Tag: ecstatic dance

HIGH NOTES: Healing With Sound and Cacao

Two weeks ago, I was checking out a yoga class in Ubud, Bali when the sole other student observed that I kept tripping on steps. “Not a good step day for you, huh?” he asked. We got to talking, and I asked what he did.

“I help people find their life purpose.”

“Sounds like something I could use.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Well, I’m in the middle of a transformation of sorts.” Like everyone in Ubud, I thought to myself. “I’m healing from Lyme disease, and I’m starting to build a new life. Rethinking my career and stuff like that.”

“Take my number, then, and let me know if you want to do a session.”

I met him in a small house by the water that was so newly built it didn’t have an address. In the bathroom, I tripped on a step. “I’m trained by shamans in Mexico, and I do reiki,” he explained. Not exactly what I expected — but maybe better. “Do you believe in spiritual entities?”

“Um, yeah — I believe I have one on me, and I think it’s causing my illness,” I replied. I’d arrived at this conclusion after many plant medicine ceremonies and sessions with spiritual healers.

“Tripping a lot can be a sign of that,” he nodded. “They’re trying to bring you down to a lower frequency, because that’s the environment they thrive in.” He went on to explain that people unconsciously agree to host entities and that they feed off our resources and control our minds so that we feed them. Most people have some bad entities, but they have enough good to quiet them. Sometimes, though, the bad take over. Entities sounded like bacteria. I became even more convinced that an entity (or entities?) was causing my sickness.

The shaman had me lie on a bed and said a prayer to get the entities off me. “I got almost everything, but there’s one that won’t leave,” he said afterward.

“Where is it?”

“Can you tune into it?”

“I’m not getting anything,” I said as I rested my hand right below my heart, where my ribs meet.

“Why is your hand there?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think it’s telling us where the entity is. It’s in your solar plexus.”

He invited me to come back to clear the early childhood trauma he saw in my solar plexus and to participate in a cacao ceremony he was attending at the healing center Pyramids of Chi. In a cacao ceremony, a ritual originating from the Mayans and Aztecs, people drink cacao together to elevate their state of consciousness. Apparently, it’s the thing to do in Ubud.

The next day, I tried to order a ride to Pyramids of Chi, but my Go Jek app (like Uber for Bali) wasn’t working. So, I asked the nearest taxi stand on the street for a ride. They didn’t have any cabs, but they had motorcycles. I held my breath as I got on the back of a motorcycle and grabbed my driver’s shoulders for dear life, and I didn’t let it out until I heard a dog howling at the entrance.

The center’s name is literal: It consists of giant white pyramids, including one where they held the cacao ceremony. Several dozen people sat on little cushions as the leader explained the purpose of the cacao, which was mixed with water, palm sugar, and spices: to open the heart. Then, we stood and pivoted to pray to the four directions, and the leader chanted the names of spirits ranging from Ganesha to Mother Mary. After we drank the cacao, the room erupted into ecstatic dance. Dreamy, spiritual sounds filled the pyramid as people hopped up and down and swayed from side to side.

During this dance, I contemplated such things as the Biblical family tree and whether the frequencies of colors correspond to sounds. I also began to plan the next few months of my life, suddenly feeling confident in possibilities that seemed distant. Why did people use coffee — or cocaine, for that matter — when they could just use this?

Next, we paired up for two activities. For one, we and our partners gazed into each other’s eyes and “bowed” to each other in our own way. I pulled the sides of my dress up and curtsied. My partner gazed at me lovingly and whispered, “You’re beautiful.” I felt like a princess. A line from the movie A Little Princess came to me: “All girls are princesses.” It brought tears to my eyes. Even with everything happening, even when I felt like I had nothing, I was a princess.

For the next activity, we and our partners put our hands on each other’s hearts and sang along to a song: “I love you, I’m sorry, thank you, forgive me.” As I looked into my partner’s eyes, it felt as if we were giving each other permission to forgive ourselves. I saw my beauty through her own and felt deeply that I was not my mistakes.

The last stage of the ceremony was a sound bath. In a separate pyramid, we each lay on a little bed as people hit gongs. The idea was that each of these gongs creates a healing frequency, causing our bodies to vibrate at these frequencies as well. The leader told us to close our eyes and just take in the vibrations, but the excitement the cacao was causing in my mind turned to anxiety, and I spent most of the ceremony contemplating how to overstay my visa in Bali without getting in trouble.

But then, just as it came to a close, a thought came to me out of nowhere: “It’s OK. The Lyme isn’t there anymore. I told it to leave.” I felt the muscles surrounding my heart release as if they were letting out a breath of air.

The next morning, I kept coughing up mucus. It came in waves, almost like purging during an iboga ceremony. I realized it was coming from that exact spot right in the middle of my chest. It was as if the shamanic healing and the cacao were cleaning out my heart and solar plexus.

Afterward, I walked through Ubud and bought myself a pink jeweled dress. “All girls are princesses,” I thought. The time had come for me to claim my crown. I was glad I tripped over those steps.

HIGH NOTES: Getting High on Ecstatic Dance

Usually, when I’m in Amsterdam, my plans involve drugs in some way or another. But during my latest trip (trip as in, excursion, I should specify), I had an impending ayahuasca ceremony, and taking other drugs in the days before you take ayahuasca is not advisable. On my search for a drug-free yet Amsterdam-typical experience, I stumbled upon Odessa, a nightclub on a boat that hosts ecstatic dance events.

Ecstatic dance is a practice where people get together and dance however it moves them, often to spiritual music. There are ecstatic dance communities and retreats in many major cities, Amsterdam being one of the foremost. It attracts what people might consider the hippy-dippy crowd. I’d never been to an ecstatic dance event before, but I have a friend who’s into it, and it sounded like something free spirits like me would enjoy.

The event’s Facebook description oozed with wholesomeness, with bread and vegan soup served and no alcohol or drugs allowed. But it also said it aims to put participants in a “meditative state.” A meditative state without substances? I was intrigued.

The three-story ship on the ocean was the perfect venue for natural mind-altering. When I walked in, I saw some people cuddling on pillows and others eating. A man who was serving the food explained to me that everyone had to be silent before the event started. I was relieved – no pressure to start conversations with strangers without any social lubrication.

I walked downstairs to the dance floor, where some people were already swaying to the music. The song was contemporary but with spiritual lyrics like “this is only the beginning.” Then, something that sounded like traditional Indian instrumentals came on; in my head, I all heard was the same familiar soundtrack I hear when I want to dance.

“You’re going to look like an idiot.”

“No, I’ll only look like an idiot if I’m worried about looking like an idiot.”

“But that’s exactly what you’ll be thinking about.”

I got the feeling, though, that this was not an environment where I’d be judged. One woman was hopping up and down joyfully; a man was in his own little world as he shuffled his legs; another man was meditating with his legs crossed. I got up and started swaying. It was not hard to get into. The man who was meditating came over and danced in front of me, and we laughed as our moves got more exaggerated and sillier.

Soon after that, the event officially opened with a few games that reminded me of high school theater class. We had to make shapes with our bodies and find our way between other people’s shapes, walk only at right angles, and form an equilateral triangle with two other people in the room. It wasn’t exactly taking me to a higher state of consciousness. My mind wandered through most of it.  

For an opening ceremony, we closed our eyes and meditated, and the DJ told us, “enjoy your journey.” Between that and the cups of ginger licorice tea arranged ceremonially amid candlelight by the bar, I almost thought I was already at my ayahuasca retreat.

Then came the dance part. The DJ mixed tunes that ranged from spiritual to EDM-like to a fun combination of the two. Some people bounced up and down like they were celebrating life. Others had their eyes closed like they were in a trance. Couples gave massages and slow-danced. If I hadn’t read the event’s rules, I would’ve guessed some of these people were high.

The energy in the room was palpable. There were moments when it escalated and people screamed. Electricity ran up and down my legs and I could not contain my jumps. Some people jumped with me, and we all laughed. I guess I came off a bit like I was on drugs, too.

Except this high had more substance to it. Drugs have a way of making everything seem profound for no reason. I could understand the profundity of ecstatic dance. It was like we were traveling back in time to when humans danced to connect with nature and one another. We were all connected. As the boat rocked, we even felt like part of the ocean. 

I walked over to another room at the end, where just one woman was dancing. The lyrics of the song were in another language, but it made me think of the sun. I leaped around and did a move that reminded me of sun salutations in yoga, and the other woman danced similarly. I felt more joy than I’d felt in a long time.

Afterward, I went up to the ship’s top floor, where there was a hot tub and sauna. I didn’t have my bathing suit, but I put my feet into the tub. “Are all ecstatic dance events sober?” I asked a man who was bathing in there. “They tend to be,” he said. “The idea is to connect directly with the music, not through any substance.”

“Can’t drugs help you connect with music, though?” I asked.

“They’re not doing anything to your brain that it doesn’t already do,” he answered. “They make it easier to get there, but the goal is to get there without it.” That sounded like a worthy goal. A high without hangovers.

In the sauna afterward, another man and I debated whether consciousness could have arisen from inert matter. Then, on my way out, the meditating man I had danced with told me I had a beautiful soul.

“You were dancing Indian dances,” he told me. “How do you know them?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Past lives, maybe.” We got dinner and discussed past lives and everything else you’d expect to discuss after an ecstatic dance event. It was exactly the hippy-dippy experienced I’d hoped for.

I ended up returning to ecstatic dance three times. On the second night, the guy from the hot tub stroked my hair as we listened to live music. On the third, we discovered that all six people in the sauna had taken ayahuasca and recounted what it taught us. The experience did not provide everything I’d gained from taking drugs at clubs, but it did provide a few of the same things: fun, deep conversation, and genuine connection.