I have been putting out the desire for healing for a while now. Feeling stuck in habits that didn't benefit me, I knew a radical alteration of perspective was required. I had been reading literature around the latest work with quantum physics and had developed a theory to align with my experience of the Great Mysteries that worked with the field of consciousness.

    I have been convinced for as long as I can remember that something is missing from the modern world: the shamanic healing rituals, using psychotropic plants, for intense, powerful psychological healing. Herbs, medicine, counselling get us only so far. The real evolutionary shift that we children of the earth need comes from the deeper work. Some find a way through meditation, some through yoga, and the other paths... yet there is one missing. The ancient tradition of the spirit journeys using plant medicine is needed now, more than ever, if we are to evolve beyond the miasma of self-serving materialism.

    I first tried ayahuasca in Peru. I took it with a shaman, in the daytime, in the closed confines of his home. It was powerful and beautiful. Since becoming a mother, I have left the path of psychedelic exploration. Remaining grounded and creating security does not encourage the right atmosphere for psychedelic exploration. But nine years after the birth of my eldest child, I find the need has returned to explore the fourth dimension.

    'The solution to much of modern malaise, including chemical dependencies and repressed psychoses and neuroses, is direct exposure to the authentic dimensions of risk represented by the experience of psychedelic plants,' says Terence McKenna in Plan, Plant, Planet (The Archaic Revival, Harper, San Francisco, 1991, p. 219).

    I found myself, after the death of my mother, and the break-up of my marriage, a slave to addictive behaviour. Negative thinking and alcohol dominated my time away from my children. My soul was shrinking and crying out for love.

    Then I met S, the first human I have met with no addictions, no needs, no expectations. Just open and honest and real. Our friendship lifted me out of the dark self-pitying hole I had dug, and reminded me that we are all powerful beings of light. Together, we bounced ideas around, exploring consciousness. In him, I found a fellow explorer, and the inspiration to find my way back to the pathway through the woods.

    I introduced S to my good friend and elder, another S, in whom I knew we would find a shared dream of awakening consciousness. The day we chose to visit was wet and lush as only rainy New Zealand can be. Sure enough, the 'no such thing as coincidence' spiral had picked us up and tossed us into ayahuascas path.

    There was a man who had spent years training with shamans in South America, drinking ayahuasca, brewing ayahuasca, and finally returning to bring the teachings home. He was in the area, initiating ceremonies to those who wished the deep healing that ayahuasca has to offer. K is an inspirational man, calm, soft, gentle yet solid and strong. A beautiful soul who has been to the very edge of explored conscious realms. We nicknamed him 'The Anchalyst' as he was a catalyst for the journey as well as an anchor when the waves became too stormy.

 

    Ayahuasca began to call us

 

    The date was set for us to meet, and we began to prepare ourselves. For me, the main focus was removing alcohol, marijuana and foods that would interact. Ayahuasca is the synergistic blend of two plants. One containing DMT and the other a MAOI inhibitor, allowing the internal ingestion of DMT to be catalysed and passed through into the brain. We already know DMT. It exists in our pineal gland and is released at specific times, death being one of them. So our body recognises the molecule. MAOI inhibiters are slightly more dangerous, and a temporary inhibition is what is needed as permanent inhibition can be fatal. Therefore some foods interact negatively, especially fermented food.

    S and I discussed what our intentions were to be for the healing and, as we approached the day, ayahuasca itself began to call to us. Suddenly it was everywhere. I saw an item on an independent documentary discussing the patenting of ayahuasca. People were posting ayahuasca-inspired music and art on Facebook. The day before, I went to Nelson and entered a random art exhibition to find DMT painted upon the artwork. The meeting between plant teacher and pupil was gathering momentum. It is the combination of the teacher and the pupil that makes the lesson.

    We arrived at S’s home at dusk. I had eaten light all day, and was ready to start. We met the other travellers and sat around drinking tea and chatting. R and D I had never met before, the 3 Ss, my close friends, one the only other female. Then K arrived and began to unload the bottles of black liquid, and set up the shrine. The moment they were out of the bag, my cellular/ethereal body pricked up its energetic ears. I felt the ayahuasca reach out to me and awaken the memory of its molecules within me,

    I was even more ready, but counselled myself to be calm and wait. We arranged pillows and blankets, stoked the fire, and subtly provided the purging vessels at handy intervals. Then we sat, the lights went out and we began. K awoke the plant, singing, whistling and calling to it. He smudged us all and his brew, then carefully measured out each dose. I was the smallest there and received the smallest dose. K's brew was very different to the thin, vinegary brew of Peru. It was thick and deliciously molasses-like. I held it in my mouth for a while before swallowing.

    Within minutes, R began to journey, and it became obvious that he was descending into some dark space. Then D began to stir, and beat out some rhythms. K offered a second dose and the three Ss and I took more. For a while I sat, meditatively, listening to K's songs and the two guys processing, with nothing occurring. Then K sang a song I knew, and I began to sing with him. And with that, I began. Song is a gift given to me by the gods and I often hold the songs during ceremony, so it came as no surprise that it was the key to unlock the doors of perception.

    We sang together for a long while. Then I fell into the silence to contemplate. I became aware that R was really struggling with something and became convinced that he needed some help. He began to sing an African chant in a deep baritone, but soon seemed to lose his way. K invited me to sing and so I invoked the Great Mother, and felt her unconditional love and solid support fill the room.

    A realisation flooded me, that being a mother was so much more powerful than I had quite realised, with so much more wisdom and love and support and strength to share through these dark night of the human soul. When the purging began, I extended my spiritual hand to stroke R's back and told him I was here, and that I understood and loved him. Whether I said this aloud, I cannot say.

    Then I sank back into my dissolving body and was gone. The lines between my body and the surrounding atoms disappeared; all I could feel was the very real and visceral awareness of the field of consciousness. I could see it, touch it, breathe it, taste it, move it. It is as real as anything seemingly 'solid' and yet can be as distant as the stars. To my right, I became aware of the feeling of fear. It was spiky, dark, harsh and alien. I was told 'yes, that is fear, now you know how it feels'.

    I reached out with my consciousness to my family. Felt for my children, each asleep in the security of friends’ homes. I loved them up big time, poured my love into each of them, until someone, me (?) said: 'That's enough don't wake them up.'

 

   Compassion, appreciation and forgiveness

    I was given a gift of a vision. Maya was standing to my right, facing forwards, strong, brave and confident. This is her essence. Tui, her twin sister, was an angel, standing over me, blessing me with the greatest learning. She is the 'tricky' one, sensitive, critical, artistic, emotional. Her lessons are the hardest to stay calm with and be receptive to. Tane, their older brother, close to me, holding me as I hold him. Indeed we are dependent upon each other in many ways. Then, I visited each of the rest of my family and loved them. After which, I turned the love upon myself and loved myself till I cried with joy. I have never poured such deep-feeling compassion, appreciation and forgiveness into myself. It was incredibly healing.

    Finally, I searched for my mother, who passed away two years ago. She was nowhere, I felt no sense of spirit. Then, there she was in my memory. Her hands, her arms, her skin, and I was once again pouring tears - of grief this time. She spoke in my mind. 'See,' she said, 'I can come to you in that form but it makes you so sad that you grieve all over again. It is better that you know me as I am, here, in you, and all around you, in all that is.'

    I then ascended into some higher realm and saw tall beings, solemnly looking down upon us all here on Earth. Eyes lowered and concentrating, three males and one female entity. I received this; they are our parents and they love us so very much. Everything is right and OK, we cannot lose their love.

    I opened my eyes, and was disorientated to see the moon in the wrong place. Time was irrelevant, and had passed beyond my understanding. I had purged at some point, and although intense, it was right and fine. S and S had the most incredible streams of purging, almost indescribably satisfyingly full-on. K continued singing all through this time, smudging, supporting D and R. As I said, a catalyst and an anchor.

    I managed to get some water from the tap without stepping in the purging bowls. I became aware that next to me D was delving into a very sexual experience. I became convinced that he was finding pleasure and whispering to himself that no-one could hear him. Next to me, S started to giggle, and that was it. We dissolved into fits of giggles that were so uncontrollable you might as well ask the tides to cease. It washed over us again and again, with D swearing at us from the darkness, which only served to set us off again.

    We managed to regain some sense of respect and S and I agreed to go outside where we wouldn't disturb our fellow travellers. Outside the moonlit night was so healing and cool to our skin. A surprisingly warm breeze flowed around us, the trees of the Able Tasman hills, watched over us.
    The peak had passed and now was the time to reintegrate our body and soul and recall our visions. Emptying our bladders under a tree, we followed the sound of a guitar, through the woods to a strange scene I can only describe as a man burning a picnic table (though he seemed unaware of the table when we met him the next day so I guess we weren't quite back to Earth). We were two giggling girls and left him and the other seemingly so serious men, and wandered off to find the horses.

    Ah, that night with my dearest friend and sister S, with the horses the moon and ayahuasca moving through us in tides. Beauty, love, soul and life; friendship and wonderment was the nature of my experience. Later, when I look back upon my diary, at that morning’s entry, I see my wish written clear as the field of consciousness that surrounds and fills us. I wanted love, love, love. As K said, you get what you ask for.

    Upon returning to the house, we came across D, moaning, singing and purging still, supported and guided by K. We sat with the boys, grounding and loving them both as they walked their path together. D intoning, 'respect, respect' and then vomiting again. At one point a dog, then the next, a bird. We hugged him only to find his lust still somewhat engaged, much to his chagrin. Slowly, we made our way back, D purging still. Wow, he had some stuff to shift, until he found his car and curled up to sleep.

    Returning to the house I tried to make tea, only to create a rather unpalatable hot liquid that no-one could get down. We gathered together with S to share visions. He had indeed explored fear; he was the fear cloud to my right, but had also found love; love is the answer, the beginning and the end. The other S was nowhere to be seen, and female S had not had so much vision, in fact, had very definitely been kept in her body with a firm pressure upon her third eye, like a thumb pushing her back down.

    We slept a little; the night was endless. In the morning, we all came back together. R was so very shaken and couldn't tell of his journey. D looked better. The 3 Ss were grounded and happy, K peaceful, and I felt so very healed and calm. We finished the day with a long walk at the beach and some lunch, and went home to rest.

    For the next few weeks, I felt ayahuasca flowing through me in waves. I would be trying to hold on to the bliss only to be transported suddenly into it again. In my first DMT smoking experience, I was told very clearly that beauty is fleeting and that is why it is so very beautiful; like the sunrise, it passes. Despite knowing this, I so much wanted to keep it with me and not descend into the everyday washing-up world. It is inevitable. I am changed and yet the same. The children fight, I get tired and scratchy, it rains for days. The seasons go on.

    I have integrated the experience into the tapestry of me; the knowing, the sense of the love, comes and goes. I realise that K was right; some people drink daily, weekly, it is their meditation, pulling back the layers revealing more to be looked at, excised, healed, explored. I thought of the comfort of my fireside, reading books to my children, and I know, though that is where life is, out here on the edge, life is also. Both ends of the spectrum. I, for one, cannot have one without the other. I am an explorer, and I bring back my learning to my home. And I help us all to take one more step towards our transformation into homo luminous, a new being, a new knowing.