The Ayuhuasca Diaries: "Every Chair Should Be A Rocking Chair."

"You can only change yourself. As you change yourself, your Universe around you changes. You can't change others. You open your heart and share cleanly. And that affects others," said Malcolm, one of the lead Shamans, the morning after the second ceremony.

I had slept in very late that morning, my energy flow adjusting to the Shamanic Dieta and the aya experiences. The jungle was hot and humid. I loved it, being used to the climate from my Bikram yoga practice. It seemed to be affecting others differently though. Quite a few had trouble sleeping, where as I had no trouble sleeping.

I went to the trolley cart to pick up my special Dieta breakfast of a cup of rice and hard boiled eggs. But looking down at it drained me. I had no interest in food. So I put it back down and made myself a cup of Manzanilla (chamomile) tea. Then I sat down to hear Malcolm's "Q & A" session from the previous night's ceremony.

Malcolm was talking about cleansing. The previous night's ceremony had brought an immense amount of cleansing to each of us. This was in preparation to allow us to start to manifest our own paths. We needed to get rid of the blockages that were preventing us from focusing on feeling confident to bring into our lives the things we wanted.

I spent the rest of the day reading and sleeping in a hammock in the ceremonial hut.

At 5pm, I drank the Dieta tea again. This time it was not refreshing. It was very medicinal in flavor. But I gulped down the glass in three swallows. Then I turned my glass over and went back to my bungalow. I hadn't been hungry at lunch either. I had a little bit of rice in me, as well as tea and water. But I felt sustained. I changed into a clean set of ceremony clothes and headed back to the ceremony hut.

The sky outside turned dark. The Shamans and the "Angels" came in and took their places. The icaro was whistled into the aya. The bottle was split. We each went up to get our cups.

"How much this evening?" Malcolm smiled at me.

"Just under an eighth tonight, please," I said.

The previous night's ceremony had told me that I didn't need as much aya.

Malcolm smiled, "It doesn't take much, does it? A little goes a long way."

He whistled and whooshed into my cup, indicating that it was clean and full of protections. I was already accustomed to accepting faithfully that it would guide me to where I needed to go. He handed me the cup. I threw it back, gagging mentally on the taste... Which had grown stronger from the night before. Very tobacco and earthy tasting.

"Enjoy," Malcolm said.

I walked back to my rocking chair and sat down. Left leg up, right leg down. Big toe pushing against the floor boards, allowing me to find my rhythm with a steady motion.

My body relaxed into the chair right away. I didn't yet have any tingling sensation from the aya, but I was already programmed to surrender to the setting. Tonight, the majority of people in the room were on mats, rather than in rocking chairs. In hindsight, this didn't really surprise me. The previous night had been very tough. 

The darkness came. The jungle symphony of crickets and birds turned into the icaro symphony of the Shamans. Malcolm had told us earlier in the day that tonight we would be "calling" on our spirit animals to guide us. 

A very gentle warmth took over my body as the symphony became stronger... 

There were no geometric shapes. No bright colors. Just a night sky behind my eyes. I enjoyed the beauty and calmness of it. And then remembered to call my spirit animal to reveal itself. 

"Who are you, spirit animal?" I asked. 

Immediately I saw an owl. A freaking owl. My history with owls has not been the best. 

"Um," I internally said to the owl, "Is there something you need to tell me?" 

Because of my history, I pretty much knew I was the owl's bitch. I surrendered to the owl.
It held no nonsense. It's message was pretty clear... 

"Keep yourself open. You are making the right choices. But you have been holding yourself back to accommodate others. This is why you have been having the dreams you've had lately; the ones where you get into the elevator and it insists on taking you to a higher floor. You're trying to operate at a level where you are going to be blocked. You are to take on more responsibility than ever before now." 

I let his word's, the owl's, absorb for a second. 

"Yes," I said, "But when I took on a larger role before, it was draining. Exhausting." 

The owl laughed. 

"That's because you weren't receiving the emotional support you needed. You were giving it, but it wasn't being freely given to you. It was given to you only after you fought and reasoned for it. You need to stop being afraid to expect the support you need. It is there." 

Then he added, "That which does not serve us falls away once we accept that our journey has to go on regardless." 

I got a little cold. One of the Angels instinctively knew to put a blanket over me at that moment. 

I began to warm up. The rocking was soothing. I was smiling again. The owl stayed in my internal sight the rest of the time. 

"Every chair should be a rocking chair," I said to myself. "It's helping me focus so well. I'm able to release energy with the rocking while focusing so clearly." 

I realized that I would move to San Diego late this summer. I would buy a car in the Spring, keep it with my parents. And would look for an apartment. I would come back from my travels in early July, hire movers. And then move in August. I would drive from Arizona to San Diego. I would get a place with an outdoor balcony or porch, where I would put a rocking chair on it. And I would "meditate" each day in the rocking chair for a few minutes.

The icaro symphony quieted. The kerosene lamps were lit. I immediately got up and walked back to my bungalow. My mind was buzzing from all the information. I laid in bed for an hour, inside my mosquito net, before drifting off to sleep.

My last thought was, "Yeah. Every chair should definitely be a rocking chair."