The Sacraments: 2, Ayahuasca

It is really hot, 104 and rising, and it is only 8 am
and I am again dancing with the Snakebird
Chief says "yeah, but it's a DRY heat!" quoting Aliens
and the Warriors all laugh.

The wooden cup is empty, and I toss it onto the sand, waiting.
Chief, squatting, asks "what now, Lizard?"
And the half of my brain that does the thinking
wants to call an ambulance and get to some air-conditioning
but the mystic half simply says "dance, baby"

5 warriors, 5 hand-drums, circle, chant and beat,
Chief and I squat, awaiting the Snakebird
and Thinking Half says
"You couldn't just square-dance or collect stamps like a normal person, could you?"
as Mystic Half sways and waits.

The churning in my stomach heralds his coming, black Snakebird writhing.
Chief stands in front of me, her gentle hands on my cheeks, her green eyes staring into mine
"You okay"? her voice carries the slight distortion that Snakebird brings with him
Thinking Half wants to scream,
but Mystic Half smiles and sings "Oh Yeah."

The drumbeats stretch and distort into a black reverb wall of sound, casting the circle
and the dancers merge into heat-haze mutants,
limbs contorting and bodies flowing into a curtain of living, drumming ivy
Thinking Half says
"keep it together, Lizard, you know what this is.
It's a drug, that's all, none of this is real"

But Snakebird whispers to me in a voice that oozes out my pores like acid molasses
"Come to see me again, have you"?

Thinking Half's voice is a mockery of a voice,
lifeless computer-synthesised tech-support phone menu voice
"Dimethyl tryptamine acting in and around the visual cortex,
and an anticholinergic monoamine oxidase inhibitor to impede molecular destruction"
and Snakebird, thrashing in my stomache, whispers to Mystic Half
"I am almost here, shaman. Have you made your peace?"
and I drop to my knees in the sand.

Thinking Half knows he is doomed, but tries anyway
"Shaman, huh? Fat, unemployed white guy from Maine, a shaman? Laughable"
but Mystic Half has started the Song,
and Snakebird is emerging from my mouth in spurts of oily black raven feathers
as I convulse and vomit the the feathered serpent, writhing in the sand
as Thinking Half packs his bags and moves on.

Black as a raven flying on a moonless night he comes, and circles me as I retch on the sand.
He is all out of me, and he assembles himself, and rises up like a cobra and laughs
His eyes glow softly like lit cigarettes in the dark, and his fangs drip with venom.
"I see you, lizard. You come to me again.
Have you a question, or is this just a social call?"

"I have gone as far as I can go" I begin,
and I look upon him, knowing he already knows my intentions
"And you want more wisdom, more answers?" he hisses, angry.
"You want me to do it all for you?"

he wraps around me, pinning my arms to my sides, and he begins to squeeze
He strikes at my throat, and I feel the poison in me as I mutter, dying, "I have lost my faith".

I can feel the life ending, draining, ebbing,
as the fangs of the Snakebird pump the poisonous answers into my blood,
melting my body away, from the inside,
leaving me a hollow cauterised shell of pink flesh over a liquid acid mass,
and I feel him squeeze, and my dissolved innards gush out and splash onto the sand,
bright red and steaming an acid cloud,
and Snakebird looks at the foul pool of my liquified inner workings, and laughs,
uncloiling from the tissue-thin remains of my shell

"I have given you my gift, shaman. You are empty" he says
"I am not here to give you faith, or wisdom, or answers.
I am here only for my own amusement
The Shaman used to know that. Now, they just come looking for handouts,
praying at me like I was a crucifued god who actually gives a shit"

"Next time you come" he says, his outline fading
"Come empty, and perhaps I shall fill you".

"No! " I try to shout, not wanting him to leave,
but he has taken my breath, too, and nothing emerges but emptiness.

As he fades, the red noxious puddle that was once everything I am
congeals into a shining red homonculus form.
"Am I you? or are you me?" it asks,
and then melts back into the sand, and sinks into it, vanishing,
and the black wall of drumsound becomes colorless,
and the undulating wall of ivy unmutates and resolves into dancers

And Snakebird, now nothing but a feathered serpent made of smoke, whispers as he unfurls his raven wings
"It is not the cup, nor even the wine, it is the drinking
It is not the steps, nor even the dancers, it is the dancing
It is not the question, nor even the breath that blows the sound out, it is, and always will be, the asking"