Personal Narrative Shape: My Journey With Rape

My journey with Rapé, pronounced ‘ha-peh’, in English, has been an interesting one. It is one heavily connected with ayahuasca. I remember being in Peru at an ayahuasca ceremony and was asked if I would like to try Rapé. I was told it is normally done at Ayahuasca ceremonies to prepare you for the work and open up the third eye chakra. Being that I am a daredevil and adventurous I will certainly try anything once. So I said yes. The Shaman blew the Rapé in one nostril without any explanation, of what to expect, to me. Let me remind you that I was in Peru where they only spoke Spanish in this ceremony. Immediately I stopped breathing. Fear entered, I began to panic. Thoughts of death aroused. The Shaman began to say breathe in Spanish, but I couldn’t. He said breathe again. I was just filled with fear and could not hear anything he was saying. Breathe, what is breathing anyway. Breath is life. Breath is the thing that helps us relax, think clearly and bring us back to a healthy state, which is why breath work is fundamental in yoga, meditation, pilates, dance and singing. Breathe. He touched me and said breathe. I was able to take a deep

America and doing Ayahuasca ceremonies, I continued to do Rapé. After living in brazil for 3 years Rapé became a bit more of a regular practice. I hadn’t been trained on it officially but began to use it myself. I would buy the Rapé and snuff it myself for deep meditations. Eventually I bought a self applicator, called ‘Kuripe’, with more time I bought an applicator in which I could administer to others. This is called ‘Tepi’ or blow pipe. They are made from bambu or bones. The Kuripe is a V shape and Tepi is long with the smaller end being the end to insert into the nose. I guess you could say I had a training directly through Rapé, but then I began a Shaman course in which I did receive a training on how to blow Rapé and how to insert it into the