I was working as an interpretor for a shaman. The second trip he said: "Anna there's something in your body that is making you sick" and I said "no there's nothing wrong with me, I'm very healthy I don't even get colds". I'm very kind of cocky and proud you know, but a few months later I went to the doctor because I felt a lump on my breast that turned out to be malignant cancer. I went through hell and called the shaman, and he said "I'm glad you called me. I want you to put everything out of your mind, go dancing have some fun and have absolute faith because you will be healed". I brought my son along who knew nothing about ayahuasca.
We arrived there on Sunday, on Monday we begun our ritual at five o'clock in the morning by taking a substance called oco-yaje followed by a glass of warm milk. After 20 minutes we have to start drinking lots and lots and lots of water, and within an hour people begin to vomit from both ends, that's a purifying ritual. Then he looks for parasites in peoples stools and says, "Anna you have some parasites." I said "Oh" and he said "take a little bit more" and so he gave another dose of oco-yaje and that just put me out of commission. I was very in a trance like state and on top of that he gave me a cup of another substance called Capipa which is the bark of a tree which is used for cancer treatment so I drank that too. In the mean time I had been vomiting and shitting all along.
I felt tired and sleepy and at about five o'clock in the afternoon I told my son I said "I'm going up stairs I'm to sleep I'm very tired". Later he told me that about five minutes after I had gone upstairs he heard the most horrendous scream he's ever heard in his life. He ran upstairs and found me on the floor totally contorted having convulsions with blood running out of my mouth. My wonderful son was a pre-med student so you can imagine what was going through his mind, so he immediately found a piece of wood to put in my mouth and begun to take care of me.
The next five hours I spent in that type of state having convulsions, enemas and vomiting. My son said that he knew that he couldn't let me go to sleep so he kept me up, he made me walk, just dragged me and people kept singing to me. Everyone in the group became a healer, there were many healers there already, acupuncture, a Shaman, Shaman apprentices and drummers and people used their method of healing on me plus their unconditional love because every time they said to me "Anna come back, we love you", my son says I opened my eyes and looked at them.
After five hours my son became very angry, he's a young passionate man: "She's dying, what has this fucking shaman done to her, and what are we doing here in this god damn jungle. I have got to find away to take my mother out of here". But when he saw the calmness of the group and that there was a sacredness about what was going on he said he realised "My mother is having a spiritual experience, a healing spiritual experience. I can let go" and surrendered me to the group.
I was completely out of it for thirty hours until the shaman said: "It's time for Anna to come back". He gave me a teaspoon of salt and five minutes later I opened my eyes and I thought it was six o'clock in the morning not six o'clock the next night. People came to me and said "Oh, I'm so glad you came back, we're so happy". I say "Come back from where, what are you talking about?" I knew nothing, my mind was totally blank and they began to tell me all these stories about what happened.
I turned my focus in to take a look at my body, and saw it was in perfect order and then I had this smile on my face for the next two weeks because I knew that I had been healed. I knew that I had been in a place that some day I would return to, that place full of all knowing and where the mystery is. I was absolutely blissed out for two weeks while the group was doing their own process. I did not take any ayahuasca, there was no need I was already in a very spiritual place.
After two weeks I came home and explained to my surgeon that I had been through a spiritual healing, and he goes "Oh yeah, sure". He said "Your case is very serious, we are worried about you, I'm worried about you and you promised to have surgery tomorrow. You must go through with it in order to examine your breast tissue. I cannot be your doctor if you refuse."
Anyway I had the surgery and the following day my surgeon came to my bed side and said they couldn't find anything. I don't think about having cancer at all, I go to the doctors and they do their testing and so fourth, I don't think about it at all. I think it was a shamanic experience in my life, it's gotten me deeper with life, it brought a sense of beingness that I didn't have before and I'm grateful for that, it makes me live. I live in grace because of it and it makes me want to be a warrior, bringing awareness to my life and to others because the gift of life is very precious.
©Nicholas Saunders. Interview took place in Brazil, May 1996
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