Sacred Ceremonies NYC

This group is for anyone interested in learning, sharing and discussing Ayahuasca and related indigenous rituals for personal growth and healing.

Ayahuasca:

What is Ayahuasca? 

Ayahuasca, also called “yagé” or “Grandmother” is a mixture of two different plants — a perennial shrub called chacruna (Psychotria viridis) and the ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi). Both plants can be found in the Amazon rainforest.  Chacruna contains a substance called dimethyltryptamine or DMT. To create Ayahuasca tea, the two plants are combined and boiled over a fire for many hours.  The DMT in the chacruna creates the experience or “trip” while the ingredients in the vine enable the body to metabolize it.”  (Dr Axe)

What Can it Do For me?

The top 5 Benefits listed for the Ayahuasca Ceremony - 1) Healing Depression, 2) Improving Physical Disease, 3) Improving and Releasing Trauma/ PTSD 4) Expansion of Consciousness 5) Facilitates the Inner Process of Healing through Self Awareness. (Soul-Herbs.com)

Rapé:

Rapé is a legal sacred ​shamanic snuff medicine, which is pronounced ‘ha-peh’ in English. It is also known to be casually referred to as ‘hape’, ‘hapi’ or ‘rapay.”

It is a very rare, sacred, powerful, precious, profoundly healing and cleansing miracle medicine. They are made in a very sacred and labour intensive process, and consist of various Amazonian medicinal plants, trees, leaves, seeds, and other sacred ingredients. Some types of rapé are made by various indigenous tribes, who originate from different South American countries – primarily Brazil and Peru.

Traditionally, they are applied by using a pipe made from bamboo or bone, which is blown through each nostril on both sides. They can be self-administered using a V-shaped applicator pipe, known as a ‘Kuripe’. Alternatively, they can be administered by another person using a blow pipe, known as a ‘Tepi’.

Generally, they have the following effects – profoundly helps to re-align and open all your chakras, improves your grounding, releases any sickness on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels, opens-up the third eye, de-calcifies the pineal gland, clears any mental confusion, releases any negative thoughts, removes any entities, connects you to your divine breath, and elevates your connection with Spirit.

Please note that you may experience purging, vomiting, bowel movements and excess saliva, which is normal where stuck energy, toxins and sickness are being released from your energetic and physical bodies.

Each different type of rapé has different vibrations, notes, qualities, subtleties, and very different effects on the energetic field. Furthermore, after you develop a deeper relationship with each rapé – ​they are powerful Plant teacher spirits, where you can ask any questions or hold specific intentions for each sacred session.

Traditionally, during Yawanawa, Kaxinawa-Huni Kuin and Katukina (Brazilian Indigenous tribes) ceremonies, they normally use Rapé and Sananga eye medicine during Ayahuasca ceremonies to help with purging, releasing sickness, moving any stuck energies, opening-up the visions and for clear sight.

Kambo:

Kambo is a medicine 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.

Kambo is powerful medicine and shouldn’t be administered except under the care of an experienced practitioner. 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.

Benefits of Kambo

Research conducted since the 1980s has shown the chemical makeup of kambo to contain short chains of amino acids, known as peptides, that affect gastrointestinal muscles and blood circulation as well as stimulate the adrenal cortex and pituitary gland in the brain. While there are no clinical studies that definitely back up kambo’s efficacy, the properties of kambo peptides make it a promising treatment for the following conditions:

• Depression

• Migraines

• Blood circulation problems

• Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease

• Vascular insufficiency

• Organ diseases

• Fertility problems

• Deeply rooted toxins

• Chronic pain

• Addiction to opiate or prescription painkillers

• Fever and infections

• Negative energies

How Kambo is Administered

In the Amazon, kambo is traditionally collected early in the morning, when the Phyllomedusa bicolor—the giant monkey frog from which the venom is derived—are singing and can easily be found. Without harming them, a shaman scrapes venom from the frog’s skin with a stick. The venom is then administered to a person via small holes that are burned into the top few layers of their skin, usually on the arm. Because of its purging and cleansing properties, kambo is often used as a precursor to an ayahuasca ceremony, which is also used by many of the same tribes.

Undertaking a kambo ceremony can be an intense experience, but leaves you feeling relaxed after about an hour. While the experience is not for everyone, Kambo’s cleansing effects begin within minutes of administration, and it leaves most people feeling less pain in the days and weeks after treatment.

Peyote:

Peyote has a long history of use as a medicinal and sacramental herb. Prehistoric trade in and knowledge of the sacred cactus was apparently well established prior to the European conquest of Mexico. At that time, Spanish Inquisitors declared its use to be a punishable crime against God. Ironically, native peyotists, relying on the humble cactus for divine guidance and inspiration, became targets of oftentimes ruthless evangelism.

Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) is a small (less than 12 cm in diameter), round cactus with fuzzy tufts instead of spines. It rarely rises more than an inch or so above the soil surface. The largest part of the cactus is actually underground in the long, carrot-like root. The above ground portion is the "button" which is cut and consumed either fresh or dried. Usually, anywhere from four, to a dozen buttons, are eaten or made into tea...

Peyote is something of an alkaloid factory, producing upwards of 50 chemically related compounds. The effects experienced after consuming this unique medicine range from a feeling of physical energy and well-being when taken in small amounts (though this is often preceded by a brief period of lethargy), to actual visionary experience when larger quantities are consumed. Often, individuals may experience stomach discomfort or nausea during the first few hours though this is not always the case. Noticeable psychic effects usually last 10 hours or so after they begin. Experienced peyotists recognize and welcome the feeling of the medicine working with them as a spiritual and physical blessing.

The positive, life enhancing benefits of the peyote medicine are probably as diverse as the many people who have found it to play an extremely important role in their lives.” (Erowid)

Psilocybin:

Psilocybin, also more widely known as Magic Mushrooms, is a psychedelic compound that is produced by a wide range of mushroom species. The more than 200 species of mushrooms that are responsible for the production of psilocybin are collectively known on the streets to recreational drug users as magic mushrooms. These psychedelic hallucinogens produce mind-altering effects when they are consumed.

Mushrooms have been used for centuries throughout Spain and Algeria by tribes and in spiritual divinatory ceremonies.

Archeological evidence does show that many cultures around the world used these fungi for ritualistic and sacred practices. The earliest depiction of entheogenic mushroom consumption might be a cave painting found in the upper Tassili platueu of northern Algeria that dates to at least 5,000 B.C., if not older.

Since that time, many other cultures around the world have developed rich traditions that utilize psychoactive mushroom species to bring about profound insight into the human predicament. In Mexico, the Mazatec and Aztec cultures have a well-documented use of San Isidro (Psilocybe cubensis) in that region for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In Siberia, the use of the Fly Agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) for intoxication is not only a long-standing tradition in with shamanic tribes of that area but has also been linked to the origination of the myth of Santa Claus!

DMT: 
DMT is an abbreviation for Dimethyltryptamine. It’s found naturally in the Pineal gland, which is believed to be one’s third eye or connection to the soul. Unfortunately, in today’s society most people are missing DMT due to poor diets, stress and fluoride in the drinking water. DMT is naturally released twice in one’s life, at birth and at death. A near-death experience is thought to be a heavy DMT release. Ayahuasca delivers large doses of DMT into the Pineal, activating receptors that lay dormant, increasing neuroplasticity and creating new synapses in the brain.”

Who should attend our meetups? 

Anyone who has taken part in Ayahuasca or other plant medicine ceremonies and would like to make friends and/or share their experiences with others. 

Anyone who has not tried Ayahuasca or other plant medicines, but is interested in learning more about them.