An ayahuasca retreat at the Temple is an intense process that offers an opportunity to experience profound healing from the true experts on inner wounding.
The Shipibo’s perspectives on optimal health are radically different; they employ a process that is far beyond the understanding of modern healthcare and sits outside of the widespread materialistic experience of reality. This form of healing is a causal approach that challenges the underlying assumptions of the modern biomedical paradigm and addresses the energetic sources of disorder and disease.
The key to the success of the healing carried out by the Shipibo Onanyabo lies in their ability to access and work in the non-physical, non-local realms of being. They are literally able to see and feel your inner world; your past, your pain, and to some extent, your default future.
Through clearing the pains of the past and bringing energetic alignment to your body, mind, and soul, this transformational process initiates or further deepens, a long-term journey of profound self-reflection, self-discovery, and spiritual awakening.
Shipibo Plant-Spirit Curanderismo
The healing traditions of the Shipibo work with ayahuasca as a nexus to many other plant medicines that operate together in synergy and symbiosis, to provide a “harmony of healing.”
To play a symphony, an orchestra is required; one instrument alone can’t create a symphony. This level of healing creates lasting results that are not attainable by working with psychedelics alone.
To become an Onanya, an apprentice must carry out long and arduous training, a process called sama (master plant dietas). The sama build the connection and relationship with the many plant and tree spirits of the Amazon and their spiritual communities. With sufficient training, these ‘doctor’ spirits eventually work through the healers to carry out the healing.
As much as our soils, forests, and oceans need diversity to thrive, natural healing systems that work within and honor the diversity of nature are able to provide full-spectrum healing.
Each plant or tree typically has different healing qualities and teachings. It is the diversity that provides the depth and breadth of authentic Amazonian healing.
Over many years of sama, the plant spirits teach the apprentice how to navigate the inner worlds, how to heal, and how to become a conduit for the energetic medicines of the plants to be transmitted to the patient.
Becoming a high-level healer, who is genuinely in deep relationship with and channeling plant spirits, typically takes at least ten years, although the learning process never stops. True healers continue to train all their lives.
The source of the healing in Shipibo curanderismo are the ikaros – the healing songs / energetic transmissions of the plants.
Dietas enable the Onanyabo to access spiritual dimensions while in an expanded state of consciousness with ayahuasca, where they can then heal a huge range of psycho-spiritual, emotional, and physical conditions.
They call in plant-spirit doctors to carry out energetic surgeries. It is the plant-spirit allies/doctors who disconnect, extract, clear, cleanse, and purify heavy energies from the system of the patient.
They identify the source of turmoil, disorder, and disease as stemming from heavy energies (mahua niwe) that are trapped due to personal and ancestral traumas or toxic energies picked up in our environments.
Working beyond a Newtonian understanding of reality, it could be said that their healing work is sourced from the quantum realms – a regenerative, energetically focused, soul-based, and highly sophisticated, spirit-assisted healthcare system.
Healing Stages of an Ayahuasca Retreat at the Temple
The majority of our healing work is carried out through the ikaros that are sung to each participant, by each healer, in each ayahuasca ceremony, complimented by plant and vapor baths, and plant remedies during the daytime throughout the Ayahuasca retreat.
All of the following healing stages are part of a spiritual surgical process that is carried out with deep intention and precision, unfolding over an arc of six ceremonies:
- The initial healing process is focused on cleansing heavy, negative energies and clearing fear-based thought patterns. This process usually spans three to four ceremonies.
- The healers then realign your energetic architecture (body, heart and mind), reintegrate your soul, and reconnect you with the natural world.
- Then towards the end of the Ayahuasca retreat, they sing specific ikaros to sow seeds of positivity that will grow throughout your life, to protect the healing work, and to illuminate your path forward.
We are committed to providing genuine, deep, and lasting healing. We could not fulfill this commitment in any less than 6 ayahuasca ceremonies led by the Onanyabo over 12 days.
Experienced Facilitation
Our experienced facilitators carry out an important role as bridges and translators between our healers and guests.
We hold space, listen, guide, and inspire guests throughout the program. We help you to understand how to work with ayahuasca and all that this entails; how to process difficult emotions, handle projections and triggers, actively surrender, manage expectations, face challenges, overcome fears, embody teachings from the plants, incorporate visionary experiences, and make the journey from the head to the heart.
Our facilitators have many years of personal experience with ayahuasca, are all deeply committed to the process of sama (long-term healing and training with the plants) and “walk their talk.”
Through having faced and integrated much of their own pain and challenges and transitioned from self to service, they can share from a place of personal experience and guide others through the same process.
During the retreat, you will receive a substantial amount of integration support to help you process your healing experience after each ceremony. We also offer guidance on how to sustain and cultivate any breakthroughs and insights you receive during your ayahuasca retreat, and how to ground transformative healing experiences into your day-to-day life.
We ensure that every person who comes to the Temple receives individual attention and is held in a compassionate and caring environment throughout their healing process.
The Journey Back to Wholeness
An ayahuasca retreat at the Temple initiates a long process of deep healing, self-exploration, and spiritual awakening.
Our retreats offer a significant intervention to address chronic emotional pain and psycho-spiritual issues that accumulate in modern life, and a profound catalyst that accelerates our overall journey back to wholeness. Our ayahuasca retreats result in substantial and lasting change for most who attend our programs.
Healing with ayahuasca works in cycles. For most people, one workshop will bring your life back into significant alignment and will open up a path of ongoing self-discovery without further treatment being necessary.
We also see some guests returning to continue their healing work with the plants and with ayahuasca after their first retreat. We advise, in most cases, that it is important not to return for another program before having spent at least six months to one year after an ayahuasca retreat focused on integration, to allow time for the work with the medicine to continue to expand and unfold.
It is important to know that ayahuasca is not a panacea. We can never offer any guarantees regarding healing. The key to successful healing in most cases is the combination of a quality ayahuasca brew, highly skilled, and well-intentioned healers acting as conduits to a large team of plant spirits, experienced and caring facilitators, and a safe and compassionate environment.
Of equal importance is your own approach to healing – coming with clear intentions, a strong and long-term commitment to your process, trusting the healers, and having the courage to face your shadow will significantly deepen your healing and transformation.
Focus on Integration
The healing you will receive will cleanse dense energies that have accumulated in your system as well as bring up many aspects of your past that have been buried in your subconscious.
It is important to understand that this process not only takes place during the ceremonies but also normally for days, weeks, and months after an ayahuasca retreat. Ayahuasca and the plant spirits will continue to work with you after you leave the Temple, and the more self-reflection, courage, responsibility, and awareness you bring to your process during this crucial phase, the more benefits you will gain.
Over time, the process increases your awareness of self-constructed boundaries and self-defence mechanisms, and highlights and supports you to release fear-filled and self-limiting beliefs.
Plant-spirit shamanism initiates a long-term healing journey that supports overall liberation from the hypnosis of conditioning – shining a light onto your shadow and helping you to become aware of your patterns, intimate with your fears, and consciously parent yourself back to wholeness.
