Ayahuasca Diaries: The Visceral Day Off.

After the third day at camp, we take a day off. There are five total ayahuasca ceremonies in the week. But the shamans at Blue Morpho separate the week up with a day for rest.  You get three full meals, instead of two. And it allows you to take time and process everything you are going through from the first three days.

It's a day of feelings. Not that the whole week there isn't all about "feelings." But the third day - at least for me - was the roughest. It was a continuous day of purging.

We listened to a morning lecture from Malcolm. I can't recall most of that lecture, but what I do recall is a conversation some were having with Loretta, Malcolm's wife. It was about how visceral the ayahuasca process is.  

For me, at least, ayahuasca has been a gentle peel. The majority of the 15 times I have done it has been an efficient shaving of a layer. Only a few times has it been a rough shave, with purging and discomfort. With each layer comes a release of an emotion. And after the 13th time doing it, I opened a valley of emotion that came flooding out.

I ate almost no food that day (just dinner). All I did was read, sleep, and cry.

Crying out of gratefulness... For hurting others, in big ways and small... Crying out of loneliness in the moment... Out of confusion for whatever it is I was supposed to be doing in life now... Crying because I realized I needed a more emotionally connected and positive relationship in my life... Crying because my period had started...

It was - seriously - a day of purging from that new layer that been peeled back. And now the exposure was opening a new level awareness... With the motions that were held back rushing out and touching every cell in my body.

I laid in my bed that night crying so hard no sound was coming out. Just a rustling from the sheets from shaking so hard in silence.  

Nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong. 

It was beautiful.  I realized a while ago that these moments of unexplained sadness - caused by nothing significant - were a realigning of my energies. Things were shifting and opening up. And reorganizing my clarity and awareness.

The moments are tough and feel endless. But having experienced this kind of shift repeatedly for over 25 years, I knew that there would be an end to this path. The journey would continue on a new path. 

I wasn't living in my defined Universe. And in that moment, my defined Universe included a loss of appetite and draining, exhaustive tears.

But I accepted the tears, and let them roll. And eventually it was done.  

I think I worked harder on that day, emotionally, than the days we took ayahuasca.