064 | The Beauty & Significance of Life on Earth w/ Shipibo Ayahuasca
“The medicine was telling me “you can hear your body but you’re not listening to it.” Health is actually listening to your body, the body always is speaking to you.”
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PUBLISHERS NOTE: As of January 2024, I can no longer recommend Reunion as a place to experience plant medicine. See full statement HERE.
In this episode, I am sharing about my first experience sitting with Shipibo Ayahasuca, and my first time working with a direct lineage. This is part two, so if you haven’t listened to part 1, go back to episode 60 before hitting play!
This episode goes in depth about the second half of my week in Costa Rica with the Peruvian Maestas Ynes, Lila and Laura of the Lopez-Sanchez lineage. The third ceremony was full of so many lessons, gems and treasures. I left this experience full of love and gratitude to experience the beauty of life on Earth.
“I know you're scared, but no matter what happens, you're protected. You can share your truth, you can lay it out, you can ask for what you want in life. No matter what happens, you have yourself, you have medicine, you have the earth. You have so much holding you and protecting you.”
- Lana PribicIn this episode, I talk about:
Embodying the medicine path
My 3rd Shipibo Ayahuasca ceremony with the intention of health
Learning to listen to my body, not just hear it
Reflecting on healing charkas centers of the body with Ayahuasca
Understanding connection to nature through food
Learning the type of environment that is best for me
Learning into my unique gifts and the importance of spiritual protection
The incredible significance of life on Earth
My honest review of Reunion Experience in Costa Rica
“We all have these treasures and gifts. When we try to be anyone other than ourselves, we’re actually taking people’s treasures and gifts from them. ”
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“We’re so significant! Out of all of the possibility in the universe, we’re here on the most beautiful planet ever. We’re so incredibly significant and this earth is incredibly significant and this life is incredibly significant. This existence is incredibly significant.”
Things Mentioned In This Episode:
Roll Kit (Neuro-protection for MDMA)
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Where to find Lana:
I was introduced to psychedelics in my early 20s within rave culture, and few years later I began to use plant medicine ceremonially.
Many circumstances aligned leaving me shattered, and I began the journey of putting myself back together. Plant medicine & psychedelics saved me from depression, anxiety, and a life of feeling unworthy. This is now my life’s work and I have devoted myself to sharing psychedelics and plant medicines with others because I have personally experienced how effectively they can catalyze growth, healing and connection.
This idea for Modern Psychedelics came to me during a journaling session in early 2020. I was learning so much about psychedelics at the time (while experiencing the benefits firsthand), and I had a deep desire to talk about these topics with people in the field. Upon launching the Instagram community, the page grew tremendously over a short period of time and continues to have high levels of engagement.
I am a 3x certified professional life coach, and I work with people who want to better their lives by deeply integrating insights from their psychedelic experiences. I believe that we don’t have to spend our entire lives healing, and that the purpose of life is to live in the present moment.
Looking for a professional coach to support you on your psychedelic path?
Look no further! Along with being the host of the Modern Psychedelics Podcast, Lana is a 3x certified professional coach who works with people on the psychedelic path.
Podcast Transcipt
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65 - reunion pt 2
[00:00:00]
Hello and welcome back everyone. So nice to have you here. Today is the highly anticipated part two of my Shipibo Ayahuasca ceremonies. I hope you guys enjoyed part one. If you didn't listen to that one yet, I suggest you pause this one and go back and listen to episode 60, which covers part one, which is the first and second ceremonies of my first Shipibo Ayahuasca experience.
So just to catch you up, this was my first time experiencing the Shipibo medicine, not ayahuasca, but the first time experiencing shipibo. It was very beautiful, it was very powerful. And after I share about my third ceremony day in the rest of the retreat, I'm going to give a very honest and raw review of reunion in Costa Rica, which is where I had this experience.
So we left on day five, which was the day after the second ceremony. Oh my gosh. So I was like feeling so good at this point.[00:01:00] The day was pretty relaxed with not too much programming. We did have a sharing circle, which was really interesting. It was actually really powerful to see like how people had.
Transformed from day one to day five, like two ceremonies in how much people have gained already to hear their insights. I always love the sharing circles, and it was also really cool to see in what a different place people were from one another. It's all okay and it's all welcome and none of it is right or wrong.
Some people like me were like completely blissed out and feeling amazing. Some people were really confused. A few people were pretty angry, it's all good. But yeah, we had that sharing circle to check in, and then after that we actually had silent time in the evening to ourselves, which I really liked.
All of the programming at Reunion was like really intentional. I [00:02:00] appreciated that. So the third ceremony was on day six. So this is gonna seem random, but I have to mention lunch on this day. So at lunch they served up some kale for us. This is important to the story later on.
So as I was like making my bowl of food, I heard a voice in my head be like that kale. Is not a good idea and I shouldn't eat it yet. I like loaded it up on my plate and ate it and yeah, more on that later.
So there was this really powerful embodiment workshop with Tanmaya on this day. I do wanna share a little bit about this one cuz it was really powerful.
Oh my gosh. So we did a bunch of like dance therapy. Like it wasn't really ecstatic dance, but it was ecstatic dance. We just danced a lot, which I love to do. Dance is my medicine. Really got us out of the mind and into the body. And then after that, she had us write out our vision for ourselves in the next [00:03:00] year, which is like, okay, whatever.
So many people do that or have done that, but she really took it to the next level with us. Once we wrote our vision out, we were put into groups of three, and she would play a song and each person had a chance to basically take what they wrote and embody it and perform it for their little group.
And as we were performing our, a year from now, embodiment the people in our group would like write down a couple of words. That really represented what they were seeing. So like maybe like feminine or flowing or. Respectful or grounded or connected or whatever. People would write down what they got a sense of from us when they watched us perform.
And then we would receive those papers and circle the words that we really liked, and then we would take those words and create poems out of them. And I really enjoy this because I'm not someone who does written work very much and I [00:04:00] don't really believe in my ability to do it. But I wrote this poem and I started it during this workshop and I reworked it.
After. But I wanna share it with you guys cuz I really love it and I think it really encompasses like where my energy was at and how much I was gaining from this medicine experiences. So this is my poem that I wanna share with you guys. It's called I Am Just As I Am.
Listening to the sounds of the ocean, deeply feeling my waves within the soft breeze and steady land. Hold me through this. I hear, I listen, I learn How does a flower blossom? It just does. How does a tree remain grounded and wise? It just does. How. Does the water flow and cleanse?
It just does. How is a woman, beautiful and free? She just is. Beauty exists in simply being never in trying. Reverence comes from deep love and [00:05:00] gratitude. Service is sharing your fruits while firmly rooted, health is achieved when the body's innate intelligence is listened to, I bow to the medicine of Mother Earth.
Transmuting her wisdom through my senses. I surrender the mind instead. I hear, I see. I taste, I smell, I feel I know. Thank you. Thank you for teaching me how to truly live in your perfect creation. To embody my true nature through you. You ask me to be reborn again and again, just as you are.
Just as I am.
So I love my little poem. I hope you enjoyed it. I think it really encompasses just. Where I was at this point in the process and just like how connected I felt to nature and the earth and to myself and how at peace I was. So yeah, that was the workshop that day and [00:06:00] it was really meaningful to me.
It was the best workshop I've ever been to. So at this point, I think I mentioned in the last episode, I was still experiencing some body aches and pains from like recovering from my western lifestyle. And even though I was going to the movement classes every morning, I was still like feeling some residual pain.
Dylan, one of the facilitators, lent me his massage gun, which is like such a simple thing, but it honestly made me feel like so taken care of in that moment. Yeah he really helped me out there and I had like a little sunset yoga, massage gun session in the yoga shala as the sun was setting with like the ocean in the background, like preparing for ceremony.
And it was beautiful. Oh my God. The sunsets every night were. Insane. Insane. Oh my gosh, I love that beach. So yeah, I was just like trying to take care of myself, wanting to take care of myself before this last ceremony. And [00:07:00] I mentioned in the previous episode, the last ceremony for us is what is called the Arkana ceremony.
So this is for protection, since the Maestras have gone in and shared their beautiful Ikaros with us and infused us with all this beautiful, loving energy and like, given us basically like spiritual surgery, the Ayahuasca and the Maestras, and the, this ceremony is to stitch us back up and to keep us safe and protected as we go back into the world and to protect our newly found energy.
that's what the purpose of this ceremony was, this is the first time I've been in a series of ceremonies where I actually went in very open and I didn't feel very rigid. So my intention for this ceremony was informed by what I learned in the last ceremony about the heart and the gut speaking to each other and about, this whole.
I don't trust myself. I don't [00:08:00] trust my gut. So my intention for the ceremony was help me heal my gut so that I can trust myself and show me health. During the ceremony, I basically almost fell asleep after the first cup. And I had like really sweet ayahuasca waking dreams. If you've ever had this medicine, you know what that's like.
You're asleep, you're awake and it's just like very peaceful. And then, I don't know, I felt defeated cuz I wasn't feeling. The effects of the medicine very much. And like the last ceremony for me was just so powerful that I was like, I dunno, I was disappointed. So I worked up the courage to have a second cup, which like really took me probably 30 minutes to do.
Like it takes so much. Like the more you drink, ayahuasca the worst to tastes. I'm sorry, I love this medicine and I respect it, but oh my gosh, does it taste awful? And like every cup is just like so much worse. Than the one before. And I think this is Ayahuasca's way of being like, you still committed to me, you still devoted to me?
Are you sure you wanna keep doing this? And it's like a [00:09:00] way to keep the medicine safe. Like it's not easy to get to it. So anyways, I had my second cup and eventually I purged, vomited. And what came up? The fucking kale. Like completely undigested from my lunch, like just chunks of kale. Sorry to be graphic, but that's my truth.
And I was like, okay, message. Message received. I went back to my intention, show me all like kale obviously does not agree with me, period. And yeah, I got like kind of some teaching around like to understand the foods that don't agree with me. All I have to do is listen to my body. That morning or that afternoon, I heard my body say, you shouldn't eat that.
And what did I do? I ate it anyways, so the medicine [00:10:00] was telling me like, you can hear your body but you're not listening to it. Health is actually listening to your body, the body always is speaking to you. And the body has so much to tell you again, like, yes, things that I've already known, but I think the ayahuasca medicine has a very interesting way of teaching us these things so that we don't forget it.
Like with the taste of the kale coming back up, like that is a, that's a lesson learned right there. Listen to your body. When you hear it, actually listen to it. So it was just like laying back, even though we're supposed to be sitting up in the shipibo ceremony. I laid back and I was just like stroking my belly and my heart, and again, I could really just feel like the intelligence in my body and how it's always communicating with me and how I don't always listen to it and how I'm missing out on so much power. By not listening to it. And I was sensing that the [00:11:00] body is always able to like direct me and give me an answer. So you guys know about like the chakras in the body, right? Like each chakra in the body plays a different. Role, right? So like our solar plexus is all about like confidence and power and how we hold ourselves in the world and how we give our power away, or don't give our power away.
That's the function of the solar plexus, like all these different systems in the body are there for a reason and we are always being guided by the body. Wow. That was huge for me because I've just been like reflecting on my journey with plant medicine over the years.
Like, throat chakra, using your voice to speak your truth. I've been on such a journey with that, with the podcast and medicine, heart chakra, like, I was so heartbroken. For so long that I wasn't even able to like hear my heart or live from my heart. And I've gone on this beautiful heart healing journey where just [00:12:00] even Ayahuasca confirmed to me that my heart's perfect now and I feel that.
And I feel like I'm really like living my life from my heart. And now I'm about to go on this like gut healing journey, which is so cool.
ugh. I just, I love it. getting like the little pieces of the healing journey and I think, when all of these systems are working and operating is like when we're basically able to be superhumans and listen to the intelligence of the body.
So yeah, huge insight and awareness there. So then I started to like, Get some introspection around food. This is, I'm gonna be really vulnerable here. Like this is probably the thing I struggle with the most in my life. And I think like when people see me, I'm not like petite, but I'm not like, A very large human, so I think people are very like surprised to hear that food is something I struggle with, but I absolutely do.
I would say [00:13:00] that's definitely something in my life that I have not been able to figure out yet, and I really struggle with like, What should I eat? How much should I eat? Like how to have a healthy relationship with food. I definitely turn to sweetss and overeating when I'm wanting to numb out and stuff.
So yeah, introspection into food was something that happened during the ceremony for me. And one of the main things that I was learning about was like the importance of knowing where your food is coming from. The importance of knowing where my food is coming from, because to know where my food comes from is actually to connect with nature.
And if you guys have been following my Iboga journey, the huge thing about the Boga journey for me has been to live with accordance to nature and to go to nature for, the answers to everything. So this was a missing piece for sure. So this was interesting. So I was seeing some like visions of these like discount [00:14:00] grocery stores during the ceremony, which like I've shopped at many times in my life, I still shop at because I'm just somehow always living on a budget and trying to save money. And sometimes I definitely feel like, okay, I'm gonna not spend as much on food this month so that I can do other things.
I don't want to like cast any shame or hate on like these discount grocery stores or like start a whole political conversation around why they exist and food affordability issues and how we even got here in the first place. Like I wanna just acknowledge that's like a very fucking real issue.
Like food affordability and prices and like the reason for these existing, but the, that wasn't the point of this vision. The point of this vision was I was seeing the energy inside of these like discount grocery stores. My like go-to here in Canada is called No Frills. That's the one that I'll usually go to if I'm trying to save on food.
And I [00:15:00] saw like inside of this grocery store that this energy had a sense of , Like a lack of respect and connection to the food because that wasn't the priority. The priority is the cheapest price and like to produce the food and to get the food to people in a way that just prioritizes the price.
Nothing else matters as much and So the main message for me here was that being connected to nature, the way of nature means knowing where your food comes from. And it's not about like, Going to bougie grocery stores or anything like that. It's just about like knowing where my food is coming from. So for me, I decided in that ceremony right there that like part of my integration and homework is gonna be to research some community supported agriculture boxes when I get home to get deliveries from local farms and to really like look at my [00:16:00] budget and my finances so that I can prioritize.
This connection to food a little bit more than I have been. That looks like cooking and working with local and seasonal ingredients and having more fun with it. And yeah, I think this is really something that like I've always known. And like I've had moments of time of prioritizing this, but it has never really fully stuck.
So I'm excited to see how it goes from here and just like understanding the connection between food as a way to connect with nature as a way to connect with my nature as a way to connect with myself.
So then as the ceremony went on, I was starting to like enter the ayahuasca realms again, like very visionary wasn't quite as strong as the first night, but I started to feel very sick after I received the Ikaros from the Maestras. So this was closer to the end of the ceremony and I was laying down, but the medicine was [00:17:00] like, go to the bathroom, like get the.
To a toilet basically. And I was like, okay. But I couldn't even sit up, let alone get up. So I like got my like red light flashlight. And that's for help. And Michael, one of the helpers came over and , he struggled to get me up, not because of him, but because of me. Like I was just like comatose and unable to put any effort into getting myself up.
So then Mariana came and they both had to help me get up. This was a very humbling moment for me. And we took a very humbling walk to the bathroom together. They both had to support me and take me all the way to the toilet seat. And that's cuz I was like, I was seeing fractals everywhere.
I could barely connect to my body, but I somehow managed to put one foot in front of the other. And get to the bathroom. And I don't wanna get into the details of what [00:18:00] happened in that bathroom, but let's just say that kale and I are not friends. And I got that message very clearly.
Yeah. Yeah. That was just like, that was like, kale is not for you. And like, it wasn't about the kale, it was about , Listen to your body, right? So when I got back to my mat, I went back to my intention. Show me health. Show me health. And instantly I got this message that was like, the ocean is good for you.
Which is so random, I spent six weeks in Costa Rica during this trip and I was like really reconnecting with the ocean during this trip. And I don't know, I've developed this like, I know this, like I, I'm like processing this live as I'm saying it, but I almost developed this, since my teenage years.
This like [00:19:00] hipster ego identity as like this like cool Pacific Northwest Forest person, I even went and moved out to Vancouver in the Pacific Northwest and I just like wasn't feeling it. I moved right back. It just like wasn't resonating and now I know that like, yeah, the ocean is probably better for me.
Not just ocean, but like water that I can swim in, like actually going into the water and putting my head under and like the cleansing of the ocean. Yeah, I was really reconnecting with that. So, He was saying like, the ocean is good for you. You're a mermaid, not a forest ferry. Reconsider your priorities.
And then, ugh, I saw this beautiful vision. Oh my gosh, the visuals were so beautiful. It was just so many beautiful treasures during this part of my. Ceremony, but one in particular. So I saw this beautiful woman like so empowered, so [00:20:00] stunning, and she had all these like fractals of light around her and like rainbows and they were representing like her treasures and her gifts, right?
Kind of like teaching me that like all of us humans have these treasures and gifts to offer and they're also different. From one another, right? But we all have these treasures and these gifts. And I was like, okay. Like, what are my treasures and my gifts? And she actually was like pointing to me exploring like my sexuality and my femininity, that there's something there for me that I haven't like explored yet.
And that was like really cheeky and like, like a wink of like, let that out more. I think I've been like on my healing journey for the past four years. I'm really like stifled that part of myself and I think it's time for it to come out. So I'm excited about that.
the other thing that I was taught with this vision , so if [00:21:00] you guys listen to my iboga episode, one of the things I healed with that was this like constant need to compare myself to others.
What this vision was teaching me actually was we all have these treasures and gifts when we like try to be like someone else. When we try to be anyone other than ourselves, we're actually taking people's treasures and gifts from them. We're actually saying like, oh, you have something that I like and I'm gonna take it from you, and I'm gonna make it my own.
And like, oh, I'm so guilty of doing that in like the first 31 years of my life. And then the next part of that is also like protection. Protecting your treasures and your gifts from being taken by other people. And I think that's like obviously so important for everyone, but also just like being on the medicine path and as your gifts and treasures come out more truly holding them for yourself and knowing that they're yours and protecting them.
I actually made like a mental note to myself to speak to Marianna the next day, which I did because she was someone who I saw as like [00:22:00] very, beautiful, empowered, and talented, like the voice of an angel. She is like very musically talented and I was like, that looks like someone who. Knows how to be in her power and like allow her gifts and treasures to shine while also protecting herself.
So I actually had a conversation with her the next day around protection and yeah, that's something that I'm definitely implementing as someone who like is sharing my voice with the world publicly. So yeah, that was another really, ah, just so many treasures from this ceremony. So many good ones.
I'm sure there were so many others that I'm forgetting. I'm trying to just like hit the highlights here. So without getting into the details, because this one's a bit personal there's this situation in my life that I have a gut feeling about and have had a gut feeling about for a [00:23:00] long time, but I haven't trusted myself on it to act on it. So the medicine was really guiding me to follow my heart and to trust my gut about this and showing me like I know you're scared, but like no matter what happens, you're protected. Like you can share your truth, you can lay it out, you can ask for what you want in life and No matter what happens, like you have yourself, you have medicine, you have the earth, like you have so much holding you and protecting you.
So that was really beautiful. And the other thing I was getting into in the ceremony was, Just my devotion to the medicine path. And I think that actually comes across in that poem that I shared with you guys. Cuz what that workshop was for me was actually about like embodying the medicine path and moving even more deeply into this is just like this.
Beautiful. Knowing that I'm on my path, the path of [00:24:00] love, the path of nature, the path of being in service to the earth, and like also being very new to this and like being like a new devotee to this and like really learning my way with this, but I know I'm on my path. I know this is what feels right to me and what I've been looking for my whole life.
The other thing that came to me was this like realization that I'm in such a place to walk this life with someone and that I'm like ready for love. And I don't mean just like, oh my God, I'm ready for a boyfriend. Like, like I'm ready for like a big.
Beautiful love, like I'm so ready for it. And like even when it comes to partnership, I don't have to rely on anyone other than myself. It's not about like feeling complete. By someone else, which is where I was in previous relationships. It's about like, oh my God, life is so beautiful. This existence is beautiful.
[00:25:00] This like Earth is beautiful, life is beautiful. I just want someone to share it with. Like that's where it's coming from now. And that's how I know that I feel just so ready for it and I'm excited for it. So that's something that I think I haven't been able. To say in like at least four years that I really feel ready to like open my heart to someone.
This was nearing to the end of the ceremony. So in Shipibo ceremonies it's traditional that they don't allow instruments. It's just the Ikaros, the Maestras, since. These facilitators work so closely with them and have developed a trust with them over many years. They did allow them to play a few songs for us.
Wow. Wow. Carrie, Jessica, Mariana, and Dylan, I believe all shared some. Songs with [00:26:00] us and they blew me away with how beautiful they were. And at one point, so I was sitting up to receive their music and at one point I had no control over my body, but I just looked over and my arms were reaching up and like started flapping like wings.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm spreading my wings. It was really beautiful and I was like not consciously doing that at all. It was like purely the music moving me. And guiding me. And I remember like Dylan's song in particular was really beautiful and I saw him at the end of the ceremony and I was like, thank you so much for sharing your song with us.
Cuz I feel like I've gotten to understand who you are and what your journey, what the medicine has been like. And oh my gosh, I saw this vision of all of the facilitators. Like at this point I was just like, This is the best place ever. I was so [00:27:00] in love with this reunion experience and I saw this vision.
I was really feeling into how much love and respect and reverence these facilitators have, the team that they've built for the medicine. And I saw this vision of all of them in the sky flying as birds. And it was like, The message was like, they're all individual birds, but they know that together, they're stronger.
They're stronger together. And they were all just like flying through the sky and like, guided by the medicine. And then I got up and I went to find Tim, who is the person who, reached out to modern psychedelics and invited me. And I was like, Tim, I love you. Like, thank you so much for inviting me.
This has been so beautiful and so meaningful. And I gave him a big hug and I told him about my vision. And yeah, I just felt like really connected to not just the medicine, but this space in particular. It was just [00:28:00] like so much reverence and respect. And I know I keep saying that cuz the reverence and respect was a big teaching for me here, but I was also learning about reverence and respect by being in a space that had so much reverence and respect.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, after the facilitators shared their music I, yeah I went outside. I just wanted to be outside in the grass and like, I just wanted to be on the earth, so I was actually just like on all fours with like my feet and my hands just all up in the grass. And I was probably just doing that for a while and.
Everyone else cleared out and then all of the facilitators and Tanmaya came over and I was like, I love you guys so much. And we shared like a really nice moment. And after that I was like laying out on the grass, in Star Post. Star, like a star. And Tania came and joined me and was like [00:29:00] looking up at the sky.
I was like, oh my God. And he started laughing because. What do people usually think when they look about the sky? They're like, ah, we're so insignificant here. Like, oh, we're so tiny. We're so insignificant. And I started laughing cause I was like, oh my God, that's so wrong. I'm sorry, but that's so wrong.
We're so significant Out of all of the possibility. In the universe and the multiverse and all of the planets and all of the stars and everything out there, like we're here on the dopest fucking most beautiful planet ever. Like, can you even just like take in this like ocean and these trees and these birds and these animals and this grass and this human body and like this food, like we're just in the best place ever.
And we're so incredibly significant and this earth is incredibly significant and this life is incredibly significant. This like existence is incredibly significant. So that was what I was getting. And [00:30:00] so I was like laying on the grass, literally like in between the sky, the heavens, the universe and earth.
And I was like, wow. Like yeah. Humans are the connection between the two and we're exactly where we're meant to be between the stars and the earth. And yeah, Tanmaya came to join me and we were both just wow in awe at the experience we just went through of sitting with these powerful matriarchs, these Maestas from Peru who came to share their songs and their medicine and their culture with us.
We were just both in. All at this and talking about how lucky we were to experience this and we saw like a handful of shooting stars. It was actually pretty cool. I think we saw like six or seven shooting, [00:31:00] shooting stars. So she eventually left and I don't know why, but no one else like decided to sleep in the temple but me.
All three ceremonies. I absolutely loved it. I was, you know the temple is netted, but it is open air so you can hear the sounds of the waves all night. It's so soothing. And then in the morning you're just like cradled by the sounds of the birds. It's so peaceful and honestly, I just felt like so happy to be alive.
I was like, this is life. Like we get to live. Life. So overall, my experience with the Shipibo medicine was so incredibly beautiful. It was definitely challenging at points. It was filled with so many treasures and gems. I learned so much. I feel like I really unlocked a new femininity to myself. I spent the next five weeks in Costa Rica, I purchased an entire new wardrobe.[00:32:00]
After this experience that's like, feminine, a little more like sexy, a little more, flowy and soft. And I just really feel that I'm like stepping into this identity as a woman. That I haven't stepped into before. And yeah it's also a month later and like the gut healing journey is going really well.
So far I have been avoiding gluten and dairy or like minimizing them a lot since then, and I'm. Gonna be working with a nutritionist to go on like a legit gut healing journey and just like learning to trust myself more and noticing where I'm not trusting myself. So yeah, this was like an incredibly profound experience for me with Ayahuasca.
And I'm even thinking of doing like a proper shipibo diet in Peru, in the Amazon one day, and that's a whole other thing. Yeah, that's that. Oh, I'll just touch quickly on like day seven, the last day. So we had [00:33:00] like a beautiful group sharing closing circle.
Oh my gosh. Wow. I can like, A few like very significant transformations come to mind that I don't wanna share cuz you know, to protect people's privacy. But yeah, it was really powerful, not just for me, but for a lot of the people that were there.
And then we had a closing circle where we got our intentions back and we had a closing fire with mapacho and we, threw the mapacho and our intentions into the fire and really like opened up a new chapter.
It was a beautiful experience and I can honestly say that I'm definitely not done with Ayahuasca. And for now it's a matter of learning to manage both iboga and Ayahuasca. I feel like I'm not ready to fully to fully commit to one or the other yet.
Rather, it's about learning how to work with both, and I'm definitely being called to more shipibo. In my life.
I'm gonna just spend some time now to give you guys a really honest [00:34:00] review of Reunion. Like I said at the beginning, I was really skeptical. I had walls up, I had my guards up, especially cuz I knew that I would be, sharing this experience with my audience.
For me, it's really important to send people places that feel an integrity with me, which is why I don't share, I pretty much don't like interview anyone from a retreat center who represents a retreat center unless I fully trust them, because I don't want you guys to hear someone on my podcast.
And go somewhere and not have a good experience and not be safe and not, go to a place that has reverence and respect. Like, I take this very seriously. even up until like, I don't know, probably halfway through, I was still a little guarded. Like I was open to the experience, but I was like very carefully watching everyone and everything.
I kept thinking to myself like, would I feel good sending someone from my community here? And I can [00:35:00] honestly say that this experience at Reunion, absolutely. Blew me away. Like if I had to rate it on a scale of one to 10, I would give it a 15. I'm not kidding you guys. There was just so much love and care and respect in this space.
Not to mention the actual physical space, but I'm talking about like the space that was created by the facilitators, the way that the medicine was handled and just the overall programming. One thing I wanna highlight, it was narrative neutral. That's something very important that I look for is a narrative neutral space.
Meaning that they're not shoving like, spirituality concepts from like new age spirituality, or any type of religion down your throat. Like narrative neutral to me means that like your experience is your own and you create the meaning from your experience. No one else does. And I can say that Reunion is a space that did that from what I saw.
I'm gonna [00:36:00] review the programming, the facilitators, and the food and accommodation for you guys. So the programming the way that the week went, everything that was offered to us, the structure, the flow, all the aspects, it was just so intentional, honestly. You're busy some of the days, but there was a good balance of, beneficial programming, like the intention setting workshops.
The workshops with Tanmaya, and they have a rotating roster of. Workshop facilitators. So you know, if Tanmaya's the standard, then I can say that anyone who is stepping on these grounds, who's vetted by like Karina, Julian, Tim Mariana, Dylan is gonna be of that caliber. The workshops really were the thread that wove the ceremonies together.
I can't really imagine this experience without them. And they really allowed me to like go into each ceremony with an even stronger intention [00:37:00] for myself.
Our group size was 17, which was great. Honestly, it was a pretty small group, like where I sit in ceremony. In Canada, we have groups of 20 and. The ceremony room is a fraction of the size.
So our group size was 17. I spoke with one of the facilitators. They said they wanna cap it at 35, which is phenomenal for, The size of the property and the size of that temple. Somewhere like Rythmia. They have like a hundred people I think at these retreats. So really nice group size.
They have a great focus on integration, so there was an integration workshop. There's emails with integration guidance and homework that you receive. And then there's also group calls. Once a month for people who have been to Reunion before. You can hop on integration calls when you go back home.
So the facilitators, oh my gosh. So much love in [00:38:00] my heart for these humans. I spent a lot of time with them. I was just like constantly asking them questions. I really wanted to get to know them all, get to know their stories, their journeys with the medicine, and wow such.
Beautiful souls so devoted to the medicine path, like wow. Wow. So Julian and Karina are the senior program directors. Then we have Tim, who's also a program director, and then Maria and Dylan are the facilitators. And Carrie is also a facilitator and Michael was there also supporting.
Wow. Such a beautiful team. It's a trauma informed team. The way that they guided people. Like I really struggled during this experience as I shared with you guys and their guidance was very gentle and soft and like guided by medicine. And it was narrative neutral. There was never a time when I heard any of the facilitators [00:39:00] inserting meaning onto someone else's journey.
There was none of that. There was none of like, oh, this meant that, or it meant that it was like very narrative neutral. So I just wanna say thank you to all of the facilitators, including Jessica who travels with the Maestras for creating such a beautiful space and. I even spoke to some of the staff members cuz, so reunion's like a huge operation, like, it's like a, it used to be a hotel that got renovated.
They have I think over a hundred staff. So I actually spoke with some of them and the staff are almost all Costa Ricans. And I asked them like, how do you like working here? Are you happy here? And you know, they all seem to really like it, it seems like a nice place to work. And lastly, I wanna talk about the food and accommodation.
So it's definitely on the side of luxury, but since it's a notfor profit center, you're not gonna be paying luxury prices. The food is mostly organic. It's very [00:40:00] fresh. It's made with lots of love and honestly for like the Ayahuasca diet, which is really restrictive, the food was delicious. It was good.
They're also very like intentional about mindful eating. We do like a blessing as a group before each dinner, which I really liked. I feel like I learned so much from like Julian. And some of the other facilitators just wrote like, mindful eating and chewing, and these are practices that I've really taken with me after this experience.
It's a very eco-friendly, eco-conscious. Center, from like the shampoo and conditioner and cleaning products that they use, there's tons of water filling stations. They don't allow single use plastic. Their land stewardship is beautiful. Everyone is encouraged to collect trash on the beach.
There's like buckets on the beach entrance that you can use to collect trash, and the beach was one of the cleanest I've ever seen. It was really beautiful.
The rooms [00:41:00] were very comfortable. Stylish, minimal and stylish. The best part is that it's like 50 steps from the beach. I spent so much time in the water, like the water with the ayahuasca medicine really went well together.
I went swimming like twice a day at least. And like I said, it's a beachfront property. There's a yoga shala right on the beach, like you're just like doing yoga in the ocean breeze, watching the ocean. It feels very expansive and spacious and relaxing and peaceful. There's like a beachside kind of lounge area.
There's meditation huts. There's just a lot of space to explore, to be, to meditate, to reflect. It's a very beautiful space That's all I'm gonna say about that. I am going to be having Karina and Julian on the podcast, so they're gonna be telling us more about the intentions behind Reunion, their ethos, their philosophy, how they operate.
But what I do want you guys to know that they are a not-for-profit, meaning [00:42:00] that the steward of this project at Reunion, Brad. He is not taking any money home from this. None. None of the money is for profit.
They're very transparent about where their profits go which I think says a lot. And they also have three separate scholarship funds. They have the Indigenous Wisdom Keepers Fund, they have the scholarship program for people who wanna visit, and then the Replenish Ayahuasca project. So some of the profits goes towards that. And the other thing to know is that they are working with these direct lineages that I mentioned, so Shipibo.
Huni Kuin and uh, Quechea Wisdom keepers. There may be others that I'm missing there. And then they also do a psilocybin retreat as well, which is guided by their facilitation team.
If you guys are curious about Reunion, you can check out their website and their programming for all of their dates.
They have retreats almost every month. If [00:43:00] you do get in touch with their team, let them know that you heard about them through modern psychedelics and there's a code that you can use. And it's really important that if you heard about Reunion through this podcast, that you use this code because I actually have a scholarship fund in collaboration with Reunion, so every time that code is used, $100 gets put into a scholarship fund to send someone from the community who is in financial need to reunion. So definitely make sure you're using that code if you're booking with Reunion
I'm a proud ambassador with them. I'm super happy to be working with them. It's very aligned, so if you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to reach out. As you guys know, I'm always answering emails and dms. If you have any questions that I didn't answer here, just reach out and I will answer you.
You can DM me at modern psychedelics on Instagram or send me an email [00:44:00] hello@modernpsychedelics.net. I'm really excited for you if you choose to experience ayahuasca or mushrooms at this very special place and look out for the interview with Karina and Julian coming soon.
I love you guys so much. Thank you for listening and take good care. Bye.
