I wanted to share an experience I had in a ceremony a few nights ago.
I sat with Huachuma, San Pedro 🌵, a powerful plant medicine of the Andes. I sat for 12 hours in a tipi ceremony (all night ceremony, very similar to Peyote tradition). My first plant medicine ceremony was 10 years ago with the powerful Ayahuasca vine of the jungle of Peru. Those plants have given me the greatest opening of my Heart, remembering of my soul, and shattering annihilation of what I thought my life should be...
I came in this last ceremony with "high expectation", not always sure if those come from the depth of my Heart or from some resisting part of my Ego... And I came in with clear intentions of healing some of the deeper layers of my soul. The expectation came mainly from the fact this was my closing ceremony of the 3 magical weeks with my teacher.
So here I sat. In front of the Fire. Ready for a full night of prayers. A full night of meeting my Self. Ready to hear Spirit. Ready to receive. Ready to plunge deep. And here I am, with 10 sisters and brothers, with my teacher, in the shelter of the Tipi, in the arms of the Great Medicine, the Great Spirit.
The experience was deep, profound BUT I "only" experienced a very deep physically painful and extremely challenging experience for 10 hours straight (pain, purging, diarrhea, discomfort, cramps, tears). No vision. No "message" from Spirit. A silent, long, infinite unanswered prayer, I feel...
I am no stranger to difficult ceremonies. Having sat in over 100s of them in the past 10 years. And yet somehow I forgot. I forgot, in the intensity of the pain, that each ceremony is different, As is each day of my life. I forgot that we truly came in those ceremonies ready to die. Ready to be reborn. Ready to learn again and again.
So often, and probably most of the time, Spirit speaks to us in "unseen" ways, in ways which are unexpected, in ways which are unexplainable, in ways that shattered the mind of any hope of understanding. The mind fights. Wants to take over. Refuse to let go. And paint the experience, judge it, and qualify it in his dual way of being as "non-connected" or "non-spiritual". The mind (my mind) played tricks in keeping me in the loop of trying to understand, trying to see.
Yet as I integrate this work, 2 days later, a message of what happened is coming. The whispering of Spirit starts to be heard in the daunting silence of the unknowingness. SPIRIT DID ITS WORK PERFECTLY. Shattering my mind. Destroying the Ego grasp. Bringing me FULLY in my body. Letting me see in a laughable way that the Great Mystery will always keep its name...
Spirit comes and reminds me that ceremonies are a profound reflection of life. Things happen. But not in the way we expect. Not in the way we "want". Not in the way we can "control". Reminding me to allow and be, instead of controlling and doing. And one-word start to arise again in the silent whispering of Spirit: surrender. Surrender dear One. Surrender, I hold you. Surrender, I Know what you don't. Surrender, SURRENDER!
So last night I was reminded the amount of surrender required to walk this path. To walk the red road. To walk through life. A lesson I learned (I thought!) in depth over the past 10 years of my work with plant medicine. Here I am learning again. Remembering again. Painfully reminded. We all need painful reminders sometimes :)
So now a prayer arises in my Heart. A prayer for myself, and for everyone, for you. A prayer that we may all ALWAYS TRUST. Especially when we can't see. Trust that Spirit is holding us. Guiding us. Loving us. Healing us. A prayer to this trust opens us to more gratitude, to more clarity, to more unity and to more Love.
One of my favorite words in the bible. John 20:29 "Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.". I hear you Saint John. I feel your words today, deeper, and they are touching my soul. Thank you Grandfathers, thank you Spirit, thank you to all those teachers who patiently keep praying for us. Keep holding us. Keep trusting in us. Keep having patience with us. And keep loving us unconditionally.
That is Faith. True Faith. Walking without seeing the full picture. Taking a step in the darkness. Being ready to die to be reborn. Believing when we cannot see. Praying when there is no "hope". Falling. But falling upwards.
Trusting that something much bigger than ourselves will hear our prayers, and will save us.
A beautiful and humbling lesson in learning over and over again to walk with Faith...
Much Love ❤️
Guillaume aka Shawinigan Ungaia
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