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Deep in the winding wandering
Growing, fertile, hopeful -
The Medicine Man shakes off the coat
Of conditioned response
And reaches for a cloak of new leaves.
Closer to the earth, hearing
The sounds of forgotten rivers.
Walking, waking, moving
Ever closer to the still point -
Where the river meets the sea,
Where man the animal meets spirit,
Where the shaman and the child break bread.
Deep in the winding wandering.
-Jennifer Holmes
We are all gathered in a large outdoor circular building called the
"maloca". It's 9:00, time for the evening ceremony to
start, and G., our leader, is snoring. But it's okay. Somehow the
snores blend into the music of the jungle: the frogs, crickets,
cicadas, night birds, and other sound that are beyond my ability to
recognize. It's beautiful.
Like G., we are all lying on thin mats on the ground. At the center
of the room, next to the large ceramic pot containing a roll of
mapacho, jungle tobacco, three candles are waxed to flat
stones. Above us, the beams and posts that support the palm frond
roof move with the flickering light. Sometimes it seems like the
beams all move along with the night music. Occasionally a mosquito
buzzes by, its harsh whine interrupting the tapestry of the night
creatures music. Occasionally a few whispers break the silence,
punctuated by gentle laughter. The night is warm and humid, as are
most nights here in the center of the Peruvian Amazon. Occasionally
a breeze moves through the trees and a branch falls. I close my eyes
to rest, knowing that soon G. will wake up, or one of his assistants
will wake him, and we will begin another ceremony.
Fifteen years ago I had my first experience with such a ceremony.
Not in the jungle, but at a house in the Santa Monica Mountains,
overlooking the ocean. Then night music was only crickets and the
sound of an occasional car or airplane going by. And I was afraid.
Terrified, really. The unknown does that. And this was to be a
journey into the unknown. I had watched as my friend and guide
carefully measured out a dose of the ceremonial medicina. He handed
it to me, and I gulped it down: a one-way act of complete
commitment. Now, whether I wanted to or not, I was going to enter a
deep, and totally new, healing space.
I lay down on the floor, on a comfortable mattress in the center of
the room, flanked by tall speakers playing soft and soothing music.
And I waited. And waited. Eyes closed, I began to see things:
patterns of light and energy moving in time with the music. The fear
dissolved. Multi-colored and multi-dimensional swirls of light/sound
all blended together. It was almost seductive, drawing me in deeper
and deeper. This continued for about half hour, and then a thought
came to my mind: "This is too much."
I felt a tightening in my stomach. Fear. It was
too much. Too strong. Sucking me into a world, a dimension I didn't
know. But there was a strange familiarity to it all, as though,
illogically, I had gone through this before. I could have stopped it
with my will, but there was no choice. Not if I was there to heal.
So I went into that world though I could have stopped it with my
will had I let my fear control me. Though really I had no choice
because I was there to heal, and stopping it would have stopped the
healing.
I felt a tightening in my stomach. Fear. It was
too much. Too strong. Sucking me into a world, a dimension I didn't
know. But there was a strange familiarity too it all, as though,
illogically, I had gone through this many times before. So I went
into Memories rose up. Childhood pain. Traumas, both remembered and
forgotten. The day my dog died. I was six. I had never cried. Never
even realized then what it meant for death to come to something I
loved. Now the tears came. My beloved uncle, who had a heart attack
and died while showering. More tears. The bicycle accident that
caused the loss of my index finger at five. Ambulance sirens. Pain.
Fear. Terror. More memories and pain than I could handle.
And then, something miraculous. I heard, as though
from outside myself and within myself at once, a soft voice. "Trust
and Forgive," it said, over and over. "Trust and Forgive." So I
trusted. I forgave. And I felt those wounds and memories relax and
lose their emotional charge. Then…back further. Through birth into .
. . what to call it? Past lifetimes? Collective memories?
Imagination? But real…oh, so real. A concentration camp in Germany.
Walking with others to the gas chamber. The smell of burning bodies
permeating the air I was and wasn't breathing. I wanted to run away,
but there was no where to go. There was nothing I could do. My fate
was to walk into those showers, to breathe in the poison gas, to
become one of those burning bodies. A small part of me knew that
this wasn't really happening. I could still feel the mattress under
my back, still hear the music and crickets, still knew that I
wouldn't be gassed and burned. And it was still so real.
I thought I would open my eyes. End the experience. Talk to R., who
was guiding me in this ceremony. But I knew that there was more to
learn and to heal. And then I was back there again. And again I
heard it: "Trust and Forgive." No, I thought, I can't. This is too
horrible. "Trust and Forgive." It's impossible; no one can forgive
this. "Trust and Forgive." But I don't know how to do that. Or maybe
I do. Maybe I have to. So I did. I forgave and let go. And trust?
Trust what? Trust this insane vision? Trust myself? Trust my ideas?
Trust my religion? Trust God? "Just Trust. And Forgive."
So I did. I let go, at the deepest cellular level, of the pain and
the fear; of the hatred and the anger. And I somehow recognized
these memories and feelings. They were subtle, almost invisible,
always in the background of my life, like glasses you wear daily and
forget you have on, or the distant highway sounds that you no longer
hear. Yet always there, always coloring, like an invisible shadow,
the way I had interacted with and seen my world, perhaps since my
birth into this life. I opened my eyes to talk about what I was
experiencing. Or tried to. Only a mumble came out. I managed to ask,
"How long?" It had not yet been an hour. I closed my eyes again;
back into the vision, into that all too real vision. And I let go,
relaxing completely into the unfamiliar feeling. Breathe. Relax.
Trust. Forgive.
And suddenly, with the forgiveness, I was out of the death camp. But
the Journey was just beginning. Rome. I was a woman. Tortured. At
the bottom of a latrine. Tied down, slowly being covered with feces.
Screaming. Though no screams came out of my mouth there in the Santa
Monica Mountains. It was horrible. Smelled horrible. And then,
again: "Trust and Forgive." And when I did, it was over; there was
peace. But there was so much more: Tortured in the Inquisition. A
slave about to be locked, alive, into a tomb in Egypt. Places and
times I didn't even know or recognize from the history I had
studied. So many times humans have tortured and killed one another.
All of it locked, somehow, deep within me. I could tell that the
medicina didn't create these visions; it just shined its light into
those inner corners, crannies and hidden caves -- where I didn't
want to go -- so that I could see what was already, what was always
there. So I could let it heal, help me heal.
"Richard".
I am back in Peru, in the maloca, G. softly calling my
name. I go and sit on the mat in front of him. He carefully measures
a small cup of the medicina and hands it to me. I hold it to my
heart, as I always do, and voice a silent prayer: May this Journey
show me what I need to see. May this help me heal that in me which
needs healing. May this ceremony be not only for myself, but may it
be for all who are suffering, all who have suffered, all who may
suffer in the future. I drink the earthy, bitter tasting brew in one
fast gulp, return to my place in the maloca, rinse my mouth out with
a sip of water, and wait. Each person in turn is called up to
receive the medicina. Each in turn returns to their mat and sits,
listening to the magical sounds of the jungle creatures, tuning into
their inner worlds.
Then, unexpectedly, I have a strong bout of coughing. I've been
doing that for about a week, probably a combination of breathing in
the diesel fumes that are so common in third world cities, and
sleeping in the Andes without enough blankets. Tonight this one
spasm of coughing continues and multiplies, painful and deep in my
lungs.
I scan the other people in the maloca, especially those who have
traveled to be with me in the jungle. Eight in all, all so
different, all who trusted me enough to come on this Journey: a yoga
teacher, a psychotherapist, a photographer, a nutritionist, a woman
who has suffered from chemical sensitivity and fibromyalgia for 10
years, and others, all different walks of life. Some have had
difficult times in the last two ceremonies, as repressed areas of
their pasts began to come into awareness. It is to them that I send
out a silent prayer of good intention, for their healing and deepest
good.
Time passes. L., the woman with the fibromyalgia, is having a tough
time. "I'm dying, I'm dying" she keeps moaning. Others are affected
by this. One shouts out to me, "Please, do something for her. Help
her." Yet I knew that she has to go through whatever she is going
through, that she isn't dying, at least her physical body isn't
dying, just the part of her that holds onto her illness. And that
this is the medicina taking her to a place where she can go through
the cause of her illness to find real healing.
A few weeks ago, during a ceremony with an elderly Shipibo shaman in
San Francisco Pucallpa, another woman, D., was struggling. A
long-time healer, experienced with medicina, she was surprised to
find an area of deep darkness and suffering still within herself,
and it frightened her deeply. The shaman worked with her for at
least an hour, mostly comforting her as the medicine did its work.
Finally she got into a better state. "Porqué tomo? (Why do I
take this?)", she asked after a few minutes. "Para curar (to
heal)", he said, softness, love, experience and understanding in his
voice. "Solamente para curar (only to cause healing)"
Here in the ceremony, I am coughing strongly and regularly.
Breathing is beginning to be difficult, and I wonder if all of the
fumes I have breathed in are trigging an allergic asthma; not a
comforting thought to have when I am hours away from the nearest
hospital or doctor. From very far away I hear "Richard", very
softly. I think I am imagining it, but then again, even softer,
"Richard". It is G. calling me to come to him for healing. Again, I
sit in front of him. He starts singing. His song lasts about 10
minutes. Then he blows mapacho smoke from his pipe over me
in an ancient ritual of cleansing. After he is done I go back to my
mat, sit down and take a deep breath. No congestion, no cough. I try
it again, still no coughing, not then nor for the rest of the
evening.
The next morning I notice that L. is glowing, a large smile on her
face. I start laughing, one of those laughs that comes from deep
within the heart. I ask her to tell me everything. I can't go into
details here due to confidentiality, but essentially she says that
she was able to let go of an issue that has been bothering her for
10 years. That she realized that her illness was a direct result of
her inability to forgive someone from her past. And that the night
before, in the midst of all of her suffering, she understood that
the suffering was her own creation. That no one and nothing else had
created it. This allowed her to forgive and begin the process of
true healing. This healing path is not for everyone. It is a path
for those who are willing to heal, to look at and confront their
deepest wounds, and to forgive themselves and others for everything.
To let go of that, even of those cherished wounds, pains, and
injustices which makes us who we think we are, blinding us from who
we really are.
In a meeting with G. the next day, I ask him what he had done to
me. Very simply, very humbly, he says that he had sung an icaro
(healing song) to my lungs, and my lungs heard the song and let go
of their illness.
Weeks after we return to the U.S., L. comes to see
me. Her fibromyalgia and chemical sensitivity are not fully gone,
she says, but they bother her less than they have in years.
Why do I do this? Why do I take people into a foreign country, into
the jungle, to be bitten by mosquitoes, to live in an environment
that can be uncomfortable and challenging, to take strange herbs, to
confront their most fearsome inner demons, to work with shamans who
embody an ancient healing tradition? And why do they come with me?
Para curar, solamente para curar.
©Richard Grossman, L.Ac.,
O.M.D., Ph.D.
|
Journey to Peru
2010
June 18-July 3
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Journey to Egypt
November 2010 |
