My Story of Metamorphosis in the Amazon – Part 1 – How the Dream Came True

I went to Peru on a gust of air that swept through my life. It was completely unexpected and felt as though the universe was offering me a beautiful gift. All I had to do was take it. I went at the promise of drinking the ancient shamanic brew, Ayahuasca, and I went expecting a total master cleanse; mind, body, spirit. I was aware that this meant the trip was going to be physically demanding, completely and utterly emotional, and topped off with a hefty serving of spiritual enlightenment, and it was all going to be achieved through the drinking of sacred plant medicines. I knew it was not going to be easy, but there was no way of preparing myself for what was actually going to transpire during those two weeks. I conquered fears and mastered emotions. I became one with not only myself but also the beautiful and mysterious creepy crawlies that called Amaru Spirit home. My heart spilled open and left all that weighed it down on the Maloka floor. I transformed into a fairy, and I made some really beautiful connections with some really beautiful people. I am forever thankful for every moment of this truly exceptional experience.

An Invitation of a Lifetime

It all began on September 12th when I went out for dinner with my dad. He lives four hours south of me but he took a job stunt coordinating a show in my town, so we got to hang out for a summer. It consisted mostly of eating out, drinking beer and baseball games on a tv. By this point in the year I had been flying high for months now. I myself was working on a tv show in my new favourite, beach town, home away from home and that meant I had some truly top-notch summer entertainment. I felt that moment in time couldn’t get any better, but the universe felt otherwise.

When we got to the restaurant, The Crown and Beaver, and sat down, my dad recognized a guy sitting at the bar by himself. He hesitated at first inviting him over to sit with us, he didn’t know if he’d want to be disturbed, but my dad was compelled and Mike joined us. Mike’s a camera drone pilot for Film and Television, and he and my dad have worked on a number of projects together over the last 6 years or so. This was the first time I had ever met Mike and he completely blew me away with all of his stories about traveling the world filming a Nature docu-series called Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan. He eventually came to telling stories about going to the Amazon, and their search for the infamous Candura fish; a tiny freshwater catfish that, if you were to pee in the water, the fish could swim up the stream, up your urethra and wedge itself in like a fishhook using their gills, resulting in possible amputation to remove it. Now, as creeped out as most would be hearing about this fish, I was just super jealous that he’d been to the Amazon! It’s been my number 1 dream destination ever since I first did a project on it in the eighth grade, so like, for 17 years. When he then told us about how for the past 4 years, every December 1st, he and some of his closest friends travel to Peru to a place called Amaru Spirit to drink Ayahuasca, my jaw was on the table. Add to the dream of being in the rainforest, to do Ayahuasca in it was way beyond anything I could dream. I expressed to Mike how big of a dream of mine this was, and right then and there he emailed me an invitation to go with them in just two and a half months!!! I kept my cool but I swear I was jumping up and down inside, or maybe that was my heart pounding, or the butterfly’s going insane, I don’t know, but it felt pretty darn exciting in there. I couldn’t believe this super cool person was really inviting me to go on a trip to Peru to do Ayahuasca with all of his super cool friends. I was giddy and I could have sworn I was dreaming. How I was going to afford the full price of the trip, I wasn’t 100% sure, but I knew I would figure it out. 

My dad was sitting there, obviously, throughout this whole conversation, and he couldn’t believe it either. He wanted this trip to happen for me almost as bad as I did. He understood how amazing this invitation was and just how much it meant to me. He drove back home the following night and discussed the whole thing with my mom.  She was excited for me too!! The following day I talked to them and they had decided that with my 30th birthday coming up in less than a month, and then Christmas a month after that, they could give me money toward the trip instead. YES PLEASE!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! Forever and ever grateful, THANK YOU! And then that same day, possibly the day after, in astoundingly perfect timing, I was hired to perform a stunt on Carter, the show I had been working on all summer. Holy shit! Blown away. That meant I was going to be coming into a nice little payday soon and that I would be able to afford the ~$4000 trip. I was jumping up and down inside again, and just so fucking happy. Without any delay, I emailed Mike saying ‘I’m in!’. Starting to understand why it felt like a gift from the universe? Things were lining up so beautifully, it felt like divine intervention.

For the next two and a half months, I was living on Cloud 9. The #1 and #2 on my bucket list were about to be checked off. There were a couple of times that I would tear up just thinking about it. I was overwhelmed with excitement and gratitude and it’s so wild to me now that I get to look back at it all, and when I do, a similar feeling still overcomes me, and my eyes still well up with tears.

After two and a half months of looking forward, and keeping busy with work, a funeral, and a flood, I was off to the airport! My bag was packed with all of the essentials, double flashlights, a Polaroid camera, tea tree oil for the bug bites, bug spray to prevent the bug bites, a book, a notebook, and a pen. While I sat waiting for my 9am flight, I got talking to a couple of women, one who was on her way to Bali for a dance retreat she was going to be teaching at, and another woman who had been living in Toronto and Mississauga for 6 months studying English and was now on her way back to her home in Mexico. The young woman learning English at one point so aptly said to me, “When you’re on your way to your destiny, you just want to get there.” I’m not sure if she really meant destiny, or if she had intended to say destination, but either way she was spot on. because in that moment I was only just beginning a journey, both literally and metaphorically, that felt like my destiny, my calling, and I could not, and still cannot, wait to get there.

HOLY FUCK I’M IN PERU

I got to Amaru Spirit around 3pm on December 1st. It took about 30 hours, three planes, a boat, and a Tuk Tuk to get there, and shortly after we arrived we were given the option of going into an Ayahuasca ceremony that evening just a few hours late. I was just like HOOOLY SHIT! Hold up a moment, I still need to catch my breath! Thankfully Delara was feeling the same way and so the two of us opted out and simply enjoyed our dinner while the guys went almost immediately into ceremony. I was a little blown away that they could jump into an ayahuasca ceremony so soon after so much travel, but they’ve done this all before numerous times and I suppose it must get easier.

That evening, Delara and I sat on the patio of our absolutely unreal Tambo (house) and watched an incredible storm slowly rumble its way towards us from about 40 minutes in the distance. The sky was red, and the voices of the jungle creatures were slowly replaced with the roar of rain and wind tearing through the canopy. I was so excited. This was such an incredible moment to experience that I will forever cherish. After Delara made her way to her own room, I layed in my hammock with the breeze filtering through the screen walls lightly rocking me back and forth and I reflected on my first day in Peru. I’d had my first encounters with the brown mantled tamarin monkeys, and I got to hear a parrot say “hola!” and then laugh like Delara and I were laughing. That never got old. I’d eaten a lovely vegetarian dinner with my new friend, and now, I was laying in a hammock, in a tambo, in the Amazon Rainforest, in Peru, in the middle of a thunderstorm. Unbelievable. I also thought about the guys in the Ayahuasca ceremony, trying to fathom the intensity of their night. The thunder was so loud it cracked the night wide open, I believed it must also be cracking their minds wide open.

The First Day

The next morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn, to the sounds of the jungle, a small gecko by my bedside, and monkeys playing in the trees outside. When I went to breakfast around 8:30, I discovered our group of four had transformed into 7. We now had Dominic, Krystle and Kat with us. We started that day, and every day that followed, with a smoothie between 8 and 9am. It was served in a glass pitcher, and on the table with it was always a couple of bowls containing either bee pollen, raw cocoa chunks, or dehydrated tapioca balls that we could spoon into the smoothie to give it an extra boost. I didn’t quite understand the tapioca balls. They were as hard as rocks and would never soften even after sitting in the smoothie a while. I can’t say I loved the raw cocoa either, but to this day I continue to make a smoothie just about every morning for breakfast and I always sprinkle in a little extra bee pollen goodness.

That afternoon, we each had an individual little powwow with Slocum (owner, founder, tobachiero) and Nicky (coca shaman) where we discussed our intentions for our visit to Amaru. I told them that I was looking to connect even more so with myself and my heart, and maybe find some answers on what I needed to do next with my life. Slocum did an energy reading and he determined that my physical body was ‘pretty good’ but that my energy body was ‘a little out of balance’ (I felt that) and that I needed to bring my brain, heart, and gut more into alignment with one another. He could sense that I’m in my head a lot. Slocum determined that for my master plant cleanse, the tobacco dieta, I was going to be given three bowls, commencing the following day for a day and a half. I had no idea what this tobacco dieta was, but I was informed it involved drinking tobacco, and my gosh that sounded absolutely horrendous (*Spoiler Alert* It’s even worse than it sounds). I was a little freaked out at the sound of this, but I trusted Mike, Frank, and Dominic and their decision to choose Amaru Spirit time and time again, and I trusted that the Shamans had my best interest at heart. 

Before each medicine ceremony, there is a short period of fasting, so our lunch was the last meal of the day. Always plenty of veggies, some rice, quinoa, or noodles. At 4pm I got to experience my first flower bath, and for that I wore my bathing suit while I sat on a chair on the dining room patio, while the shaman, Jose, poured bowls of water and bits of flower and plant material over my head, shoulders, and legs. He would blow the smoke from his mapacho (tobacco) down my back, down my chest, and over my head and then he would recite a blessing. The flower bath is used to cleanse the energy body before doing any sort of shamanic work, as well as to attract the spirits in the plant medicines with the natural perfume of the flowers. Apparently, plant spirits don’t like the way humans smell. Understandable. After the bath, you then let the water dry on your skin and allow the plant matter to fall off naturally. I felt so lovely sitting around covered in and smelling of flowers. I then, of course, pressed a few of the flower and plant bits in the pages of my notebook.

I was feeling pretty anxious about the ayahuasca ceremony coming up in just short while. There were seven of us going into ceremony that night, and four of us for our first time ever. We discussed it thoroughly; what we thought might happen; our fears; what questions we had for Mother Ayahuasca. The guys were really wonderful, sharing ayahuasca stories of theirs with us, all of which were absolutely mind-bending. Dominic was helpful giving us tips and things we could say to the sacred Mother. Things like ‘thank you’, even for the bad experiences, and he mentioned that if we were feeling at all apprehensive, too fearful, then she’ll often pull back on what she’s doing because she doesn’t want to cause us harm. But also, in other words, you won’t necessarily have any experience at all if you’re feeling too frightful.

The First Ayahuasca Ceremony

When I went into that first Ayahuasca ceremony, I was feeling a whole mess of emotions. I still didn’t understand how this moment had come upon me so soon. What on earth was I getting myself into?! I’d always heard that Ayahuasca tastes terrible, so I wasn’t looking forward to that. I’d also heard that it makes you vomit, so I wasn’t looking forward to that either. Naturally. Connecting to the spirit world, now that I was looking forward to, albeit entirely intimidated at the enormity of what that meant. The Maloka, where the ceremony is held, is quite the magnificent space, and it held such an energy inside that I felt comforted instantly upon entering it. The ceremony started at 7pm when the night had already settled in the forest. We arrived at the Maloka to 3 candles lit in the center of the floor, and mattresses and buckets bordering the walls, one for each participant, as well as three spots for Jose, Slocum, and Sto (helper/facilitator). We started the evening by claiming our spot along the wall, wishing the other participants a good trip, breathing deeply, and settling our minds. Sto began the ceremony by cleansing and grounding our energy by smudging each of us with the smoke of some burning Palo Santo, or “holy wood”, front, back, bottom of the feet, top of the head. I always liked this part. Shortly after the smudging, Jose and Sto went around the circle spoon-feeding each of us the ‘pre-medicine’ (which I never did ask what exactly it was, but I believe it’s just Ayahuasca..?!). The candles are blown out and we relax. About 15-20 minutes after the pre-medicine, our names are called one by one to go up and kneel in front of Jose for our serving of the sacred Ayahuasca. When my name was called, heart pounding, I got up, walked quietly to where Jose was sitting and knelt down in front of him. It was pitch black in the Maloka so he held a flashlight near the neck of the bottle, and as if this whole experience wasn’t magical enough, like straight out of a fairy tale, a thick and curling waft of smoke slowly drifted from the bottle’s opening as he poured my serving of the black tea into the cup.

Story will continue in Part 2.