Apparently, mine was a strange request. To sit in ceremony and not drink was not the way things were done. Christian wanted time to think and by lunch,  there was still no answer, so I ate a little something.

Maybe there would be no need to fast today.

After lunch, everyone gathered in the ceremonial hut to process the first ceremony. Quez lay in my lap, like a purring panther as I rubbed his back and we listened to the struggles and visions of our peers, what they’d seen or been told to do, how they suffered and what they’d learned from their suffering.

Then it was my turn to speak and I addressed Christian directly. I told him that when the ceremony first began, I opened my eyes and saw malicious spirits entering the hut, through a portal in the ceiling, materializing like dark clouds. Then I heard his whistle and saw the pure light of love shoot from his lips like a lightening bolt, obliterating those negative energies. I knew we were safe and protected and I should just close my eyes and not watch anymore. It was better not to know.

Christian laughed with recognition.

I continued by saying that after I closed my eyes, I heard the “warriors in the yard” - an army of ancestral shamans, warriors and protective spirits circling the hut, singing songs of protection, shielding us from harm. I thanked Christian and the curanderos for guarding us during our journey. I bowed in gratitude and Christian acknowledged me with a quick nod. 

Then it was Quez’s turn to talk, then around the circle, then the facilitators each spoke and this continued for probably another two hours, during which we all began to fade, needing more rest, hydration and food. I’m pretty sure Quez fell asleep in my lap.

Finally, we all dispersed and as we headed back to our beds and feeble showers, our translator, Roger, pulled me aside. “Christian says you can sit in ceremony tonight.” I nodded, happily. That was good news.

Ohhhhh my friends…be careful what you wish for.

Only six of us chose to participate in the second ceremony and I was the only one who chose not to drink. Branden seemed nervous about my decision. He suggested I drink a half-dose but I refused, entering the ceremonial lodge with the clear intention to be in full presence with the icaros.

Whatever form that took.

As we gathered and knelt on our mats, Roger approached, knelt in front of me and gave me a bit of a lecture. “Christian says you must maintain your meditation the entire ceremony. You cannot weaken. You have to hold yourself in full concentration the whole time.”

I nodded but I have to admit, his admonition scared the hell out of me. To sit in peak meditation for ten hours was not something I’d ever attempted before. Seemed like a really bad time to “give it a go” but the candles were lit, the glasses were poured. There was no turning back.

As the women on either side of me drank, I held my hands over my heart, closed my eyes and cleared my mind. It only took the first notes of Christian’s icaros to quickly send me into a full emotional purge, weeping and hallucinating, completely in an altered state.

Standing in front of me were two women: my biological and adoptive mothers. I watched my biological mother die, sitting in her chair, alone, feeling abandoned, deep in grief. I saw my adoptive mother, in her nursing home bed, choke and die in her sleep. Their deaths were lonely affairs. I wept with guilt and grief, wishing there’d been time to mend our estrangements. I felt a deep fear that someday, I would share their fate.

Then, my mothers were gone and standing in front of me was my adoptive father. I was unhappy to see him. I felt myself tense but he was apologizing, stepping closer and closer, begging for my forgiveness. I made the choice to soften my heart and just as I bowed my head to accept his apology, I felt a draining tug at my soul, as if an evil presence was leeching off my healing for its own benefit, to gain power.

I screamed and felt a strong whoosh of air tornado around me. One of the curanderos was fanning me with his chakapa, my hair flying in all directions as he loudly sang in my left ear, blasting the toxic spirit with his icaros until the thing let me loose. I actually felt the connection sever. I was so grateful and relieved, I opened my eyes to bow to my shaman.

That’s when I realized he was not standing beside me at all.

He was still in his seat, several feet away.

Huh?

Now, remember. I was sober. I hadn’t had a sip of Aya and maybe it can be argued that the medicine was still in my system and got reactivated by the environment but I can only tell you what I physically felt and saw and experienced as real.

An evil presence, posing as my apologetic father was sucking my soul out of my body and the curanderos singing in my left ear and blasting me with the wind from his chakapa, strong enough to move my hair, was not actually standing anywhere near me. He was sitting calmly in his chair, singing.

It was too much to process. I was exhausted. I lay back on my mat and went into a deep trance that felt like a coma. Mentally aware but physically anesthetized.  I felt the women beside me fall into the same state. We were “under the knife” - having psychic surgery - the icaros weaving through us like a surgeon’s needle and thread. Energetic realignment. I was in capable, safe hands. I drifted off to sleep.

  When I woke, I woke in pure confusion. There were people asleep beside me. There were different people kneeling in front of the curanderos. There was a totally new ceremony happening, a blessing of the facilitators. My brain struggled to place my body in space and time. What day was it? Had I slept through two nights? What was going on?

Wolf saw me sit up and walked over, “Are you okay?”

I stared at him, still deeply confused.

“Where am I?” I asked, meaning what is my place in this universe, who am I now without my husband, without my career, without the future I imagined, without a plan, without the motivation to even make a plan, without goals, without a step-by-step outline, without some sense of control, without a vision, without dreams.

Where the fuck am I?

Wolf just smiled and gently said, “Peru.”

I was definitely in Peru.

That much I knew.

Everything else was up for grabs.

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