Aliens in the desert part 2

Part of the shamanic retreat involves collecting peyote cactus, a psychedelic alkaline flat cactus that when ingested produces other worldly visions that the Huichol Indians or Wirrarrika people as they call themselves have used for millennia. We leave the compound and start hiking in to the desert, if you kept walking and had no water your life would be in danger as there is nothing and no one around for miles.

After about 3-4 miles of walking we enter the area that has peyote there, there are small thorny bushes and occasional stones, nothing else a real barren desert.

Our leader Daniel calls everyone over to show us a peyote cactus, we can see how difficult they are to find as they are flat and grow level with the ground, the flat top cactus grows to about the size of a small drinks coaster but no bigger. The one I see is about half the size of my palm and someone mentions that it’s about 80 years old. We’re instructed to slice the top off and water the remaining root section as they can grow back, it’s important because they’re slow growing and doing this helps with the numbers.

We all walk in different directions, mindful walking totally entranced in the task of finding and collecting Peyote.

As I’m looking down I have a clear thought in my head, the aliens are here. As I look up to the sky I see a massive cigar shaped space ship gleaming glistening in non human silver colour, it’s way too silvery, it has diaphanous light coming from within. I’ve never seen anything like it, I guess it was a few hundred meters in length and it stays put not moving. I stand and stare for only so long, people call out to each other and point, we share the moment and funnily enough carry on as if it’s the most normal expected thing, Peyote hunting with a space ship in the sky.

The third time I meet our alien friends is that night, when I am alone in the desert. As we gather around and show each other how much Peyote cactus we have found, Daniel announces that we’re heading back to camp, it’s a good haul and everyone, if they still wish to, will ingest their food of the gods tonight. As we start to walk Daniel comes over to me and says ‘Not you you can stay here tonight’, ‘What do you mean’ I ask, ‘You’re strong enough’ and hands me a blanket. I guess I’m taking Peyote in the desert by myself then. Daniel gives me final instructions mainly of how to get home in the morning, I have a lighter, water and a blanket and of course some Peyote buttons.

It can get cold at night so I prepare a fire but there are no trees in the desert only shrubs and horse and deer poop. Wild horses and deer pass through every now and then, I actually saw a herd of deer the week before so I know they’re around. I walked around for an hour collecting the smallest pile of fire wood ever and a couple of poo patties that the wild horses had left me, this was to keep me warm all night and I surmised that it would be a very small fire.

I made my camp, started my fire in a dug out hole about as big as my hand. The twigs went on first and produced a flame big enough for the fibrous dung disk to catch light, it smouldered like charcoal and produced enough heat for me to feel warm. This is where I began ingesting the highly alkaline Peyote cactus. Boy o boy it was strong, stomach gurgling, foul tasting, my body immediately didn’t like it. I kept chewing buttons, more and more until I heard my passed away grandmother calling my name, it was a sign that that was enough, no more.

I sat back trying to hold it in but I was going to be sick. Oddly I felt embarrassed that I was going to puke my guts up and felt the need to hide it, I lifted the burning poo Pattie and puked in to the tiny crater underneath it, I felt 10 times better and the trip began.

The first thing was that my stomach could feel the sky, not just a little but the whole thing as if it was a millimetre away, in fact I was the sky one with all my eyes could see and some. I could see Daniel and Arbolita (Daniel’s indigenous partner) in the sky with me, they were checking in on me to see how I was doing. I enter the dream and I am walking along in the desert, I see Maria (another shamanic retreat participant) and walk float towards her, she gives me a pair of glasses and I put them on. This is where the trip really kicks in, she is my guide and by giving me the glasses says take a look at this. Im propelled into waves of orgasmic light, rolling and rolling, wave after wave, the aliens are here and they’re cranking up the universal love machine. The swells are never ending and the boom like a canon ball I’m shot even higher, boom another level higher and then boom again and again I’m shot higher and higher. This is one of the best experiences of my life, I know how much goodness and love there is in the universe and it goes on and on, there’s more and more, it’s absolutely wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

I wake up in the morning my life changed forever, this is a one way gate and I can never go back. I know from balls to bones how amazing it can be to be a human being, love and joy fill my being, now it’s time to walk back to camp and the others.

Im cheered as I enter the camp people rushing upto me asking me about my adventures, we share stories and I notice that most of the people I talk to stayed in body for their trips, I’m amazed as they spoke about ‘doing things’ I then realise how different our experiences were, I was never in my body, not at all.