Il racconto completo
He parks his car outside the house. He closes the door. And a question comes to him: what is he doing here? Lionel had wanted this experience for a long time. He had come with curiosity and a real desire to be there. Yet, outside the house, questions fill his mind. He describes an inner conversation that will not settle. One voice says yes, another says no. One asks questions; another wants it to be quiet. He has made the journey, but doubt has come with him.
On the first evening, that conversation continues. Who are these people? What has he come here to do? Wanting something for so long does not make his hesitation disappear. On the final morning, as he tells the group about his arrival, Lionel explains that he is not someone who talks much. He is not even sure he wants to speak. But he finds simple words for how he feels now: he feels good. He feels full.
Between those two moments, there was exhaustion. The day before, he had been so tired that he did not feel able to leave. He had asked to stay. The experience had done him good, he says, and had also exhausted him. On that last evening, the mushrooms simply calmed and relaxed him. Then he slept without dreams. To describe what that rest gave him, he finds a very concrete image: he plugged himself in, and his battery recharged.
That morning, his words turn towards the others. Towards what each person brought him, the presence of the team, the gestures and encounters that mattered. He does not try to tell the whole experience again. What he wants to say also fits into two words: thank you. At the beginning, he wondered who these people were. Now, he takes the time to thank them.
The little music of someone on the team brings back a sentence he read in a book. It described a man who did not have enough music in his head to make his life dance. Lionel borrows that image to speak about himself. Today, he says, he has so much of it. In his words, we hear a path from the noise of his questions on arrival to the music he describes as he prepares to leave. His story does not tell us what tomorrow will bring. But that morning, he speaks of rest, fullness and gratitude.
What Lionel describes is his experience alone. Every person's journey is different. Thank you for listening. This was Ayahuasca Stories.
