“Dude, I stepped in purge last night”

My new roommate in my short-term living situation, an Airbnb in the town of Pisac, shuffled out of his room in the morning looking disheveled, donning pajamas and an alpaca hoodie from the local market, with a large hole ripped in the arm. He launched into a recounting of his Ayahuasca ceremony the evening before. 

Despite having the “strongest, and deepest journey of his life,” he was distressed that he had, on his way to the bathroom, accidentally stepped in the vomit, or ‘purge’ from another participant’s overturned bucket. Never mind having another’s bodily fluids on him, he was most worried about the transference of someone else’s negative energy, or demons, to him. 

Purging is a hallmark of Ayahuasca — a reality of the plant medicine‘s physiological effects, and an avenue by which an individual begins to rid his or herself of “that which no longer serves” him. At least that’s the belief here in Peru.

“What did I sign myself up for?” I pondered.

That afternoon I hiked to a creek, and found a spot on the sunlight dappled riverbank, birds chirping in the jungle canopy above. I sat on a rock with my shoes off, feet planted in the lush grass, feeling the cool blades on the pads of my feet, and the damp loam beneath. I began my daily meditation, and in the quiet space of my mind, a voice came to me with a stark reminder of why I had to leave my comfortable home in Boulder behind — the reason I’m here in Peru, seeking treatment from shamans and plant medicine:

This is what happens when you are broken. 

When, despite every privileged advantage you’ve been blessed with, your life lacks any sense of meaning. 

When your chosen career has been an utter failure, and you’ve been fired or burned out of every job you’ve ever held.

When every romantic partnership you’ve been in has crashed and burned, leaving deep and painful emotional scars.

And after all that, when the one thing you’re left clinging to is one of your best and closest friendships, when that too breaks apart. 

Only then — when there is nowhere else to look, no one around to console you, nowhere else to cast blame, or even assign a logical reason for the wake of sorrow in the rear view mirror of your life — only then

You look inside yourself and ask, tears streaming down your face, what is so wrong with me? 

DING. Tears were streaming down my face when I heard the chime signaling the end of my 15-minute meditation. 

No foul-tasting brew will come close to the bad taste left in my mouth from years of failed relationships and squandered opportunities. No amount of purging will match the discomfort I’ve felt in my own body my entire life. No demon or grotesque visualization will inflict the emotional pain I’ve internalized and transferred to others. 

I think. 

*This will be my last post before starting my retreat on Friday. I will be unplugging from social media and the digital world for at least 8-days while on retreat, and for an integration period of about a week afterward. Thank you all for the messages  and support from afar. I will do my best to respond in time, and look forward to sharing some of my experience with you all, on the other side

With love,
Jonathan