Plant Medicine Retreat: Part 3
Welcoming the elements of healing and connecting dots
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This post is Part 3 of a multi-part series. If you haven’t yet, I recommend reading Part 1 and Part 2 because they provide significant context for this post.
At one point, Abuelita asked if she could “work through me”. I paused for a moment. I remembered our curanderos' warning: Never negotiate a bargain or agree to any form of contract with an entity. Accept nothing they offer in the guise of a trade or a quid pro quo. After a little moment of anxiety, I realized that what I was being offered was really a gift, and I agreed to be worked through. What followed was unexpected.
I felt serpentine energy enter and merge with my body. It moved up and down, causing me to straighten from head to toe. I stayed like that for a moment, and felt as elongated as I ever have, and then I started writhing like a snake. This persisted throughout the evening.
I was contorted and bent into a variety of new and strange positions. I'd hurt my lower back a few months before and was scared that I'd move in a way that would cause sharp pains (as some conscious motions did), but that never happened. In fact, I had the feeling that Abuelita was helping me move in ways that would reduce the discomfort. Funny enough, I recently saw a chiropractor, who told me that structural and misalignment issues with my hips were the most likely causes of my lower back pain. Only now have I realized that my movements on Day 2 of the retreat were pointing to the true underlying issue (e.g. misalignment vs injury).
The undulation subsided at one point during this extremely physical portion of the evening, and instead of writhing about, I began softly rocking back and forth. It's difficult to describe, but it seemed less like I was rocking and more like I was being rocked. "When was the last time you were rocked?" I wondered. I basked in an ineffably happy sensation for a time.
After a while, I stopped rocking and felt Abuelita's energy begin to fade. My legs began to shake and vibrate sporadically as if little kids were pulling on or prodding them, and a more mischievous and impish vibe surrounded me. It was an all-around enjoyable, lighthearted, and fun vibe, so I sat with it for a bit and simply enjoyed the moment.
Abuelita later returned and asked whether I was ready to accept more. When I asked if it was healing energy, she responded, "Yes." I accepted, and at that instant, my palms flipped palm-side up, and I felt a remarkable surge of energy reverberating through them and down into the rest of my body. This was the most meaningful experience of the evening (at least, up until then!), and I wanted to share it with my partner. Despite the curanderos' warnings not to make direct connections with others, Abuelita encouraged and "greenlit" it at the time, so I proceeded: I visualized passing him all the energy that I was receiving and connecting with him.
During ceremony, it’s critical to stay centered so you may focus on your personal journey and healing. When you participate in ceremony with a family member, significant other, or close friend with whom you share a close bond, it's natural to focus on their experience and want to comfort them through difficult moments. However, this is not recommended due to the risks of potentially absorbing others' "dense energies" and the labor required to clear it (in our case, my partner and I had two people laying in between us). In any case, the direct connection that I made with im felt safe (though I kept it short, just to be sure!).
To close the ceremony, each of us was called up to the "mesa," or altar, for a ventiada. A ventiada is a special ritual in which the curandero sings a customized icaro or song that is specific to the particular guest. A ventiada is typically used for cleansing, healing, and/or safety. The most intriguing aspect of ventiadas is that the curandero does not pre-determine the icaro; rather, the medicine determines it, and the curandero channels the medicine and song through his voice.
After hearing my name being called by one of the guides, I walked quietly to the altar and sat down on a small cushion, closed my eyes, and prepared to receive my ventiada. At one point during the icaro, I felt something hit the side of my head. The sensation made me think the object was the size of a tennis ball or softball. I opened my eyes to see whether somebody had bumped into me, but there was no one close. It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life, right up there with seeing a gas stove burner set itself aflame with no one around and feeling a blast of freezing cold air in a sweltering room (all the day after my grandfather passed).
Believe it or not, the bizarreness did not end with the ventiada. As I walked back to my mat, I noticed my partner was completely taken aback, but in a good way. He later told me that months before we met, he had spontaneously sung my exact ventiada icaro during a sound healing meditation. We were both shocked. I know what you're thinking: this has to be a major coincidence... but...perhaps it's something else. 😉
Later that night (or more accurately, morning, as it was 4am), I sat in bed contemplating Day 2 of the retreat. It seemed to me that my three-day journey was progressing gradually. Day 1 was mostly about clearing energy channels, which is why it was mostly a physical experience. Day 2 involved bringing Abuelita into my body, which could only happen once the channels were cleared. What did this mean for Day 3 after such intense experiences and revelations? I was expecting something even deeper and earth-shattering, but I couldn’t fathom it.
I’m excited to share my experiences on Day 3 with all of you, so stay tuned for my next post where I dive into encounters with "doctorcitos," spiritual surgeries, and embodying the Divine Feminine.
In the meantime, if you’d like to read more about plant medicine rituals, I highly recommend Dr. Evgenia Fotiou’s paper, “Working with “La Medicina”.
Until next time, friends! 🙏