I guess I expected a sudden, dramatic revelation or something because, after what seemed to be ample time, I still didn't feel anything unusual—if you didn't count the sudden need to share an impromptu and previously unrealized intellectual insight regarding the specifics of UFO technology with my partner, Lynne.
For a reason I could not explain, I possessed unexpected knowledge about a complex navigational guidance system "they'' had placed under the earth's surface. I knew exact details regarding round eye-shaped beacons buried about six to ten feet deep at systemic intervals across the surface of the planet. I knew they were navigational devices, transmitting a square beam of light into space for the alien visitors to use as guidance beacons for their sojourns to our planet.
As I was beginning to pinpoint the exact locations of some of the nearby transmitters, I was summoned back to earth-bound reality by the shaman who had been preparing for the next phase of my sacred healing journey. I was led to an isolated corner of the enclosure where I prepared for what was about to happen.
I was placed on my back in pitch-black darkness. The shaman began by drinking more ayahuasca as he sang his way into an altered state—based on the amount of the toxin he must have already consumed, he should have been well on his way to complete unconsciousness. John Perkins warned me to close my eyes as the shaman began by camaying trago all over my face and exposed body. I soon realized that I was being drawn into the shaman's state of awareness. Everything in the darkness began to feel strangely familiar while simultaneously remaining distant and foreign.
Then I saw them.
Snakes . . . a pit of a countless number of very large snakes, all slowly slithering and moving past each other, not unlike the creepy scenes in an early Indiana Jones movie. And guess who was in the center of them?
While my logical mind was actively promoting the concept that this was a probably a hallucination or an illusion, a separate feeling-self knew that the visualization was too real to be dismissed as a simple fantasy. I shook my head numerous times in an attempt to rid myself of the images, but they promptly reappeared when I became still.
Then the shaman touched my upper body and I was certain that he was about to put a live snake on my chest. My heart was beating rapidly now, busily pumping a full year's supply of adrenaline throughout my body in mere seconds. I was convinced that the shaman possessed the ability to read my mind and was about to confront my fear of snakes by the most direct means possible.
However, I also became aware of yet a third self—an observer part of me that was separate from my logical and emotional bodies, calming me with a different message. This larger self was, perhaps for the first time in my life, conceptualizing that these presumably scary images might actually be . . . friendly. The detached self was introducing a subtle subtext suggesting that, although I thought I had come to heal minor physical disorders, I may actually be addressing a far larger ailment: intense fear. I remained motionless during the entire experience, afraid to move. The procedure took on a surreal form, like a dream, and I was uncertain what was real and what was imaginary.
Waking the Snake
Those who study the dream state have discovered that we are unable to move our bodies during an intense dream or nightmare due to our bodies' natural secretion of a paralyzing chemical. My ayahuascaaltered state of consciousness was definitely dream-like in that respect, having paralyzed my body even while I remained in full waking consciousness.
We were well into the healing before I realized that the snakes I was seeing were not in physical form. The shaman had just been brushing my body with a soft healing tool while shaking a rattle to accompany his continuous, consciousness-raising chanting. However, in spite of the fact that the reptiles existed only as a mental image, they were very real—on an experiential level.
I later realized that the snake imagery was a symbol of kundalini—latent spiritual energy that, when aroused, leads to enlightenment. Kundalini is depicted on the walls of ancient temples in Egypt as a serpent that lies coiled at the base of the spine in the primary chakra, known as the muladhara. When it is awakened, it begins to ascend through the chakra system, unleashing powers of awareness and enlightenment as it goes.
My snake had definitely awakened.
chapter 3
Deeper into the Rain Forest
THE AYAHUASCA JOURNEY proved to be one of the most powerful experiences of my life, in spite of its dizzying and organized confusion. I got as violently sick as advertised and perceived many visual images during the eight-hour experience. I was later to learn that my experience was typical, consisting of many mental pictures appearing rapidly in one- or two-second intervals.
One of my most vivid recollections involved physically dashing outside into the jungle to upchuck what I had consumed earlier. As Lynne helped me hunt for the perfect spot, I couldn't understand why she, not having taken the drug, was stumbling around as though unable to see. I had no difficulty in the faint light, heeding the narrow dirt footpaths leading away from the ceremonial area into the dense overgrowth.
Unearthing the Lessons
It wasn't until twenty-four hours later, when I retraced my steps from the previous evening, that I realized it had been pitch dark in the jungle that night. There was absolutely no light from the moonless midnight sky. The next day, I asked the shaman about this light phenomenon. He just smiled and nodded his head. Our translator, who had consumed ayahuasca on many prior occasions, did not need to hear his words to tell me that night vision is a common occurrence. The spirits just make it easier for you to see, the shaman seemed to be expressing with unspoken words from behind his full smiling face.
I also remember becoming cognizant of the many friendly eyes that appeared to be a part of all living things around me. The trees surrounding our compound, the plants of the rain forest, and even the stars in the night sky all seemed to have an awareness of us—they were watching, guiding. They were friendly and, although my partner, Lynne, had faithfully promised that she would not allow me to wander away from the safety of the enclosure, I was being drawn to the outer edge of the scary unknown. Why are you afraid? the eyes seemed to be asking. Accept us . . . let go of the fear!
Later, when my logical mind returned from its sabbatical, I realized that my perception of the eyes during an altered state suggested that everything on the planet is, in effect, conscious. Certainly, the creatures of the forest have life. One could build a convincing case that the flora and fauna interact with us as well. Scientists have been able to successfully determine, for example, that talking nicely to your houseplants produces healthier specimens than shouting at or ignoring them. Even the rocks on the ground have a consciousness—of their mass, if nothing else. The planet is indeed alive and will talk to us, if only we will listen. Mother Earth is truly vital—and the shaman's ability to speak and interact with her is his healing tool.
The day after the ceremony, we all woke up refreshed, without the hangover we fully expected after what we had done to our bodies the previous night. The shaman met with us individually and shared what he had observed while accompanying each of us on our separate experiential journeys and healings. When it was my turn, he informed me that he had removed some emotional as well as physical blocks from my body. Then he mentioned both the snakes and the eyes.
"How did you know that?" I stammered.
"I journeyed with you," was his simple reply.
I was dumbfounded. Even though I had become a professional psychic as result of my unexpected metaphysical awakening, I am always amazed when someone else makes an extrasensory observation. I have been doing this psychic stuff for quite awhile and I am still occasionally astonished when I issue a psychic proclamation and my clients confirm that I am correct.
"Do you know you are a healer?"