Sharing an Ayahuasca Vision

Since I published my book, Ayahuasca in My Blood--25 Years of Medicine Dreaming a couple of years ago, I have not shared any visions. I've had my share but thought I gave up enough of myself in the book. But just a couple of weeks ago I had one that I think is worth sharing.
    I was with a small group of guests up on the Aucayacu. I don't really drink with guests anymore. I watch them/tend to them. But over the course of a day of Jairo cooking the medicine, I certainly get a lot of ayahuasca steam in my lungs. And then when it's time to transfer the ayahuasca from the pot to a bottle, that's my job, and so I always have a couple of finger fulls from running my finger around the bottle edge or the funnel or the pot to make sure none escapes. And generally when I do that the spirit of the medicine will laugh a little and say something like: "I got you now. I'll talk with you later..." and so sometime later, generally during ceremony, she'll come back and tell me something. And for a little while, maybe an hour, maybe half an hour, sometimes two hours, I am completely under the influence. And the trick that she wants me to practice is to be both completely under the influence and completely in command of my human body at the same time. She wants me to split myself. And I do the best I can to be in both worlds at once.
    This time, it came on suddenly. Jairo was singing beautifully. The night was filled with wonderful stars over half the sky; clouds shrouded the rest. I was sitting on a bench just outside the ceremonial hut,  catching people as they lurched or scuttled on their fannies to the hut's edge to step outside to vomit out the bile of their lives.
    Suddenly she spoke. "You needed to be old, but you don't need to be old anymore."
    Instantly I was in a dream, fully awake. "What do you mean?"
    "You're going to be 62 next week. For years you've been referring to yourself as an 'old fat white bald guy'. You don't need to do that anymore."
    "But that's what I am..." I protested.
    "No. You needed to believe you were that to be able to deal with being 58, 59, 60. To come into that time of your life gracefully. But you've begun to believe it."
    "But it's true. I didn't make it up. I'm going to be 62. That's getting old..."
    "Only if you want it to be. Now that you're near 62, you have a choice. You can either believe you're an old fat bald guy, or you can realize that you have just recently entered the final third of the prime of your life. You can realize that you now have both the strength and the wisdom. Or you can see your age as the first stage of growing old. It's up to you. You'll have to work at the prime of your life part, of course, where you don't have to work at all to be old. But here is what you could have with a little work..."
     And with that, I instantly felt lighter. My body felt like I was 45 again. And then she was gone. But the lightness, the stiffness that I often feel in the morning simply vanished for nearly a week. Climbing hills was easy and fun. Everything about my body was fun.
     And then, maybe five or six days later, she came back. "That was to show you what the work could do. Now it's up to you. Do you want to be in the last third of your prime or in the first part of getting old?"
     And in seconds my feet hurt a little, my stomach felt fat, I was unsure of walking on the clay in the rain.
    Choice is mine. I'm going to opt for the prime of my life. It will take work. But boy, it felt wonderful to be a young middle-aged guy instead of an old fat bald guy for a few days. It will be worth the pain.
    I'm sharing that because I suspect a lot of us, in order to deal with a number like 60 coming on us, start to accomodate aches and pains as if they are normal for the age. And the medicine showed me that they don't need to be. And that was a beautiful lesson to be taught.