|
|
Ayahuasca - Epilogue
Since my return from Iquitos, I am left with many questions and uncertainties. In the Ayahuasca ceremonies, I have no proof of what was real or imaginary. I can never "know" if I really saved Ann's life in 1994, or if demons from my past were released. I don't "know" if I really saw a lavender sock puppet, a red dragon, or an evolving nebula.
On the other hand, I know that Ann survived a disease against long odds. I know that a doe stepped out of the forest one night at dusk and washed me with her tongue. I know that I was somehow compelled to go to Blue Morpho. I know that I was able to surrender to the Ayahuasca experience, and release my aversion to nausea. I know that I have gained a new community of friends and continue to learn from the experiences of that week.
In the end, it doesn't matter what was "real" or not. It doesn't even matter what I believe. The questions are unproductive. What does matter is whether I see changes in my health, attitude, and spiritual life during the months to come. Will I become a better person? If so, I don't need to question whether or not Hamilton can call down angels or exorcise demons.
Final Postscript
I picked up my daughter Riannon from the Rochester Institute of Technology and drove to Indianapolis to spend Christmas with Ann and her partner, Peter. While there, Ann showed me the manuscript of a book she had written (never published) to describe her quest for survival in 1994, including an account of shamanic journeying that spring. When Ann had written this manuscript in the mid 1990s, I had been too reluctant (afraid) to read all of it. When we compared my Ayahuasca account with her manuscript, we found some differences, but also some remarkable similarities in our experiences.
In my visions, Deer Woman had told me (or I misremembered) that Ann had used wolves to chase after the last leukemia cells. In Ann's visions, wolfhounds chased an old, grizzled she-wolf that represented the disease.
In Ann's visions, Deer Woman was not a deer, but a creature with both horns and antlers, paralleling my uncertainty over whether or not the small creature in my dream was a goat or a deer. When Ann first encountered Deer Woman (Ann called her the 'horned woman' in her manuscript), Ann whispered to herself, "She is death", to which Deer Woman replied, "No, not death. But you have to very clear to travel back and forth between the two worlds." Deer Woman then gave Ann a piece of hematite in a buckskin pouch to use for healing.
I have since done some research on Deer Woman. In the myths of Native American tribes of the Great Plains, Deer Woman is a creature of female empowerment and vengeance. In one version, Deer Woman arose from the dual spirits of a brutally raped woman and a doe that lay beside her, keeping her company as she died. Deer Woman became a seductress who would steal a man's heart and spirit, leaving him as an empty, yearning shell. A native American friend recently told me that in tribes of the American Southeast, Deer Woman is also considered to be a healer.
With this dual personality, I can see how Deer Woman might want to help Ann, who was being ravaged by a deadly disease and tortured by left-brain dominated (male-dominated?) Western medicine. I am also not surprised that Deer Woman would use me to help Ann. I am surprised that Deer Woman would become an ally of a man in his own shamanic visions. I find it interesting, given Deer Woman's reputation of overwhelming and soul-stealing beauty, that I was not able to see her in my visions.
Ann's visions are full of references to trees and tree spirits (which according to Hamilton are passengers of the Ayahuasca). In her climactic vision, she finds a piece of flint and uses it to peel layers of skin off of her face. Once her true face is revealed, she is able to enter a tree through a trap door, where she finds the she-wolf. The she-wolf offers her a deal: If Ann can find a place in the physical world, in someone else's body or even in a rock that can be buried, then the she-wolf will leave . The she-wolf is adamant and Ann is angry and forlorn: Ann refuses to let the leukemia go into someone else's body and does not how how to place the disease in an inanimate object. However, soon after and without knowing how, she feels an upwelling of blue light within herself, and the she-wolf diminishes, sickens, dies, and fades.
From Ann's journal:
'"Do you understand the lesson in this?", a whispery voice asked me, and I knew it was the tree itself talking to me [italics mine].
"No," I replied in simple truth. I felt impossibly tired, and deflated like I had failed once again at some very important test of my cleverness or character.
"Precisely," the tree answered. "But the knowledge is there sleeping inside you, and will unfold in due time according to its own designs."'
Later, Ann wrote:
'I feel like I have some kind of seed germinating inside me [italics mine] that will one day break through into the light ...'
In these references and other places in Ann's journal, I have found remarkable similarities between her shamanic journey and my own. The significance of the above italicized passages is that these all had parallels in my own visions or in things Hamilton had said about Ayahuasca. The most remarkable similarity is that the she-wolf of Ann's visions would only leave if a place in the material world could be found for her, and that Deer Woman told me that I provided a means of transporting the leukemia cells from one place to another, in the material world.
The common references and concepts may simply arise from both of us seeking healing through shamanic experiences. Or, if you believe that there is a world of spirits, then perhaps Ann and I wandered over the same terrain. A final possibility is that I had read the relevant passages from Ann's journal in 1994, had forgotten them in my conscious mind, but the unconscious mind still remembered and used those memories to help create the vision. Still, I cannot help but wonder whether or not the link Deer Woman created between Ann and myself also allowed Ann to participate in the Ayahuasca ceremony of December 6, 2006.
Since the Ayahuasca visions of December 2006, I have had several conversations with Deer Woman (or at least a voice in my head), in which I have questioned what my role really was in Ann's recovery. Deer Woman's response is vague, perhaps because the answer is not one I can comprehend. However, from these conversations, I gather that my role was not necessary, that she could have used some other transport device. My participation in Ann's healing was Deer Woman's gift of healing to me, a means of lifting the guilt and shame I have carried since 1994.
HOME
Copyright (c) 2007 by Dick Delanoy
Pictures included with permission from Blue Morpho Tours
|
|
