Over recent years, a growing number of people from around the world have traveled to the Amazon Rainforest in search of ayahuasca healing. They make this journey seeking qualities that have become less accessible in modern life: clarity, connection, meaning, and a setting where they can experience genuine, deep healing.
Many have heard about ayahuasca, sometimes in documentaries, podcasts, or personal stories, and are drawn by the promise of transformation. Yet for most first-time seekers, the world of ayahuasca healing is still mysterious.
What is this medicine? What really happens at a retreat? And how can one prepare to meet it with respect and readiness?
What Is Ayahuasca, Really?
Ayahuasca is not a drug or a hallucinogen. It is a sacred plant medicine, a living spirit, and part of an ancient Amazonian healing tradition practiced by Indigenous peoples for centuries, possibly millennia.
The brew is made from two plants: the ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi), which provides the healing, and the chacruna leaf (Psychotria viridis), which contains the visionary component that allows us to perceive deeper layers of consciousness.
In the Shipibo tradition, ayahuasca is understood as a teacher and a healer. In Shipibo, it is called Oni, meaning wisdom. It reveals – not to entertain, but to illuminate. It’s a mirror that helps us see and release the energetic roots of illness, emotional pain, and disconnection, so that we can return to harmony and alignment within ourselves and with life around us.
This is why ayahuasca cannot be understood as a “trip.” It is a ceremony of reconnection and remembrance, guided by the spirits of the plants, facilitated by healers who have devoted their lives to learning from and being in service to them.
Why People Come to the Amazon for Healing
People often come to ayahuasca at pivotal moments in life; after loss, heartbreak, depression, or a sense of emptiness despite outward success. They may have been in therapy for years, meditating for decades, or carrying out a wide variety of self-development retreats over a lifetime of searching.
However, something still calls for attention – an inner knowing that true healing lies in reaching deep into the roots of pain and suffering. Authentic Amazonian healing traditions working with ayahuasca help you meet yourself at the deepest levels with honesty, compassion, and courage.
This profound healing work can bring buried emotions, grief, shame, fear, anger, to the surface, not to overwhelm, but to release. Through this process, many eventually rediscover their inherent wholeness, a newfound peace of mind, and a deep connection to life.
What to Expect at a First-Time Ayahuasca Retreat
If you are considering coming on an ayahuasca retreat at the Temple, it’s essential to know that we do not offer recreational retreats. Our work could be considered more as a boot camp for your soul.
We are a spiritual hospital providing a carefully held, deeply supported immersion into deep healing that unfolds across physical, psychological, emotional, energetic, and spiritual dimensions. A retreat at the Temple also catalyzes a deep, ongoing healing journey that can last for months, even years.
The Setting
Our ayahuasca retreats take place on sacred land near Iquitos, Peru, surrounded by the Amazon Rainforest – the source and birthplace of Ayahuasca. The heart of the experience is the maloka, the traditional circular ceremony house, where Ayahuasca ceremonies are held in the presence of advanced-level Shipibo healers and highly trained facilitators.
The environment itself is also a healer and a teacher – the sounds of the jungle, the energies of nature, the simplicity of life, and the stillness all help you turn inward. It is simply not possible to carry out this depth of work with ayahuasca outside of the Amazon Rainforest.
The Healers
Ceremonies are led by Shipibo Onanyabo (healers) — “those who have wisdom.” Each has apprenticed for decades, often since childhood, working with master plants and undergoing deep and extensive dietas to gain the knowledge, skill, and protection required to heal others.
In Shipibo healing tradition, the brew is not the healer – the icaros are the source of healing. The relationship between each healer and the multitude of plants that they ‘channel’ is what ensures deep and lasting healing, not ayahuasca. The Onanyabo work with a symphony of plant spirits, performing an energetic ‘surgery’ through the icaros.
Their icaros – sacred songs channeled from the plant spirits – are not performances. They are delivery systems for powerful, energetic medicine that guide healing, clear blockages, and restore balance.
The icaros are sung during every ayahuasca ceremony; each one is specific to the unique healing needs of each participant. They are not ‘one size fits all’ but are based on the biography of each participant’s life; your particular trauma, your pain, and whatever has caused you suffering.
The Experience
Throughout the ayahuasca ceremonies, you may encounter visions, memories, sensations, or emotions. Ayahuasca and the icaros bring up to the surface whatever needs attention and awareness – sometimes gently, sometimes intensely, but always with purpose.
Every participant’s journey is unique. For some, it is deeply emotional; for others, quiet and internal. There is no “right” way to experience the medicine.
Deep healing is ultimately an inner journey yet shared collectively in the space of community. When carried out effectively, genuine shamanic healing enables you to reclaim your connection to a deeper truth, the spark of divinity that lies within us all.
The Support – Outer and Inner
Throughout the retreat, you are held by a team of authentic, highly experienced Shipibo healers and extensively trained, deeply caring Western facilitators. The process includes group sharing, guidance, time for fasting, time in silence and introspection (required for true deep healing work), and ongoing care to help you integrate what arises.
When you devote yourself to deep healing, you eventually reestablish right relationship with yourself and others. This profound inner alignment allows you to re-member that you are not separate from, but an inextricable aspect of Nature itself. This felt, lived experience provides the foundation to live a harmonious and inspired life.
How to Prepare for Your First Retreat
Preparation begins long before you drink the medicine. Preparation is a form of ceremony itself – setting intentions and aligning your body, mind, and spirit for the work ahead.
The Dieta
Guests are respectfully required to follow a simple, clean diet and avoid certain foods, substances, and energies. This helps your mind and body become receptive and clears the energetic space for the plants to work.
The Intention
Setting a clear, heartfelt intention is key. What are you seeking to understand or release? What part of you is calling for healing?
Intentions serve as a compass – not to control the experience, but to orient your heart toward openness and trust.
Your Commitment to Your Healing
The most important values you can bring to your healing process are a deep commitment to Trust, Surrender, and Patience before, during, and after the retreat.
Trust the process – This is the most critical value. After facilitating thousands of healing journeys over nearly two decades, we can categorically state that your capacity to trust – in the healing, in the healers, in the medicine, and in the icaros – directly dictates the depth and longevity of the benefits you receive. The more trust you bring, the deeper and longer-lasting your transformation will be.
Surrender – This is an active principle of letting go. It means choosing to let go of the past, the limiting stories, and the pain you have been carrying. It is not an act of defeat, but a conscious decision to stop holding on to that which has caused your suffering, thereby opening yourself fully to healing.
Patience – Understand that true shamanic and spiritual healing is a long-term process. There are no instant miracles, panaceas, or short-cuts to awakening. Deep healing unfolds over time, both during the retreat (where breakthroughs may not manifest until the end of the treatment) and, most importantly, through the crucial integration process that continues for many months after leaving the Temple.
Read Preparing for the Medicine Path: Ayahuasca Preparation With Reverence.
Ayahuasca as Sacred Medicine, Not Entertainment
The Temple is not an ayahuasca tourism or tripping center. We are a healing center dedicated to preserving, practising, and honoring traditional Shipibo curanderismo (plant spirit healing).
Ayahuasca is not meant to be taken lightly, recreationally, or without guidance. Without proper preparation, administration, protection, and integration, people can become overwhelmed or confused by their experiences. Without decades of training and experience guiding the process, ‘taking’ ayahuasca can be risky.
When approached with trust and respect, the process becomes a gateway to profound transformation. What follows is not a promise of a “trip” or an escape, but an introduction to what a true ayahuasca healing journey is.
The Importance of Safe, Ethical Guidance
As interest in ayahuasca grows, so does the number of centers offering it – not all of which operate with integrity. Many are run with limited experience or driven by commercial motives, offering “trips” rather than genuine healing. Some are run with highly questionable intentions.
The Temple’s core values are integrity, respect, and reciprocity. We work only with highly experienced, deeply caring healers and a trauma-informed facilitation team. Ceremonies are held in a protected environment where every aspect – from the brew to the setting – is handled with care.
In parallel with holding ayahuasca retreats, we founded and provide ongoing support to the Chaikuni Institute, our sister non-profit organization, dedicated to environmental regeneration through agroforestry, permaculture, intercultural education initiatives and projects, working with local and indigenous communities since 2012.
The Temple takes a unique, unprecedented, and demonstrable stand within the ayahuasca scene, committing to long-term reciprocity, putting people and purpose before profit.
Entering the Medicine Path
If you are called to your first ayahuasca retreat, come not for visions or adventure, but to receive genuine, deep healing from the real wisdom keepers and healers of the Amazon.
Ayahuasca is not an escape from life; it is a return to it. It helps you meet yourself fully – your light, your shadow, your heart – and remember your innate capacity to heal.
When approached with respect, held in safety and with deep care, this medicine tradition opens the doorway to a life lived with integrity, balance, and love.
We are honored to support this sacred process – not as a destination, but as a journey of remembering who you are. Our ultimate intention is to initiate spiritual awakening.
If you, as a human being, transform yourself, you affect the consciousness of the rest of the world.
– J. Krishnamurti
