36 hours with Iboga

Eating wood, the 'root of all healing'

“The mind is the only thing worth controlling.”

Ixchel, one of our facilitators at Etéreo Baja, an upscale psychedelic retreat in Mexico, leans forward. Her bare feet poke out of her maxi dress, grounded into the earth. Her energy is calm but fierce.

We are in the middle of ‘fire talk’. 15 of us are circled up—a blend of guests, facilitators, and helpers. We are here to learn about the Bwiti ways of living, the spiritual tradition indigenous to Gabon. And we are here to eat Iboga, the sacred West African plant often dubbed as “the Mount Everest of psychedelics.” In Gabon, Iboga has been declared a national treasure.

Moments later, Paije, who has served medicine for over a decade and found her way to Iboga through grief, looks around the circle: “Are you ready to eat some wood?”

One by one, the two women make the rounds to serve us spoonfuls of ‘wood’—ground-up Iboga root bark that tastes as bitter as you can imagine. It tastes like medicine.

Paije and Ixchel share wisdom from their times in Africa, their initiation rites into the Bwiti—a spiritual community that anyone can be initiated into. Although the details remain a secret. Bwiti is an oral tradition, the only way to know truth—a concept core to its philosophies—is to experience it.

“There is a difference between knowing and believing,” Ixchel reminds us. “When we know, there is no doubt.”

I try to listen, but my focus starts to dwindle. Intrusive thoughts are knocking on the door. You stupid… You stupid little. You stupid little.

“Anyone feeling the medicine?” Paije asks. “How are your minds?”

Within minutes, we’ve transitioned to the ceremony space, where we will spend the rest of the night. Iboga is a long journey: it lasts anywhere from 24-36 hours, during which you mostly lay. Ataxia prevents you from moving around much.

On my mattress, my mind is jumping up and down. You stupid little… You stupid little!

When have I ever spoken to myself like this?, I wonder.

And there the medicine appears, flashing an image of a moth. The way you talk to nature is the way you talk to yourself, it warns me. Just last week I was in my kitchen hunting moths breeding in my pantry, dozens of them. You stupid little fly! I was calling out as I chased them down with a paper towel.

My vision turns pitch black and the ground begins to…rock? The earth below me is rocking back and forth, as if I’m swinging in a hammock. Slow and steady. I feel cradled. It feels nice. I feel safe. My mind is empty. Not a bad beginning to the journey, I think. For perhaps an hour or so, I’m just swinging. Back and forth, back and forth.

I have to write about this peaceful swinging. I feel so safe! The moment I finish my thought, the sensation stops. What was it that I wanted to remember to write about? I blank.

A tiger appears in my vision.

Wow, a tiger! How beautiful. I have to tell Sam about this. But within seconds, the memory of the vision is gone. Wait, what was it that I wanted to tell Sam about?

And so the curriculum of the night begins. It’s an endless loop: I experience something, then my mind goes into the future and thinks about sharing it, only to then bounce back into the past compulsively trying to recall what it is I wanted to share and pouf—the memory is wiped from my consciousness.

Hours and hours of this loop unfold. Until I realize what the medicine is doing: It is teaching me how my mind works. It is teaching me by showing me.

Never staying in the present for longer than an instant because I’m busy looping forward into the future and back into the past. A brief moment of presence, then back to the future, back to the past. Over and over and over again.

It is now my mind that is swinging like a pendulum, but this is anything but peaceful. Frantically bouncing back and forth, avoiding presence at all costs, narrating my experience as I jump back and forth, back and forth.

The Bwiti mouth harp, a beautiful but haunting, singular sound, races through the room, setting the tone for this hectic dance. There is nothing to latch on to, it’s just me, the mouth harp, and the nature of my mad, mad mind.

It’s just the mind, the medicine reminds me, as we move through the night at snail speed, halted by the never-ending loop of present-future-past-present-future-past. It’s just the mind, it’s just the mind, it’s just the mind. These words become my mantra, the mouth harp sings them into my ears every time I realize I’m back in the loop, which always takes a minute.

Then, the medicine reveals its first teaching: When you don’t feel safe in the present moment, your mind finds ways to avoid it.

Why can’t I be present? I ask. It’s one of the 25 questions that I prepared for ceremony, 22 of which will be answered within the next 24 hours.

You stopped being present when your heart first closed, the medicine responds.

When did my heart first close? I am talking to the medicine but the medicine makes it clear that I am Iboga, Iboga is me. So really, I am talking to myself.

When you first felt shame, Iboga responds. Shame is the original separation from the divine.

And when did that happen? I dig deeper. I want to get to the root of this.

Another vision appears. It’s the face of my deceased grandfather.

We had a special bond. When he looked at me, I always felt that he knew something about me that nobody else knew. “Be careful that you don’t grow too lonely,” was one of the last things he said to me before he passed, foreshadowing my 20s.

It is not your shame, the medicine confirms, as it proceeds to show me the events that originally planted toxic shame in my grandfather.

I begin to understand. This is what happens when the present moment isn’t safe—you stop being fully present and instead escape into the past or the future.

The next realization hits me like a rock: if you are never present, there is not enough left of you to make memories of the present moment.

A daunting truth about my grandfather sinks in. A brilliant, brilliant man who left the world too early, because of an illness I am now able to grasp at its roots: Alzheimers.

I am staring my fate in the eyes as tears begin to stream down my face.

Not only do I barely have memories from childhood. My adult memory is also severely impaired—always has been. If you ask me what I did last weekend I’ll likely struggle to give you a quick answer. I’ve learned to cope: My phone is filled with photos that serve as reminders, and my life is meticulously captured in detailed notes and lists.

Shame is not who you are, the medicine continues. You are warm. My body begins to glow up and radiate heat. I muster just enough energy to take my sweater of.

I have to tell Sam about this, I can’t forget! The medicine said… wait, what did the medicine say I was? And I am back in the loop.

It’s just the mind, I remind myself, or maybe the medicine reminds me, at this point there is no seperation between the medicine and me.

After another few hours of loops and visions, I open my eyes. The sun has risen.

A helper walks over and lifts me up. My steps are slow and heavy, as I trek back to my room with a truth in tow more dire than I could have imagined. I fall into my bed in defeat. What have I gotten myself into here. My memory is a ticking bomb.

In my room, another surprise awaits: my period begins.

Within hours, cramps are ripping through my lower belly. I’m always bed ridden on Day 1, a fate Advil has helped me endure. It used to be worse: I used to lose my will to live the days before my period arrived. Until an Ayahuasca ceremony made me aware of a repressed traumatic event in early adulthood that left me with a mountain of shame, and helped me release just enough to regain my livelihood. I can deal with the physical pain, I’ve told myself since.

Two helpers come in to check on me. “Would you like some fruit?” they ask, bowl in hand. I nod as I swallow my moans. They leave the bowl by my bedside. The thought of eating seems impossible.

“My period just started and the cramps are really bad. Can I take Advil? Is it OK to take Advil while on the medicine?” I ask them, praying to the gods for relief.

“Let us check on this for you,” the therapist lets me know. “We’ll be back!”

Alone again, I ignore my bodily signals and reach for the bowl. The moment the watermelon touches my tongue, a brief wave of relief washes over me. This is going better than expected. I work myself through the whole bowl and lay back down.

Time passes and my cramps worsen. Then, the nausea arrives. The fruit comes shooting back up. Immediately I know that I am not purging watermelon, I am purging shame.

I need a change of scenery. I have to go outside. It must be mid-day, which means I have many, many hours left of this.

I slide the glass doors open and slowly walk over to the hammock which overlooks the landscaped garden of our private bungalow.

There, my jaw drops.

There, something awaits me that swoops me right of my feet.

The birds are chirping. Not just a few birds. But dozens. Dozens and dozens. The birds greet me and welcome me into a long-forgotten sanctuary: the present moment.

In the present moment, you are always free, the medicine reminds me.

There it is, for just a split second, the unobstructed present moment. It is perfect. It is flawless. The sky is blue. It is quiet and peaceful, with the exception of the birds. It is nature. It is utterly divine.

My tired body sinks into the hammock, where my mind pulls me back into another loop. And so there, a new dance begins: the dance between the loops of the mind and the perfection of the present moment—the perfect, perfect, lovely present moment.

The medicine shows me visions of future grief and pain. Visions of past grief and pain. Every time I’m looping, I remind myself: In the present moment, I am always free. Over and over, I’m gifted an instant of complete and utter freedom—without the suffering of the endlessly nagging mind. A brief moment in which the lenses of my consciousness are wiped clean and I can see the present moment as it is: perfect.

In the present moment, all emotions are beautiful, the medicine teaches me. All suffering comes from experiencing emotions through the mind, not through the body. In the present, it is all beautiful. All you have to do to remain present is to stay at the level of sensation.

And so I feel the grief, and it is quite beautiful.

I’m still cramping. It feels like someone is in there scratching the walls of my womb with a knife. With relief, I see Ixchel and the therapist approach through the garden. My prayers have been answered! They are here to bring me Advil!

They stop at a few feet distance. “As women, we empathize very much with you. We really do. But unfortunately we cannot give you pain killers.”

I let out a sob. My eyes search for Ixchel’s. She’s warm but direct, just like the medicine. But in her glazed eyes, I catch a wave of true compassion. “We are sorry. But the Bwiti demand strength.”

I collapse at the news, which I later learn are informed by the fact that Advil and Iboga are contra-indicated. But I don’t know that in the moment. In the moment I know only one thing: The Bwiti demand strength, and so I must find it.

“With regards to your pain, whenever you are ready, this is something you can ask the medicine for help with.” Ixchel’s words leave me in both hope and fear.

After another hour or so of sobbing and cramping and looping in the hammock, the helpers are back with soup. It must be late afternoon. I haven’t moved once, but the medicine is still pulsing through my body and mind, there is no end in sight. Once again, despite my conviction that I couldn’t possibly eat a single bite, I finish the entire soup. Within thirty minutes, another purge erupts as I can feel the medicine pulling shame out of my uterus—and also, this time, rage.

Until it’s all gone.

A vision of two hands emitting glowing white light appears. I lift my hands, which begin to radiate light. I can feel and see it. Guide them to your womb, the medicine nudges me.

And so my hands hover over my lower belly and radiate warmth as we begin to fill my womb with all the good stuff: We put in gratitude, strength, compassion, love, and light. Lots and lots of love and light.

Once done, my hands land softly on my belly and another vision appears: First I’m pregnant, and then there are kids running around me. My kids.

I know the kids are healthy, I know I am healthy.

I just know.

There is no doubt.

The cycle has ended.

The hammock is slowly morphing from a place of suffering to a place of freedom.

Whenever I open my eyes or ears, the present moment greets me with unbelievable beauty. This is how Eckhart Tolle must have experienced it, I remember thinking. This is the power of now, it’s all here, all we could ever possibly need is right here, right in front of us!

I close my eyes again, and the medicine shows me a vision of squares and squares stacked on top of each other. I understand that the squares are memories, created by the mind. I understand that time is created through the perception of the mind, and that time is an illusion: the future only ever occurs in the mind, the past only ever occurs in the mind, hence all that’s real is the present.

I experience the present in its true nature, as revealed to me by Bufo years earlier: Beauty is the essence of the universe, and the experience of beauty is love. Presence is the experience of nature’s beauty. Hence, presence is love.

And that is how only love is real.

The highest spiritual truth is the gift of life, the medicine tells me. The Bwiti have only one prayer, I learned during fire talk: Thank you for this day.

And so, gratitude washes over me as it fills every inch of my body with brilliant white light. At last, I find gratitude—real gratitude—for all the struggle. Struggle which has granted me this miracle of a life, which I now understand is a free life, thanks to the experience the medicine gifted me: feeling safe and free in the now.

Just being is the gift, I understand. The beauty of the present moment and experiencing it with loving awareness through our senses—that is the meaning of life.

I get up, still wobbly on my feet, and go back inside. A huge fly is buzzing around the room, hitting against the walls. She’s clearly lost. I get a cup from the kitchen and a piece of paper. The moment she rests on the couch, I seize my chance and capture her. Let’s get you back outside, where you belong! I whisper as I escort her out and set her free on a patch of grass.

Journal in tow, I review my 25 questions, most of which have been answered. The sun sets as we go through my remaining questions, one by one. I don’t sleep. Up until the early morning, simple but deep realizations land in my mind, which, at last, is clear.

Now you get to be the sunshine you were always meant to be, the medicine tells me.

“Thank you for this day.” — Bwiti prayer

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