On the second night of the ayahuasca ceremony a few weeks back, the Spirit of ayahuasca spoke with me and encouraged me to sing and to dance for everyone in the room. Truly I can think of little to make me feel less comfortable than that! I said ‘no’ easily, but she was very insistent. Perhaps for 15 minutes she encouraged me to sing and dance. Repeatedly I said, “No and thank you for the offer.” She did not take no for an answer. Later, I went to the bathroom and there she visited me again.

She said, “You’re alone now and certainly you’re more comfortable here. No one will hear or see you sing. Can’t you at least sing a little in here?” Finally I obliged and I sang whatever note came to mind. My voice was shaky and broken and some tortured sound came forth. As the sound came out, crying came out also and I sang and I cried. As I sang I could feel my throat healing. As the throat healed the notes I sang became more beautiful and my voice less shaky. I cried because I knew the moment I began singing that I was receiving my voice back, a voice I didn’t even know I had lost because not having it had become so completely normal. In the truest sense I was like Ariel at the end of the Little Mermaid when her voice re-entered her body from its absence.

After I finished in the bathroom I joined everyone else in the big room and she continued, “Can’t you sing for everyone now?” I was still very insistent, “Thank you and no. I’m not ready.” Since that day though, I’ve hummed and I’ve whistled and I’ve sang to myself. It flows out of me. It’s soothing. It’s incredible. I hum and I heal. The vibrations heal me.

The first Quaker meetings I attended were some 10 years ago. The meetings are largely silent except for when folks are “moved by the Spirit” to speak to everyone. The meetings are fairly light on the Christian stuff, but I remember struggling with it as it came up and I struggled with the idea of “Spirit” guiding people to speak. Yet the day came when I felt guided to speak in the meeting. I was moved to tell everyone how much I was struggling with the meetings and the “God stuff.” And I resisted speaking. I stuffed Spirit down. I didn’t speak because I didn’t have my voice back yet. Shortly after that day I stopped attending meetings.

This morning I attended meeting as I’ve been doing since returning to San Francisco. The first man who spoke talked for several minutes and he concluded with a quote from a Psalm. It stirred me deeply and I began crying. As I cried, the realizations grew deeper. I cried quietly for a long time, and I wondered, “Perhaps these realizations are something I should stand up and speak about?” I certainly felt less resistance to speaking than ever before. Might today be the first time I speak in meeting? I kept wondering and waiting. But yet—there was still some resistance to speaking. I could feel it in my body.

So I sat in the resistance and I waited.

And after some time the resistance gave way to a memory. I was sitting in a circle in my kindergarten classroom. I was five years old. We were doing “show and tell” and I had my item on my lap. The time came for me to speak about my item, but no words came! Everyone was waiting for me and looking at me. I sat there quietly feeling so scared. I had no voice!

My voice had left my body.

And as that memory visited, I could feel my voice returning. I could feel it in my throat; I could feel the throat healing again. I could feel a process of integration taking place throughout my whole body. A remarriage of Spirit and body, it felt like shuffling inside.

And I came to see clearly that I had the ability and the strength and the confidence to stand and speak at the meeting!

And yet, Spirit didn’t move me to do so. So I stayed seated. And I continued crying quietly. And the meeting came to a close.