Post AYAHUASCA CEREMONY

Artwork: Don Moises Llerena

A great deal of focus is often placed on how to prepare for an ayahuasca ceremony, however, what you do post ceremony is equally of great importance. Partaking in an ayahuasca ceremony can be energetically opening and involves a restructuring of your energetic field. How you then move back into the physical world can have lasting implications.

Following ceremony, the structure of your energy body has been shifted and realigned. To what extent can vary but often your full energetic structure has been reworked. As an analogy your energy can be described as a fresh painting or work of art.

With that in mind, the paint is still fresh and needs time to dry. Our energetic hygiene during this time is crucial as misaligned energies may smudge the artwork we’ve purged so hard to create.

Taking care of ourselves post ceremony is therefore vital to the entire process of working with Ayahuasca or any master plant dieta. This is the first important step in our integration and sets the tone for how we move back into the world.

Food

It’s important we reintroduce food slowly. Our natural tendency is to rush back to the foods or drinks such as coffee that we have missed and abstained from for so long. One thing at a time here. Go slow and build. A little something salty or sweet is ideal, a nine course tasting menu or a tomahawk steak might be a little more disruptive. Be sensible, honour your body and the process you’ve been through whilst nourishing yourself. If you’re feeling unsure then ask for guidance from the person you’ve sat in ceremony with.

Places

Energetically our sensitivity level is far more heightened than normal following work in ceremony with the plants. We are far more open, and often more loving which also makes us more vulnerable. Loud bars, nightclubs and parties are the obvious ones to avoid but more everyday and neccessary places can also prove to be challenging. Two places that come to mind are the airport and the workplace. If possible it’s best to leave at least a couple of days space before we run these gauntlets. 

Not everyone in these spaces has been undergoing energetic surgery to harmonise themselves and it can become glaringly obvious and jarring when we leave the womb of the retreat space. Going slowly and taking steps to energetically prepare and protect can be hugely helpful. The more space we give ourselves the longer the painting has to dry, and the more we seal the work we have done.

People

When we say places we really mean places that contain lots of people and this is essentially where your greatest level of discernment needs to lie. From strangers to loved ones we’ll encounter a range of people as we emerge from retreat or ceremony. Some will want to know everything about our journey, either from a loving interested space or a dismissive challenging space.

We don’t owe anyone an explanation of our journey or experience. Quite the opposite, it’s often much more useful to keep it to yourself and a few close confidants. When we over tell our story, so too do we disperse its power. Not everyone wants to hear your story from a place of love and interest. Some will want to question, provoke or ridicule which can feel extremely harmful. Especially in relation to something so personal.

It’s therefore up to us to be discerning with what we share and who we share it with. If unsure, then the phrase ‘I’m still processing what happened.’ Is a helpful  sentence to use.

Finally the main person we have to answer to is ourselves. How we relate to ourself post ceremony is key. There is a line of balance to walk between integrity, and upholding the teachings of our ceremony, and compassion for ourselves, our humanity, our fallibility and the fact that we are doomed to get it wrong in some way sooner or later as no-one is perfect.

Indeed the idea that we are now perfect because we’ve drank medicine is perhaps the most damaging label of all and guaranteed to set us up for a fall. There is also an air of expectation from those close to us that we will have changed. Often this is true, we no doubt have. They can also be the first to finger point should we fall short. And we will fall short, time and time again.

In a world that expects and idolises perfection to the point of dishonesty, blessed are those who can say I made a mistake, I’m sorry. I forgive myself, I can see where I went wrong, I’m going to try again to do better next time. And again, and again for as long as it takes.

The ceremony or retreat is not a magic pill that will transform every aspect of your life into a utopian paradise. It’s an opportunity to learn about yourself and the unhealed shadows that you can start to look at. And so the journey deeper into our integration becomes a lifetimes work. The ceremony can be our compass, a remembrance of the direction we can head in. You can be sure life will have some storms ready for us. And when we drift so far off course that we lose all direction, perhaps we will hear her call us back to ceremony once more.