Ceremony #6: The Wolf Dies, The Lion Rises

A New Journey Begins

Months after the ceremony, I decided to work with the breathwork practitioner one-on-one for therapy and meditation. My inner life changed after the events of the phone call with Celia, and I found myself navigating through new challenges and learning new things about myself.

I worked with Gina for a few months, and the time came for her and I to do a private ceremony together. She was a shaman who worked with plant and heart medicine and applied a very educated approach to her therapy. This ceremony with her was essentially a 5-6 hour long intensive therapy session.

For some reason, leading up to this ceremony, I just felt this transformation happening inside of me. I used to joke with a close friend of mine that I was the Wolf of David Lewis, which was simply a humorous combination of my old street and the Leo DiCaprio movie. I would always bring that nickname up with my friends or within myself.

For instance, moving to Miami meant leaving my friends all behind in Montreal. I grew up being closer to my friends than my own family, especially during my teenage years, so this move was not as easy as it may seem. I found myself face to face with feelings of loneliness more than ever.

Sure, I had my family, who I was very close with, but they still weren’t seeing a side of me that only really came out with my friends. That part of me started to feel lonely, which is why I resonated a lot with that nickname, the Wolf of David Lewis. The lone wolf.

In the accumulating sessions with Gina, I found this strength emitting within me. It was a sort of self-confidence that was starting to come out of its shell. I started to listen to myself more, hearing out the ideas I had and how I felt regarding certain things.

Naturally, when the ceremony date was booked, it just popped up in my mind to give this specific ceremony a name: The Wolf Dies, The Lion Rises.

The Ceremony Unfolds

I remember it being very hot that day. I asked my brother Akiva to drive me down to Coral Gables where Gina lived. We took pictures on the way there, and I felt very sure of myself for moving forward with this ceremony.

As we pulled up to Gina’s place, I embraced my brother and said goodbye. I walked into her condo, passing through the garden entrance which was filled with statues, trees, and a beautiful Spanish fountain.

I made my way up into her apartment and we went right to it. She gave me the rundown on what to expect the day would look like. She gave a sort of speech that had a specific message she resonated with for the ceremony and then, after a brief meditation, she handed me my first dose of MDMA, known in these settings as heart medicine.

Initially, I felt calm and good. Gina gave me a warm blanket to roll up in and get cozy with on her couch. She turned on her speaker and started playing some whimsical and adventurous music, like the songs you hear when playing any of the Zelda games.

I felt happy and adventurous, and I sort of lost myself in the music and comfort. I came back to reality when Gina began asking me questions. She asked me how I felt, and what I wanted to work on today. I don’t recall my answers or what we were speaking about, but I found myself having a full discussion with her. I abruptly woke up and our conversation reached its climax. "... yes... it makes sense... don’t you see Eli... that’s why you’re so angry," she remarked. "Angry? I am not angry!!!" I responded aggressively back to her.

I woke up in this moment and remember being in shock. "Wow... I am angry," I responded and looked into Gina's eyes, which were filled with success. We seemed to have hit a wall within me that we were now able to shed light on and start tearing down.

I remember lying back into the couch in awe at this realization. I am angry. Immediately my mind came in, and thoughts filled my head. "Why am I angry? What am I even doing here? The medicine is wearing off and this is all so useless! Gina gave me some bullshit dose and charged me a ton of money for nothing cause it's already wearing off. What a freaking scam!! She’s such a bitch she barely gave me any medicine!!"

I was lost in a forest of thoughts trying to find the answer until Gina pulled me out of it in a very Morpheus from The Matrix way. "Stop trying to figure out why you’re angry and just be angry," she sternly told me. I looked at her and began to ponder what it would mean to just let myself be angry. To feel the unjudged anger. I laid back and intuitively started taking deep breaths in.

The breaths made enough noise in my mind and body to stop myself from hearing my own thoughts. This created space within myself, and I started to separate from the anger. Breath in and breath out. I didn’t stop. I kept this rhythm up while I let the anger come up and spin around inside of me. I felt the rage and wanted to shout and punch something. I let it fill me up and then I witnessed something truly remarkable.

With all this new space between myself and the anger, I was able to watch and witness it from afar. What I immediately realized was that I wasn’t angry but instead so deeply sad. I told Gina the truth about how I was feeling. She guided me to sit with the sadness and allow the answers to show themselves instead of me looking for them once again.

Navigating the Mind's Labyrinth

When you go looking for answers, the trickster in the forest comes alive. He starts to slither towards you and presents you with all this deep knowledge of what the "truth" really is and how you should feel about it. When you do go looking for answers, think of yourself waking up in a dark forest where you can’t see anything.

Once inside, all you need to do is tune out the noise of your mind. Don’t listen to the trickster. He/she’ll start showing you logical solutions to your problems or the way out of the forest only to find yourself lost deeper inside of it.

You see, your mind is the trickster. It keeps your consciousness inside of it, and when it notices you drifting away from it, it presents itself to you as the problem solver who’s here to help and be on your side. To show you how to escape. But the mind will only keep you in your mind because it can’t go beyond its own limitations.

If you even look at a human brain, it literally looks like a sort of labyrinth.

To get out of the forest, you must allow yourself to be guided out of it. Out of your mind and down through your nervous system into your body, which is where your soul truly dwells.

Unpacking Childhood Memories and Emotions

I sat with the sadness and kept focusing on my breathing until I found myself sitting with my heart. The doors to enter my heart were layered with sadness. The sadness I felt from believing thoughts about my mother and my father and how I perceived their actions.

My mother always spoke about other people instead of my siblings and me. She would always comment about the rich neighbor and how great he was. How beautiful other people were and how successful they appeared. She would praise others, and it felt like we were never good enough for her. All we wanted was for her to make us feel that way about ourselves.

My father was never home and always worked. The few times we saw each other was when we went grocery shopping together on the weekends or performed other chores my father needed. One of the veins of sadness that wrapped around my heart was tied to a specific memory. One summer, my father hyped me up all week about going canoeing up north.

What was so interesting about these canoes was that they were crafted using the same ancient techniques natives used throughout their history in this land. I was excited as I saw how excited my father was. We got all packed up and drove out first thing in the morning. The destination was much further than my dad originally expected, and the drive there ended up being 3-4 hours long.

As we finally got there, we saw this magnificent lake in the back behind a large wooden building that had the canoes out front. We parked, walked inside, paid the $60 charge to rent the canoes, and started making our way outside. I remember being so happy. Finally, being able to spend some time with my dad doing something fun and exciting.

We walked towards the canoes which began to grow bigger and bigger as we approached them. Now, in front of these behemoth contraptions, we quickly realized that this was not going to be easy. My dad directed me to the other end of the canoe and instructed me to lift it up on the count of three. "One… Two… Three!" He shouted and we both put all our strength into lifting up the canoe.

Despite our efforts, we barely moved the little boat and were dumbfounded as to how we were going to get this canoe off its racks and all the way down to the water. After that single try, my dad took a step back, a deep breath, looked at me and simply responded "eh, screw this… let’s go home."

I felt so heartbroken and defeated. The thought "we did all this to not even try harder… my dad wasted my time and day… my dad doesn’t even want to try to do it... not even for me" and I believed it. Looking back on this memoryI realized an anger wanted to come out of me in that moment, but because I wasn’t aware of how to process it, I looked for the answer as to why I felt this way and I allowed the trickster to lead me down a deep dark path instead.

Navigating the Fog of Misunderstanding

Back on Gina’s couch, the sadness began leaving my body as I explained to her what I was feeling and processing, and eventually, joy started to appear out of me. I felt so happy and strong for what I had just gone through and witnessed. Gina stepped away for a little to give me some time to feel this happiness and excitement.

The speaker turned on again, and the adventurous Zelda music took me away again. It felt like I was floating on a cloud and was finally able to take a nice deep nap. After some time, Gina woke me up and handed me my second dose of medicine.

After consuming the second dose, I found myself in another full conversation with Gina. This time, although I could hear her speak, I didn’t seem to grasp what she was trying to explain to me. As she finished whatever she was explaining, she looked to me and asked for a response. “I am sorry, I didn’t understand what you said, can you please repeat yourself?” I responded, and she nodded and repeated her explanation again.

This time, not only did I not understand a word she said, but all I could hear was muffled noise coming from her mouth. As she finished, she once again looked to me for an answer, to which I gave her the same response. She paused and then began a sort of disclaimer that I was able to fully understand and comprehend. “Eli, the spirits are telling me to explain it to you like this, and they have assured me that this is the simplest and easiest way to explain it,” dumbfounded, I nodded and agreed to listen to this amazingly simple clarification.

I laid back on the couch, looked at her, mustered all my strength to focus as best as I could on the next words that were about to come out of her mouth. As I watched her lips move, I was once again met with muffled noise and couldn’t understand anything at all. I began to have a sort of meltdown over this lack of understanding and confusion and began to hyperventilate.

“Stop trying to figure out why you’re confused and just be confused,” rang through my head. I seemed to have acquired a new tool and response to emotions to avoid even encountering the clever trickster of the forest.

I laid back, began focusing on my breath, and allowed the confusion to permeate throughout my whole body. Breath in, breath out. The thoughts drowned out in the inhales and exhales, and then I was met with an extremely wise understanding that revealed itself to me. It was like an ancient teacher in the form of a sentence (I know, it makes no sense, but bear with me). The sentence was, “Aren’t we all just so confused?” This sort of acceptance and inquiry began creating space within me. On a certain level, we’re all confused and even lost.

I mean, think about it. We’re on a rock floating through something we understand to be space where a huge volcano sun is keeping us alive because we happen to find ourselves in the perfect position with regards to it. We’re all just trying our best to make sense of it all. To give it meaning.

This acceptance helped create the space in me which eventually led to an even greater level of acceptance. “It’s okay to be lost and confused.” The comfort and complete relaxation I felt in my body when I accepted that and simply gave myself permission to be lost and confused. Thanks to this acceptance, I found myself in a deep vision of myself moving down my nervous system into my body.

Stepping Out of the Shadows

I found myself awake in pitch darkness inside a sort of bunker. Suddenly, right above me, I started to hear the creaking sound of a vault door opening up. With each turn, the wheel handle to the bunker creaked and eventually opened up. If you watch the scene in The Wolverine movie where Logan wakes up in a bunker on a beach in Japan as it is being nuclear bombed and witnesses someone opening the door of the bunker to help him out, you’ll more or less have the image of what I witnessed.

The bunker door flung open, and the sunlight burst through. I looked up and saw a man standing above the bunker door calling out to me to come up. “You did it, Eli! You made it through! I’m so proud of you! It’s time to come outside!”

With a big fat smile on my face, I began climbing the ladder out of the dark bunker. With each step closer, the sun shining behind the figure's face began to dim, and to my surprise, the man was me. The lion. As I climbed out, he reached his hand out to pull me up. His long hair, tanned skin, strong body, and beautiful smile captivated me completely. I was so happy to see him, and he was so happy to see me.

He pulled me out, and we embraced and danced together in each other’s arms. Such joy. We both turned to the sun which was shining bright on both of us, and I heard God’s voice. He congratulated me on the work I did today in that ceremony and how happy he was to see me. He then threw down this long cable and explained to me how the way He can connect to me is by connecting to the Eli that pulled me out of the bunker.

When I connect with that dimension of myself, I can meet God and converse with him in this middle ground. Bridged and mediated by this loving and free-spirited Eli.

We all sat down together and enjoyed each other’s presence on the beach in complete silence for the remainder of that moment. All together in love.

Looking to integrate your plant medicine experience? Discover practical steps and insights on processing and applying the lessons learned from your ceremony in our comprehensive guide. Read this post.