Room 2
An Ayahuasca Journey, a New Moon Solar Eclipse, and Igniting Spirit Technology
When I first heard the loud bang, my mind, as rationally as I was capable of in those moments, tried to explain it simply — a garbage dumpster had overturned, a truck’s tire had blown, or grasping now, maybe fireworks. When the second and third blasts reverberated so close that my ears rang and no reasonable explanation for being wrenched from my peace presented itself, I reluctantly entertained the terrifying thought that it could be gunshots. The panic hit me like a wave of nausea. Time, already a fluid concept, both stretched and suspended.
That day had started if not normally then at least with a plan. After a lifelong journey to quell the chaos in my head, I started participating in a promising new path that involved the use of psychedelic plant medicines. When my world changed because of that racket I had just barely completed an Ayahuasca ceremony. Ayahuasca was — and is — the only thing that’s even come close to cracking me open and expanding my consciousness. It also happens to be a psychedelic substance that’s classified as a Schedule 1 drug, and a federal crime to possess or consume.
My First Ayahuasca Journey
I’ve always been a seeker, but after reading Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind” followed by “A Really Good Day” by Ayelet Waldman, I became a more than willing participant. But if you’re not a famous journalist and are generally a law-abiding citizen, searching for illegal substances can be challenging. The Meetup app helped me find my first group ceremony during which I’d come face to face with all my judgments and trust issues. I remember it as a very long night filled with a nausea that refused to resolve in the “purging” I’d heard so much about. I was annoyed that I couldn’t vomit. I was annoyed by the music being played. I was annoyed by pretty much everything. I remember it as a highly intellectual experience during which I spoke to Ayahuasca directly and asked her why she was showing me my faults when I’d specifically asked to experience self-love.
She showed me my bad habits like the multiple facets of a prism. As I made appeals for understanding, the prism turned to shine a light on another bad habit as she patiently explained my patterns. By morning I’d worked through them all and felt exhilarated but tired. Most importantly — and this was new — I didn’t feel bad about myself, because I felt no judgment from her. I knew it was just useful information I could apply later and I was as grateful as I would be to a good friend who told me I had spinach in my teeth.
That experience, though not much fun, was such a revelation that rippled through every interaction I had weeks and months afterwards. It’s still with me, in fact, like an internal clarion call reminding me that I know better. Unlike talk therapy, once Mother Aya teaches you something the truth of it is so clear, so obvious that it’s hard to go back to your stuck, blocked self. Not only are you now illuminated but the light infuses everything you do. And if you listen, she continues to communicate with you just when you need it most.
Pandemic
Almost a month after that first ceremony, with the pandemic now in full swing, I watched a documentary called “From Shock to Awe,” about a group of military vets who had been struggling with PTSD for 20 years. Nothing had helped, until they participated in a multi-day Ayahuasca retreat. The results were, as the title suggests, awe-inspiring.
Stuck at home now because of Covid, I was frustrated at how it was preventing me from my next breakthrough. I went to bed that night ruminating about my personal loss and our global predicament. Hours later I woke up because I felt what I can only describe as a finger that was trying to tickle me in my chest. Wide awake now, the finger seemed to be making a pleasant hole where joy filled the vacuum. The bigger it got, the more blissful I felt. Soon I was so elated that I found myself asking out loud, is this really happening?
Then I heard these words: Change your story.
What I’d heard from others after recounting this experience was that I’d experienced a spontaneous heart opening. Whatever it was, the crystalized truth I received was that happiness is a choice and if I chose its path bliss was mine. So, I changed my story.
I’d been harboring anger at my partner for a betrayal that he’d apologized for repeatedly. Yet every time we argued about anything, I somehow managed to wrangle that storyline back into the conversation. I told him the following day that I wouldn’t bring it up again, and I haven’t, because I no longer feel the need. The ice around my heart has melted around so many relationships that once seemed intractable. I’m not perfect, but now when incidents occur that would once have cast me as the underdog and spiral me straight into a suffering victim, I’m able to course-correct and internally flip lenses, like an optometrist’s phoropter, helping me locate my highest vision. (Can you see better, now? Click. How about now? Click. Or now?)
My Search
Once you gain entree into the psychedelic underground it gets easier to find your tribe. Seekers are increasing in numbers with such speed that while you’d be surprised that the person standing behind you in the Target line is a budding psychonaut, you shouldn’t be.
Since users don’t wear a red A on their chest, I had to get creative by asking myself the “six degrees’’ question. Who among the people I know might know someone who knows someone that could help me find a safe space for subsequent journeys? I thought of V, an energy practitioner I knew who looked sufficiently boho, was free spirited and already in my contacts. I learned that not only was he of the tribe, but he had a decade of ceremonies under his belt. After multiple conversation, in which I now understand V was checking me out, he finally told me that he and his partner M had recently begun offering private ceremonies — less than a mile from my home.
I chose my birthday for the first private ceremony because I’d made a commitment a few years earlier to do something that scared me on that day. I’ve since made it a habit to plan all my Aya ceremonies on auspicious days.
The day of my personal “big bang” was December 14, which I chose because of its astrological significance. It marked the new moon solar eclipse in Sagittarius. Each zodiac sign is ruled by one of the four seasonal elements and Sag’s is fire. All Aya journeys bring you to some elemental truths, but I did not know yet that this one would be so literal.
The Big Bang
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I was with my trip sitters in Room 2 of a tidy and serene healing arts clinic located on the ground level of a large apartment building on a busy urban street. It was post-ceremony and we were in the semi-darkened room quietly chatting as I tried to stitch together my experience with them. While I was at that point tripping way fewer balls, I was still, as they say, “in the medicine.”
Insights you receive during journeys can be as elusive as a half-remembered dream, but in your gut what happened is often as clear as which hand you need to use to pick up your fork and eat. I’d set my intention that day to heal ancestral wounds that were passed down to me. In this journey I’d entered the matrix of my family’s wounds. I saw my ancestral lineage and was able to understand, on a fundamental level, the source — or at least one thread of it — of our collective trauma and how we continued to pass it down to the subsequent generation. We were stuck.
I saw myself, however, not as the wounded family member needing help but as a direct conduit from Mother Aya to them. I understood so clearly that mine was a behind-the-scenes role. I wasn’t being asked to preach change to them, rather I was somehow to light the spark for healing to happen.
As V, M, and I sat together, the bang happened. After the third one, V jumped up to see what was happening. Room 2 is just off the building’s courtyard. What separates it from the clinic is an 18" gauge galvanized steel door. I learned later that bang was a sledgehammer trying to take it down. I heard men’s voices, lots of them. They sounded frenzied. I could swear to you on a Stamets stack — Google it — that I heard V announce to those voices these words: No ceremony! No ceremony! As if to say, No! We’re not conducting an illegal Ayahuasca ceremony in here!
I imagined big, hulking DEA agents in flak jackets looking to haul us off in handcuffs. This is it, I thought. I’m going to prison. My mind became flooded with a future filled with court dates and lawyers — and the embarrassment that would accompany all of it. Eventually, M came into Room 2 to update me. A fire had broken out in one of the apartments above and the firefighters were merely trying to assess how fast it was spreading.
The next couple of hours were chaotic. Though the clinic was fine, the building’s sprinkler system kicked in and we found ourselves frantically pulling artwork off the walls and making sure our personal items were safe.
The firefighters turned out to be our allies. They kept us updated and even shared some information about its source. It turned out a man had started it in his apartment in an effort to commit suicide. We’d learn later that he had been successful.
Order in Chaos
So, what happened that day in Room 2? How could a sacred event go so terribly wrong? Was I responsible for this man’s death? In quantum terms, did our realities get entangled and he was collateral damage?
Anyone who’s ever worked with entheogens knows that what happens post-ceremony is even more important than the experience itself. It’s called the integration process. I thought about the astrological significance of the day. Below is the partial description of the cosmic energy of that new moon solar eclipse. (Here is the full interpretation of one astrologer’s description.)
Sayings like “everything happens for a reason” or “every cloud has a silver lining” rise above cliché and resonate with spiritual truth. Still, we shouldn’t skip ahead to the silver lining. With the moon and sun conjunct the South Node, this eclipse can also bring endings, losses, and goodbyes — which may or may not have a bright side. … This eclipse’s conjunction with Mercury highlights the importance of speaking our truth. But it also reminds us that words have power: to speak our ideas into existence, and shape our experience of reality.
Ayahuasca is a master plant and a teacher. She doesn’t mess around when you open up to her guidance. Every single subsequent ceremony I’ve attended since the world has begun opening up again involves me in some way participating in healing, either for the collective or for family. Occasionally, I’ve been given an eagle-eye view of how humanity needs to change for healing to occur.
These insights have helped me understand parts of myself that previously felt blurred and mossy. They’ve also helped me to finally own how I’ve secretly always viewed my place in the world: as someone who has the power to raise the vibration to spur and promote healing. Indeed, the role I’ve played in this life is that as the family fixer.
The more I’ve worked with the medicine the better I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t fix anything outside me. Or can I? And by that I mean, what if we all possess more power than we’ve been taught to believe?
I tracked down the little information that exists online about the man who committed suicide that day. He was a 38-years-old Caucasian. The most illuminating words in his obituary was the family’s request that in lieu of flowers mourners should donate to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
We Are All Connected
So, here’s where I’ve landed about that day in Room 2. I believe I could have been the spark that lit the flame of the fire that was supposed to happen, and that spark caused the metaphysical to shift into the physical through the power of our collective will — that is, mine, V’s, M’s and the soul who took his life that day. Add to that the power and significance of the astrological event, coupled with my intention to heal wounding, I could indeed have contributed to what happened in that building.
It helps me to think that our energies may have aligned through a previously co-written, agreed-upon script, and that together we set in motion changes for a greater good. In indigenous cultures, after all, fire is seen as a source of purification. I choose, therefore, to believe that man freed his soul and that he is now untethered from his pain.
I am grateful, relieved, and deeply humbled that I feel only as responsible for this man’s passing as I do when, say, I learn an American soldier has lost his life while protecting America. As a fellow citizen, I know that if not for me that soldier would not have needed to die. I also am aware, however, that I am merely a cog in a much larger narrative over which I personally have no control.
On days when my experience in Room 2 feels too grand, though, I like to call up the wise and whimsical words of Alan Watts, the British philosopher and interpreter of all things metaphysical. Watts famously described his mystical work as “effing the ineffable.” Mine, I believe, is one of many effing ineffable stories that can play out once you delve into the mind, matter, and the nature of consciousness.
