How to Change Your Mind

now hollowed-out trees in which my parents appeared to me, liable to
topple in the next windstorm. Or the inky well of Yo-Yo Ma’s cello,
resonating with Bach’s warm embrace of death. But there is one other
image I haven’t shared that I keep thinking must contain some important
teaching, even as it continues to mystify me.
My last psychedelic journey was on ayahuasca. I was invited to join a
circle of women who gather every three or four months to work with a
legendary guide, a woman in her eighties who had trained under Leo Zeff.
(She in turn had trained Mary, the woman who guided my psilocybin
journey.) This journey was different from the others in that it took place
in the company of a dozen other travelers, all of them strangers to me.
Befitting this particular psychedelic, which is a tea brewed from two
Amazonian plants (one a vine, the other a leaf), there was a considerable
amount of ceremony in the shamanic mode: the singing of traditional
icaros, prayers and invocations to “the grandmother” (a.k.a. the “plant
teacher” or ayahuasca), bells and rattles and shakapas, and the blowing
on us of various scents and smokes. All of which contributed to a mood of
deep mystery and a suspension of disbelief that was especially welcome,
inasmuch as we were in a yoga studio a long way from any jungle.
As has been the case with all of my journeys, the night before had been
sleepless, as part of me worked to convince the rest of me not to do this
crazy thing. That part was of course my ego, which before every trip has
fought the threat to its integrity with ferocity and ingenuity, planting
doubts and scenarios of disaster I had trouble batting away. What about
your heart, pal? You could die! What if you lose your lunch or, even
worse, your shit?! And what if “the grandmother” dredges up some
childhood trauma? Do you really want to lose it among these strangers?
These women? (Part of the power of the ego flows from its command of
one’s rational faculties.) By the time I arrived for the circle, I was a
nervous wreck, assailed by second and third thoughts as to the wisdom of
what I was about to do.
But, as has happened every time, as soon as I swallowed the medicine
and slipped past the point of no return, the voice of doubt went quiet and
I surrendered to whatever was in store. Which was not unlike my other
psychedelic experiences, with a couple of notable exceptions. Perhaps
because the tea, which was viscous and acrid and unexpectedly sweet,
makes its alien presence felt in your stomach and intestines, ayahuasca is