WTWTCH … when you drink from the umbilical cord of God?
In which I take the Ayahuasca tea plunge.
The trip began as most long and arduous trips do with a pre-emptive visit to the bathroom. Whether you need to or not. After all: better safe than sorry.
This time, though, it wasn’t a forthcoming bladder issue I was worried about. Nor a, um, solid-waste bladder issue.1 Instead the contingency I was preparing for was the dreaded
… vomitornado.
I took careful measurements of the height of the lid of the toilet. Whether the width of the stall allowed for proper kneeling—without touching the side of said stall (editor’s note: it did indeed). I practiced the stall door latch a few times as well as rehearsed the basic ingress and egress of both the stall and the bathroom proper. File this under “never can be too careful.”
Never too careful in specific because I didn’t know if I’d have use of my legs for the next several hours. I wasn’t sure if I could walk. Or crawl. I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to open my eyes.
The trip began as most trips do these days: with a preventive visit to the bathroom before traveling long distances.
I was minutes away from drinking the mythical Ayahuasca brew and all I knew about the tea was that it is off-handedly referred to as a “purgative.”
And not because the mythical brew puts you into purgatory (though I certainly wouldn’t rule it out) but because it makes you purge — as in retch, vomit, boot, puke, or ta-da! a technicolor rainbow out your mouth. So this was less of a last-chance bathroom break and more like a pre-flight inspection — I wanted to know what kind of equipment we were flying with before I entered the storm.
I didn’t know if I’d have use of my legs for the next several hours. I wasn’t sure if I could walk. Or crawl. I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to open my eyes.
I had never tried Ayahuasca before. I didn’t even know it was a tea you drank.2 I assumed it was at least a snorting event, if not like a smoke-and-snort two-fer. But nope. It was a room-temperature, dark-brown, curiously-strong-smelling3 beverage extracted from a rare conjugation of a mystic root and an even more mystic vine. Let’s just say: mystique, achieved.
I, of course, didn’t know this until my coolest new friend in my new Rocky Mountain town invited me to an extremely special and sacred tea ceremony.4 I didn’t know the tea’s intertwined history in the Amazon jungle where it had been discovered and re-discovered over generations.
Before her invite, all I knew about Ayahuasca was that made you feel like you had died. I imagined gasping like a fish out of water and then writing on the floor. I heard stories of power-puking, bucket after bucket. Which can lead to a fate even worse than ego death: a brutal heartburn up and down your digestive tract. As someone who already leans pretty heavily on TUMS, I was very close to dismissing the ride altogether: clearly, the cost-benefit was out of wack.
But that was before COVID, before the mid-life crisis, and before the consequential—and rather intense—journey of self-discovery and self-healing that brought me to this very moment. A moment where for the first time in my life, I could feel things. I could get experience them. Let them flow through me. Come online.
Some people called these feelings … “emotions.”
I felt sad. I felt angry. I felt really fucking sad. I felt really fucking angry. Also: lonely. Frustrated. Detached. Empty. Self-hating. Disassociative. Disappearing. And at least 37 more. Apparently, once the cats are out of the bag, emotionally speaking, they’re awfully hard to put back. I was a wild stallion of emotions, each pulling violently (yet somehow also: seductively) in opposing directions.5 It was hard on me. Hard on my wife. Hard on my family.
So I was down for pretty much any tool, medicine, or steam-punk-powered crank that had the power to crack open my soul and massage my heart until it started beating again. If it took a night of purgative discomfort to get there, then so be it. They never said a mid-life crisis was for sissies.
The Ceremony
Due to the sensitive nature of this type of tea, I will keep all the details about the who, where, and how sub rosa. Rest assured that it was the real deal, and it was in a safe space with experienced hands at the wheel of the celestial ship. As (apparently) we (now) say, it was a strong and safe container: a loving group holding space, maintaining peace, and liberating us from distraction and doubt. They know who they are and I cannot thank them enough.6
A note about the tea
It ain’t grandma’s iced tea. It ain’t Lipton Iced Tea. Heck, ain’t even like a Snapple. This tea was, as they, say “some’in else” —like the root and the vine are a cosmic being who is several orders of magnitude more more than you could ever imagine a sentient-being being. You are supposed to gulp your glass down all at once,7 no stopping, without leaving even a super-tiny drop. As they explained, the power of the medicine is so valuable that even that tiny drop could heal a human soul.
They never said mid-life crises were for sissies.
And, yes, you do drink that last drop even though at this very mid-gulp moment you are no longer certain that it will be a one-way trip to the tummy for this tea. The mouthfeel, so to speak, is that of seven Red Bulls chained together with kerosene. Somehow my stomach caught wind of this appalling discovery, and reported up to headquarters that “We have never dealt with a beverage, taste, or so-called mouthfeel like this before. Fair warning mouth if it’s a return shipment.”
Gentlemen, start your engines.
My stomach and I did manage to keep a lid on everything long enough to digest the tea. I am not a doctor (I swear), but I believe stomach digestion is also how alcohol gets into the bloodstream. By my calculation, it takes at least a minute after drinking alcohol for me to feel drunk. Which should be just enough time to return to my chair without tripping on anyone.
It was. Within minutes, I was riding.
Now I theoretically could still move my hands and legs, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I’d want to do so. It’s like walking past one of those old-school TV stores, where 25 TVs were on, all showing the same spectacular moment: national championships, a new president, a man on the moon. The sort of image that transfixes you for ten minutes, you just standing there, gawking. It could put a root in you. I had the same feeling now: what I was watching in my mind was way more important than anything happening “out there” in the physical plane.
The Show Inside
Now I shall recount my drug journey. If that is (understandably) not worth your highly valuable blog-reading time, then please skip to the end. But if you like the gentle pleasures of one man telling another about the trip he’d done and the sights he’d seen and how he’d garnered a new understanding of his life—and, hell, let’s just go ahead and say it — all human life as well.
If that’s your bag, then I promise: you’re in for a real treat.
So the beginning phase of the experience is, for lack of a better term, architectural. It is similar to the “psychedelic” animation above (which literally was the first result I got when I googled “psychedelic gif”).
In the few minutes since drinking the tea, something had shifted inside of me. Instead of staring at blank blackness, the sort of thing I’d normally see when my eyes were closed, now I was staring at a vast landscape of Mayan pyramids of intricate craftsmanship.
When I tried to drift closer, each stone of the pyramid revealed itself to be, of course, its own pyramid. It was like I was moving but without the part where I actually got anywhere.
It was a bit unsettling. And I also thought this: “perhaps the tea is a purgative not because it was so hard on our stomachs. But rather because it makes you motion sick. While sitting absolutely still.”
Okay, so it’s not a fact. Just a pet theory invented admittedly in the embrace of a powerful hallucigen — so maybe someone can chime in the comments if they have direct experience with this situation.
But everything darkened. Receded from sight. Which was comfortable. Cozy. Relaxing. And …
Back in the womb. Yep. For real.
It was dark. It was warm. There was a thin aperture of light. I was a baby. Not exactly the same baby I’d been before. For one, I still had my current intelligence.8 I had my same life experiences, my same understanding. And yet, here I was back to being born all over again.
It was there in my mother’s womb that I met my other, my Shadow.9 He was a black leathery creature, like a human dragon. Less menacing and savage and more … well … cute. It was almost as if he had just been pretending to be really dark, as if that might make him seem deep. Wonder where he got that from?
And then—fwoosh!—I was like totally being born. My Shadow, however, stayed behind. It turns out that in this experience (as well as in real life) I was a very large baby. Too big, in fact, for all of me to make it through intact. Cleaving off a piece of me and it behind. In the permanent darkness. Furious at being unborn. Furious at being hidden. Furious at being forgotten.
In real life, I had been choking to death on my umbilical cord. While my mom and dad were waiting for me to come join them on earth, I was slowly suffocating until my heart stopped. My mom was rushed into the operating room to have an emergency C-section, in order to save the life of the mother and child. I was born with the taste of blood in my mouth. My mother barely survived the bloody birth. I’m not sure I ever did.
And then in my vision, I was calling after my brother. And this time, my Shadow brother came to me. To join me. To be born. To be safely, joyfully, finally delivered.
The doctor handed my newborn brother to me. This toothy baby looked up at me with his dragon-dark eyes and pitch-black scales (like I said: cute).
I asked the doctor what his name was.
The doctor replied, “He has no name. You must name him.”
I tried to resist, but, ayahuasca-fueled visions being what they are, I finally relented and accepted my fate.
“I was born with the taste of blood in my mouth. My mother barely survived the bloody birth. I’m not sure I ever did.”
The first name that came to me was “Kevin”.10 And that’s because in real life, there’s this guy “Kevin” who is the biggest prick I know. To be clear, naming my cute baby Shadow after the biggest prick I knew was the sort of inter-psychological warfare we’d been waging for our entire lives. It was time to stop the fighting and ego-gouging and soul-punching.
So I turned to the doctor and said:
“His name is Heartfelt.”
It didn’t feel like my normal M.O. It wasn’t clever. Or a subtle allusion. Or a joke. It was a weird name for a brother. To be honest, the name surprised me. And I also thought it was perfect.
I cuddled the baby in my arms, my shadow child. For the first time, I didn’t see my Shadow as a rival, a hated enemy, a destroyer of dreams, of relationships. Friendships. Connection. My life-long battle with my shadow had laid waste to so many opportunities for true connection, true vulnerability, true trust.
This time I saw my Shadow for what he was: a scared, lonely child.
So I talked to him. I told Heartfelt I knew he had been scared I’d forget him:
And so you threw tantrums. You sabotaged my dreams. You pushed me to greed and gluttony and a mean sort of selfishness that repelled everyone in its path. And I’m telling you I understand why you felt you needed to do that.
And I’m also here to tell you:
you don’t have to do that anymore.
And here I smiled at him and swaddled him more and continued:
I promise that from now on, nstead of trying to protect my dreams from you, I will now ask you lead them.
Yes. You. And in fact, I am going to dedicate my most beloved creative project to you.
The dragon baby looked at me askance, which is a pretty sophisticated gesture for a newborn. My trance-self continued:
Seriously. I make a promise, I’m going to dedicate my book to you the second we wake up from wherever we are.
My trance-self tapped my trance-heart and wrote the dedication right then and there.
For my beloved brother Heartfelt,
whose journey mirrors this book:
from struggling alone in the darkness
to finally dancing in the light.
I love you.
And so I did
After an immeasurable and un-measurable amount of time, I did come to, so to speak. I was awake. I could stand. Even have a light supper despite it being a million o’clock. And eventually found myself back at home. Where I immediately opened up the word processor app I use to write my novel and typed that dedication.
Ver-freaking-batim.
The beginning of a beautiful friendship
I’ve since drank the tea a few more times. Each experience wildly different. Perhaps I’ll share what else I discovered over a coffee sometime. Or, heck, you never know: a blog post.
So as they say, your mileage may vary. As well as the legality and, more importantly, the safety of what you might imbibe. So please be careful out there—always trust and verify the provenance of your vegetable of choice. My lawyer brother-in-law also wanted me to add that we are not endorsing a lifestyle of enlightenment for everyone.
Even if it’s a good ride, it might not have been the ride you needed, nor were prepared to take. It can leave your spiritual house shaky, perhaps in need of a complete overhaul. So it’s definitely not for everyone. You have to, if you’ll pardon the phrase, have a real thirst for adventure. With no guarantees of what lies on the other side. Or even if you’ll make it there.
But if you do find yourself with the sacred privilege of being able to share that holy tea, please—for my sake—drink every last drop.
Because the medicine will do miracles, man.
It certainly did one for me.
Footnotes
I’m not sure if that’s the rectum or if the rectum is the atrium to the unnamed anal-bladder. And there are some queries I really don’t need to add to my Google search history. “What do they call the bladder of the ass?” is certainly one of them.
I was holding out for a toad you had to lick because that would be a two-fer on the bucket list, but alas it was just a ultra-potent cocktail of possibly interstellar origin.
And not in the good way:
She is legit the coolest, and I’m not just saying it because I asked her to review this post before publication.
I promise this will be the one and only time in the future history of “What’s The Worst That Can Happen!?” that I will refer to myself as a wild stallion, or for that matter a stallion of any kind. Though now as I write this footnote, I think perhaps I could see referring to myself as a lazy stallion, which is precisely the sort of seductive emotion of self-hate that the metaphor was deployed to explicate.
But I’ll do it one more time: thank you so much.
I know, I know, there’s no shoulds. Follow your bliss. Blaze your own path. Explore your own cosmos. But in this specific case, it’s a very big “should.” As in more of an “ought.” Or even a “thou shall” finish every last drop.
If that’s what you call it.
More on the wonderful Carl Jung and his theory of the shadow here from the Society of Analytical Psychology.
The real name was changed here to protect the innocent. The only hint - his name was not “Kevin.”