Working with the Medicine I have seen many participants begin their journeys with Aya and along the way I have run into a lot of myths and misconceptions around what the medicine is and how it works. This month, I thought it would be fun to list out the top 5 Myths and Misconceptions about Ayahuasca and why they aren’t true. I didn’t want to just go off my own experience, so I turned to the SOLA membership to get their suggestions as well. So here we go in no particular order –
1. Ayahuasca is a psychedelic drug, and a successful journey looks like a “classic” trip with pretty colors and visions.
A drug is something that is used to escape your reality. Medicines take you into yourself and are here to help you heal in some way. Ayahuasca is a sacred visionary plant medicine. She is not a lab made substance. She is more than a chemical reaction. She is a Spirit that engages with us in relationship. She is not entertainment. She is a sacred medicine that will put us in the uncomfortable places within so we can affect our own change and transformation. She does not introduce what isn’t in us, she confronts us with the things we have so beautifully ignored, dodged, shrugged off and made excuses for. Aya will use all sorts of tools to do this – visions, auditory voices/sounds, purging, emotions, physical sensations, sleep/trance, intuition, people around you, thoughts, basically anything she can use. A successful journey can look like you sitting on your mat sure that “nothing” happened, or it can be a noda where you are in a sleep like trance or it can be physically very uncomfortable with no release, or it can look like being stuck in your negative thinking for 8 hours. All of these are successful journeys. They may not be fun and they may not even make sense at the time and they are still journeys and a part of a process. Talk to anyone who has sat with the medicine for any length of time, and you will hear how they too have had these types of journeys and later realized how much was really happening under their awareness and how the experience was part of a bigger picture. Aya is so much more than a trip or a substance or a thing to be used. She is a Consciousness that works WITH us not FOR us. Approach her with respect, with patience and with willingness – even the willingness to not understand, to sit with disappointment, or to sit with yourself without entertainment. That is all part of the journey.
2. Ayahuasca will fix you, heal you, do the work for you, and works in one sitting or retreat.
We have spoken about this before, and it bears repeating. Sitting with Aya is a relationship that will unfold over time. Don Alberto, one of the Maestros I sit with says, “The Medicine is a patient process. It is patient, and it is also certain. Trust it.”
This can be one of the more frustrating misconceptions. People want to believe that there is a shortcut to healing. There isn’t. There is no way around feeling our feels and cleaning our wounds and reprogramming our programming and then creating new behaviors. Aya will help us find new perspectives, practice new thought patterns and face inner energy patterns that we have ignored. In the end though we are the ones walking the walk and making the choices and sitting with whatever we brought with us until we learn to release it so we can finally see who we are underneath. It has been my experience that we must stop looking for someone or something else to heal us. That mindset leads to depression, distraction, addiction and disassociation. Instead, there are many tools and guides, Aya included, ready to assist us in leaning in and facing/feeling/healing ourselves. Find the tools and guides that call to you and then be committed to yourself and to the process.
3. Anyone who works with Ayahuasca as a participant or as a Maestro/Maestra are good people who are enlightened and more spiritual.
Aya is like the force. She is an energy and amplifier. She can be wielded for good or bad. As Aya reminds me – she does not judge and there will be consequences to how we interact with her. So just because someone has sat with Aya for years or serves Aya does not in any way make them better or more spiritual or mean that they are good people that you can trust. Traditionally, Aya has been used to heal and to curse so just because someone is “native” does not make them safe either. There are many shysters, con artists, dark magick users, sexual predators and so forth who serve and sit with the medicine. Anyone who offers you some “magickal” solution to all your problems is lying so be aware. Trust yourself, never give your power away, and ask questions.
4. You have to vomit and when you vomit it is like vomiting when you are ill.
There are so many ways to purge and release in ceremony. Vomiting is just one way, and it isn’t anything like vomiting when you are sick. In the medicine we call it “getting well” when we purge because we are releasing energies that no longer serve us. You can do that through yawning, burping, passing gas, twitching, stretching, peeing, pooping, emotional releases, sweating, shivering, and yes vomiting. Vomiting or not vomiting does not mean anything in particular. Best advice is not to spend a lot of focus on vomiting at all. If it happens then it happens (you may feel a great deal of relief if you do) and if it doesn’t happen that doesn’t mean that you missed out or that you are now on some spiritual level of purity where you no longer need to purge. Aya is a purgativo medicine which means fundamentally she works through helping us to release so that we can realign with who and what we really are. So, no need to worry! You will be releasing in some way whenever you sit with her.
5.Ayahuasca can break your brain or make you crazy.
There will probably be a moment along your journey with Aya, if not a few, where you think “I broke my brain” or “I’m going crazy” or “I am never doing this again!!!!!!”. It is perfectly normal to think any of these things. The good news is that Aya actually helps your brain on a physical level! Ayahuasca creates neuroplasticity in the brain which means she helps to create new neurons and connection as well as deleting or modifying existing ones. This allows the brain to adapt more readily to changing environments and experiences as well as allowing for growth, learning and the ability to recover from injuries and disease. Basically, she makes your brain more resilient. Prett cool huh?! However, when we are going through the experiences of our existing neurons being modified and deleted it can feel like our brain is breaking or we are going crazy. Once we realize what is actually going on we can begin to embrace these feelings as a sign that change is happening!
Conclusion:
In the end it is very hard when you haven’t sat with Aya to know much about it. You can read and listen and still in the end all you are hearing are other people’s experiences and yours will be unique to you. Not to mention each time you sit can be and often is different. I have sat hundreds of times at this point and the only thing I can tell you is – if Aya is calling to you then she has medicine for you. Commit to yourself, sit on your mat and trust the process.
We haven’t covered them all – add your favorite misconception in the comments or ask questions if you have any…
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