Ayahuasca Experience – Review After Drinking Aya 100 Times

August 2023 marks the second anniversary of my return to Ayahuasca. I first sat with Grandmother ayahuasca in Peru in 2009. She told me then that I was not ready to continue to receive her sweet nectar. ‘Back to the training mat,’ she whispered. Thus, my ayahuasca experience was limited to one ceremony in those days. I would have to wait years before hearing the call to return, and it would come after the death of my closest bond.

My mother died five years later, liberating and trapping me at the same time. I profoundly turned toward healing, a slow walk back to the wounds of my inner child. My early childhood pain had been neglected by inattention. I had been steeped in spirituality for most of my adult life, working for the Krishnamurti Foundation for 16 years and dipping in and out of Indian Vedanta and Buddhist monasteries.

I had been dabbling in psychedelics for over twenty years, sprinkled in with meditation, yoga, and deep esoteric study of sacred scriptures. However, I had turned away from the most primal laceration in my heart—the painful bond with my Mother. I started therapy and read everything I could find on healing my inner child. Gabor Mate helped lead me back to my early self and opened up an entire world of healing and reflection about this crucial stage of my life.

Return To The Ayahuasca Experience

I was magically called back to Ayahuasca in 2021 and sat in a ceremony locally with wonderful hosts. A few months earlier, I had a dream about my childhood friend Carke’s father. I never met Clarke’s father, and he had never mentioned him to me, so the visit was—shall we say—extraordinary. My dream opened a deeper connection to Clarke. In that deepening, he and I decided to sit with beloved Columbian teacher Taita Cesar and drink Yage.

Two years later, I have sat with plant medicine over 100 times (including beautiful mushroom ceremonies), and my life is entirely different. People ask me why I keep sitting, and my response is, ‘How close to God do you want to be?‘

Ayahuasca Experience 1-25: Dating My Higher Self

My first twenty ayahuasca experiences were a dating phase. Ayahuasca was getting to know me, pushing me deep into my shadows and sometimes dragging me through the underworld. There was one ceremony where she placed me in my grave under the earth, locked in a casket. She wanted me to experience my death. What was I making of life? She asked with both gentleness and firmness.

Around ayahuasca experience fifteen, deep healing started to open up, and I felt love for my Mother for the first time. I forgave and understood our early dance. I realized that her damaged life resulted from a long line of generational trauma. Like all of us, she carried the pain from many generations of other people’s heartaches. After this insight, I started to feel grateful for the challenges and lessons life brought me, juxtaposed with the resentment and blame I had held deep in my being for most of my life.

Benefits of Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca saved my life—I am sure of that. Ayahuasca helped to unearth my early wounds and brought them up to the surface, allowing real healing to root into my being. Before ayahuasca, I pushed my feelings into a black hole in my heart. Those feelings were hidden deep in the somatic layers of my physical body, and I numbed them into oblivion for many years with alcohol. The struggles in my relationship with my Mother were central to my pain. Did I choose this traumatic path before birth to help awaken my soul? My intuition says yes.

Ayahuasca showed me that I am not my trauma. My body and personality carry the imprints of my earth experience, but ultimately I realized that I am a divine creation—and so are you. This realization was liberating, and my relationship with my early life shifted. Ayahuasca unravels the soul toward awakening, but it takes time and commitment.

Ayahuasca Experience 30-50: Unearthing My Soul

I call the next stage of my journey with medicine a trip to Middle Earth. My ayahuasca experiences from 30-50 were very hard. I wanted to quit. There were many multiple-night ceremonies where I wanted to leave after the first night, ‘I am never doing this again,’ I would tell myself. I doubted my path and questioned ayahuasca’s intentions. However, I always stayed. I found the courage to face my fears in my devotion to healing.

If you are reading this, I encourage you not to leave once you commit to a ceremony. If you give up, you are giving up on yourself in a pivotal moment. Ayahuasca is constantly testing our resolve, courage, and strength. I do not say you need one hundred ceremonies, but I see many people give up on ayahuasca too early. Like any relationship, she takes time to get to know you, which requires an inner pledge to healing and discomfort.

Ayahuasca Experience: The Magic Door Opens

In the next stage of my journey, around ayahuasca experience 50+, I started to wake up to the magic of ayahuasca. I started to have moments of total bliss and a deep reverence for the divine. I could hear and feel the icaros (sacred chants) in new ways. I started to learn the songs and sign them at home. I stayed in tune with the ceremony while outside of the ceremony. The ceremony space started to live inside of me.

Life Starts To Change: Behaviors, Activities, & Interests

At this point, my words, actions, and thoughts started to change. My heart became softer, my words lighter, my body vital, my mind quieter, and ultimately, my relationships (with myself and others) more profound. My creativity exploded into a rainbow of colors, and art, music, and creativity returned to my life. I started to sing and chant and feel a deep connection to the earth.

One of the most profound changes that resulted from my ayahuasca ceremonies was my relationship with alcohol. I went from drinking 3-4 drinks a day to less than a handful in one year. When I decided to quit after a ceremony in late 2022, I left alcohol for an entire year. As you can imagine, this led to many other changes and created a shift in my body and soul that continues to resonate.

Ayahuasca Experience 75+: The Devine & Spirit

I didn’t have many visions in the first half of my one-hundred ceremony journey. Sacred geometry and a few jungle animals would visit now and again, but overall, I mainly experienced my inner landscape. However, I started to hear spirits at this juncture, and a channel opened inside me. Ancient chants started to come through, and I began to channel divine energies and prayers. After one ceremony in particular, I had a samadhi moment that lasted about ten minutes and gave me a taste of real liberation. I also noted my Kundalini energy moving up my spine and occasionally igniting.

I try not to give these activities much importance and see them as a part of the overall process of preparing the soul for further growth. Like most experiences, they are transitory, and though I am grateful to have them, I am mindful that the real power of ayahuasca is how one integrates these experiences into daily life.

Devotion & Prayer

Another profound result of my ceremonies is that devotion, gratitude, and prayer have become daily practices. I started listening to my heart and being guided by intuition. I still have personal challenges, but I approach them with more patience and trust than I did before.

Learn more About Ganesha

Being of Service

I am still learning about service to others while grappling with the remnants of my ego and its desire to take charge and serve itself. I recently read the following from the Law of One text. It speaks to this aspect of my new direction, and it is rooted in my new intentions:

The best way of service to others is the constant attempt to seek to share the love of the Creator as it is known to the inner self. This involves self-knowledge and the ability to open the self to the other-self without hesitation. This involves, shall we say, radiating that which is the essence or the heart .

~ Law of One, Jim McCarty, Don Elkins, Carla L Rueckert

Ayahuasca Experience: Conclusion

This post is my first stab at following the aforementioned intention. There is so much mystery in this dance with the ayahuasca spirit. I am a beginner, yet I am an ancient warrior of the heart. I am a star seed with much to learn, give, and be grateful for. My worldview is changing, and how I show up in the world manifests in ways that could not have been possible without my dance with ayahuasca.

Thank you for listening. If you are interested in diving deeper, check out my book, Ayahuasca Beginners Guide.

Haux. Haux.