A Night with the Shaman
An Excerpt
It was rain season in the Peruvian Amazon and I was preparing to leave for the highlands of the Incas in the Andean mountains, far from mud and mosquitoes. But first, there was a strong calling I had to fulfill. I had heard of an Ese'eja shaman who lived deep in the rainforest. In Puerto Maldonado, a jungle town in the deep south, I hired a car. It rained in sporadic, mighty torrents as the driver zigzagged skilfully through the thick bush. After an hour, I was delivered at the entrance of an indigenous community called Infierno, "hell", a name I preferred not to ponder. It was an Ese'eja settlement secluded under the canopy of the forest. Red-soiled paths muddied by the downpour swirled through the village.
It was rain season in the Peruvian Amazon and I was preparing to leave for the highlands of the Incas in the Andean mountains, far from mud and mosquitoes. But first, there was a strong calling I had to fulfill. I had heard of an Ese'eja shaman who lived deep in the rainforest. In Puerto Maldonado, a jungle town in the deep south, I hired a car. It rained in sporadic, mighty torrents as the driver zigzagged skilfully through the thick bush. After an hour, I was delivered at the entrance of an indigenous community called Infierno, "hell", a name I preferred not to ponder. It was an Ese'eja settlement secluded under the canopy of the forest. Red-soiled paths muddied by the downpour swirled through the village.
I yelled the shaman's name across the Tambopata River where I was told he lived. A tall man with a strong build appeared on the other shore, stared for a long moment with his hand against the sun, and traveled to me in his canoe. I had heard that he was a shaman who wouldn't "take" just anyone. My voice trembled as I begged him to allow me. “Come back at dusk,” he offered after a moment of hesitation.
At sundown, he returned and we canoed across the Tambopata, to a cottage propped on tall wooden legs. On this bank, Shae'jame lived alone, undisturbed by the settlements on the other side. Yet, his neighbors were in the millions, although invisible in the falling night. Their croaking, howling, growling and crawling made the forest pulsate in a dreamlike cacophony.
"Do not fear," Shae´jame said, "I shoot my rifle now and then so the puma knows not to come near."
During the hour before complete darkness when the ayahuasca healing began, we spoke in the light of a candle. One of the few Ese'eja people who still spoke the ancient language, Shae'jame had been using the bitter potion in healing ceremonies for forty years. As a young man, he had learned from the mastery of older shamans that these plants–a psychoactive Amazonian vine mixed with shrubs–carried astounding intelligence and knowledge. If one connected to their wisdom with respect, all conditions could be cured, all illnesses overcome, and the mind– blown open to the truth of existence.
As he talked, enormous jungle cockroaches were crawling at our bear feet. Shae'jame didn'd seem to notice them. In the long moments when he stopped to ponder his words, the silence was overwhelmed by the tremendous jungle choir. I tried to wrap my mind around this: the largest biodiversity on the planet. Birds seen nowhere else, butterflies and moths long extinct from the rest of the planet, mammals whose breeds I had never suspected, and a kind of humans on a rapid decline.
As he talked, enormous jungle cockroaches were crawling at our bear feet. Shae'jame didn'd seem to notice them. In the long moments when he stopped to ponder his words, the silence was overwhelmed by the tremendous jungle choir. I tried to wrap my mind around this: the largest biodiversity on the planet. Birds seen nowhere else, butterflies and moths long extinct from the rest of the planet, mammals whose breeds I had never suspected, and a kind of humans on a rapid decline.
“The gringos try to help us," Shae’jame said slowly. "They tell us what we should do to prosper and to be happy. They want to tailor us to their cast, to become the kings of our forests. But this–he gestured over to the wilderness that surrounded us– “this is the future of the earth. Without it, there is no future.”
When the sky sunk deeper in darkness, we emptied the shot glasses with thick brown concoction. Shaa'jame blew the candle out and ordered me on my back, right on the wooden floor. He chanted, whistled, called to the spirits, puffed away with his pipe. It was a tense, sticky Amazon night, suddenly so black that I was blind. Bats stormed into the cottage from the openings under the thatched roof. I could hear them wander about, then leave.
My previous explorations with ayahuasca had taught me a few things about the intensity of the medicinal tea, the severe physical discomfort it could create, the continuous purging, and the extremity of the mind states one could go to.
The hallucinogenic ayahuasca brew, "spirit vine" in the Quechua language, was for centuries known to healers to evoke the 'death of the ego'. Those who experienced it spoke of a multitude of unique experiences, including that of being completely disassembled, until there was no sense of self. Many said to have been given profound insights into the nature of being, accompanied by intense visions. During my own searches, the ayahuaska medicine overwhelmed my mind and body in a harsh, almost forceful way, and delivered an undeniable sensation of deep connectedness between all living things and the universe, a sense of bursting into a strange, deep infinity.
My previous explorations with ayahuasca had taught me a few things about the intensity of the medicinal tea, the severe physical discomfort it could create, the continuous purging, and the extremity of the mind states one could go to.
The hallucinogenic ayahuasca brew, "spirit vine" in the Quechua language, was for centuries known to healers to evoke the 'death of the ego'. Those who experienced it spoke of a multitude of unique experiences, including that of being completely disassembled, until there was no sense of self. Many said to have been given profound insights into the nature of being, accompanied by intense visions. During my own searches, the ayahuaska medicine overwhelmed my mind and body in a harsh, almost forceful way, and delivered an undeniable sensation of deep connectedness between all living things and the universe, a sense of bursting into a strange, deep infinity.
“Do you feel dizzy yet?” Shae’jame asked from the darkness above me.
“I think so.”
"Now," he whispered after a moment of silence. "Now in the whole universe there is only you and I. Nothing else in this moment. Nada mas. ”
I felt waves rising in my body, traveling within and rocking me like a gentle swing.
“One woman, one man,” he whispered.
I drifted away.
~~~
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