What is Ayahuasca?
Ayahuasca is the centerpiece of the Amazon’s ecosystem of ancestral plant medicines. Made by brewing together two plants —ayahuasca vine and chacruna leaf— for approximately eight hours, Ayahuasca is a powerful medicine for the body, but also for the mind, the heart and the soul.
Physically, once ingested, the Ayahuasca liquid enters and purifies every bit of your body from the tip of the head to the tip of the toes: the brain, the heart and all organs, the nerves, and even the blood.
Ayahuasca also energetically enters the compartments of your mind, namely the mental psychology, emotional function, memory, five senses and sleep and dream space. There, the medicine removes traumas, blocks and other negative energies and brings strength and opening as needed.
With help from experienced shamans, Ayahuasca can heal all kinds of diseases: thyroid issues, drug addictions, diabetes, schizophrenia, depression and even cancer, just to mention a few.
Spiritually, Ayahuasca is a doorway into the spirit world. The psychedelic trance or mareación that she provides takes you into the spirit world, where the roots of your ailments lie as energies. There, Mother Ayahuasca, the main spirit of the Ayahuasca medicine, guides you, heals you and even empowers you to heal yourself.
Through visions and messages, the Mother brings up things from your spiritual weight and gives you opportunities to work through and let go of what you no longer want: emotions, traumas, pains, negative thoughts, blockages, behaviors and so on. In this way, she works with you to help you heal yourself.
What is an Ayahuasca ceremony?
To treat the medicine with the respect it deserves, we drink Ayahuasca in a ceremonial setting, and to see the visions properly, we drink it at night and in the dark. If we’re new to the medicine, we also drink it in the presence of an experienced shaman.
An Ayahuasca ceremony generally has three parts: the set up, the work, and the wind-down. Note that the following description is how ceremony is run at Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual.
To begin, every pasajero, one by one, goes up to receive and drink their Ayahuasca brew. The shamans then drink too, the lights are turned off and everyone waits in silence for the effect to arrive.
Once the shamans’ effect has opened (30 to 45 minutes in), they take turns to sing their opening songs, to connect to their medicines and prepare for the work ahead. After this, the pasajeros that have no effect are given a chance to drink an optional second dose, helped by a facilitator.
Here begins the work of the shamans, and facilitators take pasajeros to sit in front of their respective shamans for their healing song. The facilitator reads the pasajero’s intentions quietly to the shaman, and the shaman begins to sing. Once their 8 to 12 minute ícaro is done, the pasajero is guided back to their mat.
This repeats until every pasajero has received their song (or songs, if anyone is also opening or closing a diet).
Once everyone has received their ícaro, the ceremony continues in silence until the Maestro announces its closing. This is the wind-down time, and the remaining strength of the medicine should allow for rest.
Once the Maestro closes the ceremony, a candle is lit, and everyone is welcome to stay in the maloca for as long as they like, and to converse quietly, sing or play instruments—always respectfully, as Mother Ayahuasca is still in the room and fellow pasajeros might still have a strong effect. Shortly after, the shamans will leave the maloca.
Your working dose
More Ayahuasca, more healing. Less Ayahuasca, less healing.
Maestro Ricardo Amaringo
More Ayahuasca, more visions. Less Ayahuasca, less visions.
On one side, it’s true that the more medicine you drink, the more healing you will receive from Ayahuasca. On the other, since you will be doing a lot of your own healing, it’s important for you to be able to work comfortably during the effect, and this means staying centered and able to think with clarity while you are in the second stage of the medicine.
So, generally, you’ll want to drink the most medicine you comfortably can—that is your working dose; you have a good effect, but you can still make decisions. Your working dose also makes it easier for you to understand the visions.
It is your responsibility to find your working dose, the dose that is good for your mind and your body.
Maestro Ricardo Amaringo
You find your working dose through experience. As you sit for your first ceremony, the shaman will give you a cautious intro dose based on your body build. At the end of the night you should have a feel for how that dose was.
If you were underwhelmed or bored, or had too short of an effect or none at all, up your dose a bit the next time. If the effect was overwhelming, too fast or it was generally hard to keep up with Ayahuasca, lower your dose. If it felt just right and you could think clearly, stay calm and converse with Ayahuasca, you found your working dose.
Finding your working dose might take a couple of ceremonies and possibly additional guidance from the shaman at integration.
Once you have your working dose, you have something safe to default to. If you ever want to drink more it’ll be a conscious choice, and you’ll go in prepared accordingly. Likewise if you want to drink less to rest.
If the dose you drank is not enough to produce any effects for you, you have the option of drinking a second, smaller dose approximately one hour after the ceremony starts. Always be careful, though, as this can be unpredictable and prolong your effect until very late. In general, finding your reliable working dose and sticking with it is preferred to drinking a second dose.
Mindset
To drink the medicine we must bring two thoughts, no more: I’m going to drink Ayahuasca, and I’m going to heal.
Maestro Ricardo Amaringo
Mother Ayahuasca wants us to drink her medicine with faith and trust in her. How much she opens her world to us and what she decides to show us is dependent on this.
Remember, you are entering the Mother’s house (or world) when you drink the medicine—if you enter with fear and doubts, or boredom and disinterest, she might feel disrespected and give you a harder time.
So drink with faith: faith that she will get you through the journey, faith that she knows what is best for you, and faith that she can help you. You will be rewarded for it.
When you drink the medicine with faith, with love, and with affection [for her], she opens; beautifully, she opens.
Maestro Ricardo Amaringo
What’s more, drink with love and affection towards the Mother! Being all light as she is, Ayahuasca (and the spirits of the medicine in general) likes to receive your appreciation and affection, and respond to it with more medicine and beauty.
Try also to enter ceremony without too many ideas on how the night should go. Ultimately, Ayahuasca is in charge of your ceremony, and she will decide what kind of night you need. You can bring questions and personal intentions, but leave expectations outside of the maloca.
Drinking Ayahuasca
After you’ve received your cup of Ayahuasca and sorted your dose, it’s a good time to speak briefly to Mother Ayahuasca.
Pause for a moment holding your glass and say a few words to her, mentally. For example: “Ayahuasca, I come to you with faith to ask for your help. Please show me what I need to work on and help me work on it.” You could also tell her your goals for the night.
If you want, finish by blowing gently into your glass to put your intention in your medicine (shamans call this a soplo), then drink it.
The flavor of the medicine is generally bitter, rich and earthy, with slight variations from batch to batch, and though it is pretty strong at first, it only lasts in the mouth for about two minutes. Out of respect to the Mother, resist spitting or washing your mouth after drinking.
To prepare your body to receive the medicine well by 8pm, stop eating around 2pm and drinking water around 4pm (drink a good amount at this time!). With your digestive system emptier, and without too much water in your body (which “disarms” Ayahuasca’s strength), your medicine will open more easily and fully.
Concentration and the onset
Maintaining concentration in ceremony is important and will make your time in the medicine easier.
First, sit up and don’t lay back until you feel that at least 80% of the strength of the medicine has passed—only then should you sit back and rest. If you don’t sit up while the effect is still strong, you might find that your visions get unpleasant and you experience nausea and physical discomfort.
Concentrating once the effect is open and the medicine is at full strength can be difficult. For this reason, you’ll want to work on establishing your concentration before that point, so the peak of strength of the medicine finds you centered and ready to do work.
As soon as you’ve drunk your cup and you’re back at your mat, start conversing with Ayahuasca, and keep doing so for as long as the effect takes to open. Don’t stop even as you start feeling the medicine coming on. By keeping your mind focused on your dialogue with Ayahuasca, you’ll be able to enter the effect with concentration, and the opening won’t take you by surprise.
This conversation is also the perfect occasion for you to establish and reestablish a good relationship with Mother Ayahuasca, to lay out your goals and ask for her help.
In fact, talking to Ayahuasca alone will help your medicine open, as you’re connecting with it more. Because of this, we can say that the Ayahuasca effect is not something to wait for, but something to work on opening.
What you should not do is drink your medicine and let your mind wander as you wait for the effect to open. Finding focus later on may not be as easy.
Don’t let boredom or impatience stop your conversation with Ayahuasca, and take care also to not “pressure” the medicine to open, as Mother Ayahuasca does not like this.
Focus on your body
To figure out what you need to work on, you must place your focus on your own body while in the Ayahuasca effect.
When you drink Ayahuasca, you must focus on your bodies. (gestures) How is my heart? How is my stomach?
Maestro Ricardo Amaringo
You see spiritual visions with your third eye, so if your third eye is facing your body, you’ll see what’s in your body, spiritually. That’s where your spiritual weight is, and that’s what you’ll want to pay attention to.
If you also mentally bring your attention to a specific part of your body, say, your heart, you’ll again see what’s in it, and therefore what might need to be cleaned from it.
If you look out into the room, you’ll start to see external visions. External visions are not of interest—they might make you feel confused and lead you to think you need to clean things that are not actually part of your spiritual weight. Those things might just be floating in the room.
Seeing external energies might also make you accidentally connect to them, and then they will become something you need to clean.
So sit in a position in which you’ll face your body as much as possible and keep your focus within throughout the ceremony, and you will see what’s most relevant to your personal process.
As you focus on your body, you can scan its different parts to see how they are—do you see light, or do you see something to clean within?
Healing yourself
If you see something you don’t like, you can clean it yourselves. You don’t need to wait for the shaman, and you don’t need to know how to sing.
Maestro Ricardo Amaringo
Ayahuasca shows you what’s in your spiritual weight so you can do something about it: so you can clean it. Aside from the cleaning ícaro you’ll receive from a shaman, you can work on cleaning your own body as well.
Remember: you are spiritually seated when in the effect, so your thoughts have an amplified effect. What you set out to do, you’ll succeed at.
When drinking the medicine, be curious and work with your mind.
Maestro Ricardo Amaringo
So if you see something you don’t like, and think “I clean it”, clean it you will. If you think “I put medicine on it”, it will leave. If you think “I give it to God”, God will take it.
Furthermore, if you think “I strengthen my body” or “I center my body”, that will happen. The same can work for the mind, the heart, a specific organ, your nervous system, your self-esteem, etc.
You could also connect to good energies, for example thinking: “I connect to God’s peace”, “I connect my heart to God’s love”. Or you can ask for them: “God, give me your light”.
And you can do multiple-step things too, such as filling your body with light: “God, give me your light”, followed by “I put God’s light inside my whole body and connect it well”. This light will also heal you.
These all are things you yourself can do to heal, every time you drink the medicine. They add up!
They’re just examples, and you’re encouraged to flex your curiosity and creativity as you drink the medicine.
Beyond working with your mind, you can also work your body with your hands, as Ayahuasca is in your hands too. If you feel a pain or discomfort somewhere, massage that area to release the energies in it. If you feel pressure around your head, rub it. If you see something bad in your body, try to pull it out. Since you’re spiritually seated, and effectively a spirit, you can interact with the spirit world in this way.
The power of forgiveness
No shaman has sung to me—I have healed with pure forgiveness.
Maestro Ricardo Amaringo
You can do much to heal yourself using your mind, but the fastest and easiest way to heal yourself is forgiveness.
Ayahuasca lifts you higher so you are closer to God, and in that closeness your prayer is immensely powerful. Because God says “Ask, and it shall be given”, it’s that simple: ask God to forgive you what’s in your spiritual weight, and he will take care of it.
If you know of a trauma you want to clean or Ayahuasca shows you one, ask God to forgive you: “God, forgive me my abandonment trauma”, or “God, forgive me my traumas of bullying”.
To make it better yet and heal it fully, participate in the forgiveness as well: “God, forgive me the trauma of abuse that my parents did to me; I forgive them, God, so forgive them too”.
If you have a pain, ask God “God, forgive me my hip pain”. Or ask God to forgive that part of you: “God, forgive my lungs”.
Of course, you can elaborate further. If you have consumed drugs, you can ask God: “God, forgive me all the drugs I’ve consumed, forgive me for poisoning my own body in this way and clean my body and mind of them”.
Other examples: “God, forgive me all my anger and take it all out of me”, “God, forgive me all my sexual sins”, “God, forgive me all the bad energies of my ex-partners”, and so on.
The same goes for anything you might see that you don’t like, even if you don’t know what it means. If you see insects, ask God: “God, forgive me this energy” or “God, forgive me the insects I see and take them from me”.
And of course, you can just ask God: “God, forgive my body”.
Asking God for forgiveness ahead of receiving your ícaro for the things you want to clean also makes it easier for the shaman to clean you and allows them to do more for you. In this way, you get more healing out of your song.
We recommend you enter every ceremony with an idea of two traumas or blocks you’d like to ask for forgiveness for.
Receiving your ícaro
When you’re receiving your ícaro, concentrate.
Maestro Ricardo Amaringo
When you’re called for your ícaro, leave your blanket and any lit mapacho behind, and bring your bucket with you. A facilitator will lead you to sit on a little mat in front of the shaman’s mat.
The ícaros enter your body by exposure to the voice of the shaman, so sit up straight and don’t put anything between you and the shaman. Keep your bucket to the side, and if you need to use it during your song, lean towards it.
Stay focused on your shaman and song the whole time you are in front of them. Even if other people are receiving their ícaro near you, resist looking their way; you don’t want the energies being cleaned from them coming your way.
It’s best to keep still during your song so as to not distract the shaman, but if you feel like you need to move to the rhythm, do so gently.
And most importantly, work with your shaman by continuing your prayer to God as they are singing. In doing this, you will help them clean you more easily and faster, and you will get more out of your ícaro.
An example prayer: “God, please forgive me this trauma, clean it all, God, I want to be free of it, help me, God, I want to be healthy”, and so on.
Once your ícaro is finished and you’re back at your mat, rest and let the ícaro work. It’s important from this point on to not think about the energies you’ve cleaned, so as to not provoke them to come back. Instead, focus on good things: ask God for his strength, light, love and peace to “fill up” on those good energies, and pray for the future you desire for yourself.
This is an excerpt from “The True Medicine:
The Nihue Rao Guidebook to Ayahuasca and Master Plant Diets.”
You can read the full guidebook here.
