ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME
“Turn your magic on, to me she’d say,
Everything you want is a dream away,
We are legends, every day,
That what she told *me”
COLDPLAY
It’s natural to reflect on the year past on this day. A year that seemed to carry more heaviness than any other in my lifetime. The things is, I am not talking about the advent of COVID, I am talking about my internal journey that has deeply changed me or I guess brought me back to my true authenticity.
I have realized that you can’t get back to the light in your soul until you delve and deign to walk in your own shadow. It’s a powerful lesson that was brought to me by the Madre of Ayahuasca. I had been flittering around the last couple of years with the idea of attending a sacred ceremony and when the universe aligned and an opportunity presented itself, I had to commit. It was the last-ditch effort I had to save myself. Years of talk therapy, CBT, EMDR, EFT, Hypnotherapy, medication — none seemed to have a lasting effect and I was at my wit’s end trying to find something to help me move out of deep anger, rage, and grief so I could truly rid myself of the demons that no longer served me.
To say that I was a complete and total mess prior to this ceremony is a massive understatement. My inner critic Mildred was now an orchestra of doubt, unworthiness, vitriol and darkness. No pills to quell her voice, no skills or tools to dig into to just shut her up, she was working overtime to destroy any semblance of self-love and compassion in me and her dark energy was powerful. She stripped me of nature’s greatest gift to me — my voice, my inner truth, my gut instinct and I could no longer see a way out. She was my ultimate betrayer. And now, she had me right where she wanted me. No strength to fight any longer, no will to live in such a dark, evil space any longer.
They say to trust in the timing of the divine, and that I guess was my first lesson. Had this healing retreat been pushed out by a week, or cancelled on account of COVID (this was early days and we hadn’t even registered our first case yet) I can’t even begin to imagine the acceleration of what this unstable space would have led to. My shaman had to bolster me prior to going into the ceremony with valerian root, essential oils, and a micro-dose of the grandfather medicine. Whilst this managed to assuage temporarily the inner shakes and anxiety in my system, I was broken.
I arrived at the airport seeing many faces I recognized, but my cup was empty. I couldn’t engage on any level with anyone and stood outside smoking my lungs out feeling profound fear, anticipation of what this retreat would hold, cavernous sadness, and a grim future. Prior to going into a retreat like this, it is vital to be clear on your intention. Mine changed over and over and finally I realized that all I wanted, all I needed, was to be able to see a miniscule of light that lived within me. A tiny element of some goodness to hold onto and expand. To push past the dark, black, heavy smoke and see something worthy. I stayed away from any conversations that would further add to my dismay and just spent time alone before we went into our briefing. A big part of this retreat is for us to come into a sacred space of trust and no judgement and to share with everyone our intent and our experiences. I listened to each and every one of these people from varied backgrounds, tell their version of their stories in awe. Trepidation amongst us all as revealing this much about ourselves so quickly felt too vulnerable. I had no more to lose. I could barely get the words out amid my sobs, and the shaking that had consumed my body. We had barely started and I was emotionally spent.
Working with plant medicine is a ceremonial experience. It was reminiscent of all the satsungs my mother had taken to me as a young girl. The room laid out with men and women separately, a mandala of rice, candles and flowers in the centre of the circle, an alter with familiar deities, prayer music with lyrics I could sing by heart, and a deep reverence for the experience. As I sat there, dressed in white, I kept thinking to myself, why had I pushed away my mother’s belief’s so callously? I was sitting in an identical format here — wanting exactly what she wanted — to connect to the God that lived inside us. To connect with the light. To bathe in God’s love. I had rejected it so many times — and now realise it’s because it didn’t come in this package. In this language of the universe, of connectedness and yet it wasn’t just similar — it was exactly the same. Wrapped in rituals that I detested because I -for 44 years believed that I could intellectualize God’s love. Laugh out loud. Go on — I did. All these acts, the ones that my mother had laid out for me — were faith based and required trust. Trust that the universe has your back, trust that you can manifest all the good, trust that every obstacle is a gift. My class A university education had failed me. It pushed me so far into my intellect to strive for that career, and yet neglected the real skills needed to navigate life. Love. Self-love, God’s love, a mother’s love — all the loves you can name.
As I sit in line waiting to drink my first cup of the thick, dark medicine that has been brewed to perfection, much like the prasaad one receives in temple, I realized that my gag reflex would probably expel the medicine before it could take its time to work. I sat with my eyes closed and delved into the last of my reserves to ask whoever may be listening to just let me open my gullet and swallow. I can’t tell you what it tasted like, it was thick, hard to swallow and stayed in my throat a long time. My determination to just get on with it was fueled by the fact that this was my last chance to access the light. The medicine started to make its way to every cell in my being and the music that was sung was angelic and it was like listening to the concert of my soul. It was calming, no mad rush to get to the hard stuff, almost like luring you into some false sense of security and then she came. Mildred. Haunting my thoughts with guttural laughter at the absurdity of trying to rid her of me, mocking my efforts, she brought friends this time — all the inner critics of the people in the room — sitting around a table sipping wine and laughing at their boss’s ridiculousness. So, I murdered her. Yes, you heard right. I stabbed her to death. It was like any horrific scene you have witnessed in some Hollywood tragedy. Blood and guts and multiple stab wounds. The maniac eyes, my eyes looked on with no remorse. Much like the sociopath’s you just can’t seem to understand. Motives, intentions and the why’s of a senseless killing all be damned. Her blood spewed all over the pristine whiteness of the room. All I felt in that moment was freedom. I lay down and for the first time in a long time — I slept — peacefully. She fought back, clawed at me, her vitriol vomiting all over the room but I summoned the strength to kill the one person that had been my best friend since I was 8. 36 years of what I believed was my truth. 36 years of what I believed was my voice. It was gone — in one night.
The next night I saw laughter, light, joy, and love. I wanted to keep drinking in this magic because as the Grandmother spoke to me in a voice so loving I wanted to stay in her safety. It was mystical, wonderous and a mere glimpse into what life could like without holding onto trauma. My eyes were open this night, unlike the first one when everything I saw was reflected in my closed eyelids. This time the pulse of the room, the energy of love pervaded. Everything made me smile. Then it went dark. What the hell happened? I was rid of her — she’s dead and there is no way for her to come back and haunt me. To truly be rid of her — I needed to have her funeral. I was dressed in white as per tradition, I was surrounded by friends who would comfort me in my mourning, the sacred fire was burning ablaze outside with an alter set-up in respect to all our ancestors. It was the opportune moment. I kept fighting it. It felt like hours of me pushing back and trying to hold onto the laughter but I acquiesced. I plucked flowers from the room around me, and with the help of one of our guides, performed death rituals befitting of a king. I cried. And I cried. And I cried. The way one cries from wounds that are so deep you don’t even recognize the voice any more. It is wild, crazy and painful. Grief overwhelmed me and as the circle closed that morning, I took each and every one of those petals — stood in front of my ancestors and begged them to release me of things that no longer served me or my family. I don’t want patterns and cycles repeated. I want Mildred to be birthed again in love — if she was ever to incarnate again. And as I lowered each petal into the fire I mourned her.
The grandmother medicine had worked — for me. The trauma’s that came with holding on so tightly to Mildred had been released with love and it was in that moment that I realized that the only thing that would kill her was love. It was the only thing that would de-oxygenate hate. And lastly — it was to forgive her. Forgive myself.
The new day dawned with the balance of now accessing the grandfather medicine. Balance across the masculine and feminine energies. This medicine was lighter in consistency and required one to sit in nature and meditate on your own for 3 hours. This day, from the moment I awoke — had been shrouded in thoughts about my older son, Keyaan. Wanting to send him high vibrational healing energies and to release myself from heavy guilt I had been carrying about all the things I could have done better as his mama. The grandfather medicine had a lighter energy and dropped me into my inner child quite quickly. Staring across a lake, shielded from the sunlight under the cover of the magnificent trees. The 8-year-old little Rakhee girl had experienced trauma — and she needed to be loved by me. I forgave the people that had perpetrated their evils with such love, but working on letting her off the hook in what I saw as her complicities was a lot of harder. It still is and it’s why I talk about her in the third person. She has yet to be integrated back into my heart. Her foolishness is still something I am processing and I hope as I continue on this healing path, I will one day — let her back in and love her. After our 3 hours, we stayed in silence but somehow all dropped into the innocence of childhood. A playfulness emerged and laughter twinkled in all our eyes. The heavy emotional work we had done as a collective over the last few days had dissipated and, in its place, — love.
I played with one of my childhood friends in the way I think she and I wished our friendship had been. We had talked multiple times about trying to fix what each of us thought was broken to no avail. This playing without words, started to heal the wounds each of us carried and it felt like a rebirth.
I had been in a lot of physical pain this day. I hadn’t had a period in 3 months and somehow, I just knew that it was coming. I had popped medicine, tried more oils, and nothing shifted the cramping. I was worried I would lose out on the day’s lesson’s because it was blinding — this pain. Time is a strange concept when you are in a retreat like this — so what felt like a few hours later — we went into a sound healing. I lay down, my faced crumpled with wrinkles as I tried to breathe through the pain. As the music and meditation reached it crescendo, my pain seemed to flow to its rhythm. The grandfather medicine pushed aside all thoughts of the pain as I gave birth to Keyaan all over again. Naturally. His birth had been a planned C-section and breastfeeding without a nipple protector had seemed absurd to me. I birthed him, held him, connected with him and breast fed him and the moment he came through that birth canal — my pain stopped. I had gotten a do-over. The best kind. The best gift and all the tears of joy I couldn’t cry when I had physically birthed him flowed and so did my period.
As I pondered all the lessons I had learned through this beautiful retreat, it occurred to me that the natural cycle of death and birth were the most profound. There was so much more that I saw, felt and experienced that perhaps will require its own script another time — but the death of Mildred and the birth of Keyaan was monumental. It also occurred to me why I had pushed away all the things my mother had tried to show me on this path — it is encapsulated perfectly in a quote I read recently — “Religion is someone else’s experience, Spirituality is your own experience”
Since this magical retreat, I have immersed myself in so many more tools and skills to integrate all these lessons in my day-to-day life. We have access to so many things that can propel us forward and for me it is the equivalent of building my own personal toolbox — gathering the instruments I will need to depend on as life continues to throw us challenges. I haven’t achieved some sort of zen-like pinnacle. I stumble. I make mistakes. I act in ego. The difference now? The mindfulness I bring to it all. The awareness of being awake. I view all of it as the universe’s gift to me. The good, bad and the ugly. A mastery I am building to trust in the divine. To push myself to understand my triggers, my short-comings, my traumas and instead of belittling myself for my feelings — loving myself in spite of them.
They don’t lie when they tell you that a retreat with this medicine is the equivalent of 10 years of therapy in one night. It is hard work, to see ALL of yourself and love yourself anyway. It is grueling, painful, and requires an openness to truly witness your truth. It is absolutely as the lyric says “an adventure of a lifetime” — because now I believe that I am a legend, every day and that the magic has lived within me all along.
