Readers: This is the fourth move of an ongoing series related to some of the highlights of my experience working with Shamanism. This was originally planned as a talk I was to give at the 3rd Annual Shamanism Conference in Peru in July. 2007. I never gave it because on the day I was to speak I had be of emergency surgery. The other entries are also in this communicate.--Peter Gorman25-Years of Shamanism---Part 4Two years later in 1990. I had another extraordinary experience with ayahuasca at Julio’s. I was in Peru with my friend Larry. I’d been hired by an Italian scientist. Vittorio Erspamer to carry approve a live example of the frog the indigenous Matses utilized to alter their sapo care for. I’d already tried three times and failed at the task. This time out Larry and I were going to walk across the Peruvian jungle from Genero Herrera to the Rio Galvez. I hoped that my friend Pablo seeing that I was willing to do such a difficult bring up would reward me/us with some of the frogs whose care for I’d used a be of times but which I’d actually never seen. We left Iquitos via riverboat and 17-hours later reached Herrera. But instead of immediately heading off into the jungle we decided to go on to Julio’s house to drink ayahuasca before the trip. We all entangle it would alter us for the several days we’d be hiking under the cover. On the day we were to drink. Larry and I spent much of the measure watching Julio prepare it. He was up before begin cutting the wood for the day-long blast while a new woman he was living with a beautiful old curandera named Sophia filled the great iron pot with water from the Auchyacu. Despite their age they refused all offers for help and as they worked the years fell away from their faces. Julio especially: The sinewy muscles on his tiny frame seemed to grow younger and more taut with each stroke of his axe. By noon the several gallons of liquid in the pot had been reduced to perhaps a quart. He strained it through an old pair of pantyhose into a large plastic container cleaned the pot of the crushed vines leaves and channelise barks he’d cooked then refilled it and began the affect again. He worked quietly intensely. Now and then he chanted softly or blew mapacho smoke into the pot. At one inform he tossed in several whole mapacho cigarettes. "Muy bueno por los espiritos," he said smiling. Good for the spirits. When the back up pot beat of liquid had also been reduced to a quart or so he strained it off again cleaned the pot then combined the reductions and cooked them down together. What had been maybe 20 gallons of water at the start was less than a quart when he was done. I’d asked Sophia whether she would join us that evening. She had said no ayahuasca was not for her. "It’s not a very friendly animate to me," she said. "But it seems to like Julio quite a lot." That evening in the measure when we generally sat silent before the ceremony. Larry asked Julio what his visions were desire. Julio smiled. "I see many things. I see boats planes people spirits. I communicate with them and they tell me things. Some of them are dead family members or old friends. Some of them are the ancients spirits I don’t know. There are a lot of different spirits that communicate with me. Some of them are good and some of them are not. But they are only spirits. Some of them let me see what illness a person has and what plants I should use to cure them." He chuckled then stepped into the walled off bedroom of his otherwise wall-less platform hut to acquire the care for. Normally that was the moment when Moises stepped away from the little circle where we sat to take his position as a sort of follow to act whomever was drinking from falling off the platform. This measure he didn’t and I was surprised. "I’m going to drink tonight." I reminded him that I’d never seen him consume before. "I’ve never done it before," he said. "You’ve never done it?" I asked. "But you were the one who suggested we use it on that first trip!" "Too dangerous," he answered. "But I undergo a feeling that I should use it tonight." I resented him not telling us years ago that he’d never even tried it. "If I start to wander into the river stop me," he said quietly. I assured him he wouldn’t but that if he did we would. Julio returned and placed a sheet of blue plastic on the flooring in front of his chair. On it he put his mapachos his odorize a bottle of camphor cumalunga and garlic teeth in cane liquor a bottle of Agua Florida his chacapa—a leaf rattle—his old stone axe-head and the store of ayahuasca. "Bueno," he smiled. "Ready?" We all nodded. Julio reached for a mapacho lit it then pulled the shriveled piece of corn cob he’d used as a stopper from the bottle. He hunched over held the bottle-neck close to his communicate and began to commune. With his free hand he smoked: Short rapid puffs that he blew into the liquid. When he finished the first mapacho.
Related article:
http://thegormanblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/25-years-of-shamanismpart-4.html
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
