Laughing Through the Darkness
I remember one of my earliest Ayahuasca ceremonies vividly. It can only be described as a classic ceremonial shit show. The experience was badly organised and managed with little to no screening. The organizers packed around 60 people into a cold, drafty room and blasted some very vulnerable souls right back into their traumas, with scant support for the enormity of what they were facing.
The next day’s integration circle has lived in my memory thanks to one moment. When it came upon one young man’s turn to speak he took a deep breath, looked around the room and in the voice of Batman’s joker said;
‘Why, sooo, serioussss.’
It was both insulting and medicine at the same time, but no doubt shaped something inside me for my subsequent journeys in the Plant Medicine world. The power of humour and laughter to heal is so sacred. Being able to laugh at yourself is an incredibly potent medicine that encourages humility and a sense of grounding.
As Dame Judy Dench said, ‘Take your job seriously, but not yourself. That is the best combination.’
In the context of an Ayahuasca ceremony, our job is to face our shadows and purge the energies that are not ours to carry. We’re probably not getting out of that shindig with our hair and makeup in tact, so why not have a giggle along the way?
Cry too of course, be afraid if you must, have respect for the plants, yourself and the space, but don’t forget to laugh.
I’ve had the honour of working with hundreds of individuals both in ceremony and through integration work, who are facing their shadows and trauma. Whenever we’re facing traumas or challenging times the ability of each individual to process through them, largely depends on the resources they have available.
The Resources that Support our Integration
Before jumping into any Plant Medicine journey it’s important to check in with our resources should things become challenging or overwhelming. These include our breath, our intention, human support, singing… this is an endless list that is deeply personal to each of us.
Without a doubt, laughter and a sense of humour is one of the greatest resources human beings have available to them. Our very existence is kind of funny when you really look at it, from the moment we are born the only guarantee we have is death.
As comedian Bill Hicks famously quipped, ‘It’s just a ride.’
Our existence is absurd and still a complete mystery to science, although religions like to think they have all the answers, albeit slightly different ones. We have plenty of ideas and theories, but no-one knows the actual details of consciousness or existence. It is mysterious by design.
The darker the journey, the darker the humour may become, but in all cases the more we can laugh at ourselves and the situations we find ourselves in, the more we can close the loop on unresolved trauma.
Huachuma is a plant that knows all too well the magical power of laughter, of course with a name like grandfather, it’s perhaps to be expected. One of the masculine’s many gifts is the injection of humour into any situation to bring a sense of ‘It’s all going to be OK.’
I remember reading someone saying that Huachuma ceremonies were just people having fun and laughing. Well, of course, (disclaimer, it certainly isn’t always that way) but laughter is deep, strong medicine and for someone who hasn’t laughed in a long time, it can literally be life saving. Laughter can release traumas in the body, allow tears to finally flow—it creates all manner of movement. And movement is healing.
In ceremony we often find laughter can come before or just after tears, the contrast of grief and joy being the same and connected on a deeper level. Both releases of emotions, of our divinity. It is an expression that says, YES! We are alive and we feel deeply.
We allow ourselves to express, to enjoy, to open up to life and in doing so release the emotions we were clinging onto. The calming effect that follows can be just the reset the nervous system needs to bring the body and its hormones back into balance.
The Shipibo Perspective on Laughter as Medicine
Balance is a path deeply ingrained in Shipibo culture, the mind, body and soul. Nokun Shiro, our sense of humour, sits directly alongside these hugely important senses of the self. Being in balance and engaged with our sense of humour is a practice and an art form.
An unbalanced sense of humour can be harmful when directed maliciously at others and timing is everything. Not all funny things are funny all the time and so this art form becomes something to hone and craft. Yet we are always safe when we laugh at ourselves and the joke is on us.
For those in any kind of spiritual service to humanity it is the great humbler that ensures our grounding. Those with guru and messiah complexes can easily be sniffed out and measured by their ability or inability to laugh at themselves and not take life too seriously.
The advent of spiritual parody accounts such as JP sears and Kyle Lipman has markedly set a trend for laughing at ourselves and those of us who take this path too seriously. Humour is the great leveller, the bs detector, the egoic rug puller. It gives us the opportunity to reflect, to let go, to release into the emotion of joy and become the expression itself rather than thinking about it or longing for it. It educates us on our shadows, it shines a spotlight on them and says dance monkey, dance!
The addition of humour can bring about a compete reframe to any situation, often even if just internally spoken, this reframe can change the course of a moment, a ceremony, a life. Given its right place and time, laughter is the strongest medicine there is, as it’s an expression of love. Like any medicinel, if used in the wrong way or in the wrong dose it becomes poison. We can certainly use humour as a crutch to avoid our feelings and dance away from them. There are also situations that require us to show up will full hearts of compassion and empathy, to be present for someone. Humour can be used to break that presence and move away from difficult situations that need to be faced. As much as it can be a resource it can also be a get out of jail free card.
And so we go back to Nokun Shiro, balancing our sense of humour becomes the mission. For this there are no rules or guidelines, it truly is an energetic art form, one that we can all practice and be aware of. A true mystery of existence where our creativity gets to dance into new and unexplored areas.
For me it is one of the great pillars of humanity, what makes us who we are and a conduit to working with these plants, for they perhaps have the best sense of humour I know.
If you need an empathetic guide to help you find the humour in yourself and the world again, I’d be honoured to be your coach.
About the Author
Neil Kirwan has many years of experience behind and in front of the altar, apprenticing with Ayahuasca in the Shipibo-Conibo and Huni Kuin traditions. He has completed multiple Master Plant Dietas, including work with the potent, transformative Noya Rao tree. Neil is a trauma-informed, highly compassionate shamanic coach and guide, with an expertise in helping folks prepare for and integrate challenging Plant Medicine ceremonies, as well as leading Master Plant Dietas with dreamy, psychically connected Mugwort. And of course, he has an epic sense of humor!
