23-Day Ayahuasca Retreat: Integration Intensive and Plant Dieta

Working with Plant Medicine in the Shipibo Tradition

The work of the healers is profound. In ceremony and dieta, they work with healing technologies that have been passed down through generations, and have studied for decades to be able to offer the level and depth of healing that they provide. We deeply honor and respect indigenous healing traditions of the Amazon that have evolved over thousands of years and offer the most effective ayahuasca healing experience. Our team of healers at the Temple has been carefully selected over many years. We work with some of the most respected, kind-hearted, and powerful healers from the Shipibo tribe, who are experts in ayahuasca healing and plant spirit shamanism in the Amazon. For this retreat, you will have a team of one female Shipibo maestra and one male Shipibo maestro working to support your healing process over 7 night-time ayahuasca ceremonies and during the 9-day plant dieta.

In the Shipibo tradition, the healing process is very much focused on cleansing and purifying the energy field which surrounds us, niwe in their language, which can pick up toxic energies from our environment and traumatic issues of our past. Their 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. The healers see ayahuasca as a nexus to the plant spirit worlds, and is not the only plant spirit they work with. The key to the depth and efficacy of this ancient healing system is by calling in and working with a plethora of other plant spirits in each ceremony that work alongside ayahuasca to affect deep healing. They do this through ancient healing practices involving incredibly beautiful ikaros (songs of the plants), tobacco, perfumes, individually prescribed plant remedies, plant baths, and powerful energetic work.

Days 1-13 of the program will focus on integration, with a variety of integration sessions during the day.

Self-Inquiry and Deep Processing

This retreat is specifically designed to have many avenues to look into and examine our core wounding and shadow work. The space is designed to help us realize that the ceremony is not simply what happens at night with the medicine but that life is giving us constant clues to examine our patterning and the less conscious parts of oneself.

Combining different methods and approaches from Western psychology and Eastern philosophy, Self Inquiries are designed to ground and reveal processes throughout the first 13 days of the program. Classes consist of varying exercises to explore self through refection on childhood myth, triggers and projections, understanding and unraveling through dyad practices, deep-ecology sessions and archetypal exploration. These classes can serve as integration pillars throughout the experience.

The exercises are carried out in groups, as the relational component makes them particularly potent. During the sessions, people often realize that our core wounds as humans are often very similar although our stories are different. We discover that we can serve as mirrors and teachers for one another in the process of exploring and expressing hidden aspects of ourselves.

We discover the unconscious constructs we hold and shine awareness on our core wounding, which is often self-perpetuated by our lack of awareness of their depths and origins. By learning and beginning to make these wounds and shadow elements more conscious we can learn to work and integrate these energies into our everyday lives. In combination with the psychosomatic openings ayahuasca can catalyze, these sessions are particularly useful in cultivating intentions for ceremony and for weaving the threads of what is learned in ceremony space into the journey of everyday life.

Integrative Practices

In addition to deep processing and self inquiry, 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 what we learn back into our lives.

Daytime integrative practice sessions focus on how to effectively process the insights, breakthroughs, and transformational experiences that arise when working with ayahuasca and plant medicine. You will be guided on how to successfully integrate your healing, both during and after the retreat, and will be equipped with tools to cultivate and sustain positive change over the long term. A comprehensive program of classes help you learn how to create, sustain, and cultivate positive change in your daily life. The specific type of sessions offered during each retreat vary, but self inquiry, Yoga, meditation, and expressive practices (such as movement, singing, or creative expression) are always offered.

Yoga: While the plants have the ability to illuminate the possibilities of our highest potential, yoga provides a practical application for fostering these new potentials within our day-to-day lives. With regular practice, our familiarity with the edges of our limitations and discomforts physically, emotionally, and mentally, broadens.Being with our breath serves as an invaluable tool in ceremony, providing an anchor amidst all variety of experiences. The practice of being with the full spectrum of our experience is key, both in and out of ceremony. As the healers mend and reweave the tapestry of our energy body with their ikaros, yoga practice harmonizes and balances the flow of energy in the body.

Meditation: Mindfulness meditation is the practice of learning to live in the present moment. It can also be translated as “awareness,” or a mental quality that is cultivated and learned through practice. Mindfulness helps us to know and understand our mind, body, and spirit on a direct and immediate level. By observing ourselves, we can change painful patterns and mental habits instead of being lost in the same stories and thoughts again and again. During meditation sessions, we practice being in the present moment, noticing when we are lost in the past or the future, and then bringing attention back to the present. Over time, we learn to live in the present moment and begin to experience the great peace that was there all along.

Expressive Practices: Movement therapy embraces the idea of conscious movement being a language of the soul. We create a quiet and reflective internal state, let go of self-judgment, and set the intention of being totally present in each moment. From this space, we integrate insights and healing into the body and a playful way to get to know ourselves on a deeper level. Creative expression practices can help to shine light onto the unconscious aspects of ourselves. We can explore and develop our creativity without judgment and bypass the mind to access and integrate our deeper experiences. As we work with the medicine and unconscious content emerges, creative expression can bring transformation to these unconscious aspects.

Pre-retreat Preparation

Preparation for an ayahuasca retreat includes work on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. In the weeks prior to coming to the Temple, you will be instructed to follow strict dietary guidelines that will allow the medicine to work in the deepest way possible. Meditation, mindfulness, and connecting with nature are strongly encouraged to help prepare the body and the mind for ceremony.

Another part of preparation is developing an intention to come into ceremony with. Before you arrive, hone your intention; this can provide anchoring during the ceremony and can be helpful for interpreting the teachings afterward.

It is also highly recommended, especially for first-time drinkers, that a single one-hour preparation session be done by Skype. This can help alleviate anxieties about the medicine, answer questions, get clear about guidelines, and allow you to connect with your own reasons for coming to the Temple. Book a session with us here.

Post-retreat Integration

This retreat has a particular focus on deep-processing of shadow material that arises during ayahuasca healing, releasing emotional blockages, resolving past traumas, and identifying and dismantling false core beliefs that negatively drive your view of yourself and the world around you. The group work will equip you with tools and a framework for inquiry into the self, increasing your understanding of your ceremony experiences and setting the stage for powerful integration once you go back into your life.

Going back into life after a retreat can be challenging. The process work is designed to send you back into your life with tools to take on some of the challenges you will inevitably face. In some ways, integration is an intuitive process: much like a wound healing after a surgery, the mind and body naturally repair themselves and “digest” the teachings of the medicine. After retreat, you can assist this process by treating yourself with care and gentleness, and by continuing to incorporate mindfulness and the practices you have learned, time in nature, and other healthful behaviors into your life.

The 8 days following the Integration Intensive portion of the program will be an introductory plant dieta, in addition to the ayahuasca ceremonies.

The Dieta Process

The dieta is a millenarian technique which consists of retreating into the rainforest and ingesting a master plant given by a shaman. A dieta can be for one week, or months, or even years, depending on the case. The dieta in this retreat will take place in the 8 days following the Integration Intensive portion of the program (days 14-21). The diets given in this program are intended to be gentler, introductory dietas, and it is not necessary to have any plant medicine experience to participate in this program.

Silence and introspection is observed during the dieta, and dieteros do not initiate interactions with fellow guests. During this time, you are encouraged to be in isolation as much as possible. Your facilitators and teachers will be available if needed, and they will also minimize interaction with dieteros in order to respect the sensitive diet space. The daytime integration sessions and group meetings will not be held so that each dietero maintains their own silent, reflective space, minimizing interaction and input from others. Pre-ceremony yoga will still be held for those who would like to join.

During the dieta, it is very important to be in isolation from any personal relationships, but not of sensory stimuli, since one is in the jungle, in contact with the song of the birds, the vegetation, the sound of the river, and the ambient sounds of those working or residing nearby. The social isolation and the restricted diet stimulate the oneiric state and enhance dream production.

Plant dietas are given to dieteros on a case by case basis. During the first portion of the retreat, the healers will diagnose which specific plant will suit each individual dietero. Some of the plants you may be given to diet are listed below. You will have one additional vomitivo before you open your dieta with pinon colorado. The maestro or maestra working with you will come to your tambo in the afternoon to give you your plant.

Post Dieta Restrictions

In addition to our standard post-retreat diet restrictions, all dieteros will be restricted from sexual activity of any kind for 1 month and from eating pork for 1.5 months following the close of their dieta. These two restrictions are critical to maintaining the integrity of the dieta and healing at a deeper level. Further post-dieta restrictions may be given at the end of the dieta subject to the individual’s healing needs.

Dieta Plants

Properly ingested, certain plants generate knowledge about their healing properties through dreams, visions, perceptions, and intuitions. They may also give us an introspective view of ourselves and of life in general.

Each plant has a different energy, whether to heal, to teach, to reassure, or to help neutralize negative influences in the person. Teacher plants guide us to a beautiful dimension for learning more about ourselves, and can even teach various arts and skills that can be offered to others who are suffering, too. We work with many different plants that are useful in the recovery from physical, mental, and energetic afflictions, amongst others.

Piñon Colorado (jatropha gossypifolia)

Credit: J.M.Garg / CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0

Traditional Uses: Piñon Colorado is a small shrub with webbed leaves that are dark reddish in color. It is a medicinal plant used to cure many different diseases. It grows easily by natural regeneration as a cultivar.

In the mental aspect, it brings tranquility and a peace of mind. In the emotional aspect, it accelerates healing and relieves emotional pain by providing peace and relaxation. In the spiritual aspect, Piñon Colorado is a relatively easy plant to diet as it is not very demanding. The spirit of the plant is manageable, docile, and with wonderful powers.

Piñon Colorado is a medicinal plant used to cure many different diseases, and grows easily through natural regeneration. A small shrub with dark reddish webbed leaves, which are used, along with the resin, in plasters to diseased areas of the body to heal physical conditions. It is also used to purify the body of negative and unwanted energies, often administered as a powerful ingredient in cleansing baths. It also helps to accelerate healing, while relieving physical and emotional pain by offering tranquility and rest.

Marosa (pfaffia iresinoides)

Credit: CostaPPPR / CC BY-SA 3.0

Traditional Uses: Marosa is a small herbaceous stem plant, with flowers. In the Shipibo culture, Marosa is considered “Onanyati rao,” or (roughly translated) a “plant to become a healer.” In traditional Shipibo medicine it is used to cleanse the astral body and develop premonition powers.

Marosa is prepared fresh in macerated baths, to be taken at night before going to bed. The diet and the number of baths depends of the teacher’s indication. During the dieta, the spirit of the plant presents itself and asks the purpose or the intentions that one has for working with “his” plant. As you progress, one is shown it’s magical world in dreams, it’s power, it’s medicine, and the art of healing.

The “learning” diet with Marosa is very powerful. It opens us to the powers of infinite dimensions, and teaches icaros with beautiful melodies so the healing can become more effective. Marosa is a world of pure medicine, with strength, power, and beautiful chants. The Shipibo consider this plant a “jealous” one, meaning that it is demanding in the diet that it requires. The diet must be fulfilled at exactly as prescribed by the shaman. If one is committed, its powers and benefits are incredible.

Guayusa (ilex guayusa)

Credit: wayusaschool.com

Traditional Uses: Guayusa is an emblematic dreaming tea and revered by many communities in the Amazon, often prepared over a fire and consumed before sunrise to connect with one’s ancestors. Some believe that this medicinal plant can help them achieve clarity to interpret their dreams in order to protect their community and sacred lands.

Primarily utilized for spiritual awareness in the dream state and for protection from animals and/or adverse energies, guayusa possesses a plethora of physically and spiritually healing properties. It cleanses the urinary tract and acts as a diuretic, as well as improves digestion and elimination, which assists in alleviating illnesses such as gastritis and balancing the body’s pH and blood sugar levels. The leaves are also abundant in antioxidants and phytonutrients, contain many amino acids, and are rich in trace minerals.

Reference

Cost

IMPORTANT APPLICATION INFO:

**All registrations must be made from a computer – we do not have mobile capability for our medical questionnaires at this time.

Please choose your preferred date below and fill in the necessary information on the following pages in order to complete your application. Once you have submitted the application and we have received your payment and medical information, we will let you know if your application has been approved within about a week. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].

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.

PDF Downloads

Preparation for a Workshop

Travel Information

Medical Contraindications with Ayahuasca

Our Terms and Conditions

Our Privacy Policy