If I start writing this stuff, you people are going to think Im out of my fricking mind. Photograph: Brandon Thibodeaux for the Guardian A line soon formed for the bathroom so people could purge, an inevitable messy part of taking ayahuasca (and part of its traditional value in the Amazon: it flushes parasites). As Haddock brushed past me, he asked: Are you wondering why we put ourselves through this?
Actually, I was thinking about something in Gormans book. Imagine a dog whistle, he writes. You blow it, you hear nothing. Your cat hears nothing. Birds hear nothing. But a dog will yelp in pain at the sound. So while you couldnt hear it, it was still there. Your hearing just didnt have a broad enough band.
To want to perceive reality beyond our limited band, suspecting it could offer some form of enlightenment about how the world truly works, seemed to me understandable enough. Because isnt that also the aspiration of science to expand our reach through the universe beyond the five senses? I wasnt sure the medicine Gorman offered could genuinely expand human perception, but I believed these people were convinced it could, and I saw the serious comfort they took from their contact with him.
Before flying to Texas, one of the guests Id spoken with was a young man named Devon Wright. Like Haddock, Wright, who lives in Hawaii, found himself going through a life crisis. Hed dropped out of school and was struggling on anti-depressants. I needed to do something or die I was looking for help, something outside of myself, in order to come back into myself. He admits he wasnt thinking that clearly at the time.
Wright made his own way to Iquitos when he was just 17 years old. Initially, he went to attend a shamanism conference. Then he met Gorman and returned for one of his jungle trips. What he found on the Ro Aucayacu, Wright told me, was who I am. There was no irony in this statement. He meant what he said.
Peter will sometimes use this analogy: we carry around this sack of potatoes on our back for a long time, and then every once in a while, if you do something like ayahuasca, it gives you an opportunity to unload. Wright said he now took the medicine once or twice a year. It allows me to let go and see whats left.
The morning after the ceremony, I woke up on Gormans floor with my toes numb from the cold. Dried shacapa leaves lay scattered around the rocking chair.
As I was preparing to head back to the airport, Gorman moved the chair to the middle of the room and turned on the television to a Rangers game. By the bright light of morning he was just an average guy, passing Sunday like thousands of other average guys in Texas. He thanked me for coming as though Id just dropped by for a friendly barbecue and passed out on the couch.
But then he said something else: that he would sing for my father. Id mentioned cancer the night before, because cancer was all I could really think about. Smiling, Gorman said he would include him in his songs to the spirits.
I am not what might be called a credulous person. But I would agree that the world is not as solid as we like to believe complicated, multi-layered and mostly beyond my comprehension. So when Gorman emailed me later that day, asking my fathers name, I wrote back and told him it was Murray.