My interest in Ayahuasca

I first heard about ayahuasca years ago when I read the now-famous National Geographic article in which a journalist drinks a mystical Amazonian brew that changes her life and cures her depression. I wasn’t looking to be cured of any illnesses or ailments, though many people report being healed of numerous addictions and diseases, including various forms of cancer, after drinking ayahuasca. The thing that stood out for me – beside the writer’s descriptions of facing her own personal hell – is that in her final ayahuasca ceremony, she vomits up a black snake. I’m sitting in my friend’s college apartment, and I’m reading in National Geographic that a journalist actually vomited a snake.

My first thought was, NO she did not.

My second thought was, I HAVE to try it.

Fast forward to 2010 and I’m living in an apartment with three strangers in Ecuador, doing a little thing we like to call Jet Set Zero. Laurene, fresh from volunteering in the Ecuadorian Amazon, asks if I want to try ayahuasca in probably our second ever conversation. That was my first lesson in learning that the French don’t mince words. And as she talks, I remember: Ayahuasca. Just the name conjured up visions of jungles, shamans, and encountering my inner demons, exploring my subconscious, pushing back the veil of our modern-day blinders and reconnecting with an ancient, spiritual past. Let’s be honest- I was mostly wondering if I, too, was going to vomit a snake.

I wasn’t always fascinated by the prospect of drinking an Amazonian plant that had been boiled and prayed over for hours and hours. I wasn’t always intrigued by the thought of confronting my worst fears or exploring other dimensions. Nor do I recall ever wondering what I would find deep within me- after every shred of vanity, ego, and finally, dignity, had been torn away. But the more time I spent in Ecuador, the more I found myself researching everything I could about ayahuasca and the knowledge it imparts to those who venture down its path.

I do find shamanism interesting- mostly because I am fascinated by indigenous cultures and the way they hold on to beliefs that are so ancient compared to ours. And I seem to be drawn to countries where aboriginal or indigenous cultures still exist. My favorite places to travel to are the ones that are the most different from home.

Give me Papua New Guinea over Paris any day. While we’re moving on to touch screen this and high def that, other cultures are practicing the same beliefs that their ancestors have for the last several hundred years. I’m all for progress, but I find meaning in the fact that these societies’ customs have been fostered by centuries of learning and experience, as opposed to modern-day worship of the latest, greatest iPhone app.  The irony is that as technology increasingly connects our world, it also drives us further from the basic experience of face-to-face interaction.  Technology may make life easier, but it also weakens meaningful connection as interpersonal contact is diluted by texts, emails, and Facebook messages.

The more I travel, the more I encounter firsthand the glaring disconnect between hyper-materialistic America and the rest of the world. In the U.S., we are consumed by our consumption and our belief that “he who dies with the most toys wins.”  To me, mobility – not money – equates to freedom and I believe that the more things you own, the more things own you.  Living in South America, I felt more grounded, more in tune with what really matters in life. As a result, I felt surprisingly comfortable seeking answers and exploring spirituality through shamanism and ayahuasca, practices that indigenous people have honored for centuries.

The biggest obstacle to partaking in ayahuasca was finding a shaman- a legitimate shaman.  The shaman is perhaps the most important part of the experience, because if ayahuasca shows you your worst fears and demons, you are going to want someone skilled in navigating the spiritual realms to make sure you come out on the other side.  The ‘work’ you do on yourself with ayahuasca is personal in that it does come from you (and it is work), but the shaman plays a vital role in facilitating your journey.  The shaman also administers special healing songs, called icaros, that heal the spirit and in turn, the body.

People say ayahuasca gives you exactly what you need and never more than you can handle.  There were times when I would beg to differ on the latter though, times when I felt ayahuasca gave me way more than I was ready for and I questioned whether I would come out on the other side.

Australian journalist Rak Razam summed it up when he said something like, “Sometimes ayahuasca breaks you apart and afterward, the pieces fit together in a different way. You’re broken, but stronger in the broken places.”

A single ayahuasca ceremony can be so powerful that it can equate to years of self-development in terms of the issues you can work through and the new perspectives you can reach.  You do not need an illness or crisis to benefit from ayahuasca.  Not everyone drinks ayahuasca because they seek healing, though it is hard not to feel that you have been healed afterward.  Simply look around to observe how much healing our world needs.  Symptoms of our Western malaise are evident: a mass mentality of material accumulation; a society that would rather type an email than knock on their neighbor’s door; an entire generation who doesn’t know what to do with their lives.

Ayahuasca holds the space for undertaking a journey deep within your psyche and has the potential to shatter all the beliefs you hold about how the world works.  It can be hard to feel that you are the same person afterward.

No one wants to vomit snakes, but then again, think about how much better off we would all be if we purged the equivalent of a spiritual black snake.  Ridding ourselves of negativity in the form of old belief systems, self-defeating or addictive behavior – consider the collective healing our entire planet would experience if we each relinquished some of the toxic debris we carry around.

Food For Thought – Some things I read while researching ayahuasca

• Jet Set Zero in Quito: Episode 6
• National Geographic article
• One person’s account of 18 ayahuasca ceremonies
• Excerpt from Rak Razam’s book Aya: A Shamanic Odyssey

“It tastes like vinegar. ”

“We didn’t add any vinegar.”

-Amy Cao and I tasting our homemade ceviche at 5am before she had to catch her flight back to the US

Watch the latest episode of Amy Blogs Chow’s Stupidly Simple Snacks as the two of us take over my kitchen in Quito to make Ecuadorian ceviche.

What could be even better than traveling with your best friend?

EATING (and then trying to cook) while traveling with your best friend.

When Amy Cao visited me in Quito and brought our replacement video camera after the first one became a casualty of bus robbery, it was a bit of a working holiday for her. Amy’s a non-cooking food-writer-turned-food-show-host who produces charmingly comedic Stupidly Simple Snacks videos for the many of us who, like her, are handicapped in the kitchen.

Since Amy’s life and profession revolve around food (as have many of our best conversations in the eight years we’ve been friends), we spent a lot of time eating.

Eating our way through Ecuador

We toured Quito by day, ducking into tiny mom-and-pop restaurants for set lunches that cost $2. If we were feeling really good about ourselves, we’d splurge on $5 ceviche. At night she’d visit me at work at Uncle Ho’s to dine on fresh shrimp rolls and Vietnamese coffee as she kept up with her website via MacBook.

The professional version

We wandered through local markets drinking exotic fresh fruit juices like taxo, naranjilla and tomate de arbol. We devoured regional dishes like shredded pork with buttery mashed potato cakes topped with a fried egg, not caring that our lunch’s source (a giant fried pig’s body) was staring us in the face. We ate 50 cent cheese empanadas on the bus and sampled $20 guinea pig at a 5-star hotel. In short, we did what we do best: talked at length about the world and the lives we spend traversing it over a long, lovely meal.

It wasn’t all mangos and banana smoothies though. On Amy’s last night in Quito, we decided to roll up our sleeves and take over the kitchen in my apartment in Quito (although, good roommate that I am, decided not to “borrow” Freddie’s orange for our recipe). We filmed the debacle – ahem, culinary success – and Amy created a video so you can laugh along as we endeavor to make Ecuadorian ceviche. And yes, we’re in our pajamas at the end of the video (and yes, we have matching shirts that say Up with Life/Down with Oil in reference to Ecuador’s endangered Yasuni rainforest) because we went out for a celebratory dinner at a hillside hacienda for Amy’s last meal…and then she dragged me out of bed at 5am so we could taste our masterpiece and film ourselves eating raw fish at dawn before she flew back to NYC.

Armed with our ingredients

See what we concoct in an unexpected culinary comedy when this Jet Set Zero cast member stirs the pot with Amy Blogs Chow.

During the last few weeks of June, fortune smiled up on me and I was able to share the incredible experiences that Ecuador has to offer with my longtime friend Amy Cao, NYC food writer and creator of the mouthwatering Amy Blogs Chow.

Amy and I met at Boston University when we were college roommates nearly eight years ago and quickly became inseparable. Between our bicoastal lives and global travels, time and distance eventually caught up with us. Neither of us could believe that 2 years had passed since I had last seen her during my first trip to South America when we traveled together from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro.

It’s hard to explain the incomparable feeling of sharing a travel experience with someone you love.

How the joy captured in the moment is joy doubled, and forever encapsulated in your shared memory.

By the same token, the tense moments, the will-we-or-won’t-we-make-the-bus/get-robbed-at-the-ATM/find-a-hotel-at-10pm-in-a-new-town anxiety, the clumsiness of fumbling through language barriers and cultural divides, are made much more bearable – and even laughable – when you encounter them with someone you know and trust.

When you return home and start to tell your stories, try to convey the places you’ve been and how they’ve changed you, you find that despite your photos and flowery adjectives, no one else will ever understand those moments. Stumbling across markets filled with acres of vegetables and babies playing on potato sacks, their angel faces caked with dirt. Riding in the back of a truck on a bumpy dirt road past cows and laundry drying in the sun on the way to somewhere beautiful. Smiling at an old lady whose twinkling eyes crinkle at you as they wonder what faraway land you come from.

No one else will be able to recall the wind in your face, the sun smiling blindingly upon you, the realization and absolute conviction that the world is, indeed, your oyster.

There is much to be said for experiencing that moment on your own, for feeling every ounce of your personal power, and knowing that you can take on the world – and succeed. And yet the more I travel, the more I find that there is to be said for stringing that moment between two souls, for allowing the bliss of traveling to expand as it is shared -  until it encases both of you in a memory that you will carry forward together.

Have a taste in Episode 4.

“It’s all fun and games until someone gets their soul stolen. ”

-Evan the cameraman, reflecting on the not-so-fun events of Episode 3

By now you’re all aware of the Jet Set Zero model of travel. If not, refer to Episode 2 (and find out about the dead guy on our doorstep) as the job hunt begins in Quito and see how we fare when Episode 3 airs this week.

Jet Set Zero goes like this: 1 country. 90 days. 4 soon-to-be-friends.

Problem: No money.

Solution: Find job.

I caught the traveling bug long before I joined Jet Set Zero. How did I foot the bill for my wanderlust before?

Soaking it up in Rio de Janeiro

I’ve financed my travels in different ways, including working both stateside and abroad. A fellowship in Tokyo during university landed me a job in asset management in Singapore post-graduation. Like Freddie and previous Jet Set Zero cast members, I also taught English in Korea, which offers some of the best paid ESL jobs coupled with a high standard of living. We at Jet Set Zero are living proof that working while abroad is one of the most rewarding ways to sustain a life overseas.

My favorite street meat stand in Busan, Korea

Whenever I’ve returned home to Los Angeles between trips, I’ve spent time working short-term contract jobs to replenish my bank account – anything from assisting the CEO of a hedge fund to conducting research for a consulting firm. I’ve also freelanced for my alma mater, writing economic forecasts on the real estate markets in Southern California for USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate.

Catching up with friends back home

Working in this way – on my own terms – has given me the ability to save money for traveling and the freedom to travel as needed. And yes, for me, travel is a need.

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by freelancing guru Michelle Goodman, author of My So-Called Freelance Life and the inspirational blog The Anti 9-to-5 Guide. Her book and website should be some of the first stops for anyone aspiring to break free of the bonds of cubicledom. Michelle was interviewing people who, like me, resist the security of a permanent job in favor of the perks – ahem, freedom – of contract work or consulting.

Check out what I have to say in her article on ABC News Money column.

“You can settle down later, but I hope you never do. ”

-Carl Voigt, USC professor who changed my life

“Is it okay to walk down to the intersection?”
“Do you want to get robbed?”

-Felix our security guard, at 8pm on a Sunday night

“Why do I waste any time not living the life I’ve imagined?”

-Christine from Boston, reflecting on Thoreau’s advice to ‘Live the life you’ve imagined.’

“Who does this chair think he is?”

-Ryan, trying unsuccessfully to sit down for lunch