Strapped to a bed, her consciousness fragmented across the galaxy. What 'healing' can actually look like.
Ayahuasca was until very recently a secret shrouded in mystery. Now almost everyone's heard of the magical jungle vine that supposedly cures all ills. Social media is awash with personal accounts of basketball stars, tech entrepreneurs and ex-addicts flying to the Amazon for a retreat and coming out saying how it's changed their life. And in spiritual communities sprinkled across South America, as well as in tucked away pockets of Europe away from prying eyes, the same crowd that ten years ago was still going to Burning Man are gathering in ceremony on a Saturday night to blast off into space in the name of 'healing'.
I've heard friends who've lived in the Amazonian area for many years — Gringos, but very much in the plant medicine space — say to me 'Ayahuasca doesn't actually heal you.' Their perspective is this. Contrary to the usual story we're told, traditionally it actually wasn't used as much for healing as it was used for hunting. The Tukano and other groups used Ayahuasca in intimate ceremonies to locate animals, plan hunting tactics and sharpen skills, and warriors would drink it after returning from a hunt to mitigate aggression and reintegrate into the community. They've also seen plenty of Westerners come, stay for a while, and leave just as messed up or worse than when they came in. That's its own form of evidence.
My own search on the hunting thing revealed it was a secondary use, not a primary one, but their local understanding still holds some merit. Divination, spiritual warfare, initiation rites, and community decision-making were also central uses. When it was used for healing, shamans consumed it to identify the origin of illness, perform spiritual extraction, restore soul loss, and prescribe plant remedies. The patient didn't drink. That's only a very new thing.
Of course, just because something has a traditional use doesn't mean it doesn't have other beneficial uses as well. The context we're operating in is very different. Most of us don't live in the jungle. And the ailments we suffer from are different. Fewer snake bites, more complex trauma and alienation as a result of our disconnection from nature. The vine, as well as other plant medicines, give us access to the natural world once again, healing us to remember a way of living and being long forgotten by much of our civilisation.
I disagree with my friends. I think she does heal you, but I know what they're saying because it depends on how you work with it and what you mean by 'heal.' Those people who drink three cups and who genuinely do transform themselves and their lives in such a dramatic way are probably rarer than they seem. The reality is often — go back to your life, and that's where the real work begins. Are you going to make different decisions and act on what you've been shown, or are you going to go back to what you've always done? And that dramatic shift you've made — is it really a sign of healing or are you just replacing one form of addiction for another, dressed in more incense-scented robes?
From what I experienced, Ayahuasca's working from a perspective so far beyond this single lifetime that the 'healing' may not be visible for a long time. It may take years, lifetimes even, to trickle down into your daily experience. The medicine will certainly heal things like removing curses and negative entities, dissolving blockages that result in illness and negative thought patterns — she can do all kinds of things. Especially in conjunction with a good shaman. And especially working in partnership with a plant or tree on a 'dieta' or a deity. And the mirror it holds is often healing in and of itself. Awareness starts to change things. Feeling the thing when it's ready to be felt releases it. Even those people who return to Silicon Valley with their ponchos, a 'changed man' will for sure have had a genuine and powerful healing experience on some level.
But what that healing looks like in real life is not 'just solving all your problems.' It's a door quietly opening somewhere, inviting you to walk through. It's a habit you return to not quite as strongly and that's easier to break. It's feeling more energised and positive in a way you can't explain. Frankly, it's also quite possibly turning into more of an asshole for a while, losing your sanity and ending up in a psych ward, or finding yourself in a destructive relationship that does real, irreparable damage to your mental health.
So the opposite is also true: the healing can hit you out of nowhere like a car crash. I've been in the hospital watching over a friend strapped to the bed after a psychotic break following a series of badly held Ayahuasca ceremonies, her consciousness fragmented across the galaxy. People underestimate how this medicine will operate. If it's there, she might well excavate it, and whether you sink or swim is not a guaranteed thing. Perhaps the 'healing' is to go through certain traumas in this life so in the next life you break the pattern for good. Hopefully that's not necessary, but who's to say?
To a whole generation of people with highly overloaded nervous systems living in supercharged cities, it might not be the most conducive thing. It's one thing to slip off for a weekend retreat in the countryside to sing some icaros with your friends. It's quite another to return to work on Monday morning and be having to clear up the emotional impact during your lunchbreak. I don't know how people do that, frankly.
So working with Ayahuasca has a lot of benefits but it's high stakes. Ultimately, I've spent enough time in ceremonies with her and been through enough of a process of my own to fully trust the mind-blowing intelligence with which she operates, but also to trust my own intuition around how much I personally feel I'm able to take on at any time. When she calls you, she calls you. You can still decide the if, when, and how around your response.
