I did a Kambo ceremony for the first time last night.

I really didn’t have a good idea of what I was walking into. All I knew was that my gut was telling me that I needed to do this. This, and the two other ceremonies being offered this weekend: Ayahuasca and Bufo.

The Shaman performing the ceremonies is from Mexico, and has been working with plant medicine for 16 years. Walking into the house where the ceremony was being held last night, I had so many doubts and so many questions. Could I trust this “Shaman”? Could I trust the people that would be around me at my most vulnerable? Could I trust myself to go through with it? I shut my brain off and walked through the door.

My friend, the one who had told me about these events, met me at the door and welcomed me with a warm hug. I haven’t known him for very long, maybe a few months, but there’s a recognition within me of something within him that’s made it feel like we’ve known each other for a lot longer. I know him through his music and through his voice, extensions of his soul. I trust him, and that hug was all the reassurance I needed. He was planning to do a Kambo ceremony last night as well, at one of the later times.

As I looked around the basement apartment with a few people milling about, waiting for their ceremonies, and Himalayan crystal salt lamps on just about every table, I marveled at the “serendipity” that had brought me here. Last month, I had been considering going down to Peru in search of a Shaman to perform an Ayahuasca (Aya) ceremony. I tried to justify the trip with other events, such as Steem Fiesta with @steemcafe and @larrymorrison and going to visit a friend in Uruguay, but it just didn’t feel right for some reason. Now I know the reason. Mother Aya was coming to me. I called, and she answered.

Kambo is a powerful cleanser. It is a purging ceremony to prepare the body for Aya. Taken from the secretions of the Amazonian giant monkey frog, this medicine has been used to treat a wide range of illnesses, parasitic infections and mental disorders. I have been performing my own parasite cleanses and detoxes for the past few years now and have modified my diet to focus on the best quality food that I can afford and doing my best to eliminate or minimize alcohol, sugar, gluten, dairy, damaged/unhealthy fats and any processed foods. I was hoping that because of this, the Kambo ceremony wouldn’t be as harsh for me as it would have been 3 years ago. I didn’t want to walk in with any expectations, but at the same time I was really hoping that this ceremony would be the last nail in the coffin for the digestive and skin issues I’ve experienced all of my adult life.

With Kambo, it’s very important to fast for at least 6 hours beforehand and consume at least 2 litres of water before the ceremony to allow for things to be expelled, so I had been chugging water for the half hour that I was waiting. I had also brought along a couple of my tuning forks, the Ohm (136.1 Hz) and Middle C (128 Hz), and used them to ground myself while waiting (the difference between them is 8.1 Hz, the frequency that the Great Pyramid at Giza is tuned to). When it was my turn to do the ceremony, I picked up my things (yoga mat, bucket, paper towels and 3 litres of additional water) and walked into the small bedroom with two other individuals. The Shaman was already seated on the floor with his tools and instruments laid out – incense, various crystals including one large one I recognized as Selenite, a rattle, misting bottles with water, the medicine itself (in rows of drops on a small piece of wood), tobacco and ash, and wood carvings that resembled pipes. I laid out my yoga mat, and sat with my bucket in front of me. Ready. Once everyone was settled, the door to the bedroom was closed and the ritual began. The Shaman lit a stick of incense and used it to burn the skin in 5 small dots. As the toxin is carried by the blood throughout the body, placing it on the skin closer to the heart will result in faster action and a quicker ceremony, but depending on what issues the individual wants to address, it may be placed differently. The two guys I was in the room with wanted just overall cleansing and so received it on the upper left arm. I informed the Shaman that I wanted to work specifically on digestive issues, and so he placed mine on my left forearm – my first “tattoo”. The burns really didn’t hurt that much, but it put me into a state of being hyper aware (maybe also from the incense that was applied as the skin was burned).

Then came the Kambo. The Shaman asked for me to put some of my saliva on my finger and used that to wet the Kambo on the little piece of wood with a knife (the Kambo is activated by water). He then applied a small drop to each of the marks on my arm and misted it with the water spraybottle. I felt the effects instantly. By the time he was finished applying all 5, my face was hot and feeling like it was swelling (the other two guys actually experienced some pretty significant face swelling, but mine wasn’t bad at all). My mouth became like a desert and the Shaman told me to keep drinking water. My head started pulsing and I reminded myself to just breathe and that “this too shall pass”. Then began the stomach cramping and dizziness. The Shaman began singing and using his rattle. It provided an anchor to focus my attention on and allowed me to breathe more evenly. I reminded myself of all of the plank challenges I’d done and how similar this was to that experience of just acknowledging the pain and breathing through it. I was prepared and knew I could handle it.

What followed was 45 minutes of vomiting, nausea, dizziness and weakness with one trip to the bathroom to expel things from the other end. That trip wasn’t hurried though; it just needed to happen. When the majority of the nausea had subsided, the Shaman came around with the pipe-looking carving that he had filled with tobacco and ash. He told me to close my throat and not breathe and inserted one end of the “pipe” into my nostril and blew. The ash and tobacco flew up into my sinuses and gave me a wasabi-like head rush (you know, the really good kind you get from REAL wasabi, up the front of the forehead and along the top of the head). This, he told us, was to clear the mind. It seemed to affect me more than the other two gents, so I guess I really needed some mind-clearing (not surprising)! He then removed the Kambo and applied dragonsblood to the burns to help with healing. The 45 minutes that I was in there felt like 10. Time was greatly distorted and before I knew it, the Shaman was giving me the all-clear to leave. I was a little disappointed with the amount of “stuff” that I was able to purge. It looked like I cleared some Candida by vomiting (white, kinda grainy stuff) and some bile (green), but the other end stuff looked pretty normal. The other two participants cleared some grey-looking sluggish stuff and a lot of bile (anger). I’m choosing to see that as a good sign though – that the work I’ve been doing over the past few years is paying off and that I’m ready for the other two ceremonies this weekend.

Leaving the bedroom, I still felt very weak and disoriented, but able to stand and move around. I was offered a bed to rest on for a bit and gladly accepted. Again, what felt like a 5-minute nap was actually around 45. I probably could have driven myself home, but I was glad that I had taken transit there and was offered a ride home by a friend. All I wanted to do when I got home was sleep. I woke up probably every half hour throughout the night either to drink water or to empty my bladder. Still feeling pretty weak this morning with an uncomfortable feeling in my bowels (no more than is normal for me though), but hoping that will subside as the day progresses.

I’m proud of myself for going through with the ceremony and excited to meet Mother Aya on Saturday. That ceremony will be held outside, overnight. I’m also looking forward to spending more time with the Shaman and learning from him. There’s something about him that grabs you. Something about the way he looks at you and his eyes bore right into you, but in a loving and empathetic way. His energy is calm and warm and quiet. He says only what he needs to and nothing more.

Have you ever experienced a Kambo ceremony or something similar? What was your experience with it? Would you ever try Kambo?

Stay tuned for the rest of my experiences this weekend! ;)

Jackie O