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Churning the black hole

Or rather, the journey to the light

By Sierra Servi SerenoPublished 2 years ago 6 min read
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I felt stiff, like I was putting too much energy into holding my spine up straight. When I opened my eyes the man was sitting in front of me.

“Just be happy,” he told me.

Part of me had wanted to get up and dance to the drums, which I was aware would’ve been the ultimate expression of my happiness. Yet the other half of me was telling myself, “You can’t do that, you’ve spent too much time not moving. If you get up and dance now, it won’t make sense.” I briefly took into consideration the rest of the people seated around me at the circle. We were about twenty five in total. Looking over at them against the charcoal background of the night, they looked like Russian nesting dolls huddled next to each other. Wrapped up in scarves and seated on wool blankets, my fellow ceremony goers were not Russian. I was in Mexico.

At first, this man had made eye contact with me from across the fire pit. We smiled at each other over golden sparks and smoke. I began to nod after holding each other’s gaze. I might’ve pricked a smile.

Then, raising a finger to point at me he said,

“You. Are God.

“Your light? Incredible.”

His statement was delivered rather questioningly as he parsed together the words in English, a language clearly not his first. I appreciated what he was saying, but I bristled. Nobody had spoken directly to another person, especially not to an apparent stranger, since we’d started. As he spoke of my light, he swung his arms in an orbit over his own head as if to reference my aura. I was too surprised and shy to look around to see if anyone noticed our connection.

I knew exactly what I was feeling. It felt like I was playing a part, only it was a sad girl part. It wasn’t fun.

My new acquaintance had moved to sit directly in front of me, clearly trying to make his message land. He was wearing a blue sweatshirt, the kind made out of horse blankets. He was bald. His facial expression comforted me, but now that his attention was directly on me, I was experiencing a strange pressure. It was like his attention necessitated a certain reaction, only I didn’t know what. What I really wanted was to dance, but at this point any change would’ve felt even more like acting, pretending, because I knew someone was watching. I knew I could’ve flipped the switch, too. I also knew if I did, everyone around would see me flip into happy mode, as surely their eyes were on me. I didn’t want them to think I could change my mind so quickly. Obviously they would see that if I danced, it was only because this man gave me the idea. It was hard to know which I feared more, my own happiness or the judgement of the rest of the ceremony participants regarding my ability to fling myself into freedom. Getting up to dance now would be too abrasive, wouldn’t it? It was all I really wanted to do and yet I just sat there, congealed to my cross legged position on the ground.

I had been expecting the peyote to do the work for me: to undress me, to take off my outerwear that looks like Sierra and talks like her too, only that isn’t. Some relevant advice my godmother once gave me came to my attention. She’d been talking about my mother. My godmother told me, “your momma had that light. The light that you have, she had it too. Don’t let yours go out.” When she said that, my eyes must have welled up with tears, because from somewhere I knew that her words were true. This light is the same one I was told of at the ceremony, it's the light that’s representative of my most inner self, the real self, the one Freud has a name for that I can’t remember.

Yet I have been dancing jigs and salsas, twerking and even taking contemporary dance classes. All in a great effort to not step on the coals...of my own fire.

“Pure love.

“You are pure love. Pure love pure love pure love,” his head shaking side to side as if to stretch the boundaries of his smile.

He could sense my discomfort because his gaze was compassionate, beckoning. I nodded, closed my eyes, rocked back and forth. Exhaled.

Have you ever taken psychedelic drugs before, expecting a trip, only to never “come up?”

I had this experience with peyote. It left me dumbstruck and feeling silly. It was more sobering than being sober, the instance of consuming psychedelic plant medicine and failing to have the psychedelic experience I’d created an expectation for in my mind. I failed to be carried away to the dimensions of the gods and goddesses like I thought I’d be. It made all my expectations come tinkling to the ground like shattered glass.

It left me wondering, what did you expect? Well, I expected to be shown something I didn’t know before. I expected something grand within me to move or to be moved. I was left feeling uncomfortable, a bit naked, and I realized I had been looking for catharsis. I wanted the peyote to take my shame and guilt away, I just wanted to unload a bit of what I was carrying. Going into the experience I’d been expecting to purge a demon, literally. Why? I think because deeply, internally, there is a certain darkness I feel that I don’t know what to do with. Something like a black hole that I wish I could reach in, turn inside out and expose to the light. What I received in contrast felt like nothing happened because my senses weren’t altered.

Months later, I can see the experience was exactly what I needed. The alteration was completely internal. During the peyote ceremony we take the medicine they call the grandfather at night, and spend the next twelve hours offering our prayers and songs to the fire, to the spirit world, to the gods and goddesses of the pre-Spanish indigenous culture still alive in Mexico. After 12 hours of being strained, brow furrowed, and wondering what was supposed to be happening that wasn’t, I realized that the struggle I was having was up against my own mind. At one point I had my hand to my chest. I imagined pulling my heartstrings out, splaying her fibers away from my corporeal form. As I pulled my hand away I imagined that in my fingers I held the density of my emotional pain, the thing blocking my heart from being open. Because with a blocked heart, how could I express myself? How was I going to dance if I couldn’t just let it all go? I shook out my hand to expel the heart pain, to return it back to the soil from which everything comes.

My prayer for the ceremony had been to take my fear of being seen and heard away. The gift of this medicinal plant was that it helped me realize the importance of taking responsibility for myself. As the sun came up painting a periwinkle sunrise, I’d hit the point where I saw no drug nor person would ever be there for me to rely on to take my feelings away. I realized I had to deal. The stripped down nakedness I was looking for? I was going to have to walk through the wall of pain while I took off my every garment by hand. The black hole inside would have to be hand washed indeed. I realized I had to save myself. Nobody else is going to, not even Mother Earth.

humanity
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About the Creator

Sierra Servi Sereno

Excuse me while I get my bearings...I will probably sound terribly New Age while I learn to practice information sharing and creative self expression through writing. Excuse me, I promise I'm trying to be pragmatic

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