It’s been a lot to process as it was four very intense days with different medicines. I’ve decided to make two different posts as it became very looooooong and I’m still polishing the last part. Hopefully post it tomorrow 🙂
I took the bus from Mexico City to San Miguel de Allende. Very smooth ride about 4h away.
I wanted to have a relaxing day before the ceremonies and not arrive the day of. I stayed at Maison Mexique, a cute little hotel in the middle of everything. I threw my bag down and spent the day walking around the city.
In the evening I sat on the rooftop writing down some thoughts and intentions for the days to come.
Next morning I walked around a bit in the sun and had some fruit for breakfast.
We were notified that they would also be offering Kambo before the Ayahuasca ceremony the first day. I decided I wanted it, and drank 2 liters of water before leaving for the retreat. It was a short 10 minute Uber ride away. I’m always early, so I checked into my room at the house we were staying at, and then walked around checking out the hood 🙂
“Kambo is the name of a natural substance derived from the glandular secretions of the amphibian Phyllomedusa bicolor, a species native to regions in South America. The communities living in these areas administer the substance generally transdermally during rituals for religious-purifying purposes, producing small skin burns.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9061256/
The retreat was held by Miryana & Michael. More about them later 🙂 There were four of us who showed up to receive Kambo. The room had mattresses and buckets. I knew Kambo makes you purge and I remember thinking that I’ve never purged in a group setting. First time for everything…
We were told how it would be administered, the duration and what to expect. Miryana burned 3 holes on my ankle with the end of a burning stick. Didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, but it still stinged. She rubbed the burnt skin off and applied the Kambo.
We were told to keep drinking water. I think it took around 15-20 minutes until I started to get an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I let out a small purge. Michael kept encouraging us to drink more water. Kept drinking and then I purged out what felt like the rest of what I had in my stomach.
I thought beforehand that I would feel a lot worse, but it wasn’t too hard to handle and I felt good after purging. You are pretty focused on what you are going through, so I barely noticed the others purging. The Kambo is then wiped off the skin and it took about 1 hour in total. I felt pretty much back to normal afterwards.
In the afternoon two more people arrived. We all met up and talked about the upcoming Ayahuasca ceremony that was happening later at night. When it was time we first had an ‘exercise’ led by Michael. It was about setting your intentions. What is your perception about yourself right now and what would you like it to be. Before going at it, we danced together and then settled down and wrote whatever came to mind. Then more dancing and again settling down to write about the ‘new’ and improved you.
I like to draw and this is the new me going who knows where hahahaaa….
Then we all shared a word that summarized it all. My word was peace. I would like to live and be aware of the present more. Not to feel that I need to be effective all of the time. There was also a table set-up and you could leave an offering there…
At 8.15pm we were served Ayahuasca. (Ayahuasca is commonly made by the stems of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the leaves of the Psychotria viridis shrub). Photo by: Jana Klintoukh
I think about an hour after drinking the first cup, we all opted for a second serving. As usual when I’m doing larger doses of psychedelics, I remember thinking, ‘I don’t feel anything’, and then all of a sudden it hit me full-force. Wow, what a journey it took me on. There were times when I had to ask the medicine to take it a bit slow as it was so intense. At one point I think I experienced some kind of death. It all became white and my face was covered in tears when I came to again. I had a lot of visuals. I had visions of wolves howling and eating a carcass. I might of howled at one point too hahhaaaa… The feelings were mixed between fear, mostly because it was so intense, a lot of love for people I know, and in the between I just tried to surrender to everything and take it all in. Not very easy though lol…
Around 4am they told us we could go to our rooms or we could stay where we were. I did not hear this as I think I had fallen asleep. It was 6.30am when I was able to get up and go to bed exhausted. I’m still trying to make sense of my journey. I have a follow up call next week on Tuesday so maybe I can get more clarity then…
On the 2nd day we got together around 10 am to share about our different journeys. I’m always amazed how the experiences differ from one person to another. Some had people from their past ‘visit’ them and no visions of patterns. Very interesting to hear about the various trips.
We then talked about the mushroom ceremony, and it was going to be in silence with no music or drums. Around noon we were served the mushroom tea. Miryana said before that it was important to not compare this journey with other shroom journeys we might of had before. Well, my trip was nothing like any other I’ve had and there’s been a few. I felt the effect, but had no visuals like I always have. I walked up to the rooftop and put my headphones on and started dancing. Felt so good moving in the sun. After about 4 hours the effect of the mushrooms were wearing off, and we gathered downstairs again to share. I asked about my trip because I thought maybe I had become immune to shrooms. One suggestions was that I had asked for peace during Ayahuasca and maybe that was what I was experiencing. Hmm, makes sense to me…
We then had 1.5h to ourselves and I decided to emerge from our ‘container’ and go for a walk and clear my head a bit.
In the evening we gathered again for a breathing exercise. Mryana & Michael told us beforehand that it could get intense and to just let go and do whatever you felt you needed to do. Move, make sounds or whatever. I remember thinking – How powerful can a breathing exercise be? It was all very simple. Sit with your eyes closed and take deep breaths, inhale & exhale, with your mouth only. It varied with drums and then music. It started with everyone concentrating on their inhales and exhales. I don’t know at what point it happened, but soon we were making sounds. Pretty quietly at first. Then it got louder and louder. I remember pretty much letting it all out, crying loudly at one point. I had visuals appear. A giant flower with a tunnel leading into it. I remember thinking that this is like no other breathing exercise I ever done and it felt so good. Maybe I had some leftover shrooms and Aya that helped with the visions, I don’t know. It calmed down and we were told to take deep breaths and hold. Hold when we exhaled. The last holding of your breath was 2.5 min long. I didn’t quite manage that, but held my breath far longer than I thought I could… I really liked it. We then all gathered at the rooftop and hung out. It was a very cool group of people I was with, and it is always very interesting to hear everyone’s stories and why they’ve chosen these medicines.
OK, I’m going to leave at this, and next post will be about the 2 remaining days with San Pedro and Bufo 🙂 And I’m going to share a pretty badass video of myself!
Hugs, Puma
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