Who Was She?

This will be a quick post. I was just thinking about airports, since I'm getting ready to spend some time in them and I remembered something about my second trip to Peru. I flew into Lima without the rest of the group, figuring I was a big girl now and could navigate my way through by myself. I did fine. Got to the place where the group was supposed to meet up and found some of Don Theo's helpers waiting for me, as well as the others. With them was a very pretty African American woman who seemed to know exactly where I was supposed to stack my luggage, where to stand,etc. I figured she must be the newest member of the group, my soon-to-be roommate, Victoria. However, when we got to the hotel, I discovered that Victoria was a white woman. When I asked who the pretty African American woman was, no one remembered even seeing her. Oh yeah, and the roosters crow "Ave Maria" in the morning.

I Love New Mexico

In May, 2008, I attended the annual conference for the Society of Shamanic Practitioners in New Mexico. It was a great conference but I'm writing about what came after. I had asked my son, Yvan, to go with me to the Carlsbad/Guadalupe Mountains area to commemorate the 5-year anniversary of my father's passing.
My Dad was a well-known geologist/paleontologist and had done a lot of field work in the area we were visiting. He had especially loved Guadalupe Peak and El Capitan. We had an amazing time. Driving to Carlsbad Caverns, every cactus was in full bloom, just really beautiful. The Caverns, of course, are awesome. This was my third or fourth visit and Yvan's second.
The next day, we had decided to hike around (not up) Guadalupe Peak. Not up, because I not feeling real great (more on my shamanic illness in a later post). The temperature was in the 90's, I was having my cardiac arrythmias and was generally pretty out of breath. (These arrythmias weren't deadly, just debilitating; the deadly one was treated with a pacemaker, now only 2 months old.) We hadn't gone far before I told Yvan that I wasn't sure I could make it. He said, " Well, we'll take it really slow and turn back whenever you're ready." That was all I needed. I think I got a second wind because we did quite a good hike. I think my Dad would have been proud. I did leave something there in his memory - very small and organic. If you look at the picture of Yvan pointing, that's where it is. Don't look for it, because you won't find it.

Madre Ayahuasca and the Praying Mantis People

My second time taking ayahuasca, I wasn't apprehensive. After all, the first ceremony had gone well - none of that throwing up that you hear about and highly interesting, to boot, as the shamans worked on all of us. But the plant is different each time and demands respect. Just before the ceremony, Don Theo announced that he was feeling weak. He had some kind of virus. He might as well have said, "And so, my friends, you are at the mercy of the plant." Madre Ayahuasca was about to dish up some tough love.
The ceremony is carried out in total darkness. I sit propped against a wall, eyes closed, a bit euphoric. The visions before my closed eyes resemble the colorful weavings in the markets. Beautiful. I open my eyes. There are extra "people" in the room - 2 beings, about 7 ft. tall, wearing white hats and ponchos. I can't see their faces but I feel they are concerned for us. One of the beings approaches me. He looks like a huge praying mantis. I feel like I'm about to leave my body. I will him away and as I do so, the nausea comes. I stumble into the bano, do a reality check. I do not hallucinate in the lighted bano. I return to the dark room to the sounds of retching, vomiting and hyperventilating by my fellow participants.
I grope my way to my seat on the floor. Almost immediately, the Praying Mantis approaches. I continue to fight the nausea, fight the out-of-body feeling, fight the fear that I'm about to have diarrhea. Back to the bano. All is calm.
Back in the room, the Praying Mantis is relentless with his attentions. And I give in. "I'll let you work on me as long as I can stay in my body," I tell him. I lean back against the wall and feel my throat chakra being expanded. It feels great. The nausea begins to subside. Outside, rain is falling, frogs are croaking and I have another vision. I see my parents together, young, healthy, smiling at me.

Jaguar and Black Madonna Have Their Say

Before I talk about taking ayahuasca, I should tell about how I was led to ayahuasca. (Ayahuasca - S. American hallucinogenic plant medicine, the Big One, the vine of death, Madre Ayahuasca) I woke up from a dream one night in which the following words were spoken to me: "When you're bitten by the anaconda, you drink the special water." This made no sense at the time. A few days later, I was reading Shaman's Drum, cover to cover like I always do, and came upon a series of articles on ayahuasca (not unusual, as it is an oft-covered subject). I heard a voice in my head say: "Turn the sentence around." I realized that the sentence was: "When you drink the special water, you're bitten by the anaconda." The "special water" was ayahuasca. But I had no interest in taking it.
Sometime later, I had a shamanic journey and was greeted by a jaguar (we'll call him Mick Jaguar). He told me that I needed to develop a relationship with him because he could (1)get me that car by the same name or (2) send me to South America, where he just knew I wanted to go. Problem was, I hadn't given any thought to going to South America. But Mick was persistent. Before you could say "Lake Titicaca" I was looking for a trip to Peru, one that would include ayahuasca.
It took me several tries to find the right trip to Peru. 3 different trips fell through, for one reason or another. In the meantime, I'd had a journey where I first met the Black Madonna. She predicted some awful things that were going to happen in my workplace. In this journey, there was also a native woman from the Pacific Northwest who helped me.
The Black Madonna's predictions came true. Things did fall apart at work Jaguar told me that ayahuasca would heal my depression. And I found a trip to Peru with a woman from the Pacific Northwest. The saga continues....

Lake Titicaca and Lightning

I'm sitting in a boat on Lake Titicaca at 12,580 feet above sea level. I've had a couple of crackers and a few sips of chicken soup since the condors, 2 days ago. The nausea from the altitude sickness persists, but I've become accustomed to it by now, more or less. I've taken San Pedro again, just prior to this boat trip.
The boat takes us to Taquile Island, rising 866 feet out of the lake, where tiny people hoist several suitcases onto their backs and sprint up the mountain ahead of us. Don Theo helps me up the steps, hundreds of them, I think. I stop frequently to catch my breath.
Late in the afternoon, we climb many more steps to the top of the island. The 96-year-old village shaman makes this same climb every day. Don Theo says we are going to harness the natural magnetic energy of the island. As if on cue, the thunderclouds roll in and we are surrounded by a vast panorama of lightning. I have never seen so many lightning strikes at one time. It is dark and cold. I've had only 3 saltine crackers all day. The downward climb will be difficult. But I am completely engaged with the lightning.
In May of '03, there was a gentle crackle of lightning when I told my recently-deceased father that I was open to communication with him. Two weeks prior to my trip, on October 15, there was a huge lightning strike 5 minutes before the hospice nurse called to tell me that my mother had passed 5 minutes ago. I am well-acquainted with lightning.

Are We There Yet?

The photos from Peru may leave some people wondering - when do we get to hear about Peru? So let's begin. This is gonna take several posts.
"El Condor Pasa" - I am riding in a bus at 14,000 feet above sea level, on a winding gravel road, up the side of a cliff, looking over a deep canyon. I am nauseated from altitude sickness and the San Pedro cactus I ingested 2 hours ago. Before we get off at the Condor Cross, Don Theo tells us we will be hiking above the canyon after we see the condors. I say that I don't think I can do the hike and he says, "But you will."
We walk up to the condor viewing area and it suddenly hits me: the rugged beauty of the canyon, the connection to the land, the sadness of losing my mother and the nausea, always the nausea. The sickness, the beauty, the loss, the connection. Suddenly I'm sobbing uncontrollably as I realize that I have never lived in the moment until this moment - connected to my body, the earth, to the ancestors of these people, to my ancestors, to the condors and to this plant. Pepe, the other shaman, begins to do extraction work on me and tells me to just keep releasing. He pours Agua Florida into my hands, tells me to clap my hands 3 times and inhale the vapors. He tells the worried young Red Cross worker that I am okay - that I am having a mystical experience. We see 6 condors and the world's largest hummingbird.

In Search of the White Squirrel (for the Elaines)

When I first started coming out to Oberlin to visit, I heard stories about a white squirrel, a "ghost squirrel" that was frequently seen on campus. I was initially quite skeptical about this, figuring it was some kind of "urban legend". Then, on one of my visits, I was walking across Tappan Square with my son and he said, "Hey, there's that white squirrel!" Sure enough, there was a cute little pure-white squirrel running around not too far from us. I soon learned that the white squirrel I had seen was one of several; that they were albinos and everyone in Oberlin had seen them at one time or another. That was a time when I was yearning to move to Oberlin from Denver and somehow, the white squirrel became my private symbol for the town. Even after I moved to Oberlin, seeing a white squirrel became a personal omen of good luck. I didn't stay in Oberlin, though. After 7 1/2 mostly happy years, I decided it was time to move back to Denver, to be closer to family. One day, after I had made the decision to move, I was taking a walk in the woods and came across a dead and decomposing albino squirrel. Talk about omens! Over a period of weeks the squirrel had been reduced to a mostly-skeleton. One day, I took the skull home with me and it still sits on my shamanic altar, a bittersweet symbol of a place I still hold close to my heart.