After a Decade of Experimenting with Plant Medicine, Here’s My Biggest Takeaway
The first time I ever heard the word "ayahuasca" was in 2012, after reading my high school classmate's story about how she traveled to Peru to experiment with plant medicine in combination with chiropractic to treat her injuries. She was quadriplegic and told she would never walk again after experiencing a traumatic fracture during a snowboarding injury.
I heard the word again while watching Daniel Pinchbeck's documentary, 2012: Time for Change.
At that time in my life, it was a time for change, and while the world made jest of the Mayan Calendar's notion of an impending apocalypse, I truly believed it was, indeed, an apocalypse, not in the sense of a catastrophic end, but as an apocalypse in its original, etymological sense: a revelation of truth. This was a moment of unveiling, where the layers of my existence were peeled back to reveal a deeper, more profound understanding of life, purpose, and meaning.
On nothing but faith and intuition alone, I knew that this was something I wanted to experience, to find the revelation of my life. So, with nothing but that hunch, I made a series of decisions that led me to follow Daniel Pinchbeck down to Costa Rica and try ayahuasca for the first time in 2013. And, essentially, begin my life as I know it today.
Flash forward to over a decade later, and I look back to that time and my "inciting incident" and can't help but understand how and why the psychedelic renaissance has evolved to the point it has today. I am simultaneously inspired and concerned as I see the ongoing shift in this landscape, and I am uncertain if it's actually all good.
After trying ayahuasca for the first time, I had no idea what "integration" meant or what the implications of touching the sky and having to return to the "real" world would be like. I was 28, painfully naive, and my post-plant medicine self was akin to a Chicken Little, wanting to sing the praises and healing potential of this medicine to everyone I encountered. I was a very annoying person now that I look back at this.
Then, life, as it tends to do, hit me with a curveball, and I went through a series of profound losses. Overnight, I lost all of my savings (in Bitcoin) during a hack on the trading platform I was using to store them. Financially, emotionally, and spiritually, I was destroyed. I thought I had just unlocked the secrets of the universe, and felt as though I understood my purpose in the world, yet only a few months after I came home from this sacred journey, everything fell apart. I couldn't understand why, and I was severely confused, disoriented, and angry.
It took three years before I even had the opportunity to do ayahuasca again, and when it came back into my life, it came back strong. For almost three years straight, I worked with a plethora of psychedelic medicines to understand my path and purpose again and again. It wasn't until 2019, in a ceremony before the pandemic, that I had the most challenging and terrifying journey of my life and was scared straight from dabbling in the realm.
At that point, ayahuasca had started to factor into mainstream conversation, and this tool, with the potential to change the world, was beginning to serve as a modality for inflaming narcissism, messiah complexes, navel-gazing, and a panacea for "healing" all trauma. In the cultures ayahuasca is indigenous to within the Amazon basin, this level of thinking is systemic to a greater issue, as the medicine, in these traditions, is believed to be a relational tool to put you into a right relationship with your environment and your community. Sickness is something beyond the self but is a part of a rift in the greater ecology. The focus is on the "we," not the "me," something that Western culture fails to realize in the overemphasis on self above all else.
The Shipibo people, for instance, view ayahuasca not merely as a substance for individual healing but as a conduit for community cohesion and ecological harmony. Their ceremonial practices emphasize the interconnectedness of all beings, teaching that true healing comes from understanding our place within the wider web of life. This perspective offers a stark contrast to the individualistic approach often seen in Western contexts, where the pursuit of personal enlightenment sometimes overlooks the importance of collective well-being.
When the pandemic swept across the world, it offered us a broader perspective on why medicine is so appealing to the masses. The sudden isolation and quarantine made it clear just how lonely we all are and how this loneliness contributes to the mental health crisis in our seemingly hyper-connected world. It's natural for us to want to escape to nature for clarity during times like these, but ultimately, we return to a society that prioritizes individual success over collective well-being, making true integration difficult. It's no wonder we are all experiencing what Daniel Schmachtenberger calls the "meta crisis," a lack of purpose and meaning in our lives.
The pandemic, in its unforgiving pause, brought the world to a standstill and, with it, a collective reckoning. We were thrust into a global apocalypse—not of the world ending, but a revelation, an unveiling of truths long ignored about our interconnectedness and the essential nature of community and, unfortunately, a greater rise in the unwellness about the wellness industry and toxic Conspiritual-adjacent thinking.
This period of isolation forced many to confront the reality that the systems we live in are not built for the health of the individual or the collective. It highlighted the stark contrast between the world we've created and the world we yearn for—something I have described using the Welsh word "Hiraeth," which means "homesickness or longing for something that may not even exist."
In this context, the appeal of ayahuasca and other forms of plant medicine grew not just as a means of personal enlightenment but as a desperate search for a cure to the societal ailments we've been unable to remedy with conventional means. The irony, however, lies in the return. The journey inward and to the far reaches of consciousness with ayahuasca brings about profound revelations and a sense of connectedness that seems to offer solutions to the fragmentation experienced in modern life.
Yet, the integration of these insights into a society that values productivity over well-being, competition over collaboration, and material success over spiritual fulfillment remains a formidable challenge. This brings us to a pivotal question: How do we reconcile the profound, often life-altering insights gained from these ancient practices with the demands and structures of contemporary society? Why is the retreat and the connections fostered in these environments so profound?
The answer, it seems, lies not in the experiences themselves but in our longing for a greater sense of community. I know, when I look back, beyond my own intentions to heal from trauma and find purpose, deep down, I was really, incredibly, painfully lonely.
I can’t help but wonder - cue Carrie Bradshaw's voice - if the true potential of the psychedelic renaissance may not be in the individual transformations alone but in our collective ability to harness these insights to reimagine and rebuild our social, economic, and spiritual infrastructures in ways that reflect the interconnectedness and interdependence that ayahuasca reveals.
As we move forward, the lessons from my first-hand experiences dabbling with and working in the psychedelic space, coupled with the post-Covid era in tandem with the rise of AI, and the question we will continually be asking ourselves in the coming years, "Is this real?" suggests a path forward that values the 'we' over the 'me.'
It's a call to action, not just for those who have sat in the ceremony but for all of us to consider how we can contribute to a society that mirrors the revelations of truth that come with these profound experiences, to regain stability and begin to walk forward with perspective, despite our limitations from the system we are indebted to. And the ongoing epistemic confusion of the hyper-connected digital landscape.
In March of 2023, I participated in what I consider to be my final ayahuasca ceremony. It was a profound revelation, echoing Buckminster Fuller's notion that "love is metaphysical gravity," and it offered me a glimpse into the steps forward. These ceremonies, I've come to realize, are best seen as mirrors that inspire liberation rather than supplements to be chased ad nauseam. The most significant takeaway—and truly the highlight of the experience—was the camaraderie. I was surrounded by friends, like-minded souls from a diverse array of cultures, ages, and backgrounds, all of us sharing space together. We laughed, healed, and danced, even amidst uncertainty. Ayahuasca served as the catalyst that brought us all together, yet I've been left with the feeling that it's akin to the Wizard from "The Wizard of Oz." Despite its immense power, "The Man Behind the Curtain" serves as a reminder that the true power lies within us and always has.
What we choose to do with this power remains to be said. I have many confliction and contradictory feelings about it all, and will continue to. I don’t claim to be enlightened, a sage, or beyond sin. I am my own walking contradiction, and I am OK with that. I do take comfort in not “knowing” the answer but continuing to question everything.
I see the utility in it being available as an evolutionary tool, but the over-emphasis on self and endless peak experience chasing, to be monetized and bastardized as the world heats up and uncertainty speeds forward, feels a bit more like a weapon. Will we eventually wake up and realize the archaic roots of the source, where medicine is a means of social healing meant for the collective?
I don't know.
What I do know is I am grateful and humbled by the technology of these plants and the opportunities I have had to share these experiences with a wide variety of people. I will hold them in deep reverence on my own path and continue to believe in their potential, but, for now, I will continue to integrate and move forward on solid ground, with hopes of a brighter future, not a perpetuation of the same problems that lead us here in the first place.