The Sacred Valley

I’ve spent much of my early life geared toward greatness and success in the traditional sense of the world. I remember the day when I started to find a new path.

I was in my late 20s, traveling in Peru for a work conference. Once the conference ended, I took a solo excursion from Lima to the Sacred Valley near the ancient Incan cities of Cusco and Machu Picchu. I was excited to immerse myself in the culture, see the sights, and get some time to myself. But mostly I was there to experience the traditional psychedelic plant medicines ayahuasca and San Pedro or huachuma.

A few days in, I gathered with a handful of other travelers on a sunny day before noon. After the facilitator prepared the medicine and talked through what to expect, he handed each of us a small cup of the pungent brew. I plugged my nose and threw it back. 

When most people imagine psychedelic experiences, they think mind-melting, out-of-this-world, shot-out-of-a-cannon-into-the-depths-of-the-cosmos-type experiences. I didn’t really experience anything like that. No talking jackals or purple snakes bursting out of my stomach. No spirits or demons. No voice of God. No inter-dimensional travel. My experience was mostly gentle, grounded, and serene. I spent the day wandering slowly through the facilitator’s plot of land and its lush garden, nestled in the shadow of Incan ruins and terraces in the hills above. 

I walked around peacefully, a little queasy, looking at flowers, feeling the grass on my fingertips, letting the sun beat down on my skin. For what seemed like hours, I just wandered around in a semi-daze. Nothing was severely warped or changed. But everything had an unusual sparkle and aliveness to it 

Eventually, I came across a stone birdbath. Something about it captured me. I went closer. I peered down into the water and saw an assortment of crystals and stones and a hodgepodge of flower petals, some vibrant and full of life, some withering away, crinkled at the sides, decaying, floating on the surface. I looked deeply into my eyes, reflected in the water, superimposed over the contents of the bath, but partially obscured by the floating flowers. The water rippled over it, distorting the image, glistening with the light of the sun. 

As I stood there, something in me just broke. I cracked open. I was completely overwhelmed by this messy confluence of me and not me, old and new, growth and decay, sun and water, heavy and light, “beautiful” and “ugly.” All these normal dichotomies had somehow broken down, flowing into each other, creating beautiful wholes. It even felt as if all of time, past and present, had been condensed down into that one moment – all the accomplishments and failures, all the yearnings and disappointments, all the horrors and jubilations, all the love, fulfilled and unrequited. I could feel it all – all of humanity, all of existence – pulsing and flowing through me. 

I stood there for minutes, weeping uncontrollably. I was overflowing with awe and gratitude: for my own life, which I so often took for granted and which never quite lived up to what I wanted for it, no matter how far I came; and for life itself, the connection and loneliness, the moments of beauty, the moments of pain, the periods of darkness, the periods of hope – all of it.

I felt so fortunate just to be here in the messiness of it all, breathing, alive, experiencing, exploring, dreaming. I now could see clearly how beautiful it all really is, even in what we usually think of as ugliness and darkness, even in my grief and self-doubt, even in its finitude and the inevitability of my and our collective demise. 

It was all just so beautiful.

Since then, I’ve noticed I am very rarely as angry at the state of the world as I once was. Worried, yes. But not angry. And somehow, the quest for greatness and success doesn’t hold nearly as much water. Since then, I’ve felt so much more called simply to rejoice in that beauty and, however I can, contribute to it and help others see it.