Ayahuasca, Quechua* for vine of the soul, is a plant native to the Amazon.

It is a respected medicine used by indigenous groups in its natural habitat across millenia. It is acknowledged for its strong, nurturing, and sometimes playful feminine energy, much like a grandmother (hence her nickname, Abuela).

Ayahuasca is essentially inactive in the human body on its own; the vine must be combined with the evergreen chacruna shrub or chagropanga vine to make the medicinal brew used in spiritual ceremony. I don't know the exact preparation - that is not my art.

I do know the liquid is thick, brown, syrupy, and that it tastes like burnt beenie weenies.

I also know that it can heal to the deepest core of one's being if you are really willing to go there. 

That is the story I am here to tell:

After an eye-opening stay with the witch doctor in the Amazon rainforest, we set off to meet her shaman friend to try for ourselves the treatment that cured her cancer. 

Following a hitchhiking adventure I won't go into now and a short jaunt through the jungle, we found the shaman's center, a sprawling permaculture compound with multiple structures spread out over 100 acres of virgin land.

We were quite surprised to find the place was crawling with attractive Russians from Moscow and New York, there to deepen their kundalini yoga practice!

Turned out the thin, spectacled shaman himself was a Russian-American who moved to the rainforest and devoted himself to shamanism after ayahuasca cured his lifelong Crohn's disease. He ran his project with his beautiful, thin, blonde girlfriend, and they sometimes offered their gorgeous space as a retreat center. The Russian group booked the space to look at their individual selves as a collective. 

"A shaman is a garbage man," the shaman would tell us later, "the job is to take out everyone's else's spiritual trash."

The shaman couple was serious but compassionate, modest but confident. Their devotion was unquestionable, and their personal experiences with ayahuasca were as astounding as our witch doctor friend's. "Native" or not, we concluded they knew their shit. 

We volunteered to volunteer there; we would take meals with the Russians, could join their classes and workshops and plant ceremonies, but we agreed to put in hours of work each day to upkeep the permaculture operations in exchange for room and board and said benefits.

And what an operation it was - fertile, lush, verdant - the lungs of the Earth itself! There were many gardens of various designs, greenhouses, beehives, animals, a rainwater collection and filtration system, glorious, glorious DIRT, a cluster of showers, composting toilets with a most epic view, and a dozen or so buildings. Each building had a timber frame, green mosquito net walls, and a roof thatched with palm fronds. A crew of Peruvians hammered away at the latest construction from sun up to sun down, a huge new two-story space meant to become the main communal quarters. They completed it within a week. 

But on this day of our late afternoon arrival, there was no volunteer work to be done. There was an ayahuasca ceremony scheduled for that night, so we were allowed to have the rest of the sunshine hours to prepare ourselves.

On preparation for a ceremony: it is advised to fast before a ceremony, exactly from what and for exactly how long depends on who you ask. Some variation of absolutely NO pork, red meat, seafood, spicy foods, fermented food, salt, sugar, fat, caffeine, eggs, dairy, and even alcohol, tobacco, and sex are recommended for anywhere from 1-7 days before drinking ayahuasca. 

Why? Fasting is said to make ayahuasca easier on the body and to increase the plant's potency.

Purging is a very real aspect of the ayahuasca ceremony - puking and/or shitting are pretty much to be expected. The frequency and vigor with which you do it over the course of the 4-36 hour experience depend on many factors, including the level of toxicity within your body, how much disease you're trying to clear, and what you've ingested recently. 

I was more than willing to fast if it meant I could enjoy less purging! 

We had already removed caffeine, salt, fat, sugar, and tobacco from our diets while at the witch doctor's house in anticipation for potentially maybe perhaps we'd be able to partake of ayahuasca sometime soon, and we weren't having spicy or fermented foods, meat, dairy, or sex anyway. So as far as fasting for the rest of that day was concerned, we were already set up for success! 

I was very grateful to have the afternoon off to mentally prepare myself for what lay ahead; I really needed it. I was absolutely terrified of the uncharted territory I was about to dive into for a few reasons:

One, the witch doctor told us that aya may give you very clear instructions, and it's usually in your best interest to heed them. During one of her own particularly difficult ceremonies in which she struggled with her ego, Abuela told her to go sit under a tree. She listened and plopped down...right in a pile of shit someone else had recently purged. 

Ayahuasca told the witch doctor to sit in someone else's shit, and I didn't want that to happen to me! And how would I know if aya was joking with me or being real, anyway??

Two, I actually had had an egg for breakfast without knowing ayahuasca was on my day's agenda. I didn't tell anyone, lest I be barred from the ceremony, but I stressed hard over whether or not that egg would gum up the works or make me purge more.

Three, what if it didn't work at all?? The first time I smoked pot, I didn't really feel anything - what if the same thing happened?? How would I even know if it was doing what it was supposed to be doing??

Four, I've been through darkness in my life, and my biggest fear was feeling that again. I let myself get caught up in fears 1, 2, and 3 as a distraction from how deep this real fear was. 

I thought I might have to relive it - even just remember it - for this great spiritual cleansing medicine healing thing. In fact, I was on the fence about partaking at all because I was so scared to go back there. I never want to feel that bad ever, ever, ever, ever again. 

By sunset, I recognized that I was being silly, and that these fears were the very things I came 3,500 miles to face. I was ready to deal with them, and I humbled myself to receive ayahuasca's help.

Would you like to hear what happened? Please join me for Part 3 of my ayahuasca diaries. 

 Part 1 here

*Quechua is the language of the Incas. 

💛 Sara!