This is an very simple example of the kinds of vision one might expect in the Ayahuasca experience. In this case, I was transported into the mind of an animal, so that I could learn a very old lesson that one only learns in the wild.
***SPOILER ALERT: This article is an excerpt from my book*** (‘AYAHUASCA! – Terror and Miracles in the Peruvian Amazon‘)
While I sat there in a wet patch of water and tears, there again came a message from beyond me that simply whispered “ … Remember frogs …” For a moment I wondered “what’s that supposed to mean?” but the enigmatic words explained themselves when I suddenly found myself thrown into a completely alien memory.
I was suddenly in the body of a tiny frog-like thing, sitting in the forking of a reed or branch whose stem split into a Y shape. Although it was a creature much like a tree frog, I somehow understood that it was an ancestor of both frogs and humankind … This was some kind of ancient blood-memory.
My wet and delicate limbs were wrapped intimately around the plant’s stems while I sat in the crux of the Y shape, half-asleep. It was pitch black all around me and, just as in our hut, the dark universe was alive with a shimmer of living sounds. Even as a frog, I understood that these were the sonic-signatures of other animals that far-outnumbered me. I also understood that many predators were among them while in that perfect darkness, everything was unknown and I was absolutely alone. For all I knew, in every passing breath, a monster could suddenly strike and end my life!
Still, despite being completely exposed, blind and defenseless, I was somehow at peace and dozing soundly! Completely naked, vulnerable, soft to any passing fang or claw, wet and cool in the soft rain, I was able to sleep unharmed …
“We survive this every night” the memory whispered, with a very matter-of-fact voice.
It was a long-forgotten lesson found only in living the animal’s life. It was a lesson in sleeping through the jungle night, with courage and faith – Raw animal faith! But the lesson spoke even more truth beyond that: That in the end, each and every one of us is somehow-or-other soft and vulnerable, blind and defenseless in the great black void, clinging to a twig for dear life. Even Mother Nature, a godly being as I now knew Her, floats absolutely helpless in a cold and endless night of cosmic threats! An entire living planet is, in reality, as naked and delicate as a frog on a branch – yet it all goes on, for billions of years so far! So what’s the big worry?
The teaching spoke of the only real way to manage the overwhelming truth: Acceptance. The only way to find any peace against forces beyond our control – Acceptance! Not surrender or abandonment, but simple and calm acceptance that “yes, perils exist and may come at any moment”. After that, step-two is ‘just being’, appreciation of every moment until a peril actually comes. Otherwise, one lives in a state of perpetual terror, even in times of peace. Otherwise, one can never enjoy a good night’s sleep!
The frog-memory had possessed me so completely that when I came back to my senses, I found Maestro gently peeling me away from his leg … While in the vision I’d leaned up against him and my arms had wrapped around his leg as if it were the branch.
