I’m a million miles from anything familiar when I decide to put my life in Tony’s hands. He’s wearing a red Lycra Adidas soccer shirt, baggy jeans and hiking boots. At full height he comes only to my shoulders, and his belly comfortably precedes him everywhere he goes. He’s an ordinary man who wouldn’t draw a second glance on any third-world street. But there’s something about his eyes and cherubic grin that conveys a sense of contentment.
Luzma translates my vague ideas about connection and consciousness to him.
He nods. Then he raises his hand in the air and makes what little eye contact is possible in the near-total darkness. “You must know that what happens tonight is not theater. This is serious business. Though I look like an ordinary man—and not someone who wears feathers and fake headdresses—I am a shaman. Tonight I will work in the world of spirit,” he says, still trying to gauge why I would want to cross the globe to see him for something that wasn’t a life-threatening illness.
I’ve only been off the plane for a few hours. I still smell like international travel. But I’m here with questions that I may never get answers to. I’m terrified of what is going to happen next. Am I even in the right mental state to do this?
For now, I’m going to be open to whatever happens in the ceremony. I will suspend my disbelief and give the experience the full force of my mind. Luzma suggests a mantra for me: “Whatever happens, say to yourself, ‘I’m willing.’”
A few hours later, I’m walking down a deep Amazonian jungle path.
It’s a new moon, but the Milky Way lights a bright swath across the sky. The jungle is alive with chirping birds, insects, frogs, creaking trees, vines, monkeys and god only knows what else. It sounds as if every creature in creation is deep in conversation. One animal calls out, and a million buzzes and burps return in answer. I wonder what they are saying. Our headlamps bounce off a muddy path for about fifteen minutes until I spy the hut where the ceremony will take place.
I creak open the door and make out about ten people lying down on cheap foam mats in a circle around the interior of the structure. A single candle in the center of the room provides some flickering light that casts deep shadows up on the roof and along the floor. Deeply stained buckets with gray streaks down their insides sit next to every mat.
Tony arrives about half an hour later.
He’s holding a two-liter plastic water bottle that’s about half full of a viscous black syrup. He finds a seat on a cube of wood on the west side of the room and fiddles with a bottle of scented water known as agua de Florida and a clutch of unfiltered cigarettes.
The room hums with silence and anticipation.
Time passes slowly until Tony lights one of the cigarettes, gets up onto his feet and blows giant puffs of tobacco smoke in the four cardinal directions. The smoke signals the beginning of the ceremony. Luzma whispers to me that the tobacco cleanses the room’s energy and invites spirits in. He sits back down, whispers a few words into the open plastic bottle and blows more smoke into its aperture. There’s no other fanfare. We’ve begun. And I have no idea what’s going on.
Tony taps his feet gently on the floor in a rhythm that starts as a distant rumble and then grows with the subtle intensity of a heartbeat. He purses his lips and whistles equally as softly. It’s a simple tune that I almost remember from childhood, but not one I’ve ever learned. The whistles turn into a chant that might be Spanish or the indigenous language of Quechua. Then again, maybe they’re just sounds that come to him out of the ether with no meaning in particular.
It goes on for a while, and when he’s sung enough, he motions to a rail-thin man to his left and indicates that it’s time to drink his potion. The man gets up and kneels in front of Tony. He’s holding out his hands in a clasped gesture of prayer. Tony grasps the man’s bony fingers and they whisper back and forth. Tony is asking some sort of question. Once he’s satisfied with the answer, he pours a flimsy plastic cup full of the black liquid and holds it up to the light of the candle. Judging the dose insufficient, he pours a few drops more. The man drinks, scowls at the taste, and makes his way back to the mat.
The process continues for every person in our circle.
I watch as Luzma takes a cup in her hand, looks at the amount, squints her face into a screw and shakes her head no. Tony pours some back into the bottle and offers her what’s left. She downs it in a quick movement like she’s taking a shot. Within seconds of getting back to her seat, she rinses the taste from her mouth with water from her bottle.
Fifteen minutes later, it’s my turn. I make my way over to Tony, and he asks me if I’ve taken a psychedelic before. I tell him that I ate psilocybin mushrooms a few times in college and how the first time I tried them, I ended up in the hospital. In my psychedelic daze, I told a friend that I thought I was going to die, and he dutifully called an ambulance. They pumped my stomach. Cops got involved. I was wary of hallucinogens after that, but a few years later, I tried them again. On that trip, I had a glimpse of something far greater than myself.
I’m oversharing.
Tony nods, probably unsure what to make of my gushing. Then he pours a nearly full cup. He asks me to repeat my name and then whispers words into the brew. When he hands it to me, I look into the syrupy brownness and try not to smell it. I seal the back of my palate so I don’t take in any fumes, then down the contents of the cup like a shot. It has the consistency of used motor oil and a taste somewhere between rotting fruit and coffee grounds. The fluid coats the inside of my mouth and slicks down my throat. The taste won’t go away no matter how many times I swallow. Once the last in the lineup slurps down the noxious brew, someone blows out the candle in the center of the room.
We plunge into inky blackness.