Visions, emotions, and purging...

The act of purging is not just a physical act. Often times in my ceremonies, my visions in the spiritual dimension cause me to purge, and even my emotions can bring about a session of vomiting. In one ceremony, I was feeling great, enjoying the love in my heart and the beautiful visins. I had been arguing with my girlfriend the day before, however, and at one point in the ceremony, I felt a tremendous sadness.
It was the emotions of the day before coming back up. I didn´t understand it at first, and began to wonder why I was so sad all of a sudden. Then, I quickly felt the urge to vomit and did so. After that, I felt much better, much happier. I analyzed the situation to understand that it was the emotions that I had surpressed during our argument. It was good to get rid of those suppressed emotions, for they could later manifest into a physical illness. This happens a great deal, especially in cases of childhood trauma.
spirit, mind, and body are all connected. Like the water in the ocean, there are depths that may catagorize different realms, yet it is all the same water. So, too, do we have realms within us, and within those realms there are other realms, like within the mind we say there is the unconscious and the conscious, but it is the same mind, and even the deepest parts of the mind can be accessed and healed.
Ayahuasca is like a submarine, allowing us to explore the entire ocean of our being. We must learn how to drive this craft, however, and most importantly, we must have faith that it will safely bring us back to the surface, so that we can enter into the depths without fear. It is amazing what you will find down there, and what you will be able to heal at those depths.

Making my own ayahuasca

This week I made my own ayahuasca, with the help of my students in the final week of the initiation course. We just made a small batch, and I was nervous to drink it, as I was leading the ceremony, which I have not done very many times. It all went great, though, and I was able to heal my girlfriend of the flu. Everyone had a great night. I was laughing at the fun I was having in my visions. It was such a wonderful time, one that I will never forget.

Demons and Healing

In one of the ayahuasca ceremonies during the six week course that is now winding down, I visited my brother in spirit. I could see that he was polluted and needed help, so I had him lay down on a table (in my vision) and began to scan his body with a blue light that I produced from the center of my mind. This light was made of compassion and love and I watched as it purified first his brain, his head, face, neck, shoulders, and chest. When I got to his chest I felt the need to wait there for a longer period of time, allowing the loving light to work on his heart.
As I was doing this, a demon climbed out of his chest. It was the size of a small man, but had eight arms like a spider, and a terribly ugly face. It was not happy to have to leave, but couldn´t remain inside my brother with all that light and purifying love. I was surprised to see it and at first was taken aback. But, I knew it was not good and quickly produced a sword and cut it up into pieces.
Then I felt guilty for destroying it, having been filled with so much love. I decided to apply the same blue light to the pieces that remained. I then smiled as I watched each piece transform into a beautiful butterfly and fly away. I continued the healing on my brother until he was encased in this blue light, like a sphere of light surrounding him. I then put myself in a similar sphere. Then I connected the spheres and began pouring my love and energy into his sphere. As I did this I began to write the letter that I would need to send him, asking that he stop drinking and smoking, problems that he had had for quite some time.
When I got back to town, I went to the internet to write this letter to him. It had been two days since the ceremony. When I got into my email, I saw that I had recieved an email from him. In his letter to me, he said that he had decided to stop drinking and smoking. I felt so happy, and it served as a great reminder of the reality of this work. We can help each other regardless of distance, for love knows no distance.
Love heals all...

Initiation Course

Since I began the Ayahuasca Foundation last spring, I have begun working with several different curanderos. The two with whom I work the most are doña Othelia and don Lucho. They are simply amazing people and it is such an honor to be their friend and student. Both one hundred percent indigenous to the Amazon Rainforest, their styles are very different and they present two interesting perspectives on healing.
Doña Othelia is a true vegetalista, working with countless medicinal plants, including several that have never been properly documented. Few have been investigated by western science either. Her icaros in ceremony further enhance her psychic connection to these plants. She has healed nearly every affliction, including the healing of a late stage cancer patient this year, as well as a patient with herpes in just two weeks. She is such a wonderful person, and her ceremonies are filled with joy and love.
Don Lucho is a man on a mission. He has his own non-profit organization where he educates local indigenous communities on acheiving sulf-sustainability through the cultivation and preparation of organic plantations and medicinal plant gardens. He is an impeccable example of what we should all aspire to be, and his family plays an important role in the project, with his wife and mother helping to prepare the medicinal plants and meals, his children studying business and botany, and his other relatives helping with the work in the fields, construction, and travelling to the remote communities to help others set up similar autonomous communities. It is a true pleasure to include him as well as doña Othelia in the Ayahuasca Foundation´s Curandero Initiation Course.
I am about to finish this year´s fall course, and it has been a wonderful adventure. I feel I have learned as much as our students and feel so good that at least one of them will be returning to do a formal apprenticeship. During the course, I have had such beautiful visions, and soon after will begin the formation and execution of the first Indigenous Culture museum here in Iquitos. It is a project I believe in strongly so it fills me with great happiness to see it coming to fruition. This will lead to the Ayahuasca Museum, and hopefully pave the way for the Ayahuasca clinic. I have been filming ceremonies with infrared technology, as well as recording them and interviews with the curanderos and students.
It looks like 2009 will be a very important year for me.

Ayahuasca's mission....

I have been working with ayahuasca for over 5 years now, and I have begun to see this magical medicine as a way to turn people around, from worshiping in the church of the almighty dollar to again remembering our spirits, our connection to each other and to the whole, and the importance of finding within the answers to our questions.
Thanks to the miracles I have witnessed, I have raised my beliefs in what is humanly possible, for what is human is spirit as well, and what is spirit is god, and what god can do, so can we.

I'm really gonna try to write these now...

Ok,
It's been way too long since I wrote here. I even forgot my password to log on. I have had so much happen as well since my last post. Way too much to put in one post. The most important thing is that the film crew that was down here in January has finished the film, entitled Ayahuasca Diary, and has entered it into the Sundance Film Festival. I am so excited about that, even though I still have yet to see the totally finished full length feature film.
What I have seen and heard is amazing, and the results of the healing retreat for the four people featured in the film were so positive that I am sure it will create a buzz in many areas should it get featured in the festival. In particular, the cancer patient went back to LA for another biopsy, only to find out that he no longer had cancer. That was wonderful to see. The other three patients' conditions improved greatly and all in just 18 days of treatment, and along with the stress and annoyance of having the film crew in their face the whole time. It was a trying time for us all, but it was all worth it, now that the film is actually done and the chance for so many people to see the potential of ayahuasca and plant spirit medicine is so real.
I will do my best to keep writing in this. Feel free to email me at carlos@ayahuayra.org for more information on the film, our healing retreats, the initiation courses and apprenticeship opportunities, and the Curandero Seminar scheduled for next April. I hope you are all doing well, healthy and happy and enjoying the mysteries of life.
Ciao for now...
-carlitos

Finally time to breathe...

It has been two months since I wrote my last blog. I spent most of december in the jungle, building and repairing our new camp so that it would be ready for the film crew in January. I managed to sneak out of Iquitos for a vacation around New Year´s only to return to host the group from LA looking to film a feature film on the healing potential of ayahausca.
I will spend the next few days trying to catch up, for there are some serious topics to cover, that I feel will be educational for many of you. Many? I don´t think I can use that word yet to describe the number of readers, but wishful thinking.
I will drink tonight, so tomorrow, I´ll resume the blog as usual, and when I can, I´ll refer back to the past two months to pick out the special or important moments.

Until then,
ciao