12/4/07

Ayahuasca

Tepoztlan, Mexico Circa 1994

It was a rainy afternoon in Tepoztlan

I can't help but wonder and question
why is it that weird things happen
on rainy afternoons
at least most of the time
at least to me

She saw my future in the Ryder deck

death on my palms, like a vulture
she said a voodoo curse had been laid on me
and then it all made sense
for sometimes I felt the pins
sometimes the needles
and always the gloomy shade
like the cape of some obscure Transylvanian count

We drove up the mountain

in her old Volkswagen bus
her home, like a quartz in a rock
sits at the bottom of the Tepozteco hills
with its jagged edges
and its Pyramid atop

Her place is besides the portal

a natural doorway in the mountains
that is said to be an entry to another dimension
I've been here before, many times

Sunset happened fast

hand drums breathe
sandalwood incense paints the night
as we sit inside a circle of candles
their flames and tongues mark the boundaries
of the tarmac to my spiritual dream

She handed me what seemed to be a cup of tea

"drink" she said
I recall being stoned
when I drank the tea of South American vines
Ayahuasca

Her hands on my head

chants in tongues I do not speak
maybe Yaqui, maybe Tarahumara
an egg cleanse
then silence
and incense

I saw the stars twinkling in random chaos

like Beethoven, like your eyes when pleased
"whoosh" I felt and heard something fly beside me
"whoosh" again and again, like a bird of prey
touching my naked chest, head, face, eyes and ears with its wings
it was her, cleaning my spirit with a pair of quetzal feathers
as I began to elevate into the cosmic darkness

It felt like when you gravitate on LSD

but different
like coffee from an old pot, with a hint of cinnamon
drunken Daedalus, my soul lifted in full flight

It must have been late morning when I woke up

laying half naked on the wooden deck
looking at the edge of the mountain
the portal had closed
and my soul had been spared
I had been cleansed

I haven't seen her in many, many years

but she changed my life completely
now, in the mornings
when I see the sky on fiery red and pink and orange
I think of the portal
of this very special friend
and of the mountains of Amatlan
where Quetzalcoatl took his first steps
on golden sandals.




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