My Ayahuasca Experience: A Six-Part Mini-Series (Part 3)

Statue and meditation area at the resort grounds.

My Second Ayahuasca Ceremony

On the evening of the second ceremony, we were all to meet outside the maloca once again at 5:30pm. Similar to the first night, we each gave our names and surrendered one of our “herbal support therapy” tokens as we entered the building.

I entered the building a little later than I had the previous night, so I wasn’t able to stake out my preferred spot. At least I was able to secure another mattress against a wall as I really did prefer to prop myself up against the wall while sitting.

Our shaman for this evening was named Brad. He himself had brewed the batch of ayahuasca that we were to drink that night. (Whereas I believe the previous night’s tea may have been brewed elsewhere. If memory serves me correctly, I think the previous night’s aya was a Brazilian-inspired brew.)

Brad had a lot of tattoos, and he too seemed kind and gentle. I noticed that he and Christian, the previous night’s shaman, had some similarities in their speech patterns.

The second night’s ceremony followed the same pattern as the first. When Brad addressed everyone before the rapé offering, he told us that this evening’s ayahuasca brew is a lot gentler than the previous night’s. He said it was fine to ask the aya to be gentle with you. He said it was important that we build trust with it. A lot of people had very rough experiences the first night, so understandably their trust with ayahuasca was on unstable ground.

Even though my first night with the plant medicine felt peaceful and loving, for some reason I found myself feeling nervous about this night’s ceremony; I felt a bit apprehensive and uneasy. Maybe I was just picking up on the energy of others in our group. There were, after all, quite a lot of us. (Around 80+ people, I believe?)

Sometime pre-ceremony while rapé was being offered, I approached Brad the shaman and shared with him my unease. He said not to worry and that we can try a microdose serving for that night, and to just be sure to get in his line when they serve ayahuasca (vs the assistant’s line). I wasn’t sure if I needed that small of a serving, but I went with it.

After speaking with Brad, I took some notes pre-ceremony while others partook in rapé:

I feel I have been shown who I am / who I have become, although we are in a constant state of becoming due to the perpetual unfolding of spacetime.

My intention for this evening is to continue my state of becoming, and to learn how to use trust and intuition. Additionally, I would welcome any insights, information, and knowledge pertaining to the nature of the universe.

Everything transpired very much like the first night. The ikaros and live music sounded magical. When that part was done and they called people to line up to receive ayahuasca, I was sure to stand in Brad’s line and requested a small serving. I think he poured me about a quarter of a shot glass or so. Maybe it was even less. I loved hearing the sounds of blessing and protection that he made on the contents of the shot glass. I drank it, thanked him, and returned to my mattress.

Later, while in the dark, I wrote some insights that came to me. (Each is a stand-alone insight.)

  • You can let friends know that you’re listening by asking questions (being supportive).

  • Are we ever really ready? Leaning into action prepares us and makes us ready.

  • Center of galaxies moved by gravity/time is equivalent to their heartbeat.

  • Resonance + Alignment = Intuition
    Dissonance = Lack of alignment
    LISTEN

Since my dose was smaller than the previous night’s, I had a fairly calm first 60-90 minutes. I again felt a deep sense of peace, love, and joy. I remember happy tears shedding from my face at some point. I remember being delighted to see fireflies dance their way into the maloca once again. I also remember yawning a lot (which is, apparently, also a form of purging). But I don’t believe I experienced anything interesting visually. However, I do remember giggling at some point while others were vomiting.

Based on the sounds of their vomiting, someone was having a particularly tough time. I heard my Zen-like mattress neighbor making slight laughing sounds, and so I couldn’t help but laugh too. I was laughing at the ridiculousness of it all (but definitely not at the person vomiting).

When it was time to offer the second round of aya, I decided to go for it. I went in Brad’s line again. When I was at the front of the line, he asked me how I felt. “Fine,” I said. I didn’t really feel like I was under the influence of anything at that point. He asked me if I had experienced any purging. “Only a little crying and some yawning,” I said. “Bueno,” he said.

At that point, Brad told me to take off my glasses. I did. He sprayed me with some kind of liquid that I was later to learn was meant to offer energetic protection and fend off negative energies. It smelled rather interesting; I’m not even sure how to describe its scent. (If I can think of a way to describe the scent, I’ll edit this post to share.)

When he was done with that, I asked for another small amount of aya. He gave me another small serving, about the size of the first one (or perhaps slightly more). I drank it, thanked him, and returned to my mattress.

After a while, I began to see the morphing fractals and patterns like I had the previous night, although this time it wasn’t quite as “high definition” or as three-dimensional as before. It felt a bit more flat. But it was still interesting, none the less. I remember seeing patterns emerge in different textures, and some textures that stood out for me were wood, bone, and webs. (I also remember seeing markings that looked like different languages at some point, but honestly I can’t quite recall if that was from the first night or the second night.)

Since I had my senses about me fairly well, at some point I decided to get up and walk around. I went outside and noticed some people sitting by the fire pit, slowly walking around, or even lounging in hammocks under the stars.

While outside, I remember looking up at the sky at one point and observing the most amazing synchronicity: I saw a perfect triangle outlined by clouds (where the inside of the triangle was just clear sky), and as I was looking up at that exact moment, those somewhat fast-moving clouds passed over the half moon in the sky making it look like the pyramid on American money.

The timing was just so perfect and serendipitous, I stood in amazement as that brief moment came and went. (For the record, I was definitely not high at that point and not hallucinating in the slightest.)

After staring at the fire in the outside fire pit for a bit, I returned inside the maloca and walked around briefly inside before returning to my mattress. While doing so, I was struck by the stark differences in energies that existed in the different parts of the room. One area’s energy felt very heavy and dark and full of difficult emotion. I could feel the difference in my gut. I decided to veer away from that and return to the other side of the room and my mattress, and immediately I felt the energies shift to a lighter mode.

Interestingly, there had been a lot more vomiting and sounds of stress from that side of the room, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the energies were so palpably different. But you know, I was sort of surprised. I was taken aback at how stark and palpable those energies were to me.

For the rest of the night I just hung out calmly at my mattress, and I even got comfy at one point and laid down with the blanket. I think I was getting sleepy, but it was at this point that a most magical moment happened.

Shaman Brad and the assistants had these wind-chime soundmakers and they brought its magical sound to the top of each individual’s head. The sound was just so lovely, it made me think of stars happily dancing and twinkling in the night sky.

Not long after that, the ceremony was over for the night. The sound of the star-chimes was a perfect end to the night.

5 thoughts on “My Ayahuasca Experience: A Six-Part Mini-Series (Part 3)

  1. Rachelle Fordyce Post author

    Yes! I have obviously put it off for an incredibly long time. I plan to back-date the rest of the mini-series so that the dates on the 6-part series will appear in succession. I will make a point of getting around to this soon!

  2. Andrew Crusoe

    FWIW, I’m REALLY looking forward to part 5! You’ve got me on the edge of my seat, Rachelle! I want to know how this resolves! Did you feel better the next day? Did you drink water? yikes!

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