Maria's Pilgrimage to the Peruvian Amazon 2008

HOW TO READ THIS BLOG

2008-01-21T12:21:00.000-08:00

Please scroll down to the bottom and find the menu on the right side under the photos. Read the December posts first, then the January posts.

The photos are arranged to accompany the story, starting from the bottom, but as there are more photos than words, they are not lined up. Anyway, read the photo captions from bottom-up also.

Starting with the Miami International Airport picture and going up, the photos are not in order and are just photos I wanted to post of our trip.

Thank you,

Maria Gutierrez

INTEGRATION AND THE RETURN HOME

2008-01-15T09:40:00.000-08:00

For the last two days I have been sharing a room with Liz and Elizabeth at the Rio Shilcayo hotel in Tarapoto. I've barely left the hotel room I feel so sensitive. Yesterday my left hip went into a severe cramp and I had to lie down for most of the day. A massage therapist came to our room. She did a combination of polarity, reflexology, energy work and structural realignment. Turns out she's a curandera! She was so skilled. After she worked on me I felt tingly all over and very high. She had opened up and realigned my energy channels and the Sanango was flowing again quite strongly. She advised that I take a salt bath, which I did. An hour later my muscles began releasing. Today I am almost 100% better.

I was so impressed by her healing work I called her to come in today to work on Liz and Elizabeth. An hour with her is the perfect compliment and completion to Don Guillermo's medicine work. I still need to find out her name.

This evening we are meeting Jeni and Eda for shopping and dinner. This will be our first time shopping in Peru. I'm looking forward to it!

Oh yes, and the macaw, Coco, went in for his wing operation this morning. Send him your blessings for a healthy and full recovery.

We will be arriving home from airport on January 17th, in the morning.

I will not be available for one week after my return as I will be focusing on nurturing myself as I enter back into the busy world of the Bay Area. Tarapoto is a very different world - slower, more organic and intuitive, more natural. I've gotten used to it and deeply appreciate the pace. The Sanango medicine will be working within me for months to come. It is a priority for me to continue my healing with Sanango with no distractions. I will contact friends and family when I am ready. Thank you for holding me while I've been on this Medicine Journey. Thank you for honoring my request. Everything is unfolding in the Universe according to whether our energy channels are open or blocked. This is what I've learned. It is my intention to remain open. To share with people how to open and remain open. When we're open, the world looks and feels so vastly different!

This pilgrimage has gone beyond all expectations. If someone would have told me how nauseous, hungry and sleep deprived I would be on this trip, I may not have gone. But now, on the other side, I understand that these sacrifices we made were for our healing and they are the sacrifices everyone makes who devotes themselves to real and sustaining growth in their lives. This was a true Rites of Passage. I feel changed in ways I didn't know I could be. I am living every day in the present moment, without trying, because to experience myself in any other way feels depleting. My senses are so alive, I can feel the energy dynamics between people as clear as the clearest quartz crystal. And in myself as well. I cannot tell a lie without feeling sick. I cannot act or perform a personality that is not aligned with my true nature without getting extremely uncomfortable. It's as if Sanango is within me holding me in integrity. I have never experienced this state of being so profoundly before. I am so deeply grateful! May I have the courage to devote myself to this as my new, rebirthed Self.

I am sending love from the Amazon. I am sending love from Madre Ayahuasca. I am sending love from Sanango. And most of all I send you all love from the depths of my heart.

Mitakuye Oyasin.

Maria Gutierrez

THE DIET

2008-01-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

Don Guillermo is a traditional Quechua healer from a long lineage of healers in the Amazon. He is very well known in the area where he lives, and the word has spread. Many people travel to see Don Guillermo and receive help from him every year from all over South America, North America, and Europe. The protocol is to stay with him on his land for eight days. During that time, you eat a special non-allergenic diet and drink a plant medicine he prescribes for you, three times a day.

Here is my experience as I've already written to Kirk in an email:

Dearest Kirk,

We just had the most intense and magical experience with one of Eda's traditional teachers, Don Guillermo.

I haven't slept in three days because of ridiculous amounts of mosquito bites on the inside of my legs and we've just arrived at our hotel after a very long day, which included trudging through a swollen river with rushing waters that reached above our waists - at six different points of the river.

Don Guillermo works with many different plant medicines. I received one called Sanango, along with two other women, Elizabeth and Jeni. Liz received medicine for her asthma - Bachufa and Sangre de Grado. They have an absolutely awful taste. While taking the Sanango for five days we had to be on a special diet of yucca root, white rice and green bananas with no spices or salt at all. Because of the need for protein Eda made sure Mama Dorita (Don Guillermo's wife) also included lentils, split peas or chicken once a day. Very bland, but my body felt so much better on this diet!

Every morning we would wake up to Don G. coming to serve us our cups of medicine. We took it three times per day. My reaction was very strong. I would become nauseous right after drinking and remain so for ten to twenty minutes. Usually I would also break down crying. This didn't happen to anyone else for two days. Later when Liz started receiving two medicines rather than just one, she also started having strong reactions. Elizabeth began reacting after two days. Don Guillermo said this was because the medicine was taking the pain on the inside and putting it outside. My crying release was always accompanied by memories or familiar feelings from childhood such as alienation, feeling unlovable or heart break.

I started having nightmares every night as well. Every one was about my family and the past. I was always angry in my dreams and lashing out. By the fourth morning I was feeling very vulnerable. All my usual defenses were broken down. When Eda and Don G. arrived at our shelter (where Liz, Elizabeth and I slept) I was crying already. They decided that since I am so sensitive they thought I should only take half a cup in the mornings from now on. But the next morning I woke crying from another disturbing dream about my family. I made the decision to take no more Sanango and just work with the spirit already inside me. Eda agreed. She helped me to see how the nightmares were showing me where my spiritual path is blocked.

While taking the Sanango medicine I received very deep healing for my heart. I saw the ways my inner-child was suffering and the ways she tries to get her needs met. I worked a lot with letting go of attachments (Naka-Ima work) which was so powerful during the intensity of the detox process. More and more I felt my whole Adult consciousness, my essense. I began to have expanded states of consciousness. And most days were a combination of expanded states and contracted painful states. The more fluid I was, not controlling my emotions during contracted states, the quicker the energy would move through, allowing me to expand again.

When we completed our "diet" with the medicine, Mama Dorita had us break the fast with onions, tomatoes and salt. Then we hiked back to Chazuta Village, a one hour hike through mud and river. Don Guillermo and Mama Dorita have a house in the village as well as the land where they do their medicine work. At their village house, Don Guillermo did the final ceremony of sealing up our energetic bodies so we wouldn't take in any negative energy because we were/are so open. He had a pipe filled with tobacco which he used to blow onto us. For me, as he blew smoke into my head, hands, front and back, he was singing the sacred song to Sanango. What an amazing man! He's 72 and so strong and alive!

Don Guillermo prescribed a post "diet" diet. This diet is restricted according to the ways the medicine will be working in our bodies for the next month to three months. He said that if we don't respect the diet, the medicine may have adverse or no effects. If we respect it the medicine will keep strongly working with us, healing us.

The restrictions include:

For 30 days-

No sugar, spicy food, red meat, turkey, pig, sweet potatos, mushrooms, fruit

For 90 days-

No sex

During our stay with Don Guillermo I had the honor of receiving a doctoring from him. I had asked him about my head twitch from the car accident. He took out his pipe and sang the Sanango song into my head. He could see the exact places in my head where I received "blows" during the rolling of the car. He blew smoke into these places and put his lips right against the skin to sing the medicine song, which he sang in a loud voice. I could feel the medicine awaken in me and respond to his singing. It was amazing! I really feel such hope for healing my head now. More than ever before. It has so much to do with trust and surrender.

Meeting Don Guillermo and Mama Dorita was such a gift. At so many points during our stay I had to pinch myself. "I'm sitting in a kitchen with a dirt floor and chickens running around. There's a beautiful old woman cooking me yucca root, barefoot. There's a cat sitting under the palm thatch roof meowing at me. There's a monkey on a leash swinging on the tree branches outside. I'm in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon receiving medicine from the most amazing healer I've ever met. How did I get here???"

Much thanks to Eda Zavala! Much thanks for Creator for bringing us together.

Missing you -

Love,

Maria

THE SECOND CEREMONY

2008-01-14T15:25:00.000-08:00

Much to my surprise, the second ceremony with Madre Ayahuasca was very different from the first. For one, it was four times as strong. We realized later that the strength of the journey has less to do with how much you drink and more to do with the shaman leading the ceremony.

The second ceremony began the same way the first did. I had my place on my cushions, with my bucket and liter of water. When it was my turn I crossed the floor of the Maloca to receive my cup of Ayahuasca. I saw that the cup was half full. This was more than last time on my first drink, but only by a little. I closed my eyes as I held the cup and offered it to the four directions, Earth and Creator. Then I drank the bitter-sweet medicine in one swig. I returned to my place in the Maloca and closed my eyes. Soon everyone had been served and Javier blew out the oil lamp. Fire flies flitted outside the screened windows, which were basically one long window encircling the Maloca. The singing was accompanied by a rattle made of dried palm fronds, inducing a hypnotic trance.

My journey began.

The medicine was very strong. It carried me into a world with no up or down. I felt like I was floating in the midst of the vast cosmos. Intensely complex patterns entered and exited, morphed and unfolded before me and within me. The jungle showed herself to me in all her sacred geometric glory! My body became pure vibrating energy. And the most amazing part - whatever block keeps my head separate from the rest of me opened. Energy rushed up through my neck, through my injuries from the car accident, through the scar tissue, and out the top of my head. Whoooooosh...

I don't know how long this peak lasted, time doesn't exist in these dimensions. But eventually it did fade, just when Javier invited us to receive a second cup. I was not sure a second cup would be wise, since my initial cup was so powerful and complete. I crawled across the floor to Eda and told her I was nauseaus, but not throwing up and my head twitch was feeling magnified with all the energy. She suggested I pass, so I did.

Once the final person took his seat, Javier began singing the traditional songs. As the others began experiencing the onset of their second cup of medicine, the Ayahuasca within my own body reawakened just as powerfully as before. Yet this time the journey lasted until sunrise, which was four to five hours. During this time Javier and Eda sang the most beautiful Ayahuasca song that sounded so sad to me, before I knew it I was bent over wailing out my ancient heart breaks from childhood. This was my purge. Ayahuasca taught me many things that night. She showed me how strongly I protect my heart from getting hurt. How I shut people out. How my guilt and shame kidnap me away from my life. She showed me the vastness of my heart as well. The expanses of my love. The Oneness I am will all of nature.

At sunrise, most people were sleeping. Eda woke everyone but me, since I was still awake, and we went to our dorm rooms at Hampichicuy. We spent the next day resting and writing in our journals. Everyone's experience was so intense, no one spoke or shared about the night before with each other until days later.

THE FIRST CEREMONY

2008-01-05T22:42:00.000-08:00

Participants at the Ayahuasca ceremony included Jeni- a young woman who is staying 24 days with Eda to do ceremony, Elizabeth, Liz, Sebastian-a young man from Chile who decided to begin his new year with an eight day Ayahuasca cleanse with special diet and solitude, Eda, Javier and myself.

The women began our ceremony by meeting in the Maloca alone to pray. Because of Liz's fear, Eda requested that we make prayers as we do at home, so we burned sage and made tobacco bundles with red fabric. It seemed to calm everyones nerves and ten minutes before the Ayahuascero arrived with the medicine, Liz decided she would participate.

Again, we each sat on cushions against the walls. We each had a blanket, a small bottle of water and tissue.

Javier began by lighting a special pipe of sacred tobacco. He blew smoke into a bottle of floral water used only in ceremony, then he walked to the center of the Malocca and sprayed floral water with his mouth to the four directions. He then sat and began singing the opening songs, inviting the power of Madre Ayahuasca. His songs were in either Spanish or Quechua (the native language of many rainforest tribes).

After many songs he invited us to come up one by one to receive a small cup of Ayahuasca medicine. He poured the amount based on what he knew about us through our questionnaires and feeling our energy in the moment.

After we'd all received the medicine, he blew out the oil lamp (there is no electricity at Hampichicuy) and we were in darkness. Javier's beautiful songs resonated throughout the Malocca, weaving between us, sounding as if he were right next to each one. And then Eda's voice would join and sometimes Sebastian's and the ceremonial house would fill with power.

This first half was very relaxing and sweet. Intuitively Javier sang faster songs just as the medicine began to kick in. But even this was gentle, with some geometric-pattern vision, enhanced lucidity and focused prayer.

We were invited to take a second drink half way through. Liz was having a positive experience and was not going to take more, but again, at the last minute she got up and sat before Javier to drink a second cup.

For me, I was having severe neck and head pain before my second drink. Eda advised that I drink my next cup of Ayahuasca with the intention to throw up. That my headache was stuck energy that I needed to move. So this was my prayer as I drank down my second cup. About half an hour later, I began to feel immense heart-ache for the planet and I couldn't control my body's loud sobbing. This led me straight into vomiting. Up until then I had been stifling my sadness, not wanting to disturb people, but this only created more of a block, which in turn blocked me from purging.

My headache was completely gone after I purged. And I lay down for the remainder of the night, thinking of my loved ones and feeling such immense gratitude for my life and my community. At one point Sebastian sang a series of songs, one of which was in Lakota! He was singing about the Canunpa! Oh how my heart opened and I cried then! And the amazing thing is, I recognized the song - not from Lakota ceremonies I've done, but from a recent very powerful dream I'd had about Liz and I traveling to Peru!

After about four hours the songs stopped and everyone eventually fell asleep or left for their sleeping quarters. For a while Eda and I sat outside whispering together, holding hands, and watching the fireflies. The nights have been sooooo warm and mildly humid. There are so many incredible sounds in the jungle at night!

The next morning I woke to the sound of pouring rain. How cleansing. And today Liz and I realized that we are doing the Ayahuasca medicine during the waning moon - Releasing.

Today, we all met with Javier in the Maloca to talk about our experiences. He said afterward that we should wait until Monday to do our next ceremony, because some of us had strong reactions. By strong reactions I don't mean lots of hallucinations or meeting God or something of that sort. I mean, meeting the most powerful part of our inner-judge and being consumed in doubt and confusion. Therefore, tomorrow we will rest, integrate, journal, and go for a hike to a waterfall.

During this review of our experiences, I was so aware of how much we Dominant culture Westerners analyze everything and need to punish ourselves for every "not good enoughness".

The American manic-mind has never been so clear and apparent, laid open for all to see. Compared to the organic world-view, daily flow of energy and approach to living of the Peruvian people we've met so far, we Americans and Europeans have a lot of slowing down to do if we're ever going to heal and be whole.

Monday we will meet in the Malocca at 9pm for our second session.

THE PURGE

2008-01-05T22:24:00.000-08:00

Before doing the Ayahuasca medicine, we were required to cleanse ourselves from the dense energies of our daily lives. This entailed using a tea of Amazonian tobacco to induce vomiting. The vomiting creates an opening to the flow of energy within our body's core. When a person resists vomiting or isn't able to vomit, this signals the healers that they have a powerful psycho-somatic or mental block in their chakras around solar plexus, heart and throat.

The ceremony was very simple. We each sat around the edge of the Maloca inside on foam cushions. We each had tissue, a bucket and two one liter plastic bottles of water. Eda's brother, Javier, who is the Ayahuascero, brought us the tobacco tea in stainless steel cups, half full. We were told to drink down the tea in one gulp, then follow with as much water as we could drink. This sequence begins the vomiting process. The tobacco tea has an absolutely horrible flavor! After the first purge, we had to continue drinking water until we purged again, due to being overly full of water, until we'd finished both liters.

I was surprised at the strength of the tea, not just in it's horrible flavor, but in it's medicinal effects. After my first purge all my muscles relaxed to the point that I had trouble sitting up straight. I became very dizzy as well. Eda said I did very well, that I vomited easily and in large quantities. Isn't that lovely!

After purging everything out I lay down on my cushions. By this point the macaw had walked over to my area. While there he tried to climb the walls, which didn't work, so he climbed up onto my cushions and started falling asleep. I lay my head down near his little, strong black feet and slept a little. Later, when I experience my Ayahuasca journey, I am happy that one of my first visions is of the macaws eye looking at me.

By the time I had the strength to move and eat again it was 4pm and we had five hours until the main ceremony.

I felt very cleaned out!

THE MACAW

2008-01-05T22:08:00.001-08:00

The first day of ceremony we woke at our hotel, the Rio Shilcayo, and sat at the breakfast table filling out our eight page Medical Questionnaires. Elizabeth's flight had been cancelled out of JFK, so she caught a flight the next day, getting into Tarapoto at 1am on the morning of the first ceremony. As we sat filling out our forms, Jeni, from France, and Eda walked down to the circular driveway of the hotel. At the end of the driveway there were a series of large bird cages with three kinds of parrots. A blue macaw, two red macaws and about four green parrots. One red macaw, or Guacamayo, had it's wing broken from mishandling earlier that morning. Eda and Jeni offered to buy the macaw off the hotel to take it to a vet. The hotel sold him to them. The macaw seemed traumatized as Eda carried him over to our table. Probably in pain and with renewed mistrust of humans. With our forms completed we piled into three motorcars as they are called, I call them motor rickshaws, and made our way to the healing center, Hampichicuy. Once there Eda led us down to the Maloca or Malocca (don't know the correct spelling) to introduce us to the sacred ceremonial house. The macaw was placed on the floor and immediately walked to the center, underneath the peak of the ceiling. He stood there observing and dozing off for our whole 2 to 3 hour purge experience. Somehow, I think he received much healing there himself. He sometimes would speak up and make a little noise, to which one of us would respond in English, Spanish or Macaw.

Oracle of Yogi Igoy

2008-01-01T11:13:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year.

For the new year I chose a "saying" from my stack of "sayings" from Yogi Igoy. (I actually don't know what yogi said these sayings, so I named her/him Yogi Igoy. The stack was left with me after a workshop at Ocean Song and they've proved to be the most profound guidance whenever I've reached for them.)

Release that which is going out. Embrace that which is coming in. Leave alone that which has not yet come. Want nothing, and embrace everything.

We fly out tomorrow morning.

I feel excited and nervous. Can't quite stay focused. I'm experiencing some triggeredness. Wondering if it's the parts of me that will be dying in the Amazon, protesting.

Walking into the unknown,

Maria

Our Schedule

2007-12-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

Here is the preliminary schedule of our time in the Amazon as arranged by my sister, Eda:

Day 1: Arrive Tarapoto at 4pm. Rest in hotel.

Day 2: 9am purge with medicinal plants. Light lunch downtown and rest in hotel. 8 pm ceremony with the Sacred Medicine at Hampichicuy Healing Center near to the city. Return after midnight at the hotel or stay at Healing Center.

Day 3: Rest in the hotel or healing center during the day. Go downtown to eat typical Amazonian food.

Day 4 to 7: Go to Chazuta Village with the old Indian healers. Go up in the mountains into the forest to their rustic healing center and start a diet with some medicinal plants selected and cooked by the healers. Stay several days over there.

Day 8: Finish the diet and go to visit the Native Community where we are working to protect the sacred lands. Sleep over.

Day 9: Return to Tarapoto city. Rest in the hotel during day or stay near Chazuta Village.

Day 10: Second ceremony with Sacred Medicine at night at Hampichicuy Healing Center. Sleep at Center or hotel.

Day 11: Rest during the day and visit other native communities.

Day 12: Shopping and return to Lima at midnight.

The Peruvian Pilgrimage - Introduction

2007-12-22T16:03:00.000-08:00

As with all true pilgrimages, this journey has been awakening inside of me for many years, choosing me, pulling me, calling me. For over a year now I have known that I am to meet and journey with Ayahuasca, but I have felt strange about paying to do ceremony here in the States. I felt deeply called to travel to the land where the plant and people co-arose together out of the Earth, speaking the same language. I have been waiting for the sign that the time was ripe and finally this last September that sign came in the form of a Peruvian visionary healer and teacher named Eda Zavala Lopez. I arranged an event with my students and the public for Eda to come and do ritual and teachings with us. This happened on September 9, 2007, in Santa Rosa, CA. By this time Eda and I had had many opportunities to share stories and a true heart connection was formed. We both felt it from the start and knew we were destined to meet and work together. She invited me to travel to Peru to visit her home in the beautiful Madre Amazonia.

I didn't expect I would be able to make the journey for many years, due to my full time graduate studies in psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Then I decided to just see what would happen if I pretend I could go during my winter break. Suddenly everything easily started falling into place. I met a travel agent who found a decent price for that time of year and a close friend, Liz Reuter, agreed to join me. Eda emailed joyfully exclaiming that the dates I'd asked about were available for her Maestro (a traditional indigenous shaman) and herself.

I put my plane ticket on my credit card and proceeded to email all my friends and acquaintances and past students, telling them about my trip and inviting them to support me on my pilgrimage. On my 35th birthday I threw myself a fundraising party where people could partake in a beautiful dinner with birthday cake, for a donation towards my trip. My Women's Circles showed up with all the food and hosted the whole night for me! Thirty-eight people showed up. Many more loved ones sent donations through the mail. As of today, the contributions from my friends, family and A Coracle Foundation have come to a total of $2735! Special thanks to A Coracle Foundation, a non-profit organization funding women to go on spiritual pilgrimages, who donated $500 towards my trip!

So, it was meant to be. It's in Spirit's hands. This journey to Peru feels very profound for me. It is coming at a time in my life where I am facing many painful realizations about my Mexican heritage. My father's grandparent's emigrated from Mexico to California during the 1910 Mexican Revolution. His parents grew up in the barrios of Los Angeles, following the fruit harvest seasonally and working on the railroads. My father was punished for speaking Spanish at home, his parents were so adamant that their children have no accent. My father dropped out of high school and joined a gang when they lived in Hunter's Point in San Francisco. Eventually he became a business owner and did very well for himself. He unfortunately was a violent man and a heavy drinker. He married my mother, who is Euro-American, desiring to leave behind his Mexican identity.

My brother and I were born into the pain of my parents: my father's cultural/generational post-traumatic stress and my mother's submissive, suicidal depression. I followed my father's lead, becoming ashamed to be Mexican, pretending I was only white. This denial became very painful as I grew older, so painful it woke me up! Now, in my thirties, I have begun the journey of reclamation. Reclamation has looked like many things for me - recognizing my internal oppression, acknowledging the struggles of my family and ancestors, beginning to learn Spanish, and being the voice for the voiceless Latino immigrants whenever I can.

Eda Zavala has been a powerful supporter of my reclamation process. She herself is a Peruvian Indian who was born in Lima, completely assimilated into the mainstream. After graduating from University she trekked into the rainforest to organize the Indians against the logging companies deforesting their homeland. The Indians recognized her spirit right away and told her she should stay with them for a while and do ceremony. She agreed. This began the reclamation of her indigenous soul and traditional ways. Since then she and her brother who is a shaman, have opened up a healing center in the Amazon called HAMPICHICUY. All the proceeds from the center go to protect and preserve the sacred medicinal plants of the Amazon forest and their habitats.

To learn more about the Hampichicuy Center, check out their blog spot at :

http://hampichicuy.blogspot.com/

I leave with my travel companions on January 2. We will return home on January 17.

I will do my best to post blogs as I can in Peru. It is likely I will be away from technology most of the journey, which is a blessing!

I will be thinking of all of you and praying for you highest good!

Maria Gutierrez