On Sunday the 3rd of July 2005 N and I started a traditional 'preparo' or 'feitio', which means a preparation of ayahuasca or another forest medicine. Our intention was to test how complex it will be to organize a bigger preparation with several more participants. The plan is to prepare between 15 to 20 kilo's of Banisteriopsis Caapi in a batizao (beating) lasting around three days. There will be an invitation to some of our closer friends to join in this work as a way towards greater cooperation and I hope to announce the date and amount of the contribution soon. In the meantime, we will be commencing to work with this new type of Caapi in combination with Mimosa Hostilis. If our test are anything to go by this is a powerful medicine. If you would like to be on the team please let us know. Also this is the opportunity for women to try a batizao, which is traditionally work reserved for men in Brazil! Three steps were necessary to prepare ourselves for this work:

1. •finding the right material
   
   

2. •finding the tools for the batizao
   
   

3. •finding the right place to do this work and the time to do it
   

The material we used was tested in a small, non-traditional preparation that I did at my own home. I used shredded material made available to me by my supplier. It was White Caapi from a Shipibo/Conibo community in Peru. Naftalie and I had been testing a different type of Caapi the week before (Ourinhos from Brazil, in combination with Jurema from Oaxaca, Mexico) and I decided that for the purposes of making a fair comparison we needed to start from the same amounts of material (250 grams) and end up with the same amount of liquid (400 ml) The weekend after we had tested the Ourinhos we tested the White Caapi. It was unexpectedly powerful, four or five times more than we had imagined, and I had a very rough time, but one thing stands out: it is very fine energy to work with and the rough time was an opportunity for both of us, N to be able to help me, and I had the opportunity to let go and allow myself to be cared for.

The preparation of a kilo of material (this time from whole vine) is an entirely different undertaking from preparing 250 grams: with small amounts it is easier to get all the active beta-carbolines out, simply by boiling it long enough in a pressure cooker. This time we decide that we would boil the beaten fibers of Caapi in a new 60 liter aluminum pot, and I thought it would be easier to proceed to pressure cooking the material small loads at a time after this initial cooking.

I found a nice wooden log of Poplar wood at the municipal forestry department, and tipped the caretaker 10 euros to saw a piece off for me with a chain-saw. This wood is particularly hard, and I believe the wooden mallets that I bought at the local sculpture supplies shop are also made of poplar. I stripped the bark of the trunk and then used a power tool to flatten the ends of the trunk, after which I chiseled two holes into the sides to allow for grips because the trunk weighs a lot.

The location for our work was going to be my fathers garden: he was leaving that day for Peru, and we thought we would be on our own (as it turned out he was still around to hear the steady beating of our mallets) We planned on drinking some of the Ayahuasca I had made earlier that week, to enhance our sensitivity to the material and really get into the work.

The beating commenced. It takes time to get the hang of it. Caapi is extremely tough, especially the knots which require breaking up and beating again, we had boiled our vine for three hours prior to the beating to make sure it was a little softer. We also put up a plastic cover to stop pieces getting blown all over the place, we didn't want to loose any material. It is really important when preparing a medicine like Ayahuasca to be as careful as possible with the material: anything that goes into the drink gets concentrated after all! After a while N and I took it in turns beating and singing, and we had a small sip of Ayahuasca to keep us in the mood. Beating Caapi requires bringing the hammer down full force, there are no half measures, so it is important to remain focused and build up a rhythm, and singing helps. At one point my dad's neighbor popped her head over the fence to ask what we were singing so we continued to work and sing, keeping time with the hammer. She asked whether we knew a song from Anatevka, but I suggested that would not be appropriate for the occasion, although I am sure N would have sung it if he had known it. Nobody in the neighborhood complained about the loud banging though, to our relief! Here is a song that is from the feitio:

The beating took the two of us about three hours. We need to have another wooden trunk as working at the batizao together would be more encouraging. When we were finished we began cooking the material. At this point it still has more of a rooty smell than an Ayahuasca smell.

The real work of preparing Ayahuasca commences once the first liquid has been extracted: then the material is set on a fire again, and meanwhile the liquid that has been drawn off is reduced, while slowly stirring. We moved the material to my home for this stage of the work, as it was destined to take about two days, in fact I am still reducing it as I type. The reduction process is where the Ayahuasca is either made or destroyed: reducing it is not merely a question of letting it boil, from the point the liquid is drawn off from the fibers of the vine one cannot leave the pot alone at any moment or else it may boil over, and there are a lot of things to say for staying and hanging over the steaming froth. I also regularly taste it to find out how powerful it is getting and I test it by wetting my fingers to see how sticky it has become: a lot of sugar in the vine especially when it is fresh will caramelize, making the brew sweet and sticky. This is more so when the brew has Rainha (Psychotria Viridis) added to it, as the leaves contain a lot of natural sugars.

Needless to say I am not telling the whole story of the preparation, or its recipe here. The importance of having this report here is to give people an idea of what a preparation entails: the whole area and time of the preparation has to be extremely clean and organized, so everything takes a long time. Pouring the hot material into pans to separate it must be done very carefully by two people. The slightest mistake and material could be lost, in fact I made a mistake and some of the reduced material evaporated almost completely leaving me with a smoking pan! I am now working on this report in the kitchen lest any more material boil over. Also we filtered the first draughts carefully straining them through a pice of linen to make sure there was not too much cellulose in the mix, there is no point in having that empty wood in the brew after all the chemicals have leeched out.

All in all the work has taken about two to three days and the resulting liquid is about 1.5 liters of strong reddish brown ayahuasca. If it is what we think it is, this should amount to approximately 60 doses.

I always test every new batch as a matter of principle: I will never give anyone anything that I have not tried myself first. The idea of making a big preparation is to get a quantity of ayahuasca of which we know the quality so that I won't have to test it all the time. There will also be plenty to use for admixtures: one that is particularly interesting is that of Caapi with Chiricaspii reputedly a very medicinal combination that produces some tactile sensations. I will also work with Coca, Toé, and Tobacco as admixtures all plants that I have used before, but the point of having this opportunity would be to ascertain their affects amongst a larger group.

Daniel Waterman