It’s great to see that our people first approach which is centric to our work has been recognised. We are now listed on journeyaya.com, a useful resource for people wanting to find safe, trusted and verified places to drink Ayahuasca in Central and South American. If you want to take a look at what they say about us click here.

In this episode of Behind Our Eyes, host Liane Grimshaw sits down with an old friend - someone who knew her back in her party days in Manchester, and whose life has also taken one of the most extraordinary turns imaginable. Fiona Kirwan is now a plant medicine facilitator living in the rainforest on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. She and her husband Neil co-founded Sowa Soma, a trauma-informed ayahuasca retreat centre, after Fiona walked away from the PR agency she'd spent years building.

Drinking Ayahuasca is not without its risks, so needs to be treated accordingly. 

Choosing to drink with someone who not only understands this but prioritises safety in all aspects of their practice, is one of the most important factors to consider. 

Image: Mauro Reategui Perez

Shame should feel like a bruise and not a tattoo. It can direct us to make better decisions if acknowledged and let go of or direct our actions on a subconscious level if we don't have awareness.

We're talking about shame in the context of our own individual actions and choices as adults, as opposed to things happening against our own free will or without informed consent and, as a result cause us to feel shame.

It’s a disease of the ego that makes us want to be right at all costs and someone else wrong when we don’t share the same belief systems. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way, all ideas can coexist at the same time if we approach religion & spiritually with curiosity and an open mind. We are all free to think and believe in what we want to, we don’t need to demonise something just because it’s different. 

For us it’s not a buzzword or a sales pitch. It’s central to how we operate and guides every decision we make.

There are some key distinctions in understanding what this term means and how it applies to a plant medicine setting that we can hopefully bring more clarity on. 

Image: Cosmic Bloom by Brian Nori

This is a question we get asked frequently.

For us there is a distinct difference between hallucinating and what you experience when you drink Ayahuasca. Here we share our thoughts on what happens when we drink this sacred brew.

Grounding Part 1

Our minds play an important role in discerning what is delusional and what is actually guidance when working with plant medicines. It is a fine line between taming our egos only to gain a spiritual ego, as we experience the vastness that these plants offer our consciousness. Grounding back into this reality is fundamental to any energetically opening work.

The sacred mirror that Ayahuasca shows us is often the thing that most scares us about working with this medicine. There is an innate resistance/protection in us all to fully see our true selves and not just the persona we believe ourselves to be. 

Mama Aya helps us to meet those parts, with love and grace, for when we have greater understanding and compassion for ourselves we can embrace it all and show up in the world in all our flawed yet beautiful completeness. 

I really wish this had never even happened but it has. The world of spiritual practice has merged with social media and the results are confusing at best but if we’re being honest it’s mostly a hellish cringe fest.

I spoke about this a year ago, asking that ceremony be kept sacred and not filmed or photographed to be used for social media.

My point being that ceremony is carried by our intention, and if you are filming it, the intention changes to attention automatically.