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TESTIMONIES

Healing in Death,
by Merlin.

In winter 2004, I knew Alan Shoemaker for over a year and I remained in contact with him by e-mail. One day, as a result of a practical interest in shamanism in general and South American shamanism in particular, I decided to visit Alan and see whether the occasion would allow me to glean some practical information or possibly to meet local curanderos. I went with my wife and my child for a holiday, rather than for a spiritual quest, although shamanism had been the object of almost all my personal interest for more than two years already. The circumstances allowed my wife to arrange these holidays so that I could spend ten days completely immersed in what interested me. And that is what I did! I drank Ayahuasca four times in ten days, three of which were with Norma Navarro Panduro, whom Alan had warmly recommended to me. "I give you the freedom to choose" he said to me, "you can drink with four different curanderos, but Norma is so exceptional that you will certainly not want to change after having drunk with her." And that's what happened. All the same, I drank with another curandero the last time, because I had come to see as much as possible... But I will not tell you anything about it here, except that Norma is a really fine woman, both as a human and as a curandera.

The practical interest I had was also to be able to prepare and drink Ayahuasca in my country, in Europe, in the most traditional way. I had always been very disciplined in my Ayahuasca practice and as informed as possible by the literature (scientific and semi-scientific) on the subject: I'd drunk Ayahuasca once every two weeks for a year. I had followed each time the dietary requirements (and sexual abstinence) for at least three days before drinking. By this I mean to say that I came with as much theoretical as practical baggage... but in the end, what is this in comparison with Norma's 40 years of practice at a rate of two to three times a week...? I thus approached with the attitude of a student, all my senses alert and ready to retain everything, knowing that the occasion was too rare to be missed.

Parallel to my assiduity, I'd also had a serious problem which had struck me some six months before (sooner). With a marital issue that was more than painful for me, combined with accumulated pressures (I believe) from my work, I experienced a psycho-physiological "break-down" which left in its trail recurring anxiety attacks that occurred at least once a day (I'm not sure 'anxiety attacks' is the right medical term, as I did not see a doctor). And even if my psyche, after having passed the stage of interpretations, became calm, these crises appeared every day without my being able to explain them, sometimes in the middle of conversations that were unrelated and had nothing to do with my anguish. Thus it was also as a patient that I approached the shaman-curandera. I did not hope however for a miracle cure, so deeply did this evil appear to touch my soul. I rather feared that Ayahuasca would thrust me to insanity (drive me crazy?) as it reminded me of the painful causes of my illness. However, I was ready, even for that.

During my first meeting with Norma, the conversation focused on the reasons which led me to drink Ayahuasca. I revealed to her in my almost non-existent Spanish (a mixture of French, Italian and Latin) that I had seen the God of the universe while under the influence of LSD in my adolescence, and that this vision was still guiding my steps. Norma listened closely, and spoke very slowly and calmly, in contrast to the world around her which appeared to me more agitated than usual. I explained to her my interest in Ayahuasca and my desire to assist with (attend) the whole process of the preparation of the potion, from the cutting of the vine to the reduction and filtering.

Two days later, late in the morning, we went to her jungle place, at around fourty-five kilometers by road from Iquitos into the jungle. We then walked 20-25 minutes in the jungle before arriving to the place which Norma received from the "University of the Jungle" (an official organization for the protection of the cultural and environmental milieu in Iquitos) and where she exercises her profession (a reward, so I understood, for the work she had done and for the cures which she had achieved during her career, and those which the officials hoped to see her achieving in this isolated place in the forest). I must say that I already love forests in Europe. The Amazonian jungle made me feel good, as if I had rediscovered some distant cousins to whom I felt an affinity. In accordance with my request and a little to my surprise, Norma told me in a cheerful tone of voice, as if laughing at my burning desire to be authentic: "Take off your T-shirt and your sandals, like the Indians; take this machete and let's cut the vine (Ayahuasca is a vine)." (The words which I report are approximate of course.) I did so and thus, there I was, with my naked chest and feet, on the clay-like dirt-floor of the jungle, cutting wood and feeling the ant bites. Without going into all the details of the preparation, I must say that I appreciated this moment very much. That was what I came to seek more than simply to see or listen; I wanted to make, take part to, BE part of the ceremony from beginning to end. This amused Norma, Toledo (her assistant), my wife and Mariella (Alan's wife) who attended the scene. I thank their smiles which gently stripped the latter from its useless seriousness :). This wasn't a game for me, but their attention to my clumsy efforts and their general kindness also contributed to my wellbeing and the experience which I was undergoing.

Time passed very quickly, but also very calmly, as if there were time there to do everything and more, without getting bored or forgetting to do something. We spoke with Norma, swinging on the hammocks hung inside the hut. We took a "flower-bath" in the little stream which runs behind the ceremonial hut, and froze when the second most poisonous snake of the jungle (the naca-naca, coral-snake) slowly slipped under our feet (50 cm beneath) into the brook. I interpreted this inaggressive snake's visit and a colourful butterfly's, which had passed very close to my head at the time of the preparation of Ayahuasca, as a good omen for what I had come to do there, which was to communicate, or commune, with the "spirits" of the jungle. I felt it as a "hello" from them.

That night, around 9 p.m., after having slept about an hour (I believe), we found ourselves, my wife and I, in front of Norma in her ceremonial dress, adorned with a crown of feathers and coloured seeds (it was too dark to see any colours at all at that moment, though). Only one candle lit the room and allowed Norma to prepare the wooden cups of Ayahuasca that her assistant handed us after she finished smoking tobacco and singing or chanting with respect in front of the sacred drink.

Being familiar with the normally very bitter taste of the drink, I was a little surprised by its thick and sweet taste. The "honey of the forest", Norma had said, "a gift for mankind from the forest". This is exactly what I felt when drinking Ayahuasca: receiving a gift. I feared the power of its effect, but I did not want, by vomiting prematurely, to abort the experience for which I had been waiting so patiently. I felt moreover that I had to accept the entire force which would present itself to me. I felt that this was the moment, that there were none like it, as if the past and the future had been obliterated. I was there for that, and that was happening. I did not want anything else than that present moment. I thus accepted the present of the forest as I had never before accepted any: naturally and with all my heart. I told my body to allow the sweet liquid to pass through my system and to welcome it with respect. These are my usual first contacts with the spirit of Ayahuasca when it enters me to do its work.

The first half hour passed in silence observing the physiological effects of the "digestion". As soon as the first effects - very subtle, as I'd already observed during my many previous experiments - started, Norma began her songs and ceremonial whistles (icaros). I was surprised by their softness, in which I guessed a feeling that I can't but assimilate to sadness, although it was somehow only reminding of the latter. Sadness or melancholy as words are still unable to describe all the serious deepness of the icaros I felt. Norma also at times beat a stick in rhythm on the ground (the darkness and my state at that moment do not allow me to be precise), and used a rain stick (wide and hollow stick, filled with small seeds) instead of the more traditional shacapa (bunches of leaves of a certain plant, which make it possible to purify the patient and are shaken like maracas, but with a softer sound.) In general, her songs were extremely soft and harmonious, having in them something contrasting with the power and disorganization of the visions that followed.

The visions were slowly appearing, accompanied by yawns. Physical malaise also increased gradually as the colors became more vivid. As I was sinking deeper and deeper into that state, I was remembering images which had appeared to me when I had experienced Ayahuasca at home a few times quite strongly, except that this time, they went further and further down/up to a region I have never been yet. Things started to get new and unknown. After about one hour, the effect of the potion had become so powerful in my body that I was having trouble controlling it. The visions were combined with negative feelings. I felt sad, abandoned, at the point of death. These feelings came in increasingly stronger waves, sometimes slackening me a little, as if leaving me just enough time to rest but not more. In these rare moments of greater relaxation, I could start to "consider" my inner negativity and understand its way of working. It was then that I started to see "visions" properly speaking. Parts of my life resurfaced. I was slowly introduced in a fragmentary dream where there also appeared images I was not expecting to see. Without yet understanding very much the meaning of all that I saw, my thoughts were redirected towards the negative. My mind got afraid; a feeling of icy cold invaded me: I shivered. My physical and mental distress felt so violent that if I could not do something about them, I would not be able to control myself. I would break down, "lose my mind", become insane, shout, melt in tears, leave control of my body and mind to fear or panic, and take refuge I do not know where... disappear perhaps to put an end to this extreme suffering. At this moment of intense crisis, although my attention was primarily focused on the mind, as if the World of Mind were the only one that existed, my body called me back, and.... urhhhghghgh.... I was suddenly taken with a violent urge to vomit. The pressure of my bowels twisting to push back the vile liquid was so strong that I had to control myself to allow enough time to breathe and not to die of asphyxiation (the thought of which also scared me for a moment). The vomiting wanted to continue without interruption. The rare inhalations which I could manage were immediately followed by stomach spasms and vomiting, again and again. However, these physical efforts brought me back, made my body function, heated it up again, a strength which I needed. I found myself again over my plastic bucket, in the putrescent stench of my vomit, spitting out the cursed liquid with disgust. I felt at this moment a powerful anaconda slipping into my muscles, squeezing my body to expel the psycho-physiological evil which tormented me. I felt better, able to dream in a more pleasant and deeper way, but without fear, apprehension... for a moment; then the black thoughts returned to torment me, the fears, the loss and confusion invaded me again…

During these extremely difficult moments, there was nothing I could do but to save my life from what appeared like a loss of myself. I fought for my survival. My mind assailed me with my own thoughts, the same ones I had carried with me during my six long months of anguish and which I succeeded in containing each day, desperately trying to forget them, with little success. This time, they attacked from all sides, with the power of waves in an untamed sea. I was a skiff lost at sea.

Saving my life consisted at first in resisting with my mind, denying the existence and the veracity of these ideas, to repulse them, to drive them out and never more see them, to expel them forcibly. Then, after having associated my physical state with my psychological malaise, to fight against the cold. I had the impression that I was frozen. I needed to warm up, lost in the icy night. Coiled up in my blanket, I tried to move my body in order to warm myself up. Sitting up, I was unable to make big movements, but my survival seemed to depend on it, I stirred myself again and again, then I saw an undulating form: a snake. I decided to undulate in the same way. To my great astonishment, while following its rhythm, my body produced a permanent heat and a greater mastery of my situation. The reality of the snake began to increase. I had the impression that it guided me away from my sufferings. I suddenly noticed Norma's icaros; her song was in time with the rhythm of the snake. I followed the serpent's melody. The snake invited me to face the fears which I had been afraid to face before. It taught me to avoid them, circumvent them, not to allow them to exert such an influence over myself.

The difficult moments continued all the same, along with the helping practice I was learning with the utmost attention - a life engaging attention indeed. What I had acquired was the conviction that I was slowly starting to expel my evil, that the snake was helping me, that Norma was helping me, that all (myself included) were present for me at this precise moment, dedicated... just to that. I continued to vomit and dream, dream and vomit... until I was completely emptied. I could do no more, I was physically exhausted. The force of the snake was implacable, relentless. It was necessary to expel all that could be expelled. I applied myself to help the snake, to facilitate its task. I felt in contact with it. My spirit was almost at rest, because it knew what it was doing. I was no longer lost, but I was no less tired. During certain moments of calm, I almost fell asleep while sitting upright, and awoke again when I lost my balance and was about to fall. I finally lay down on one side, exhausted, after a series of spasms. I was gasping for breath, breathing heavily, thinking to myself: "It's too much, I can't do this any more, it must stop. I've got no more strength." And then another wave of vomit surged from my stomach with extraordinary ease. I was able to partially retain the liquid filling my cheeks until I reached the bucket where I spat it out.

I started to abandon the fight, to abandon myself, to release myself, to slacken. I lay down and breathed again to get my life back. Waves, soft waves were overtaking me. I started seeing rivers of colors floating around me, indescribable visions. It seemed to me that I was in another realm, full of colors ravishing my attention. I felt resting in Peace. The black thoughts having been purged, I rested finally. I could finally open my eyes on a world upon which I could reflect without interruption. I felt suddenly happy... to perhaps have traveled through a storm of my body and my spirit. I do not remember how the transition was made, but I remember having turned my head to look at marvelous waves which seemed to me like a flood of life and to have tried turning my head to see the coast, lying on my mattress. These waves were everywhere, soft and powerful, moving around me. I felt good in this place. I wondered where I was and how I could describe it. All of a sudden I saw the head of a reptile "at the foot of the screen", so to speak, who told me to listen because something or someone was addressing me. I understood at once that Ayahuasca was speaking to me. I felt floating like on a hammock in the middle of a room, with three presences, one of which remained hidden to me. The "room" resembled organic matter, a kind of brown leather which gave the impression of being soft and alive. It did not really have walls, rather they were hexagons which interlocked and surrounded us to form an enclosed space which gave me the feeling of comfort and protection. There was no more pain, nor concern. The body had disappeared. I was in another universe, detached from my body. I felt dead, at last. Finally I had crossed the frontier between life and death, I said to myself, torn away from the fears which were preventing me from being free, I had abandoned life. This first awakening pointed out precisely what it was I had come to seek: to cure my fear of death. The anguish which had followed me for six months gave me the impression that I was no longer attached to the world of the flesh, that a strong wind could bring me to the other world that I sometimes perceived simultaneously. I had endured a distressing dissociation which made me feel that death would be like a state of eternal loneliness and isolation. In fact, this latter feeling appears to me today to be that which I endured in my life and within my family during that six months period of anxiety. I was feeling alone, abandoned, unloved. And I could not see any end to this situation, as if my energy were blocked. Nothing flowed by itself any more. I did not drink any more Ayahuasca, which had frightened me since the day that this anxiety attack began. I had lost the thread which I was following. Fear, anger and vengeance were preventing me from flowing calmly and with joy in life. It was in this context that this place, where I found myself after so much vomiting, felt like the tanscendence of these feelings. In some way, I wished to end this, finish forever this suffering which was the only pleasure in my life. When I came to Norma to drink Ayahuasca, I was even ready to die, and at the time when the cup touched my lips, it could have been the Grail itself: life or death. I found myself beyond my concerns, in peace. I interpreted this place as being death, where I will find myself again when my life is over. I believe I understood that death was not related to the concerns of my life, that concerns and suffering were mainly related to the physical world; that physical death cut short these sufferings. The room of living leather explained to me that death was a detachment from fleshy pain, so to speak. It matters little that the "place" where I was is a place, or the place where all return after their life is over. It was for me the place of going beyond. I had transcended confrontation with my sufferings. I was able to see my life as if I were remembering it, with sufficient distance to appreciate it without feeling any attraction to it. I saw it like a wink in the eternity of life. I discovered myself as being eternal, or rather, I rediscovered myself, I remembered what I was before this life: what I was in this moment: a spirit, a being, an existence. I saw the spirits which shared this room with me and I felt an affinity with them. More precisely, I had the impression of having a "family" bond, in spite of our different existences, perhaps because of the way in which I was welcomed, perhaps because we share in our nature an essential similarity. I felt concerned about the knowledge that they had as much as I thought they did. I thus took my place as a student eager to learn. It was also this that I had come to seek if death or madness were not to carry me away.

I had thus undergone a "demise" but I had not "truly" died. I opened my eyes and I was here, but at the same time, I was over there. By closing them again, I could re-enter this world. I could hear Norma sing or whistle, but simultaneously I was in presence of other beings which appeared like indistinct columns of fog, at the back of which were images which they used to speak to me. I asked Norma during a pause (in reality or in my imagination, I do not know any more): "May I ask questions?" -"Yes, Merlin, yes!" she answered, as if it were obvious. And that is what I did with the greatest enthusiasm and joy. I posed a question, or rather, my spirit started to raise questions without even passing through an intermediate formulation. One could simply call this thinking, but it was with a very precise intention that the thought was articulated, and there was a being to which the questions were put. These questions focused specifically on the nature of life and death, on the nature of spirits, and in particular Ayahuasca and its relationship to the form of the serpent. We conversed for several hours, and it is impossible to return to or perhaps even to remember the contents of our "conversation". But the general structure of our discussion articulated itself in the following way: I posed a question, and in a flash, a giant screen appeared in front of me and I found myself immersed in explanatory images, or my intention could be fixed on a specific question or continue the conversation about a certain subject. It was thus that, posing a question about the life and death, I found myself propelled into the jungle. This felt like an invitation, and I felt enormous gratitude, as if Ayahuasca said to me: "Come to my home, I will show you something marvelous." In this jungle, I saw thousands of insects glowing in the night as if they shone with an energy invisible to the naked eye. They were dying and were born again almost in a matter of seconds, although time was only of relative importance; we also, human beings, die "like flies". It is only to us that life appears long or short, but this duration is of no importance. Moreover, it is not they who appeared to be born and to die, but rather this shining force which seemed to turn in circles or swirls: entering into matter, creating infinitely complex, evolved and beautiful forms, then returning to the formless while continuing on its spiraling way. It seemed to have no end. This life force looked without creative limits, adapting to its continuously changing milieu, endowed with an inspiration surpassing our craziest imagination - the mother of all life form on earth.

I remember other images while speaking with this spirit that I have often seen in the form of a snake. I wondered: "But how do you know so many things?" The snake spoke to me about itself, showed me the way in which it acquired its knowledge, in animal form. I understood what it said to me. It often appeared to me in various snake forms, generally green (of various hues) or with a little brown. This was not the constrictor snake that squeezed my bowels during the vomiting; rather, it appeared like a fine snake whose teeth however I never saw. By its attitude, its stature, its measured slowness and its capacity as an observer, it spoke to me about its attitude with respect to knowledge, about the acquisition of knowledge. It revealed itself to me as being more of a teacher than a healer. I asked it: "Where does your knowledge come from?" but this question was like diving into the depths of eternity. I was expecting some secret thing of which I would finally solve the enigma. The snake suggested to me another thing of greater importance than the question I posed: it is not Man who acquires knowledge and becomes its jealous guardian. It is knowledge which uses us as living means of being transmitted, as means of living. This sentence could be refined further: knowledge is a living being of its own type which creates and is created by the forms or the states which it traverses. It is not confined to accumulated intellectual knowledge; it is also a way of being. Among the beings which carry it and transmit it, that we here call "teachers", there are various, vegetable, animal, and human forms, and those not always confined to what we perceive with our senses. "This is what I am:" Ayahuasca seemed to say, "plant here, animal there and much more."

Inside that ethereal space I found myself, perhaps an hour or more after the discussion with the snake, I perceived that the other being was a teacher too, but of another kind. I allow myself here to cross the borders of the improbable and unbelievable or at least of the speculative, but I dare mention it all the same: the other being presented itself, when my curiosity questioned it, in the form of a being having lived one (or several) human lives and which currently lived in this space where it devoted its time to research a kind of perfect equilibrium which, without the contingencies of the human condition, was equivalent to a delicate game mixing patience with the management of harmony between the subtle "spiritual" forces in order to reach a state of silence resulting in an incredible absence and presence of its being. I understood that what that being was, was only important for me by the example this image gave me to understand another side of the implications of the Knowledge I relentlessly questioned the spirits about. It showed me that Knowledge is less the accumulation of knowledge than the capacity to create in oneself a favorable state or conditions which allow the living and dynamic Knowledge to incarnate in oneself. Once this state was attained, Knowledge could flow as if through a tunnel. He explained to me, through the image of Illumination, that Knowledge had a cyclical aspect and that in order to "connect" with it, or to arrive to a kind of satori, it was necessary to cultivate this state of receptivity in the most constant possible way, and when the conditions were good, both physiological and psychological, that is to say internal and external, Knowledge could at the time when all the conditions were suitable, incarnate and live through us in this plane.

These two entities, the snake and the discarnate man, spoke mainly about knowledge, which was the subject of my thoughts (or our discussion) the whole night, with life and death at the beginning. Perhaps these two beings were the same and my spirit differentiated them because the imagery they presented to me was completely different: animal and plant at first, then human, psychological, and spiritual. The second spirit suggested to me many ways of remaining close to this knowledge and of cultivating it by aesthetics, by more or less Zen-like practices whose details were adapted to my life. These images were like advice on how to remain connected to that which is forgotten like a dream. In other words, they told me how to realize the dream in a form such that the dream continues to coexist with matter and form harmoniously. All these images were accompanied by a feeling of poetic ecstasy, as if I could by making them, by daring to make them, help create harmony while causing blossoms of "Ayahuasqan" inspiration to emerge in my life. I felt a flowering in my life. I saw myself doing things which were inspired by this being. I also saw myself as a different being, from another age, with a tattoo of a snake on my back, my hair almost white, very long... I prefer to conceal the remainder.

In spite their extreme length - they lasted until morning - I am not certain of what exactly these visions wanted to tell me. I think that they were inspiring and reflected an ideal state towards which I tended, as much physically as symbolically. It seems to me, while remembering these visions, that the being that I am, which I was and will be, are but one, although at this moment and this present spatio-temporal juncture, I am the being that I appear to be. In much of what the second spirit showed me, I recognized a lot of myself, of my ideals, as if all that, and perhaps also all that the snake had shown me, could have been a projection of my own self. It's an interesting idea. Ayahuasca thus would have only made it possible for inspiring projections to manifest themselves in visions under forms sometimes strongly influenced by the visual distortions of the chemical (I do not project the waves of colors though, I assure you). My mind began to think after a while that Ayahuasca had done "only that". But this formulation appeared to me curiously demeaning. However, this small "that" appeared to me worthy of the greatest recognition on my part. I also thought of the work of Norma as a "Shaman" or curandera, in respect to her companionship, as a singer, organizing and taking care of external aspects (the logistics, the ceremony) and the internal aspects (my mind). Once again, I said to myself, this is "only that". My awakening betrayed what appeared as an enormous ignorance on my part; an ignorance which obliterated what that "that" actually represented, in terms of integrating oneself in society, of the effort (or sometimes the combat) to manage all these things which have to be created into the framework of society. Norma had to build herself, build her world, build her clinic, and work all the time to realize that particular dream of being the assistant of the Spirits and the Divine, of being one of them, a helper of her human brothers and sisters. Without making an apology for or explanation of shamanism, I would like to stress that I understood the modesty of this work, its fragility, its beauty, and its human sides, psychically and spiritually difficult, sides which did not appear to my eyes at first. Ayahuasca made a de Gauss effect on me like it does on a screen, it shook the dirt from the filthy tree I was. That hurt. My spirit was twisted left and right, from hot to cold, from good to bad, and it was restored, but healthy, clean, ready to flower. In a similar vein, the diet seemed necessary to weaken, that is to say to soften the tree, to make it more flexible and more malleable. Here I'm feeling like Ayahuasca were talking through me :). Finally, it's "only that" (with a mind confusing complexity, when you witness it from the inside, though), and yet my anxiety attacks have disappeared, flown away. I now feel inspired, happy, and ready to live. (It's been six months now, as I am proof reading this English translation of my native tongue, and I still feel like I have never felt such a sweet taste to life, filled with what seems to me a real power to taste and feel. My sensitivity is much greater and my senses are open to see even the slightest change or hue in anything. I have more power to say yes or no to what does or doesn't feel like what I need. I feel more confident in whatever will happen because I seem to have certitude of a good resolution for everything… even the end of the world, if such thing has to happen :).

Ayahuasca revealed to me, or pointed out - in the sense that Plato conceived of knowledge - what I was, what was my status here, what I wanted to become, and how I could get myself there. It unblocked my arteries and allowed my sap to circulate throughout all the parts of my being... allowing me to attain mysteries otherwise inaccessible to the normal means of knowledge acquisition available in my society.

Whatever the means of interpreting the effects of Ayahuasca, and the manner of objectifying them to render them intelligible to our usual means of perception (mind), they still remain very tangible: in simple terms, Ayahuasca, perhaps thanks to all by which it is surrounded, - the shaman and all that she did - simply works.

I'm aware of the fact that I'm not giving a complete conclusion to all that happened during my experience and that I'm also reducing or minimizing the effects of Ayahuasca to what can be objectivated: the results on my health. As a word of conclusion to that theoretical analysis of my experience, I would like to say that I perceived the latter as a real encounter with otherworldly beings taking time to talk to me, revealing me my true nature and the nature of the world. In that perspective, my healing has only been a part of the effect and a natural consequence of rehabilitation into harmony. It felt much more as a mystical experience than a healing allowing me to get back to my old reality. It even felt as if my illness was a good occasion to go deeper into what healing really means in terms of personal realization. So… I'd like hereby once again express my gratitude towards Norma's long and difficult life of dedication to the re-equilibrating spirits of the forest and to the Divine.

The next morning:

I had not been able to sleep during the night, filled, as I was, with enthusiasm by the visions inspired by Ayahuasca. When my wife and Norma awoke, the latter said that it is not good to go without sleep. "I'm going to make you sleep!" she added laconically while leaving the hut to prepare something. On returning five minutes later, Norma held a cup containing an infusion in her hand. She held it out to me, sitting in front of me on a wood block with her shacapa and told me to drink. I recognized the infusion as being lemon grass. Norma agreed on a remark my wife made. Then she started to sing.

At the moment she said she was going to make me sleep, I felt I was in a strange situation. I didn't know what to think about this situation. Was she really going to succeed? ... against my will? I wasn't really against it, but I knew myself: I had never succeeded in sleeping after Ayahuasca until late in the morning. I feared that in spite of the herbal tea and the magical icaros, I wouldn't sleep, especially in the state of tension resulting from this idea.

Sitting in front of Norma, I drank the infusion, closed my eyes and listened to the song while waiting for something to happen. After some time, Norma stopped, gave me a little water in the cup, told me to drink it and to stretch out. I did so and continued to listen to the icaros. All of a sudden, I noticed that my body was relaxed. I felt a soft environment of restfulness. I was suddenly surprised by a nostalgic and pleasant emotion: I felt her icaros as lullabies... it had been thirty years since anyone sang me lullabies. It is the last thing which I remember having thought.

When I reopened my eyes, my wife was entering the hut with a plate of fruit in one hand and some papaya juice in the other. Norma wasn't there. I was astonished! How long had I slept? These and other questions we discussed with smiles while appreciating the juicy quality of the fruits which did such so much good to our emptied bodies. Later in the morning, we returned to the other hut and discussed with Norma various subjects related to what we had experienced.

This is how my first experience happened, although there were things I obviously couldn't include in this report. Much of personal stuff would not be of interest. There were also things that are not meant to be said in this lifetime, seeming so strange to our minds, although feeling so real, that the idea of extraterrestrials would only be a banal subject compared to those other things.

That first session was followed by two others with Norma. Both of them were different from the first, which was also the strongest and the more chaotic. Norma told us after the first that the others would be different because our body needed to be adjusted first. The second and third sessions were centered around questions about shamanism I had carried with me for a long time. I still purged and evacuated what had to be cleaned and felt it like a continuation of the first time, but my mind was brought to other spheres and was shown different things, mainly about animal spirits and the ways to call, to speak to them, to keep in touch with them, to have a relationship with them, what it all meant and how it should be considered and done. Ayahuasca showed me how to prepare myself for drinking in my European environment. It told me mainly: don’t bother writing reports about each experience you have. Just drink, drink, drink; that's how I'm going to teach you, that's how you are going to learn. What I have learnt with Norma, and that’s what I have come to look for in Peru, was precisely that: how I could continue my way of knowledge through drinking Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca told me: I'll be your teacher if you have none human. I know the way it teaches is not very easy and requires much attention. I know the things it teaches are not fitted to be expressed in our human words. Nonetheless, everything that I received in Peru, I'm using right now while preparing the drink, singing and going deeper into learning. My senses tell me what to do when in an inexpressible way. Every time I drink, I learn little things, little by little. I'm happy about it. I'm happy.

Gracias Norma, Gracias Ayahuasca to have helped me get back on my way.

Thank you to Alan too and to his wife Mariella, who helped me reach those helping "spirits", facilitating all the details that can sometimes make a trip "edgy". Thank you for having kept my little son during the sessions and for having been so kind with us all. Thank you.

If you have questions, you can contact me at the Ayahuasca Forums: http://forums.ayahuasca.com, I help moderate there as LilMerlin.