Why was I coming back? What was I looking for?  What else did I want to gain from drinking more Aya? I could not answer these questions with clarity but I had gone back to the jungle only a month after my 1st visit. I just knew I had to come back.Read More »

The sense of connectedness, clarity and calm happiness continued during the next following weeks. This was something I did not expect, the shaman had only said please follow the diet for two weeks and the healing positive energies will remain with you…

I noticed significant changes in my overall mood, I was happy and contempt all the time with no specific reason.  I realized that I had been before in a chronic depression I wasn’t fully aware off until now having it been lifted, happines felt unusual.

One of the most telling symptom changes was that I did not need to forcefully occupy my day.  Before, I had a strong need to ensure I had activities planned like  shopping, banks, yoga, friends’ visits, and specific tasks for working in my art shop. Now, I was comfortable with not having plans, with letting the day unfold and just do whatever I pleased. I did not find staying in the house with no plans either boring or threatening anymore. I actually enjoyed moments of solitude and peace and just being on my own. I also started to feel a strong rejection towards crowded places (concerts, shopping malls in weekends, movie theaters in box opening days) I felt energetically affected by them and would avoid them at all cost, whereas before I would go to the movies every single weekend regardless of what was playing…

When I was able to consciously identify all these unexpected changes I was marveled, how could two nights alone have had such a profound healing impact? what were the possibilities? Having a history of observation and work in myself I carried a list of internal issues I would love to work on, among them: my inability to open my heart with my partner, phobia to spiders, rejection to my femininity, the list went on and on…  I wanted to do more work, to get deeper with it so I started to research about retreat healing centers in Ecuador and found one that offered 12 days San Pedro, Ayahuasca and Temazcal ceremonies, I signed up for it  however the next opportunity was two and a half months down the road. I couldn’t wait……

My 2 weeks diet ended almost (yeah I cheated breaking in 2 days early) on time for Christmas and Year Ends Celebrations which I spent in Guayaquil (8 hrs away form my new home in Quito). I felt happy and at ease around family and old friends…. which brings me to the “tricky” side of the afterglow. When I related my experience to family and friends I found unexpected responses, somehow my parents were very open to it, welcoming and supportive of it (???) … The shocker were some of my closest friends… they had been gracious in entertaining conversations regarding my initial curiosity and experience however they became increasingly concerned and judgmental when hearing of my determination to go back to it and go deeper in the work… Some of them became outright straight critical: “do you think you can drink your way to illumination?” “What do you seek? What else could you possibly want?” or just innocently questioning in a form of silent criticism “are you sure of these decisions?, You are not supposed to need anything external you know, everything is already inside you…” but I had no choice but to maintain my self-promise of radical truth living. These were hard moments for me as I have never taken criticism particularly well when coming from people I care about.. Aya, however had a lesson in store for me. It felt like a second layer of shedding, after having left my whole life in Canada just a couple of months ago.  I was now witnessing the distancing and shedding of my old friends as well, physical distance did not make the difference here, it was now a matter of vibrational distance… I didn’t know yet that feeling lonely and missunderstood would not last for long…

I had one more drinking night left on this visit, I had woke up for lunch and heard comments about how this night  ceremony would feature a different brew, “Black Ayahuasca” which I knew nothing about at the time, yet the name alone gave me chills. After two ceremony nights in a row, I was too tired to think much about it and I went straight back to sleep.Read More »

After witnessing none of the 6 participants who drank  going nuts and hearing none of them saying: “I thought I was going to die” in this visit where I didnt drink the brew but just witnessed;  and after hearing about my husband account of his own experience; I decided it was probably safe for me to try it, maybe one day….

My hubby had experienced  “oneness” the dissolution of his physical body and blending with all surroundings accompanied by an ability to mentally travel wherever in the world he would fixate his attention on. His experience had been filled with love and positive emotions and he assured me now that he had met the spirit behind that plant, he had concluded with all certainty it was benign…. Calming my oh so many previous apprehensions about it.

That “one day”  opportunity for me to experience it came sooner than I thought it would, no more than a month after, as a new local patient of my husband had requested a trip to the jungle, once again the invitation was extended to me and this time I was ready, needing it most for my chronic anxiety and fobias.

While trekking towards the jungle camp, it was wet, rainy and muddy… All I had in my head was: Dear Lord, please keep spiders out of my sight.

The ceremony was about to start and I was so overly nervous my hands were shaking, when my backpack flipped on the side, I jolted and my heart was racing… The shaman started calling us, one by one, he served half a glass for me (beginners amount) I swallowed the gel thick brew, I was too nervous to even feel the foul taste and quickly made it back to my reclining chair.

I had been told I had about 30 min before I would start feeling the effects…  however something weird happened, as soon as I had returned to my place I noticed the anxiety had been lifted, it was strange it was gone,  just not there anymore… I closed my eyes and I could see my third eye floating between my eyebrows, expanding and contracting slowly.

I started to hear Amorah’s voice singing “Angels of Grace”, one of her songs. She had been my friend and spiritual teacher, the founder of a mystery school in California and published writer of 5 books, she had passed away on an unexpected accident on June 2012 leaving deep sorrow in my heart…. I let myself be carried away in the soothing energy of her voice beauty: “Grace falls upon me like a misty summer rain. Grace flows through me like a gentle soothing breeze, Grace shines on me like warm sunlight on my soul, and I’m free I’m at peace I’m at home…”  It had been so subtle I almost didn’t realize the effects had started, almost right away. I did not see my friend, nor did I heard other spoken words (aside the song), however I had a telepathic insight of her presence sending me love, reassuring me she was ok and reminding me “Healing in Grace and Ease” is feasible.  So I concentrated in that, I asked the Ayahuasca spirit: let my journey be gentle,  help me heal in grace and ease…..

Next thing I noticed was a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of dancing  sacred geometry figures, mandalas, yantras  in front of me for a while until I was distracted by the sound of others purging…. Loud, hair cringing purging, and  that went on for a while…

When I was able to relax in my visions again, a big notebook appeared, blank pages in which something started been drawn by an invisible hand. In the drawings I was been shown different types of aliens, some looked like greys, other like hybrid animals, hybrid insects and others had physical bodies I can’t describe…  This was followed by drawings of women faces that appeared as Goddesses, human females of extreme beauty and different ethnic backgrounds: from gentle youthful and loving faces to older wiser expressions….I was brought back from this by my husband call: Do you want to go back to the room? it was about 2 am, the ceremony was over and everybody had left..

Once in my room I couldn’t sleep, the effects still going strong for me, I was wondering why was I the only one not to purge that night and almost inmediately felt the urge to vomit, I made it to the window facing the garden and was shocked by the awful feeling of a force stronger than me, pushing trough, and by the pungent flavor of the aya brew. Back in my bed and eyes closed I had the final and only really clear vision of the night (all others were more like dreamlike imagery):  It was a long, serpentine shape, walking path in the middle of a meadow delimited with dozens… hundreds of little candles on each side  about 10 inches apart each. I followed with my eyes, the path went so long in the distance I could see no end…. I thought it was beautiful and I asked what is this?, where does this path lead to? all the insight I got back was each candle on it was representative of a ceremony where I would drink Ayahuasca… This realization shocked  me… wait.  wait a second….. you cant mean that … what? that many candles/ceremonies? you seriously mean that is the amount of times I will be drinking? Absolutely no way!!!. I can’t do that, this is all too harsh, i dont have the strength and I can’t take on this flavor, worse yet I CAN’T purge this flavor again… I don’t know why I was freaking out so much, after all, it wasn’t as if anyone could “make me” drink against my will.. so I continued to hold the vision soaking in  the calm, quiet and almost sacred vibe of the meadow, the beauty of this lighted up path….. pondering her invitation to walk it…. I felt another “telepathic” insight: I’m inviting you, I will teach you...