How does the medicine world open up? How do I see visions with Ayahuasca? Why does this sometimes happen and other times not?
These are questions from beginners with Ayahuasca and these questions are again and again on the learning path with plant medicine arising. There are many lessons to learn around this topic.
Medicine is in everything and it is about seeing and integrating that.
From my own experience, I was not thrown into strong visions or visual experienced medicine worlds in my first about 50 or 80 ceremonies I guess.
Before in my life, I took quite a lot LSD and Mushrooms since teenager times. I smoked also a few times DMT before I drank Ayahuasca. With these substances I almost all the time was into deep visions or could see super interesting things.
When I started to learn with Ayahuasca and the Shipibo Healers I see now that the higher plant wisdom wanted to show me clearly that his path for me personally is a different one than I walked before. I had to do my inner work, I had to show up also without the spectacular visions and amusement that I was chasing before in my life.
For all of us, the journey of healing and learning is very different.
Over the last few years when I´m facilitating groups and individuals on their journey, it is a very regular question. "Is something wrong with me?", "Is the Ayahuasca not strong enough?", "Do I not connect, if I have no visual experience or visions?"
If you sit with good maestros and you drink good medicine it is always about your internal process and inner learning in what appears in the situation for you. There can be much inside in the experience of " I feel nothing". There is never "nothing" when you look deeper inwards.
In my case, it was the case that I really had to show to the universe that I´m doing that to heal and to learn and not just for fun. Before in my life, I had an almost 20-year Party time where I loved substances just to explore, enjoy and escape all the limitations that were weighing me down in life. I coped with partying for a long time to find more joy, freedom, love, fun, and liberation. And most of the time I was with great people, I'm grateful for that time too.
In 2013/2014 it became crystal clear that I wanted to change my life. I knew it is enough and is not bringing me further in my development. I wanted to move out of old patterns and get more aligned with something higher. Starting to learn in January 2015 in the Peruvian jungle with the shipibo medicine was a clear step into something new.
I heard people around me talking about their visions, colorful experiences, and being far out in the universe. For me, nothing like that happened. Most of the time I was quite present in the Malokka (Ceremony building). Often my mind had intrusive looping thoughts, I experienced frustration, self-doubt, heaviness, many old memories came up, understanding patterns, experiencing limitations, becoming aware about blockages around my heart, feeling boredom, or just extreme physical discomfort.
I experienced a lot going in myself, being with all parts of my human self, and learning not to suppress any of that.
Nothing like emerging with the universe or transforming into a panter or something spectacular as I heard from some other people.
Still, I knew somewhere deep inside me that I want to continue and that the whole experience is good and very important to me. I had full trust that energies are moving. I could feel it outside of the ceremony in reflections in life and interactions, that I started to shift in a way that felt good for me.
In the beginning, there was much clearing, cleaning, letting go, and connecting happening.
I knew that there is a spiritual world, I knew that everything is energy and I knew that I want to continue to go the road with learning with the plant wisdom. There was no real need from the Medicine Spirits / Energies / Intelligence to show me that in the first place.
I guess I had to get first more my own best friend in the process of understanding and feeling love in my life and humanness. And clearly, I had to break my pattern of using substances to distract or escape from life.
At some point in my first Dietas (in shipibo Sama), after a few months of being in isolation and showing up more and more the visual Rao Nete (Medicine world) opened up very slowly. This was one of the most beautiful moments. I felt like receiving the most precious gift.
My way was first getting aligned with who I am as a human, getting my feed on the ground to walk a new path, and harmonizing and healing blockages that I had created in my life and growing up.
When the learning about energies and plant medicine in my diets started to shift towards slowly more seeing, then also my maestros started to teach and show me through their Ikaros certain things.
Sometimes there are these questions arise. We are humans and sometimes our mind wants to know... It is a delicate process. Certain things just need trust, a flow, a presence, and no mental questions.
So the question how do I open visions? Or is there something I need to do? Do I need to have a certain mindset? Does my heart need to be open? Do I need to be a great meditator? Do I have to be receptive? How present do I need to be?
All these questions are interesting questions and it is really an individual path, but let´s explore a little.
When you learn with the Shipibos you might learn at some point that you need to sing to the medicine to build up reciprocity and a connection. Learning how to activate certain energies or how to open other dimensions. People who learn in long-term diets learn how to open the worlds of the plants, learn how to navigate the energies with their singing and get in reciprocity to channel or work together with all the different plant allies, energies, and elements they are connected to through their Dietas / Samas (trainings).
For many, there comes, again and again, the point where these visions and these worlds are not opening up. This is quite common and then again there might be many questions arising.
What is wrong with me? Is there something wrong with the maestro? Is the Ayahuasca not strong enough? Am I not present enough? Am I blocked? Do I think too much? Do I need to let go of a certain way I thought it would work and now maybe it doesn´t? Is my diet crossed? Are the spirits not happy with me? Maybe this is not my path?…
What I know from my own experience and what I hear from others there are always different times and episodes when we learn. Sometimes the Rao Nete opens in Multidimensional ways and we find ourselves in the mids of a whole moving universe and sometimes we just sit very presently in the Malokka.
To be open and curious how our mind might be in the way, how our own “ways” might be limiting, or if we just get tested in our trust that the medicine is always with us and in us or.. Or … or…
All this is a part of the learning with Plant Medicine for most people who walk the path of learning.
- Presence
- Trust
- Surrendering
- Relaxing
- Singing
- no expectations
- emptiness/nothingness/wholeness/fullness: is there any difference??
- feeling safe
- letting happen whatever wants to happen
- everything that happens is perfect as it is (attitude)
- I´m in the hands of GOD and don´t resist anything
- I´m in the flow and trust
- Which concepts/beliefs are in the way
… Exploring these topics can be helpful on the journey...
Let your experience be your experience.
Allow energies and life to move through you...
Enjoy and be grateful.
Much love,
Ute
Picture/Painting from Pablo Ameringo.