Master Plant Medicines
Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca is a tea that is drank in ceremony throughout the world for healing, empowerment, and awareness. Usually done at night, ayahuasca ceremonies are indigenous to South America, particularly Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia. While it is now used by people from all over the world and in various ceremonial settings, people’s desire to partake of it is usually the same - to release traumas, to gain insight, to find direction, etc.
Traditionally, ayahuasca is referred to as a female entity, Mother or Grandmother, and as a good Mother or Grandmother, she provides lessons and teachings that may sometimes be difficult to accept, but she always provides them with a great deal of love and support.
People who participate in ayahuasca ceremonies often report having to face their own shadows - parts of their personality or ego that hold them back from having successful relationships, careers, health, lives, etc. The medicine often shows us the places where we lie to ourselves or block ourselves from our own success. She shows us these places and supports us as we then heal those blocks.
Some issues a person deals with may find resolution in one ayahuasca ceremony. Other issues may take a few sessions before finally being worked through completely. It is recommended that people come to ceremony ready to be authentic with themselves and with the medicine and ready to dive into the dark corners of their personality.
While ayahuasca generally has the reputation of being a ‘challenging’ experience, it is not necessarily challenging as much as it is revealing, and the more that a person is willing to be honest with him/herself and surrender to the medicine’s teachings, the more benefit that person will receive from the experience. The ‘challenges’ the medicine presents are often a person’s own resistance from looking at him/herself.
Considered a Master Plant Teacher by shamans worldwide, ayahuasca provides us a space to heal the blockages we hold within ourselves so that we can achieve inner wholeness, greater happiness, deeper compassion, and stronger connection to the divine.
Huachuma (San Pedro)
Huachuma is a cactus from South American, and while ayahuasca is often referred to as Grandmother, huachuma is often referred to as Grandfather. Compared to ayahuasca, it has a more still and steady presence. It has a very expansive quality to it, and it very helpful in supporting people to accept the reality of their lives and find inner power and peace through which to transform them in the way that they desire.
As a wonderful analogue to ayahuasca, huachuma assists people in integrating the awareness gleaned from an ayahuasca ceremony and implementing the lessons learned.
Huachuma provides healing around trauma and issues of self-love. A deep heart-opening medicine, it provides a participant opportunity to look at oneself and one’s life from a heart-centered space, often engendering moments of self-acceptance, self-forgiveness, and self-love. In turn, a participant can often find greater ability to find acceptance, forgiveness, and love for others.
The stillness huachuma provides also helps participants work through issues of anxiety. The expansiveness of the medicine helps us see the multitude of possibilities that surround us and the unlimited potential we hold as creators of our lives.
As with ayahuasca, a person may experience significant relief from pain and trauma in one session, while sometimes deeper issues may require that a person do several sessions.
Huachuma ceremonies begin in the morning and last throughout the day, into the evening. While it is a longer experience than ayahuasca, it can also be described as slightly gentler.