Ayahuasca told me to shut the f*ck up!

A few years ago I participated in an Ayahuasca ceremony. 

Physically this involved being together with an intentional ceremonial group over the course of many hours throughout the night and imbibing an entheogenic concoction of the DMT containing leaves of a very particular shrub and the MAO inhibitor containing roots of a very specific vine. 

Spiritually and psychologically it required an openness to the possibility that this so-called Grandmother Medicine- used over millennia by the indigenous peoples of South and Central America- might offer me some kind of healing communication from the world of plant intelligence.

The following day I was a profoundly changed human being!

The experience had been a surprisingly physical and pleasurable one. 

For hours on end my gut, heart and throat areas had undulated in gentle, rhythmical, sub-orgasmic pulsations causing me to chuckle and groan with a gleeful ecstasy. Visually I had been presented with kaleidoscopically morphing fractal imagery of cathedral columns ornate archways, gargoyles, rainforest branches and lush leafy undergrowth.

And whilst this rollercoaster intensity of sensations was buffeting me I was struck by how long-lived the plant-life has been on our planet, compared with the relatively newcomer mammalian life-form with it's less experienced, arrogant, language-based intelligence. I was in awe of this opportunity to commune in a non-linguistic way with an ancient intelligence. An intelligence which had accompanied me throughout my life but to which I had hitherto been blind and deaf.

Within a number of spiritual/ Faerie communities there is the oft repeated axiom:

'Separation is simply an illusion. In truth we are all one'

Well, as I was being battered, shaken-and pleasured even- by Grandmama, the awareness descended on me that for the vast majority of my life I had focussed on firstly learning but then (from my 20s onwards) fastidiously teaching what I'd learned. As a young medic the career mantra back in the 80s was: 'See one. Do one. Teach one’ . I subsequently became a practitioner and teacher of listening and counselling skills and then a junior doctor trainer and ultimately a senior doctor appraiser.

During the course of my profound and extreme Ayahuasca encounter, I witnessed myself attempting to register and remember what was happening so I'd be able to pass it all on....

And so what was the big message transmission from the world of plant-life? It was this:

"If you truly believe that 'We are all one' then you can set aside this teaching/preaching fetish you have cultivated over the years. 

The extent to which you have the impulse to transmit verbally what you have learned is the extent to which you doubt the reality that is:

THE INTERCONNECTIVITY OF ALL OF LIFE 

Know instead that knowing is enough. 

Stop all your thinking, talking and teaching. 

It's time for you to FEEL your feelings 

And for you to simply BE your joyful self. 

That should be enough!"

So at the tender age of 60 it’s probably high time for Gay Socrates to shut up and sign off- it’s been a total blast!