Introduction

My journey to Peru started in October of 2012 when my girlfriend’s sister Hillary brought to my attention the existence of a vine from the Amazon.  She had come over one night and started talking about an ancient form of healing found in the jungle that had been around for thousands of years.  Both her and Meagan had been looking at some retreats in the rainforest where you can go participate in ceremonies and can find the most profound life realizations.  The reason Hillary was so intrigued was because she had been looking for an outlet to release the pain and energy of her husband’s tragic death a couple years ago.  The feelings were still very strong for both the sisters and this had been suggested as a good outlet.  

At first when I had heard about it I was extremely skeptical and I had very little to go on before deciding to book my journey to Peru.   I had seen a documentary online called DMT: The Spirit Molecule. It focused more on the science and mainly centered on an experiment in which they had a synthesized version of the compound.  This compound however is found naturally in the brew of Ayahuasca.  Although the information I found in this documentary was fascinating I wanted to know more about this organic spiritual experience.  Over the next few weeks I viewed many testimonials and documentaries that accounted peoples experiences.  I found most of it to be a little terrifying and not something I was super excited to cross half way across the world to do.  It wasn’t until I came across a YouTube video by a man from England who had been to the retreat we were looking at, that I started feeling a lot more comfortable and excited for my venture. I knew that although I was still a little unsure myself that I couldn’t let my girlfriend go alone with her sister into the jungle, and have the most life altering experience without me.  I then decided in December 2012 to book my flight to the center of the universe. 

Below is the basic information about the plant, botany, history and practice that I had before my journey.  It has been gathered from medical journals, shamans and online resources:

Ayahuasca is an Amazonian plant mixture that is capable of inducing altered states of consciousness, usually lasting between 4 to 8 hours after ingestion. Ranging from mildly stimulating to extremely visionary, Ayahuasca is used primarily as a medicine and as a shamanic means of communication, typically in a ceremonial session under the guidance of an experienced drinker.

The main ingredient of this jungle tea is a vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, which like the tea itself is also called Ayahuasca (which means ‘vine of the soul' or 'vine with a soul’). The secondary ingredient is either chacruna (Psychotria viridis) or chagropanga (Diplopterys cabrerana), plants that contain a relatively high amount of the psychedelic substance DMT.

Nobody knows for sure how long this drink has been used. First recorded Western contact with Ayahuasca was made in 1851 by Richard Spruce, the famous ethnobotanist from England. When taking into account archeological evidence of comparable native plant use, it seems likely that its use dates back to at least two millennia ago.

Ayahuasca induces a psychedelic, visionary state of mind and this effect is employed by various people for various reasons.  Shamans or medicine men take Ayahuasca to communicate with nature or to see what is causing a patient’s illness on a spiritual level. In Brazil several religions can be found that pivot around gatherings where Ayahuasca is taken by all participants. Drinking Ayahuasca and singing together takes them into a healing and inspiring kind of trance.

In the past few decades Ayahuasca is slowly gaining interest from Western society as well. Not only academic researchers in the field of psychotherapy have shown an increased interest. Psychonauts, i.e. people who practice responsible and conscious use of mind-altering substances, use Ayahuasca to confront themselves with the richness of the mind, the infinity of the universe, and their deepest fears, so as to experience ecstasy resulting from facing and overcoming these fears.

One effect of Ayahuasca is that it makes a lot of people vomit and many drinkers get diarrhea. One tribe calls Ayahuasca 'kamarampi', which stems from 'kamarank': to vomit. It is also called ‘la purga’, as it purges the body through this physical effect, and purifies the mind through the meaningful psychological experiences or visions. You usually feel totally refreshed and reborn after a strong experience.

Ayahuasca is not a miracle cure in the sense that you drink the brew and all your troubles have vanished within a couple of hours. It is a miracle cure though, in the sense that it brings unconscious and seemingly otherworldly processes to surface, which enables you to work with it while the effects last.

What is more unique about Ayahuasca, is that the effects rely on a specific combination of two plants: Banisteriopsis caapi and chacruna (or chagropanga, depending on the region). How and when exactly the discovery of combining these two plants was made by Native Americans remains unclear, although many tribes and shamans have their own mythical tales explaining this event.

Below is the myth of the plant from Dr Ralph Metzner;

The Tukano people of the Vaupés region of Colombia say that the first people came from the sky in a serpent canoe, and Father Sun had promised them a magical drink that would connect them with the radiant powers of the heavens. While the men were in the "House of the Waters," attempting to make this drink, the first woman went into the forest to give birth. She came back with a boy radiating golden light, whose body she rubbed with leaves.

This luminous boy-child was the vine, and each of the men cut off a piece of this living being that became his piece of the vine lineage. In a variation of this myth from the Desana (from the same region), the serpent canoe came from the Milky Way, bringing a man, a woman, and three plants for the people - cassava, coca and caapi. They also regarded it as a gift from the Sun, a kind of container for the yellow-gold light of the Sun that provided for the first people the rules on how to live and how to speak. (Metzner 2006)

The primary ingredient of chacruna and chagropanga is also a neurotransmitter found in all human beings and plays a key role in all kinds of extraordinary states of awareness. This neurotransmitter is called dimethyltryptamine, or DMT for short, and is found in the brain, blood, lungs and other parts of the human body. There is strong evidence pointing towards the pineal gland ("the third eye" in esoteric traditions), located in the center of the brain, as the main factory of human DMT. Apart from human beings, DMT can be found in every mammal and in a variety of plants.

With this information I still went into my journey with a purely academic understanding of the compound and an even more vague idea of the spiritual components. My curiosity and excitement had peaked however.  We booked our flights to Peru and found our way to the Tierra Vida Healing Center where we were about to embark on a path that would shock everyone of us.  A true test of who we really are and how we are all connected.