Ayahuasca In The Amazon - An Iowa Baptist Is Born Again As A Sexual Influencer, A Tantric Goddess

Jose Miranda Xoclicotl was a curandero, a brujo, and a guide to the spiritual world of The Angel of Death, the spirit visited on those who drank ayahuasca, the potent psychotropic drug that the Jivaro Indians of the Amazon had been taking for years, centuries, and long before discovery by European adventurers. 

Ayahuasca was not only a well-known hallucinogen of the order of peyote and psilocybin but one which had particular spiritual consensual qualities.  Everyone who took the drug reported seeing the same images - a powerful, demanding, inescapably transformative force; a benign/malignant spiritual being who led one into unexpectedly fearsome but revealing realms of consciousness. 

How could this be? asked psycho-scientists who had studied the drug and its effects.  It was one thing for a drug such as LSD to provoke profound spiritual experiences, but to provoke the very same experience in those who took the drug?  What could that mean?  What peculiar and remarkable properties must the drug have?  And didn't universal experience suggest a creator?

Controlled experiments - the most disciplined and scientifically rigorous in Ghent, Belgium - only concurred on the commonality of the experience.  Subjects indeed saw the very same image - a goddess who resembled the Hindu figure, Kali, the goddess of destruction, handmaiden to Siva as he destroyed and recreated the world - but this figure was different.  She was more terrifying even than Kali often depicted as a terrifying harridan, frightening, predatory, and adorned with a necklace of  human skulls. Why, who, what had created, engineered, insisted upon such a thing?

 

It was with that background that Belinda Ames, Iowan farm girl, devout Baptist, respectful daughter travelled down the Napo River to visit Jose Miranda and for once in her life expose herself to something other than the predictable and the ordinary. 

The trip down the river was quick - the current was strong and steady, and the 3HP motor on the dugout was only for the upstream return.  She was let off on a bamboo dock with the farewells and prayers of the Indians who were headed farther down the tributary into the Amazon itself.  They knew where she was going and the fearful stories that had come from the jungle sanctuary of Don Jose, and God's intercession would certainly be necessary, 

It took her hours to make her way down the jungle path to the village, but the directions given to her at Puyo had been good - turning to the left at the fork at the big banyan tree, right where the river 'boils and seethes', and straight under the ferns of St. Peter. 

Don Juan was cordial and welcoming, and as night fell he prepared the ayahuasca, gave it to her to drink, and sat playing a plaintive Quechua melody on his one-string violin. 

She remembered nothing about the night, the experience - that is the practical sense of time, thirst, hunger, fatigue - but when she woke up she felt changed, different.  She thought more clearly, more deliberately, and more decisively.  It was as though the doubts with which she had entered the jungle - about her nature, her sex, her desires - had never existed.  Not that they were gone; they never had been. 

She had not seen the Angel of Death, perhaps because the savvy brujo had dosed her down as he had done with other expectant foreigners.  He didn't want to scare off them and their two hundred pesos and ruin his business. Or because despite the researchers at Ghent and the paisanos of the forest, there was no such unifying, spiritual force behind the drug; and it was simply a powerful, independently active psychoactive agent. 

Whatever it was, whatever the composition of the drug, however the effects took hold, she felt she was a different woman; or rather she was, finally a woman.  Her parents, her church, her colleagues, friends, and neighbors were now irrelevant, supernumerary wannabe influences, confining, limiting, faux advocates of some undefined, wobbly righteousness. 

She slept with the boatman in Misaualli, the Napo River port village where she boarded the dugout for the trip downriver, not her first sexual experience, but the first since ayahuasca.  He smelled bad, had few teeth, and straw mattress was bulky and uncomfortable, but those indecencies were only remnants of her past emotional illegitimacy, quickly overcome.  She came and came again. 

Back in Ames, sitting on the front porch with Alma, Ricky, and Ralph, she had a moment of disorientation.  The jungle, the brujo, and coming thrice under the laboring boatman, Rinaldo were all part of an unsettling emotional broth.  How was she to square that with Iowa, the farm, and her upcoming matriculation?

Whether the drug found some invasive pathway into the DNA configurations of a good girl, or it simply acted to release the genetic sexual energy latent in those X chromosomes, is indefinable.  What is known is that Belinda Ames acquired 'a reputation' - that old fashioned, outdated, patriarchal obloquy - that had nothing to do with her unique, newfound sexuality. 

 

There were many distinct points on the fluid gender spectrum but 'omni-sexual' was not one in bold.  Mentioned only as a footnote it described the desultory and unconcerned, the indifferent, those who merited only mention not recognition. 

Progressives who were responsible for the whole idea of sexual neutrality completely missed the point.  Belinda was not at all indifferent but omnivorous.  Ayahuasca had not enabled random desire, but validated purposeful, meaningful sexuality.  

'A hot ticket', one Deke frat brother said to another, another Yale fool taking Belinda Ames as 'another cunt from Vassar' but missing the point.  Any man man enough to win Belinda's affection would be another Petruchio to Kate the Shrew, savvy, deliberate, and opportunistic.  Romance is not an intervening variable in any sexual equation. 

Tears And Flapdoodle, A Holiday Party, And Crying In The Eggnog Over Donald Trump

Veronica Peoples had given more to the black man than most white liberals - she had been the Dean of the Philosophy Department at _____, a black land-grant college.  She had gotten tenure at the school during the days of Martin Luther King, the heady years of black-white cooperation, the Summer of Love, and the promises of racial integration, had stayed in place despite the growing demand for black 'totality', she had been a tireless supporter of the black cause.  

Now in her approaching old age and a bit at sixes and sevens since her career of doing the right thing was over but liberal juices still ran in her veins, she turned to pottery and volunteering.  For the first she had no talent, but like everything else she did, she invested a huge amount of energy and commitment.  The rack of cups, pots, and bowls she put on display in her modest suburban home should have been an embarrassment; but her friends, all of the same can-do liberal enthusiasm, saw latent talent there. 

'Now that is a marvelous piece', said one, pointing to a misfired vase in which Veronica had placed a spring of holiday holly. 

'Oh, that's nothing', said Veronica smiling and inwardly delighted at the comment.  Pottery meant so much to her as memories of her deanship faded, and as her love for her students became part of a warm, comforting past.  She smiled at thoughts of the high cackle of LaShonda and Demetria in the lunchroom; the pimp-walking Pharoah and Na'Richter Evans, and the open-mouth stare of her pet project, Letitia Brown, an intellectually challenged student invited to attend the university to round out its diversity profile but who turned out to be a perfectly sweet, angel of a girl. 

'I've had a good life', Veronica said. 

Volunteering was another anodyne to her sadness and feeling of emptiness; and now that Donald Trump was in office, the need for organized opposition was never more urgent.  The man was a moral reprobate, a misogynist, racist, and fool - a running dog as Maoist Chinese politburo used to call American capitalists - and every day he added to the misery he heaped on the poor, the black, and the disadvantaged.  

 

Veronica had known nothing but liberalism since her earliest days.  Secure and insulated in the liberal colleges of her school years, professor at one of these same institutions, and finally administrator at ______, she cannot be faulted for her innocent and very passionately felt progressivism.  Yet at the same time, it was surprising for such a mature and not unintelligent woman to have the most reflexive sympathy for any and all liberal causes and the most horrendous antipathy to anything right of Samuel Gompers and Al Sharpton. 

So, the Christmas open house she hosted was to be much more than a time for holiday cheer.  It was to be a gathering of the willing - academics, non-profit retirees, community organizers, and members of the Peace, Women's, Gay, and Environmental movements of the nation's capital.  It would be a heady affair, a closely-knit brother- and sisterhood of the committed, a jamboree of likeminded assurance and validation of long years of reformist struggle. 

Veronica made special quince tarts, Swedish canapes, hummus minibites, and garnished the smoked salmon with beluga caviar.  She knew that the salmon-and-caviar might send the wrong message - a bit plutocratic - but it was so good that she could hardly keep herself from devouring all of it before her guests arrived. 

 

Of course there were no Christmas decorations in the house - the invitees included Jews, Muslims, and nonbelievers - and the music playing in the background was one of Bach's decidedly non-religious pieces, but 'festiveness is as festiveness does', Veronica always said, and the guests themselves would generate the holiday spirit. 

After an hour or so when all the guests had arrived, Veronica tinkled her dinner bell for attention and said, 'I think it would be fitting to remember those who have suffered in this year of misery, and I have asked Fenwick Lent to read from his latest collection of poetry - one we all hope will be published by Scribner's in the coming year.  Fenwick, if you please...'  

The clink of classes and silverware quieted, Fenwick straightened his collar, brushed a stray thread from his jacket, cleared his throat and began: 

Mercy me, said the little black girl by the well 

Tumult and misery abound in the fell

The light in the vale, cherished but pale

Is the way to promise, from hill to dale...

 

That was the only beginning, and Fenwick went on for what seemed an eternity reading his treacly, rhyming elegy to the suffering and the destitute.  The one or two outliers - Sunday football husbands getting drunk on Lambrusco - thought it was a joke. The guy couldn't be serious, but the more he read, the more Veronica's guests nodded in approval.  When he finally finished, they surrounded him and gave him hugs.  'No one could have said it better', said one. 

Fenwick's poem opened the floodgates of political sentiment.  Somehow the images of the poor and hungry that Donald Trump had tossed in the trash like 'the crusts of stale bread' invoked by the poet, brought up the bile, the intemperate hatred, and the venomous acrimony felt by each and every one of the guests nibbling the last crumbs of Veronica's quince tarts - except for one football husband, soggy with sweet wine who startled his neighbor when, through a mouthful of rice crackers and brie, he said, 'Bullshit'. 

The white people at the gathering made a big fuss over a busty black woman in an Easter hat who had done something noteworthy or other.  They had so few occasions to socialize with black people, that this could go on their unwritten resumes.  She didn't give them the time of day, preferring to squirrel herself in a corner with a sister and talk 'black shit' as the football husband remarked after catching a snippet. 

Veronica was delighted at the turnout, the appreciation at her table, the poem, the camaraderie, and the good cheer.  'I must do this again next year', she thought, although at her age next year was only a supposition not a guarantee. 

Ooh La La - Why Can't Americans Be More Like The French, Sophisticated Sex Instead Of Just Rutting?

Americans have sex just as much as anybody else - men and women rut in the cornfields, behind the barn, in boardrooms, bathrooms, and the back of cars.  It's just that it all seems so, well, tacky. 

Emmanuel de Rochefoucauld-Fargues' mistress, chief counsel to the Serbian ambassador, former model, and country representative to the International Court of Justice, met him every Tuesday and Thursday at their shared pied a terre in the 7th, a spacious apartment on Rue Vaneau overlooking the garden of the Prime Minister's residence, appointed in Louis XVI, fresh flowers placed in Lalique crystal vases by the concierge, fire lit in the fireplace, and a bottle of Moet Chandon by the bedside. 

'Bonjour, Monsieur, le Conte', said the concierge, opening the door to the apartment and the garden as she heard the familiar footsteps approach.  Tuesdays and Thursdays were special days for her.  Not every Parisian concierge had the privilege of caring for an aristocrat and his charming lover, and she did everything she could to make their brief stay as welcoming and accommodating as possible. 

Emmanuel was indeed a Count, one of a long line of both Rochefoucauld and Fargues aristocrats.  His great great uncle, the Viscount of St. Anselm-sur-Laye, a vast property in the Dordogne, had written the authoritative book on Flemish history; and his grandfather was a much decorated officer in the French Army, a hero at the Battle of the Bastogne. 

 

His lover, Teodora Milic, was one of the most beautiful women in Paris, the envy of even the most sophisticated women of the city.  She was tall, authoritative, and dressed in the most elegant couture. She was well-known in France but even more so in the European Community where her work with the ICJ was noted for its particular legal rigor and steadfast nonpartisanship. 

Everyone in the 7th, Paris's most sought after arrondissement, knew both her and the Count, nodded to them on the street, and greeted them warmly at La Mirabelle, the small neighborhood Michelin starred restaurant on Rue Foche. Many also knew the Count's wife, a beauty in her own right, board member for the Musee du Grand Palais, and professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne. 

This was the way sexual affairs should happen, arranged discreetly but never hidden - affairs of incidental love but carried out with taste and allure.  There was something aristocratic about the Rochefoucauld-Milic affair - Emmanuel felt that he was carrying on a cultural tradition even more than enjoying a tryst with a beautiful lover. 

As the couple walked down the Rue du Bac to buy ripe pears from the fruitier they were acknowledged by both residents and workmen who tipped their hats as the couple walked by,  This sexual liaison was as much a part of French tradition as Mouton-Rothschild Grand Cru or the Eiffel Tower. 

The affair was about as far from the American experience as can be imagined.  While Americans may be between the sheets as often as the French, they feel they have to hide the fact, make apologies when discovered, pay a pound of flesh to their wives, explain to their children in tearful apology, and fight to keep their jobs. 

Most of the nearly fifty American presidents who have taken office over the course of the country's 250 years have had affairs, trysts, and sexual encounters. FDR's affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd lasted decades.  JFK preferred shorter term affairs with Hollywood stars and international beauties.  LBJ was eclectic in his sexual tastes and counted on the Secret Service to satisfy his sexual ambitions. 

These men and others did their best to hide their sexual interests from the American public who unlike the French did not consider sexual liaisons to be perks of presidential office.  JFK was in fact blackmailed by J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI over his affair with a suspected East German spy.  Hoover would keep quiet about this relationship and those with Marilyn Monroe and other women, if the President went slow on Civil Rights ('The Nigra won't get farther than the crosstown bus will take him if I have any say about it'). 

When Bill Clinton's affairs with various women came to light, American women said that if he cheated on his wife, he would cheat on ordinary Americans.  Once a cheater always a cheater they claimed and deserted him in droves. 

Hundreds of lesser politicians had affairs, were caught, tearfully apologized and were returned to office.  As well as a profoundly Puritanical country, America is a persistently Calvinist one - God forgives sinners if they repent, and repent these politicos did, tearfully begging the public for forgiveness. 

Men in America cheat on their wives, 'working late at the office', taking frequent 'business trips' to Boston and Dubuque, and coming home bedraggled after 'eighteen holes of golf'. When discovered, the sound and fury is relentless.  There can be no give in a loving marital relationship no matter how desultory the affair.

Sex is everywhere in America - on television programs and in commercials, on the covers of magazines, and in provocative, revealing feminine fashions.  If one were to judge by first impressions, America would be the ooh-la-la country, not France; but voila la difference. Sex in America is a smarmy, rutting affair without class or sophistication.  Randy sex in the back of a pickup truck just ain't the same as on silk sheets.

There are of course exceptions - wealth confers a certain sexual license, and as long as a CEO stays clear of his co-workers, he's on his own.  Movie stars, already on everyone's most desirable list are given a free pass when it comes to serial lovers. Black men are supposed to have sex with any woman who comes their way, so they are not held to any Puritanical moral standard; but for the rest of the country, the Walmart greeters, bass boat and gun rack crackers, and nine-to-five salarymen - it's covered up quickies at best. 

'Sexist, privileged white male predatory behavior', say American women observing the French cinq-a-sept liaisons so much a part of Parisian culture; but except for the few chippies from Le Moulin Rouge, afternoon sex is a consensual, shared pleasure.  Women are complaisant lovers and deceitful wives no different from the unfaithful men they sleep with.  A sexual cabal of two, a five-star smorgasbord, a delightful encounter. 

France has been such a tolerant, libertine place that even the excesses of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former presidential candidate, international banker, and man on everyone's A-list were given a shrug.  When accused of sexual bacchanals, orgies of prostitution, Strauss-Kahn demurred, saying 'How was I to know they were prostitutes?  All women look the same with their clothes off'. 

That sexual ethos is disappearing now that France has become more Muslim, more Third World, more conservative, and more socially backward.  Muslims get around the fidelity thing by having many wives, but in secular France one must do, so only time will tell how the the community reacts. 

Meanwhile Americans are still in the woodpile, the stockroom, and Motel 6, perhaps dreaming of European sophistication and sexual know-how, but happy enough simply to be screwing someone other than their wives.