I just came across the artwork of Pablo Amaringo and have been obsessed! He was a Peruvian artist and shaman who captured images of his Ayahuasca visions in his art. This is one of his masterful paintings that really spoke to me.
The intensity of my one time Ayahuasca journey is captured in this image as I see remnants of my own experience, especially of the serpent, which is said to be the spirit of the vine itself. In the Andean tradition {which is another side of the indigenous Peruvian culture}, the serpent is also the guardian of the underworld, or subconscious realm which is interesting, considering that the “divine vine” most often reveals the mystery of the subconscious.
Whether I will do Ayahuasca again, I don’t really know. I’m not usually drawn to psychedelics but I felt a strong calling from the vine during a time in my life when I needed healing that I wasn’t able to break through on my own. I traveled to the Sacred Valley in Peru, where a friend of mine and I were leading a retreat. While she took the group to Machu Picchu, I stayed behind in Pisac and did the ceremony with a female shaman in the area.
I didn’t have anything prebooked or planned. At the time, the only guidance I received was that the ceremony was going to take place in the Sacred Valley when we were on retreat. I only had one day in which I could do the ceremony, so I asked some friends for recommendations on who could lead this for me. The usual shaman wasn’t available since it was all very last minute, so my friend gave me the number of Karen, the shaman, to see if she was available. She was! So I went to meet her in town that same afternoon, to make sure we had a good connection.
We planned the ceremony for that same evening and I was the only one! Usually Ayahuasca ceremonies are done in larger groups of people, but when I arrived to her home that evening, it was just me, Karen and her husband who was playing the instruments during our journey. Of course Karen only spoke Spanish and she told me a little about her lineage and how her mother and grandmother passed down the tradition to her.
Needless to say, it was one HELL of a night. I hardly even drink alcohol.. hell I’ve never even smoked pot before so here I go on a trip with one of the most powerful plant medicines out there. It lasted ALL NIGHT LONG until the following morning when I began to hear the townspeople stirring about. I won’t go into the details of my journey, as that would require a story of it’s own, but I will say that there was A LOT of pain. All I experienced was the pain and not at one moment did I get a taste of the blissful, rapture oneness. Instead, I went into the depths of my own personal hell, where I stayed for about 6 hours, and I began to understand the meaning of “eternal hell and damnation.” Of course it was all my own creation and the journey did provide some very deep healing/ understanding that I would have NEVER figured out on my own.
At the very end, as I was coming down, I asked spirit, “why did you not give me even one morsel of the divine bliss?” and spirit replied, “you do not need drugs to know GOD.” That lesson, I will never forget. 🙂
Of course, everyone has their own journey, lessons and healing to go through… and apparently mine was to know how we create our own hell. Makes sense now as a shadow worker. I will say this- Ayahuasca is POWERFUL medicine to be highly respected and NOT to be used for recreational purposes. If you do, well that’s just dumb. Till this day, I feel the cosmic serpent, some days stirring more than others.. almost as a remembrance of a sacred thread in time.
Thank you for hanging in here, reading this. I guess all to say, ask for healing and it will be provided. You’ve just got to listen and be willing to go on the journey. You are never alone. Also, so you could check out this magnificent and mystical artist!