T2E2: Mara

Martín took me to Mara's house in the west of Bogotá on an October afternoon in 2009. –'When you see her you'll recognize her, Mara is famous', he told me a little before knocking on her door on the fourth floor of a discreet building that was behind a famous shopping center. I was calm, although I couldn't avoid the idea that I was about to embark on a new journey into the dubious arts of Colombian esotericism.

I still remember as if it were yesterday the moment Mara opened the door of her apartment and received me with an affectionate hug saying 'Hello beautiful, I was waiting for you'.

Her face seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't determine where I had seen her before, until after entering her home I came across a collage of photos that was framed and hanging on a wall. The 'egotheque' as Mara referred to the collage on some occasion, contained photos of her accompanied by famous actors I remembered from the television of the nineties and some still active. In other photos Mara was showing off her undeniable beauty of youth in modeling and advertising sessions, some of which I also found later in old editions of gossip magazines.

Having grown up in Colombia in the era when only three national channels existed and without resources to pay for cable television, I then remembered having seen Mara on many occasions as co-star or supporting actress in important national productions. Just as Martín had warned me, Mara was famous, at least in Colombia and for people of my age and earlier generations, since in recent years her appearances on the small screen had become increasingly sporadic.

It only took a few minutes for Mara to win all my trust. Her direct and deep gaze would be terrifying were it not accompanied by a candid voice that transmitted true interest in her interlocutor. Martín participated in the first part of the conversation and I could notice there was a great affection between them, which made me feel even more at ease. I had already noticed that Martín felt great admiration for Mara and little by little I was discovering the reasons for it. Suddenly Mara stood up and asked Martín to go to the main bedroom and help her fix some problem with her computer. Martín got up immediately and smiled knowing it was time to withdraw so I could tell my new friend Mara what had brought me to her.

I started narrating the story I had already repeated so many times that at that point I was already telling it almost without thinking. Mara listened to me attentively and only interrupted me a couple of times with some exclamation of disbelief that she punctuated with a joking swear word and her typical witch's laugh each time my clumsiness was reflected in the narrative.

Then she asked me to accompany her to a corner where she had a small desk on which there were crystals and pendulums of different shapes and sizes. She asked me to extend my hand and over it she suspended a pendulum that hung from a thin chain, while turning pages and analyzing with attention a notebook she had on the desk that contained strange geometric symbols.

After a few minutes she told me without much ceremony – 'Yeah brother, you have a spell on you and it has to be removed first because with that there I can't see anything.' Then she pointed to the main window of the living room we were in that faced a small park that was in front of the shopping center and told me 'It's as if that window were covered with grime, we wouldn't be able to see anything of what's on the other side, so it would have to be cleaned.'

I then told her about my ceremony with the santero (hoodoo priest) where I had supposedly gotten the spell off of me, and I perceived by the gesture she made tensing the muscles of her neck that the matter didn't make her feel anything pleasant; however she made no negative comment about it, simply telling me –'That doesn't work like that, I can't just remove one of those 'works' from you like that, I can help you remove it, but that task is for you to do.'

That immediately awakened my curiosity. I had expected Mara to offer me some kind of therapy or healing with her crystals on the cot I had seen in one of the rooms of the place, but the prospect of myself curing what was causing me so many blockages seemed much more interesting to me. – 'What do I have to do?' I asked at once and she, without hesitating, answered – 'You have to take Yagé.'

Mara then told me about that mysterious drink of which I had heard and read in some media referring to it as if it were a person: 'Yagé is very noble, it's going to teach you many things, it's going to show you what is blocking your path and if you're willing to heal and let it do so, the teacher is going to free you and show his wisdom.'

It could be said that I felt the call internally while listening to Mara. I expressed my willingness to participate in the ceremony and then Mara called Martín and warned him: 'You brought Manu to my house and now we saw he has to take Yagé. Can you accompany him?' My friend was surprised by the implication of the question. He knew the things of the Spirit are like that, and now he had become my guide to cross the threshold. Martín moved his eyes from side to side for a couple of seconds while organizing his ideas and immediately responded – 'Of course! I'll take care of taking him to the dose. When's the next ceremony?'

– 'This very same Saturday and I'm going, so try to take advantage because that way I can take care of you.' – Mara answered–

So things being, Martín and I agreed to start the journey that Saturday at about seven in the morning. He and his girlfriend Zoraya would pick me up at my parents' house and we would undertake the two-hour journey between Bogotá and the rural settlement of La Mesa municipality where the farm where the ceremonies were held was located.

My sister Julia, curious about the experience with Ayahuasca, which is the other name by which Yagé is known since it's one of the plants with which the brew is prepared, decided to accompany me to the ceremony, so together we got into the car in which Zoraya and Martín picked us up that October morning and we headed toward our encounter with the unknown.

During the road we conversed animatedly, remembering the old times and joking about everything as we did in the University, but during most of the journey we didn't touch any topic related to the experience we were about to begin. We stopped at a rest stop that was about 30 minutes before our destination and shared a tasty breakfast, being careful to follow the dietary recommendations Mara had left me: Not to eat meats or dairy the day of the ceremony.

When we got back into the car and began the last stretch of the outbound journey, the mood in the group had changed; not only had the hunger disappeared but also the lightness that had accompanied us until that moment. Zoraya and Martín were much quieter than my sister and I, and their facial expression had become somewhat melancholic. I, despite maintaining a good mood, could also notice some very deep nervousness within me, so trying to relax the mood, I said: 'Listen, drop that long face because we're not going to a funeral but to have a little drink.' Martín looked at Zoraya through the rearview mirror and told her 'If these two knew what they were going to they wouldn't be so cheerful!'

If that comment hadn't come from Martín but from any other person, I probably would have canceled the trip, but I trusted my friend completely so I swallowed and simply added: 'Well, I've had experience with marijuana a few times, I understand Yagé is also a psychoactive so I imagine the experience is more or less similar, right?'

– 'Yagé doesn't resemble anything you've known or will know, but I can't tell you anything more because everyone lives the experience in a different way. The only thing I can tell you is that it's going to change your life so there you go.' – Martín declared.

It goes without saying that that was the end of the jokes, and for the rest of the journey the conversation became more sporadic, but I remained confident the experience would be similar, although probably more intense than what I had already lived with cannabis.

We arrived at our destination a little late and there Mara, the taita (shaman) and his assistants were waiting for us along with a small group of future yagenautas. The farm was a plot of about three and a half hectares located on the slope of a hill at 1,200 meters above sea level, which gave it a mild and pleasant climate. There was no time to make a tour of the place because the ceremony was about to begin, so Claudia, who was the name of one of the taita's assistants, guided us along a scarcely paved path to the place where the dose would take place.

When we reached the improvised maloca[1] Mara hugged me affectionately and congratulated me for having decided to participate in the ritual. She took my sister Julia and me by the arm and incorporated us into the circle formed by the scarce attendees. At the front of the congregation were the taita and his assistants. I must say I was impressed by how young they were. I expected to see a group of elderly people or at least mature adults, but Fernando, the taita, was only about 25 years old; Gremo and César, two of the assistants who were also Fernando's brothers, were even younger.

The ceremony began with some words from the taita telling us that we were about to receive a very powerful medicine, of much wisdom. He made general recommendations such as the necessary disposition to receive the elemental and the possible effects we would experience, which included dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and possibly diarrhea. However, it wasn't the physical effects that made me anxious, but one of the recommendations the taita gave us: 'If you get scared or feel very bad, remember that all of that passes and that you're going to be okay. You have to think nice and let the yagé take you.'

After this, Fernando turned toward the altar that was in the north part of the arbor, where there were several plastic pitchers containing ochre and brown liquids, feathers, shells, small jars and a large pitcher of water. Behind the altar hung a poster with an imposing jaguar in a stalking position.

The taita began a series of unintelligible chants while vigorously waving a kind of fan formed by dry leaves known in the Amazon as wayra. That ritual lasted about 15 minutes during which the assistants sometimes accompanied the taita in his chants while we attendees kept silence there standing.

During the last minutes of the consecration, Fernando changed the chants for some soothing notes that he repeated with his Hohner harmonica. Suddenly he put the harmonica aside and intensified the movements of the wayra while emitting strong blasts that sounded as if he were making the onomatopoeia of a gale. Little by little he softened these blasts and they became whispers: 'wwooshhhhh… wwooshhhhhhaaaaah… wwooshhhhh.'

Then the taita turned again and ordered the men attending the ritual to form a line in front of him. So we did, and one by one we received the brew in a small gourd. When it was my turn, I felt a slight tremor in my belly and my heart was beating hard. I hurriedly drank it without smelling or tasting it, following the advice Martín had given me beforehand, but even so, I finished the act with an involuntary retch. I had just swallowed the sour drink I had ever tasted in my life.

Mara noticed my difficulty bearing the taste, which could be described as green tea infusion in apple cider vinegar. She offered me a glass of water and told me to drink it in one go and then go walk breathing deeply because if I vomited before 20 minutes, the yagé wouldn't take effect on me.

So I did and I moved away from the maloka without looking back and totally concentrated on holding the yagé in my body as long as possible. I was about to vomit prematurely a couple of times and I realized it happened when I remembered the taste of the drink. Then it occurred to me to look for something with a pleasant smell, so I took one of the many oranges that were on the ground after falling ripe from the orange trees that adorned the property.

Thanks to the smell of the orange, I was able to bear the disgust, and finally I came upon a pleasant sensation of drowsiness while remaining seated in lotus position in the shade of one of those orange trees. I calculated about 30 minutes had passed since I ingested the yagé when the retches came back, but this time I knew I couldn't contain them, so quickly I turned toward the trunk of the tree so as not to leave my vomit where someone else might step on it. The retches became stronger and stronger, accompanied by cramps in the belly. Nevertheless, the unpleasant sensations soon gave way again to the sensation of drowsiness I had achieved a few minutes before.

I got up as soon as I could and, heeding Claudia's recommendation not to approach anyone during the experience, I headed toward the lower part of the farm, where a small ravine surrounded by trees with high canopies passed. The sensation in my body and in my head was more and more pleasant and peaceful. A feeling of gratitude flooded me for being there in that moment. I thought of God and addressed him a low-voiced prayer asking forgiveness for my mistakes and thanking him for the healing I felt I was receiving.

Another of the thoughts I had during those moments of meditation was that although the nausea had been something very unpleasant and different from anything I had felt before, the experience was not altogether different from my beloved Cannabis rituals alongside Gabriel in Santa Marta.

Little by little I felt the pleasant sensation fading and returning to normal without having managed to see the kaleidoscopes of colors or have the revelations I had heard in the testimonials of other yagenautas. I calculated barely an hour and a half had passed since I received my dose, so I returned to the maloka to ask the taita if my part was over.

Fernando answered me that I could take a new dose if I wished. I thought about it for a moment and the prospect of swallowing that repulsive substance again made me hesitate, but the possibility of extending for a little while that very pleasurable sensation I had experienced convinced me to go through the ordeal of ingesting the yagé again.

I accompanied the Taita to the altar where he sang and wayred the pitcher again where the drink was. After a few minutes, he poured my portion, which I calculated would have been almost double the amount I had taken the first time. He took the small gourd with his hands, brought it to his mouth and there he blew, whistled, and whispered again, imitating the wind among the trees. Then he extended the gourd to me and I took it immediately without thinking.

I thanked him and moved away from the place repeating the formula I had used the first time: deep breathing, avoiding thinking about the taste of the yagé, and smelling an orange cut in two to control the retches. Once I got over the nausea I began to feel the drowsiness I had felt before and without delay I headed again to the place where I had interrupted my meditation, trying to resume the sensations I was experiencing before.

I reclined on the grass looking at the canopies of the trees and listening to the noise of the birds and the flow of water in the brook. The pleasurable sensation was there but little by little the drowsiness was flooding me with more force: a sensation of weightlessness and disconnection of the senses that ended up completely erasing all the noises, the light, the thoughts, until I fell into a deep sleep.

[1] A maloca is a traditional building for family and communal use utilized by indigenous peoples in the Amazonian regions of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.1​2​ The term is also used for the vernacular architecture of the Tupi-Guarani in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. Wikipedia

6 years ago. How beautiful. From my Soul I rejoice at your great and wise empowerment in this Great School. You are no longer found in this classroom COLOMBIA, but your path continues evolving in fertile lands and perhaps more suitable for part of your great Mission: Awakening consciences with your great wisdom and unconditional way of serving. I am very proud of you and with your loving family I always feel at HOME. I LOVE YOU

0 Reply. Author manuelr replying to Mara, 6 years ago: What a joy your message my Marita! Thanks for your love, your teachings, and your example. You and your teachers live in us and in our children. We love you with all our Being!