Astral Garbage Man(ta Ray)

These descriptions pertain to an Ayahuasca ceremony in Peru, almost exactly 4 years ago today–one of many ceremonies in which we set out to heal my then-partner’s long-standing autoimmune disease. After swinging our psychic machetes at obstacles, challenges, and the dense overgrowth of the Jungian Jungle, we appeared to have reached an energetic clearing. After a week of escalating discomfort–from belly-aches to a throbbing headache that pounded at her heart to open itself–she was finally, for the first time, able to enjoy the ceremony, feeling embodied and even euphoric, yawning cells awaking. The medicine had boiled all her shit to the surface, in order for her to get to this stage. Starting with belly cramps and constipation–a tight, pulsing bubble of energy, trapped–it moved up to create a tightness in the chest, finally graduating with a migraine so intense she felt like her head was about to explode. Then it all quite literally “came to a head”, as she put it. Just poof, and the nightmare was over and she was blissing in realms corporeal. But let’s backtrack, to just moments before this sigh-of-relief-and-release took place–to my experience of the events that lead up to it. She and I, we were back in the loveseat, sweating and concentrating on inner-goings-on—when this little light lit up over my head. Actually, it was way high over my head, like beyond the corrugated metal roof of the ceremonial shack, somewhere in the high heavens. I noticed this little blinking light, slowly making its passage… A sleepy, dim phosphorescence like the slow soundless beep… beep… beep… of a garbage truck making its routine stop-and-go through sleeping suburbia. Intuiting that a service was offered, I mentally summoned this thing to come down for a visit. Gracefully, with sluggish slowness and oceanic entrancement, this thing–it felt like a mix between a leech and a stingray–began its descent and ended up hovering right in front of us. Recognizing its function and its matter-of-fact submarine demeanor I offered it our (but mostly her) negative energy and this being–this cosmic garbage disposal–opened its sphincter-like mouth-hole and began hungrily sponging, absorbing that negativity, sucking it up and devouring it. Although it was totally benign and dare-I-say “friendly” (in an indifferent way) it still exuded the increasingly unpleasant, dark aura of a filthy bottom-feeder. I felt shrouded by a cloud of metaphysical stench in its presence. So by the time it had guzzled and gobbled what I perceived to have been a sufficient amount, and its presence became unbearable, I politely and quickly thanked it, simultaneously excusing it with a dismissive gesture that queued it to be on its way now. Without making a fuss (or betraying any kind of emotion for that matter) it compliantly reversed its descent. Up, up, and away! In hindsight the whole thing was quite a beautiful and even peaceful, not to mention cathartic trance encounter, tinged with a sense of otherworldly magic. I couldn’t help but feel slightly ashamed and hypocritical afterwards for having judged it as “filthy” or “dark”, because it seemed obvious now that it was that way only because it feeds on OUR filth and darkness. pen doodle, colored digitally.