14-Day Ayahuasca Retreat: Yoga, Meditation, and Self-Inquiry

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 5 night-time ayahuasca ceremonies.

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.

The Deep Immersion Center

The Deep Immersion retreat is held in its own center on our land, to further focus and contain the work. Accommodations are private rooms with balconies in shared buildings. We employ a compost waste-management system throughout the Temple, and toilets and washrooms are shared. Laundry service is provided and often takes three to four days depending on weather conditions. We provide three simple meals per day on non-ceremony days and two meals on ceremony days (no dinner is served). Our talented cooks adhere to the ayahuasca diet and foods are deliciously simple and fresh. Fruit and teas are available throughout the day.

The nature and nurture of the Amazon Rainforest is a healing experience in itself. We provide a supportive and safe space, with individual attention from highly skilled and experienced healers, facilitators, and teachers. With time, space, and a variety of practices to process the profound work in the ayahuasca ceremonies ‒ set amidst the powerful natural rhythms of the Amazon ‒ guests are given the opportunity to dive deep into their healing journey from many angles and perspectives.

Traditional Plant-Spirit Shamanism:

Jain Póiti (Floral Baths)

A Jain Póiti is a floral bath that forms a vital component of the shamanic healing process through cleansing heavy energies and blockages, clearing negative thoughts and emotions, purifying the mind and body, and promoting transformation through the properties of the specific plants and flowers used in the bath. Quite literally assisting with the “blossoming and flourishing of life”. Traditionally, healers often take floral baths either immediately before or after a ceremony, or simply bath in the river. Floral baths also help to bring down a strong mareacion – the effect of ayahuasca. Floral baths are given at midday on almost every day of the retreat, for all guests.

Vomitivo

Upon arrival, all guests participate in a vomitivo, or stomach cleansing. This involves drinking a strong herba luisa tea followed by water, which induces purging and begins the process of physically and energetically clearing the body in preparation for the first ceremony. This practice gives the medicine more direct access to deeper issues as it is less occupied with the physical cleaning that takes place in the earlier ceremonies.

Individual Consultations and Plant Remedies

Within the first few days of arrival, each guest has an individual consultation with the healers and facilitator. This is an opportunity for the healers and facilitator to get to know you; the challenges that you are facing in your life and the difficulties you have had in the past. Consultations are an important starting point for guests to set intentions and to share them with the healers, as well as begin the process of getting to know the healers and establishing trust.

The consultation will then be expanded on significantly when the healers look into the energetic system of each guest in ceremony. At this stage, the plant spirits will then instruct the healers also on what emotional / energetic aspects need to be cleared and cleansed. Based on the consultation, and the initial ceremonies, the healers may also prescribe plant remedies, which are then taken each day.

A key aspect of our work is bringing the heart and mind back into balance. We offer two varieties of classes to support this process: self-inquiry to cultivate awareness and insight, and meditation to cultivate a practice of present-moment awareness.

Self-Inquiry, Deep Processing, and Integration

This retreat is designed to have many avenues to look into and examine our core wounding and shadow work. The workshops are a space 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 ourselves.

Combining different methods and approaches from Western psychology and Eastern philosophy, Self inquiry is designed to ground and reveal processes throughout the program. Classes consist of varying exercises to explore self through reflection 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.

What is Yoga?

Yoga is a system of harmony and transformation whose ultimate purpose is one of awakening. Received and refined by ancient Indian Rishis (highly advanced yogis) thousands of years ago, we are blessed that these practices live on today. Living in this modern era of media and technology, the vast majority of us have become estranged from our bodies. Yoga is the journey of, once again, taking up residence in our physical form and enlivening our day-to-day experience. Often in the West, we mistakenly view the practice of yoga solely as a means of getting in better shape or of finding inner peace and tranquility. These are certainly wonderful fruits of a regular yoga practice, but this ancient system is a treasure trove whose most precious jewels lay far beyond these initial rewards.

Yoga literally means “to yoke or join”. It is a path of integration, uniting the seemingly opposing layers of our experience: external/internal, activity/receptivity, pleasant/unpleasant. The aim of the practice of yoga is the movement from a state of separation towards that of our inherent connectedness, or from dualism towards non-dualism.

An essential aspect of yoga is non-harm. Therefore, in its true essence, the practice becomes a vehicle for witnessing and softening our animosity towards ourselves. In our practice, we engage in a way that moves us out of our comfort zone within the body and mind, cultivating our capacity for inclusion. The fruition of a committed practice enables one to relax the contraction of struggle with life’s continuous paradoxes. A yoga practitioner is better able to tolerate the extremities of physical, mental, and emotional strife.

Yoga and Ayahuasca

We include yoga in the Deep Immersion program to provide a daily tool to integrate the experiences of healing and transformation that arise when working with the medicine. 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. The practice of being with the full spectrum of our experience is key, both in and out of ceremony.

There are many other benefits to the marriage of plant-spirit medicine and yoga. Breath is a main focus in yoga, and through practice one begins to develop a keen awareness of its flow. This serves as an invaluable tool in ceremony, providing an anchor amidst all variety of experiences. 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.

Styles of Yoga We Offer

Hatha Yoga:  The term hatha refers to the opposing energies of the sun (ha) and moon (tha) and consists of various practices that work to bring these polarized energies into harmony. The practice is a synthesis of asana (postures), pranayama (energetic enhancement through breath), laya (absorption, concentration, and meditation), mantra (chanting), mudra (gestures), and kriya (purification actions). The specific shapes of the asana direct the flow of subtle energy in the body to rebalance and harmonize the functions within the various sheaths of our being. The main characteristics of hatha yoga are the movement between expansive, or heating postures (yang) and contractive, or cooling postures (yin). Pranayama, the practice of regulating the breath, also facilitates redirecting the flow of vital energy and is a fundamental element of the practice.

Yin Yoga:  Yin yoga emerged simply as a balancing counterpart to the more yang-focused hatha yoga that developed in the West. Yin yoga targets the internal tissues of the body; the joints, ligaments, tendons, bones, fascia, and organs. This is achieved through stationary, non-rhythmic postures that are held for longer periods of time, generally three to five minutes. When a posture is held in a passive way for a longer period of time, nourishing chi (vital life-force) travels to the targeted area and flows in the meridians passing through.

There are also varying mental, emotional, and energetic implications of long-held postures. For example, as one holds an asana that stimulates the liver and gallbladder channels, one may meet a deep sense of agitation or frustration, which are the emotional qualities of liver/gallbladder chi. By going inwards with our experience, this manner of practice is remedial of the imbalances of a fast-paced modern life, in which taking the time to pause and simply be with whatever is present in any given moment is often neglected.

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.

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