I first heard about ayahuasca (meaning “vine of the souls”) from a profoundly beautiful friend I met in Costa Rica. We were chatting online about a year later and she was describing to me her first experience, a traditional ceremony in the middle of the jungle centered around this carefully brewed hallucinogenic beverage. What she described to me was quite an incredible internal journey, the highlight of which was an overwhelmingly warm encounter with some sort of spirit of nature - a coherent, brilliant female entity who spoke to her lovingly - and all of the warmth, energy, and feeling of connectedness with the earth which came of it. She later tried it again, but that time described to me a much darker and more harrowing experience: an uncomfortably raw and relentless dissection of the self, focusing harshly on personal flaws. Though widely divergent, either case sounded to me like a very interesting experience, so I’ve been keeping an eye open for ayahuasca ever since. Unfortunately, the few possibilities I have come across during my South American travels were either prohibitively expensive or uninspiringly spurious. Given the delicate complexity of the brewing process as well as my desire for the experience to be enlightening (as opposed to just ‘trippy’), not the mention the vulnerable position you find yourself in while under the effects of such a strong substance, I was searching for at least the semblance of a respectable guide/shaman leading the ceremony rather than someone obviously just playing it up for the tourist market... So, I crossed the better part of the continent without ever finding something suitable and, once I settled in Medellín, forgot about it.
About a month later, while on a day hike with a few people I had never met before, a rather unexpected conversation shift to “guided medicine ceremonies” led to my receiving this poster in my inbox:
It was the announcement for an upcoming ceremony just outside of the city centered not around ayahuasca, but rather peyote, another substance I had heard of but knew very little about other than it being a cactus which contains mescaline, a psychoactive hallucinogen.
The week of, I called the printed number and spoke to a very friendly lady who answered all of my questions in a way that suggested she had obviously done this many, many times before. She told me that peyote was a very soft medicine, that people don’t tend to get sick (very much unlike ayahuasca), that the man running the ceremony has been doing this for twenty years and “has a big heart”, and that the price was 70 000 pesos (about 40$) for the overnight session, including breakfast and an optional temazcal (sweat lodge) the next day. She also told me what I should bring: warm clothing, a blanket, a mattress or something to sit on, a bit of food if desired, and some light clothing for the temazcal the next day (“something for a sauna, like a bathing suit”, she said).
It all sounded good to me, so I went.
The event took place on a small farm near Santa Elena, a village high up the east side of the Medellín valley, so getting there involved either a rough and uncomfortable bus ride up a long, rough, winding road, or a slightly longer alternative: a slick, modern cable-car ride with stunning views of the city until you go over a ridge and are suddenly overlooking nothing but forest as far as the eye can see.
Unsurprisingly, I splurged the one dollar and opted for the latter. Suffice it to say my peyote trip started out rather well.
I eventually arrived at what seemed much more like a cottage than a farm, complete with a nearby neighbour hosting some sort of birthday party. Entering the modest looking house, I stood in an open room with perhaps 15 people walking around or sitting by the fireplace, chatting. There was definitely a dominant hippy vibe, what with the abundance of hemp, beads, and men with long hair, but I also met a few people donning a more ‘typical city-dweller’ look, like a half-Colombian guy who lives in New York and a local girl who, like me, had never done this before. The age range was everything from infants to seniors, and almost everyone else seemed to know each other. I got into a few conversations with people about how they came to be there and what their previous experience was with this sort of ceremony (most people had done stuff like this before, but a number of them were new at least to peyote specifically). After about an hour, I was asked by one of the more experienced individuals if I had chosen a spot and set my things up in the hut yet. I had not.
In the backyard was a large, dome-like structure made of a wooden frame covered with various fabrics and animal pelts, the whole thing about 2.5 meters tall and covering roughly the area of a tennis court. I walked up to the nearest doorway and pushed aside the large sheet that covered it, stepping inside slowly. I tried not to feel too unprepared.
The hut was organized around a central fire pit, with a doorway at each cardinal direction. A raised bed of dirt - like a small shelf of sorts - was sculpted between the fire pit and the northern doorway. Vibrant, colourful art depicting large animals or deities decorated the walls. The ground was covered in blankets and mattresses (except the fire pit, of course) made of wool and straw, respectively, on top of which a few people currently sat against the walls, conversing and waiting. When I asked a couple of guys for advice on where I should setup, they informed me that the north end was for the guide, whereas most of the south side (where there wasn’t already people’s stuff setup) was open.
I placed my things below a painting of Buddy ChristJesus Christ smiling drunkenly while giving a thumbs up with one hand and pointing out (at you) with the other; I never quite figured out if it was some sort of commentary about the typical depictions of Jesus, or just an unusually festive interpretation of him. In any case, that was where I would sit alongside roughly 30 people and copious amounts of peyote until the sun rose the next day. I tried not to feel too unprepared…
Since the event was scheduled to start at 7:30PM, I foolishly arrived around 7, and was sitting and waiting in the hut with a total of six other people shortly before 8PM. In typical Latin American fashion, things didn’t really get going for another two hours. People gradually came in, chatting amongst themselves, and sat down along the wall of the hut forming a large circle. Meanwhile, the guide, Masa, a tall native-American from Arizona looking more worried and stressed than anything, and his brother, Dennis, the half-Colombian New Yorker I met earlier, paced in, out, and around, trying to get some things and people organized. Masa only spoke a bit of Spanish, it turns out, so he therefore gave instructions and led the ceremony half in broken Spanish and half in English which was then translated by his brother. The designated ‘Man of the Fire’ and ‘Man of the Door’ are also worth mentioning. The former was an older, tall, skinny individual dressed in typically native ceremonial garb (yellow leather, feathers, lots of coloured beads...) who was ironically struggling to get a fire going, his furious fanning at feeble embers resulting only in smoke; the latter was a guy in his thirties wearing a much more discrete, dark brown fleece who sat directly to my right and had to keep opening the door next to him to let the aforementioned smoke out, and, of course, the cold in. Unlike Medellín, this place is fairly high up in the mountains, so it actually gets quite cold at night. I had brought what I thought was unreasonably excessive amounts of clothing and blankets - planning to have extra in case someone else was without - but I was already wearing all of it.
The whole thing just came off as amateurish at best, and since I had basically been fasting for a day, I was also struggling to resist pulling food from my bag in order to kill both time and hunger. Still, none of this really mattered as long as we eventually got to the peyote phase.
That would not occur for another three hours, it turns out, as various little ceremonies along with seemingly improvised talk from Masa brought us nearer to midnight while I sat, tremendously bored and increasingly unimpressed. “We’re all here to learn, myself included – I’m no expert, I’m just like you guys.” he said, completely failing to inspire me. It felt as though he was stalling.
The sounds of an undoubtedly more enjoyable birthday party could be heard off in the distance.
Masa repeatedly stressed the need for us to feel comfortable and at ease - “at home” were his exact words at one point - shortly before going through the many rules which we had to follow, such as never leaving the tent, not getting up unless told to, never ‘crossing anyone else’s energy’... Basically, you weren’t really allowed to do anything. I suppose I’m fortunate my parents were not psychotic enough for that environment to feel homelike, but I therefore came to feel even more alienated from this whole process.
The rituals were no less discouraging. For example, Masa asked the Man of the Fire to ceremoniously ‘sweep out the negative energy’, so the Man of the Fire got up, and with a nearby broom started to sweep at the dirt. “No, not that way. Like, just in the air.” After Dennis translated the distracting corrections for him, the Man of the Fire proceeded with his sweeping motion, but now a few inches off of the ground. “...but you need to start from this side here, and move around, counter-clockwise…” Why they couldn’t have had some sort of rehearsal to establish how things would play out is beyond me, but the end result is that the ceremony which was meant to ‘sweep out the negative energy’ resulted only in spawning a greater amount of it within me.
The same was true of the tobacco rolling ceremony, for which they handed me a bag of tobacco and a stack of squares cut out of corn husks and told me to roll myself a cigar then pass it on. Now, I’m no expert, but I have rolled a few joints before. Corn husk, however, wasn’t exactly the easiest material to work with. Still, I eventually managed to create some sort of tobacco-filled tube and pass the building materials on. The person next to me had apparently never rolled anything before in his life, and he struggled quite a bit more. I wanted to help, but obviously there were rules against that sort of thing. Recall as well that he was the second of about thirty people to do this, and despite all the years of experience, nobody seemed to think that bringing another bag of tobacco would be useful. Furthermore, since the Man of the Fire wasn’t apparently able to build a fire, we were doing this in almost complete darkness. You can imagine how thrilling that hour and a half was.
Dennis then came over and handed a stack of black plastic bags to the Man of the Door, informing him that they should be passed around so people who need to vomit could have one available. A necessary precaution, I suppose, although again I had been told that this was not a drug that typically induces vomiting. Masa then spoke of the need to vomit in the bag as opposed to going outside - it was important, he said, to do so “in front of the others, in front of the grandparents”; leaving the hut to relieve yourself outside was seen as equal to being shamed away from the group, something he would not allow.
Evidently, all of this was really getting to me. No amount of sweeping was going to get rid of this negative energy...
Finally, however, came the announcement: “Are we ready for the medicine?” I tried to bring myself back to a more relaxed mindset, though of course another 15 minutes or so crawled by as Masa mixed various powders with various liquids in various containers, the Man of the Fire kept struggling to keep some wood aflame, and the rest of us simply sat around waiting... and waiting...
The more melodramatic among us took this opportunity to die a little inside.
At last, Masa picked up a bowl and went around spoon-feeding each person, one by one... Yet another strange, awkward process which I couldn’t quite understand, but at least it involved peyote.
After about half of the room, it was my turn. I had watched fifteen or so other people choke down the obviously unpleasant substance - four spoonfuls each - many grimacing and taking a moment to compose themselves before finishing their doses. “Are you ready, fellow northerner?” Masa asked me as he approached. “Well, I’ve certainly had a lot of time to prepare.” I responded. Partly due to my increased sense of alienation from (and, frankly, increasing dislike of) this group, I felt an immature need to avoid showing any signs of weakness. It’s not easy to try and appear tough while being spoon-fed, but I was determined to try.
The substance was a dull-green paste with small pockets of not-quite-mixed powder in it, and it tasted like the bastard child of swamp and gag-reflex. I managed to feign being unaffected until the third spoonful, at which point I couldn’t repress a slight grimace while choking down a particularly dry, powdery mass. Damn. I proceeded as quickly as possible to present myself for the final spoonful, which went down less abrasively.
“Thanks...” I uttered unconvincingly as Masa began feeding the next person.
Before the round was even finished, the sound of vomiting could be heard from across the room. Once the episode was over, the Man of the Door got up and went to offer a fresh bag. It turns out it was also his responsibility to take the unfresh one and remove it from the structure (allowing us to remain seated, sharing our upheaval with the others as we were told...)
Within about 45 minutes, half a dozen people had handed over their recently filled bags to the Man of the Door who got up every time he was called without hesitation. The Man of the Fire also kept asking the Man of the Door to get more wood - this happened about a dozen times throughout the night. Why not simply have a sufficiently large pile of wood in the first place? I have no idea. So, whereas most people could barely sit up straight at this point, the Man of the Door, who consumed the same stuff as everyone else, was additionally burdened with fetching logs when he wasn’t carrying around other people’s vomit. What a terrible job; he certainly handled it well.
I felt fairly unpleasant nausea as well, but I wasn’t near vomiting... yet. So much for the suggestion that peyote doesn’t tend to make people sick.
Once we had all been ‘served’, a huge jar of a strange brown tea was passed around. I was mistaken in thinking that this was to help the medicine go down - quite the contrary, in fact, as this was simply a different form of the same stuff. That was followed then by another jar with thicker, green, mucousy liquid of sorts, like a hybrid of the two first substances. Finally, a bowl with chopped up bits of the raw cactus itself came around.
Given that I had never done this before, I had no idea how many rounds of medicine were coming and even less of an idea how strong each form of it was. It was basically impossible for me to have any idea of what a reasonable dosage was. So, I did the only thing that I could think of: I watched the person next to me and tried to take more than him. It didn’t really occur to me that the man immediately before me in the cycle, the man to my right, the Man of the Door, was obviously one of the more experienced members of this particular session.
“Si no te sientes bien, más medicina.” said Masa whom I was mostly ignoring at this point in an attempt to relax and return to a happy place, trying to ready myself mentally for whatever was coming...
Then, the “music” began. In an understandably minimalist style, the instrumentation consisted only of a small drum and a shaker. The shaker was always passed along with a decorated wooden staff and a bundle of sage, and whoever held the shaker/staff/sage combo would apparently chant and sing whatever they wanted until they passed it all on. They were then also to move the drum along, placing it in front of the next person, although Dennis followed right behind as he was the only one allowed to play it (and also apparently the only one not allowed to move it - something about crossing energies... whatever, so we moved his drum for him). Those of you who have had the misfortune of hearing me sing will know that everyone in the room would suffer considerably less if I could have played the drum as my form of musical expression instead, so not having that option was unfortunate; however, the real issue with Dennis’ monopoly of the instrument is that for him, accompanying the ‘singer’ invariably took the form of incessantly beating on the drum as quickly as he could until the ‘song’ ended, no matter what sort of tone or tempo the ‘singer’ introduced. Occasionally, this relentless pounding did line up with the chanting - usually because the ‘singer’ sped up accordingly - but much more often, particularly when the ‘singer’ tried to lead a more tranquil tune, perhaps with consideration for the many people who were in physically agony at the time, the unchanged banging was just abrasive, nonsensical background noise. Imagine a 4-year-old with a wooden spoon and an empty pot. It was as though Dennis felt that he had to fill as much silence as possible to allow for music on top. The first couple of minutes were bearable, but when you’ve got a circle of 30 people, each going for two or three ‘songs’, the constant beating gets really, really, really annoying. It wasn’t even that the music was bad - if the drum went around and various people played badly, I could have dealt with that... I do, however, expect a ‘designated drummer’, one who does not allow others to play the instrument, to have a certain degree of not being awful. Obviously, this was yet another thing which failed to alleviate my nauseated, disenchanted, detached, and frustrated state.
Shortly after the guy on my left got up and stumbled out of the structure, obviously on his way to revisit the mix of peyote-flavoured substances, Masa restated the need for us to stay and vomit in each other’s presence. He said when we experience someone else being sick, we should not feel sorry for them, but rather be thankful that they are doing so “for us”. It might have been easier to swallow that logic if it wasn’t for the fact that at that point, those of us who had yet to vomit were in the minority, and our numbers were decreasing rapidly.
When it was handed to me, I passed the stick/shaker/sage bundle directly along, figuring that was at least a few minutes less unnecessary suffering. Three or four people were too busy puking to play, and indeed, as Masa suggested, I was thankful to them. A few others actually sounded like they were singing something quite lovely, but of course it was ruined by the inappropriate drumming which they could never compete with.
After the harrowing hour or so of musical ineptitude finally came to an end, Masa ordered the Man of Fire to do another ‘sweeping the bad out of the room’ ritual. I certainly agreed that we needed to get the ‘bad’ out - and I suspect I would have gone about it quite differently - but looking around, no one else seemed to think anything was bad at all. The only other people who seemed bothered by anything were those currently in the process of being sick. Everyone else kept cheering “Ajó!” (a traditional form of “thank you”), not only after every song - which I could attribute simply to politeness - but also quite enthusiastically at the end of the whole round. People sounded genuinely charged up by these shared drum&voice variations... “Thank you so much!” “That was wonderful!” “Great!”... I couldn’t understand it. Were they feeling some reality-altering effects of the drug already? I still felt nothing but nausea.
Whenever he noticed someone handing a vomit bag to the Man of the Door, Masa would walk over and wave a feather around that person, ‘cleansing’ them from the recent experience. As if it wasn’t uncomfortable enough to vomit in front of everyone, Masa would often ask for those who had to identify themselves so that he could go feather-waving at them. “Who else relieved themselves on this side..? Anyone?”
A couple of hours and a few more plodding, dilatory rituals later, we still didn’t seem to be actually doing anything, really, or heading anywhere with any of it. Nor, even, was the peyote causing any of the effects I had read about (“among the possible occurrences are feelings of inner tranquillity, oneness with life, heightened awareness, and rapid thought flow”). Nope. I did have a few moments of feeling like a high was coming on, but it always fizzled out, and the only ‘rapid thought flow’ was an ongoing internal rant about how nonsensical this whole evening had turned out to be. It felt like Masa was trying to kill time with the few tricks he knew: pass around some peyote, do some sort of sweeping ritual, a round of ‘music’, make some more tobacco cigarettes, say a few words... When he ran out, he just started re-using them.
So, indeed, the ‘medicine’ came around again. I tried to feign a respect I didn’t have for the man when he came to me, explaining: “Look, you’re the expert, but on my first round I’ve felt nothing, other than some nausea, even though I consumed more than most people. I haven’t vomited either, so it is all in there digesting...” “I’m no expert,” he responded, “I’m learning just like you are! You just take as much as you think you need.” I imagine he meant that to be useful or comforting somehow. I opted for five spoonfuls - one more than the last round - but he didn’t even get to the next person before my body violently rejected this last batch. I spent the next few minutes cleaning myself and my surroundings up with a rag I brought along (formerly a hankerchief) while concluding that since I obviously wasn’t able to consume any more of this stuff, and whatever I had already taken had done nothing but cause nausea, I was officially done. I tried, genuinely, but this had officially become stupid. I couldn’t understand why these people kept coming back over and over to do this. I didn’t understand these people at all.
So, the next round of ‘medicine’ - the brown liquid - I simply passed along. The guy on my left, who had recently returned from his time outside, gave me a questioning look when I didn’t take any more of the ‘medicine’. “No mas? ...ok...” he said, condescendingly, before ‘showing me up’ and proudly swallowing a big dose himself. Shortly afterwards, he was getting up and walking out of the tent again.
Nope. Far too many absurd rules, too much awkward and unrehearsed ceremony that seemed to be made up on the spot, and a substance that caused nothing but illness. I tried, but this was obviously not my style of session. This feeling was reinforced when the music began again, complete with the exact same ongoing drumming courtesy of Dennis.
So I sat there, wrote down some thoughts, and tried to appear respectful, if obviously distant. A number of other people, including some apparent ‘regulars’, were lying down at this point, so I thought I might not actually be alone in being unimpressed with the session. After waiting around a bit longer without any interesting changes, I finally called it a night as well and laid down to sleep the rest of it off.
Perhaps twenty minutes later, someone came up to me and shook me awake. “You can sleep at home!” he said, “This isn’t what we’re here for.” A number of things I wanted to say in response rushed to my head, not the least of which was “fuck off”, but I just barked out “Whatever happened to the idea of us being comfortable?” He ignored me and moved on to wake more people up.
I looked over to my fellow rudely awakened participants trying to find some feeling of shared frustration, but I found none. They all seemed to think he was right.
I didn’t understand these people at all.
When I sat back up, I noticed a woman was sitting in front of me, in front of the still pathetic fire, opposite Masa. She was smoking large amounts of tobacco and speaking in a slow, monotonous voice about the importance of women. She wasn’t wrong, of course, but she wasn’t a good speaker, and I couldn’t possibly have been less receptive to an uninspiring, unoriginal, and unhelpful talk about such a complicated issue. It’s like sitting there and saying “Pollution is bad. We pollute a lot, and that’s bad.” Of course it’s true, but it’s also a useless way of addressing it.
Behind her, a beautiful young woman in a bright red skirt under a dull grey cloak was gazing intently at the jar of green swamp water which was apparently doing another round. Very ceremoniously, she handed it off to another lovely woman who made a few meditative gestures and then took a few sips. “Well, what the hell else am I going to do?” This time, when it got around to me, I tossed back as much as I could.
Since I clearly wasn’t allowed to sleep, I decided I might as well have fun with the evening, so I was observing, writing about the humourous and absurd moments, and generally just laughing to myself at the whole thing.
As Masa came around with his feather, he asked me if I was ok. “Heh, yeah, I’m good, man.” I said in an unintentionally high sounding way. “Great! Alright, now you’re getting it..!” he responded, surprised and excited. Evidently, he didn’t get that I was simply ‘good’ because I decided to be, not because I was enjoying the ceremony, but then that didn’t really seem to matter. He was happy, and I was happy.
When he sat back down, Masa said something unprecedentedly aligned with my own thoughts: “Everything is already inside of us.” The medicine, he explained, is just an aid, but it isn’t the point. It certainly wasn’t the point of my evening since it did nothing but make me nauseous, yet I had come to completely change my mood at this point, and was going through thoughts about how situations are what you make of them, not letting ‘the small stuff’ get to you, and that sort of thing... indeed, I felt great, and it was most certainly thanks to what was ‘already inside of me’.
I noticed through the hole above the fire that the sky was starting to get lighter.
More women - and only women - were called on to speak. Some spoke more elegantly than others, of course, but they all spoke passionately, and they all seemed to touch on a couple of common themes: women’s incredible strength, and the wisdom underlying their traditional roles. This wasn’t about equality, it was about their concept of women as distinct from men. My modern, Western view of sexual equality struggled with the recurring praise for these seemingly archaic gender roles, but the collective outpouring of positive energy, profound respect, and abundant love gave me pause. The men sat in silence and listened attentively, offering warm and heartfelt “Ajó!” once each woman had finished her piece.
After they all had a chance to speak, the women were asked to go out and prepare breakfast. Again, I struggled with this. The young woman in the bright red dress across from me stood up and said she needed five volunteers to help her. Given the night we had all gone through, most people could barely muster the energy to stand, let alone go work in a kitchen, so the young woman had a hard time recruiting helpers. As she was going around the circle trying to persuade and motivate people individually, most women expressed prohibitive exhaustion and malaise - “I’ll go if I must, but please ask someone else...” - so when she was close enough to me, I tried to offer my help - I still felt fantastic - but the Man of the Door quickly cut me off: “No, my friend, this is a woman’s job.” “Well, ok, but they’re all clearly suffering and exhausted, whereas I feel great... Can I not simply help them to do ‘their job’?” I contested. “Think about this: who was the first person to ever feed you?” he asked, obviously setting himself up. “You know, I don’t actually remember, but yeah, I imagine it was my mother.” “That’s right,” he affirmed proudly, “it was mom. It’s a woman’s nature to prepare food for us.” “I find that logic to be oversimple and deeply flawed.” I said plainly. “You mean sexist?” he clarified before vomiting rather violently into his bag. Six women walked out of the door behind him. Just then, another round of music started.
My new found positive mindset also gave me a new appreciation for these small concerts, these chants, these hymns that were shared. Instead of grating musical incompetence, I heard people giving themselves completely into the moment. Dennis’ still oversimple banging no longer annoyed me, but rather elicited an admiration of his passion and endurance. In my notes, the words “extremely unexpected” are scribbled down next to this revelation.
As daylight shone more brightly through the hole above the fire, I could really see the people around me for the first time since this whole thing began. They sat, exhausted, weary, and smiling. Two older women hugged, one young man rubbed an older man’s back, three girls were holding hands with their eyes closed... and they all smiled. A baby girl I hadn’t noticed before, perhaps two or three years old, woke up in her mother’s arms across the room and stared at me, frowning slightly, as she wiped at her mouth to remove some dried up ‘green swamp water’ residue. After a moment, she giggled, stretched out, and cuddled back into her mother’s chest. People looked at each other, really looking at each other, and whenever I met eyes with anyone I was overwhelmed with a sense of connection and respect. Everyone looked beautiful to me.
Thoughts like these made me realize that the peyote was, in fact, finally kicking in, if much more subtly than I expected. “...feelings of inner tranquillity, oneness with life, heightened awareness...” Yup. Still, the subtlety of the drug’s effect made it all feel much more graspable and real, and less like a transient, fleeting, drug-induced illusion. In other words, as Masa had said, it really wasn’t just the peyote.
The ladies returned with a few bowls of cut up fruit, assorted vegetables, and roast beef, which were ritualistically presented, ‘feather-cleansed’, and then passed around. Meanwhile, the men were given their turn to speak. A few people spoke plainly of the unpleasant moments they experienced during the night, but they always expressed gratitude for this suffering as something which gives them a renewed appreciation for all that we have in our ‘normal’ state. “After staring into darkness, after living it, we are reminded of the brightness of light. Thank you all.” said a man easily in his seventies, still holding a filled plastic bag.
Though just a couple of hours earlier I would have had nothing but frustrated, bitter things to say about the whole experience, I had become compelled to express my changed mood, and so, during a window of silence, I requested, and was granted, the floor. I spoke briefly of trust, of family, and of the very negative things I had thought about the guy who woke me up earlier... On that point, everyone laughed, many nodded in empathy, and a few called out to assure me that was quite normal. For the first time all night, I felt completely comfortable.
I felt at home.
As we were eating, I asked the Man of the Door how he managed to work so hard all night long while presumably suffering just like the rest of us. “Love. Pure love.” he responded without hesitation.
A note I wrote down shortly afterwards reads:
So recently, I felt like I didn’t understand these people at all. I’m still not sure that I do - in fact, I’m quite certain I still don’t - but I’ve become rather fond of them all somehow...
What a strange and unexpected turn - not even of events, really, but of perspective. I was quite ready to write the whole night off as nothing more than fodder for a hopefully interesting anecdote, but then, though nothing changed, everything changed.
This incredible gratitude I feel, this feeling of presence and connectedness, is it enhanced by the mescaline, or would any rancid, gut-wrenching poison have done the trick..?
Finally, after approximately nine hours of sitting in this hut, everyone stood up, exchanged long, warm hugs, and then we all stepped outside into the glorious, invigorating colours of the new day.
About a month later, while on a day hike with a few people I had never met before, a rather unexpected conversation shift to “guided medicine ceremonies” led to my receiving this poster in my inbox:
The week of, I called the printed number and spoke to a very friendly lady who answered all of my questions in a way that suggested she had obviously done this many, many times before. She told me that peyote was a very soft medicine, that people don’t tend to get sick (very much unlike ayahuasca), that the man running the ceremony has been doing this for twenty years and “has a big heart”, and that the price was 70 000 pesos (about 40$) for the overnight session, including breakfast and an optional temazcal (sweat lodge) the next day. She also told me what I should bring: warm clothing, a blanket, a mattress or something to sit on, a bit of food if desired, and some light clothing for the temazcal the next day (“something for a sauna, like a bathing suit”, she said).
It all sounded good to me, so I went.
The event took place on a small farm near Santa Elena, a village high up the east side of the Medellín valley, so getting there involved either a rough and uncomfortable bus ride up a long, rough, winding road, or a slightly longer alternative: a slick, modern cable-car ride with stunning views of the city until you go over a ridge and are suddenly overlooking nothing but forest as far as the eye can see.
Unsurprisingly, I splurged the one dollar and opted for the latter. Suffice it to say my peyote trip started out rather well.
I eventually arrived at what seemed much more like a cottage than a farm, complete with a nearby neighbour hosting some sort of birthday party. Entering the modest looking house, I stood in an open room with perhaps 15 people walking around or sitting by the fireplace, chatting. There was definitely a dominant hippy vibe, what with the abundance of hemp, beads, and men with long hair, but I also met a few people donning a more ‘typical city-dweller’ look, like a half-Colombian guy who lives in New York and a local girl who, like me, had never done this before. The age range was everything from infants to seniors, and almost everyone else seemed to know each other. I got into a few conversations with people about how they came to be there and what their previous experience was with this sort of ceremony (most people had done stuff like this before, but a number of them were new at least to peyote specifically). After about an hour, I was asked by one of the more experienced individuals if I had chosen a spot and set my things up in the hut yet. I had not.
In the backyard was a large, dome-like structure made of a wooden frame covered with various fabrics and animal pelts, the whole thing about 2.5 meters tall and covering roughly the area of a tennis court. I walked up to the nearest doorway and pushed aside the large sheet that covered it, stepping inside slowly. I tried not to feel too unprepared.
The hut was organized around a central fire pit, with a doorway at each cardinal direction. A raised bed of dirt - like a small shelf of sorts - was sculpted between the fire pit and the northern doorway. Vibrant, colourful art depicting large animals or deities decorated the walls. The ground was covered in blankets and mattresses (except the fire pit, of course) made of wool and straw, respectively, on top of which a few people currently sat against the walls, conversing and waiting. When I asked a couple of guys for advice on where I should setup, they informed me that the north end was for the guide, whereas most of the south side (where there wasn’t already people’s stuff setup) was open.
I placed my things below a painting of Buddy ChristJesus Christ smiling drunkenly while giving a thumbs up with one hand and pointing out (at you) with the other; I never quite figured out if it was some sort of commentary about the typical depictions of Jesus, or just an unusually festive interpretation of him. In any case, that was where I would sit alongside roughly 30 people and copious amounts of peyote until the sun rose the next day. I tried not to feel too unprepared…
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| The painting was of this character I found online with the search terms: “party Jesus”. Turns out he's "Buddy Christ" from the film Dogma. |
The whole thing just came off as amateurish at best, and since I had basically been fasting for a day, I was also struggling to resist pulling food from my bag in order to kill both time and hunger. Still, none of this really mattered as long as we eventually got to the peyote phase.
That would not occur for another three hours, it turns out, as various little ceremonies along with seemingly improvised talk from Masa brought us nearer to midnight while I sat, tremendously bored and increasingly unimpressed. “We’re all here to learn, myself included – I’m no expert, I’m just like you guys.” he said, completely failing to inspire me. It felt as though he was stalling.
The sounds of an undoubtedly more enjoyable birthday party could be heard off in the distance.
Masa repeatedly stressed the need for us to feel comfortable and at ease - “at home” were his exact words at one point - shortly before going through the many rules which we had to follow, such as never leaving the tent, not getting up unless told to, never ‘crossing anyone else’s energy’... Basically, you weren’t really allowed to do anything. I suppose I’m fortunate my parents were not psychotic enough for that environment to feel homelike, but I therefore came to feel even more alienated from this whole process.
The rituals were no less discouraging. For example, Masa asked the Man of the Fire to ceremoniously ‘sweep out the negative energy’, so the Man of the Fire got up, and with a nearby broom started to sweep at the dirt. “No, not that way. Like, just in the air.” After Dennis translated the distracting corrections for him, the Man of the Fire proceeded with his sweeping motion, but now a few inches off of the ground. “...but you need to start from this side here, and move around, counter-clockwise…” Why they couldn’t have had some sort of rehearsal to establish how things would play out is beyond me, but the end result is that the ceremony which was meant to ‘sweep out the negative energy’ resulted only in spawning a greater amount of it within me.
The same was true of the tobacco rolling ceremony, for which they handed me a bag of tobacco and a stack of squares cut out of corn husks and told me to roll myself a cigar then pass it on. Now, I’m no expert, but I have rolled a few joints before. Corn husk, however, wasn’t exactly the easiest material to work with. Still, I eventually managed to create some sort of tobacco-filled tube and pass the building materials on. The person next to me had apparently never rolled anything before in his life, and he struggled quite a bit more. I wanted to help, but obviously there were rules against that sort of thing. Recall as well that he was the second of about thirty people to do this, and despite all the years of experience, nobody seemed to think that bringing another bag of tobacco would be useful. Furthermore, since the Man of the Fire wasn’t apparently able to build a fire, we were doing this in almost complete darkness. You can imagine how thrilling that hour and a half was.
Dennis then came over and handed a stack of black plastic bags to the Man of the Door, informing him that they should be passed around so people who need to vomit could have one available. A necessary precaution, I suppose, although again I had been told that this was not a drug that typically induces vomiting. Masa then spoke of the need to vomit in the bag as opposed to going outside - it was important, he said, to do so “in front of the others, in front of the grandparents”; leaving the hut to relieve yourself outside was seen as equal to being shamed away from the group, something he would not allow.
Evidently, all of this was really getting to me. No amount of sweeping was going to get rid of this negative energy...
Finally, however, came the announcement: “Are we ready for the medicine?” I tried to bring myself back to a more relaxed mindset, though of course another 15 minutes or so crawled by as Masa mixed various powders with various liquids in various containers, the Man of the Fire kept struggling to keep some wood aflame, and the rest of us simply sat around waiting... and waiting...
The more melodramatic among us took this opportunity to die a little inside.
At last, Masa picked up a bowl and went around spoon-feeding each person, one by one... Yet another strange, awkward process which I couldn’t quite understand, but at least it involved peyote.
After about half of the room, it was my turn. I had watched fifteen or so other people choke down the obviously unpleasant substance - four spoonfuls each - many grimacing and taking a moment to compose themselves before finishing their doses. “Are you ready, fellow northerner?” Masa asked me as he approached. “Well, I’ve certainly had a lot of time to prepare.” I responded. Partly due to my increased sense of alienation from (and, frankly, increasing dislike of) this group, I felt an immature need to avoid showing any signs of weakness. It’s not easy to try and appear tough while being spoon-fed, but I was determined to try.
The substance was a dull-green paste with small pockets of not-quite-mixed powder in it, and it tasted like the bastard child of swamp and gag-reflex. I managed to feign being unaffected until the third spoonful, at which point I couldn’t repress a slight grimace while choking down a particularly dry, powdery mass. Damn. I proceeded as quickly as possible to present myself for the final spoonful, which went down less abrasively.
“Thanks...” I uttered unconvincingly as Masa began feeding the next person.
Before the round was even finished, the sound of vomiting could be heard from across the room. Once the episode was over, the Man of the Door got up and went to offer a fresh bag. It turns out it was also his responsibility to take the unfresh one and remove it from the structure (allowing us to remain seated, sharing our upheaval with the others as we were told...)
Within about 45 minutes, half a dozen people had handed over their recently filled bags to the Man of the Door who got up every time he was called without hesitation. The Man of the Fire also kept asking the Man of the Door to get more wood - this happened about a dozen times throughout the night. Why not simply have a sufficiently large pile of wood in the first place? I have no idea. So, whereas most people could barely sit up straight at this point, the Man of the Door, who consumed the same stuff as everyone else, was additionally burdened with fetching logs when he wasn’t carrying around other people’s vomit. What a terrible job; he certainly handled it well.
I felt fairly unpleasant nausea as well, but I wasn’t near vomiting... yet. So much for the suggestion that peyote doesn’t tend to make people sick.
Once we had all been ‘served’, a huge jar of a strange brown tea was passed around. I was mistaken in thinking that this was to help the medicine go down - quite the contrary, in fact, as this was simply a different form of the same stuff. That was followed then by another jar with thicker, green, mucousy liquid of sorts, like a hybrid of the two first substances. Finally, a bowl with chopped up bits of the raw cactus itself came around.
Given that I had never done this before, I had no idea how many rounds of medicine were coming and even less of an idea how strong each form of it was. It was basically impossible for me to have any idea of what a reasonable dosage was. So, I did the only thing that I could think of: I watched the person next to me and tried to take more than him. It didn’t really occur to me that the man immediately before me in the cycle, the man to my right, the Man of the Door, was obviously one of the more experienced members of this particular session.
“Si no te sientes bien, más medicina.” said Masa whom I was mostly ignoring at this point in an attempt to relax and return to a happy place, trying to ready myself mentally for whatever was coming...
Then, the “music” began. In an understandably minimalist style, the instrumentation consisted only of a small drum and a shaker. The shaker was always passed along with a decorated wooden staff and a bundle of sage, and whoever held the shaker/staff/sage combo would apparently chant and sing whatever they wanted until they passed it all on. They were then also to move the drum along, placing it in front of the next person, although Dennis followed right behind as he was the only one allowed to play it (and also apparently the only one not allowed to move it - something about crossing energies... whatever, so we moved his drum for him). Those of you who have had the misfortune of hearing me sing will know that everyone in the room would suffer considerably less if I could have played the drum as my form of musical expression instead, so not having that option was unfortunate; however, the real issue with Dennis’ monopoly of the instrument is that for him, accompanying the ‘singer’ invariably took the form of incessantly beating on the drum as quickly as he could until the ‘song’ ended, no matter what sort of tone or tempo the ‘singer’ introduced. Occasionally, this relentless pounding did line up with the chanting - usually because the ‘singer’ sped up accordingly - but much more often, particularly when the ‘singer’ tried to lead a more tranquil tune, perhaps with consideration for the many people who were in physically agony at the time, the unchanged banging was just abrasive, nonsensical background noise. Imagine a 4-year-old with a wooden spoon and an empty pot. It was as though Dennis felt that he had to fill as much silence as possible to allow for music on top. The first couple of minutes were bearable, but when you’ve got a circle of 30 people, each going for two or three ‘songs’, the constant beating gets really, really, really annoying. It wasn’t even that the music was bad - if the drum went around and various people played badly, I could have dealt with that... I do, however, expect a ‘designated drummer’, one who does not allow others to play the instrument, to have a certain degree of not being awful. Obviously, this was yet another thing which failed to alleviate my nauseated, disenchanted, detached, and frustrated state.
Shortly after the guy on my left got up and stumbled out of the structure, obviously on his way to revisit the mix of peyote-flavoured substances, Masa restated the need for us to stay and vomit in each other’s presence. He said when we experience someone else being sick, we should not feel sorry for them, but rather be thankful that they are doing so “for us”. It might have been easier to swallow that logic if it wasn’t for the fact that at that point, those of us who had yet to vomit were in the minority, and our numbers were decreasing rapidly.
When it was handed to me, I passed the stick/shaker/sage bundle directly along, figuring that was at least a few minutes less unnecessary suffering. Three or four people were too busy puking to play, and indeed, as Masa suggested, I was thankful to them. A few others actually sounded like they were singing something quite lovely, but of course it was ruined by the inappropriate drumming which they could never compete with.
After the harrowing hour or so of musical ineptitude finally came to an end, Masa ordered the Man of Fire to do another ‘sweeping the bad out of the room’ ritual. I certainly agreed that we needed to get the ‘bad’ out - and I suspect I would have gone about it quite differently - but looking around, no one else seemed to think anything was bad at all. The only other people who seemed bothered by anything were those currently in the process of being sick. Everyone else kept cheering “Ajó!” (a traditional form of “thank you”), not only after every song - which I could attribute simply to politeness - but also quite enthusiastically at the end of the whole round. People sounded genuinely charged up by these shared drum&voice variations... “Thank you so much!” “That was wonderful!” “Great!”... I couldn’t understand it. Were they feeling some reality-altering effects of the drug already? I still felt nothing but nausea.
Whenever he noticed someone handing a vomit bag to the Man of the Door, Masa would walk over and wave a feather around that person, ‘cleansing’ them from the recent experience. As if it wasn’t uncomfortable enough to vomit in front of everyone, Masa would often ask for those who had to identify themselves so that he could go feather-waving at them. “Who else relieved themselves on this side..? Anyone?”
A couple of hours and a few more plodding, dilatory rituals later, we still didn’t seem to be actually doing anything, really, or heading anywhere with any of it. Nor, even, was the peyote causing any of the effects I had read about (“among the possible occurrences are feelings of inner tranquillity, oneness with life, heightened awareness, and rapid thought flow”). Nope. I did have a few moments of feeling like a high was coming on, but it always fizzled out, and the only ‘rapid thought flow’ was an ongoing internal rant about how nonsensical this whole evening had turned out to be. It felt like Masa was trying to kill time with the few tricks he knew: pass around some peyote, do some sort of sweeping ritual, a round of ‘music’, make some more tobacco cigarettes, say a few words... When he ran out, he just started re-using them.
So, indeed, the ‘medicine’ came around again. I tried to feign a respect I didn’t have for the man when he came to me, explaining: “Look, you’re the expert, but on my first round I’ve felt nothing, other than some nausea, even though I consumed more than most people. I haven’t vomited either, so it is all in there digesting...” “I’m no expert,” he responded, “I’m learning just like you are! You just take as much as you think you need.” I imagine he meant that to be useful or comforting somehow. I opted for five spoonfuls - one more than the last round - but he didn’t even get to the next person before my body violently rejected this last batch. I spent the next few minutes cleaning myself and my surroundings up with a rag I brought along (formerly a hankerchief) while concluding that since I obviously wasn’t able to consume any more of this stuff, and whatever I had already taken had done nothing but cause nausea, I was officially done. I tried, genuinely, but this had officially become stupid. I couldn’t understand why these people kept coming back over and over to do this. I didn’t understand these people at all.
So, the next round of ‘medicine’ - the brown liquid - I simply passed along. The guy on my left, who had recently returned from his time outside, gave me a questioning look when I didn’t take any more of the ‘medicine’. “No mas? ...ok...” he said, condescendingly, before ‘showing me up’ and proudly swallowing a big dose himself. Shortly afterwards, he was getting up and walking out of the tent again.
Nope. Far too many absurd rules, too much awkward and unrehearsed ceremony that seemed to be made up on the spot, and a substance that caused nothing but illness. I tried, but this was obviously not my style of session. This feeling was reinforced when the music began again, complete with the exact same ongoing drumming courtesy of Dennis.
So I sat there, wrote down some thoughts, and tried to appear respectful, if obviously distant. A number of other people, including some apparent ‘regulars’, were lying down at this point, so I thought I might not actually be alone in being unimpressed with the session. After waiting around a bit longer without any interesting changes, I finally called it a night as well and laid down to sleep the rest of it off.
Perhaps twenty minutes later, someone came up to me and shook me awake. “You can sleep at home!” he said, “This isn’t what we’re here for.” A number of things I wanted to say in response rushed to my head, not the least of which was “fuck off”, but I just barked out “Whatever happened to the idea of us being comfortable?” He ignored me and moved on to wake more people up.
I looked over to my fellow rudely awakened participants trying to find some feeling of shared frustration, but I found none. They all seemed to think he was right.
I didn’t understand these people at all.
When I sat back up, I noticed a woman was sitting in front of me, in front of the still pathetic fire, opposite Masa. She was smoking large amounts of tobacco and speaking in a slow, monotonous voice about the importance of women. She wasn’t wrong, of course, but she wasn’t a good speaker, and I couldn’t possibly have been less receptive to an uninspiring, unoriginal, and unhelpful talk about such a complicated issue. It’s like sitting there and saying “Pollution is bad. We pollute a lot, and that’s bad.” Of course it’s true, but it’s also a useless way of addressing it.
Behind her, a beautiful young woman in a bright red skirt under a dull grey cloak was gazing intently at the jar of green swamp water which was apparently doing another round. Very ceremoniously, she handed it off to another lovely woman who made a few meditative gestures and then took a few sips. “Well, what the hell else am I going to do?” This time, when it got around to me, I tossed back as much as I could.
Since I clearly wasn’t allowed to sleep, I decided I might as well have fun with the evening, so I was observing, writing about the humourous and absurd moments, and generally just laughing to myself at the whole thing.
As Masa came around with his feather, he asked me if I was ok. “Heh, yeah, I’m good, man.” I said in an unintentionally high sounding way. “Great! Alright, now you’re getting it..!” he responded, surprised and excited. Evidently, he didn’t get that I was simply ‘good’ because I decided to be, not because I was enjoying the ceremony, but then that didn’t really seem to matter. He was happy, and I was happy.
When he sat back down, Masa said something unprecedentedly aligned with my own thoughts: “Everything is already inside of us.” The medicine, he explained, is just an aid, but it isn’t the point. It certainly wasn’t the point of my evening since it did nothing but make me nauseous, yet I had come to completely change my mood at this point, and was going through thoughts about how situations are what you make of them, not letting ‘the small stuff’ get to you, and that sort of thing... indeed, I felt great, and it was most certainly thanks to what was ‘already inside of me’.
I noticed through the hole above the fire that the sky was starting to get lighter.
More women - and only women - were called on to speak. Some spoke more elegantly than others, of course, but they all spoke passionately, and they all seemed to touch on a couple of common themes: women’s incredible strength, and the wisdom underlying their traditional roles. This wasn’t about equality, it was about their concept of women as distinct from men. My modern, Western view of sexual equality struggled with the recurring praise for these seemingly archaic gender roles, but the collective outpouring of positive energy, profound respect, and abundant love gave me pause. The men sat in silence and listened attentively, offering warm and heartfelt “Ajó!” once each woman had finished her piece.
After they all had a chance to speak, the women were asked to go out and prepare breakfast. Again, I struggled with this. The young woman in the bright red dress across from me stood up and said she needed five volunteers to help her. Given the night we had all gone through, most people could barely muster the energy to stand, let alone go work in a kitchen, so the young woman had a hard time recruiting helpers. As she was going around the circle trying to persuade and motivate people individually, most women expressed prohibitive exhaustion and malaise - “I’ll go if I must, but please ask someone else...” - so when she was close enough to me, I tried to offer my help - I still felt fantastic - but the Man of the Door quickly cut me off: “No, my friend, this is a woman’s job.” “Well, ok, but they’re all clearly suffering and exhausted, whereas I feel great... Can I not simply help them to do ‘their job’?” I contested. “Think about this: who was the first person to ever feed you?” he asked, obviously setting himself up. “You know, I don’t actually remember, but yeah, I imagine it was my mother.” “That’s right,” he affirmed proudly, “it was mom. It’s a woman’s nature to prepare food for us.” “I find that logic to be oversimple and deeply flawed.” I said plainly. “You mean sexist?” he clarified before vomiting rather violently into his bag. Six women walked out of the door behind him. Just then, another round of music started.
My new found positive mindset also gave me a new appreciation for these small concerts, these chants, these hymns that were shared. Instead of grating musical incompetence, I heard people giving themselves completely into the moment. Dennis’ still oversimple banging no longer annoyed me, but rather elicited an admiration of his passion and endurance. In my notes, the words “extremely unexpected” are scribbled down next to this revelation.
As daylight shone more brightly through the hole above the fire, I could really see the people around me for the first time since this whole thing began. They sat, exhausted, weary, and smiling. Two older women hugged, one young man rubbed an older man’s back, three girls were holding hands with their eyes closed... and they all smiled. A baby girl I hadn’t noticed before, perhaps two or three years old, woke up in her mother’s arms across the room and stared at me, frowning slightly, as she wiped at her mouth to remove some dried up ‘green swamp water’ residue. After a moment, she giggled, stretched out, and cuddled back into her mother’s chest. People looked at each other, really looking at each other, and whenever I met eyes with anyone I was overwhelmed with a sense of connection and respect. Everyone looked beautiful to me.
Thoughts like these made me realize that the peyote was, in fact, finally kicking in, if much more subtly than I expected. “...feelings of inner tranquillity, oneness with life, heightened awareness...” Yup. Still, the subtlety of the drug’s effect made it all feel much more graspable and real, and less like a transient, fleeting, drug-induced illusion. In other words, as Masa had said, it really wasn’t just the peyote.
The ladies returned with a few bowls of cut up fruit, assorted vegetables, and roast beef, which were ritualistically presented, ‘feather-cleansed’, and then passed around. Meanwhile, the men were given their turn to speak. A few people spoke plainly of the unpleasant moments they experienced during the night, but they always expressed gratitude for this suffering as something which gives them a renewed appreciation for all that we have in our ‘normal’ state. “After staring into darkness, after living it, we are reminded of the brightness of light. Thank you all.” said a man easily in his seventies, still holding a filled plastic bag.
Though just a couple of hours earlier I would have had nothing but frustrated, bitter things to say about the whole experience, I had become compelled to express my changed mood, and so, during a window of silence, I requested, and was granted, the floor. I spoke briefly of trust, of family, and of the very negative things I had thought about the guy who woke me up earlier... On that point, everyone laughed, many nodded in empathy, and a few called out to assure me that was quite normal. For the first time all night, I felt completely comfortable.
I felt at home.
As we were eating, I asked the Man of the Door how he managed to work so hard all night long while presumably suffering just like the rest of us. “Love. Pure love.” he responded without hesitation.
A note I wrote down shortly afterwards reads:
So recently, I felt like I didn’t understand these people at all. I’m still not sure that I do - in fact, I’m quite certain I still don’t - but I’ve become rather fond of them all somehow...
What a strange and unexpected turn - not even of events, really, but of perspective. I was quite ready to write the whole night off as nothing more than fodder for a hopefully interesting anecdote, but then, though nothing changed, everything changed.
This incredible gratitude I feel, this feeling of presence and connectedness, is it enhanced by the mescaline, or would any rancid, gut-wrenching poison have done the trick..?
Finally, after approximately nine hours of sitting in this hut, everyone stood up, exchanged long, warm hugs, and then we all stepped outside into the glorious, invigorating colours of the new day.
Qué Buena experiencia¡...pues la cobardía de no atreverme a realizar cada suceso que pasas.... sólo las ganas de seguir tus realtos e imaginar que tan bueno sería si fuera yo la persona que este en tu lugar...
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