Brazilian ayahuasca enlightenment
hopefully this can help quell some questions
I want to start by saying my journey with ayahuasca is ongoing. I will continue to deepen my relationship to her, through non-western contexts, and truly from my heart. I have been spending countless months with her every week, and recently everyday, as I just finished micro-dosing for three months (reflections and information to come later).
I have been journeying for quite some time, but as I share content from Brazil, I feel some of the revelations there were unique. And, although I won’t share everything about my deeply personal ayahuasca experiences and rituals, I will share some of the lessons that I feel will resonate with this audience. Hopefully, they influence you all to dive deeper into your own self improvement and psychedelic journeys.
I am not smart.
Okay, well let me explain. Yes, okay I know I am a person with deep wisdom and worldly knowledge, but ayahuasca showed me I really don’t know it all. I have been shedding my ego for quite some time now, but she really taught me that humans just don’t know it all. Nature truly is all knowing. But also, she showed me that the things I think I am right about, might need a second look. That includes what I force myself to be and the narratives I have created for myself. These spirals needed to be released and I was ready to live in a victor not victim mentality. I also just generally learned more about the universe, spirituality and life itself.
There is no magic moment in healing.
Sorry to burst any buttons, but I really dislike people promoting the idea that taking a psychedelic once will heal you completely. That is just bullshit. There is no wave of a wand and boom, we are cured moment to our issues. Of course, there is never a one size fits all experience with conscious shifting medicines, but to really heal, we need to do the WORK. That means understanding that these medicines are not a cure all, they can only go so far. They show us the truth and help guide us to healing. But, it’s up to us to live those lessons everyday. Take what we learned and be better people. I mean that’s why we want to explore with ayahuasca, right? I really believe through it all, people just want to be happy. So, we need to change our own realities. You can make amazing strides with ayahuasca, in 1 or 100 rituals, but just remember, when you go back to your normal life, you need to implement the changes. Also, remember that each person’s experience will be different. So, I cannot answer what you will get out of it. I also don’t know if you will see scary monsters, or purge once or ten times or not feel anything. It is up to you to explore what that means to you.
People need to stop colonizing healing.
We need better reverence around these medicines. The fact that it is a fad or “cool” to take ayahuasca or any entheogen for that matter, is really not okay. I love that people want to improve, but the commercialization of this movement is not okay. Westerners tend to heal with the mind, not the heart. It takes a lot of time with plants and decolonizing behaviors to really find that true healing. An example of a colonized story would be a man I got to know in the UK, who said his wife has worked on herself because she did ayahuasca once, her mother held a bucket while she threw up, and then they left, after a few hours. This story was so inappropriate and ignorant.
I feel that the story really pushed me to be as culturally competent as I could in Brazil, not to go down and “trip on ayahuasca” or go on some glorified wellness retreat that blatantly ignores indigenous culture. I went to do research, so this meant not “vacationing or young traveling”, but diving into the culture, which included journeying with legal ayahuasca and other medicines. I spent so much time with her and began decolonizing my own behaviors as I was healing.
I needed to let go of toxic people in my life.
This was huge realization. When I was younger, I had such a better boundary from people. I had a really good “I don’t give a fuck” attitude. Ayahuasca really helped me clear myself of consistent fault and release me from toxic situations. I have taken so much more space to distance myself from unhealthy people. I was tired of feeling shame and not allowing myself to actually block out people for once - let them deal with their own issues and not put it on me, especially as a healer, because they don’t want to do the self work. Ayahuasca helped me identify and find my boundaries again. Now, those patterns aren’t around me. Some people I removed and others I reframed our relationship.
I reframed body dysmorphia.
Turns out, I, as well as, a lot of women have been colonizing our bodies. That means, I am imposing my ideas on how I should be, instead of listening to what my body wants. I learned so much about loving that I have a healthy, thriving body from ayahuasca. Back in the north, Micro-dosing came to be a great blessing in my life. I could really hear my body in a different way. Although this is a great example of ayahuasca not snapping her fingers and healing me, she has opened the path for me to do the work.
Moving from mind to body.
In my first ayahuasca ceremony at Terra Mirim, it was a beautiful daytime ritual. But, I was not in the best headspace for many reasons. So, I was a bit removed from everyone, spending most of my time pacing around the property, trying to work out my thoughts and gazing at the air temple. But, the rest of the community were in the sun temple, nude and dancing to music. My dear sister Agata pointed out in ceremony that I should do a herbal bath to cleanse the thoughts and let them go into my body. And so I did, and it was beautiful. Each ceremony, I let go more. I danced. I was nude (especially during Wachuma ceremonies). I aimlessly wandered with no thoughts. I found ways to actually get out of my head and allow the monkey chatter to wash down through my body. The best way I have found is movement, specifically dance. But, now I find I can be in silence again like I used to be, just observing nature in such a slowed down way.
Lean into my feminine more.
I also should be clear, this is not a genderized word. Masculine and feminine energy exist in us all. They are the yin and yang and we need balance of both to be whole. But, I admit I have a serious problem living in my masculine too much. Ayahuasca is a feminine energy, so she heals with that spirit. She taught me about slowing down, flowing and having gentleness with myself, instead of always over analyzing, pushing and working hard.
A good example of this was making the decision to not go to Acre and push deeper into the Amazon. When I got to Terra Mirim, my body was completely depleted and my mind wasn’t in the right headspace. But, I kept trying to push myself with a flow that wasn’t happening organically. When I accepted I was going to stay in Bahia, my body relaxed finally. I realized it would have been surface connections I made with communities because I would have been that westerner pushing for knowledge, but with my mind, not with pure heart. THAT is masculine.
What my work with ayahuasca really is about.
Well, it’s two fold. I think it’s my own personal healing, but also to understand if I should be the one to help speak for/with ayahuasca. I thought because I have this special gift speaking for plants, especially entheogens, it meant ALL of them (which is a very long list). I thought by going to Brazil, I would start this journey with one of that is heavily globalized and needing more grounding. But the truth is, I don’t really know what else to contribute to the global conversation. It is so over-consumed and talked about now, and there are plenty of allies in the dialogue. I have been feeling that maybe other less well known plants/fungi, like Wachuma, need my voice more. I want to tell stories and speak to the spirit of ecology that needs help finding a sustainable lens as popularity grows.
But, what I can say is that ayahuasca sustainability and intentionality is still ripe in my mind. We need servers and circles around the world to start educating and bringing the indigenous into the conversation. Retreats need to have intention and reverence, but we also should be wary of the globalized industrial market starting to happen. Like people extracting ayahuasca to make pills or Netflix documentaries and completely disregarding the medicine. I am not sure how I can contribute to the dialogue further, but I can just express what I have witnessed and felt from personal experience.
