Page 90 of Beautifully Wild

Shit.

I go to stand, only she stops me and wipes the tears I’m oblivious to. She places a hand on my cheek and smiles, a finger circling between us as though she’s telling me she’ll be here for me. “I hope you know CPR,” I murmur. “So, this is it. I die in the rainforest, and my father gets to say, ‘I warned you’ at my funeral.”

I shut up when a cup-sized bowl is handed to me.I’m already crazy. I shoot Kaikare a worried look before downing it in one go.

I gag and cough on the vile taste, handing her back the cup. “It’s disgusting,” I say. It reminds me of a night on tequila. Spluttering, I try to spit the bitterness from my mouth.

She lets go of my hand to refill the bowl by the shaman’s side. He blows smoke over the bowl from a pipe and returns to his song. When I down around seven cups, I hold up my hand to refuse anymore. The shaman blows smoke into my face and chest. The ground seems to move beneath me. I fall back onto my rear and close my eyes. The room spins as if I’m intoxicated, lying in bed and can’t sleep—the very worst part of being drunk.

Breathe.

You can do this.

My heart thuds behind my ribs, a quickened beat as though in a race, and I’m sprinting to the finish line. My breaths quicken, and no matter how I try to calm my thoughts, it’s helpless to slow my vital organs’ reaction to the brew. I’m guessing my heart wants this shit out of me as much as I do.

After a series of flips and turns, my stomach gurgles in warning, and I say, “I’m ready.”

Lying on my side seems natural, and I’m not sure how many minutes—or hours—pass before I shoot up on all fours ready to puke.

Beneath me, I sense a clean bowl right before the regurgitated tea finds its way out. I sweat profusely, heave and cough, while my gut continues to twist and contract. Wiping my mouth on several occasions, I sit back on my heels, saying, “Okay. I’m done,” until a demon possesses me once more, and I throw myself forward in an exorcism on my soul.

Burning wood overpowers my senses. When smoke hits my face, I’m forced back onto my butt as though a ghost pushed me. The shaman’s harmonious tunes fill my head, and I’m swaying back and forth, handing control over to him. A shiver leads to trembles quaking over my body. A warm hand guides me to lie on the mat. Each vowel echoes as though my brain is trying to find meaning in a dark cave. My lips tingle. Spots form before my eyes, a kaleidoscope of brilliant color in the most unusual patterns and brightness I could ever imagine. The brightness is in my head, and before me, as though I could reach out and touch the rainbow on steroids, something alien reaches in for my soul so that it can witness the astral show. Colors twist and turn, slow to almost nothing before returning to their former brilliance. I don’t want it to stop for it’s not only the color, I’m overwhelmed with emotion and pure joy.

The nausea builds again, only I manage not to puke. The tingling travels up my arms and over my body, and my thought processes unravel as if something is inside of me, coursing through my veins until its fingers probe the lock to my brain. The doors to my world open to allow this alien intelligence to rifle through my thoughts. The spirit is stronger and more powerful than me. I sense its strength without fear, only endless love. Memories flash before me, and along with them, emotions undo my resolve—my time with Ethan and the moment he killed my soul and my life being controlled by my father, never being free to live the way I choose. Tears come with more images morphing to my friends, their faces appearing and disappearing, a movie on fast-forward until I’m visualizing a life-size image of Samuel.

He stares back at me as though searching for my life force, blue eyes holding my focus. My chest rises as though my heart reaches for him. My grandmother’s face appears, her beautiful smile telling me I’m doing fine and to reach for the stars. She morphs into a black jaguar, and I sense I’m looking at a mirror image of myself. My soul or whatever part of me is connecting with this higher intelligence glides into dark nothingness in a universe surrounded by stars and other souls. For a moment, I believe I hold knowledge for all there is to know. If anyone were to ask me a question, I’d have an answer. Colored wings coming from the stars soar toward me in the form of beautiful butterflies. They speak to me in the voice of the shaman, and I understand every foreign word.Evolis whispered. One word. I don’t know what it means, but it shoots emotion into my head. Rain falls in the form of butterflies all whispering to me, nothing comprehensible yet full of meaning.

Life.

I feel life.

The click of insects has its own language as does the chatter of animals. I hear everything differently and feel connected to what lies beyond the border of the jungle. Gone is the fear I held inside. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what could harm me. I understand now we all have a place. A chance to live harmoniously together by respecting each creature and their purpose on earth.

My eyes open to darkness, the shaman’s song, and a hand on my shoulder. The trees rustle their leaves, speaking to me. I turn to the jungle, the trees glowing green, their bioluminescence like we saw last night. Each tree is lit up in a network of nerves, and a web penetrates beneath the soil to the roots. It’s as if my face is to the ground, and I’m seeing what lies beneath as you would when in the ocean and staring beneath the surface. A central nervous system connects one tree to the next, electric energy firing between each, silently communicating with one another, and tonight, me. I feel every vibration of life. I hear the whisper of the trees, the energy surrounding us, emanating oxygen to the world in clouds of green.

Our lifeforce.

Everywhere I look is as though we have two suns shining bright light upon us. Before my experience, I perceived the world through a cloudy lens, a heavy fog clouding my thoughts. Today, I woke with more clarity than I’ve ever experienced in my life. Even now, out in the fields with the other women, the ax is light in my hands, and there’s a sense of purpose that I didn’t have before.

Looking into the jungle, beyond the trees, I have clarity. A connection. Maybe I’m still high? I don’t care because I have found everything I was searching for—my eudaimonia—and I don’t want to lose the feeling of infinite happiness.

Kaikare smiles at me, knowing my secret despite no words exchanged between us. By lunchtime, I’m starving, and despite the new sense of energy soaring through my veins, I am shaky after puking equal measures of my body weight last night.

I stop to wipe my brow, the sweat even drips from my chin with my body trying to eliminate the toxins after the ayahuasca cleansing. I have no experience in microbiology, but if I was carrying a disease, I think the tea destroyed it.

Heavy gray clouds loom overhead. Hurrying along, we carry the produce in woven baskets and head back to the village center, dumping our day’s work on the ground near the fire to keep the insects at bay.

I’m eager to learn how to prepare the yuca since I’m more in tune with their ways. Before I consider my words, the children come cheering from the direction of the river. Kaikare listens before waving for me to follow.

I want to run to the river. It could be Samuel, and there’s a chance he could be sick after being away for so long. We reach the sandy beach, and I stop to catch my breath, the lightness in my chest fades.

“Hey, is everything okay?” I say to Asoo.

Asoo hands me my phone. “Your friend, Amy, say it urgent.”

“What?” I take my phone from him and read her message. Skimming over the words, my thoughts racing to the worst possible scenarios.

Amy: Eden!

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