The 'Black Smoke' of Ayahuasca

A battle with cancer led Margaret De Wys to Ecuador for traditional Ayahuasca ceremonies. After miraculous healings Margaret started an apprenticeship and began a life-altering romantic relationship with the shaman who healed her.

I interviewed author Margaret De Wys about her memoir, 'Black Smoke'.
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Describe your first experience with Ayahusaca.

At the time I didn't know where the journey was going to take me. I was going into the unknown, into the jungle, into the soul, into the center of the earth, and my journey became much more than just about me getting healed. Healing included arduous, intense purifications, difficult initiations, and drinking plant medicines. Carlos told me I was choosing my path, my destiny to live.

The first ceremony took place in the jungle outside Puyo, Ecuador. Deep in the forest I sat quietly among the Shuar and the Quechua waiting for the affects of the medicine. It felt funereal. The only light came from the fire burning in the center of the room. The floor was pounded dirt, the overhead palm thatch, the sides of the longhouse open to the elements. Some of the locals began vomiting, others passing out. I hoped the medicine wouldn't have an affect on me. When it hit, a cold tingling rose from my feet through my core, and the floodgates in my brain opened wide flushing out images and sounds. Time expanded and receded as my pupils dilated in order to see more. The cells in my ears could hear a twig crack hundreds of yards away. My nasal cavity vibrated and I began to shake violently.

During healing Carlos drew black smoke from my flesh, where the cancer was. I looked inside. My cells were alive, pulsing, beating the rhythm of the cosmos. Some were spontaneously regenerating, sending live signals to others beside them. The dark spots in my breast were black holes sucking energy into another sphere, one in which living things were doomed. Carlos pressed hard swirling his fingertips deep into fleshy parts of me where the black smoke lay. I cried in pain as I watched his hand magnetized the black smoke. It spread like army ants in file and followed his motion away from my body.