Mother Ayahuasca and Me
September 13th, 2022 - en la manana/Central Valley, Costa Rica
I have an appointment with Mother Ayahuasca tonight. At 8pm I’m supposed to meet with Yao, the Costa Rican woman who comes highly recommended by my friend, Christiane.
Chris is someone I’d known since 2013, the year I first moved to Costa Rica with my then-husband and daughter. She is a Dutch immigrant to Costa Rica and has lived most of her life there, raised her two daughters and made a beautiful life in the land of Pura Vida.
When I first arrived back in Costa Rica after a 7 year absence, I stayed on Chris’ compound/farm/community for a week, where I and my family were once happy residents.
This visit feels like coming home. Hanging out on her beautiful Spanish-sytle patio, surrounded by her dogs, chickens, horses, neighbors, and friends feels like a homecoming. The warmth, activity, and friendliness of the hostess and the surroundings was the balm I knew I’ve needed for a while.
In the space of two months, I watched my only child graduate high school, prepared my house for sale by myself, listed my house, sold it, helped my kid move into her dorm for her first year in college, and then flew out of my country like a free bird with no intention on returning for at least 6 months.
I was tired ,except “tired” doesn’t even touch what I felt. Something more soaked into that part of me hard to touch, or be in touch with. The liminal state I was growing accustomed to in Kansas City withdrew its warm embrace, thrusting me into the stuff I’ve wanted and not wanted in equal measure. A new chapter. Nay, a new volume being born of my energetic and physical body.
So here we are on her bellisima patio surrounded by all that farmy goodness, and we get onto the topic of hallucinogens, something I’d been seriously considering since reading Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind. She listened as I expressed my interest in trying magic mushrooms or LSD, and then followed up with, “Why dont you try Ayahuasca.” I baulked. Ayahuasca? Images from documentaries I’d seen on the topic flash before my eyes: people moaning, vomiting, crying, curling up into a fetal position for hours.
“I don’t know, Chris. That stuff kinda scares me.” Then she tells me she has a "shamana" friend who is an Ayahuasca guide. And that right there, folks, is all I needed to jump from "That stuff is super scawy," to “OMG, I totally have to try that.” Saying yes felt so perfect at that moment. Like my hand sliding into a silk glove.
Ayahuasca is a plant from South America and has been used medicinally by indigenous people for thousands of years. But it is not only the substance itself that plays a part in the healing. The ceremony plays as important a role as the plant itself. Some will extol the healing property of the ceremony as above and beyond what even the medicine can provide. It’s that important. Sacred ceremony as the primary medicine.
For the past week, I have maintained a strict vegan diet, and for the past few days I have avoided alcohol. Today I refrained from coffee, any raw vegetables, or anything that might be hard to digest. From what I’ve learned in my research, Ayahuasca almost always makes you vomit. I listened to one woman from a podcast describe it as a purging, a cleansing - something she would expect to do before meeting God.
In addition to cleansing my physical body, I also did everything I could to cleanse my energetic and spiritual bodies. I meditated every day, maintained my daily yoga asana practice, and chanted the chakra balancing chant every day.
I’m mentally prepared for this to happen. It may feel awful, it may also feel like an overwhelming release. A physical representation for what I desire to happen emotionally and spiritually. I want to let go. I want to unload the weight I’ve been carrying for so long. The frustration, disappointment, betrayal, heartache…all of it. After doing some reading and listening to what I consider reliable and trustworthy sources, I came to the realization that to achieve my goals with this ceremony and beyond, knowing myself should be my first priority. Knowing my true self becomes my primary intention as I prepare for the experience. I pray about it.
According to an MD who recommends and discusses the therapeutic and healthy benefits of ayahuasca in this podcast (a two-part series), I have the kind of brain that would most benefit from it. I suffer from mild anxiety and depression. My brain spends too much time thinking about the wrong stuff. My thoughts roll around with the pig in the mud so long that even the pig stops having fun. Knowing this is a problem doesn’t necessarily give me the ability to fix the problem, which seems just out of reach. According to her, what I don’t have is a “chaotic” brain, someone with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. She warns that people in this category should avoid psychedelics, at least for now.
I have educated myself, taken the steps to have a safe and productive experience, and passed the brain test. Let’s do this.
September 13, 2022-en la noche/Costa Rica
Yoa and I agreed to meet at the home of a friend of hers, Victor, a Russian immigrant who owns some land in the highlands of the Central Valley, in Heredia. To get there, I drive on narrow, winding roads in the dark (the sun sets at around 6pm every night here), higher up the mountain than I was staying, as reliant on GPS technology as a baby is to its mother’s breast.
When Yao sees me for the first time in person, she throws her arms out and embraces me, exuding protective vibes. She must have felt how nervous I was.
It’s Okay. I’m gonna be okay. Her positive energy is big and palpable.
It is 2 hours after sunset so the darkness is comfortably settled in as we make preparations to call on Mother Ayahuasca. While Yao and Victor are preparing the space and themselves, I feel like my most important job in this moment is to pay attention, stay present, be curious, and most importantly, to completely and totally surrender. I have my to-do list. My head is in the game.
For the past two weeks, Yao and I had been texting. Her English and my Spanish are about on par; perhaps about what you’d expect to know at the end of one full year of college-level language class, maybe a tad more advanced. Let’s just say that I appreciate Google Translate in a next-level kinda way. Being able to connect with her at a deeper level than our language skills would organically allow feels like a gift.
As soon as we enter the ceremonial space, preparations begin. The couch and chairs are arranged in a moon shape with an opening toward the main part of the house and the bathroom. Yao sets a small table in front of the oversized, dark brown leather chair where she will preside over the ceremony. She places a 3-wick candle on the table and unwraps what looks like pieces of at least two pipes.
She has two large backpacks with her that she explains never leave her side. They contain the medicines, the treasures for the ceremony, and, I am certain, multitudes. Guiding people through Ayahuasca ceremonies is not only what Yoa does, it’s who she is. She can no more separate herself from the holy tools of her trade than a tortoise can part with her shell. She is the magic and the magic is her, like alternating colors of a rainbow - an arcoíris in Spanish.
The arch of Iris. In Greek mythology, Iris was the goddess of the rainbow, the messenger between heaven and earth. The rainbow was the path created as she traveled between her two homes. Like Iris, Yao has one foot on Madre Tierra and one in another world, let’s call it heaven, and let’s call her a sacred messenger.
When the ceremonial space is ready, with all her treasures placed in exactly the right spot, she tells me it’s time to open the ceremony. She wants to make sure I understand how important it is to set my intention. As part of the ceremony, I also need to make a request, and this is when she assures me it’s totally okay to ask for material blessings because we live in a material world. And the sky’s the limit. It’s a guilt-free prayer request. Ask Mother Ayahuasca what you really need.
I have two intentions and one request: to know my true self, to let go of some painful family drama, and to find a loving community.
Yao announces that it’s time to open the ceremony. She explains that the tobacco pipe used for the ceremony is sacred. It was imbued with sacred energy by several women who danced over it for several days while also fasting. As she smokes the tobacco with this holy pipe, she blows the smoke around herself, Victor, and myself. She uses her hands to brush the smoke over and around us. She invites everyone present to smoke from the pipe, inhaling the holy smoke into our mouths only and then filling the space with tobacco exhales.
Victor begins drumming. Yao calls to the seven directions by facing each and chanting. The seven directions are the four cardinal directions-North, South, East, West, Father Sky, Mother Earth, and Fire. I put my palms up as Yao does and sway back and forth in each of the seven directions, repeating her rhythmic chants the best I can. (Yao explains in an email later that when she prepares a space, she always first asks permission from the guardians of the space, then invokes the seven directions, and lastly calls on our ancestors for support, as they have already walked the path. This request for permission and support is accomplished by tapping into the universal mind.)
Before taking the Ayahuasca medicine, Yao administers another medicine called rapé into our noses. This is a finely ground “shamanic snuff” used to prepare you for the Ayahuasca and is an important part of the ceremony.
Yao blows the stuff up my nose using a v-shaped bamboo pipe. My brain cells explode into fireworks and my eyes water profusely. The purpose of rapé is to help clear the mind and ground you for the upcoming experience. Some say it’s meant to open your third eye chakra. After the rapé, I am awake, aware, and ready for the journey.
At 9:30pm it is finally time to meet Mother Ayahuasca. Yao uses a shot glass to measure three doses for the people in the room. “Buena pinta” (have a good trip) she said to Victor and me as she hands us the shot glass one at a time. I’ve heard that the taste of Ayahuasca is nothing short of horrible, but nothing can prepare you for the assault on the palette when you take it into your mouth. Frog vomit is the first thing that comes to my mind, with the consistency of a thick milkshake. I take a small sip of water afterward and wait in the darkness, save for the light from the candle.
Once we take the medicine into our bodies, Yao has Victor put on her Ayahuasca play list. This consists of 2-3 songs of a mix of chanting and drumming. Yoa explains that these “songs” must be played for the medicine to take effect. I asked her if it’s like “sound healing” and she nods. The sound is not pleasant but feels apropo. I let it wash over me as I open to experience.
In about 45 minutes I began to feel slightly nauseated, drunk, and high. Other than that, I don’t experience any other physical effects, purgative or otherwise. I move to the fat, leather chair across from Yao, wrap up in the dark red blanket I brought and relax with my feet up. After maybe an hour of relaxing and seeing some beautiful geometric shapes in my mind’s eye, I drift off to sleep and have soft, hazy, dreams.
At midnight I awaken and sit up in the chair, letting the redness fall away from my shoulders. Yao and Victor are awake and sitting calmly, perhaps waiting patiently for me to regain consciousness. She asks me if I’m okay and I tell her I’m good. I feel more than good. I’m relaxed and still absorbing and relishing the lingering sensation from the mysterious dream state I just left. This feeling is how I know something has happened because my consciousness isn’t sharing. She’s secretive and tight-lipped. All I know is what I feel is singular, something I’ve not ever felt before. It was a quiet but profound experience.
Yao asks me if I want another one. “Yep,” is my one-word reply. She’s my guide and I trust her. If she thinks I can handle another round, I’m down. It’s midnight and she says this is the perfect time for a second dose. “Buena pinta,” she says to me again as she hands me the medicine, and then again to Victor, and then we wish her buena pinta as she takes her share.
Somehow, the gelatinous frog vomit tastes even worse this time. I tell her what I think the Mother tastes like and she laughs. A few minutes later, as the taste in my mouth seems to get even worse, I remember I have TickTacks and I pull them out of my bag with a big smile, mentally patting myself on the back for being so prepared. She puts her palm up to me, indicating she wants some. I happily share, but as soon as she puts the candies in her mouth she laughs and tells me in her broken English, “Only for me, not for you! No sugar!” And we laugh and laugh and laugh. We laugh from our bellies and from our eyes and from our hearts.
With this admonition, I satisfy myself with a sip of water and sit across from her, wrapped in my red armour. I know she wants my first experience to go as well as it can go and I trust her. I have completely surrendered.
This time, Yao and I are more chatty. We talk about the beautiful, goddess energy in different places of the world, especially Costa Rica. We agree the United States has too much masculine energy and, because of that, she can only visit there for short periods of time. The energy bothers her sensibilities.
She tells me that, according to Blue Thunder of the Shoshone tribe in North America, Costa Rica is the “center of the world.” Around 2005 he created a medicine wheel here in Heredia to mark the sacred spot. I’ve never heard this before, but there is something special about the energy here, and Costa Rica being the center of the world doesn’t feel out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it just feels right, and so I decide to believe her.
After the requisite 40 minutes, I calmly excuse myself to the bathroom, close the door behind me, and then immediately empty the contents of my stomach. I had read that I was to ask the vomit what it was, and so, as I flushed, I asked it- what are you?
Your thoughts. I am your thoughts. The idea of that vomit being my thoughts swirling around in that toilet bowl was so strong, felt so exactly right, I know it didn’t come from me. I had just released the circular, obsessive, negative thoughts that had been plaguing me for years. I literally flushed them down the toilet.
When I return to the ceremonial space, I feel as though I have crossed a threshold. Yao performs a short, post-purge ceremony over me. Fussing over me like a mother hen, she applies oil to my forehead and the back of my neck, takes a deep draw from her sacrad pipe and envelops me in tobacco smoke. Another embrace. She tells me the Mother will work at a different level now. I am ready.
I ask for some fresh air and Yao asks Victor to open one of the sliding doors. I go to the open door and greedily inhaled the cool, night air. I want desperately to be outdoors among the trees, who seem to be quietly calling to me.
I ask Yao if I can step outside. She looks worried. I asked if I could just step right outside the door and stand on the porch. She reluctantly acquiesces with a warning to stay very close to the door. I instinctively understand she wants to keep me safe within the space she prepared for us. I trust her so I stay close.
As I stand there among the tall evergreens of the mountain, I think about how the trees are sentient. It occurs to me in that moment the Tree People know I’m here. I commune with them silently. They are watching over us.
I walk back inside and cozy up in the leather chair, sinking into the safety of my blood-colored blanket. Yao and I begin chatting again. She tells me about astral traveling to the Amazon. She says she does it even when she’s not trying, that her soul always ends up there.
And this is when I have a vision. As the vision unfolds before me I tell her what I’m seeing in real time, “Yao you are sitting on a throne surrounded by the Amazon jungle. You are a princess. An Amazon princess! I also see the universe coming out of your head and it’s flat! Yao, you are just such a beautiful person.”
Art by Yvonne McGillivray
This is when she tells me to go inward, to talk to the Mother inside of me. But before I have a chance to redirect my attention inward, she tells me that my aura is a beautiful blue, and that this is a unique and special color.
I thank her. I want so much to ask more questions about this, but instead, I make a mental note to circle back to the aura issue at a later time, focusing instead on the business of conversing with Mother Ayahuasca inside of me, quietly repeating my intentions; Let me know my true self. Release me of the heavy emotional burdens that aren’t mine to carry. May I find a loving community.
With the unrelenting sounds of the chanting and drums filling the room, a reminder of my serious purpose here, I snuggle back into the chair and put my feet up on one side, my head resting on the other, ready to listen to the Mother. Ready to surrender to whatever she needs to tell me. Let me know my true self. Release me of the heavy emotional burdens that aren’t mine to carry. May I find a loving community. I do my best to focus.
As I rest my head back with my lips slightly parted, I have a strong mental image and a slight sensation of a serpent entering my open mouth and coiling around the inside of my body. I know without a shadow of a doubt this serpent is here to cleanse, transform, and help me.
As I relax into this sensation, I see more geometric shapes and the idea comes to me that I am “downloading” something. It feels like I’m being reprogrammed or like I’m getting a system update.
A few minutes later I have a powerful sensation of my throat area becoming dramatically more spacious. It feels like an invisible hand is opening the inside of my throat, but not in an unpleasant way. Instead, it feels like a relief. Like I can finally get enough air. I can breathe. I can speak (Yao tells me the next morning that the snake opened my throat chakra).
Not long after this, as I move in and out of the dream world and the waking world, I “see” something in my mind’s eye, like a half-conscious dream or a strong thought. I see and have the feeling of a large, foul creature (it reminds me a lot of the monsters from the movie Alien) being removed from my body. It’s like a psychic surgery, one no human doctor could ever perform. The creature didn’t want to leave and was clinging to every part of me; my nerves, veins, sinews, muscles, thoughts, cells.
I continued to dip in and out of the foggy, dream state. Staying relaxed and in a prone position, tucked inside my red blanket for warmth and safety.
At about 3 am I sat up and again Victor and Yao again seem to be patiently waiting for me to come back to the physical realm. She asks me how I’m feeling. I let her know I’m okay, but I don’t really have the words to describe how I feel. It’s not good or bad, it’s just really different. I feel like a lighter version of myself.
Yao announces it’s time to close the ceremony. We repeat the opening acknowledgment of the seven directions with drumming, chanting, and tobacco.
Then the ceremony is over. “It’s time for bed,” she says unceremoniously. I didn’t realize I was spending the night until that moment but feel incredibly grateful that I am and that It’s not something I have to think about.
Victor leads me to a loft bedroom with a twin bed. I remove the perfectly good blanket on the bed and wrap myself in my red one because there will be no distance between us on this night. The clanging, tin-can ayahuasca chanting is changed to a calm, sleep-inducing playlist. I drift off and spend the next several hours until dawn just dreaming Ayahuasca-induced dreams.
I don’t know what I dreamed, but the next morning I tell Yao that I had a lot of dreams and I know for a fact the dreams didn’t come from me. I just know. They were foreign, like someone speaking a language I’d never heard before, one I can understand but not speak myself. The source was external. Again, my consciousness isn’t revealing anything from the deep. She is a box of secrets. Instead of memories, she gives me dream residue.
Mother Ayahuasca didn’t show me any visions other than the one revealing Yao as an Amazonian princess with the flat universe extending from her head in every direction. I don’t recall anything like other people's experiences I’ve heard about, such as coming face to face with God, or watching my ego melt into the supreme mind, or seeing the oneness of all living things and the entire universe. That wasn’t my experience. If any of those things happened, they occurred outside of my conscious awareness.
When I shared with Yao what I did see and felt the next morning over tea and avocados, she told me my experience was “perfect.” And what I think she means, is that it was the exact, perfect experience for me. The one I needed and was meant to have. I feel satisfied and at peace with it.
When I told her at breakfast that I would just call her Princess Yao from now on (and I continue to do so), she likes the idea. She gives me a “when the shoe fits” kind of a look and so it’s settled.
October 1st, 2022. Mexico City
I left Costa Rica for Mexico City a few days after my ayahuasca experience and am still here today. For the remainder of my time in Costa Rica after the ceremony, I was able to be alone, processing, and considering how the experience may have changed me-or not.
The first couple of days afterward, I felt agitated and really into my feelings of pain and disappointment. I felt a heightened sense of despair. I continued to meditate and practice daily yoga to stay balanced. I rode the wave the best I could. I was staying in a place next to a fast-moving river and I imagined the sound of the river washing me clean. Whenever the sound came into my awareness, sometimes in the middle of the night, I saw the river carrying away my heartache, my negative thoughts about myself and others, and any lingering victim mentality. I was singularly focused on this task.
On Friday morning I woke up with the sun as usual. I made coffee, walked onto the deck to look at the forest and river surrounding me as was my habit, and that’s when I noticed…it was gone. The emotional weight wasn’t there anymore. All my feelings are still there, what has happened has happened and the memories are still with me, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I no longer carry it.
Mother Ayahuasca and the river below me, no doubt working in tandem, took the burden from me. I imagine it was thrown into the burning fires of the heart of Mother Earth, or absorbed into the soil and dispersed among the trees. Wherever it is, it’s not mine to worry about anymore. It’s handled.
In the days after my experience, I emailed Yao for some clarity on a few issues. Admittedly, some of her answers left me with more questions. I could probably ask her questions for hours, and maybe someday I will have the opportunity.
I wanted to call her a “shaman” in my story, but she told me afterward that she doesn’t consider herself a shaman, and that “we are all medicine men and women.” When I asked about her journey to become a guide, she said she “undertook a search for the understanding of the universes and of myself.” She also mentioned her experiences with astral travel and learning about tabaco and the sacred pipe from the Cherokee Indians in the United States.
Regarding my aura color she said, “The aura changes constantly, according to the state in which the person is in. On this occasion your aura was a beautiful bluish white, showing the beauty of your soul and the balance that you contain, therefore, do not lose it.”
Knowing that the condition of my soul is in precarious flux really motivates me to keep it regularly maintained.
During our journey together she said many times that she loved Ayahuasca, so I asked her to explain why in my email. “I love ayahuasca, it has shown me my shadows, my steps to follow, it has shown me other worlds, and the magic of energy. But above all love and compassion.”
Oct 18th, 2022. Lake Atitlan, Guatemala
Another country, and finally, the end of my story (maybe). I have referred to this story as a large egg I’m laying. It wanted to be exactly what it is, and this is how it needed to be told. Let’s call it perfect.
I will end with Princess Yao’s own words. When I told her in my email how important she was to my experience and that what she had to share would help heal the world, this was her response:
“Who more than yourself, I'm just a channel for you to remember who you are, remember that you are medicine, that you are your own teacher.
It's just remembering who you are. Thanks for healing with me, what you see in me you have, receive my love and blessings.
It is very difficult to describe the sacred plants and this path called the red path of equality (we all have red blood). Many also say the path of the heart. So much to say. I don't know how to explain it.
I believe that one must live, experience it so that it can be understood.
Thanks to you, gratitude, you carry the magic.”
As do you, my dear reader. Buena pinta.
