Sacred Plant Medicine Helped Me Find Commitment. It wasn't easy.
My boyfriend Ricky agreed to go on this journey with me and now we really have our work (even more than anticipated!) cut out for us.
Hello down there (or do you prefer “up there”),
I am packing up my dorm room (Bishop 304) now to walk across the quad to the cafeteria for dinner before leaving the last day of my first-ever High School Reunion. I have taken copious notes (don't you love word combinations like copious notes that always get stuck together) and pictures to share with you - and of course I did not get through it without public humiliation - so you have a lot to look forward to in my recap coming right up.
Meanwhile, I think this story from Sarah (AJPT’s first serialized author, whose drama with her boyfriend's exes riveted all of us for all those weeks) about her Ayahuasca retreat is an interesting parallel to what I have just experienced (emotional pain > physical pain > tears > stomach upset > catharsis).
I hope you enjoy reading it if you choose to, and I will talk to you A LOT tomorrow from my regular NYC HQ.
By the way: Have you tried Ayahuasca? I haven't, but I sure would.
Love no matter what,
Jane
PS This intro feels lackluster. Maybe because I am spent from adrenaline and rushes of so many different emotions over the last five long days. But I think regular surprise and excitement is a very important component of AJPT. So here is some for you… Within days here, we are debuting a new advice columnist. She is not new to you or to the world, but she is new to this particular line of work. Get ready to get some incredibly unique advice from this incredibly amazingly talented wise person. Coming up this week!
By Sarah Swinwood
Oh wow, you’re going to do ayahuasca? You’re so brave,” my friend said, when I told her that our upcoming trip to Peru would begin with a seven-day ayahuasca retreat.
In 2004, I went to Peru for what was supposed to be a month-long trip and ended up staying in Lima for nearly three years. It shaped who I am and introduced me to a version of myself who is quick to learn and adapt, skilled at navigating the unknown.
Years later, my father moved to the Sacred Valley and we spoke weekly. When a throat procedure made this impossible, I had to visit. Dad is my joyful guide and wise teacher. I faced a reckoning that I wasn’t equipped for. How would I cope with Dad being gone? How could I access my wisdom? I reached out to a friend to ask about ceremonies she’d just returned from. Ayahuasca was calling me.
When she told me it was held in Pisac, only an hour away from my dad, I knew it was the right place. “It was life-changing and totally rewired my brain,” she said, "that lifelong depression? Poof. Gone. I can put you in touch with Luca if you want, he’s terrific.”
A call with him confirmed I was making the right choice. But first I’d have to convince my boyfriend Ricky, who was coming on the trip with me.
A lot of people have heard that Ayahuasca can be frightening, especially those without any plant medicine experience. I’d participated in a Huachuma (also known as San Pedro cactus) ceremony in Pisac in 2010 which was tremendously positive, lifting a veil that allowed me to see that what I was searching for outside myself was already within me. I’d asked to be shown if I had any animal spirit guides then a huge hawk flew right past my face as our group rounded a corner of the mountain ridge high up in the Andes near a glacier lake, proceeding to circle above my head, dropping a feather at my feet. The ceremony connected me to a sense of unconditional love I’d never felt.
But Huachuma isn’t Ayahuasca, the elixir concocted from a vine I’d heard caused its ingestors to purge, at times violently, witnessing inarticulable visions, perhaps even seeing their own eventual death. That’s why my friend said I was brave, I suppose. It would take courage to willingly face the unknown.
Getting Ricky onboard was a challenge, but not impossible. Our relationship, still under a year young, had been fraught with unusual obstacles and challenges, which though serving to bring us closer (you can read about it here) we were still growing and healing from. We’d discussed counseling, but something told me experiencing this medicine would deliver tools that would require years of therapy to achieve. “Only do it if you’re not afraid to meet the real you,” his friend Merton told us. “If you can face yourself, then go for it. But get ready. Don’t mistake thinking you already know what’s there. We have blind spots that will blow your mind when exposed and that’s what this does.” I was ready.
I’d heard that Ayahuasca can be painful, but I reasoned nothing is worse than the emotional pain of being unhealed. I’d read that it isn’t a drug, it’s a medicine, the difference being that medicine is used to cure pain, and a drug is designed to bring on an altered or blissful state. Choosing the right medicine person or shaman is essential, as is the location of the ceremony, not only because of the potency of the Ayahuasca but also because of the vulnerable places it takes you. Unfortunately, there are records of shamans taking advantage of participants psychologically and physically.
People come to these ceremonies with a desire to heal, in a vulnerable state, which is exactly the kind of space predators seek to infiltrate. Details of abuse reported sound exactly like what I’ve heard of religious cult leaders who’ve done the same, using trust as an avenue to convince someone that sexual relations with the shaman will increase spiritual connection and clearning. With the current popularity of psychedelic tourism increasing, there are a lot of false guides out there practicing and that can cause unspeakable damage.
Anyone who suggests doing something uncomfortable because it will cure you is there to hurt, not heal. Getting tricked like this would be devastating and detrimental, not only to the individual but also the nature of the medicine. Grandmother Aya comes first here and a good shaman is only there to facilitate her passage, to give space for her to speak to those receiving her, not to gratify his ego or personal needs. A skilled medicine person is a facilitator who knows how to step-aside and let the experience come through.
Though finding someone who is completely healed isn’t likely, one who employs the correct approach is. Luca, our medicine man, was warm and genuine when we met on the phone. I instinctively trusted him, as well as the friend who had given him a stellar review. There is always risk involved with this type of thing and I trusted my gut.
Ricky was willing but skeptical of a three-day ceremony spread over seven days. Why so long? Would we be able to travel around during that time or be stuck in Pisac throughout? We were only going to be there for three weeks, couldn’t we find one that lasted three days?
I had already decided by then that Luca was the right fit for us, and seven days seemed appropriate to me. The spectacular nature of the Sacred Valley and its overwhelming scope meant we wouldn't be able to do it all anyway, so a week in one place offered us another type of experience, like seeing the stars change each night, to settle in and absorb it rather than bouncing from place to place.
He would see, I assured, but he was still on the fence. I finally convinced him when I emphasized that this wasn’t just for us. It was an opportunity to pray for my dad, to sit with my grief surrounding life’s big uncertainties.
We landed in Lima, heading to Cusco the next day on April 4th, our plane landing at my favorite time: 4:44. It confirmed that our choice was in alignment. Luca sent a taxi to bring us to our little home for the next week in Pisac, our ride snaking up the 11,000 feet above sea level that is Cusco, looping us down into the Sacred Valley as sundown traced the Andes with a golden hue, the first stars seeming close enough to touch beginning to appear. If home is where the heart is, then we were set to arrive.
The next day, the ceremony would open with a welcome dinner where we’d meet the couple who’d be joining us in the circle where on day three we’d drink the elixir concocted from boiling stems of the vine of the Banisteriopsis caapi tree. Each ceremony would consist of three rounds where one by one, we’d walk up to Luca’s medicine altar where he’d pray over a coffee mug sized cup, hand it to us to hold in front of our hearts, then drink the thick, bittersweet liquid. Every hour and a half we would be offered another cup to drink if we felt called. The entire ceremony lasts about five hours.
My hesitance of doing this with another couple quickly dissolved when we met Clare and Danny, just a few years older than us and from the UK. It was like a divine casting director had paired us with our perfect match: curious, genuine and committed to personal discovery but not overly spiritual in a performative way. Luca told us we were one of the most calm and grounded groups he’d worked with, willing to be present with what would unfold without assumption.
We had just finished another nourishing but somewhat bland organic meal. Another part of prep is cutting out salt, sugar, garlic, pepper and pretty much anything stimulating three days before, continuing throughout the week and the following three days after while the medicine is still in the system. Ricky and I had been off alcohol for over a month then shortly before traveling we cut out caffeine. Salt may have been the most difficult to remove. Ricky joked, “what do you think we’re having for breakfast today, a bowl of rice?” We fantasized about sneaking in a little salt in our pockets.
Day two we went on a nature walk beside a mountain stream with a sky so vividly blue it appeared digitally enhanced, horses on our path, massive boulders peppering the water creating little waterfalls bordered with a mix of palm and pine trees. Danny and Ricky hiked ahead with Clare and me not far behind, discussing what led us there. Our guards were down, somehow aware that what we were embarking on together would deeply bond us for life.
The following evening we would sit around the fire outside the temple to share our intentions of what we wished to work through with the medicine before our first encounter with it on day three. Something that immediately connected us all was a mirroring sincerity, a desire to commit to being better people in the lives of those we care about by facing some of our shadows and unresolved pain. Before intention setting came the Kambo ritual, skin absorbing the secretion of an Amazon frog, purging the gallbladder to prepare us to receive the medicine. Only lasting twenty minutes, ten minutes in, body temperature increases and the purging begins which is extremely painful, bringing up toxic bile stored in the organs. The heat can be disorienting.
Though optional, we wanted to be as clean as possible. Clare wanted to know if I was as nervous as she was about it. “Don’t Google it. I’m going to forget what I read and trust Luca, he’s done this many times. He wouldn’t include anything that would harm us before the main event.” Google said it could cause high blood pressure, cardiac arrest, even death. Others reported that for a few minutes before the twenty of them end, it feels like you’re dying. Above all, it is used to treat chronic pain, anxiety and depression while enhancing mental clarity. It cleanses any stored negative energy which I was eager to do.
Nothing could have properly prepared me for what was to come, events which were terrifying and excruciating.
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