondered. I managed to pry open my heavy eyelids to find myself on what looked like Pandora from Avatar. Everything that wasn’t blanketed in darkness was magical and glowing like fireflies. On Ayahuasca, journeyers are often very sensitive to light, so there were only 3 or 4 candles in the center of the Maloka hut where the curanderos were sitting.
Time had slowed down to the point where I could see the energetic signature of anything that moved. People and things were a fractal etching of what I no longer perceived to be physical matter. Someone got up, and as their shadowy silhouette digitized its way in front of my mat, I realized they were simply energy and not solid at all. Fascinating! If that’s what they look like, what do I look like? I glanced down at my hands which looked completely foreign because my fingers were three times their normal length!
My gaze followed its way down the rest of my body which seemingly took forever since my legs and feet were also elongated. In pure fascination, I moved my foot to the side and saw the residual energy it left behind in the wake of where it was previously. What in the actual outer darkness was this sorcery?! I must’ve looked like a goofy, awkward infant who was just discovering her body. All of the new age & quantum physics teachings popped into my head. “We are all energy. We are all connected. We are simply subatomic particles vibrating at different frequencies, which makes it seem like we are solid beings.”
Now, I understood these previously outlandish claims. I immediately knew that I was not my body. I was simply encased in it to experience this 3D reality. I let out a few chuckles as I realized the comedy of it all. I was an actress. Everything was centered around my body. My entire identity and career hinged on how I looked, but now, that false perception that I was my body was shattered. I was not the sum of my parts. Literally.
The immense love that I felt for my body at that moment was indescribable. More tears of joy streamed down my face as I recognized how hard on myself I had been my entire life—trying to force myself into this perfect person. Trying to force myself into having the ideal body, believing that my persona and physical self were in no way separated. Shrouds of shame and insecurity fell off my shoulders as I felt my soul-expanding and singing a melody of freedom.
Through this experience I learned that I am incredible. I am vast and connected to all that is and ever will be. I am a soul traveler, traversing Earth with the intentions to learn, grow and expand. I am so much more than the sum of my parts.