Ceremony with Diego, July 2nd

I wasn´t really nervous for Wednesday´s ceremony. I was glad to be sharing a final ceremony with wonderful people. We were 18 again. I arrived at 7pm, as Diego had suggested, and to my surprise, there was no formal together time, as the others thought there would be. We sat around and talked until about 830pm or 845pm, and then I made my way into the temple. I was seated between two men, Chris and Monserrat, to the right side of the door. I was cold and put on a second pair of socks and got a heavy blanket. The energy in the room was scattered, chaotic.

We went around and drank. I thought it seemed like a smaller amount of the medicine, and had already mentally prepared myself for the possibility of a second cup, if nec essary. I sat down, wrapped in my blanket, and awaited the medicine´s arrival.

Nothing happened for a very long time. I was beginning to doubt that it would have any effect. When Diego asked if anyone wanted more medicine, I considered it, but the heaviness and buzzing had just begun to take me. I sat still and waited, knowing I could ask for more later if necessary.

Soon after, Diego put on a recording of some kind of space music, and almost immediately I felt a sense of dread. My mind begged, oh, no! Please make this music stop!! I began to feel trapped by it, and my field of vision was taken for awhile by strange, unpleasant images, while my felt-sense was full of dread and resistance. The sound came down from above, taking me with it into this strange, alien vibe, and I didn´t like it at all. It felt cold and stark, impersonal. It came on like a descending fog, thick and sulfurous-yellow. It wound down its crystalline vine, taking me with it.

Images of space, something like a horror-film roller coaster, colored balls of light, like gumballs, rolling up and down, looking like an abacus of loops agains a midnight background. Slow, easy, yet heavy motion of these spheres, moving along their tracks, in a purposeless, empty way. Then a world of cold steel: metal, gray, icy...sharp edges, robotic, inhuman. I realized, eyes closed, that there were unseen, but felt beings who had cut open my left torso. I tried to shake them off, opening my eyes. The beings were operating on me, planting these geometric shapes into my body, healing me in some way. From there, I lose sequence, and many images are gone from my memory entirely. My purge came in the middle of this next part. And I was beginning to think there might be no purge; every time it would mount, I would feel it move deeper into me, absorbed back into my body. But the purge came, and it wasn´t hard or or something specific, just a release.

Images of a variety of places and environments. A moment of feeling that I was breathing the room, or that we were all linked and were being breathed together. A momentary feeling of such deep comfort in my body, of truly being at home in my own skin. And then a wiggly, colorful creature, moving like a light with tentacles...I knew that this represented the true center of my being...yet it was strange to see a cartoonish creature as my soul!

The strange music went on and on, and I did eventually lose track of my dislike of it, though its pressure on me never let up until it was over. An image of red earth, an adobe house, with an altar. Then two sets of female hands reached down and pulled me up to some other place.

This next part continues to puzzle me, though not in a troubling way. The images of this other place or places are totally gone, but the feeling I was left with was so powerful. A feeling of home, of comfort, of familiarity at each of the images. A feeling so powerful that as I fluttered my eyes open to see the room, I was puzzled by this reality I live in. It seemed flat and distant, a memory, compared to this other place these hands pulled me into; the other place was filled with a sense that THAT was the true world, my true home. Relief to be back there, a deep sense of home, of belonging, of being returned to my origin...the words can´t quite capture the feeling, but I n know that it was the most powerful sense that I´ve ever known. I was pulled up into this place a few brief times, like being pulled just barely above the surface of the water to be released to sink again...maybe 3 -5 times in all. After this, my visions tapered off, little by little.

In the midst of these final visions and feelings, I heard remember! And it became a thousand voices chanting this, remember! It echoed in my being, and I found myself forming the word with my own silent speech, too, remember who you are! I knew it was related to my felt sense of returning home, of that other, more real world. But remember exactly what? I didn´t understand.

The music became more prominent in my awareness, and it became so exquisitely beautiful. I still wondered, how to be with others? And the medicine made it clear that it was up to me. Practice, I was told. That is my process of integration to work with, I understood. Yes, I was taken to the center of my being, but it is up to me to embrace living from that place.

The music was amazing! Guru guru wahe guru, Baso, and others, I embraced singing the harmony, dropping my fear and self-consciousness. I sat opposite Diego in the room, and it was beautiful! The harmony is what I´ve sung with recordings for so long, but to sing with another being, live? Oh, my! I was so filled with music, so full in my belly with it. And it felt like the more I sang, the fuller I got, and if I stopped singing, I would burst! I was a sphere, and gradually, the dark pieces of matter surrounding me were broken away by beams of radiant light. I have never, never felt better or happier than then. So much energy, flowing through me, with my breath, between the harmony was gentle space, the most extraordinary feeling of sound...my body was music, light!

At one point Diego left the room. The music had been going for awhile, and then nothing. There was a restlessness that swept the room. I knew I wanted to play, I felt it, it grew stronger. I felt I should ask Diego, but he kept being gone. The silence begged me to play, and I knew I had to! I thought to ask the others, but I couldn´t get the words out. When I could no longer resist, I pulled out my flute and played. It was wonderful to give this music to the ceremony, to improvise! At some point toward the end of my improv, Diego returned...I let the music wind down, feeling unsure if it was okay that I had played...oh, how amazing it was, though, to let the music flow through me in that space!

For the rest of the ceremony, I was in total bliss, a light body of music! O thers purged very late, and very powerfully. Weeping for some. The chaos that had swept through the room early in the ceremony settled into a deep release, followed by a thick, satiated silence, one of shared knowing. A very strong experience for all of us, and a deep sense of connection radiated, and still continues.

I enjoyed hugging, sharing with others, chatting, and I was in the best mood of my life! So much energy, I could have skipped home. After awhile, I cleaned my bucket, sait my goodbyes, and made my way home. I walked into my room at 343am.

Just as I was drifting off, I heard sounds outside my room. A tap against the window. Then boot steps outside my other window. I was wide awake then! A couple more strange sounds, but I drifted off to sleep anyway. In the morning, we all talked about hearing or feeling something outside that night. We were all troubled by it, and while I thought it was a person, the others believed that we had encountered spirits. I would prefer that to the idea that someone followed me home from ceremony!! Creepy!