Original publication: September 1999.
AYAHUASCA CEREMONY IN THE AMAZON
BY ALBERTO RUZ BUENFIL
Presenting another installment in the continuing saga of the Rainbow Peace Caravan as it travels towards the tip of South America, meeting with tribal elders and sharing care monies with every community it encounters. Here, in the heart of the Amazon jungle, the Caravanistas are inducted into the mysterious world of a potent hallucinogen, ayahuasca.
“Mestre Asplingler invites the Caravan to a ‘oasca sessau’ in his house this weekend. We are meeting Friday afternoon, bring your hammocks and get ready for a long journey.” With these words. French-Italian photographer Leo Principe, also known as Prince of the Amazon forest or the lost son of Tarzan, let me know we were being admitted to a secret ritual.
Oasca. or ayahuasca (from the Quechua word ayosca) as it’s better known in the world, is a tea made from two powerful psychotropic plants, mariri (banisteriopsis caapi) and chacrona (psychotria viridis). It’s used traditionally by several tribes from the Peruvian, Colombian and Brazilian Amazonian tropical forests for medical and spiritual purposes.
When we arrived at Mestre Asplingler’s humble house, we were led to the “temple.” a wooden structure with a large cardboard roof. A dozen people of different ages, mostly men, were busy preparing the tea. A pile of plastic sacks contained the reddish vines of mariri: another, the green fresh leaves of chacrona.
We integrated into teams and started brushing the dirt from the vines and cleaning the leaves, while four people began banging the wet vines with heavy wooden mallets, breaking them into threads which were mixed by the Mestre in two 20-gallon pots filled with boiling water.
Three enormous piles of wood were fed to the fires day and night, reducing each pot to less than one gallon of concentrated oasca tea. By the end of the three-day ceremony, we had 40 gallons that were reboiled and reduced to 10 gallons of potent healing substance.
“Who’s the guy in the picture?” I ask Leo. pointing to a banner with three symbols, a sun, a half moon and a five-pointed star, and three words: “Light, Peace and Love.” Beside the portrait of a hard-faced, lean Brazilian peasant, a caboclo in the middle of the jungle. “He is Mestre Gabriel, the founder of the UDV. He was originally from Feira de Santana, a small village of Bahia.
“After drinking the vegetal for one year, in 1962 he got the idea to do a session with eleven other people, to learn more about the mysteries of nature and the origins of life, in a place near the Bolivian-Brazilian border, in the state of Rondonia. And from that day on, they discovered the possibility to access other spiritual dimensions and harmonize with the flow of existence.”
According to their lore, Mestre Gabriel (born Jose Gabrel da Costa in 1922, in the barrio of Corazón de Maria) was a poor and almost illiterate caboclo who came to the Amazon in the early ’60s to try to make his fortune as part of the “Rubber Army” of seringueiros (rubber tappers).
Like many other seringueiros, he got introduced to the use of oasca. the “cinema of the indios” as they call it. In 1964 he had the realization he was a reincarnation of the Biblical King Solomon, and he created the Spiritual Center of Beneficiencia de la Uniao do Vegetal (UDV), setting up rules and principles for a new religion which synthesized Christianity, spiritualism (derived from Alain Cardec’s philosophy) and indigenous traditional knowledge.
“May God guide us in the path of light, forever and ever, Amen Jesus.” said Mestre Asplingler after giving each one of us a cup filled with the brownish juice. “So be it!!” repeated the chorus, taking it all the way to the bottom in one drink. Most people eased the bitter taste with orange or mint candies. Silently we all took a seat as in a movie house, facing the Mestre and his corps of instructors and counselors. who acted as keepers and guides of our collective inner journey.
In the beginning the whole session was regulated by the “chamadas.” or mantras. Most were handed down by Mestre Gabriel until his death in 1971. and are now memorized and passed on to followers. Nothing is written.
In my chair, eyes closed. I was suddenly hit by the stereo sound of a CD, and in that moment the oasca transported me into a kaleidoscope with changing forms and colors that seemed to be taken from the jungle. Serpents, jaguars, vines, rivers, gigantic trees, butterflies, birds, orchids, face paintings. Amazonian Indians, feathers, weapons and tools; these are the “enchantments,” the visions of heavens, oceans, mountains, the higher forces of the universe. the sounds of thousands of quenas. Indian flutes from Machu Picchu and Tiahuanaco.
I opened my eyes but could not focus. We were glued to our seats, dissolving out of our bodies.
The music changed, and I recognized the voice of Mestre Asplingler doing one of his “chamadas.” My mind began playing tricks, misleading me and taking me deep into a dark abyss.
Bloody images of accidents, doctors around a body, fatal wounds, a heart hardly pumping… and suddenly I was convinced I was about to die. I wanted desperately to stop this film, to open my eyes… yes, no. I could not. I was sweating, a bitter taste in my mouth, and ready to throw up. I heard other people throwing up in the corridors and in the garden, and I felt my stomach churning. I may shit in my pants now… I need to take control of my thoughts… I take air in, oxygen into my brain, I am OK, this is just a bad trip. I am out of it.
The music changed and I was now somewhere else, contemplating my future life: the Caravan on a large barge, under a magnificent tent, cruising the Black River up to the Colombian Andes. Yes, it is a fantastic Rainbow Circus… I see my children around me, my best friends, all my previous lovers. I am surrounded by love, creativity, harmony. These are my highest values, and I live for them: service, faith, peace. Nature is our mother and she takes care of us. A feeling of joy pervaded the “temple.” We were blissed, smiles, beauty in our faces. I watched the Mestre and he grinned. He knows and I knew he knew.
In other temples they use the music that Mestre Gabriel had in his sessions: Country cowboy and seringueiro Brazilian radio music from the Northwest. It’s OK for a while but it can get boring when tripping.
Now they use Tomita, Vangelis.
Pink Floyd. Giorgio Moroder and even Sacred Spirit. North and South American Indian music.
“Do you have light, do you have burracheira?” It is the voice of Mestre Asplingler. ‘Yes, I have it.”
I said. He went to the next person: “Do you have burracheira?” “No. I don’t have it yet.”
Now I understood. The vegetal rids preconceptions and prejudices. It is a cleanser of bad thoughts, dissolver of ego, vanity, false pride, all kinds of negative feelings towards ourselves or others. Its power can be gentle but also heavy, depending on what the force finds inside you. When facing fear, resistance or guilt, vomit results as a purification. Otherwise, if your consciousness is quiet, it helps focus one to see where energy may be blocked. It offers the clues on how to live and heal yourself afterwards. Power plants are great old teachers.
Exactly four hours after we took the oasca, the effects began to fade. A session of questions followed, and the Mestre or his helpers answered in a state of semi-trance. Time to give thanks, show humility, ask for forgiveness or pay respect. It was midnight. The fire kept roaring, the pots boiling, the yellowish foam from the brew was scooped from dark impurities, nobody slept. There was laughter and talking in small circles. This was just the first night, with two more to follow before the end of the initiation. We were just beginning to learn the magic ways of the South.
