Last night’s ceremony started much the same as Thursday’s. Shivering built up to shuddering then the involuntary clinched up cowering. I eventually was able to connect to it emotionally and had a good cry again. But it felt kind of hollow. Like this was not the goal for the night. As the ceremony progressed i started getting nauseous and the convulsions wouldn’t stop and I had wild temperature fluctuations… I was miserable. Plus the mapacho smoke (mapacho is a type of tobacco that is smoked during ceremony, if you’re so inclined) and Agua de Florida smells became overwhelming and revolting to me. I couldn’t take it anymore so I went outside to get away from the smoke and smells.
Unfortunately it smelled like smoke there too. It seems like there’s always something burning around here. My guts had been pretty gurgly, so I tried to go to the bathroom with no luck. They had painted the bathrooms earlier in the day, so the paint smell was putting me off too. I just couldn’t get away from the misery. I began feeling incredibly agitated, frustrated, and angry. I returned to my mat, resigned to my fate. While laying there shaking, the convulsions manifested in punching for a brief moment instead of cowering.
Right around then Markus came to sing to me. I didn’t see the point, and I really didn’t want him blowing mapacho smoke on me (something the facilitators do to ease you). The song was fine. He asked how I felt afterwards and I didn’t want him to feel bad, so I said, “better”. He didn’t believe me and asked, “really?” with a little ‘don’t bullshit me’ in his voice. That made me laugh a bit which felt nice. He thanked me and got up and left. I felt bad. I know he wanted to help. In the state I was in I just don’t think it was possible.
So I continued to stew in my misery just wishing it could be over. Eventually it ended and I was exhausted and still twitching. Ariel, the woman to my right, had a wonderful experience and was inspired to recite a poem to Cvita. I’m not a poetry fan, so I was like, “oh great”. Instead of saying it in a normal quiet-time voice, which would have been appropriate, she went into full-on performance mode, projecting her voice even though Cvita was sitting like 4’ in front of her. It went on, and on, and on, and I couldn’t take it anymore in my agitated state. I left for my cabin. No offense to Ariel. She seems like a very nice person. I was just in a terrible mood.
I woke this morning feeling sore and despondent. I laid in bed for about an hour just trying to get a take-away from last night, but fell short.
At the morning meeting I was reassured that I was on the path. Cvita said she saw me as a scared little boy, but underneath that was a lot of suppressed anger and that was starting to work it’s way out (the punching). Their reassuring and feedback returned my faith in the process.
I’ve been very emotional today. Dwelling on dark subjects and crying. It was hot and humid this morning again, but after lunch it started storming. I stood out in the downpour for a while and it felt really nice. There was a lightning strike so close that I could feel it in the ground and in my chest. I love storms. I often fantasize about getting struck by lightning and acquiring super powers… or dying. Either way, win-win. Hopefully I won’t feel that way after my treatment here concludes.
I haven’t had a bowel movement in a few days, so I’ve been eating a lot of apples in hopes of getting the wheels turning. I think it’s working!
It’s the weekend and there are no ceremonies until Monday. A few people went into town and a few people were planning on going to the beach. I think the rain will stop the latter. I was going to “plug-in” for a while today to check my email and messages. I want to make sure there hasn’t been any changes to my flights home. Plus I’ve been missing Toni and I’d like to check in. Unfortunately the storm knocked the power out, so we’ll see how that goes.
I felt pretty crappy up through dinner and I was worried that I was coming down with something. I’ve been pretty paranoid about that, as I don’t want anything to happen that will interfere with my two remaining ceremonies. I have yet to receive my life changing experience.
After dinner I sat in the lounge to check my email and text with Toni for a while. There were a few others in there too. After socializing for a bit I started to feel a lot better. Markus and I compared art portfolio websites. He has a body of work using rust as a medium. It’s pretty interesting. He has a show coming up in Austria pretty soon. I tried typing my portfolio URL into his macbook, but his keyboard was wonky. I said, “there’s something wrong with your keyboard”, and he said, “it’s German”. We got it figured out.
We ended up watching some christian movie about a girl who was terminally ill then fell into a rotted out tree and was miraculously healed. It wasn’t really my thing. I don’t mind getting the “good word” out there, but use a little finesse. Maybe some subtlety. Don’t hit me over the head with club.
Joe and Markus stayed up to watch X-men Apocalypse, but I decided I needed rest more than I needed to watch that again. I slept pretty fitfully partly because I was pretty dehydrated, which causes me urinary tract discomfort, and the rain was making noises off the leaves and my roof that sounded like flip-flops. In my half asleep state I kept thinking there were a bunch of people walking outside my cabin and it freaked me out.
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