12-Day Ayahuasca Retreat: Alignment Intensive
The Alignment Intensive is a truly groundbreaking program of deep healing, individual transformation, personal mastery, and leadership development – a powerful synthesis of ancient Amazon healing traditions with pioneering ontological inquiry and alignment work.
Matthew Watherston, the founder of the Temple of the Way of Light with over 12 years of experience working in Amazonian healing will be collaborating with Richard Condon, a “Maestro” of ontological inquiry with almost 40 years of experience working with nearly 200,000 people, and a team of six highly experienced Shipibo healers with over 150 years of combined experience working with plant-spirit medicines of the Amazon.
The Alignment Intensive Ayahuasca Retreat is by application only.
Who is This Retreat For?
This unique program has been designed for people who already have or show clear potential to have a widespread and highly positive impact in the world. This by-application only retreat will be carefully curated and is designed for visionaries, entrepreneurs, leaders, and innovators working specifically in the fields of individual & social transformation.
The intention of this retreat is to support participants to significantly elevate their lives, and through self-transformation, impact the lives of their clients, colleagues, families, communities, and the world around them. This retreat is specifically designed to have you be who you came here to be, and give you tools so that you can go back into your life and continue to be that for the world.
What are we healing for? At the end of your life, what do you want to say you lived for?
Alignment Work
This new format and revolutionary retreat combines ayahuasca ceremonies and the sophisticated healing work of our Shipibo maestras and maestros with an ontological inquiry (inquiry into the nature of your being), that helps you to identify your Calling (or Mission) for your life. This process gives you unique and powerful tools for ayahuasca integration and shows you how to recreate and design your life so that it is aligned with your Calling, and how to connect to the wisdom of your soul to guide, inform, and inspire every aspect of your life.
Richard’s Alignment work brings context to the healing work. This work is not easy. This retreat should only be considered by those who are 100% committed to participating in high-level processes, conversations, and ceremonies that will challenge you, push you to uncomfortable places, and ultimately wake you up to who you are.
We can discover this by getting in touch with a fundamental intention for our life, and then by exploring what’s in the way of us living that all of the time. We make no guarantees about what that will look like and we invite you to be willing to explore with us. You will be well-supported throughout the retreat and the ceremonies, and the daytime processes will be guided by highly skilled experts.
The Program
There will be five night-time ayahuasca ceremonies led by a team of six highly skilled Shipibo healers. Shipibo plant-spirit healing is an ancient and sophisticated healthcare system that reaches into the psychological, psychic, emotional, and energetic roots of trauma, blockages, limiting views, and self-defeating patterns. The healers operate in ceremony as a plant-spirit guided medical team, each delivering on their particular skills and specialities, and provide individualized attention throughout the retreat to participants specific to their needs.
This is high-level and rigorous work delivered by true experts in healing, personal, and social transformation. This program is not for beginners or the faint of heart. We make no guarantees about what that will look like – instead, we invite you to be willing to explore with us.
The day-time workshops will build on and compliment the deep healing experiences in ceremony. Through Alignment Work, Richard and Matthew will help you to create your future by learning how your life can be informed and inspired by your “Calling.” This work offers you the possibility of bringing unexpected opportunities and powerful ways of being into your life, your relationships, and your work in the world. These unique practices offer the possibility for radical transformation and will support you to live an authentic, aligned, and extraordinary life.
Where Does this Retreat Come From?
The Temple’s Director of Integration, Dr. Tanya Kammonen, introduced Matthew to Richard in 2017. Matthew attended one of Richard’s Alignment workshops in the USA and was highly impressed by the work. He invited Richard to the Temple in November, 2017. Richard then experienced Shipibo shamanic healing for the first time, and throughout his stay with us, we were all deeply struck at how complementary his ontological methodology is in supporting ayahuasca healing and how it can significantly improve the overall process of integration.
The Shipibo approach to healing and Richard’s ontological and processing methodologies both focus on three core aspects:
- Clearing & cleaning the past
- Aligning our energies
- Opening to our path of service & our mission in the world
This retreat has emerged as a result of this collaboration and is a new and powerful syncretic approach to healing and transformation. This approach to working with and integrating ayahuasca will enable you to learn about the importance of intention and integrity; to align with your Calling, to develop new life architecture to stay connected to the insights, visions, and breakthroughs that are often experienced during ayahuasca healing, and to guide you to create a new environment after you leave the Temple that supports you to live an aligned life.
A New Paradigm in Healing, Integration, and Transformation
After nearly 13 years of working with approximately 10,000 people who have come to the Temple seeking ayahuasca for healing, direction, personal growth, and spiritual development, we’ve seen an incredible number of positive results. And yet, we recognize that for there to be a long-term and tangible impact in our everyday life we need to fully understand how to integrate our experiences with ayahuasca. We see the profound potential that a transformed and awakened individual has to impact their families, clients, colleagues, communities, and beyond. And so, we are committed to constantly developing and bringing together the very best tools and practices to support you not only during retreats, but once you go home.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” – Max Planck
Throughout this workshop, we will be sharing the most powerful tools we know to help you with the integration process. These tools include both past-based and future-oriented inquiry in order to prepare you to freely create (as in, unlimited and unrestricted by the past) a life that is deeply fulfilling, fully expressed, and profoundly meaningful.
We have also observed that no matter how much trauma resolution and energetic healing work we do, if we don’t transform our views of ourselves and the world around us – or in other words, if we continue to live with views and behaviors that are not aligned with our soul’s calling – our symptoms come back. Our lives are, for the most part, unconsciously driven by views we hold about ourselves that are a consequence of difficult and traumatic experiences, predominantly from our childhoods. Our current environment, including our relationships, jobs, living situations – everything – consistently reflect those views.
Integration is living with profound integrity – in thought, speech, and action.
The work of integration is fundamentally about bringing a profound level of integrity into our lives, understanding the importance of honoring the sacredness of our word, and redesigning our lives by transforming our views about ourselves, people, and the world around us.
Richard Condon
Richard Condon is a master of ontological inquiry, who after four decades of pioneering transformational work has developed a new access to living a powerful and fulfilling life – what he calls “living an aligned life.”
Fundamentally, at the core, this revolutionary process creates a context from which to live your life, recognizing that many of us feel instinctively that there is an underlying intention to why we are living. His work makes room for heart and soul, and is the best we’ve ever seen at the future piece of the puzzle.
At its simplest, it is discovering and creating the Fundamental Intention for our life, and then exploring what it takes to live truthfully and powerfully from the declared North Star of our lives. The fundamental principles that he works from are that we can invent, design and fulfill our own authentic and heart-based lives and subsequently then act, in thought speech and action, consistently and coherently with what our lives are about.
Richard’s work uses an ontological inquiry-based method which leads you to your Original Intent or Calling. His methodology is focused on empowering you to discover what is it in your life that is moving, meaningful, and inspiring. Calling work offers a powerful practice and set of tools whilst working with ayahuasca and fundamentally, in supporting integration of ayahuasca healing in your life. By connecting to your experience on retreat and committing to the Calling / Alignment practices, you can design your life to be of service to yourself and others.
Matthew Watherston
Following his first visit to the Amazon and a life-changing shift in his perspectives after experiencing ayahuasca for the first time, Matthew founded the Temple in January 2007. Since then, he has worked passionately to manifest his vision to build a pioneering Amazonian healing center focused on responsibly facilitating indigenous healing for western guests and working in reciprocity with the people of the Amazon and their environment. Over the last 12 years he has developed the Temple to become a flagship model of a plant-medicine based, conscious healthcare business with a strong commitment to social and environmental responsibility in the Amazon and beyond.
Since 2007, Matthew has immersed himself in Traditional Amazonian Medicine and recognizes its significant potential as a spiritual healthcare system that can successfully address many modern issues. He has undergone a deep personal healing journey since arriving in the Amazon, has apprenticed with three traditional healers and is dedicated to ensuring that the ancient medical traditions of the Amazon are deeply honored and respected.
He believes passionately in giving back to the people and the land and has founded two Peruvian non-profit organizations, Alianza Arkana (January 2011) and The Chaikuni Institute (January 2013), implementing outreach programs in environmental justice, human rights, permaculture/regenerative development, and intercultural education. His lifetime goal is for the Temple to become a university hospital taking part in the creation of a new paradigm in healing and consciousness.
Ontological Inquiry and Psycho-spiritual Processing
This work gives you a context for your life, and specifically, a context for working with ayahuasca. This work will be done with the whole group, and together we will inquire into what you are living for, and what’s in the way of you living that.
Cleaning & Clearing the Past: This is the processing piece. Our pasts, until they are properly cleared, are with us in the present. A lot of the work with ayahuasca, particularly in the Shipibo system, involves cleaning and clearing the residual impacts of things that happened to us in childhood. Where necessary, we will inquire into these memories and experiences so that you can reconnect with yourself. The definition of trauma that we work from is that trauma is not what happened, but the disconnect from yourself that happened as a result of whatever incidents happened. Clearing out whatever is in the way will allow you to stay connected to yourself in day to day life, and the inquiry process will give you tools so that you can continue this work when you go home.
Aligning our Energies: This is the life piece. The healers work very hard to align our energies in ceremony, and if we don’t make changes in our life, this alignment will not last. Our conversations on living an aligned life will give you tools to design your life so that you can maintain this alignment, both at the energetic and practical levels.
Opening our Path: This is the calling piece. Where the healers work in the dark, in the ceremonies, aligning our energies at a very deep level, our daytime inquiry will help give you language and tools to connect to our path in life, or, who we really are. Being able to put this into language gives us a place to navigate from.
Shipibo Plant-Spirit Shamanism
The incredible mastery of Shipibo healers brings practices that form a sophisticated system of sacred science – a natural, energetically focused, soul-based, and spirit-assisted healthcare system.
Our team of Onanya have been carefully selected over many years to work on our healing retreats at the Temple. They bring a rich cultural and medicinal legacy, time-honored rituals, intricate practices, an expansive cosmology, an encyclopedic knowledge of medicinal plants of the Amazon and a far-reaching ancestral lineage to the healing process. Coming to an ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon, the birthplace and source of the medicine, being blessed by the energies and plant spirits of the jungle, and guided by the indigenous wisdom keepers of the rainforest, is the most effective and most powerful way to work with ayahuasca.
In the Shipibo tradition, the healing process is focused on cleansing and purifying the energy field that surrounds us – or niwe in their language – which picks up toxic energies from the environment and the traumatic issues of our past. The Shipibo healers’ encyclopedic knowledge of medicinal plants (rao) of the Amazon Rainforest allows them to heal a huge range of psycho-spiritual, emotional, and sometimes physical conditions. They do this through ancient healing practices involving incredibly beautiful ikaros (songs of the plants), plant and flower baths, intense perfumes, and powerful energetic work.
Integration
All of the daytime work we will be doing in this retreat will give you integration tools to re-design the architecture of your life and provide a pathway to create a life filled with inspiration, connection, and purpose after leaving the Temple.
After nearly thirteen years of facilitating ayahuasca healing for nearly 10,000 guests, we have discovered complementary modalities that serve to deepen the medicine experience, help to center one’s mind and move away from the story and pain of our past, awaken to inspired new perspectives and possibilities, and, most importantly, help bring back into our lives what we learn about ourselves when working with ayahuasca. While ceremonies themselves are profoundly healing, for most people, awakening is not a lasting experience, but something we need to work at to stay connected to. This is the process of integration.
Whats Included:
- A high ratio of healers to guests – 5 healers per retreat
- Group size limited to 23 people
- 5 ayahuasca ceremonies over the 12 day retreat
- Intensive focus on alignment, processing, and integration by an experienced team of facilitators
- A cleansing steam bath on the first day of the retreat
- Jain Póiti (flower baths) for cleansing, purifying, and strengthening
- Vomitivos (stomach cleansing) to rid the stomach of some toxins
- All food and drink – a deliciously simple diet suitable for working with medicinal plants & ayahuasca
- Explore the jungle and see medicinal plants in their natural environment
- Group meetings to share and process your experiences
- Accommodation in comfortable tambos spread out throughout the Temple grounds (fully protected with mosquito netting, hammocks for relaxing, and compost toilets)
- Laundry service
- Translation from Shipibo and Spanish into English
- All workshops facilitated in English
- Porters to carry your luggage in and out of the Temple from the pickup location
- All transportation to and from the Temple
What’s not Included:
- Airfares (International and National)
- Airport transportation
- Travel insurance
- Accommodation in Iquitos
- Peruvian Visa costs for non EEC or USA nationals
- Personal expenses (meals and drinks in Iquitos, etc.)
Cost
| USD | $3,500 |
A portion of the income from our ayahuasca retreats funds critical projects on environmental justice, sustainable development, and intercultural education run by our Peruvian NGO, The Chaikuni Institute, partnering with indigenous people in the Amazon.
Important Terms and Advice
- Your payment of $3,500 will be due within 24 hours of approval to the retreat to confirm your space in the program.
- Once a registration is approved, retreat payments are non-refundable.
- For cancelations more than 8 weeks prior to the start of a retreat, you may transfer to a different program or transfer your payment to personal credit to be used for a future program in the next 2 years.
- For cancelations within 8 weeks of the start of a retreat, you may only transfer to a different program or transfer your payment to personal credit to be used for a future program in the next 2 years if we can fill your place in the retreat. We will try our best to do so.
- We strongly recommend purchasing adequate travel insurance for any cancelation due to unforeseen circumstances. Squaremouth is an insurance service we can suggest that can cover not only retreat costs but the possibility to recover airfare costs too.
The Alignment Intensive is different from other retreats at the Temple and is very unique in its approach. The daytime work and group processing in this retreat can be intense and is designed to disrupt ways of being and thinking that hinder living an aligned life. Those who come to this retreat must be open to new possibilities and new dimensions of thinking, and be fully committed to participating in the daytime group sessions.
This retreat is by-application only. We will require you to have already made significant progress on your overall journey of self-development and spiritual awakening and in developing a healthy ego. You should consider this retreat only if you are 100% committed to participating in conversations and ceremonies that will push you to uncomfortable places and if you are fully committed to being open to having unconscious views about yourself and others highlighted in the process. This is powerful and high-level transformational work that offers the opportunity to experience a deeper realization of who you truly are and the unique calling of your soul.
To Apply:
- Please click “Register Now” below and fill in the necessary information on the following pages in order to submit your application. NOTE: All applications must be completed from a computer as we do not have mobile phone capability for our medical forms at this time.
- Once you have completed your application and your medical information has been reviewed by our team, we will email regarding your acceptance into the retreat. We will be approving applications on a case by case basis. Please check your email regularly as we may be in touch with you if we have any questions.
If you have any questions for us, please contact us at [email protected].
NOTE: Please do not book flights or make any travel arrangements until your application and medical information has been reviewed and you have been approved to attend. In consideration of the changing global situation and international travel restrictions, we strongly recommend not making any travel arrangements until close to the start of the retreat and purchasing travel insurance.
If we are forced to cancel any programs as a result of the changing global situation or international travel restrictions, all registration payments will be either transferred to personal credit to be used for a future program at a later date (with no expiration date), or you may move to a different program at that time.
| Dates | Availability | Register |
|---|---|---|
| June 1 - 12, 2021 | Open | Register Now |
