Traditional Ayahuasca Ceremony

Ayahuasca acts on both body and mind. This medicine has powerful emetic and purgative properties that relieve physical congestion contributing to physical health. The medicine induces a profoundly altered state of consciousness that allows the participant to observe his or her life with a broader and expansive perspective to heal, let go of burdens, and receive clarity and inspiration.

Although this is a medicine that invites introspection, its common effect is to open the heart by recognizing the reality of the interconnection between all beings and motivate more loving intentions towards others.

Ayahuasca medicine used in a ceremonial context has immense healing potential. This type of ceremony is usually held at night around a fire. It begins by consecrating the medicine through prayers. The ceremony has a ritual aspect that seeks to create the appropriate conditions for deep introspection and healing to take place. The shaman facilitates the experience by tending to the energy of the place, making sure that the participants are safe, offering guidance and assistance in their process, and contributing to their journey with traditional healing chants.

Ayahuasca is composed of Banisteriopsis Caapi vine, Chacruna, and sometimes other plant ingredients. The effects can last anywhere from 4 to 8 hours depending on the dose and metabolism of the individual.

What are the therapeutic benefits of Ayahuasca?

Ayahuasca and various other plant medicines are used to treat a variety of spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical diseases. It is often used as a tool to continue on a conscious path of growth, reveal spiritual illnesses, and expand one’s perception beyond its previous limits.

• Spiritual Healing – Ayahuasca is a medicine of deep reflection. This life-altering hallucinogenic spirit can reveal your individual authentic truth and purpose in life while lighting a path to inner peace that invites a deeper understanding of the universe. Ayahuasca invites you into introspective states of consciousness, and a greater connection with nature.
• Emotional Healing – Ayahuasca can reveal to an individual the emotional healing that needs to take place specific to where a person is on their healing journey. A ceremony often begins the process of unraveling any stress and dissonance in participants’ lives, creating a shift towards living a life true to their heart. After a ceremony, participants have shared that their emotional blockages and symptoms have diminished or completely ceased.
• Psychological Healing – Ayahuasca has been used as a healing tool to treat conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), addictions, depression, anxiety, guilt from sexual abuse and various other mental or physical ailments.
• Physical Healing – Ayahuasca has been used to treat physical disorders such as fevers, addictions, alcoholism, diabetes, high blood pressure, hepatitis, and issues with joints and other health-threatening conditions.

History of Ayahuasca

For the Shipibo tribes of Peru, Ayahuasca is revered and respected as “the Mother of all Medicines.” In other indigenous traditions, she is regarded as the Grandmother and also known as “the Vine of the Souls.”

Ayahuasca, or Yage, are traditional native names from the Amazon for a particular vine found in the Amazon jungle, otherwise known by its botanical name, Banisteriopsis Caapi. Ayahuasca is used throughout the Amazon by Ayahuasqueros and Curanderos (shaman), in order to access the visionary, mythological or spiritual realms, and for physical, mental and spiritual healing.

The Shipibo tradition uses Ayahuasca ceremonies as a holistic approach to achieve balance, harmony, and happiness in the body, mind, and spirit. We utilize these healing methods that are rooted in their ancestral traditions, respect for nature, and plant spirit wisdom.