Journeying into Plant Medicine: My weekend with Sacred Teacher Plants

My journey of stepping more into myself as a messenger and healer has been, and will continue to be a process to say the least. Besides the phases of denial and falling into trying to live a ‘normal’ life, I have also gone through many self-initiated detoxes and various cleanses (my own and with Sangomas and other healers). Recently, my journey guided me towards a Sacred Plant Medicine weekend retreat where I experienced the magic and reality of Ayahuasca, known as the Great Grandmother teacher and San Pedro, known as the Great Grandfather teacher – Let me tell you this medicine IS medicine, holistic medicine that seeps into the creeks and crevices of your body and psyche and slowly nudges, then rips them out! These teacher plants are medicine for the soul and definitely not to be taken lightly.

If you are unfamiliar or oblivious to plant medicine here is a short intro about the plant medicine. “Ayahuasca is a brew made since ancient times consisting of two plants – Banisteriopsis Caapi and Psychotria Viridis - developed by certain tribes of the Amazon basin (Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil). It has always been taken within a spiritual and ritual context. The spirit of Ayahuasca is considered above all a teacher, which shows the participant his or her path and spiritual mission. It also has its own intelligence, and thus conveys wisdom, insight and spiritual truths, going beyond any limits or blockages the participant may have. It is often called ‘Mother Ayahuasca’, since it behaves in a maternal way: it can be beautiful, gentle and soothing, but if her “child” strays off the path of truth, Ayahuasca can be strict, instilling respect. The plant is also often associated with the Serpent – elegant, healing and wise, but lashing if provoked. The plant heals on physical, mental emotional and spiritual levels, and thus cannot be called a “drug”, since its intent is not for recreation or escape. San Pedro is a masculine plant. It establishes a powerful connection with nature. It is very good for focusing intention, learning to meditate, grounding, setting boundaries and channeling masculine energy. In a traditional context, San Pedro has been employed for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual healing, and as a way of ending a spate of bad luck. This clearly attests to the plant’s ability to shift the spiritual frequency of the participant to a higher level, changing the quality of his or her reality”*

One important thing about plant medicine journeys is that you need a mindful and experienced shaman to guide the process. It’s not advised to take these medicines in a recreational way or let any old random guide you through a plant medicine journey. I was blessed and privileged to be held and guided in my journey by an experienced and trained sacred plant medicine facilitator and shaman, Lukasz. The venue setup, atmosphere and vibe that Lukasz created allowed participants to surrender fully to their process. The conversations with Lukasz between the wild, surreal moments with the plants provided me with wisdom, guidance and grounding so that I could leave from my journey feeling clear.

The experience and the effect that the medicines had on me is better described in a flow of insight and story (in no particular sequence) rather than in logical sentences…so here goes, enjoy:

Ayahuasca Friday 26 May 7:00PM – 12:00AM [4 Hour ceremony]

Having fasted since 14:30PM I am tired and hungry. Don’t feel many nerves at all. Have worked on arriving to Mother Ayahuasca without fear and rather with an attitude of openness and healing. Sitting on my mattress after drinking a dose of Ayahuasca waiting for the medicine to take affect/effect. The taste is bitter but I like it. After about 20 minutes I start to feel calm, lighter, a little high like I am in a deep meditation. My mind tries to pre-empt what the experience will be like. It decides that the process will be easy for me – it will feel like a mediation. I felt safe. I wonder why people get so nervous to take this medicine….I wonder…I wonder…SLLLLUUURPP…I am sucked into other ways of thinking…I am sucked into my thoughts…my thoughts start thinking…they become loud. It’s like conversations in my head from the morning are repeating themselves. I feel strange. My body becomes cold. I speak out loud, ‘I am cold…I am cold…’. The shaman gives me a blanket…I am still cold. I am freaking out. Seeing colours.

Hawaiian shamans and healers flash before me. I am in another town. I see colourful beads. Tibetan and Asian figures flash before me in my mind. I need the toilet. I get up slowly and crawl to the bathroom. In the bathroom I am overwhelmed…need to get back to the space, need to get back to the chanting of the shaman. I get back to my mattress. I feel the rock on the wall behind me. I shout, ‘Touch this rock it will ground you…guys, seriously this rock is so grounding’. I am told to try keep my voice down by the shaman and another facilitator. I am unsure if this really happened. The whispers sound like snakes in a jungle. I feel like I am in a jungle. I experience another country and village and see these people doing some dancing and cleansing around me. I feel completely shocked. I pick up a crystal I brought with me. Suddenly energy shoots through me, I am feeling my body moving round and round doing Sufi grinds. I have revelations and hear myself saying ‘Oh’ many times in response to these revelations but when I come full circle I feel stuck again, like maybe I didn’t really hear or believe what I heard [Lack of trust? Repeating old cycles and patterns?]. I grab my bucket wanting to purge. Eventually I purge. I purge vomit and I purge energy. Rainbow colours surge through my mind and I am guessing through my body. The shaman offers another dose of Ayahuasca, I purge at the idea. The man to the left of me pants like panther. I pull my attention back to me. I start shouting ‘Stop stopping the work!’ repeatedly. I am told to keep it down again. This time I believe it but I moan and say that I might look quiet but I can talk more than anybody else in this room [A deep response to being silenced at various points in my life and my competitive nature. Victim?]. I tell myself I am safe. I see a mental institution. I am in a psych ward. I am stuck in a feeling of mental insanity. I wonder if this is how it feels when we leave our bodies. Gripping fear pierces through me at this thought. The shaman comes to sing in front of me. His face is blurry and all I see is a jaguar. I start talking loudly, telling him that I know him, and telling him that I see him. I start feeling beauty and colours and start dancing with my arms. I see butterflies. I see a wolf. I laugh…I moan. I purge belching sounds and energy. I am told to keep my voice down and to breathe bringing my process back inside. Sometimes it’s hard to be inside…I just want to get out. I go to the toilet again...crawling…walking…deep rooted shit is literally excreted. On my way back I notice other people…it’s too overwhelming so I come back to myself. I get back to my mattress. I close my eyes because opening them is too much. I drink some water. The effect is starting to feel lighter. The shaman offers the 3rd dose of Ayahuasca. I look at him and look away, I look back and I say no to myself. I hear one man laughing. I laugh too. I hear a woman saying that it’s time to heal. I feel relieved that I wasn’t the only one with 'random' outbursts of words. I laugh. The effect begins to lighten. I drink more water. I feel myself coming back.

San Pedro 27th May 9:30AM – 2:30PM/17:30PM [5 hours silence, a collective process and then food. Total 8 hours!]

Still feeling the effects of last night but in a much gentler way. Feeling a bit floaty and hungry. Didn’t eat last night and no food until later. The San Pedro tastes bitter too, a little harder to ingest than Ayahuasca. I sit on a chair. We are outside in the sun. I sit and I write. I converse with myself. I make sense of what happened last night. I was cleansing ancestral baggage. I was cleansing the pattern of so called mental issues through the ages. Some might call it schizophrenia…traditional shamans and healers call it deep insight. Deep insight that has been suppressed, turning into dis-ease. Either way, all this has been playing out in my body and mind. I am clearing the suppression of the past in the now. The work of cleansing began last night. The rest of the work comes today. A co-facilitator/shaman asks if I want another dose. I tell him I feel that I need him to answer that for me [needing others to make my own decisions, not owning my decisions?]. He tells me that I have started the work so I might as well continue. My mind can’t seem to make up its mind. Haha- – Ironic. I feel my body getting up and going to get another dose. I spend a lot of my time on my yoga mat in the sun. I see a butterfly…I want to be light like a butterfly. I wonder if butterflies worry so much about where they land…I don’t think so. I go into the womb space. I feel myself writhing a lot like a snake shedding its skin. I feel like the medicine is working through stuff that I cannot really name. I realise that I am cleansing toxicity – something also connected to ancestral baggage. I want to purge this toxicity out of me but instead I spit. I spit throughout the day. Toxicity is something you can’t remove too quickly otherwise the body would go into shock. Little by little toxicity (emotional, physical, and mental) has been removed from me throughout the last 4 years (where I believe my journey consciously started). I wonder about the toxicity of the world. I wonder how we live in such toxic ways. I wonder how to set clearer intentions in my life, how to be more decisive. I wonder why I question my impulses. I wonder how to plan and create stability while still being a free spirit. I see eyes…eyes in the trees, eyes in the rocks. Eyes in the ground, like the ground is a huge creature holding me and feeling my depth. I start to get tired of all this work happening in my body. The co-facilitator comes to help me. He places his hand on a part of my back and asks what am I struggling with here…I say ‘I don’t know…confusion maybe?’. He responds, ‘Ah, are you addicted to confusion.’ I am silent. Feeling vulnerable. He walks away. I feel stunned. I feel the hugeness of his statement. I realise the areas of my life where I unconsciously create confusion. What does confusion give me? How does it serve me? Does it give me an excuse not to commit? Do I think that it gives me flexibility? 5 hours are up. We receive a bowl of fruit. This fruit tastes phenomenal. I see eyes in the fruit. I feel the juice of the fruit intensely. It’s amazing! We go inside for the final closing of the San Pedro journey. It’s the final clearing. I feel like I want to let go of what has been brought to the surface in my wise body. I start to see the image of the Tiger. I have felt close to the Tiger as a spirit animal guide but not this close. I realize that I hold a lot of power in connection to this animal. I also feel sadness because the independent Tiger can sometimes be misunderstood. I remember many times of being misunderstood in my power and shrinking back because of it. I realize the huge responsibility it takes to be powerful. To empower and not overpower and to resist the temptations that power can evoke. I have been avoiding my power. I have shrunk.

My ancestors come through in the most casual way. I am lying on my mattress inside now. The shaman is playing instruments and guiding us through deep breathing. My ancestors push me to step into my power…to reclaim my inner throne. To reclaim it from situations, from people and from them. They want me to sit in my power and not drag my ancestral baggage with me. They taunt me in the most loving way. They say ‘Get up, sit in your power’. I say in my mind ‘I will’. ‘Are you sure?’ they say. I feel strength pulsing through me. I cry. I sit up. I sit in my power. I feel open, uncomfortable. I say ‘Look, I am in my power’. They say, ‘Yes, but can you sit in it, can you stay in it. That is the hard part’. I realize the truth in this. I feel their support. I feel them tell me that this is part of my path – to guide others towards clearing their ancestral baggage. I feel tired. I feel like I have done so much work but a feeling of other level exhaustion waves over me as I come to terms with how much more work I have to do – this is just the start. The start of work on myself that is. We get into pairs. We spend some time eye gazing. My partner's face morphs into beautiful shapes and patterns. They are sometimes scary. I see a variety of moments. I wonder about his power. I want to shrink back. I sit up and breathe. I sit up and connect. I see the many faces he carries. I see his fear, his love, his compassion, his rage. He smiles as he sees this in me too…and more…and less. The process ends. We eat, we laugh, we reflect. We breathe a sigh of relief at all the work we’ve done this weekend. This is just the beginning.

**Information provided by Lukasz prior to the Sacred Plant Medicine Retreat.