Cafe Hitch-hike

2022-08-08

Parts of that journey

After the visuals faded, I saw bright lights even though my eyes were closed. They were there no matter what else I had seen or where I went in my mind. They seemed to be on for a long time, and I started to get annoyed and didn’t want them there.

“Why are these on?” I asked and paused. I then wondered what was always glaringly on in my life. What was always turned on (and I don’t mean in a sexual way)? It felt like a spotlight was on me all the time.

“I want to turn these off or at least down,” I said, and they did. I was quite surprised. I then recalled that I was able to do these things in previous ceremonies. A-ha…

I don’t know why he came to me, but it was Rafael and he wasn’t well, like something was heavy on his mind and he was upset. I didn’t know why or didn’t see anything that would tell me, I sensed a heavy and haunted feeling around him and his family. It almost made me a little alarmed.

I didn’t ask what happened, but I felt concerned as if something really did. I put my arm around his shoulder and walked him a few steps, but then stepped away and stood before him. I prayed and prayed for him and his family, for the weight to be taken off, for them to be free. I noticed it was dark around us, and I prayed for light for them. Would this be enough? Was much more needed? How would a simple aya-induced prayer help if it was more complicated or heavy? I didn’t know if he would take it, but I sent it to him if he was receptive, to his family, and especially to his sister Mariposa. I always knew she took some serious hits for the family and from their parents. I felt intense pain from her way, sent her the energy (if she wanted it) and then it faded.

Then something became visible. I expected to see a few people and Huck was one of them. There he was, I could sense the comfortable coolness and smoothness of his fair olive skin and its clean scent; I never understood how he had it because he smoked. There he was and we smiled. The colors I saw of him were the same as in my dreams; colors are often distorted in aya visions but sometimes they are not.

We looked at each other, and laughed and smiled as we slowly leaned in to a soft embrace. We did it again and again without saying much. I looked into his small, brown eyes. He was good looking in some ways and very plain in others, and this time I saw both at the same time.

“I love and miss you, man. I love and miss the fuck out of you!” I said and laughed. It came out and its sound started almost like a cry but turned into a gentle, playful laugh.

“‘The fuck,’” I mused as we leaned into each other with our foreheads touching in the same soft yet loosened embrace. “You loved that word. You loved doing it. ‘The fuck—‘”. I thought the word some more and we looked at each other before we went back to touching heads.

“That’s how much I miss you! So much that I love the fuck out of you, all that’s in you!” and I laughed again.

“It really is where it all begins and ends, isn’t it?” I asked him, still leaning into him. “Life, death and everything inbetween? How we’re born, what we do in the presence of death? The things we do so we could do it, what happens because we do it. We create and destroy so much with it, too... ‘Fucking’ is quite a profound word when you look at it that way,” I laughed a little, and Huck’s attentive expression eased into a smile and a soft laugh. He looked much better when he smiled.

We held each other in a deeper embrace. As we held in it, I started to sense the same pain I sensed from him before. I didn’t want or need to know how things were going for him, I simply assumed they’d be the same and for a long time. I plainly told him I was sorry things had to be that way for him and for us. I said I would always love him, but also that I really needed to go. I sent Huck the same wishes for healing and light as I had sent Rafael, but he hesitated to take it.

“Handle it,” I joked. Sometimes I spoke surprisingly blunt to him. “That’s what you get, and you probably need it more than I do,” I said as I thought of his troubled life. “Besides, it goes with the territory of me loving the fuck out of you, so handle it however you will.”

A couple very-brief memories of us together came to me, with also the very-brief sensations. Of course it was beautiful, of course I relished it, and then I allowed it all to fade.

I said I was sorry to my mother and someone else (I forgot who, but both were genuine apologies). I’ve said sorry to people in my journeys, both for what I did to them and also for the pain they experienced that had nothing to do with me. There were times I realized I didn’t need to do; I didn’t do anything wrong or against them at all. I was glad because sometimes it helped me release shame when it didn’t need to be there at all.

I walked for a bit (while I laid, as my mind often does through my dreams), and the more I walked, the bigger the sky seemed to get. I noticed while I kept walking, and I started to float. The higher I got, I then noticed— I had wings.

“Don’t forget that dream,” something said to me, and my mind flashed to a dream I had where I stepped way from Huck and off a building, dipping slightly until I had wings and flew away. I flew higher, almost floating, and I saw some people I knew in both benign and bad situations. I was told not to stop or to concern myself, so I didn’t.

As I flew, I felt a largeness and expanse I didn’t feel whenever I dreamed I could fly. I looked around and could see it expanding. I didn’t judge or wonder, I simply watched and floated. I looked at my feet as they dangled, and there was something so freeing about seeing that and not feeling the ground under them. The sky around me still seemed to grow, so big that everything below me really was small.

downwind | upstream