I was lying on a sleeping bag, under a blanket, on the floor of the shaman's huge loungeroom. I'd taken my second dose of ayahuasca, and I had already had one vision. The journey continued.

The lesson plan

It was interesting the way that the entire journey was laid out, as if Ayahuasca had written a lesson plan, or an essay, where she needed to present every part individually, to allow me to understand each part as deeply as possible, to build each premise, to lead to the inevitable conclusion. The medicine communicates differently with everyone, and I suppose that, because She presented herself to me as methodical, it was only because I myself am methodical.

The vision

Grandmother Ayahuasca presented me a vision, another memory.

Eric (names changed)

I was in my friend's apartment in the Melbourne tower, in 2006. My friend Eric was my team leader from work, where we knocked on doors together. If you've never had a career in direct sales, it can be hard to understand the kind of friendships that develop. Knocking on doors with someone for a few months, you get to know someone very quickly - through their ups and downs, you see what they are made of pretty quickly. I had known Eric for less than 6 months, but he was a good friend, as he had helped guide me through a journey of going from introverted and unconfident, to gradually moving towards talking assertively with strangers.

He had a relaxed, phlegmatic attitude, and whenever I came to him whining about something, he would just calmly say "Ah well," and it suddenly made my problems seem like they didn't really matter. I hadn't ever seen him get angry at anybody.

Eric shared an apartment with our boss, Don, and his girlfriend, Elly.

Elly was unstable and manipulative in general, though I guess this night, I had my part in setting her off.

Eric and I were watching TV, and I saw Elly's laptop sitting there. "It'll be cool if I check some emails on this, right?"

"Ahh... you really shouldn't. She's not gonna like it."

"It'll only be a few minutes. What's the big deal."

"She's not gonna like it." Eric said, and kept watching TV.

I turned on the computer and started checking emails and Facebook.

"What are you doing with my computer?! Put it down!" she said as she walked in the door.

"Okay." I said, calmly and submissively.

"It's not Eric's computer. It's not even Don's computer. How did you get the password?"

"I just booted it into safe mode."

She pursed her lips as if I'd said something which hadn't given her the excuse she wanted to get angrier. Soon enough, she turned her vitriol on Eric, somehow blaming the situation on him.

"And you - how could you let him ..." she started.

I'm not sure what happened after that, but within 15 minutes, Elly was screaming at Eric: "Go ahead, hit me! Hit me Eric, go ahead! You won't do it, you big pussy! You're pathetic! Come on, you big man, you haven't got the ..." and so on.

Eric, normally a nice, confident but unassuming fellow, presumably after experiencing months of subtle (or not-so-subtle) abuse from Elly, had been pushed to his limit and couldn't manage to control himself. I saw him kick her in the belly, once or twice, and there I was, in between them, trying to stop them from assaulting each other.

Elly closed the apartment door, with us outside.

"Let's go for a walk," I said.

"I can't leave her in there! She's going to throw my stuff off the balcony or something."

"We can't go back in there now; things are too heated. Let's go for a beer and let things calm down for a moment."

As we walked off, Eric said "I kicked her good, Kurt. I kicked her in the belly - that way it doesn't bruise."

I didn't know what to say. I had seen my friend do what I couldn't have imagined he would have done, something which I could never advocate, something which disgusted me, and his words indicated that he had even relished the opportunity. If I had hated him for it, it probably would have been entirely justified. But I didn't hate him.

The moral of the story

I asked Ayahuasca, "What's the lesson here?"

She said "The lesson is this: you were friends with Eric before this happened, while it happened, and after it happened. He was no less your friend after it happened, than he was a week before."

I paused in contemplation.

"That's the kind of love that exists for you. That is how I love you. That is how I have always loved you, and how I will always love you. In your darkest moments, through your worst decisions, when you harmed others, manipulated them, took advantage - I never stopped. And I never will."

Then, I felt it. I felt Her love like a big warm hug, embracing me, surrounding me, entering my heart like a long lost friend, and I felt that what she said was true. It had always been there.

I cried, and cried, like a young boy who had finally been guided home.

If you want to hear more about my first journey with ayahuasca, you can listen to the episodes on our podcast about it here:

Episode 67 – The Ayahuasca Diaries Part 1

Episode 68 – The Ayahuasca Diaries Part 2

Episode 69 – The Ayahuasca Diaries Part 3