What if someone told you there was a magic wand – a wand powerful enough to soften your pain, to reassemble your broken hearts, and heal the pieces of your past. It might change the way you feel inside forever. But in order to touch the wand you have to go through a hell designed especially for you, by you – designed with the intention of shredding the fabric of being, your identity. Would you say yes? Would you be more afraid of finding yourself fist deep in Satan’s asshole, or on the other side of your suffering, free from excuses in the shape of pathologies that shade your light and prevent you from being fully present with love, intimacy, and vulnerability?
To be clear, there are never any promises. The wand was a maybe, with a spectrum of efficacy at best. I could hang my hat on a spectrum of maybe, much more easily than I could imagine myself being healed physically, mentally, and emotionally, spiritually all at once. I was also pretty sure my imagination would suffice for having me well-equipped to endure hell. I didn’t just say yes, I sought this medicine out. Before I had even used my first psychedelic there was mention of Iboga. I asked what it was. The description, a roughly 36-hour rolodex of our trauma that can be incredibly difficult and incredibly healing, had the words off my tongue before the description was finished, “I’m doing that”. There was no arm-twisting when about a year later, a very small group of friends (2) and I began planning a trip to Mexico for Ibogaine (the primary alkaloid of the 12 in iboga). It was practical access, 5 days being a long time to be away from my kids, but manageable. I also realize now; this was also the most nurturing and safe environment possible for this medicine. Being able to take confidence in the integrity of care and medical attention allowed me to believe at least one thing – I wasn’t going to die. Even if at some points I wanted to. So, I said yes – this medicine had captivated me from the word go, despite the reality that I had no idea what I was saying yes to.
I spent nearly two months with preparation for ibogaine as my primary focus. I wasn’t working much to give myself plenty of space for physical training, to be in the best physical condition possible. I was eating cleaner than I’d ever eaten. I limited supplements, alcohol, caffeine and was completely free of other substances. I started doing a yoga practice twice a day. Breathwork. I’d end every day with a lengthy meditation where I would count my breaths in and out to a 51/2 count through the nose in a continuous loop. I’d practice for no less than 20 minutes every night, and on other nights for an hour or more.
I tried to get sleep, though that had always been a challenge for me. I did lie awake on nights where I couldn’t sleep – motionless and without entertainment– no books or other distractions, just alone with my thoughts and breath counts.
The other piece of the work that I did included a complete and somewhat heart-breaking inventory of my life. I continued to journal throughout the day with any thoughts or feelings that seemed to be creeping up from beneath the surface of my awareness. I found some very disturbing undergrowth in this process and rather than wait to see what the medicine would do, I did my very best to tear it all out by the roots.
In the last three weeks before I left for Mexico, my life felt like it was falling completely apart. My relationship was fragile and floundering. I was cold and terse to friends, my partner, even my children. My frankness with myself had unveiled a secret self-loathing that had been hiding itself in the cloak of intelligence, righteousness, shallow ideals, and petty self-esteem and dopamine. These tools were all kept so close to my own chest that I didn’t even realize they were serving as my MO. You see, I knew they were despicable, so I would never show them. My mind would work tirelessly to intercept them, fake the desirable response, and gnaw for hours on the guilt and shame of my nasty thinking, how just absolutely separate I was from anyone else and that I couldn’t really be myself. I continued to isolate myself through days of weeping, depression, and on some days, suicidal thoughts.
Facing this cast of my internal family system characters in the mirror on a regular basis created a fair degree of breakdown that I saw as important. I could not imagine going into the medicine with any stone left unturned. I wanted no surprises. “I know I am a piece of shit, here’s my list.” Such an excavation, for me, was a fundamental component of my preparations. I was going in against myself, armed with my own shortcomings. It sounds backwards, but if the medicine holds the mirror – I might as well be naked when I show up.
Day 1, Medicine 1 – temezcal
We arrived at the beach side home, our driver maneuvering the big gray van into a snug spot on a steeply sloped street. It looked like we were parked at the edge of the world from my awkward view in the back seat. By the time we got out of the vehicle (there were five of us in total), we were surrounded by people plucking our bags from the back and leading us sweetly up the concrete front steps. I stepped inside the house. It was amazing – sprawling, spacious, and comfortable at the same time. My stomach in knots “Oh shit, I don’t belong here. I feel so out of place.” I felt ashamed to be standing next to the other 4. I didn’t belong in such a nice space. I was sure everyone could tell. I looked anxiously around to find a host of 10 personnel of chefs, medical staff, housekeeping, counselors, and therapists. They were all smiling, warm and proud. Our host introduced everyone, and the staff guided us to our rooms to help us unpack and get settled in.
The first meal was uncomfortable. I rarely ate food not prepared by myself, as my laundry list of food allergies and sensitivities insists. The staff set our places for us and cleaned up after us. My stomach in knots at the discomfort of not being the one doing the cleaning. I felt apologetic, awkward, and frankly pathetic. I was raw and ungrounded, though somewhat fortified by the fact that I was now only just one day away from turning myself over to the prophetic experience of this medicine.
After lunch, we circled with introductions and got changed for a long and bumpy ride across Tijuana to a homestead temezcal, tucked in the back of a tiny brick house. We were smudged with the most amazing smell I have ever smelled (white copal), a delicious smokey juniper scent, wafting in puffs up and around my chilly skin. A sweat lodge sounded good. I was freezing, as I so often tend to be. I was covered with goose bumps as our translator went over the process, purpose, and what to expect. Cleansing, healing, releasing relational misunderstandings, prayer, preparation.
Chanting, rattling, awkward offerings, prayers, howling, and a whole lot of hot steam later, my ears red and just the peak of my upper lip the slightest bit singed, we headed back. I could feel that I would sleep that night. Such a smart plan. Hard to sleep the night before medicine as it is, let alone this one. There was some talking after dinner, some medical work ups, IVs, then exhausted, we all headed to bed. I could hear snoring echoing through the halls before I even made it to my room.
Day 2, Ibogaine
The day started with blood and urine tests and a delicious breakfast. We had a group circle for more preparation. Then group breathwork to help prepare us for the evening. Time to rest for a couple of hours before meeting with the clinician one on one to talk through our hopes with the medicine. I could feel my edginess creeping out, feeling exposed and vulnerable while trying to say all the right things to seem like a “good patient”. The clinician was lovely; soothing and full of laughter. I felt held and about to crumble, which is probably just about perfect for this stage of the process.
Next, I went upstairs to get the best massage I have ever received. Painful and powerful. Then groggy with gratitude, I staggered downstairs as we all started to mill about in anticipation. Time for another IV.
8:00 came and we circled around a fire, tossing in what we hoped to leave behind, affirming what we hoped to receive. We made our remarks of gratitude and listened to the schedule of the next few steps until the medicine kicks in.
9:00 - the medicine. A bright red capsule, with the texture of cheap plastic, drops into my hand, shiny and soulless. I’m used to chewing on musty bits or sipping gritty brown mud broths. Disgusting, but natural and feeling close to earth and “sacred”. Swallowing a pill didn’t have the same mystic appeal. I know better, I know the medicine is the in there. I am just forced to admit that I like the earthy flare when I can get it.
The ceremony itself would take place in a room in front of a mirror, each set with a bouquet of a flowers, a candle, a little glass full of sand stuck with a feather, and rattle at the foot of each of our mats. We were instructed to be settled in the room on a mat by 10pm. I went immediately upstairs, knowing my own body’s tendency to feel medicine fast. I didn’t really know what to expect with its come up, but I didn’t want to be downstairs when it started. I entered the still and beautifully spooky space and began to dance freely to the music that was playing – thinking I would move my body until it was time to sit. The medical staff came in and attached our heart monitors, checked our place settings ensure a blanket, barf bucket, bottle of water. Ready.
I had no desire to sit in front of the mirror, despising my own reflection as I do, but it somehow felt harmless. I was relieved at having swallowed the pill and knowing that if anything was going to happen to me with this medicine, it would be happening soon. We were instructed to rattle and look at ourselves in the mirror until we saw something or until the medicine “told us to lie down”. I became warm and loose and tired around 10, as the facilitator walked by with a second dose. I wasn’t sure if this looseness was the medicine telling me to lie down, so I decided to just keep rattling. 15 minutes later, dose 3. My shoulders sank. My eyes strained. Nothing.
Slowly, subtly, my face began to shift – different faces, different expressions, no one I recognized, no one too different than me. “Who are they?” I asked inside my head. “Look for a pattern” came the response. Then it was clear – the faces were those of warriors. “Warrior?” my face flashed with black smudges all around my eyes, with white smears flashing on my nose and cheeks and chin. “I don’t like the term warrior for myself. This does not resonate with me.” A deeper voice this time, clearly spoke “you are not a warrior for yourself. You are a warrior for the people”. I wanted to ask what ‘for the people’ meant when the medicine said, “lie down!”. My body began to fold and collapse so fast that I could barely catch myself on the way down. As I was falling, the ataxia was setting in such that every increment of movement was excruciatingly uncomfortable. Not hurting so much as just viscerally wrong, nauseating, some strange sort of painless agony that feels impossible to describe. I remembered to move slowly and I regained some semblance of control of my organism for the last few seconds of the decent, and for the last time in the following 24 hours.
I pulled my eye shades down over my eyes and felt my heart immediately begin thumping in my chest, a disconcerting drum. My ears were absolutely roaring with a sound that had been previously described as “buzzing”, though it bore to me some innate familiarity, something I couldn’t quite place, and I felt almost crushed by it, comforting, captivating, and overwhelming at once. The sounds of the music playing, off beat and chaotic, seemed to fight with the buzzing for priority, and the illusory sound of throngs of people entering the room with laughter and conversation was bouncing off the walls.
The onset of the visuals began as soon as my blindfold was down – a circus-like masterpiece of precision and brilliance, of gore and delight. The chilling clatter of grinding metal gears, heavy and dangerous and powerful as the images got brighter and closer and faster. I saw carvings of wood, with its raw and rugged texture. Shimmering pearl and diamond designs, so pleasing to my eyes. Silken textiles, nailed to wooden turnstiles. Wheels on the turnstiles slopping through a muck made of mud and blood and slimes of indeterminable nature. A head on a string drops down, grinning crescents of teeth emerging in several directions, eyes bulging, skin sloughing off and barely held in place by wide, lazy stitching. So many feelings elicited at once, and no words for any of them. Just a rising tumult of attempts to get my bearings against this invasive consumption of my senses.
“Oh…so THIS is the medicine,” I thought. I took a deep breath. I spoke in my mind to the medicine. “I see you.” The cacophony and visuals softened, just a bit. Enough to help me see that perhaps there was truth to the stories of “talking to the medicine” and interacting with it. After all, it’s only me.
A merry-go-round of words and images, jaggedly etched into wood blocks began spinning at a dizzying rate. “Can you slow it down?” I asked. The movements became so slow, they were barely perceptible. I laughed a bit in my mind. “Oh, I see how this is, how about halfway in between?” The spinning resumed at a reasonable pace and my mind attempted to make sense of it. The voices and activity in the room began to center more around me. I saw men dancing over me –giant indigenous African men, leering and large. So many of them. They were flashing silhouettes but somehow still threatening. Small monkey-meets-spider-like creatures skittered about all over the place, menacing faces flashing back at me as they climbed walls and across the floor. I heard one man vomiting, and he staggered over to me and proceeded to vomit down on top of me, slapping his hands against the slime coming from his mouth to splash it down over my body and face. I could neither speak nor make move to fight it. I struggled to convince myself it was a figment, I swore I knew it wasn’t real, and yet, I could not make it stop, my insides clenching with frustration.
My mind became so taxed by my attempts to attend to everything, to make sense of the outside sounds and conversations. The music of offbeat rattles and drums and harps. Other sounds of chaos – radio transmissions, conversations, laughter. More vomit. The room seemed filled with even more activity. I felt and sensed people everywhere. I could hear conversations with clarity– people were making phone calls. Swearing. Shuffling feet, crowding around. The chaos was so overwhelming. A thought occurred to me, maybe I’m not supposed to be paying attention. Maybe the medicine wants me to ignore it all and go inside. A whisper in my ear, this one a voice I recognized “hey heather, do you want your 4th dose?”. I couldn’t move my body or my mouth to indicate confirmation. I finally found an ability to say “Yes”. I tried to sit up, an eager butterfly in a steel cocoon, every attempt met with a most cruel and astonishingly miserable reverberation. “Slow…go slow” he said. Oh yes, slow. #4 down the hatch. Me, back on my back, tied down by invisible and impossible binds.
I returned to a series of strange and non-sensical scenes. I was being cradled by a giant elder of sorts, he was to comfort me in this struggle. I was instructed to nurse on his breast. A small boy beside him chided me and laughed with him at my willingness. And I was oddly comforted. The man vanished and I was alone in an empty ceremony circle, lying helpless in the mud. I wanted more comfort. I stood and a woman appeared. A large-breasted full-figured woman. She smiled at me and began bouncing playfully – her massive breasts pinwheeling and colliding with edematous joie de vie. I spoke again to the medicine – “more”. Several more bouncing large breasted women appeared. “More” I said again with fervor this time. “MORE!” Suddenly I was surrounded and smashed up against by all these gloriously breasted women and I was swishing at the center like a car wash brush. I felt a blossom of gratitude in my chest, both due to the pleasure of being smothered by breasts and at the playful nature of this medicine again being made evident.
The women faded and the visuals became strange and non-descript. I could not make much sense of them. I opened my eyes and stared at the back of my mask. The surface turned to water, black and slick, rippling with the reflection of a thousand galaxies in perfect kaleidoscopic brilliance. I marveled at the intensity, clarity, and range of visual effects the medicine offered. I was fascinated. The visuals stopped and would only start again if I kept my eyes closed. Oh yes, okay. Back Inside. The pictures had become more intense, diverse, and even more detailed. How that was even possible, I don’t know. I continued to remark to myself or the medicine, I am not sure, “this is in my head. All these things, these visions, these details, these are coming from me!” How else could I see them if my brain could not conjure them. I had no idea my brain was capable of all this, I thought.
Then the images grew darker, bloodier, the floor of the dreamscape covered with a now more obvious miasma of mud, urine, blood, feces, and for some reason, mashed hamburger which I only later figured out. I found myself on a roller coaster cart, headed down over a twisting free fall “Nope! No roller coasters!” I shouted at the medicine. Just like that, the ride stopped. My stomach was churning a bit and waves of heat were coursing up and down my body. My ears were burning.
My daughters appeared with blurry ghost-like faces, floating in front of me, almost teasing. “No no, not yet. I will be with them, give me time. Not yet.”
The urge to vomit overtook me and I grabbed for my bin and dry heaved repeatedly over the unrequited bucket, the cool plastic lining fluttering against my skin. I was afraid to move, afraid to take all the time to lay back down only to have the feeling return. I stayed for several minutes, perched like a baby bird at the edge of its nest – fixed and afraid, hoping the bottom wouldn’t rise up.
I finally lost the strength to continue and slowly settled myself back in with the nausea in tow. I felt more churning. Movement, cramping. But not upward this time. Shooting pains down through my guts and cold sweats. “Oh shit.” I panicked. I raised my hand for help to the bathroom. I waited, no one saw. I waited longer, unsure of how long I had to make it. I panicked harder. Against all my good senses, I did the unthinkable and snapped my fingers to get attention. Soft hands against my forearm, “bathroom?” I gave a gentle nod.
After the harrowing wobble to the bathroom with two people assisting me, I was left alone over the toilet. I peered in to be sure the aim of my seat would be correct and up from the bowl rose a roiling green mess of bubbles and slime and feces and bugs, running in all directions. This would be my luck – I have no time to wait, this medicine is terrifying me, I’m going to shit my pants, and the toilet’s backed up! Oh, the medicine. I blinked and peered in again, the mess rose higher and began to pour onto the floor. This is a hallucination. “Oh, you’re funny” I thought. I willed myself to sit gingerly onto the seat, despite my instincts raging against sitting on an overflowing toilet. I waited while my burning stomach worked away on itself. A small whisp or air escaped and clearly…that was all that needed to happen. Hmph. I called out that I was “done”. And we made the slog back to my mat.
At this point, I was still in what I will call phase one of my experience. I had a series of male guides with playful but strong presence and personality. I never saw them, though I tried. I could hear them. Talking to me in cliché and obvious black character voices. In all medicines, my internal parts and voices are always black. As I watched the perpetual gruesome circus play on, I recognized some images repeating themselves. A large tractor, with boots for wheels, mashing a hamburger made of formed crushed asphalt, with the word HAMBURGER underneath it, into the muck. Over and over again. “what is this?” I asked.
Just then a commercial break. In a movie trailer announcer voice – “This experience brought to you by IBOGAINE!!” A large billboard with the word in brightly colored block letters flashed across my view. The humor of the medicine was more than I could have imagined. I decided to invite my friend Cassie in for a view of my experience. I somehow summoned her, and she was on my left side, in a blue and white polka dot shirt (something she would never wear) looking around with me. “I wanted you to see what the medicine was like.” She laughed, “Wait…what? (Her usual remark when something is extreme or surprising). This is awful. I’m so glad I didn’t come!” She laughed again and vanished.
Again, the hamburger mashed in front of me. My stomach lurched. “Eat more hamburger?” The image repeated itself but this time much larger and mashing the image deep into the muck so as to make it invisible. “Oh! No meat! No red meat? Stop eating red meat!” The image shrunk and popped like a balloon. “What else?” I asked. A cartoon drawing – a black glass of wine on a plain white sheet of paper. “Wine? I don’t drink wine. Oh…You mean whine?” I asked with a bit of attitude in my mental tone. “Haha! Who’s the smart one?” said the medicine, and an image of my face smashed up against a pane of glass with the word WHINE in wispy blue block lettering. A flash of a pale green iced drink with a salty rim and the word NO. on a white sticky note posted on its left. No more alcohol. Got it. A flash of each of my favorite drinks and the word NO. next to all of them. Over and over again until I felt the resignation land in my chest. What else? “No more heavy metal music”. “It’s harmless to me.” “No more,” the response was clear and strong. “I don’t understand that one, but fine. What else?” An image of my workout bottle, splashing full of icy orange drink. “No more chugging. Your drinks are a distraction. They are not part of your health. Just water and stop chugging to fill up. No more chugging!” Another sinking resignation.
There were 3 or 4 IBOGAINE! Commercials during this part of the journey. All the same – a random break-in with brilliant block letter signage and the announcer proclaiming, “brought to you by Ibogaine!!” I don’t know why I loved the commercials so much, but I really did.
Phase 2 – stillness. Another bout with the bucket, to no avail. I tried drinking some water to fill my belly, still no. Nausea it is then. Collapsing belly down on my pillow, legs splayed in awkward chalk outline fashion, right arm down by my side, left arm bent crooked up against my face, my nose against my shoulder, and everything stopped. In the crook of my left arm appeared a circle of fluttering pink feathers, like flower petals, flapping and blinking in turns. There was a sort of electronic, mechanical frame around the piece, with light up wires and a metal rim. Lights, in rows of two in a little block at the top of the device. The lights were lit up, some of them flashing. I didn’t quite know what to make of this position, nor this visual aspect. I waited. Nothing changed. A pressure came down on my face, pain biting in my neck, nausea climbing up the back of my throat. And the voice of the medicine– “you are going to be here for a VERY LONG TIME.”
I sighed. I knew that some people had blackout periods in their experience with this medicine. I had a plan for this. 5 ½ counts in, 5 ½ counts out, for as long as it takes. By my estimation, which could be absolutely worthless, it was probably about 2 am at this time. I lie there and counted breaths until long after the sun had come up and the staff had changed shifts.
At the time, I had no understanding of what this period of time may have been about. In retrospect, I think there were two things. One – I have had chronic neck pain for decades, and this very painful position seemed to have moved things such that the typical discomfort was gone and has not returned since. The other element, the flashing lights representing a gauge for tracking this process, was possibly an unwinding of my energy. So tightly wound, and always gripping, I needed an extended period of coming energetically undone.
It may have been 7am or so when I made a shift back to the bucket. The nausea was worse. My body had begun to produce a smell from my arm pits that was nothing like the typical earthy tang of sage and salt, more like stale cigarettes stored in an only moderately fresh vagina. The wafting up from my arms grasping the edges of the bowl would have seemed an ally under the circumstances. Anything to move the soul-crushing nausea along. All around me I heard an unholy chorus of rigorous vomiting, what sounded like whole bodies turning inside out and emptying. My dear friend on one side, with each retch my insides aching with the codependent pang of worry for her and the desperate hope that maybe it could inspire my own inside-outing. The two men on the other side of me, one after another, after another. So. Much. Vomit. A concept that is anathema to me by itself, the actual experience worse, but walking the line between shit hell nausea and relief is even less desirable. But no. I lie down in a heap with my face shoved into the bucket. If I puke, it’s in. I’m not moving again. I’m resigned to it. What’s next?
I had apparently been receiving an IV treatment, something I hadn’t really made note of when it was started. And now I had to pee. I raised my arm again. Waited, arm down, too tired. I remembered how long the trek to the bathroom took the last time and I really had to go. Hand up again, nothing. Snap snap, ugh, I feel like such a shit when I do that. It again took two people to help me, weak and disoriented, I floundered cumbersomely all over the place despite the careful and specific guidance I was being offered. It felt forever, and my legs softer and less reliable as I went, my bones had become rubber. We made it to the bathroom; I was too unstable to seat myself. The nurse, a true angel, hugged around my back with one strong arm while I held on to her shoulders. She pulled down my pants for me and then moved around front to hug beneath my rotten armpits and lower me gently onto the seat. She held me while I went. I could feel her energy while so close her. She was patient and loving and not at all phased by the shattering intimacy of this moment.
I thanked her and the other nurse sheepishly as they returned me to my mat. As she lay me down and settled me in so carefully, she adjusted the IV to its proper place and sat with me, holding my hand. I began to sob. It felt so good. The medicine spoke again, this time in a soft woman’s voice (yes, still black) “love yourself the way she (nurse) loves you”. Astrid’s illustration of dedication to my care became a tangible ACT of love that I could understand. I had been trying to understand the feeling of loving myself to no avail for my entire life, and ceaselessly berating myself for it. Now I understood, I needed to act different towards myself before I could feel differently. I felt a huge release of understanding and appreciation wash over my body, and wads of phlegm began to slide down the back of my sinus cavity and into my mouth. One by one, I spit them into my vomit bin as they made their parade out of whatever secret nightmare encampment they’d been maintaining. Astrid was unphased, she was still holding my hand.
Phase 3 – Discovery
The need for the nausea to maintain itself became evident in this phase. I also developed an ungodly ravenous hunger at the same time as the nausea – truly an inconceivable sensation. Both were acute and profound in and of their own right, and the combination of them was so absurdly ridiculous it would have been humorous if not for the fact that I felt like a had a belly of snakes, knotting and unknotting amongst themselves, slithering incessantly against my own internal slimes.
My hands rested lightly on my belly and prayed for protection against the impact of the sounds of gagging and wet splashing around me. (Note: only one person was vomiting, all of the raucous vomiting that I heard the whole time was not real.)
The visual space was open and expansive now, not the cramped, underworld feeling of my sludge-filled beginnings. The space was plain and muted, but open, nonetheless. From the upper left corner, a series of doors came dancing down like enchanted dishware in a Disney cartoon. The doors would dissolve into two images, and I knew from our discussions during preparation that this meant I was to make a choice about which one to follow, swiping left for no and right for yes. I found myself a bit excited to see if it would actually work. It did! I don’t remember all the options or the memories I was walked through. There were so many, some of them wounding, some of them testing me to see if I had really resolved some things from my past. The faces were so clear and familiar, I could touch them. Another choice – my cousin Eliza or my boyfriend Aaron. Aaron the obvious one. I was afraid, my guts tightening further as I did not want to be dragged through tarpit of shame at my behavior with him or staring down the barrel of my inevitable disdain for his imperfections, my inability to truly connect. But that isn’t what happened. I saw him with my daughters, smiling at me, laughing, playing chase, helping me through the door with groceries. The simplicity of seeing him from the outside of my typical perspective somehow refreshed feelings for him that the last few months had smothered. I saw him with love and his natural innocence and light. I saw that we are so different and still it’s ok to love. No matter what, it’s ok to love and act from love. That means no particular outcome, but I could feel that the fear of our incompatibility which I had let dictate my approach to our relationship was unwarranted and unnecessary. My heart swelled and I cried with relief, love, and joy.
Next, Aidyn, Maison (daughters). Again, their faces mostly nondescript. Except for Maison, moments of such clarity of her face in my hands, my stomach clenches now to think on it. Such a weight inside of me. I felt the cyclical rise and swell of heat and desire to purge well up again and again. Too painful to bear. The messages themselves were not ever made clear to me, and I am not entirely sure that there was a specific thing to be made known. I think it was really just about being with the pain of motherhood. The woeful and heart-breaking uncertainty over what we’ve done right and what we know we’ve done wrong, what damage is irreversible, what will find its way to resolution in time.
My ex-husband’s face popped in the middle of my view. Nebulous, spinning and bobbing. “What do I do with this?” I asked the medicine. “It’s Clint.” Again, with the sass. “Why are you showing him to me?” “This is the amends portion of your journey.” Hmph. Amends? To Clint? My first thought was that I could tell the medicine, tell myself, that I would make amends and then just not actually do it. Then my mind jumped to a memory of conversations mentioning that when amends are presented in the medicine, you have to make them. Always a sucker for rules, I accepted it. (Note: I don’t believe such a conversation actually ever took place, I think I made it up.) Fine. I will make amends with Clint. Aaron. Obvious, fair. Maison – yes, I will be making that one for the rest of my life. The view went black. Are there others? I popped up my mother’s face by way of inquiry. Nope, she’s good. Cassie? Nope. She’s good. “I’m only giving you three, that’s going to be enough for you to remember.” Again, with sass.
There was a period of time where spinning clusters of faces moved in orbits, like the mad-hatter’s wild teacup ride, all part of some scene from my past. I registered the faces, expressions, emotions with an indifference that made the whole process feel unworthwhile, though some deeper part of me trusted that it must be important and was perhaps being processed at another level of mental filing.
Out of the darkness popped my dear friend Lorri, dancing in one of her infamous black suits, beaming and kicking out to the sides. “Hey Heather, do you know how much I love you?” My heart ached with my yes. I do, Lorri, I do! Other friends and family began to pop up and climb on top of me into a big, love puppy pile. I was piled so deep in love bodies. There were smiles on every face and so much love pouring through. Nothing felt quite as good as Lorri, though. I called to her into the darkness – “is Lorri still there?” “Well, whose party did you think this was anyway?!?!” in her perfect Southern drawl. OH, my heart…the most beautiful pain there is – the sharp and tender squeeze of love on a heart that is feeling all that it can hold, and then just a bit more. The scene faded off with her glowing, gap-toothed smile dimming into the distance.
Bright green, clear as day text messages would pop up from time to time. They contained messages for me from the medicine, and the medicine would allow me to type messages ‘to send out’. I don’t remember what they contained for the most part. I remember an exchange with Cassie, that’s about it. It’s worth mentioning because the remarkable clarity of the visual experience was astounding.
I found myself from a meandering perspective, watching my parts, hundreds of versions of myself interacting and being with the world in different ways. Some in clusters, some off on their own. All of them bathed in a most flattering pale-yellow light, skin so smooth and soft it appeared almost liquid to touch. They looked healthy, happy, vibrant. They looked so beautiful. In her demonstrative deep black woman voice the medicine said, “now you know what they see when they look at you.” I was flabbergasted. THIS is what I look like through their eyes? I felt a qualm of surrender to a sense of understanding of why they might love me. The medicine spoke again, “Look at them from the inside out. You always gotta look from the inside out.”
I didn’t quite grasp the importance of this perspective. The medicine gave me vignettes to practice this perspective, and it began to make sense that I am to look at the world from inside my true self, my heart. Not from inside of my mind, where the judgement and fear, rules and protections reside.
The “practice” itself began a bit gruesomely. I was looking out from inside what can only be described as a mask of my own face, made from my own torn off face, bloody and dripping, jagged eye holes my only access to the external vantage point. Grotesque. Effective. I walked from place to place inside my mind, watching the glowing golden versions of myself from the outside, and at the same time, from the inside out. I felt such a distinct difference in internal sensation looking at myself in this new way. I have no real good explanation for the impact of the exercise except that it was working. I wanted to find a way to make it unforgettable. I didn’t want to lose this luscious, silken sensation of myself, bloody face mask notwithstanding. I called upon Lorri again – “Lorri, can you help me?” She appeared again in front of me. “Can you help me remember to always look from the inside out, just like this?” “Well how else are you gonna get just the right view of my best side?” She giggled and posed like a coy Monroe photo, her cheeks rosy and smooth. My heart blossomed with the yes of love and laughter and perfect appreciation for Lorri’s way of always knowing just exactly what to say to make her point.
The next thing I remember was a vision of my own body, prostrate across the top of my view. I could see it from the side, transparent, and lit up in reds and blues – a wired and electric version of myself. “Now, we’re going to do some work in here”. She began walking me through emotions and organs. We focused on my stomach – “so much in here.” She walked me through a variety of sensations and emotions. My felt sense of YES. My felt sense of NO. What happens when I ignore them, especially the no. The very clear and specific sensation of not trusting myself. We mapped them all out, relocated them. Got very specific on their sensations. Then we got to the feeling I felt inside when I thought of others, of those that I love. The most acute, intense feeling. Raw and abrading inside my stomach. She worked to still the sensations, my gut an empty canvas. She instructed me to practice keeping the stomach clear of these feelings while I thought of others. I tried. But whenever I began imagining people I love, the pang in my gut would return. “No, no, you’re not getting it. Keep practicing.” This felt like it went on for at least a couple of hours. This dance with stomach pain that hit every time I thought of someone I loved. All the stories in my head about why it hurt – what if I upset them, what if I wasn’t really good enough for them, what if they someday stopped loving me, what if they really knew me? She became frustrated. “We gonna try this another way”, and in a flurry of gray dust, she wiped the panorama clear, as the images of people I love tumbled off in the particulate-comprised shape of bowling pins.
I could feel her pause. She was contemplating what to try next. In the space between, I saw Cassie for a split second without all my stories and felt only our mutual love and the depth of our friendship. But the pain in my stomach, the familiar rough and rugged burn, was still there. “That isn’t anxiety!” I chirped at my realization. “It’s excitement!”
“Excitement doesn’t belong in your stomach, what’s it doing in there?” A memory came back to me, my mother leaning over our bathroom counter putting make up on. A 6-year-old me, bounding down the hall towards her, yowling my excitement to go to someplace, I don’t recall where. “Don’t get too excited, you’ll throw up.” I watched that tiny little girl’s face freeze and go pale. In my terror of vomit, I made a vow to clamp down on my excitement then and there and in that moment, that confused and entangled mosh of excitement, terror, and the not-so-subtle nausea derived from just the threat of the subject had firmly embedded itself in the lining of my upper GI tract.
She pulled out a glistening silver moon-shaped sliver, shining and smooth, like the bowl of a spoon. “It belongs in your heart.” She placed it gingerly in my heart region and then continued to move around inside of me, reattaching my organs in their new order with their new emotional associations. I felt a liminal tingling, almost like an electric current, an eel slithering about in my viscera. I lay sensing the movement slowly down through my abdomen, parts warming and cooling as the process moved. A sharp pang – oh…my womb. Yes, go to work on my womb. The whole of it lit up warm and soft and a quick and solid push! I could feel the release of material from inside my vestibule.
Before we started, my friend Jennifer insisted that I wear a giant maxi pad in case I did in fact shit my pants, as was my biggest fear, and not out of the question under the circumstances. This proved to be a brilliant strategy for now other, obvious reasons.
I then found myself returning cyclically to another gut-based feeling that I couldn’t shake – worry. I don’t even like that word, I confessed to the medicine. But I know that’s what it is. Just then, Jennifer let loose in another spewing eruption. And there it was, the acid fire in my stomach. Worry. Just then I saw myself step in from the side, and like Astrid, loving and putting an arm about my own shoulders. “It’s so hard isn’t’ it? It’s so hard when we love people, and they are suffering, and we can’t fix it. It’s just so hard.” The weight of the worry rested in my middle, but it was unattached and not acutely painful. It was softening. I felt validated, seen, and understood. I felt that it was ok to worry, that it’s part of love. We don’t succumb to it, but we can feel it, just honor ourselves with it and accept it. I felt something give way in my lower intestine, like a hose unkinking and rebounding with liberation, my insides were releasing decades-held tension.
It was well into the day now, I thought for sure I was only one left in the room. I had watched paramedics come and take someone away, wearing yellow hazmat suits. I had watched Jennifer pace angrily back and forth and make several curse-laden phone calls. I listened to another participant tell stories about the lyrics he was making up to the songs in the play list. None of these things happened. I still don’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I spent the next several hours still pinned, immobile against my mat, following a winding brick road of fixits to my character. “You know that thing you always do where you know you’re right, and you don’t fight about it, but you hold it in your mind that you are right and they are wrong?” Yes. “Stop, you aren’t always right, and it puts walls up – protecting yourself with righteousness”. Got it. “Now practice.” Walking through examples of times that I cling to my righteousness in my mind, and flashes of the times when I was wrong, and how I wore feeling right like armor against my vulnerability. “You know how you think you know what’s best for somebody else?” Yes. “it’s just another form of righteousness.” More examples. I don’t remember all the character flaws we walked through. I said I wouldn’t remember. The medicine said I wouldn’t forget, it’s in my knowing now. This walk of character flaws went on for some time. At one point I complained “how many of these are we going to do?” “You got somewhere to be? We go till we’re done.”
I was fatigued and I could feel my brow pinched with crushing exhaustion of all kinds. The nausea hadn’t let up. The ataxia hadn’t let up. I found myself hovering over my bucket again. Still nothing. I swear I felt wafts of something smoky and subtle in my face, some kind of something to make me vomit, I could feel the bile rising, Yes! But no. Back on my belly, a lay again with my head in the bucket and my body following consistent, cyclical patterns of the medicine’s flow. Waves of heat starting at my ears, then down my spine, a feeling of fractals moving through me, a network of sensations charting their way through my rotten insides. The rise of nausea, my heart would pound, I would feel the roar of it all begin to rise and then my chest would expand, my nose take a long, steady inhale and horrific, blood filled visions replaced by glittering pastel geometry. I swear there was a smoke or an incense or something being wafted at intermittent times, perfect times, that seemed to always arrive when most needed. Perhaps it was a perception of the medicine. It brought comfort, so it was welcome.
The battle with nausea culminated with a fierce debate between the medicine and myself. I was nearing 16 or 18 hours deep in the work and was expecting (my mistake) to have shifted out by now. The nausea was intolerable. I had tried repeatedly to make vomit happen and it wouldn’t. I asked the medicine to make it stop, the nausea, the ataxia, the crazy alone and lost feeling, just make it stop. Just release me. My throat squeezed tight “I’m the BOSS!!!” she said. Indeed. I heard her say, if you puke, the medicine will let up. So, I tried and tried. Then she said, “you see – there is nothing. There never was. All these stomach aches and it was all in your head the whole time. There is nothing. I never told you to throw up. You told yourself. Throw up or don’t.” She proceeded to taunt me with waves of heat and bile, dry heaves and empty coughs and chants of “puke! Puke! Puke!” And then after a long pause “Don’t puke! Whatever you do, don’t puke.” I couldn’t say how long this went on. It felt like a very long time. I never did puke.
One of the nursing staff, Ruby, had come in for her morning shift and came to put her hands on my head. I didn’t know it was her at the time. She used a fair amount of pressure, which felt grounding. Images of spirits began to pour into my head, wraiths of gray and black swirling into view. They were benevolent, I knew that much, though no clue who they were. I welcomed them and felt my body relax as I trusted whatever intension, purpose, and power they had.
I moved back onto my back in a soft and naturally comfortable position, a pillow under my knees, hands folded on my chest. The vista of the golden skinned versions of me returned. As I had been observing the activity in my mind and navigating my newly parsed sensations and emotions, it became evident that there was one particular nature of thought that took up an inordinate amount of attention in my mind. My writing. My thoughts, ideas, ways of saying things. I felt an urge to save the thoughts and free up all this space. After seeing how incredibly complex, rich, and capable my mind and imagination are through this medicine, I wanted to try something. I called on my subconscious. A large version of my face popped up and yelled “hey subconscious! Can I talk to you?” As if in front of a mirror, another giant Heather face appeared. “Of course!” she smiled warmly. “Hey, let’s make backgrounds!” And we each imagined an equally glorious and expansive desert moon scape background. We admired each other’s and offered generous approval. I asked her if we could create a “writing file” in my brain and instead of perseverating on my ideas when I’m not actually writing, could I just put them in the file for storage and access them when I wanted to write. She agreed to create the file and said, yes, all the ideas would be retained and accessible, but it would only work if I started writing all the time. If I didn’t honor the process by accessing the ideas, they would spill out again and again. I agreed with a bit of uncertainty as to whether I could trust myself to keep this promise, but also feeling into how much I was enjoying my slowly uncluttering brain. She disappeared and I returned to watching the other talking heads buzz about in their articulate enthusiasm.
It was time to address body image. I saw myself pale and naked standing ankle deep in water. From behind, my least favorite view, and I just stared at all my flaws. “It’s just how you look. It’s not as big of a deal as you think it is.” “How can it feel acceptable?” I suddenly grew to what seemed like 5 miles tall, towering over buildings and jutting up through the imaginary alcoves where all my other parts had been convening. I have no explanation for why this somehow made it all ok, but it did. It didn’t make me see my body any differently whatsoever. The imperfections are still there. They don’t carry the same pang of shame and disgust that they used to. Disappointment, but not shame and disgust. I am curious how this will play out over time.
I don’t remember specific transitions or what happened next, but I do recall that I ended up in a mall parking lot. This was a throwback from an earlier part of the journey that I really can’t place, where I was told I needed to go wait in an empty mall parking lot in the hot sun alone for two hours. So again, we are at a mall. “I love malls!” I exclaimed. “No, you don’t. You hate malls. You hate the disappointing bland clothing, the energy of the mindless mobs craving a sense of material belonging, the wretched stink of the perfume counter. You hate them. Your dopamine issues love them. You are done with malls. You prefer to shop for things that are artfully crafted and designed, unique in texture and appearance. Things that fit just exactly right and capture your essence. This is the kind of shopping you love. This is the kind of shopping you do from now on.”
I proceeded to witness a series of artwork, clothing, jewelry, home décor that was so profoundly exquisite, it pained me to know I couldn’t make a single sketch of what I saw. I danced and bounced from Yes to Yes! I saw myself in so many beautiful things. I felt amazing and worthy and beautiful. I felt like such a richly expressed version of myself. Joyful and radiant. I felt no sense of competition or comparison, just a sense of wholeness and gratitude.
The next scene was a gallery display of all my favorite Maxfield Parrish paintings, except they were all soft pale shades of blue (my favorite) – just the essence of his actual paintings, and the women in the paintings were missing. In from the left side, I danced, all in shimmering glowing white light. I was the woman in the paintings! My memory echoed through the Parrish exhibits I’d seen and the feeling of those experiences. I recalled my friend’s astonished realization that all of the people in his paintings, men and women, actually had only one face. One face that he painted over and over and over because he loved her so much. A photograph of her bore a remarkable resemblance to me. I remember feeling shame that I could be so audacious as to claim a likeness to someone so admired, or had I dumbly fallen in love with a hundred paintings of myself? Those feelings all smudged away with the gossamer trails of my shining white dress as I twisted and pointed my toes like a perfect ballerina to take my familiar place in each and every painting. I ended with Ecstasy, the painting with which my love for Maxfield Parish had began. It felt amazing.
The next thing I remember is lying on my back looking up at a big empty sky, embroidered birds flying by. Nothing, just empty sky. A brightly colored cartoon bird flew before me – familiar…my tattoo! Suddenly, the whole lot of them took flight and fluttered about before me in a brilliant display. “What about my fish?” I asked. They wiggled free of my arm and splashed across my view. I was giggling like a little girl.
I was compelled to whistle and so I did. Gayly. Yes…gayly.
I took a deep breath through my nose and felt an unfamiliar coolness. My nose! I was breathing so freely through my nose! I was struck by the ease and fullness of the breaths. I never thought I had a problem with congestion, but by contrast I quickly realized that I was breathing quite a bit differently than I had been in my recallable past. I relished it, sucking in deep inhales through my nose. No resistance. No sound. Clear airways. I felt grateful.
I called back to my subconscious, and she appeared happily again. “Can we talk like this more often? Can I just call on you whenever we need to talk?” “Of course,” and we smiled away.
I know there were other parts and people. It’s still too vague to recall the placement or specifics.
The last thing I remember before being moved to the reiki table was seeing my grandfather, Frank. Clear as day, every pore and wrinkle, skin fresh and tan and bright. “Grampy!” I leapt towards him and felt the weight of his sweet and heavy embrace. I thought to myself, I can really see and feel him. I was smiling so big, tears streaming down my face. “It’s just so good to see you.” I wanted nothing more than to just soak it up. I asked if I could see my other grandfather, too. Less rare a sight as he visits my dreams and visions often, though much more pristine and intact than in my usual visions of him, he came forward and embraced me, too. My arms around them and still beaming I asked, “do you see this work that I’m doing? You don’t think it’s crazy. You understand it, don’t you?” They nodded and said, “we’ve needed it for so long, and you are the first one that has been unafraid enough to do it.” Chills took over my body and they faded away.
Ruby lifted me and walked me slowly to the reiki table. Cocooned in furs and blessed by a touch so soft and radiating love, I felt the grip of the medicine begin to shift. It was not letting up on me, but the reiki was separating me from the pull of the medicine’s field. I could feel it stretching, drawing, severing. Parts of me grasping, afraid, holding on. Other parts calm and wise and grateful for the transition.
Off the table, the evening nursing staff were back on shift and Astrid took her time with me, about 45 minutes, to guide me downstairs to my room.
Once back in my room, I lie on my bed, as comfortable as I have ever been. Snuggled amidst the soft sheets and mushy pillows. Unable to close my eyes, lest nausea creep in. Visuals flashing, flowing, bouncing all around. None of them troubling, all of them profoundly impressive and entertaining. My mind, just one giant, empty space. Thoughts would drift in and I’d left swipe them out. As more and more time wore on, more thoughts would find their way in. At one point, windows popped up into my field of view and flew open – all the thoughts sucked out by the breeze. The medicine said, “we have installed windows in your mind. Consider it a free upgrade.” I smiled at the thought of being able to flap my windows open whenever my head got too full of nonsense. I have in fact been using these windows quite a bit since their installation. Definitely an upgrade.
After several hours of lying blank and still in the medicine, I was still unable to move my body well on my own, still spinning and fragmented and quite weak. I asked the medicine why it was taking so long. A clear and frustrated, “Bitch, I have just healed your emotion centers and rewired your organs. I have cleaned your neural pathways and I have reprogrammed your genes and upgraded your entire epigenetic code. You can wait.” Fair enough. In that moment I was struck again by the intelligence of the medicine. It didn’t feel like me talking to myself. It didn’t feel like me aware of what had just taken place and why I was needing so much space and slowness.
As the hours wore on, I did still invariably find myself wondering when it would loosen its grip. I had a distinct sense that I would know. Some time later, still staring into the empty space of my mind, a text message popped up in my field of view. “It is DONE.” Hmph. I began to sit up – easier. I made a move to get out of bed and use the restroom – I was able to walk. Indeed. Sluggish, dumbfounded, discombobulated, and blown away in the wake of all the recent brilliance, trauma, and madness. But yes, for the most part, it appeared that it was DONE.
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As is the case for me with all psychedelic journeys, it seems nearly impossible to capture the true essence of the experience. Cleary the ibogaine has been no exception. What I will say here is that my experience watching, interacting, and physically feeling the work of this medicine was unlike anything I have ever experienced, or could have ever imagined. I have been instilled with a trust in a higher order of all things, and I see my own place in it. No medicine has ever given me that. In fact, they have made me more skeptical. Though profound, they have not given me a belief in something greater than myself. But this time, not only am I acutely aware of this higher order and intelligence, I see myself in it. If THIS, all of THIS is what is available in my mind…and this medicine, this grubby little root bark contains one tiny alkaloid that can do this to my brain – something in nature has this profound an intelligence…I acquiesce. There is a higher order of things. A much higher order, and my existence and my essence are no accident.
I would also like to comment on something I believe to be true of this medicine. The human brain is wired, from an evolutionary perspective, for adversity. We are designed to exist in a time where life was no certainty, and to stay alive was a fight of endurance, strength, will and might. Our brains and bodies grow when we encounter and prevail over particular types of challenges for our system. At first, I thought the purpose of the assault of the medicine was to fortify my desire to turn inward. That was an important part for me, but only part of it. I’m convinced the “buzzing” that I personally experienced was not a buzzing at all, rather an imitation of my mother’s heartbeat when I was in the womb. Now I also believe that the intelligence in this medicine understands not only our need for adversity, but also the very particular type of adversity that will result in the profound expansion of our health, mind, and spirit. How fucking rad is that?
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