Some of us spend the majority of our lives engulfed by the darkness. Broken by it. I labelled myself as a broken person. I put myself inside a box. That was entirely my choice. There was comfort in the darkness. It was somehow easier down there than coming into the light.
The light was blinding, loving, all encompassing and it terrified me.
Self love was the most terrifying aspect of all
But as she always does, Mother Aya taught me some tough but profound lessons in ceremony and even after a week of being back home, the lessons just kept on coming. She dragged me straight to my own personal hell. A dark, empty void where there was nothing but a vessel full of sadness and demonic mechanical beings that were locking it all inside.
Though I had chosen the darkness my whole life, that was a terrifying place to be. She showed me that in reality, I didn't want to be there. It was lonely and scary in that place and I had other options for my life, if I wanted to choose them.
During the same retreat, huachuma taught me nothing but love. He taught me that there is no disconnect between me and everything else that is. I am everything, just as you are. I am not living. I am life, and being life involves choices. We all have the ability to be a serial killer or a saint. It's about what we choose. Because we are everything. We have to own the fact that we are not separate from the darkness. We are the darkness as much as we are the light.
To create utopia, we must understand hell
I dislike the discomfort that sometimes comes with love. With self love and romantic love. Because as much as we like to tell ourselves that love is nothing but light, it isn't. It has its dark and painful aspects too.
The universe works in polarity. With light comes darkness and vice Versa and in order to create utopia we must also accept that we too create hell. But we came here to learn all kinds of love. The whole spectrum. Messy love, destructive love, intense love, crazy love, beautiful love, heart wrenching love, soul mate love, universal love, self love.
And that includes loving the darkness too. Because the darkness is still a part of us. It's integral, because without it, we would never be able to see the light.
It's neither all darkness or all light
I've learned that the key is not to identify with either the darkness or the light but to accept that as humans, we sit somewhere in the middle. We are dancing, always dancing from birth until the grave with the light and the dark and its beautiful and magical.
There are profound lessons to be learned in both of those places. If only we open our eyes to see, our ears to listen and our hearts to feel.
Having had a tremendously deep journey with the medicines, I've come to the realisation that self love is absolutely paramount and I've no idea how I went so long without it. Ayahuasca showed me that there's a terribly sad and under nurtured part of my soul that is crying out for my love. I ignored her for so long.
I am no longer scared to love myself
I ignored myself for so long too, and I've allowed that part of my soul to sit and wallow in the darkness without ever coming to the light. Yes, self love was always terrifying, but I'm not afraid of it anymore. Thanks to Ayahuasca, I am no longer scared to say "I love me" and to really feel it to my core when I say it. I met the part of me that I've neglected for many years and for the first time, I felt a deep sadness for my own pain.
Today I'm not afraid to speak to every cell in my body and say, "Thank you. I love you", and finally accept and love all of me. All of my darkness, all of my light. And I am finally at that place where I can say that I love all of the "bad" experiences that lead me to where I am.
I love all of those experiences that brought me to my knees because I grew from them and without them I would never be where I am today. So thank you Mother Ayahuasca for dragging me straight to hell. You have taught me so much. You have taught me how to finally love myself, and love it all.