A journey to the inside that took me to my limits and beyond and allowed me to discover a lot of insights. This is a very personal travel report.
Those who know me know that I am a very planned and perhaps often very controlled person. My head works quite well and most of the time I can rely on it quite well. In recent years I have tried many things, from Reiki, Theta Healing to hypnosis and other techniques. But I always had the feeling that my head always played a (too) dominant role and often interfered.
Mind off, trust on
The experience I had this month at a three-day ayahuasca retreat left me with no other option but to let go, trust, and let my body and mind go easy. I am therefore writing these lines with deep gratitude for the encounter with me, wonderful other people and for the process I was able to go through during these days.
I have never before had such an intense experience in my life. To give up control over my body and my mind, that was my wish for this retreat and I can only say that I succeeded.
The Ayahuasca Retreat
The retreat of Pachamama Shamanic Healing lasts 3.5 days and includes 3 evenings with an Ayahuasca ceremony of your choice, Kambo in the morning and Bufo Alvarius in the last morning. Some people would probably call all this mind-expanding substances, I would rather see it as a deep spiritual experience. What I had already begun to perceive in silence retreats, that our senses can do much more than what we are able to perceive in everyday life, became so much clearer to me now. I have also known for a long time that I intuitively feel and see many things, but often I push it away because I think my mind knows more. But with each further training in spiritual methods it became clearer to me that the mind is rather the one that stands in the way.
There is no room here to describe in detail all the wonderful experiences of the retreat and moreover the experience varies from person to person and probably from occasion to occasion. So everything I describe here is my very personal perception.
When we do plant medicine, and we see love, we realize right then and there that it was never apart from us, that in fact it was a part of us.Gerard Armond Powell
Integration of the experience
The three nights of ayahuasca have brought me many insights about my life and my past. They have given me the opportunity to feel my confidence in myself. If the feeling of slight panic arose, it was clear to me that only I could help myself in the situation. This may sound disillusioning, but for me it was extremely strengthening and healing. I definitely found my meditation practice during the nights very helpful, because I could always go back to my breath and my heart, no matter what was going on inside or outside.
The morning integration rounds were very helpful for me and probably for everyone else as well. In this way every one of us were able to put what we had experienced in the night into a larger and yet personal context. I think for some people this experience could well replace 5 years of psychotherapy.
“Kambo time” in the morning
After short and intensive Ayahuasca nights the morning was called “Kambo time”. Two liters of water on an empty stomach led to a considerable nausea, at least for me at the end of the two liters. Kambo is the poison of a frog, which is put on the skin and develops its full effect in combination with the water. When it starts to take effect, the nausea becomes greater and you can usually no longer suppress it. When I had a lot of water outside, bile came. And yes, during the procedure itself it was really not pleasant. But just a few minutes later I felt so good and above all cleansed as hardly ever before in my life. One calls Kambo also the Jungle vaccination, which works evenly cleaning and immune system strengthening. It was so exciting to see that the faces and charisma of all participants changed so incredibly for the better during the three days. I experienced this change especially strong after the two Kambo sessions.
All good things are 3 – Bufo Alvarius
I have to say that I was with the highest respect to medium size afraid regarding all three of them, from Ayahuasca to Kambo to Bufo. However, it was the greatest team I have ever experienced in companionship, so that I felt absolutely safe and cared for in every moment. So on the third day I also did Bufo Alvarius. I had watched a few videos in advance of people who took Bufo Alvarius (which was probably not such a good idea). I could describe my reaction as, from fascinated to horrified. But on the last day I really wanted to do it myself. Bufo is smoked and within a few seconds I drifted away into the most intense cosmic orgasm I have ever had. I don’t want to say more than that, because all the words don’t even come close to the experience. In the end it was deep love for myself, a deep trust that I have everything in me that I need and am in a loving connection with everything. Simply indescribable.
Maybe this Bufo experience was particularly intense, because I got an energetic cleansing of my lower chakras in the third Ayahuasca night. It was clear to me that there could be one or the other blockage, because I often had difficulties to really sense the lower chakras or my abdomen. But I never thought that it would make such a difference. My breathing has gone much deeper since then, I can feel every fiber of my abdomen again and in connection with Bufo it was, as I said, a very deep and liberating overall experience.
Ayahuasca calls you
They say ayahuasca calls you when it is time. The idea of participating in an Ayahuasca Retreat has been in my head for a few years, but the call was not loud enough. Until this year. When I read about the risks in advance, I also read that people have already died. So I had many questions to the team in advance, and the team also asked many questions in advance, because there are definitely health exclusion criteria. Therefore, if you want to participate in a retreat, it is important that you have the opportunity to talk to the organizers in advance and that all your questions are answered and your state of health is discussed. After many conversations, it seems that in the few cases in the world where there were health problems at ceremonies, health problems or medication intake were not (sufficiently) addressed in advance.
In the end, it is plant or animal substances that are used in this kind of ceremony, but they have a very strong effect that we are not used to from our everyday life. On the other hand, they are substances that are normal in other parts of the world. Of course, it is up to you to decide in which ceremonies you want to take part and during the ceremonies you can always say no or refuse at any time. Since that is exactly what it is about, trusting yourself and the body and the signals of your own intuition or at least learning to trust again.
For me it was one of the deepest and greatest experiences I have ever had and certainly the beginning of an intensive long journey.
Photo by Stéfano Girardelli on Unsplash
