Party of One (27 page)

*
I am not going to call them the 'Mats, and neither should you; it is the indie rock version of mentioning your friend
Bobby De Niro,
and it should be avoided.

A year or so ago, I was hiking with my friend David, and he asked me: “Hey, do you want to do a Peruvian cactus hallucinogen with a shamaness and explore your emotions with a bunch of people in Topanga Canyon?” and without hesitation, I said: “Absolutely.” I mean, offers like this come around rarely, even in Southern California. You have to seize them. “That is absolutely something I want to do. Why are we still talking about it instead of doing it?”

I had been in therapy for a couple of years by this time, and I was learning plenty about myself and my hang-ups and the things I'd need to get past if I want to move forward in this life, but the thing about therapy is that it's very slow. You have to talk, you have to listen, you have to make your progress in tiny little baby steps. I don't have time for that. I am a busy man. I need something that's going to whiz me right past all of that sharing and learning and shit. A front-of-the-line pass to enlightenment. Yes. I'm in.

I said yes to adventure, and then almost immediately I started trying to figure out how to get out of it.

David added me to the e-mail list for the event. To this day, I have no idea how
he
got on it, because it is best not to ask questions in these situations; all roads lead to sketchtown. I learned that the ceremony would be led by a South African shamaness named Pam, who traveled the world unblocking people's emotions, leading whole tour groups of people deep into the wilderness of their own souls. It seemed more responsible, more noble and mature than my youthful drug experiences. It felt like
homework.
The hallucinogen of choice was a substance called San Pedro, created from the pulverized innards of Peruvian cacti and consumed as a tea. According to Shamaness Pam's website, San Pedro is known as the spirit of St. Peter, a masculine, guiding spirit that takes you deep into your mind, your soul, your past, your problems, and whispers your solutions to you, like your big brother would. (Of course, anyone who has ever had an older brother knows that whispering your problems and solutions to you is not part of that particular package, but I was eager to believe.)

The cancellation policy on a thing like this turns out to be lenient, because what is a shamaness going to do if you flake on her jungle drug group therapy expedition, take you to court? I signed up, and then the morning came along and I chickened out. Someone else went in my place and everyone had terrific insights and a wonderful, serene journey, and I immediately felt like an asshole for having bailed. I apologized to Pam via text and made a plan to do it the next time she brought her soul circus to town.

Shamaness Pam made a return visit about six months later, and since I was still on the e-mail list, I got an early alert. A woman named Sarabeth, whose name on her e-mail account was “sarabliss,” alerted me to the new event. “Beautiful soul: I am excited and lucky to tell you about a sacred healing ceremony in…” and I stopped reading. I said: “Holmes, you are not going to bail on this.” I reserved a spot, and then immediately began calling and texting friends, begging them to come along. David had already learned plenty about his soul; Ben seemed halfway on board; and my friend Matt gave a tentative yes.

You were supposed to bring a check with you, and you were not supposed to write anything in the memo line about what the check is actually for. I loved this detail, because it meant that at least once, someone had written “HEALING JUNGLE HALLUCINOGEN CEREMONY” or “SACRED TRIPOUT,” or simply “DRUGS.” The whole thing would cost $250, inclusive of a vegan comedown meal in the early evening and all the organic mango you could handle, all day long. I circled the date on my calendar, and I promised to stick to it this time.

The morning of the ceremony, Ben and Matt cancelled on me, which I chalked up to karma, because I was already talking like a poorly written acid-victim character from an '80s movie, and I went ahead anyway.

The event was to take place in the Laurel Canyon home and grounds of someone very wealthy and trusting. I got in my car, took a few deep, calming breaths, and drove up there. Along the snaking, endless driveway was foreign SUV after foreign SUV, with California, Arizona, and Nevada plates—the footprint of Southwestern hippies who don't care about their carbon footprint. The men getting out of their cars wore long, flowing Maharishi shirts and Toms shoes. The women wore Lululemon yoga pants and espadrilles, and most of them were being played by Molly Shannon. Everyone seemed to know one another.

When I walked through the open front door of this Laurel Canyon palace, the song playing on the expensive and ear-splitting sound system was “Proud,” by Heather Small, which you may know as the theme song from NBC's
The Biggest Loser.
Echoing off the tiled walls was “ah-
WHAT
HAVE YA
DONE
TA-
DAY
TA
MAKE
YA
FEEEEEL
PROUD.”

I shook the hands of a few gentlemen in billowing linen, and then I was hugged from behind by a stranger. “Hello, beloved,” a complete stranger said, “I'm Butterbean.”
Of course you are,
I thought.
Get your hands off me.

Shamaness Pam was ninety minutes late, so we all spent a lot of time wandering the grounds, checking out the giant house and the huge pool and the grotto. The house was
massive.
As the people around me cooed about how blessed we were to be in this home, all I could think was: How do you get this rich and still have time to hallucinate? The man of the house, Rafael, offered no hints. The really wealthy ones never do. He and his eighteen-year-old son would be tripping with us, and his new wife would be there with their
maybe
one-month-old child, sober and supervising. Still, a couple dozen strangers hallucinating around an infant. Yikes.

When Shamaness Pam showed up, she got her cactus trip-out tea party show on the road lickety-split. What we would do was this: we'd go around the circle, one by one, each of us holding a glass of water, into which Shamaness Pam would dump one large spoonful of dark green powder. We'd stir and drink quickly and then be given an organic lollipop in the flavor of our choosing: yellow or green. (I went yellow.) There were about twenty-five of us, so the circle was big and the process took a good half-hour. The perimeter was studded with Moroccan pillows and small trash cans lined with plastic bags in case anyone needed to barf. A lot of people needed to barf. We were, after all, drinking poison.

Afterward, we were to go around the same circle and state our intention for the day. As you have probably already guessed, there was a “talking stick,” which we would pass from person to person, and only the one holding it would be allowed to speak. I was near the top of the circle, because I wanted to get all of this over with, so I got my intentions out of the way early. I was quick and direct: “I feel like there's something I need to get off my chest, something I need to discover, or examine, or something, and I'm hoping this can loosen me up enough so that I can find it. So. Um. Namaste?” I spat this out in about two seconds, because I was nervous, and also I didn't want this mystery cactus drug to kick in while I was in the middle of a sentence, or worse, listening to rich hippies talk. “Namaste,” the circle answered.

As the talking stick passed from person to person, the stories got longer and longer, because if there's one thing people who have the time and money to take a day off and explore their souls enjoy more than expensive sandals, it's the sound of their own voice.
Oh, you're going to talk about finding your quiet inner voice? Well then I'm going to chant my intention.
It was a goddamn bliss-off. About halfway through the circle, people just started taking the stick, breathing huge, showy cleansing breaths and saying “Wow,” and then pausing for fifteen seconds before launching into a monologue of jumbled Oprah words. It went on for a good hour. (It was actually not a very good hour.)

Finally the last person stated his intention—which was the same as everyone else's and either took ten minutes or my dose was starting to kick in and my perception of time was warping—and we were dismissed to spend the rest of the day plunging the depths of our soul wherever we chose. I sprinted outside to find a good seat by the pool. I shook off the stress of the yoga-people talk, breathed deeply, and began to focus on the questions that led me here. What is it about me that has me perpetually on the outside? Why can't I just relax?
Who am I,
anyway?

Just then, an older guy in a long white T-shirt and linen pants walked up behind me, gave me a rough and unbidden scalp massage and whispered into my ear: “I can't wait to connect with
youuuuuu.
”

Oh,
no.

I said, “Oh! Oh, my gosh, thanks! Me, too,” and he loped up a rock wall behind me, like some kind of mountain cat.

It wasn't until this point that I started looking around me at the rest of the tripping hippies on the grounds. I took a good look at them and noticed that about a quarter were vomiting, another quarter were growling and kicking like animals, and everyone else was either crying and writhing on the ground like slow-motion sea bass in a fishing boat or dancing to the beat of the drum one guy was playing. (In a situation like this one guy is always going to be playing a drum.) Shamaness Pam made an appearance outside to remind everyone that the owner of the house would prefer that we barfed at the base of the olive tree, to help fertilize it. Those who were vomiting heard her and nodded, and then they calmly walked or writhed their way to the olive tree to offer it their special gift.

I have always had what I believe is a healthy fear of hallucinogens, but this was fairly pleasant. Nothing major happened, no melting trees or devil faces. The walls pulsated slightly and the clouds gave me a mild kaleidoscope effect and that was about it. Decent. Manageable. I found a place on the grass to meditate, just as Shamaness Pam came outside to offer those who felt they needed it a second dose. I probably could have gone with a second dose. I felt in control, and I felt like if this thing was going to work, I might want to get a little
out
of control. I thought I might want to lose myself so that I could find myself again.

But then I realized that if I took a second helping, there was no way I'd be able to drive before the next morning, and I'd probably have to spend the night in a sleeping bag around these people in a situation that I was 94 percent sure was going to turn into an orgy. Unacceptable. A handful of people took her up on it, and I sat in the sun and counted my breaths, trying to quiet my mind and focus on the here and now.

And then all the people who took a second dose came back outside, sat right around me, breathed deeply, and barfed.

After a couple of hours, the guy who wanted to connect with me came and sat at my side, and I thought:
Okay, fine, let's do this. I mean, I'm here and the clouds are dancing, let's connect.
He began to breathe, slowly, loudly, and I began to breathe with him. Ahhhhh. OOOOOOHHH. Together. Breathing as one. It felt nice, actually. Just breathing, connecting, doing whatever it was that we were doing, in a place where everyone was too busy dancing or vomiting to judge. Powerful. Almost sexual.

He whispered into my ear: “You're intense.” I agreed. “Do you know the circumstances of your birth?” I said I heard I was a C-section, but didn't have any clear memories. He said, “Well, it was traumatic. I know that. Your chi is blocked. Do you want me to call the healer over?” I said: “I mean, you probably should.”

He went over to the healer, who was on the porch doing a bong hit. They had a conversation about me that I could not hear, but their body language was that of EMTs on the scene of a head-on car crash. My blocked chi was going to have to get fixed. Twenty CCs of bullshit juice, stat.

The healer came over to me and said: “I saw you when you stated your intention, and I've been wanting to get my hands on you ever since. Lay down.” I laid down. Connection Guy said: “I'm going to hold space with you,” and I said “Oh, thank you so much!” The healer shook a rattle around my body. She drank from a giant bottle that looked like where Barbara Eden lived in
I Dream of Jeannie
and spat what I am fairly certain was bay rum all over me. She whistled around my chakras, pausing at my navel to whisper, so quietly I could barely hear it, “Come on, baby. Come on out. That's right.
That's good. That's right.
” And then the healing was over. The healer looked at me with a look of absolute triumph. “How's that?” I said: “Boy, you really did it. Thanks.” She gave me her card—she's also a life coach and professional organizer—and I told her I'd call. I thanked Connection Guy. And then I slipped out the door when nobody was looking and sat in my car listening to music until the sky stopped breathing so I could drive home.