My Toe and San Pedro - Part II: Dieting San Pedro
My Toe and San Pedro - Part II: Dieting San Pedro
A year went by, and I answered a deep calling to join Chase back in Peru and do a “diet”, or “dieta” in Spanish, on huachuma. I do mean “calling” and not “curiosity” … for me there’s a difference. I felt a pull within that my heart that wanted to go deeper with San Pedro, not just a fleeting need to satisfy my curious mind’s I-have-to-know-everything-about-everything disposition.
A dieta removes almost every physical and psychological distraction from your life — including the joy of food, exercise, human interaction and the internet, and replaces it with daily doses of huachuma. Most of the stuff we like to eat and do blocks the lighter energy of plants like huachuma and ayahuasca; a diet carves this out and makes way for a deeper relationship with the plant. During a three-week period, I only ate boiled potatoes, vegetables, and rice or quinoa for lunch and dinner. Breakfast delivered my daily highlight: two hard-boiled eggs and an avocado for protein and fat, plus a banana. No glucose, salt, spices or herbs, citrus, caffeine, meat or animal fat allowed. Only water and chamomile tea to drink. On ceremony days I got a bowl of fruit — sweet manna from heaven.
Then the psychological deprivation: no internet or contact with the outside world, no talking or eye contact with anyone except for Chase, no leaving the house except to visit the garden, no reading, no music, no white noise at night, no exercise. I had 10 minutes max to journal every day. And absolutely no orgasms… no masturbation, no wet dreams.
The boredom was real. Most days consisted of me staring at my bedroom door or out the window, meditating or watching the hummingbirds in the garden. I valued my daily meals more for the activity than the taste or sustenance, but they soon lost their luster. I lost about 12 pounds, mainly water weight from the lack of salt. My dreams became full-blown experiences that even if I could describe I wouldn’t, lest I deprive you of experiencing this for yourself.
My mind slowed down to a crawl, allowing me to observe it operate… how it would clothes-line my confidence and encouragement with second-guessing and self-doubt. The diet gave me time to watch how this unhealthy thinking pattern unfolds in my head, then sit with it with on a deep, heart-felt level. I experienced fully how the self-judgment existed only in my head. Chase confirmed this one day during a full ceremony, one when I was allowed to talk to him.
“See my toe?”, I pointed out. Chase looked over at it and nodded, waiting for me to continue. Some things I was learning about Chase: he’s not trying to appropriate an indigenous culture or fit some stereotype of what the media expects a huachumero or shaman (don’t call him that to his face) or medicine man or whatever label you want to give someone who holds traditional plant medicine ceremonies. You won’t find him in shaman-chic garb sporting a feather headdress or crystals draped from his body. Chase is just being Chase, a laid-back southern boy with an ultra-sensitive bullshit detector who’s not afraid to express his feelings in any present moment. He values truth and authenticity and wants others to find that in themselves. Chase’s experience of being raised in the States enables him to relate to Americans and others from western cultures — something very valuable to this suburban white kid raised in north central Texas.
I carried on, confessing my insecurity around my toe, that I didn’t want anyone associating something so ugly with me. I added that there was an awareness around how neurotic this was… yet my fear of displaying it to everyone is real, which makes me feel even more shitty because I let something trivial like my damaged toenail bother me. People walk around with missing limbs and fingers for God’s sake. I waxed on about my toe for a while as Chase listened, smoked his mapacho, and finally spoke.
“Judging yourself and judging others is the same thing,” he said while putting out one mapacho and lighting another. This revelation rang true. While holding on to this judgment about my toe, it made me hyper aware of other’s people’s feet. It repulsed me to look at toes that didn’t fit my idea of pretty or nice or normal. I was jealous of those with normal feet and felt better when I saw “ugly” feet. The hypocrisy stirred up nausea and I felt sick.
“And honestly, no one cares about your toe.” He pointed out my tendency to put thoughts in other people’s heads, which normally aren’t true, and even if they are, why is it important? I decided I need to unwrap the Band-Aid and live free of assumptions… get out of my head and stop judging my body.
When I emerged from my diet, I stepped out onto cloud nine. Everything was awesome, just like in the LEGO movie–food tasted better, gratitude felt deeper and anxiety was gone. Soon after my return home to Venice Beach, I fell back into my old habits of self-judgment… however this time I would feel physically sensitive to energies and emotions around me. When I heard someone else being judgmental, a sense of anxiety would set in. When I felt a lack of control, my stomach would get tight or nauseous. And although I physically and figuratively tried to keep the Band-Aid off, the insecurities creeped back in. Two months after I was back in the States, Chase reached out to enlist my help in organizing a huachuma retreat. I could not wait to commune with my syrupy green friend again.