Healing

Ayahuasca – The Gateway to the Spirit World

“We are not talking about passive agents of transformation, we are talking about an intelligence, a consciousness, an alive and other mind, a spirit, which of course we have no place in our society. Nature is alive and is talking to us. This is not a metaphor.” – Terrance McKenna

What is Ayahuasca?

Ayahuasca translates to “Spirit of the vine.” This Peruvian brew of the Amazon jungle is concocted specifically from the Banisteriopsis vine, mixed with the leaves of dimethyltryptamine-containing (DMT) species of shrubs. It is very important to understand that although Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic medicine, it is absolutely not used as a recreational drug. Ayahuasca is a very powerful and very sacred plant medicine that has been used for thousands of years by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon for the purposes of healing, spiritual development and divination. Primarily it is used for healing. Ayahuasca is essentially a medicine for the soul that works on all levels of your Being – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Ayahuasca ceremonies are safely led by an experienced shaman and are generally extremely beneficial. The experience can often be very intense, and for the purposes of healing, you may relive some traumatic or intensely emotional experiences from your past. Purging the negative (mental, emotional, physical stuff etc.) is considered an essential part of the healing process during the Ayahuasca experience, which may involve vomiting and diarrhea. By bringing more conscious awareness to ourselves, Ayahuasca often helps us to become better people. Drinking Ayahuasca is a spiritual experience that often leads to profound insights that may cause you to make some very life-altering decisions. Do not take this medicine lightly!

Delssy Cabrera

Delssy is such an inspirational friend with a genuine, pure heart. She is a talented painter, an admirer of gemstones, as well as a Kundalini Reiki energy healer.

A few weeks ago I expressed to Delssy how much I admire her as an artist and friend, and wanted to feature her in Wake this month. Talk about Divine timing! She told me about her exciting invitation to attend a three day Ayahuasca ceremony the same weekend. Delssy had just done her first healing booth the previous Saturday at a yoga dance and meditation healing event, taking some of her healing jewelry and doing some Reiki healing. Lately she feels she is embarking on the right path, and after having undergone drastic transformation it would be an important time to experience Ayahuasca. After the experience, Delssy expressed that it was an amazing learning and cleansing experience for her which she would love to share with others. I am so honored to be able to be a part of this.

Delssy Shares Her Transformational Ayahuasca Experience

I recently participated in this 3 day long “Ayahuasca Ceremony.” This was something I always thought I would like to experience as I am constantly looking for things to help me expand my vision and understanding of things, in this case; the possibility of taking a peak into the spirit world was very tempting. So the opportunity eventually arrived! One of my co-workers (a very self-centered Peruvian woman) brought this event to my attention, soon to happen in our hometown. Without any doubt I reserved my seat. As the date approached, I became more and more excited, and even a bit anxious. I couldn’t help doing some research including watching some documentaries about the sacred Peruvian medicine. I knew it would be a powerful experience, and it was. Not powerful in the way it is mostly portrayed in the media (being something that spanks you if you’ve been bad) but powerful in its subtle, deep way of healing. According to the Shaman, a Peruvian native who went from being a Psychotherapist to being an ancestral medicine healer, there was a need to fill in the gap between the “physical” and the “spiritual.” Having realized that no matter how good of a “talk” therapy was, it never fully worked on relieving his patients of their emotional blockages and traumas. This is because the “energy body” plays an important role in the human psyche. Unfortunately, conventional medicine and psychological treatments disregard the existence of “subtle energy” or an “energy body.” Dr. Pio Vucetich is not only a Psychotherapist who realized how inadequate it is to attempt to heal traumas without addressing the energy body. He himself took the medicine multiple times as part of his initiation process; personally discovering the healing effects. He became an apprentice and learned from other skilled shamans. He has now been practicing for decades and is invited to conferences world-wide.

On the first day of the ceremony, I had come “prepared.” After following a rigorous diet of plant-based meals low in sodium and sugar, I was ready to live the experience. I didn’t know what to expect, I thought it would do good to protect myself in some way. I brought some of my crystals and eagle feathers, along with some prayers. There was a slight feeling of “risk” in me influenced by what I had watched in documentaries and read online. Facing the spirit world includes the “good” and “not so good” experiences, I thought.

I was surprised when the shaman finally entered the room. He looked like an ordinary man, not a single element to think of him as a shaman. No altar setting with candles, incense, or deities. He sat on his chair and started talking about what to expect and how to work with the medicine. The first thing he told us was that this would not be a “hallucinogenic” experience with Mickey Mouse images. That our role was not as “spectators” but rather to work with the medicine in order to release our energy blockages and incorporate powerful elements. In order to do this, he instructed us to do a strong blow when certain images such as cold-blooded animals or insects entered our visions (except for the butterfly, this one was good to incorporate for transformation, and the anaconda; for helping us heal emotional needs) and to do the opposite (sucking air inward through the lips) for the animals that are predators in order to take their energy with us, and placing them on our back or private part if these were very sexual. Also, birds with great vision such as eagles and owls were to be placed on our eyes or third eye. For things that represented abundance such as fruits or coins, we were to incorporate and place in our hands in order to stimulate abundance in our lives. Earthy things were to be placed at our feet, and loving memories or images were to go to our heart. If we happened to experience a negative feeling such as nausea or sadness, we had to keep exhaling until these faded away. All visions represented a part of us, some type of diagnosis we had to work with. For example, seeing spiders represented jealousy, and snakes had to do with envy. Everything you see or experience through the medicine reveals you something about you.

My first experience was very pleasant. As I laid down on my yoga mat waiting for the medicine to start working, I slowly began to feel extremely relaxed. Right about that time, the Shaman started to sing “icaros” (a mixture of singing and whistling in Spanish and Quechua). The icaros are used to enhance or bring down the visionary effects of the medicine, remove dark energies, and for protection. I soon gained the sensation of flowing water throughout my body. It was the most comfortable and amazing type of relaxation I have ever experienced. I experienced seeing many eyes, mostly in pairs. My visions were never colorful, but rather translucent. I also encountered a number of animals such as eagle, owl, tiger, bear, snake, and even a dragon. Images of loved ones also came through. The most awkward thing I saw was the face of “Albert Einstein.” It was a short, yet long experience. A four-hour long journey felt like only twenty minutes.

The next day we all had an opportunity to interview with the Shaman. I explained everything I saw to him, and discovered that my body was telling me that I needed to drink more water. Hence, that relaxed sensation of flowing like water. The eyes I saw were related to a stage of my childhood in which I was a victim of bullying; it certainly felt like all eyes were on me during this cruel phase. So deeply hidden in my memory that I didn’t even realize how much it had determined the person I’ve been all this time, and the blockages that were connected to it.

On day two of the ceremony, once again I began by holding my crystals and feathers, I thanked the plant for its wisdom as I drank, and just waited. As I waited I started to recall an image I had seen from the previous ceremony. It was an image of my partner in front of a table, in which three headless women were sitting on it in black underwear. Before the medicine even started working I began to over-analyze this memory and created my own hell of out of the experience. As the medicine kicked in, negative emotions related to my conclusions had already taken over, and my body started to shiver uncontrollably. When I finally stopped thinking, I no longer shivered. I began having other visions. I saw several pairs of eyes, but this time they seemed like reptilian eyes. I also saw demonic faces, not too scary but unpleasant to the eye. The shaman had said we could try to go inside our body and see if we could find any ailments to work on. I tried taking the journey but couldn’t get past my stomach. There was what seemed like a barrier of exploding red clouds. According to the Shaman this was related to a digestive problem, which I definitely could relate to. The effects of the medicine faded a lot faster this time. The shaman asked if anyone would like to drink some more. I wanted to start all over by taking a second dose, but the medicine took no further effect. The next morning I felt emotionally numb. I could not feel anything negative, nor could I feel anything good. I felt as if I had wasted the ceremony with my critical thinking. I also realized that I had been a bit disrespectful to the medicine by feeling the need to protect myself so much. All the praying, the crystals, the feathers, the expectations, and even the simple rituals such as choosing the right colors to wear, were all unnecessary. How foolish to protect myself against a “medicine.” I had one more ceremony to go, and I was determined to do things differently.

The third and last ceremony was the most transformational and healing experience I had. It started out with the sensation of the medicine circulating through my blood stream as if it were purifying my entire system. I felt how different vibrations harmonized my body. I could feel the rhythm of these vibrations, which were separated by a short lapse of time. My body then felt lighter and began receiving so much oxygen that with each breath there was a cooling sensation, deeply inhaling and exhaling without any effort. Some visions were also present. This time I saw a blue eye inside a triangle with a golden crown on top. This was the “all seeing eye” according to the Shaman. I also felt as if flowers were blooming in the palms of my hands. I had such wonderful healing sensations, and my gratitude was such that I started to cry out of sheer happiness. I cried for a long period until I was all cried out. I saw all of my blessings one image after another, and was told I had discovered the beginning of the “truth.”

Now it has been two weeks since the ceremony and I have felt different ever since. There is a feeling of calmness within me that was not there before. I have also noticed how things that used to trigger certain emotions or reactions no longer do. Even when facing a panicking situation, such as almost being involved in a car wreck, I noticed my reaction was calm without a heightened state of emotion. No draining of energy involved!

mother earth painting — Tribute to “Mother Earth”

One of my favorite pastimes is to paint. I mainly paint what I feel and never plan what I paint. As I sat at the dinner table one evening, I had the urge to look up at the wall to view one of my paintings. I had a moment of déjà vu, the realization of how one of my paintings seemed to resemble a premonition of all the things I had just experienced. The painting was 5 years old and I had painted it as a tribute to “mother earth.” It was also painted around the same time of year as the ceremonies had taken place right after Earth Day. The most remarkable thing about this painting is how I depicted “the spirit of mother earth” in the middle of the sphere; a bird like image that looks like the hummingbird at Peru’s sacred Nazca lines.

Every aspect of this painting reminds me of what I have experienced, and the hummingbird is the main link to the medicine and Peru. Not only does it resemble the hummingbird in Nazca, but the Shaman also came from a place that means “land of hummingbirds” in Quechua.

All I can say about Ayahuasca is that it is an ancient and effective medicine. Many refer to the medicine as a “hallucinogen” which is far from the real beauty of this heavenly brew. Ayahuasca opens your energy centers in such a way that all the accumulated baggage is released and healed. I am deeply thankful to the spirits of Ayahuasca, and to Dr. Pio Vucetich for his honesty and love in taking this medicine to many places around the world, and for actively working towards the reforestation of the Amazon and preservation of this medicine; sadly at risk to become extinct.