What do you do when the world is so overwhelming that you can’t see the next step forward? You head to Peru for a week of guided ego death, courtesy of the powerful hallucinogenic plant ayahuasca. For n+1, Sarah Miller chronicles her journey to the center of the self. Spoiler: The self is a slippery beast, and Madre Ayahuasca isn’t interested in easy resolutions.
The head facilitator was a Romanian woman named Maria, who spoke six languages and was so hot that when someone mentioned her boyfriend, I thought, wow, there’s actually a person who gets to have sex with her, that’s crazy. Before a ceremony, pasajeros would meet with Maria or Kara to let them know what they wanted the shamans to “clean.” Having tried and failed to refrain from telling absolutely everyone how much I hated Kara, I was assigned to Maria. Then, not wanting anyone as hot and generally composed as Maria to know how catastrophically miserable I was, I kept my list short. It went something like: clean antidepressants, clean insecurity, clean deprimida del clima, tristeza por las guerras y estado del mundo. It amazed me how quickly she could compress my anguish into a few words that could be passed onto the shamans so they’d have a sense of what to address. Before the ceremonies, the facilitators came around and read the list out loud to each pasajero without fanfare, as if checking what you needed from the store.
More of Peter’s picks from n+1
Personal Belgians
“To love cycling of all sports in 2025 requires a hard look at yourself, and perhaps some special pleading..”
Planet Puppet
“A weekend at the ventriloquist convention.”
The Contingency Contingent
“My fake job in Y2K preparedness.”
Auto Show Dispatch
“Today, cars are better than they have ever been—and, not unrelatedly, more similar to one another.”
