Deeply relatable and beautifully told. Especially love how you place this moment in a greater context. So often writers tell Pollyanna stories with 'this fixed everything' conclusions, but the truth is crazy complex, rich and winding. Your ending zooms out like the stars ✨
Thanks Kristin, love your observation 💫 I agree, and I've probably made the mistake myself in the past. I do think it helps tremendously to look back at these things with more time... I'm still now, years later, deepening my understanding of what really happened.
I resonate so much with this. aya showed me how deep my eating disorders and body dysmorphia was - did not heal it - but allowed me to see how much I needed to help myself.
I dunno, man. I've done Ayahuasca sessions about 5 times, and what I've definitely learned is that it's an ineffable experience, impossible to describe, especially because no two ceremonies are alike. Dennis McKenna says he's done thousands of sessions and never had them repeat themselves... I did have one ceremony where nothing happened, like you describe, and I also grew bored and frustrated. However, when I "let go" the plant gave me a very personal experience that radically transformed my life. It was unique and won't happen again, which is the beauty and magic of the plant.
I would agree with that... no ceremony has ever been alike 🫠 Although I would say I definitely was able to observe "flavors" of the medicine after a while... eg soft loving divine energy vs ruthless bodily discomfort vs restlessness and so on :) amazing to hear about your breakthrough!
Wow, so powerful! I'm curious why some people require so much medicine. Half a cup nearly disintegrates me. 3 cups would be a one way ticket to the stars lol. Also wonder what determines how much healing the soul needs. Why some people keep doing it for a lifetime while others are done after several ceremonies.
I myself hung up the phone at this point because things got way too scary at some point. I realized I have no idea what I'm dealing with and don't want to put myself into such an open state for strangers to do who knows what to me.
I've thought about it quite a bit. The best I've come up with, which also maps to my observations of being a helper in ceremonies, is that the people who usually need a lot of medicine are those with "very rigid ego structures" and "very closed hearts", aka people who have suppressed quite a bit over the years and are always "in control", struggle to let go, and generally don't feel a ton (as a result). Usually the people that I've seen go deep on very little medicine are either already spiritually open or generally more emotionally connected. I'm curious if that maps to your experience?
I'm was spiritually open but not emotionally connected. The openness itself was more a byproduct of natural curiosity from a young age. If anything low emotionality helped me stay curious enough to be open to the experiences. Then the experiences opened up the emotions a bit for me and showed me how there is a whole world of them out there. But I can't say I became much more emotional, it's like some architecture in me is missing for that to be possible.
Thank you for sharing such a raw and honest account of your journey. Your realization that the medicine doesn't necessarily "erase" a belief but rather reveals the map so you can do the work yourself is a perspective that resonates deeply, though my own path with Grandmother Ayahuasca has been shaped by a very different timeline and relationship.
I began my journey with the medicine when I was just 17 years old. Growing up with it as a constant presence, it eventually became woven into my professional life as well. Because of my work, I began translating for local shamans and bridging the gap for seekers—or "clients"—who came looking for the same miracles you described.
Interestingly, I can relate to that "sober as stone" feeling you had on night three. Despite my proximity to the tradition, it took me ten full ceremonies before I could even feel the medicine running through my veins. It taught me patience long before it taught me anything else.
What I’ve come to learn through years of sitting in that space is that while every ceremony is "alike" in its ritual, they are also deeply distinct. For me, every single ceremony holds four distinct seasons within it—a complete cycle of internal weather that I have to navigate.
The medicine also has a way of playing with time that defies logic. When I was 18, I had a vivid vision during a ceremony of a little girl running through the bushes. Today, I look at my 9-year-old daughter, and I realize I was seeing her nearly a decade before she was a reality in this world.
In my experience, you don't always need "alien surgery" or grand visions to know the medicine is working. Ayahuasca speaks to you through your own feelings. It doesn’t always use a booming voice or flashing lights; often, it communicates by heightening your own emotional frequency until you can no longer ignore the truth of how you feel. It uses your joy, your grief, and even your frustration as a language to show you exactly where you are standing on that map.
Wishing you strength as you continue to walk your path.
Thank you for sharing your story. The medicine doesn’t always resolve the pattern. Sometimes it just makes it visible, and that visibility can feel like a kind of rupture before it ever feels like relief. That moment under the stars, it matters. But so does everything that came after. The relapse doesn’t negate the insight. It just shows that insight and rewiring move at different speeds in the body. There’s something deeply intact about a system that can finally feel what it learned to hide. Not fixed. Not finished. But no longer invisible.
Interesting, and something I keep ‘finding’… wanting to be ‘saved’ by some outside force & being shown that you save yourself…which seems right.
I am dancing with the paradox of how this collective consciousness evolutionary upgrade/awakening is happening soul by soul on the individual, individuated scale. The ‘No Kings’ thing is important dimensionally!
& of course all these deep pain pools cannot be from us alone…they are from the collective unconscious & unhealed intergenerational pain.
Linking us in a shadowy web…until we stop the abuse of our own internal child parts & stop feeding the egregore that we see being enacted all around us for clean up in Isle Materialist Culture…
I see unhealed unconscious intergenerational suffering like a cuckoo bird laying a giant egg in our little nests. We end up carrying for our elder’s inner children as our own are kicked out of the nest.
With absolutely no warning, when you turned and saw the stars, my body burst me into tears. And the artwork felt perfect and beautiful. Thank you . . .
Deeply relatable and beautifully told. Especially love how you place this moment in a greater context. So often writers tell Pollyanna stories with 'this fixed everything' conclusions, but the truth is crazy complex, rich and winding. Your ending zooms out like the stars ✨
Thanks Kristin, love your observation 💫 I agree, and I've probably made the mistake myself in the past. I do think it helps tremendously to look back at these things with more time... I'm still now, years later, deepening my understanding of what really happened.
I resonate so much with this. aya showed me how deep my eating disorders and body dysmorphia was - did not heal it - but allowed me to see how much I needed to help myself.
Molly I feel we are kindred spirits 🫶 and yes!!! it's all about awareness. which is the first seed to inspiring action and change.
I dunno, man. I've done Ayahuasca sessions about 5 times, and what I've definitely learned is that it's an ineffable experience, impossible to describe, especially because no two ceremonies are alike. Dennis McKenna says he's done thousands of sessions and never had them repeat themselves... I did have one ceremony where nothing happened, like you describe, and I also grew bored and frustrated. However, when I "let go" the plant gave me a very personal experience that radically transformed my life. It was unique and won't happen again, which is the beauty and magic of the plant.
Cheers
I would agree with that... no ceremony has ever been alike 🫠 Although I would say I definitely was able to observe "flavors" of the medicine after a while... eg soft loving divine energy vs ruthless bodily discomfort vs restlessness and so on :) amazing to hear about your breakthrough!
Wow, so powerful! I'm curious why some people require so much medicine. Half a cup nearly disintegrates me. 3 cups would be a one way ticket to the stars lol. Also wonder what determines how much healing the soul needs. Why some people keep doing it for a lifetime while others are done after several ceremonies.
I myself hung up the phone at this point because things got way too scary at some point. I realized I have no idea what I'm dealing with and don't want to put myself into such an open state for strangers to do who knows what to me.
I've thought about it quite a bit. The best I've come up with, which also maps to my observations of being a helper in ceremonies, is that the people who usually need a lot of medicine are those with "very rigid ego structures" and "very closed hearts", aka people who have suppressed quite a bit over the years and are always "in control", struggle to let go, and generally don't feel a ton (as a result). Usually the people that I've seen go deep on very little medicine are either already spiritually open or generally more emotionally connected. I'm curious if that maps to your experience?
I'm was spiritually open but not emotionally connected. The openness itself was more a byproduct of natural curiosity from a young age. If anything low emotionality helped me stay curious enough to be open to the experiences. Then the experiences opened up the emotions a bit for me and showed me how there is a whole world of them out there. But I can't say I became much more emotional, it's like some architecture in me is missing for that to be possible.
Thank you for sharing such a raw and honest account of your journey. Your realization that the medicine doesn't necessarily "erase" a belief but rather reveals the map so you can do the work yourself is a perspective that resonates deeply, though my own path with Grandmother Ayahuasca has been shaped by a very different timeline and relationship.
I began my journey with the medicine when I was just 17 years old. Growing up with it as a constant presence, it eventually became woven into my professional life as well. Because of my work, I began translating for local shamans and bridging the gap for seekers—or "clients"—who came looking for the same miracles you described.
Interestingly, I can relate to that "sober as stone" feeling you had on night three. Despite my proximity to the tradition, it took me ten full ceremonies before I could even feel the medicine running through my veins. It taught me patience long before it taught me anything else.
What I’ve come to learn through years of sitting in that space is that while every ceremony is "alike" in its ritual, they are also deeply distinct. For me, every single ceremony holds four distinct seasons within it—a complete cycle of internal weather that I have to navigate.
The medicine also has a way of playing with time that defies logic. When I was 18, I had a vivid vision during a ceremony of a little girl running through the bushes. Today, I look at my 9-year-old daughter, and I realize I was seeing her nearly a decade before she was a reality in this world.
In my experience, you don't always need "alien surgery" or grand visions to know the medicine is working. Ayahuasca speaks to you through your own feelings. It doesn’t always use a booming voice or flashing lights; often, it communicates by heightening your own emotional frequency until you can no longer ignore the truth of how you feel. It uses your joy, your grief, and even your frustration as a language to show you exactly where you are standing on that map.
Wishing you strength as you continue to walk your path.
Alex
◕‿↼
Thank you for sharing your story. The medicine doesn’t always resolve the pattern. Sometimes it just makes it visible, and that visibility can feel like a kind of rupture before it ever feels like relief. That moment under the stars, it matters. But so does everything that came after. The relapse doesn’t negate the insight. It just shows that insight and rewiring move at different speeds in the body. There’s something deeply intact about a system that can finally feel what it learned to hide. Not fixed. Not finished. But no longer invisible.
Interesting, and something I keep ‘finding’… wanting to be ‘saved’ by some outside force & being shown that you save yourself…which seems right.
I am dancing with the paradox of how this collective consciousness evolutionary upgrade/awakening is happening soul by soul on the individual, individuated scale. The ‘No Kings’ thing is important dimensionally!
& of course all these deep pain pools cannot be from us alone…they are from the collective unconscious & unhealed intergenerational pain.
Linking us in a shadowy web…until we stop the abuse of our own internal child parts & stop feeding the egregore that we see being enacted all around us for clean up in Isle Materialist Culture…
I see unhealed unconscious intergenerational suffering like a cuckoo bird laying a giant egg in our little nests. We end up carrying for our elder’s inner children as our own are kicked out of the nest.
What a time to be incarnated!?!?
Such a powerful and relatable recounting and summary of medicine work. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks so much for the sweet words Kristin, glad you enjoyed reading 🙏
Having trouble accessing your books, the program doesn't like any of my email addresses.
Hi Carol! I just DMd you, not sure what the issue is but I can send them to you directly if you wish 😇
With absolutely no warning, when you turned and saw the stars, my body burst me into tears. And the artwork felt perfect and beautiful. Thank you . . .
Dennis, your comment made my day. Thank you so much 🥹
Respect.
Thank you 🙏🙏
Beautiful!
Thank you Tod 🙏🙏