The Night I Died

My intention going into my second Ayahuasca ceremony was for emotional and spiritual healing. I drank less for my second ceremony, but I believe that Ayahuasca will give you the experiences you need, regardless of the amount you drink. As I began to feel the effects of the medicine, I again fell a strong sense of connection with the people and the world around me, then I felt an overwhelming sense of peace, like I was pure energy. Once Ayahuasca had given me the peace I needed, the real teaching began, it was time to strip away the ego and the fear, and learn to surrender to the  medicine.


She began by taking me to a very dark and frighting place. I could not, and still cannot, articulate what it was that I was afraid of, but it was a place of terror for me. Although ceremony is generally a silent affair, I was so terrified in this place and I felt so alone. "Help" I whimpered, and Gina came over to me, I clung to her, feeling her hold onto me gave me a connection to the earthly plane that I was not able to establish on my own. Jim came to me also and held my hands. I kept repeating "I'm so scared, please make it stop". As Jim held my hands he talked to me reminding me that I needed to surrender to the medicine, to let it do it's work. As my connection to myself was slowly restored, I suddenly didn't want anyone near me or around me, so intensely that at one point I shouted at Jim to go away.I was hunched over my purge bowl repeating to myself, "I surrender, I surrender" Once I finally surrendered, I experienced, what can only be called an epic purge. So much negativity flushing out of me.

Than I went mad.

I don't remember much during that time, but I was able surrender my control to the medicine and I just lost my mind. I didn't have enough presence of mind to tell myself that this would end, or that this was the medicine working, but I was a peace with going insane.

Then I died.

I lay back on my mat and I had a vision of myself in a hospital bed. I knew that this is what people felt like as they died, the delirium when you just let your mind go. There are no conscious thoughts, just images and voices that I couldn't understand. I accepted my own death and did not feel fear, I knew that what ever what going to happen to me, I was going to be OK. I closed my eyes and blackness overcame me. When I opened them again, I could feel myself being re-born, and as the shaman began to work on me and sing over me, I could feel my body filling with light and energy. I felt lighter, as though there wasn't a weight pushing down on me. That weight had been there for so long that it became part of me, and I didn't' even realize that it was there anymore.

I never imagined when I asked to be healed that it would need to let go of myself so completely, but once I let go, I was able to come back a better person, ready to find my place in the world.