The Power of Plant Medicine: Healing, Awakening & Spiritual Insights

Kate (00:00)

Welcome back to the Awakening Conversations podcast. My name is Kate. I’m here with my co host Amanda. And today we’ll be talking to Amanda about her journey with plant medicine, which has been a big part of her awakening journey. So Amanda, excited to chat to you about this today. I have not had an opportunity to experience plant medicine, so I have lots of questions and am really curious about it. So appreciate you sharing your experiences.

Amanda (00:27)

Yeah, I’m happy to talk about it. It’s something that has been a big part of my journey. It’s not something that I’m always thinking about or talking to people about. So it’ll be fun to explore each of these, go back to each of these experiences and see what wants to come through.

Kate (00:45)

Yeah, amazing. So to begin then, through our conversations, I’ve heard you mentioned various different things and names, some of which I’m like, what on earth is that? Can you begin by just sharing with us, what are the plant medicines that you have used and had experiences with? And then what each one of those is known for or why you work with that particular plant medicine?

Amanda (01:10)

Sure. First, I’ll go through the ones that I’ve worked with, and then I will go back and talk about each of them and give you a little bit more information.

So I naively found my way for my first plant medicine experience, not actually a plant, it is a psychedelic, I’ll say, and it’s called bufo alvarious. That was my first experience. Then I worked with ayahuasca over the course of seven months. I did 11 ceremonies of Ayahuasca. And then I’ve worked with mushrooms on various occasion. And I’ve had a, one ceremony with Peyote, that was here in Mexico. And then something that I’ve worked with, at various times in my life that I would want to include in this list is cannabis. I’ve had healing and insight come through this medicine and I’ll speak to more about why I think this should be included. And then another group of plant medicines that I’ve worked with that wouldn’t necessarily be psychedelic in nature, but they are plant medicines would be Rapé, also known as Hape.

Amanda (02:24)

And I’ll speak more about, to what that is after, well, that’s the end of the list. So I’ll go back and I will speak to bufo. So with bufo, this is a resin that you smoke. It comes from the Sonoran Desert frog. It comes from this like secretion that they collect from this frog. And you smoke the resin and it takes you, they say, to like the 12th dimension, which is why it’s a bit crazy that I did this the first time. It was, I think if I would have known, I probably would have chosen something else the first time, but you know, I trust that it happened the way it was supposed to happen because it was a very powerful experience for me. It activated a lot within me. We’regonna come back to the lessons from each one.

But this one, it’s like it takes you on a rocket ship. It’s very quick, you’re not seeing a lot of, there’s not a lot of visuals to this one. This one is the main molecule is NNDMT, which is, no, no, sorry, 5 -MEO -DMT is this one. There’s another version of DMT, which is in Ayahuasca.

So my experience with this. I was in a container led by a healer and you’re basically lying on the earth. You smoke, you ingest this medicine and then you lay back and it’s like one person did the medicine at a time because it was such a short experience. So it’s like, you go far, you go fast, and then you come back to earth. I had the opportunity to actually witness a lot of people experience this medicine. And there were people that fought it because my lesson, I’ll just say, is to learn to surrender. And if you don’t surrender and you fight it, that’s when it’s hard.

Amanda (04:39)

It can help you release a lot of stored trauma in the body in a short amount of time. And because it’s so intense, I feel it can be hard, I think, when you come back to this reality to kind of, and for me, especially being that that’s the first time I went anywhere like this, it felt very hard to come back to this reality, experiencing what I had experienced. So yeah, I would not recommend this for your first time. I recommend having a support system, you know, integration in place, having a practice where meditation, being in touch with your body and various, you know, have a yoga practice, in order to handle the intense energies that come through this medicine. And also making sure you’re doing this medicine, with all these medicines you want to do it, set and setting is a very important part of working with these medicines. It’s almost like we need to respect these medicines and what they can do for us and doing them in an unsafe environment or with people that do not have the best intentions for us. We’re opening ourselves up to a lot of potential, I’ll just say dark energies for lack of a better explanation. And so the set and the setting for all of these is gonna be really important. 

So next is Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is probably if you think of Ayahuasca, you think of purging and most people think of vomiting as going along with Ayahuasca. And you know, Ayahuasca comes from the Amazon. It comes from these two plants that when combined, which is amazing to me that they figured out that you could combine these two plants to have this experience like I’m sure they were guided to these plants.

Amanda (06:47)

Anyways, like I said DMT, there’s other things probably and there usually are with plants, right? It’s not just one constituent that’s like giving you the experience but you’re gonna drink this brown liquid which does not necessarily taste good, but it’s, I think you can learn, it’s an acquired taste. Very, very, like, you know, a taste of Ayahuasca once you’ve had it. You can sometimes smell like Ayahuasca for days following a series of Ayahuasca experiences. And this, these ceremonies, typically they’re done in a series. The first one I did two only. And then I did five the second set and four the third set. And also with Ayahuasca I worked with Shipibo trained healers, so particular indigenous group in Peru specifically.

They also do what’s called dietas. And dietas are other, using other plant teachers in conjunction with Ayahuasca to learn other lessons, right? They’re considered plant teachers. And so the second and third retreats that I did, I also worked with, I did dietas, I forgot to mention this, but I did dietas of noya rao, which is known as the tree of light.

Amanda (08:14)

And these are these trees, these amazing trees in Peru that glow. They’re known to glow and they’re ancient trees, I want to say, I remember reading that they are protected by these tribes of people. And so that was also a part of my journey with Ayahuasca, which I could speak more to.

Another big part of Ayahuasca is the Icaros. Icaros are the songs that are channeled through the shamans, the healers that you’re working with. And so depending on where you’re having these ceremonies, I did this in Costa Rica, so not necessarily in the Amazon where this medicine originated, but in the jungle in Costa Rica. And you start as it’s getting, once it’s dark, the ceremonies start and you go for about six, seven hours through the night. And oftentimes they end around like two in the morning. And the brew, the ayahuasca Ayahuasca the healers, they sing into the medicine. They put their intentions into the medicine. They drink the medicine with you.

Amanda (09:34)

And through their training and their work with ayahuasca they receive these songs that are healing vibrations for the people that need to receive them. And I think that’d be good to talk about in some time in our conversation. So just some of my experiences with the Icaros and what was, what came through from those?

Kate (10:03)

Why would you choose to do Ayahuasca? What would be your intention if you were choosing that?

Amanda (10:07)

So Ayahuasca is for doing deep shadow work, right? It’s going, she is wanting, she’s wanting to go deep to see, to pull out the things that are hidden. And I just keep getting goosebumps talking about it. She gave me a visual. She’s referred to as she, she’s referred to as the Abuela, the grandmother and so she is a feminine medicine. With a lot of these medicines they can be known to be feminine or masculine. And this one’s a feminine medicine. She’s showing us our shadows. And she gave me this visual of this circle. And the circle is like a spiral that goes inside and our circle grows as we go through life. And things get buried in there and we can’t get to them when it’s flat like this. She showed me this, like kaleidoscoping up of this spiral. And with working with her, you can go down this spiral and you can begin to retrieve these traumas. And we have to face them, right? We have to face them in order to purge them from our bodies.

Amanda (11:30)

We need to experience them, maybe see them in a different way. And she maybe teaches us what those traumas were for and showing us like they had a purpose in our life. Also that we can have a new relationship with that experience from our past. Obviously it’s not just in this lifetime too, it’s past lifetimes, it’s ancestral trauma looking at our parents and our grandparents. So it’s working on all different levels. And the reason why from my experience or what I observed that we wanna do more than one ceremony at a time, it’s cause it’s like, the first one is awesome. It’s just like, you know, like, hey friend, like we’re gonna go on this journey together.

Kate (12:24)

A nice introduction!

Amanda (12:24)

And it’s like opening things up, we’re gonna, and then it’s like, okay, next night we’re gonna go a little bit deeper. And the third night, that’s gonna be hard. That’s gonna be going to some deep places. And it’s almost like, you know, you’re going up a mountain and the top of the mountain’s the hardest, like getting over that. And then it’s like, then it gets easier after that it’s like a crescendo, ascension and a descension as far as like difficulty goes. And it’s like, I’ve heard it said that it’s like she knows how many ceremonies you’re doing. And so if you’re only doing two like I did, you can only go so deep. She’s not gonna go that deep because you need closure. You don’t wanna end on like that. Cause then it’s like, maybe I may not, might never do Ayahuasca again if you close on that. And I can’t speak for everyone’s experiences. Maybe like people, their last ceremony was their worst, but from my experience and from what I’ve heard, it’s like this journey that she knows, like how much time you have to work with her and it’s, and by doing like five, for example, like you can open up like quite, quite big, right? Cause you’re doing things to allow you to process and, you know, with the, like, we’ll talk about the dieta, like the diet actually, that you’re doing and the things that you’re avoiding to keep your vessel as clean as you possibly can so you can actually deal with the things that are coming up rather than going to mechanisms that maybe you use in previous parts of your life. So we’ll talk more about Ayahuasca but that’s a good introduction to her. 

Mushrooms, I’m sure people, you know, I think that’s one that is very common for people to, because it’s one that you can get and do on your own. I’ve heard from people that that is one that can be safe to use in your own space without a guide. For example, I’ve heard from, someone who has worked a lot of plant medicines and guides people, Ayahuasca is not one that you want to do on your own. And I would probably say don’t do bufo alvarious on your own either. But mushrooms are one that you can, you know, maybe for your first time, second time you want to guide. First time doing a plant medicine, it’d be nice to have a guide. But if you have experience with plant medicines, I think it’s reasonable and I think people have been doing it for a long time. They’ve been working with these by themselves and it’s, you wanna learn about dosing and all of that, but some mushrooms, there are various ways you can take it. The first time I took mushrooms, I took it in someone who had put them together in, with cacao. And so it’s like, you get the heart opening powers of cacao and then you combine that with the mushrooms. And what I enjoy doing is getting a playlist. You can find playlists on the internet that take you on a journey.

Amanda (15:50)

And I like being on the earth with it, but you want to be in a safe place where you’re not going to be interrupted by people that… Well, for me, that’s my personal way of it. I like to do it. I’m sure people will have other ways of doing this as well, maybe out in nature. But I think being out in nature is a way that I’ve heard a lot of people like to do this medicine. People might take a low dose like going on a hike, for example. But I would only recommend that if you have experience in your home. And :actually not making any recommendations for anybody right now. I just want to preface that. So please do your own research. This is for entertainment purposes only. So we’re going to give that disclaimer.

I would say mushrooms are, I’ve had very different experiences working with mushrooms. Oh, wait, let me track back. I said the chocolates, you could also just eat the mushrooms in their dried form. You can make teas out of mushrooms and you can also people like make capsules and take them that way. So there are various ways that one can consume mushrooms. I feel like mushrooms is like a, it’s a very earthy medicine and it’s a very, I don’t know, it just gave me a lot of insights about my life. It was fun. I cried, I laughed, and I cried and laughed at Ayahuasca too, but it’s just a very different energy than with mushrooms. And mushrooms, you know, mushrooms, is a mushroom, obviously. It’s a fungi, right? And like, you think about mushrooms and how they work with the environment. They’re like these, they had their mycelium and they’re living amongst trees and, you know, the natural environment. They’re like this network, right? That’s the word I was looking for, this like network. And that’s what I feel like mushrooms can be, like it can like help you find how you relate to the greater world. And I’m sure people have had many different types of experiences with it, but that’s kind of what I’ve heard and like, how do I exist in this world is kind of what I get from mushrooms in a way.

Kate (17:49)

Yeah. Yeah. And I’ll just interrupt you there. Like I think from what I’ve heard and seen and read exactly, especially with mushrooms, it is an, a substance that we can take to help us get our sort of conscious mind out of the way and a greater access to not our subconscious necessarily, but our sense of who we are as a soul and who we are as consciousness. And then, as you said, that greater connection to the source of life. So it’s, it can be a tool for having an experience of that other part of ourselves and like touching that in a way because it takes out that conscious mind through its processes.

Amanda (18:34)

Yeah, I’d say that’s right as far as, takes us into the mind of the body, right? The heart, the gut, I think it integrates all of that in a way and it takes that dominance away from the brain, I would say. Yeah, I think that’s a good way to describe it. 

Amanda (19:05)

And the next one I’ve only done once, which is peyote. That was an experience. Like I would like to do it again, especially being where I am in Mexico. That is medicine of this land, a little more north from where I am specifically, but it’s still a similar climate where I am. Like, I feel like the environment where these medicines come from is important and it is part of the connecting to the medicine. So people, I’ll just share that people go on these pilgrimages to this region of Mexico. Real de Catorce is the name of it. And it’s this town I’ve never been, but I’m just going to share what I know of it. It’s like you can only access it through one road and you go through this tunnel and people go there and they take, you can, you find the right people. You can go on this pilgrim, pilgrimage to find the medicine in the desert and do the medicine in the desert. And I think the elements are teachers as well, in addition to the actual substance of the medicine. And, Peyote and I know Ayahuasca. I’m pretty sure Ayahuasca as well, the indigenous people like start consuming as a child, consuming these as children, not in the same dosages that get people. I don’t think children probably need dosages like that to tap into something else but I have people I know who give Peyote to their kids in a familial setting. So it’s done as a family because this medicine is about community and the heart. We are all connected to one another. 

Something about Ayahuasca, I always had my eyes closed with Ayahuasca. It’s like going internally, it’s dark. Whereas peyote is an eyes open medicine. And the fire is this very integral part of the medicine. The fire is this teacher, the shaman that we had, he… it was kind of not beat into us, but he had to be on us to remember to look at the fire because the fire is the teacher. The medicine and the fire work together. The fire is amazing. There’s also the concept of the blue deer, the Venado Azul. And it’s this teacher that goes along with the story of peyote, how the peyote plant was found. And so I don’t know how this happens, but the fire, there’s a fire keeper throughout this ceremony. So we’re sitting, so this ceremony, I’ll backtrack. This ceremony began, we watched the sun set in the West. We said goodbye to the sun and we had our stuff around a central fire. And there were about 14 of us, I believe. We went into a, do a Temazcal, which is a sweat lodge essentially to purify. And then we went into ceremony with peyote.

Amanda (22:42)

And this peyote is a cactus, right? And they make a tea out of the cactus and they also eat the cactus. And this ceremony went all night long until the sun rose the next morning. So it was hard. But it is through the challenge that I think the lessons come. And it is through looking at that fire, the fire that turns pink and purple and blue, because there’s this fire tender and he’s building up this fire throughout the night and it becomes this big mound. It’s this huge fire. And I don’t know if it’s the medicine that makes it look those colors or what was happening. Anyways, this medicine I think is, it feels to me that it is, underlies the culture of Mexico, because Mexico is this very heart open place, like generally speaking, people are very, like you feel people are living from their hearts here, how they interact with you and with each other. And that’s what I think this medicine does on a grand scale. It opens the heart and it shows us how we are all connected. And it’s like a community building medicine, which is why I think it’s powerful that people are doing this within families. Like how do you, cause that’s where like community begins within the health of the family, right?

Amanda (24:24)

So the next one I’ll speak about is cannabis You know, I’ve worked with cannabis through, at various stages of my life, times where I’ve been less conscious. I don’t drink alcohol, but when I was younger, I did. And something that cannabis taught me was that I don’t like alcohol. Like it doesn’t feel good to have alcohol in my blood. And I quit drinking because of that lesson that I received from it. And what I want to say about cannabis, like there’s many ways that you can use any of these plant medicines. It can be used in an unintentional way and it can be used in an intentional way, a conscious way. And I feel there’s a movement for people to be using, to change the relationship with cannabis if they want to use it, right? To use it in a way as a relationship rather than an unconscious coping mechanism that one uses what’s, you know, you’re using it to escape from your reality rather than using it to enhance your reality. And so what I’ll say is I’ve used it through different periods of my life. I’ve never used it consistently or habitually.

Amanda (25:41)

And it’s showed me things about myself that I was not able to see in my normal conscious state. So it’s like, you know, how we can get in our, our ruts, we can get in our, on autopilot. And if we don’t have something to sometimes bring us out to give us more of a bird’s eye view of what it is that we’re, what program, what patterns are we running? Like that’s how cannabis has worked for me. It’s also helped me be in my body more, which I’ve had a, I have a tendency to leave my body. And so it’s helped me ground more into my body. I’ve used cannabis in conjunction with other healing modalities. One particular is tremoring, which I’ve mentioned before in this podcast. I’ve heard of people using cannabis like in massage therapy. So it’s like, can help you like, relax and get into the tissues and move things out, release things that we’re holding onto. So that’s one that, you know, people, maybe have more experience with, but I will recommend, what’s his name? We’ll have him in the show notes. His first name is Ryan, I forget his last name. He is all about teaching people to work with cannabis consciously. And so if you wanna go that route, he’s a good resource. So I’ll put that in there. 

And the last one is rapé, also pronounced hape, because it’s spelled, R -A -P -E, it has an accent over the E, but that looks like a word that, you know, it’s not good to type out on the internet. So, rapé, hape are both used. It is a powder. There’s different formulations. These come from the Amazon region, some from Brazil, some from Colombia, maybe Ecuador too. I don’t, I’m not sure.

Amanda (27:39)

But Brazil is the place where I hear the most of where the rapé comes from. And there are different formulations that different tribes have created. And there are these, I’ve always seen them to be brown powders. And you use an applicator. You can either self apply or you can administer, it can be administered to you, maybe by a shaman. And these are, they have different properties depending upon which one you work with. And they, I found them to be, to use it in conjunction with breath work and meditation. So I use it where I will, I’ll listen to music. I will clear my space with Sage. I will do like 10, 20 minutes of breath work to begin to open things up, move the energy. And then I will move on to using rapé and depend, they each have their own experiences that you’re going to have with them. And I can, I can tell like this one moves the energy down my spinal one, you know, one that moves my energy down my spinal column, for example, or one that, is more in my head. Like you can feel the different where the energy is going. There was one where it’s like, I don’t care for it. The word it’s just like, my body just feels so heavy. It’s actually a really popular one, which I don’t know. It just feels like I can’t move my body. It’s just like, it feels like it’s a hundred pounds heavier. Yeah. So anyways, it’s like, it’s kind of a way to see, like to learn, like it opens up energy. Some people say it helps decalcify the pineal gland.

I’ve heard that’s another benefit of working with it. So it’s often times like a tobacco base and other plants. And also tobacco, I’ll circle back to Ayahuasca, tobacco is considered, you know, we have our ideas, you know, from the Western world of tobacco, from cigarettes. And I had those beliefs about it as well. And I tried smoking cigarettes in my teens, but it’s not something that I ever liked. However, with working with Ayahuasca specifically, tobacco is an integral part of that because it helps clear energy. So it’s a sacred plant that’s used intentionally with Ayahuasca specifically, but it’s in its pure unadulterated form, so it doesn’t have all the chemicals.

Amanda (30:25)

You know, that being said, like, I imagine if one could become a, develop dependency potentially with tobacco, I’ve never experienced that where I need either rapé or the tobacco that’s used with Ayahuasca, it’s called Mapacho. I never experienced that. I use them like regularly at times, but I stop without even having any withdrawal symptoms or cravings or feeling the need to use them. I don’t know what other people’s experiences are with those, but that’s just my experience with them. So I’ll stop that lump of information there and we can move on to another set of questions.

Kate (31:11)

That’s amazing. And I just want to say too, that I do know with cannabis that it is becoming more and more popular to sit with them in a retreat fashion, much like going to say, you know, Ayahuasca or even doing a sort of a cyber retreats or experiences where people go for several days to work with it in an intentional way and that it can have very different effects. Cause it’s obviously the dosage and things like that set and setting that can, can really help you connect to it in different ways. So yeah, thank you for sharing all of that with us because that’s really an amazing library of experiences. And so you did allude to in some of what you shared, like some of the experiences of what those were like.

Perhaps you could speak to now sort of some of the big insights and changes that you experienced through any of the medicines or anything that really stands out that you’d like to share. And perhaps with that, you know, the experience of, that brought you to those insights and changes through the medicines that you’ve experienced.

Amanda (32:13)

Yeah. So let’s start with bufo. The person that I worked with referred to it as a non -duality ceremony. So it’s basically a dissolution of the ego experience. And he started by saying, you know, when it feels hard, go into your heart, go into gratitude. Because when it feels hard, we’re resisting, we’re holding on, we’re in fear essentially. And the answer is to let go and to, I forget the exact thing he said, but it was so helpful at the time. And so when I went in my experience, I remember it being hard and the lesson, that I well, I did it on my 38th birthday and it was like, okay, you have to let go, you have to surrender. And it was this ultimate lesson of, okay, now you gotta let go again, and you let go again, and you need to let go again, and you need to let go again. And the ultimate lesson of surrender, and to see that when it feels hard, you have to let go. And you feel like you’re not gonna be caught, but you’re gonna be caught. You’re never going to keep falling. You’re going to be caught. And that was the big takeaway from that actual experience. And I felt like I was in a womb, which was like I was being held within a womb. I think after I let go a whole bunch of times, which was interesting because it was my birthday, so kind of appropriate.

Amanda (34:07)

So that was the big insight for me from that medicine. I think everyone has different stuff that they’re gonna, you know, maybe traumas to let go of. I’ll just share, like my husband did it and he was like this breaking open of this wall that was around his heart. So it has the power to trigger big breakthroughs. But with that, you want to have good integration because it is such a powerful, I think all of these, you want to have good integration. But that one for me, especially, I would say.  

Next Ayahuasca. So as I alluded, each ceremony, it’s like, it’s, they’re all connected, but they’re they’re each like they each have their own energy, each ceremony. And so, man, I couldn’t even begin to like explore everything that I experienced. But as I mentioned, I will share, I mentioned in another podcast that when I first went in, I was solely operating in my head for the most part. I was like, analyzing what am I experiencing? Oh, that’s cool. Like that I’ve experienced and what does that mean? And so I was like up here. So this was my first two experiences and we, I worked with this couple who had trained in the Amazon for like 10 years and they’re not indigenous, but they were mentored and in close connection. And actually for the second one, they brought their maestra to lead the ceremony. So I’ll speak to that too. 

So I was in my head those first two. We were living like an hour up the coast. And after that, I’m like, I wanna move to the jungle and I wanna work with Ayahuasca more. And so we moved like 10 minutes from these people and we became good friends with them and our kids played together. 

Amanda (36:21)

And so that gave me the opportunity to work with the medicine more. And I was able to basically go do the medicine and then return back to my family, my life. So I was able to, in a way, integrate in time versus like removing myself from my reality and then returning to it after. So I think that was an interesting experience.

So those first two were all in my head. I was in my head. The next one was I think the beginning of me starting to be in my body more. I was also in that same time I was doing an inner child healing program. So I was learning, I was doing a lot of breath work. I was doing a lot of introspection, a lot of processing of emotions. And so I thought went really well together with that time because then when I started my third round of, you know, seven months after the first retreat that I did, I went in as I dropped into that ceremony. I just realized it was reflecting back and I’m like, I remember that first ceremony. It wasn’t there. Like I could see the contrast so clearly of where I was )then to where I was at that moment in time. And realizing how I wasn’t even aware of how in my head I was. Like, you know, that was all my ego, like constantly like running the show. And so I think clearing out a lot of stuff, I didn’t have to protect myself as, you know, by being in my head, like I could feel and be in my body. I cultivated a deeper relationship with my breath. So I would say, well, it’s like I healed relationships with my mom, who’s no longer around. I healed relationships with my dad. I worked on a lot of relationships in my life. I saw some really cool things. It’s like you can go on a journey and because it’s so long, you’re over here and then you’re over there and then you’re in this part of your body.

Amanda (38:44)

Let’s get to the purging because the purging is a big part. And so people think of vomiting as the way people purge. You know, you have your mat on the ground. You have a bucket because it’s expected that you’re going to purge. You know how to get to the bathroom if you have to go. You can purge that way in the toilet, at the other end. But I never vomited once, but I purged in other ways. I purged through crying. And I realized that’s what I do in my life. Like I, I go to a movie and I cry because there’s emotions in there that I don’t, that aren’t, that aren’t processed. And if there’s something that, elicits an emotion, I will cry. And that’s how I purged in, for the most part, I purged also, I activated my voice. I forgot about that. I activated my voice, my singing voice, which I…

Amanda (39:37)

My voice got shut down when I was in my teens, no, like my tweens. My mom made a comment about my voice to someone, that I wasn’t a very good singer, and I stopped singing after that. And so I would never sing in front of people. And then on the second ceremony that I was participating in, I began singing along the Icaros with them. And it activated and then I sang many other songs. So that was another way that I moved energy was through the singing.

I moved energy through my hands and moving my body. So I was able to move energy in ways besides just throwing up. I never, I think there was one time where it was really hard. I think at the hardest part I’m like, maybe I just need to throw up. And so I was like, I got the bucket and I’m like, can I throw up? And I couldn’t. So I just came to like, am I not allowing myself to release? But I think, you know, we all we have purged in different ways. And the vomiting is that I think the most common way and what people know. But I, I’ve never I’ve never vomited from Ayahuasca.

Amanda (40:55)

Mushrooms, it’s like, it’s kind of, I can’t remember the details of what came through with mushrooms, but it’s kind of like, what do I need to know, like right now in my life to like, to just be more in alignment with like who I want to be. And I feel like that’s what I received from mushrooms in those moments. 

Kate (41:18)

And it shows it sort of is a little bit more of a, you know, a closer to home in the moment, work with it now kind of experience as opposed to, you know, Ayahuasca. It sounds like it’s deeply healing because it’s allowing you and helping you to, as you said, that beautiful image of the circle lifting, you know, telescoping out to then be able to explore that. Cause that sounds really like it’s for, as you said, that deeper accessing of things to shift and heal and remove and purge them, as opposed to what mushrooms does is really just, it’s like insight in the moment for the now.

Amanda (41:55)

Yeah, and it’s not to say that mushrooms is not deep, but it’s just different. You know, it’s like, I’ve done it where I’m like, tell my husband like, okay, I’m retreating, you’re responsible for the kids.  I’m gonna go do my own thing. And he knows to like not allow the kids to come disrupt me. And you know, we’ve done that both for each other. But also I think what, so, mushrooms is when you can microdose and do it in more your waking life. So where you’re like interacting with, you know, some people’s like interacting with your kids, like, and it puts you kind of on third level and you can kind relate to them in a, maybe a more playful way than maybe the more serious adult way that, you know, the adults that would need to become. We move out of our childlike state and I think mushrooms can help us move back into that and be more playful, joyful, and they can show us, I think, how to do that in a great way. Yeah.

Kate (42:55)

Yeah. And I think also when people do choose to do or work with mushrooms in a more, I don’t want to say clinical setting, but more in a like retreat setting. So maybe you’re going to something that is a couple of days, or I know that a friend of mine has worked with it and it was a one week. retreat. It wasn’t every day. I think it was also with some MDMA in there as well, but when it’s in that setting, certain type of dose as well with the right people around, it is also another great, tool for accessing and releasing trauma. because there’s sort of this, things she said, it was like modulating, learning how to go into an emotion and then pull out and then pull in and pull out and sort of riding the waves of the experience. And so, so in a, in those types of settings for that particular medicine, it can also have that deeper healing in those different doses, in those kinds of settings where that is the intention that you’re sort of going in with.

Amanda (44:06)

Yeah, and I’d say it probably is very powerful to be led by someone that can, you know, what are your intentions before going in, speak about what your experience is, and hear other people’s experiences. I think that’s very healing, right? And being in a container where there’s something very powerful to that as well, and coming down with mushrooms as well. So yeah, it’s one you can, I’ve never done it that way, but I know that people are having powerful experiences and I imagine like probably Ayahuasca where you do more multiple ceremonies and one container, you’re going to go deeper and you’re going to build upon like what happened in the last ceremony, right? Like what opened up for you, you can go kind of dive in deeper. So yeah, I imagine that’s a cool way to experience it as well. Unfortunately, I feel like in the United States, they were starting to open for clinical therapy. And I don’t know if that’s changed. However, they made it so cost prohibitive, like all the licensing, it’s people are like, I’m just gonna, yeah, I’ve been taking it for 30 years on my own. I’m not gonna go pay.

Amanda (45:25)

So, I mean, it could be very beneficial if one is kind of not, doesn’t feel safe going that route on their own. I think it could be probably very beneficial in that regard. So, let’s see,

Kate (45:33)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda (45:41)

So, let’s see, Peyote.  I’ll share a story that, I did not enjoy eating the cactus at all. They made us, well, they don’t make us do anything, but in a way they made us. Consume the medicine four times throughout the night, and they give you this cup and they come around with their, I think it was an instant pot or it was a pot, and they fill it with tea and they fill it with cactus. And I could not eat that cactus without gagging. And it was so hard for me. And I found myself just like laughing at the experience because I’m like, I can’t believe I’m here eating this cactus. And it was kind of like my way of like getting through hardship is like to laugh in a way. But at the same time, I was like, I look back and I’m like, maybe they thought I was being disrespectful because, but that was my way of coping with this like thing that was hard for me to do.  And I was there with a couple who, they’re a little bit older and they’ve worked with many plant medicines as well. There were four of us that were, are non Mexicans. And so there was like a language barrier for the other, for two of them more than me per se. I could understand. a lot of what, because a lot of it was the teachings that were coming through. There was like this wisdom that the one of the, multiple, or two healers. And one was like, he was giving us wisdom throughout the night. And it was like this wisdom that like that was as much part of the ceremony as the medicine, as the fire was these teachings that were coming through. And so I could understand a lot of it. However, the couple next to me, they couldn’t understand what was being said. And so they were angry, I would say, by the, like the, at some point in the night, right? This is hard, it’s hard work. And they were frustrated and they have a relationship with some of the people that coordinated this experience. And so I remember it was close to the sun coming up and it like, you know, I don’t want to like, it affected this other person and they were in tears and speaking with this other person and I was sitting right next to them and I remember and I was listening to them talk and I’m like, this medicine is about conflict resolution. It’s how we can coexist with each other, with the earth, with the stars. It’s like this medicine that has so much wisdom in it, like it’s something that has to be experienced. It’s not something like I can say these words, but you can’t really you have to experience it. You have to have that go through that hardship.

Amanda (48:47)

And so I was listening to them talk and the the the fire was just turning pink as I was as this was happening. And I’m like, that’s like the answer to so much in our world is learning how to have conflict in a way where both people want the best outcome for everyone, right? Like our egos aren’t coming in to win, but we all want a resolution. We all want to have peace. We want to exist. And…I don’t know, and that was really powerful. And then as the sun was coming up, or once the sun came up, which was, I got in a lot of goosebumps through this conversation, but just got goosebumps again. I’d say the more advanced healer, he was mostly kind of sitting off, while the other one was talking, he was kind of, he was doing things energetically that we weren’t fully aware of. He was playing his harmonica, but he started crying and like these big tears, like sobbing tears. And he’s like, I feel like we are healing wars in this, like, I feel like we healed things on a massive scale last night. I didn’t know, I’m like, do you always cry? But it was like I don’t know, it was a metaphor for what’s possible. It was like we were in this portal and we were doing healing on a collective level in that circle. So it wasn’t just like with Ayahuasca where it’s like, I’m healing my shit. It’s like opening us up in this circle to this, you know, we’re in the desert, right? We’re in the middle of the desert and we see the stars and the moon and you know, this like, it’s like a relationship with earth we’re disconnected from, unfortunately.

Kate (51:02)

That sounds like a powerful experience. You know, like I can kind of hear that it’s almost hard to put into words, you know, exactly what that was like. But, you know, even just imagining the fact that I love that it was we watched the sun go down and then we do all these things out in nature under the stars, eating a plant, watching a fire, creating this sense of connection and community while waiting then for that sun to come up like that I get the shivers, you know, thinking of that. Like there’s something so, you know, so grounded and so, so connected by even just the description of that, that experience. So, yeah.

Amanda (51:33)

I like how you put that. And as you’re talking, one other image popped into my mind. And so part of, I told you that our task, we had to reiterate, our task is to look at the fire. And people throughout the ceremony would get up to go vomit. You go over out of the circle. You go vomit. And people were doing that at different stages throughout the ceremony.And it was not our job to pay attention to like someone else releasing what they needed to release. Our job was just to look at the fire, like our tend to ourselves. And I feel like that is such an analogy for what we need to do in our everyday lives. We need to tend to ourselves rather than worrying about what’s happening in a country that we’ve never been to, what’s happening. We need to tend to ourselves first. Like what is our own task in life? And if we give that the proper attention, like so much, like if everyone did that, things would fall into place in so many ways. And so that was a cool like microcosm of what can happen if we do integrate that into our lives.

Kate (52:55)

That’s really beautiful. Really amazing takeaways. And I mean, it sounds like all of those have been really beneficial for you learning about yourself, connecting with yourself, coming into your body. and I don’t know, I just kind of get this feeling of like undies understanding yourself more your experience. And I know that you’ve spoken to a lot that you’ve come to this awareness that ancestral healing is a big part of that. And that these medicines have allowed you to access some of that in, in deeper ways.

Amanda (53:25)

Yeah, I’d say so in terms of changing how I view my parents, like my grandparents, lessons that have come in about my children and, you know, what is it that works with them? Like, how am I living my life currently? I do feel we help our children by healing what needs to be healed. So they have less to heal. They’re gonna have stuff to heal regardless, but, cause none of us are perfect, but yeah, I think becoming more conscious, more aware of why we are how we are, having more compassion for our parents, right? For how they were with us and how their parents were with them and coming, you know, like we can heal our relationships with them in ceremony, right? We can find forgiveness, we can find acceptance, we can find greater understanding of, you know, the things that maybe they did that affected us in a not positive way, but yeah, it can have ripple effects in both directions. So it’s not the only way to do that, but it is a powerful way to do it.

Kate (54:39)

Yeah. So you have mentioned to that what’s important about each of these medicines, not only is it dose and timing and the set and setting, but integration is a big part. And I’ve heard that spoken about quite a lot through, especially when people talk about Ayahuasca. Can you speak to a bit more about what that means integration and why is it important?

Amanda (55:15)

Yeah, I would probably say I’m not the best person to like explicitly state what it is. But I would say…

Kate (55:21)

But what have your experiences been with it through the journeys you’ve been on? Do people, does that happen at these actual, let’s say at the Ayahuasca retreat through the three days? Are they facilitating that for you? Is it something you’re doing for yourself?

Amanda (55:36)

Yeah, well, I would say that because how I did it, I was not in the retreat setting, right? So I was going back to my house. So I wasn’t, I was resting. So I would say an important part that I haven’t spoken fully to it’s important, especially with Ayahuasca, but most of them, it’s the diet. What we put into our bodies is really important for the experience that we have. And so if you don’t already have a pretty clean diet, it’s going to feel pretty extreme. Ayahuasca diet is pretty extreme. For example, there’s no salt, there’s no sugar, there’s no nothing, with the diet that I did. There’s nothing cold like, fasting between certain hours. There’s all these rules to have the most favorable experience possible. With Ayahuasca, there’s no pork, no red meat. There’s no, obviously no alcohol, no supplements or medications. Certain medications are not compatible with some of these medicines, especially antidepressants and antipsychotic medication.

Amanda (56:50)

The diet, what you’re putting in your body, you want to go off of the internet. You don’t want to be taking in anything, social media, what’s happening in the world. You just wanna like, cocoon yourself into this experience to be able to be with what’s coming through. And so, you know, simple thing of having a journal, having a practice with your breath.  I feel like that’s how I pretty much integrated was through journaling, through my daily breath work and meditation practice. I was doing that, especially around when I was doing these medicines, I had that in place. And they say that you’re with the medicine for a certain amount of time, but it’s still working within you in space and time beyond the experience. And so I’ve talked about all these different medicines and they’ve been done over time. You don’t want to do, you want to give each medicine its own space.

So you don’t want to like, let me do a bufo this weekend and I’m going to go do an ayahuasca ceremony this next week and do some mushrooms. That’s not enough time to really allow these medicines to do their work. 

And I know that people have their different opinions of how to do things. So someone might have a different perspective. I know I’ve heard of people going to a ceremony or a retreat where they’re doing, they’re they’re buffo and they’re doing mushrooms or they’re doing ayahuasca. Ayahuasca. I think if you speak to someone who’s trained in the Amazon, probably would say like stick to one medicine at a time.

Amanda (58:40)

That’s not to say that there couldn’t be some synergy, but that maybe that’s for further down the road. I think it’s nice to just do one and really cultivate that relationship because it really is a relationship with a plant. It’s a teacher, has a personality. And I think if you give it that respect, it’s going to respect you in the experience that it gives you. It’s not going to say it’s not going to be hard. But I think it’s important to respect these medicines.

Kate (59:11)

Yeah, beautifully said. So then you did just mention then a little bit in there, like who would this not be for? Because I know that for you, you’ve really felt like, for each of these, it’s been, I felt a call for it or it was in my space and I had a knowing. And then there’s that opportunity, that beautiful life you have of synchronicity, things to step in when it’s the right timing. So for you, there’s a beautiful knowing that this is right for me. So two things, what do you think it’s important for people to know in going in? And who do you think this isn’t necessarily going to be good for? Anyone you’d recommend not to do this? And obviously there’s some medications but anything else that people should be aware of preparing to do plant medicine.

Amanda (59:55)

As I mentioned it before, but if you don’t have a safe person to be guided by, I wouldn’t do it. I said, you know, at least more, I mean, they’re all potent in their own ways, but you know, Ayahuasca, bufo you know, people get, there is sexual trauma that happens in, when it’s done by the wrong, you know, people have had really bad experiences, doing it with someone who’s using this as a, you know, they’re in a malevolent way. So I would say I wouldn’t just rush to do this medicine with just anybody. 

I’ll share, I’ve had this vision multiple times in like with Ayahuasca. But I envisioned this like, across like space and time where these portals that get opened up by groups of people to like convene with other beings and other realms and it’s a very sacred thing. It shouldn’t be taken lightly. There’s that. There’s certain medications like I mentioned are not compatible. There, the people have had, you know, psychotic breaks from plant medicines, right? It’s not all, people have died. I don’t think it’s as, you want to know, you want to be with someone who knows what they’re doing, where they’re getting the medicine from. I’ve actually heard from the person that I sat with her bufo alvarius that they’re starting to lace that with, I think, fentanyl. So that’s, you know, knowing he, this person, I think, tries to educate that community and he prefaced the need to know where you’re getting, where you’re sourcing your medicine from. Same thing with Ayahuasca. It’s like, where did you get this medicine from? Like, what was the intention put into creating this, this, this brew.

Amanda (1:02:12)

And so the whole idea of this world being industrialized, I find to be problematic because it’s disrespecting that this is an energetic experience, and the energy, you know, that’s our food too. I feel like we should feel that way about our food as well but because this is such a deep, powerful experience, the cultivation of whatever we are ingesting is important. And what I will say is that that whole conscious of cannabis movement, he actually talks about how do you cultivate your own because the plant that you are working with, like how it was grown, that’s important too. So, I think that’s something to be just conscious of that these medicines they have, they’re holding energies and they can hold the energies of those that are supplying it. So.

Kate (1:03:14)

I think that’s a really important piece to be aware of and start to just open our minds to that, you know, energy plays a big role in many things outside of, you know, our current understanding of things and that everything has a vibrational energy, picks up energy, absorbs and intention, as you said, especially when things are being prepared for you and how a space is being set up. So that’s set and setting, as you mentioned, and really that you’re working with people who are know how to hold a very safe container with integrity and that all the people that are serving you in those places are doing it from the utmost integrity. And, I know I have, at one point, you know, applied to go to a, facility it was in Peru and there was a lengthy process of application and that’s good because they were really, really, you know, one getting you commit to fill out this, I don’t know, 10 page form but also really, you know, what they were covering and how, you know, they were preparing you for what would the reality of these experiences can be and how to prepare for them. So, you know, if something like that isn’t part of your experience and it’s just like, yeah, come on down. Maybe, maybe not.

Amanda (1:04:32)

Right. Like the people I sat with, we were in, like they kept, I think when they had their maestro come, they had more people in our space. And I think 20 is like a maximum that they would work with. But I know of a place in Costa Rica where they’d have like a hundred people. And that’s too much. And there’s too many energies to be in one container. And I feel, I mean, I’ve not been in that, but I can just imagine. And I just imagine that it kind of feels like a, what’s the word, a car, like cars are on like a, yeah, what’s that word? Where you’re just like, you’re responsible for one thing, right?

Kate (1:05:24)

Yeah, like a procession, not a procession line, but a something line. Yeah. Yeah, you’re the one. What is that? Production line. A production line. 

Amanda (1:05:30)

Shit. Yeah. That’s gonna bug me. Yeah. We’ll just go with production line, but that’s not, I don’t think that’s it. Yeah. But the idea that like, you’re just, you’re just like a number, you know, of the many, versus being in a more intimate space where these people are feeling your energies through, I’m just thinking of Ayahuasca specifically, like, they are feeling your energies. They can sense what you’re working through. Like they, you know, they create this container where it’s like, they’re working with the energies that wants to come in that aren’t favorable. They’re clearing out the energies that we’re releasing from our bodies. They’re like holding this space. And so I just imagine when it’s a hundred people, like, I don’t know how, I’m not sure how I can’t, I’ve never done it. I’ve never been in that space, but it’s, I imagine it’s gotta be different when it’s more intimate.

Kate (1:06:20)

Yeah, for sure. So I want to close with, you mentioned the dieta, the glowing trees and the Icaros. So you had an experience even with the music. So if you can share with us about those two things to leave us with, you know, more insight.

Amanda (1:06:44)

Yeah. So the Icaros. I’ll speak to the Maestra. And she, when she, she is this old woman in her, I want to say seventies, you know, and this has been her life’s work and she’s taught other healers and she’s healed many people. She came up, they flew her up from Peru. It was a really big journey for her to come. Her, I think it was her, I want to say it was her grandson that like chaperoned her. And so they are these songs that are in the Shipibo language and they are being channeled. And so she would come around every night to each person and she would sing an Icaro directly to each person. And it’s meant to like move, speak to the energies that we are clearing out. She sang for the whole six hours, right? Like she sang just generally the whole time, right? Like once the medicine kicks in, she’d start her Icaros and, and then, and then towards the end of the night, she would come around and she would sing to each. And I had experiences with her. But my last retreat, the, it was a husband and a wife couple and they each had this beautiful balance of masculine and feminine. And I had amazing experiences from his Icaros as well, but I will just share that one night she came over and sang to me. And it’s like this, she has this like angelic voice and she sang to me for a really long time. And it was like, I was getting goosebumps thinking about it. It’s like you deserve to receive this beautiful song. You deserve to know how loved you are. And it was just like this, and it just like, I’m like, she’s gotta be done soon. And just like kept going. And it was like, I just like, you can stop. You don’t have to keep going for me. Like I’m like, I felt uncomfortable for her giving so much to me. And it was almost like, you need to learn to let others give to you. You deserve to receive it. And it was just like the frequency of love is what it felt like that I was receiving. And it was being channeled through her. They say they work with, they have their Shipibo teaching, but they work with a lot of angels, I’d say angels, the most part is what they said, like the angelic realm and Jesus. And like I said, I had my experience with Jesus. I won’t go into that right now, I never fully logically got like how songs, Icaros could be healing, like I read a book before, like, you know, I felt the call to work with Ayahuasca. I put out feelers for the people I knew, like, who should I go to? And I never heard back. I never got anything back. And so I started reading this book and it was like about this doctor who went down and opened a Maloka down in the Amazon. And so I learned about Icaros and Mapacho and dietas through this book, but it was not through like…

Amanda (1:10:26)

Like I didn’t like, how does that, how do these Icaros things work? And like, it’s not until you feel it and experience it and like receive what it like how just a song it’s in another language. It’s not any, they’re not English words, right? They’re just their vibration and their sounds and how they speak to us on an energetic and cellular level to activate something that’s beyond our mind. And so, yeah, you can’t just take the Ayahuasca without the Icaros. Like, it doesn’t, it doesn’t, it’s like, I’ll share one more thing about the Icaros. The first night that I ever did Ayahuasca, you drink your magic potion, you go back to your mat and, it’s about 30 minutes or so for it to start being absorbed in the digestive tract and for you to start feeling it. And so I was lying down and they started singing and it’s like, I sat up and it’s like something started to rise. Like this energy. It’s like they were speaking to the medicine within me and that caused it to activate and start working in a way that it hadn’t started working, but it’s like they’re calling to the medicine. They have a deep relationship with this medicine. They’ve done a lot of work with it. And so it’s almost, that’s what I got initially. It was like, they are activating this with their voices. And so, I mean, isn’t that wild? Like how a plant in a vibration, like, have this relationship to do this like magical healing within the body. I don’t know. It’s wild.

Kate (1:12:26)

Yeah. Yeah. But like, even as you just say that exactly, like how the song is so much a part of the journey, right? Even consumed or, you know, consumed a plant. And then exactly part of that to fully come, become active and have its full potential is also with the music and the sound and the vibration. And, and, you know, yeah, I think that is wild. Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda (1:12:51)

Same thing with the peyote. Like it was the fire, it was the cactus. And it’s like, how did they learn to integrate these different pieces? Like that is so, and like it’s so humbling that there are these people that have preserved, like it makes me want to cry actually, like that there’s people that have dedicated their lives to the preservation of these traditions. And you know, like, it’s not like for the peyote, for example, I think I paid like $75 for that experience, right? It’s like, it wasn’t like, they’re not doing it to get rich, they’re doing it to serve and like, they know the power of this medicine. And it’s like, I think coming from the society that I come from, the culture that I come from, where it’s so like, you’re only doing something if you’re doing it for money, right? Like that’s kind of like  someone’s serving because they truly want to serve strangers, because they understand what they’re doing is adding, it’s serving all of us, it’s serving humanity, it’s serving our earth for more of us to awaken to who we are, to what is the bigger picture of our reality.

Amanda (1:14:20)

To me, like, you know, like I said, not everyone is doing it in that way, but there are those that truly are. and I feel very humbled that I was able to find those people that were truly serving. Right. And to me, like, I don’t know, there’s like a selflessness to it that, well, that’s my purpose in life is actually selflessness. So it may be like, seeing that in others is also a big teacher. 

Kate (1:15:43)

Anything else you’d want to share with listeners who are curious about that medicine or do you feel that you’ve covered it all?

Amanda (1:15:48)

Do your research, take your time with it. Don’t rush it, don’t force it if it doesn’t feel right, because it has, with great power, there also is responsibility. And so, you know, take care of yourself in the process. Do it, try to follow the instructions as best you can, because you’re gonna have a better experience with it. And yeah, if you have any questions, you can put them in the comments if you have questions about this. But no, I think that’s all for now that wants to be said. I could talk about this for a long time, I think, because there’s all these like, there’s all these experiences that happen, but to pack it all in, I think we went pretty long today, so.

Kate (1:16:43)

Yeah, we can come back to that for another episode. But thank you so much for sharing, you know, your experiences and your insights. And I think a lot of people will be able to make some informed decisions for themselves if they choose to work with plant medicine. And if you have questions, let Amanda know. Thank you, everyone, for listening, and we’ll see you in the next episode.