Page 73 of Beautifully Wild

“Is this really a bedtime story for children,” Eden says under her breath when Samuel translates the shaman’s words.

“He’s building up for the chief’s story.”

The shaman raises both hands to the night sky. “A-pantoní-pe nichii.”May you take advantage of this story.

The shaman nods to Samuel. A cue to meet him on the other side of the long house. “I have a private meeting with the shaman. Kaikare will look out for you now. Don’t wait up for me. These meetings can go into the early hours of the morning.”

“I’m happy to wait for you,” she says when he stands.

“I’d rather you sleep. You’ll need your energy for tomorrow. I’m going to show you around.” She chuckles with him, making it sound like it’s another Hollywood tour.

Samuel walks the outside of the story circle to Kaikare, sitting with the women. He explains his absence for the next few hours and tells them to watch over Eden, making sure she doesn’t wander to the ceremonial side of the long house.

In a thatched-walled room, Samuel and a dozen warriors kneel before the shaman. Trying to find inner peace, Samuel closes his eyes and listens to soft harmonic tunes, the shaman calling to the forest, asking her to accept her children kneeled before her and connect their souls to guide them in their upcoming journey.

The shaman’s song drones out the screech of the jungle. The warriors hum a low ‘mmm,’ a mantra Samuel connects to and sounds out along with them. The shaman sucks the wooden pipe, blows smoke into his face, a different tune for each warrior, a new request for a spirit connecting to each soul.

These are men who, for weeks, have sacrificed meat, sugar cane, and any substance capable of hindering the absorption of the brew. There’s been abstinence of sexual orgasm to preserve energy and align thoughts to focus on the spiritual dimensions ayahuasca demands. Samuel has failed to refrain for the required weeks, only days, and hopes his experience of training his thoughts on this occasion will be enough.

He allows thoughts of Eden’s safety to melt away, knowing Kaikare will safeguard the ceremony. Men join the room, a support for each warrior. It’s time to leave the quiet room and congregate in thewaipa, an open-air round house where celebrations take place.

In two lines, the men walk in silence, the receiver and the protector side by side, ready to begin the journey of the mind.

Silence has fallen within the village perimeter, except for a steady drumbeat by an elder to remind one’s thoughts to remain in the circle of the shaman. The fire beyond their walls flickers in the distance, no longer maintained by those who gathered hours before.

A quiet normality fills him. The usual shrill of mosquitoes circle around his sweaty crown. The thick, moist air forces extra effort on inhalation, almost a natural way for him to breathe.

The serene voice of the shaman prepares him for his volatile body reaction. His protector passes him a bowl of ayahuasca tea. Samuel downs it, shudders at the bitter taste, reminding him of tequila and lemon. He’s handed another, and another, and another. Focusing on keeping the contents in his gut for as long as possible, he hums, eyes closed, his body trembling as the indigenous medicine is absorbed by his cells. The first sign of his stomach contracting forces Samuel onto his hands and knees, and he fills the large bowl before him. He swipes his mouth and settles back into a cross-legged position and is handed more brew. The slight tremor in his arms intensifies. The quaking in his gut radiates out until his entire body convulses, leaving him curled on his side, his protector lifting his cheek for vomit to flow freely.

“Water,” he screams out, only in his head.

The brew can’t be diluted.

Every synchronized vowel from the shaman’s throat drones out the moans and puking of those around him. Irregular purple shapes form before his eyes, then turn into slow-moving lava blobs, switching to pink, red, and orange and morph in a kaleidoscope of color, mesmerizing his vision. He allows the colors to take control of his body, lulling him into a false calmness until the probing tickles his hands, tracking the veins along his arms. Long intrusive fingers find his innermost thoughts and sort through every memory like a filing system searching for the crippling memories haunting him most. Every ayahuasca experience rakes through memories and addresses different files of the brain. Emotions overboil until he sobs like a young boy denied his most favorite toy, only the energy is tenfold.

As a sixteen-year-old, he visualizes friends bullying a girl, and hewatches on. He experiences pain throughher eyes, not his privileged upbringing in wealthy Trousdale Estate in Los Angeles. The taunting, the teasing as though she was inferior, and then until she could take no more, his soul cries for her soul. He has carried the burden of letting her down along with the promise he made to her all those years ago to be a better man and not follow the same path as his friends.

His thoughts switch to sexual infidelities through his university life, then to rebelling against his parents and their attempt to influence his career. Every piece of his past has led him on this journey.

Why does he exist at this time, in this place, in the universe?

He sees the plants with extraordinary powers to heal. His work is to find meaning in his existence, the euphoria of finding the essence ofwhy. He sees Eden’s face, a sign she belongs—with him. In a flap of wings—turquoise, red, and yellow feathers—he finds the space above the trees and soars through the jungle,his forest, a place of belonging. Below him is a map lit up like New York at night. A satellite view of every tree, branch, and root interconnecting with the next like a nervous system, each trunk a spinal cord, blue neon lights pulsing with electric energy. The effects of the ayahuasca vine guide him, lighting a path through the forest floor, a network of roots coming together in a giant web of the Amazon. With the wind in his wings, he recognizes river systems, crossing into an unknown section, and his concentration intensifies.

A black jaguar sprints the same path below, joining him on the mission, intimidating predators daring to cross his path. A second black jaguar joins them, a surprise. His confidence soars as he approaches the tepui, a dark shadow rolling like thunder clouds inside the giant stone. He has heard of the bad spirits residing there—Kanaimaand theMawari, spirits of the dead. He has the shaman running below protecting him, and now he has another black jaguar, and something tells him the shaman’s mate could possibly bring extra enforcement against the spirits of this mystical world.

Could it be Kaikare? Only she’s not part of the ceremony.

Eden’s cry sounds in the distance, bringing him catapulting to the ground. The black jaguar growls. The shaman’s voice tells him to focus and continue. The second black jaguar is attacking, not in fight but more in reprimand. Feathers beat. He soars up the side of the tepui to the plateau, the network now highlighted in electric yellow dotted with red. His flight path is low. He searches for the purple flower among the red, the pull to find it overbearing. He stops when a third black panther dashes beneath him—a younger cat and not as fast as the other two. His focus is challenged by curiosity,hervoice breaking through the vision in cries and screams, yelling abuse. He falls and tumbles. The cat padding toward him, a predator ready to pounce. It bounds past him, pulls up a few feet away beside a miniature lily-shaped purple flower.

The shaman’s voice pulls him through a funnel of color, recalling him into his own body, the present, the round house. He moans in disappointment, the exhilaration of flying forged to his memory. A map of the tepui is ingrained into his brain. Getting there will not be easy, especially without flight.

36

Eden

Samuelreturnstoourhut at first light.

It’s a little after sunrise, although it’s difficult to interpret the exact moment the sun rises with a canopy of tangled green blocking most of the light.

---