Drum Journey: Upper World Prairie
In prior times, I had taken CBD before ceremonies to get myself to a relaxed state. This time, I tried using THC for relaxation; taking a few puffs of Indica before walking down to the salt cave.
Our guide has us visualize ourselves walking barefoot on a prairie. Fields around us and rain in the distance. As I walk, I perform my Rainbow Meditation. Once I complete the exercise, walking with a rainbow glow radiating out, she speaks of a huge rainbow up ahead that grows brighter and brighter.
There are stairs and go up them, into the clouds. A wind appears, I see it as wispy hands with white outlines, motioning the way I am facing. The wind picks me up and I begin to float Peter Pan style with the hands pulling me along.
Soon, Egyptian Fruit Bat appears. I ask her name and she says nothing. I ask if I can call her Stellaluna and she smiles at me. For a long time we fly like that. I'm having a ball, whooping and hollering and we both do acrobatics, rolling and somersaulting and otherwise manuvering in the air.
When we again fly calmly and side by side, I ask if she has any lessons for me. She smiles at me again, but this time with wide eyes. They seem to grow in her head as she smiles at me.
Maybe thirty seconds go by before I'm going down through the clouds, back out over the prairie. This time, I am not in control of my flying. The descent takes me to the back of a Buffalo. The second I am seated upon their back, they charge forward. I grab ahold of their horns for dear life, even as I think to myself that they won't be happy about my doing so.
Buffalo stops abruptly, and throws me off a few feet away from a scraggly tree. I bounce a couple of times, raising dust and groaning.
Bat hangs upside down from one of the tree branches to watch the spectacle.
Buffalo moves towards me and I back up against the tree. I ask what I can do to appease them. They lunge forward and pin me to the tree, my body between the horns. Then they take a great breath in, snorting it out.
"Oh, breathe? Okay." So I take some deep breaths in and out. Buffalo must have felt satisfied, because they back off, turn around and walk away.
Then Bat flips from the branch and floats in front of me with her wings open. I produce an offering; holding my hand out palm up. A big juicy mango appears. Bat leans forward and takes it, gobbling the fruit and then letting the moist skin fall to the dusty ground with an unceremonious plop.
I ask if she has anything else to teach me. Bat flies forward and wraps her wings around me. She leans her head against mine and nuzzles. "Aww," I say as I reciprocate. Several times I repeat, "Each time I see my hands, I will realize that I'm dreaming." Then I call in all whom I pray to and proceed to pray for everyone that I normally include.
Then Bat becomes Isis, with her arms wrapped around me. As I continue to pray for my people, I start getting that feeling like when the acid kicks in. That feeling of getting bigger; expanding outside of my body.
Unlike when the acid kicks in, I was actually growing in size, as was Isis. I feel like she is urging me to include more and more people in my prayers. I also feel that the more people I include, the more I'm expanding. I start praying for other people, including the friends I've made here in B.C. I pray myself into the clouds and there I say the closing line of that prayer. We embrace a while longer before she backs off and turns back into a Bat.
Now we are back to our original sizes. Bat pivots to her left, extending her left wing and tucking her right wing over her chest. From the tip of her left wing, a pink laser shoots out. My eyes go wide watching this unexpected display. Then Bat pivots to the right, extending her right wing and tucking her left wing over her chest. She shoots a blue laser out of the tip of her right wing.
Bat floats closer to me and points her wing tips at the sides of my ribcage. She shoots the lasers into me and I feel the electricity. It's not painful, but it is an intensity that I need to breathe through. The rainbow colors from my meditation are still present, but now the light is expanding out from me in white as well. I see and feel my aura expanding, hear it crackling at the edges as it creates tendrils like one of those plasma balls.
This goes on for what feels like a few minutes, but most unfortunately I drank entirely too much water before the ceremony. So I take a deep breath and let myself fall back, onto the light gray clouds. Bat flops down too, laying with her head next to mine but with her feet pointing in the opposite direction. We lay there for awhile, smiling. I thanked her.
I wait as long as I can, but I really have to urinate. So we fly back the way we came, through the clouds. (Lesson learned, no water an hour before journeying.)
When everyone has reintegrated, we go around the room sharing our experiences. The man that attended also mentioned a feel of expanding outside his body in a prior ceremony. I remarked that it was funny he would mention such a feeling, since I had just experienced it myself.
As the stories continue, there is some laughter throughout the group. I suddenly realize that I know that laughter. It's the same knowing sort of laughter that stoners or those who have experienced psychedelic humor share. Perhaps it is also shared by adrenaline chasers, I'm not sure. Regardless, it's the type of humor where you didn't have to be there, but you had to have been there before.
On the walk home, something happened that I believe is an agreement that smoking weed before ceremonies is a good call. I was going past the library when I stopped short, for a furry face was upside down, peering up at me. It was a Cat, a tiny friendly Cat.
I hang out with her for a few minutes, petting her before I look at her tag. No address, just a phone number. I call it and leave a message, wait around for a few more minutes. But I can't stay forever. Based on how comfortable she seems, how little she reacts to noisy trucks and motorcycles passing by, I'm sure that she lives nearby. I begin to worry when she starts to follow me, but she turns back shortly after the police station.
Her name? Indica. I love her appearance so much, from her name, to the associations with heeding intuition to the Cat symbolism of magic, mystery and omens. I had even been wondering which strain to go with prior to the drum journey. I decided Indica was the more appropriate of the two, and apparently I was correct.
As mentioned, I realized fairly quickly what Buffalo was trying to teach me. I associate Buffalo with abundance first and foremost. So my first thought was that I was holding myself back with my ancient habit of holding my breath. After all, everyone says how essential breathing is for meditation and relaxation, being present etc. I figured that I would be more focused and productive and able to access the great abundance available to me.
It gained a new dimension after I told my tale to Dusky though. When I added that I often involuntarily forget to breathe, he pointed out that is a defensive reaction; something done out of tension.
As calm as I tend to be, as grounded as I feel to other people, my body is always tense; always waiting for something to happen. Shoulders hunching, teeth clenching, sitting forward in anticipation. All vestiges of experiencing turmoil and internalizing it.
This is part of what I need to let go of. This is a habit that I need to break in order to continue moving forward.
As for the ensuing experiences with Isis Bat, I believe she was trying to tell me two things while I was expanding. She was saying that I should focus on love as my personal power and I continue to grow. She was also letting me know that there is power in my prayers and it is important to share that power.
Dwelling on the laser sequence, I wonder now what the colors mean. Were they corresponding to the Heart and Third Eye Chakras?
I got the sense that she was clearing and perhaps infusing my elecromagnetic field. Perhaps healing it, restoring balance between masculine and feminine energies? Surely it had some holes.
This session was amazing. I really wish it hadn't been disrupted by bodily needs, but by no means can I say it caused true dissatisfaction. Thank you to our guide, to Isis and to Buffalo.