FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Almost everything is provided for you once you arrive at the Xochipilli retreat center. The only things you need to bring are personal toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, etc.) Once you register for the retreat you will receive a preparation email that will have a list of suggested items to bring as well as guidelines to help you prepare for the retreat.  

The first step is to clean the vine segments of moss or other plant matter that is not ayahuasca. This can be done by washing the vine segments or by scraping the bark with a knife to ensure that nothing other than the ayahuasca vine will be going into the brew. Making ayahuasca is a long process, so sometimes the vines are cut and cleaned one day and prepared the next. Fasting is often practiced during the preparation of the sacred medicine to maintain energetic purity.

Once the vine segments are clean they are then mashed with a wooden mallet or hammer. This breaks the vine into thinner strands, increasing their surface area and allowing more extraction of their medicinal essence. The vines are hard, so it is important to strike them well but not so hard as to pulverize the segments. Sometimes, the curanderos sing icaros during this process to communicate their intentions with the spirit of the vine and make the effects stronger.

Once the vine segments are mashed into thin strands, they are placed in the pot along with the chacruna leaves, which are torn into small pieces. Then, water is poured in until it just covers the plant material entirely. The pot is put over a fire and brought to a boil. Cooking times vary greatly as do cooking temperatures, controlled by the size of the fire, but the goal is the same: to reduce the water in the pot while absorbing the medicinal essences of the plants being cooked.

When the curandero feels the brew has cooked long enough, the water is removed from the pot and saved, leaving the plant material. This is called the first “wash.” More water is then added to the plant material and the boiling process is repeated. This procedure may be done several times with the same plant material. Each reduction increases the strength of the final brew because more medicine is extracted each time and more liquid is produced for the last reduction, which is done without plant material.

Once all the reductions are done, just the liquid is combined and put back on the fire to reduce it further. The reduction is the final step in the cooking process and determines the strength of each dose. Therefore, the curanderos watch carefully as the liquid is reduced, making sure that it is at the strength he/she desires. The curandero stays with the brew the entire time during its preparation.

When the brew if finally done cooking, it is taken off the fire to cool. Dozens of liters of water are reduced into one or two liters of prepared medicine. The final step, when the brew has cooled, is to filter the medicine to remove any remaining plant material. This is often done with a fine cloth. The curandero then says a final prayer over the medicine to bless it. The brown liquid is then put into a bottle to save for the ceremony.

Ayahuasca is generally extremely safe when worked with responsibly. The information below is a guide, and specific cases should be discussed with the Samskara staff before the retreats begin. This is by no means an exhaustive list, rather guidelines to help ensure your safety.

Medications that can be unsafe with ayahuasca:

Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs)

Central Nervous System (CNS) Depressants (and sleeping pills)

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)

Anti-hypertensives (blood pressure medications)

Other Anti-Depressants

Antibiotics

Recreational drugs:

Cannabis

Amphetamines

Cocaine

Ecstasy

Any psychedelic drugs

Other medications that should be discontinued; decongestants, cold medications, allergy medications, antihistamines, sedatives, tranquilizers, amphetamines (including Adderall), some hypertensive medications, sympathomimetic amines (including pseudoephedrine and ephedrine), carbamazipine, methylphemidate (Ritalin), macromerine, phenelanine, tyrosine, tryptophan, asarone/calamus, some asthma inhalers, and diet pills.

If you suffer from any of the following psychological conditions, please discuss this with staff from the ayahuasca foundation before the retreat begins:

Borderline disorders

Bipolar disorders

Psychosis

Schizophrenia

Family history of mental health problems

Physiological conditions that should be discussed with staff;

Chronic high blood pressure

Heart conditions

Diabetes

For more information please send as an email at info@samskaraayaretreat.com 

Kambo can help with the following:

• Depression
• Migraines
• Blood circulation problems
• Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease
• Vascular insufficiency
• Organ diseases
• Cancer
• Fertility problems
• Deeply rooted toxins
• Chronic pain
• Addiction to opiate or prescription painkillers (Kambo reduces physical pain, thus helping people kick their addictions to other painkillers)
• Fever and infections
• Negative energies (traditionally known as “panema”)

Purging may occur in several ways on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. When purging occurs, it is the movement and processing of negative energy out of the body. On the physical level, the most common forms being vomiting and defecation. Shaking, racing thoughts, yawning, crying, laughing and hot/cold sweats are others.

Purging is the Medicine’s method for eradicating the body of harmful, toxic, suppressed or pent-up energies or elements due to addictions (substance and behavioral), physical ailments, or past trauma. It is very important to not hold the purges in. Let them out. Each guest has a vomit bucket, toilet paper, and water to cleanse the mouth. The staff at Xochipilli are always available to assist you with going to the bathroom and any other needs that may arise.

Each experience is different, but about 3-4 hours on average. How long you feel the effects of ayahuasca depends on a number of things including the strength of the medicine, your sensitivity to the medicine, etc. You can always send us an email with your concerns and questions and we will be happy to schedule a call to answer any further questions. 

Post Retreat:

A primary focus of the Samskara Ayahuasca Retreat team, is that you have a profound and healing experience. We are committed to your growth and transformational process and we know how important it is to be supported on your journey from beginning to end. Below are a few ways our team will support you post retreat.

1. You will be added to our private Facebook group page. You can post any questions, comments, or share about your integration experience. 
2. Monthly group check in calls via zoom over a 3-month period
3. Weekly emails offering a road-map with practices, exercises and general advise over a 3-month period to help you integrate
4. One 30 minute coaching session with one of our coaches. 

We are called to serve medicine in sacred ceremony with integrity, humility, and compassion. By creating a safe space and working only with experienced, well-intentioned healers and facilitators, we uphold the lessons of the medicines and build a foundation of mutual trust, authenticity, and respect.

Kambo is a substance that comes from frog secretion, and for many indigenous cultures in the Amazon, this purgative, immunity-boosting medicine is very important. Known in Portuguese as the “vaccine of the forest,” it has also gained renown outside of the Amazon as a powerful treatment for chronic pain and drug dependence.

A practitioner can help guide you to gain the maximum benefits from a kambo application, helping you to set an intention before the ceremony, ensure proper set and setting during the ceremony, and integrate the experience afterward.

What’s the process like?

The first part of the process involves drinking about a liter of water. Next, Arturo will use a burning stick to create a number of small burns on the skin, resulting in blisters. The blistered skin is then scraped off, and the kambo is applied to the wounds. From the wound, the kambo enters the lymphatic system and bloodstream, where it’s said to race around the body scanning for problems. This usually results in some immediate side effects, especially vomiting. Once these effects begin to fade, the person will be given water or tea to help flush out the toxins and rehydrate.

Important things to consider:

Within minutes of applying the kambo, people may experience immediate, temporary, unpleasant symptoms such as:

• Rush of heat and redness to the face
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Dizziness
• Fainting
• Sweating
• Rapid heart rate
• Nausea
• Muscle contractions

Please note these symptoms typically last from 5 to 30 minutes and range in severity per the individual. 

1. Ayahuasca helps clear the gut and digestive tract of worms and parasites. The harmala alkaloids found in ayahuasca are anti-parasitic agents that chemically kill the parasites without harming the individual. These antimicrobial agents also kill bacterial organisms such as E. coli, Salmonella, and yeast.
2. Ayahuasca reduces depression. It increases blood flow to the frontal and paralimbic regions of the brain that are associated with emotion processing (controls mood and emotional states) and motivation. Similar to pharmaceutical antidepressants, this medicinal brew activates serotonin receptors, thus changing concentrations of the mood-boosting neurotransmitter in the brain. In several small-scale clinical studies, ayahuasca had rapid and sustained antidepressant effects; even in recurrent cases.
3. Ayahuasca may contribute to substance addiction treatment. As a hallucinogen, ayahuasca induces changes in personality or behavior and causes anti-addictive effects. It induces biological effects on specific brain areas (like insula and amygdala) that impact behavior related to addiction. The body-oriented, psychological, and spiritual experiences provided by ayahuasca can lead to diminished cravings. It also helps enhance creative thinking while decreasing conventional thinking. This increases psychological flexibility, thus helping with addiction. There have been several studies on using ayahuasca as an effective treatment for substance addiction.
4. Ayahuasca has the potential to support cancer treatments. However, this still needs to be further researched. There are very few studies available regarding the safety and effectiveness of ayahuasca as a cancer treatment because legal restrictions make these studies difficult to proceed. In a Brazilian study conducted by Eduardo Schenberg of the University of Sao Paulo, the results showed that Ayahuasca actually has the potential to treat cancer. Schenberg wrote, “There is enough available evidence that ayahuasca’s active principles, especially DMT and harmine, have positive effects on some cell cultures used to study cancer, and in biochemical processes important in cancer treatment, both in vitro and in vivo”. Ayahuasca can increase the number of white blood cells that kill cancer cells. It can help kill cancer cells and suppress cancer cell growth by blocking glucose usage in cancer cells.
5. Ayahuasca increases the energy levels that affect efficiency. Since one of the physical benefits associated with ayahuasca is the cleaning of the body; this implies that at a physical and energetic level, it makes the body operate with as little impediments as possible. It allows the body to perform everything more efficiently. As it helps bring you to more clear senses (freedom from addiction), discover mental/emotional traumas and learn from it (recovery from PTSD), accept mistakes and shortcomings (recovery from depression), and begin to feel better as a whole. These learnings later resonate through work and relationships and ultimately make you more efficient in what you’re doing. Resources: psychologytoday.com, newyorker.com, selfhacked.com