Caterpillar to Butterfly
A Weekend with Ayahuasca
"A man has two lives, and the second begins when he realizes he only has one." —Confucius
Call it what you want… I’d call it caterpillar to butterfly. That’s exactly what this past week has felt like. Ayahuasca brought me to death, and gave me the gift of seeing life differently… By feeling it. Feeling it being taken away from me. Watching my identity being stripped away… bit by bit, until nothing was left of it.
But you know … the mystics speak of the observer behind the do-er. The athletes speak of flow state, where their mind and body unite as one. Eckhart Tolle spoke of “the observer”, where the point of awareness simply watches what plays out in life, and it is then the ego, that is… the “I” that makes stories around events, people and situations, and weaves compelling narratives around which we base our idea of self. We see through the lens of “I’m this person that does this thing, and therefore… X, Y and Z.” I see myself as this, therefore, I am that.
Am I a writer because I write? Is a lawyer a lawyer because they litigate the law in court?
These are things we do, not what we A R E.
So… yeah. Ayahuasca was a caterpillar to butterfly sort of experience.
I stepped in as the man who feared not what he was, but what he felt he couldn’t let go of…
Because, who would he be, then?
In the depth of the first night, I’d taken a bigger dose of medicine, and as reality dissolved, so too did “Jesse”. I grasped onto anything I could, fighting the inevitable pull towards death. It felt that way… It felt natural, too. The death of body and identity, yeah?
It was like me fighting to paddle against the raging waters of a monsoon-fueled river, with class 5 rapids barreling behind me.
Long-dormant memories of this life flashed before my eyes… This is what people must mean when “life flashes before their eyes”
I didn’t want to let go. I wasn’t ready to leave this place… not yet.
But… I’d fought enough. I accepted my fate, and …. L e t g o.
Peace washed over me. Body washed into the rapids I’d resisted and … like a cup of water poured into the ocean… I merged back with it all.
No differentiation between “I” and “Us”.
My experience of God, of all, of the Great Spirit … I felt it fully. Merged with it fully. Back to It.
Slowly… I came back to my senses. Jesse began to come back into his body, floating, still.
The first thing I could remember was feeling the grass under my hands as I pulled a blade from the Earth. “What IS this?”
For a few moments, I looked around and up to the stars, to the trees… and… I didn’t really understand where I was. I made my way to a chair by the campfire, and as I gripped the armrest of the Adirondack chair… I thought, “wow… I’m ALIVE”.
I’M ALIVE!
A great blessing. To be alive. To GET to live this life. To love, in the fullest expression beyond romance or family.
Unconditional love for all things.
And, that love expresses itself in different ways…
Love can look like setting boundaries around your time so you protect your clarity around serving your best interests. Not trying to pour from an empty cup.
This experience didn’t “kill” my ego… It put it into perspective.
I love this metaphor of a “cell in the body”. The cell serves an important purpose in nurturing life, carrying nutrients, fulfilling an action that fuels something greater than itself.
Maybe the cell is a brain cell, helping electrical signals travel between you and the many others. And so, information travels between them… and maybe, they’re not even remotely aware of how valuable it is that the electrical signals can travel, and thoughts can form and the person living as the greater body can experience thoughts and conscious reality … Because of that one brain cell. And the many.
That’s love. Love as service. Love as reciprocity, knowing you’ll be taken care of.
And in saying this, I deeply acknowledge the suffering in life. The bloody wars. The greed and control and malice and hate.
Stemming from division. From separation. Them and us. You and I.
People living in an amnesia of sorts, not remembering the people they attack and the boat they try to sink… are the boat we’re ALL on.
This experience illuminated a way back to truth, and now, it sits as a well-stoked fire in my center.
I honor your truth. Your way to God. Your humanity. Your process. Your wants and desires. Because… it is each of our unique journeys (and, I believe our right) to walk our own path through this life… Back home.
—J