After many hours of traveling the axis of European bus-rail-taxi, I finally arrived at a secluded house in the woods outside of Köln for my next encounter with the psychedelics. So obscure was the site that even the taxi driver himself did not know of it and, worse, couldn’t even recognize it on the small map I was given. Finally, with a little help from some townsfolk, he located the path – not really a road – that it was on and I soon found myself at the retreat house. I knew no one and was a little disoriented by the fact that while the house was open, no one was around to say hello. I entered inside and discovered that the people were scattered around in different rooms or out on the back lawn. Then I met B, a friendly Hungarian woman who organized the retreat and quickly helped me get set up in a dorm-like room at the top of the stairs. She even provided me with one of her own towels, since I had carelessly forgotten to bring one of my own. After unpacking and showering off the various aromas of the Deutsche Bahn I heard the voice of an older woman moaning and howling on the back lawn. Looking through the window I saw that there were several people spread out on blankets in the afternoon sun – some clearly being treated and others doing the treating. It seemed to me that howling was the healing process and left them lying on the lawn spread-eagled and exhausted. Although tired from the long journey, I figured I might as well go down to meet the others and see what they were undergoing. There were people from many countries (e.g. Germany, Chechnya, Hungary, Russia, Spain, Venezuela, etc.) although not a lot of fluent English speakers. I supposed I’d be able to get by, however. By the way some people were interacting it became obvious that some had been there before and some were assistants to the instructors, who called themselves facilitators.
Feeling a little nervous, I sat down to fill in a form and on it was asked what my intention is? Well, the fill-in space was quite small, so I wondered whether my intention should be proportional. So I wrote (rather pretentiously, I thought) – “to open my mind and heart, and let the medicine do its work.” Well, these sounded like famous last words and I prayed that it might be so. As I did, I noticed that there were people of all different ages, from young adult to aged, more like myself. I felt that perhaps I’m the oldest one there, although some of the others far looked older than I, but since I didn’t look my age (of nearly 60), I couldn’t be sure – and not that it mattered. One minor problem seemed to be the barrier of language, since conversations went on around me, but I could not understand them. Next to me, a woman named L was talking animatedly about what I can only presume was a meaningful journey that she had underwent. I thought it would be nice to know what she is saying, and then she told me in English that she had experienced total ego death, felt the realm of the superconscious, and was born again. That was probably the most amazing statement I had ever heard and I wondered if I would feel the same after that night.
Well, many hours passed as the day went on – there was some food (pasta and salad) and a bit of waiting around and talking to the various participants, some of which who had arrived several days before. I was feeling very tired from the long train trip and also from over-thinking about what might that evening. I tried to rest up, but it was not easy considering what was expected to come later. I meditated in my college dorm-like room on my college dorm-like bed hoping that Mother Ayahuasca would show herself and teach me to connect to the universe, perhaps in a different way than the other medicines had. I told myself to keep my mind and heart open, and hope for a beautiful experience. First, we had a preparatory phase where sat around and wrote down our goals for the session on small pieces of paper – and then to burn them, literally. The first goal was being what we want to get rid of (e.g. my fears, of course), what we are grateful for (e.g. my fears, of course), and last what we want for in the session (e.g. connectivity to the universe, self-love). As the facilitators cleaned and organized the room for the night’s session by arranging the mattresses, I found that I had a difficult time picking a spot. There was a quiet and darker-looking alcove where I thought I might hide away, but the four spots were already taken by several older women and my roommate. So I opted for being next to a girl who told me that she had gone through rebirth several times on ayahuasca. You’d think one was enough, but she said that she still carried her birth trauma with her and that this had caused her problems and pain in this life. As she spent the rest of the night vomiting, crying, and in a general state of restlessness, I can only assume that she was reborn for the fourth time…
