Screaming Under Water and Other Important Stuff

It is a long road to reach the universe of the heart…

This week I followed the Shaman’s directions.

First, I gathered the water from four rivers. It took me a whole day to drive around and find four rivers that did not intersect. I drove to the Costa Rica border and got some water from the Chiriqui Viejo River. This river is wide and beautiful, and was moving swiftly. While I was there I made an offering…some dried corn, red roses, and little amethyst chunks. It was very touching to see the roses float away. When I looked up I saw a man resting on some river rocks, and he looked at me strangely, like what is this woman doing! The external part of me still felt like it was an odd thing to do, but I am playing a different game now. Next, I got water from the San Felix River, near Las Lajas. Then the India Viejo, and the Caldera River in Boquete. The Shaman told me to not forget to do this, and it seemed like a very strange request at the time.

I started to understand why this was important. I felt that I was integrating the blood of my four grandparents in my body by gathering the water. I felt that I was gathering from the four directions and thereby integrating different pieces of myself. The Shaman told me to use this as holy water, and dab myself everyday.

The Shaman also told me to scream under water, and to tell my daughters to do this with all of their might. So, yesterday, I went to the beach, and practiced screaming under the water. I took a deep breath, and I plunged into the Pacific letting out the longest, hardest, loudest scream of my life. Surprisingly, I could hear the scream even though it was under water. This scream embodied every grief, loss, heartbreak, sadness, joy, connection, sweetness I had ever had. It was beautiful and terrible at the same time. I did it four more times.

Then, I played in the water like a dolphin.

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Some Boundary Issues….

Trust God and Tie your Caballo….

Let’s not get too mystical here. The reality is that it is taking far too long and far too much money to build the perimeter fence. And I learned sadly, that our man Friday does not pick up the phone when I call, but immediately picks up when he thinks someone else is calling, information discovered when I borrowed his helper’s phone. Do I look stupid? The correct question might be, do I look female?

This is my job, and I am learning that if I don’t make it a full time job to check on/be there while the work is happening, it stretches out and productivity is extremely slow. So, it’s better to pay by the job. Then if it’s not done, there is no pay. I’ve heard lots of stories about people living outside of their home country, building bigger things than fences, and they end up on medication and wonder if they are bipolar. It can make you crazy when workers don’t show up, answer their phone, work if you aren’t looking, pretend there’s miscommunication because of language issues, etc. Oh, I’ve heard all kinds of stories.

I am learning some valuable lessons. Synergy Spanish/Shortcut to Spanish, Marcus Santamaria’s course is a better way to learn Spanish than to go to language school, and way better/cheaper than Rosetta Stone. Unless you have a great teacher, or classmates with the same base, it can be a waste of time to sit in Spanish class at this point in the biological clock. With the Synergy course, I study for a couple of hours a day, and then I can practice when I am out and about.

The purpose of my life is to be happy, to sort out each and every issue that arises with friends, family, employees, myself. I want to have positive relationships that nourish, and the right people on the team to mend the fences.

Goodbye to the head games.

Leaving Shoulds Behind

How to Leave the World that Worships should

Let faxes butter-curl on dusty shelves.
Let junk mail build its castles in the hush
of other people’s halls. Let deadlines burst
and flash like glorious fireworks somewhere else.
As hours go softly by, let others curse
the roads where distant drivers queue like sheep.
Let e-mails fly like panicked, tiny birds.
Let phones, unanswered, ring themselves to sleep.

Above, the sky unrolls its telegram,
immense and wordless, simply understood:
you’ve made your mark like birdtracks in the sand -
now make the air in your lungs your livelihood.
See how each wave arrives at last to heave
itself upon the beach and vanish. Breathe.

Ros Barber

My Second San Pedro Session: The Best Day of my Life…

The crux of the Huachuma (San Pedro) experience is to confound the thinking/intellectual processes; during the ceremony you explore your feelings, heart and intuition. With practice this becomes a new way to live.

What difference a week makes. Last Sunday I took San Pedro for the first time. Kusho, the shaman, was visiting from Peru, and under the guidance of this expert, although I felt trepidation, I trusted that this was my healing path. I had a wretched experience, however. My head was pounding the whole time, I vomited off and on for six hours, and when I wasn’t throwing up I was crying. It took several days to recover, and I spent the first night sleeping outside in the hammock because I was so sick.

When I processed this experience, I got an answer along the lines of, “San Pedro is the consciousness of unconditional love, if you are not ready to meet this, then you will get cleansings until you are ready.”

So, I spent most of the week recovering and getting ready for the next session. I meditated for two hours a day, centered myself in my body, did yoga, and in general got my mind and body ready.

I’m so glad I did. It was the best day of my life. And by this, I mean that I got established in my body and heart again, I sloughed off the terrible sadness, and illness that had been threatening to make me leave this incarnation way too early.

After I drank the green, terrible tasting stuff, I started to meditate. After about 40 minutes Kusho started to sing icaros, songs to help us focus in our bodies. The medicine came on gently. I was in my heart the whole time. I was washed with waves of love, and one by one, different people came to my mind, and I was told how to love them better, drop the old stories. When I opened my eyes the clouds took the shapes of benevolent faces, and some unusual birds moved over our circle to participate in the magic. The volcano provided the backdrop, and I could palpably feel the pulse of the earth. Later, I looked up into the spreading arms of a magnificent tree, and cried tears of happiness that such a tree existed. As I did this, an inner voice started talking to me, telling me it was soon time to make a home here in Panama. I felt that I wanted to cook creatively with whole foods, and that the kitchen would be an important place.

I had many other intuitions, inklings, and awarenesses. I felt the door to my subconscious mind was open, and I could ask questions and receive answers. My husband was with me, and although we were on our own separate San Pedro journeys, a couple of times over the many hours of the ceremony, we made eye contact and the connection of unconditional love, in spite of the roller coaster of the years of North American stress, was evident. I rested and basked in that love. All was well.

Then I closed my eyes and saw the golden hummingbird, my “power bird” spinning in the air, whirring, whirring. I could choose health now, no impediments, beliefs stopping me. Then, the shaman stopped singing the icaros and shouted, “Hi Yah Yah!!” One by one the group opened their eyes and shouted back, “Hi Yah Yah”. The shaman came around with his aqua de floridia to each person and sprinkled some generously into our hands. We rubbed our hands, sniffed deeply, and then wiped our hands on our bodies. Later we each approached the fire, burning in a small bowl, near the holy tree and let the smoke from the fire purify our intentions.

We were told to bring two bottles of water with us. One was to be medicine, and the other was to guzzle for thirst. The medicine water we should take three small sips of whenever we felt something that needed healing.

I did not eat anything on the day of the ceremony until it was over. Last week I had had a small bowl of porridge, and I wasn’t sure if that contributed to the nausea. This week, I decided to take the medicine on an empty stomach, and I will always do this, from now on.

During the ceremony, sometimes it was sunny, sometimes windy, sometimes cloudy, and we even had a little bahareque, Panamanian rain. It was a long and sacred day, with all of the weather patterns and emotions of my life mirroring

Later, as the medicina started to wear off, the group bonded and we started talking about our experiences. It felt like a giant slumber party with friends wrapped in shawls and blankets, laughing and nibbling on fresh snacks and the belonging that comes with knowing your tribe. The sun was setting and it was starting to get cold. We brought the party inside and had soup and snacks, and then later sat around the fire to continue the conversation. The party broke up around 10 pm, 12 hours after it had begun.

So ended the best day of my life, and the first day of new beginnings!

My Healing with the Shaman

I went for a one on one healing session with Kusho, the itinerant shaman yesterday. I arrived at the session and he was seated in front of his mesa, the feathers there were magnificent…evidently condor feathers. There were rocks laid in a circle and various other objects. His English is better than my Spanish, so he gave me the reading in English.

I had had a really hard first session with the san pedro cactus a few days before, and it was not until yesterday that I even felt okay. During the session I had spent 9 hours either vomiting or crying, or both. Other people had luminous and incredible experiences, but it was miserable for me.

Anyway, as I sat down for this reading, I looked out the window to see a hummingbird hovering at my eye level. I interpreted that somehow as a sign, especially since Kusho told me right off to pick a bird as a protector. He said I should pick the condor, hummingbird, eagle, or owl. He said I would know in 2 weeks which bird was my protector. I already knew it was the hummingbird!

He told me water would protect me, and to gather water from four rivers in one bottle and to use this as holy water. He told me to sage my house and communicate tenderness, and other feelings to my husband very directly and honestly.

He also told me to wait a few weeks and go to the river and stick my head under the water and scream. I should do this three times each session and continue it monthly. I asked him if the ocean was okay, or if it had to be a river. He said the ocean was fine. I didn’t ask how it is possible to scream under the water, I guess I will have to explore this for myself. He said thing were going to be better for me in two years, but I was at a crossroads and I had to heal my soul, and take this endeavor very seriously or I would physically get very sick, probably in my heart.

At the end he said, “Mi hermana, that is all. Take care of your life. Smile within yourself. Offer Pachamama some blessings often.”

I again realized how lost and sad I have been, and how ready I am to surrender that story, and resume a grateful attitude toward the many blessings in my life. It took me 5 days after the san pedro session to feel happy, strong and capable again.

I have one more 9 hour San Pedro session scheduled two days from now. I am looking forward to it, and hoping it is a better experience, now that I have cleared so much grief and trauma through the crying and purging.

Not for the Feint of Heart: San Pedro

In preparation for the san pedro, the weekend started with a despacho led by a Peruvian Shaman, Kusho, who was imported from Peru. About 30 people gathered at a neighbor’s house. The afternoon was beautiful, sun shining, hummingbirds buzzing, incredible garden full of flowers all around us. The Shaman arrived looking like he just left Machu Picchu. He was wearing a worn leather hat, dark cape and some necklaces, one of which he used to slice an apple during the despacho ceremony. We sat in a circle around the fire, with the shaman at the head of the circle, with his mesa.

A despacho is the Andean ceremony of making offerings to the mountains, Mother Earth (Pachamama), and other spirits of nature with thanksgiving and reverence. A despacho is a reminder of the connections we share with all beings, elements, spirits, and sacred places. At the deepest level, it is an opportunity to enter into the essential unity of all things.

We were given some coca leaves and told to point them upwards with the greenest part towards our hearts, in size order. Each coca leaf would represent an intention we had. Then, one by one, we went up to the shaman and gave our intentions and another offering, like rice, chocolate or flowers to him. He arranged them in his bundle, and then tied them up and said some prayers to each direction and to the spirits of nature. He threw them in the fire and told us all not to look at the fire until the next day.

I realized I was feeling a little ambivalent about taking san pedro. I was told it was like meeting the ¨Christ consciousness¨, and you have to prepare for a long time to be ready for this. I had surrendered coffee, and had been eating bland food, with no tomatoes, and had also been preparing my spirit by meditating every day. However, no preparation could have prepared me for this experience. All I can say is this experience is not for the feint of heart.

So, on Sunday morning we arrived for the san pedro session. It is a 12 hour event. San pedro is described as a the cactus that lets you find the light in the middle of the day. The shaman gave each person, around 13 of us, a portion of the drink arund 9:30 am. It is absolutely terrible tasting, green and slimy.

Anyway, after an hour people looked peaceful and happy, but I was aware of a very deep sadness, within myself. So, I cried for a long time. Then I saw a hummingbird, and it made me monentarily happy. Then, I started to feel really sick, so I excused myself to go throw up. I came back to the circle and felt a little better. I sat in meditation and listened to the beautiful songs, icaros, the shaman was singing. He sang for hours. I alternately cried and vomited for seven or eight hours after that, and the last vomiting session was so intense, I could not hear correctly.

I had read about other experiences people had had on san pedro, but I had never read anything like my experience. I didn´t see any visions, or have really any peace at all during the session. The next day my head was pounding, and I couldn’t eat much. Do I dare try this again next weekend and hope I have healed enough to have a better experience?

Spring Equinox and Shamanic Work…

I am working with a Shaman who is truly gifted. Last night we did a kick ass meditation, Peruvian style. We are still in the full moon of March, called the super moon, because it is the closest it has been to the earth since 1993. Therefore, the energy is heightened, and chances are our intentions and prayers will reach their mark. The ceremony last night was with candles, chanting, meditation, prayer, etc. Finally, I have found a way to work with energy that is right for me. It’s fun!!

I have practiced mindfulness meditation, and although it does bear fruit, I prefer this way of working because my heart is involved with air, fire, water, earth, space….it feels more ceremonial, and frankly more interesting.

I really like the work with this particular shaman because he teaches classes as well as does individual treatments. He worked with his teacher for 10 years before he started on his own.

Today was the first day of my language lessons. I am committed to learning Spanish, and I am taking a couple of hours of lessons in the morning and then practicing with some online lessons in the afternoon. The road feels uphill, so much vocabulary, so many verbs to conjugate. However, I am doing this one day at a time.

I also went to the gym, and had a great workout. Giving myself structure is doing me good!

Another shaman is coming from Peru this weekend for a despacho, San Pedro ceremony and healing sessions. I am getting ready for his visit by abstaining from spicy foods, alcohol, and caffeine.