It was about a year after my awakening in 2012 that I first started to consciously work with Plant Medicines. I had only taken magic mushrooms at parties before that and casually smoked marijuana. But I had never seen these plants as something that I could consciously work with to heal and expand my consciousness. My experience with Peyote out in the desert of Wirikuta opened up to my connection with the plants as possible teachers and spiritual guides.
The experience with Peyote not only healed me in ways that I still don't know how to put into words but it left me with a feeling of having found friends among the elemental kingdom.
I had after my awakening searched for teachers far and wide, I found a few and I learned a lot from them yet I never felt that this is the one. That this is the teacher I am meant to follow. Until that day with Peyote.
It left me with a curiosity and a burning passion to know more, to learn more, to experience more. So after that I started to work regularly with magic mushrooms of different kinds. There are so many different kinds and they have different temperaments and feelings to them. I learned how to create the space that I needed to be able to go very deep and to learn what I needed to learn and what I needed to experience at that time.
Since I didn't feel that anyone else could guide me, not a person but that my teachers were the plants so I felt guided to do all my journeys on my own. The few that I did with others I found distracting because I had to keep some part of my consciousness on the other person that often was much less experienced and I ended up feeling their stuff rather to be able to just work on myself. Which I so needed.
Then different plants were introduced to me one after another. The ones that stand out now looking back are the psilocybins, Iboga and Peyote. I worked intensely with both the mushrooms and Iboga. Peyote I've only experienced a few times.
Anyway. Of course through my research of all the plant medicine teacher I heard about Ayahuasca but I never found myself being invited to a ceremony. This was in Canada, BC.
Then I started being visited by jaguars and panthers in my dreams and having livid visions of them walking around in my apartment in Vancouver. I knew that Ayahuasca was calling but I figured that things would fall into place eventually.
I once found an ad on Craigslist I think and I sent an email asking some questions and this lady called me up and gave me an intense monologue on how I under no circumstances should ever ever drink Ayahuasca away from its home of the jungle. That it was an extremely powerful plant that I needed specific guidance to work with.
The phone call made an impact on me and so I stopped looking.
Then one morning I woke up with a laughter and I just knew that I had to go to the jungle. Yes I literally woke up laughing. So I sat down by my computer and googled Ayahuasca retreats and then something? Maybe volunteer opportunities? I don't remember anymore. But I found two places and I emailed them both. Later that day Jill from Nimea Kaya replied and we set up a Skype date. Two days later it was set that I was going to the Amazonian jungle 3 months later to volunteer at the Ayahuasca retreat centre Nimea Kaya.
When I started to work with Ayahuasca she simple dismissed me. She told me that I shouldn't work with her. That I should go to Mexico and have babies with my ex-lover that I was then in love with. So extremely confusing.
But from the encouragement and guidance of the people at the centre, I continued drinking Ayahuasca. She kept repeating this same story until I told her to shut up. The thing is this guy that she told me to go to, didn't want to be with me and had told me so many times. So this "guidance" was just confusing and extremely frustrating.
But through this confusion a lot of unprocessed and hidden feelings where brought up. She (I call the spirit of Ayahusca 'She', not because she's female but her energy is very feminine).
After a while I found that I really loved that space of being with Ayahuasca in ceremony. That by working with her I got an extra oumph. That I could work with people (I was facilitating in the ceremonies) much deeper and with much more power than without Ayahuasca.
I had deeply profound experiences both in my own personal ceremonies but especially while facilitating ceremonies for others. In my own ceremonies I started speaking and singing different songs that just flowed through me. I found that I spoke a language of light (someone called it a snake language because as I spoke it to them, they felt like they had snakes moving through their body) and that I could also sing in this language of light. Then this language also came out in ceremonies.
I already then knew that I was/am a Shaman but my confidence in myself was low and I didn't have a teacher other than the plants themselves.
Again and again Ayahuasca confused me, saying this and then saying that, having me spinning in circles at times not knowing what was up and down.
Then I started feeling a stronger and stronger call to drink more Ayahuasca. To drink Ayahuasca consecutively for many days as well as in the day. It was this thirst that I never felt before but the call was so strong that I eventually asked the owners of the centre if I could drink on my own and I could.
To be continued in part 2.