I want to start with thanks, which generally conclude an interview. Angelika, a young Swedish traveler with a strong spirit, has decided to tell us something about her trip to Colombia in search of a shaman to try the experience of Ayahuasca .
A journey of a month, in the forest, living with the shaman, complying with his teachings, in a hut where he had to find for himself what to live.
He didn't decide to document it all and show it as it often goes out of fashion, instead he gave us a few words about the essence of the experience rather than the details . A saying nothing that says a lot in its own way.
Angelika, let's start from the beginning. What prompted you to make your way to this experience?
I have always traveled a lot, I am an independent and emancipated girl . In my travels I met many real travelers, curious people, whose life is structured on unique and original experiences.
It was not difficult to meet people who had had a similar experience in South America and it attracted me right away. I felt something in me that needed to unfold, that could not develop through the common experiences of the usual social life. There was a sealed room in me that I needed to open .
Life in Sweden had begun to have something depressing and even traveling had become empty and mechanical. Something in me called for a turning point and many of those who have experienced Ayahusca describe it this way. But I didn't want to put myself in the hands of an impromptu and profitable European shaman.
The journey is part of the preparation for the experience. The unconscious must be earned, you cannot simply buy it ...
How did you plan it all?
Spending a lot of time between the stories of other travelers like me, paying close attention to skimming them from all the subjective that such an experience can stimulate. Everyone moved for different needs and managed post-experience in different ways. Many have taken advantage of the energy of change, others have squandered everything quickly .
Many information about the villages to go to are available online and many hostels make the journey easier. By now it is no longer an extreme journey as it was for the early pioneers. I traveled backpacking, I wanted to be alone with myself. South America facilitates a similar choice.
Why really Colombia?
Yes indeed Brazil, Peru and other nations also offer the possibility of such an experience. Colombia is also more complex to penetrate and shamans more difficult to find. Yet I trusted my instinct and the impression left on me by the boys who had passed by here. Furthermore , Colombia is an ideal tropical paradise for fruit lovers, perhaps much more so than the Amazon areas of Peru and Brazil.
During your interesting journey, how many people with similar motivations did you meet?
Many people, many travelers of the spirit . Such an experience cannot have a recreational purpose, not to get high at a party . Whoever sets out on the road to perform a ritual with anahusca generally wants to heal his soul . The journey is hard, the preparation for the intense ritual and those who do not resist or do not show themselves ready are chased away by the shaman. There are many people looking for them, you can read them in your eyes .
Yet everyone is different, it represents a unique need. In a certain sense you recognize yourself, paradoxically, despite the distance created by uniqueness.
If possible, tell us something about the ayahuasca experience ...
It would not make sense. When it flows into a totally subjective experience, it has value only for those who experience it . It is like a completely tailored suit. It can only be me. What I can stress is the importance of preparation.
At best it takes weeks. We must get humble, without any presumption, naked . Then perhaps the experience can be useful as well as intense.
How has your life changed?
I know a part of me that up until now had been in the shadows, exercising its influence without my knowledge or in any case without my control. I am much more compassionate and at the same time critical of the society around me . Now I understand the power of his influence and decide whether to accept it or not. I know that I am not my body, nor my mind, nor the sum of the experiences of this life. We are something that goes much further.
What will be your next step after such an experience?
I don't feel the need to repeat such an experience. It is like an initiation : one does not begin twice in adulthood. I feel I am much more capable of being alone with my emptiness. I don't have compulsive needs when it makes itself felt. After such a clean slate I feel I can start building solidly.
