LGBTQ+ Ayahuasca And Compassionate Inquiry Retreat 9/10-9/21

The Program There will be six night-time ayahuasca ceremonies led by a team of four highly skilled Shipibo healers. Shipibo plant-spirit healing is an ancient and sophisticated healthcare system that reaches into the psychological, psychic, emotional, and energetic roots of trauma, blockages, limiting views, and self-defeating patterns. The healers operate in ceremony as a plant-spirit guided medical team, each delivering on their particular skills and specialities, and provide individualized attention throughout the retreat to participants specific to their needs. The day-time sessions will build on and compliment the deep healing experiences in ceremony. Through Gabor Mate’s Compassionate Inquiry approach, your facilitators will guide you as you explore how you created your world as you have. This work offers you the possibility of bringing unexpected opportunities and powerful awareness into your life, your relationships, and your work in the world.

What’s Included: 6 ayahuasca ceremonies over the 12 days A high ratio of healers to guests – 4 healers per retreat Regular group integration and processing sessions Guided ayunando (fasting) with ayahuasca Group size limited to 23 people An skilled team of facilitators to guide you with processing and integrating your experiences A cleansing steam bath on the first day of the retreat Jain Póiti (banos de florecimento) – cleansing, purifying, and strengthening floral baths Energetic healing massages (where necessary, as part of your healing process) Vomitivos (stomach cleansing) to rid the stomach of some toxins All food and drink – a deliciously simple diet suitable for working with medicinal plants A jungle walk to see medicinal plants in their natural environment Individual consultations with the healers and your facilitators Plant remedies individually prescribed by the healers Completely private and individual accommodation in simple bungalows Laundry service Translation from Shipibo / Spanish to English All workshops facilitated in English Porters to carry your luggage to and from the pickup location and the Temple All transportation to and from the Temple from the pickup location in Iquitos What’s Not Included: Airfares (International and National) Airport transportation Travel insurance Accommodation in Iquitos Peruvian Visa costs for non EEC or USA nationals Personal expenses (meals and drinks in Iquitos, etc.)

General Travel Information Travel to Iquitos, Peru ****IMPORTANT: Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, we strongly recommend that you do not purchase flights or make travel plans until the weeks prior to the start of your retreat. Also, do not book flights or make any travel arrangements until your application has been approved.**** Please book your flights for one day before and after the start and end date of your retreat to first allow yourself ample travel time and time to acclimatize to the environment so you are refreshed after flying and ready for the morning pickup on the first day of the workshop. We also recommend that you stay overnight in Iquitos after finishing the workshop in order to reintegrate and begin to process the healing you have experienced before taking any flights back home. In order to come to the Temple you will need to fly into Iquitos International Airport. There is no road access to Iquitos, so it is necessary to fly unless you will be arriving by boat. LATAM is the main carrier in Peru (ONE World Alliance) and offers connecting flights to Iquitos via Lima. We recommend that you purchase a flight with Iquitos as the final destination because flights are often delayed in Peru due to weather. For example, if you purchase a separate flight from Lima to Iquitos, you may end up missing your flight to Iquitos because your flight to Lima was delayed, and it will not be covered. Once you’ve landed in Iquitos and exit the arrival/baggage claim area, you will find cars and moto-taxis waiting that can bring you to your hotel. Be prepared for a group of taxi drivers to approach you as you exit the airport. There is no reason to be concerned regarding this, but it can be quite a surprise for first-timers to Iquitos. You can expect to pay about 30-40 soles for a car and about 10-20 soles for a moto-taxi to the center of town (about a 30-40 minute ride). Many hotels also offer to pick you up at the airport.

Traditional Shipibo Medicine: Onanya, Ayahuasca, and the Master Plants of the Amazon Our exceptional team of healers (called Onanya in Shipibo, meaning “those who have wisdom”) has been carefully selected over many years to work at the Temple of the Way of Light. We are blessed to work with some of the most respected, kind-hearted, and powerful Onanya from the Shipibo tribe, who are experts in ayahuasca healing and plant-spirit curanderismo of the Amazon. Shipibo medicine is a highly sophisticated healing tradition that harnesses the healing energies of a vast number of plant and tree-spirits of the Amazon. According to the Onanya, it is the plant-spirits who direct the process, transmitting energetic medicine in the form of ikaros (the songs of the plants) that are sung through the healers in ayahuasca ceremonies. Without bringing together a team of plant spirits, the healing work of ayahuasca alone would be limited, and unable to reach the energetic roots of heavy energies. While the only plant brew you will drink in ceremony is ayahuasca, you will receive energetic healing from many different plant-spirits in every ceremony. One of the main functions of Oni for the Onanya is to enable them to perceive energetic blockages in the people that they are healing. Traditionally, in Shipibo communities, the person receiving healing would typically not drink ayahuasca. For the Onanya, Oni is a nature-based technology that enables them to scan and see the energetic body and where heavy energies are located. They then focus on cleansing and clearing the energy field that surrounds us (niwe, in Shipibo) which picks up toxic energies from the environment and heavy residual energies from traumatic experiences in our past. The Shipibo healers’ encyclopedic knowledge of the medicinal plants (rao) of the Amazon Rainforest allows them to heal a huge range of psychic, psychological, emotional, and physical conditions that are typically all rooted in energetic causes.