Best Ayahuasca Retreat
Choosing the best ayahuasca retreat for you is a very personal decision. It is beautiful that this sacred amazonian brew made its way out from the jungle and is more accessible and known than ever. With that comes an increasing amount of ayahuasca retreats and options to choose from if you feel a call to sit with it.
I am a person who has always been guided to my healers and medicine based on intuition. The feeling I can only explain as knowing without a doubt that something inside of me is saying YES to an option being presented to me. For those that like to take other factors into consideration, or a more logic vs feeling based approach, I’m sharing 3 main aspects to keep in mind during your decision making process.
The first thing that comes to mind for me is set and setting. To me this means 1) where the retreat is located 2) what the facilities are like and 3) the size of the group.
I have not made it to the jungle yet to drink Ayahuasca. The reason being that while drinking ayahuasca in the jungle from which it comes from sounds absolutely magnificent, I have been considering the realities of being IN THE JUNGLE to drink ayahuasca. It’s beautiful and savage, savage in it’s beauty, but I have been really honest with myself about whether I’m ready to be so far out of my comfort zone yet. It’s not so much the lengthy travel on land and river or not having my creature comforts. For me it’s mostly the mosquitos and insects that I’ve heard absolutely nothing can repel you from. Probably the heat too. But mainly the mosquitos. I am however, feeling more and more called to it, so one of the things that I have consciously working on is cleansing my blood of all the sugar I used to consume in what I believe is the only hope I have of not being devoured alive.
All of this is to say, it’s important to know what you need in order to feel comfortable. I have drank ayahuasca in the middle of the city and it’s not my favorite setting. I prefer to be surrounded by nature. I’ve facilitated in groups of up to 30 people, but when I sit with the medicine for myself, I prefer a more intimate setting and a much smaller group of people. I prefer 1:1 since I have the luxury that my best friend is my shaman, or with a group of less than 10 people. That’s why the retreats that I host are designed that way – with the emphasis being placed on a simple but beautiful location surrounded by nature, and small groups.
If you’re a person who desires more of a resort or modern and fancy type of experience with a larger group of people, those options exist as well. So it just depends on where you’ll feel most comfortable, as that is key.
The second important factor to consider is who is facilitating the ayahuasca retreat and serving the medicine. You should be able to speak to those facilitating so that you can ask any and all questions you have, and tune into how your body feels when speaking to them. Trust your instincts. Do you feel good when speaking to them, or is something inside of you telling you something feels off? Some things to one should know before drinking ayahuasca with someone is: how they trained and received this tradition, how much time they have spent cultivating their relationship to the medicine, and a bit about their own path with it.
We have to remember that drinking ayahuasca means entering an incredibly sensitive energetic space, and while it’s not always possible, you want to do your best to be guided by people who are doing their own inner work separately, so that they do not bring their own unconscious shadows to your healing space.
The third element I’d suggest to consider is what the structure of the retreat looks like. If you want silence and space in between ceremonies, don’t choose a retreat with a jam packed itinerary, and vice-versa. For me, sitting with ayahuasca is a process of connecting to ourselves and opening, so I find activities that support that process to be very beneficial.
In summary, trust your instincts and see if you can feel into your body when considering different options. Choose a container where you’re going to feel the most comfortable, know as much as you can about the people holding this sacred space for you and that you trust these individuals, and consider whether the format of the retreat is such that it will support you in the intention you have in sitting with the medicine.
While there are other things you can take into consideration, these 3 should be enough for you to choose the best ayahuasca retreat option for you!