September 7 — Arriving at Blue Morpho
Monday morning I woke up pretty early, I think around 6:45, and went downstairs for breakfast at the DoubleTree Hilton. I had scrambled eggs, strawberry yogurt with granola and coca tea. Then I went back to my room and packed everything up and checked out. Segundo’s friend met me in the lobby with the motocarro and took me over to the Victoria Regina Hotel, where I met Jorge at the bus with everybody who was getting organized to leave for Blue Morpho.
Leaving Iquitos for Blue Morpho
I think there are around 25 participants, plus the team of maestros and apprentices, which is another five people, so it is a pretty big group. I had somehow gotten it into my head that we were going to be taking a boat down the Amazon to get to the retreat, but we actually got on a bus and drove for about an hour and a half from Iquitos out toward Loreto. We are close to the Amazon River, but there was no dramatic arrival by boat like I had imagined.
I sat toward the back of the bus with Nathan, who is an OB/GYN in Louisville, Kentucky. Nathan was the person I had gotten the mambe and mapacho cigarettes for, so we had already connected a little bit, and we had a good conversation for quite a while. He had been up all night, though, and eventually he kind of stretched out and fell asleep, so I spent the rest of the ride mostly looking out the window.
At one point it felt like we had reached ayahuasca retreat row. There were all these different retreat centers along the road, some of which looked almost abandoned, and it was just kind of wild realizing how many of these places are out here. Then we just kept driving and driving until eventually we arrived at Blue Morpho.
The walk in from the road was about 5 minutes, and then we came into the main lodge area. They had brought our baggage in, and we had an orientation and filled out a lot of paperwork, basically agreeing that we understood what we were doing, wouldn’t hold them responsible for anything that could possibly happen, and that if we seriously misbehaved and had to leave, we would have to leave at our own expense. All the things you would probably expect for an ayahuasca retreat.
Then they showed us to our rooms.
My “Private” Room in Bunkhouse 2
I was in bunkhouse 2. I had paid for a private room, and I was honestly a little bit in shock when I saw what a private room meant.
We are staying in these large bunkhouses that are divided into individual sleeping spaces, but the private rooms aren’t fully enclosed rooms. Mine has a solid wall on one side with a door, mesh-screens and half walls on the other sides, and basically a curtain or sheet between my neighbor and me. None of the walls go all the way up to the ceiling, so the entire building is open under this enormous high roof, which means there is basically no sound containment whatsoever. Anything happening in my room or my neighbor’s room can be heard by everybody.
There is also a shared bathroom, one shower and one sink, and I think there are four or five rooms in our building.
It is rustic. Like, really rustic. There is only cold water in the shower, but I came to appreciate several cold showers per day.
Everybody who has done a lot of retreats around South America keeps saying this is actually very nice compared to most retreat centers. I believe them, but it was definitely a bigger adjustment than I was expecting, especially compared with the retreat I went to last year, where the rooms were gorgeous and very private.
There also isn’t really any light. There is one light switch for the entire building by the entryway and a light by the sink, but no individual light in my room. I do have a power strip and a fan, thank God, and the bed has this mosquito-net tent around it that you completely zip yourself into. It is sort of like a canopy bed except you are enclosed inside it.
There is one plastic chair and this tiny desk, but there is nowhere in the room to really sit and relax. If I want to be on the bed, I have to unzip the mosquito tent, climb inside and zip myself back in, and once I am inside there is not much air circulating. Everything is also unbelievably humid, so nothing dries. My clothes and towels are hanging haphazardly from whatever I can find because there isn’t really anywhere to hang things. I absolutely should have brought the travel clothesline and clothespins I had been considering, and I should have brought a few hangers. Now I know.
I knew it was going to be something like this, so I can’t say I was totally unprepared for it, but it was still a little worse than I had imagined. I slowy unpacked as best I could and reframed the situation to come to acceptance and find gratitude in this time I’ve given myself.
The floors are really beautiful wood, they come in every day and clean our rooms and make the beds and give us fresh towels, and I never had to wait to use the toilet, sink or shower when I needed them. Sometimes I wait if I hear somebody showering, but it hasn’t been a problem. People don’t spend that much time in their rooms anyway.
I unpacked as much as I could, and then we went to lunch. The instruction at lunch was basically just to eat as much as we could comfortably digest before ceremony and not overdo it, which made sense because our first ceremony was starting at 4:45.
It was pretty hot that first day.
Our First Ayahuasca Ceremony
As we started the ceremony, Maestro Hamilton did such an incredible job of setting the space for us and helping us relax and feel calm. He explained how the ceremony would go and encouraged us to communicate with him about the dose we wanted and to keep our intentions in mind. He let us know that if we needed help or needed to go to the bathroom, we could just say it and someone would come, and that we could ask for more medicine at any point in the ceremony.
He also spent a lot of time helping us settle into our bodies and into the space. He talked about turning off our fear and turning on our light body, our shungo, our chakras, and opening our hearts. There was something about the way he prepared us that made me feel like I didn’t have to brace myself for what was coming. I could relax into it.
As I went to get my medicine, I gave him the ceremonial cacao and the hummingbird spoon that I had brought him from Lima. I knew he loved cacao, and I had been thinking about what I could bring him, so I was happy to finally give it to him.
I asked for half of one of the plastic cups. He whistled over it and handed it to me, and I brought it back to my seat and sipped it slowly.
I really like drinking it that way. I don’t find the taste to be that bad, and there is something about sipping it instead of just throwing it back that feels more intentional to me. I invite the ayahuasca into my body. I welcome her. I try to befriend her and ask her for help.
Something else I have really received from Hamilton over the last year is this idea of self-responsibility.
He asks this rhetorical question all the time: Who drank the cup? I drank the cup.
That has become really important to me because it means I am responsible for myself and for the experience I have in ceremony. It doesn’t mean I control everything that happens, but I do have choices. I can be in communication with the medicine. I can collaborate with it. I can participate in the experience instead of feeling like something is simply being done to me.
I think of it almost like co-creation—with the ayahuasca, with my own consciousness, with my life force, and ultimately with my own life.
The onset took a little while that first night, but eventually the room began to change.
My vision started fractaling, and patterns began appearing as this kind of overlay on the space around me.
I remember one of the ceremonies I did in the Sacred Valley where the colors in the visions were unbelievably intense. They were so bright that at times it was almost too much, and I suddenly understood why so much psychedelic art has those incredibly saturated neon colors.
This time was different.
I could tell that there were a lot of colors there, but it was almost like there was a veil or a dimmer over them. They were there without being overwhelmingly bright, and I really appreciated that. It felt gentler.
I also started experimenting with my eyes.
There was a very different visual experience depending on whether my eyes were completely closed, completely open, or somewhere in between. With my eyes closed, I would see one kind of vision. When I opened them fully, more of the actual room came back into focus and the visions seemed to recede a little.
But there was this in-between place, almost a half gaze, where the visions seemed strongest.
It was fascinating because I couldn’t force it. If I concentrated too hard and tried to make myself see something, it would almost disappear. But if I softened my gaze and relaxed, it would just happen naturally.
That felt like its own little teaching. I didn’t have to strain. I could soften and receive.
As people moved around the ceremonial space, I also started feeling like I could see their energy around them. I don’t really know how else to describe it. There seemed to be something surrounding their bodies, and I found that really interesting.
There are red-light flashlights that people use when they need to get up and move around the room, and in previous ceremonies I have sometimes found that distracting. If I see lights moving around or people getting up, part of me wants to open my eyes and check everything and make sure I am safe.
That first night I started playing with something different.
It is my responsibility to keep my body safe.
But part of keeping my body safe is also knowing when my body is safe.
I was in a safe ceremonial space. There were people there whose job was to help us. If something happened that actually required me to take action to protect my body, I trusted that I would know. It would become clear.
I have had experiences before where I knew very clearly that I needed to pay attention or take care of myself, and I trusted that I would know again if that happened.
Until then, Abby’s body was safe.
I didn’t need to stay hypervigilant and keep checking the entire room in a way that pulled me out of my experience. That felt really important.
There were times when I wanted to sit upright and feel very engaged with everything that was happening, and there were other times when I realized I could lie down and let whatever needed to happen, happen. I didn’t have to supervise the medicine. I could trust it.
I think it was during this first ceremony, although it might have been the second one, that I started repeating this idea to myself that Abby and Aya are friends.
Abby and Aya are friends. The ayahuasca has a good intention for me. There is nothing bad or scary or wrong that is going to happen here.
Other people can have whatever experience they need to have. They can purge. They can cry. They can get up and walk around. They can go outside. They can talk outside. They can receive whatever they need from the ceremony.
And I can have my experience.
The medicine felt incredibly strong, but also gentle. That combination became one of the things I appreciated most.
“Happy Can Never Be Un”
The ícaros were incredibly powerful, and the drumming was really helpful. At some point Hamilton brought in what I think of as his happy ícaro, and there were these moments where everything just felt ecstatic.
It reminded me of the ceremony in the Sacred Valley when I thought he was singing “Abby,” but he was actually singing “Happy.” I love that Abby and Happy sound so much alike.
I was really happy for a lot of the ceremony.
Maestro Hamilton says that “Happy can never be un.”
There were fractals and a lot of vision, and these moments of absolute awareness and presence where I felt like my body was floating in space and I was experiencing the entire cosmos.
There was lightning and thunder outside, and the jungle sounds were unbelievable. The soundscape here is so intense and so alive, and being in ceremony with the thunder and all the insects and animals and the ícaros happening at the same time was incredible.
People around me were going through all kinds of things. Some people were purging, and I noticed that I was energetically encouraging them. I wasn’t saying anything out loud, but inside I was like, yeah, good job, let it go.
People would walk by me to go to the bathroom or leave the ceremonial space, and I kept noticing myself getting involved in whatever they were doing and cheering them on.
At some point I caught myself doing that and realized that I needed to bring my attention back to my own ceremony.
That was another form of self-responsibility. They could have their experience. I could have mine.
There were some people who had to leave the ceremony that night too, and some of the guys from the team came in and took them out, but it didn’t really bother me that much the first night. I noticed it, but I didn’t get caught up in it.
There was so much happening around me, but for most of that first ceremony I was able to stay in relationship with the medicine and with myself, and there was something incredibly beautiful about that.
Landing
When Maestro Hamilton eventually told us that we were landing and could drink water, I remember feeling like, no, don’t leave yet. I always feel like it happens so abruptly when his part is done and he leaves the ceremony. Even though I kind of wanted to stay there longer, once he left and other people started leaving too, I didn’t quite feel like I could stay in the same way.
He did come back at least once, maybe a couple times, and at one point he came back with the cacao I had given him. He said something about how Abby had given him this cacao, and he brought it back with him, which was really sweet.
I also remember noticing him as he was leaving and thinking about what it must be like for his body to facilitate all of that. Something about the way he sounded made me think he had something in his mouth or was physically affected in some way, although that was just my perception, but it made me think about how much he had just been holding and facilitating for everybody in that room.
Eventually Mirjana said goodnight, and Annie and Christian said goodnight, and I made my way back to my room.
Then I discovered how insanely hot it was going to be at night.
I could not cool down. I was sweating so much, and at first I was still zipping myself completely into the mosquito tent around the bed, but eventually I had to unzip it and pull the fan closer and just lie there naked on top of the sheet. I took a shower, but I was still so hot. I was covered in sweat all night long.
I didn’t vomit during the ceremony, but after I got back to the room I kept having to go to the bathroom. It happened over and over, and my body was really releasing a lot. I remember thinking that maybe that was how I was letting go that night. I didn’t purge in the way we normally think of purging in an ayahuasca ceremony, but my body definitely found another way.
I might have slept at some point, but it really wasn’t easy.
I wish I could retrieve more of the specific insights from that first ceremony, but I know there was a lot of beauty, and happiness, and vision, and these moments where I felt completely present inside the universe.
