SPECIAL Plant Medicine Solocast | AMP #34

By Aubrey Marcus February 14, 2017

SPECIAL Plant Medicine Solocast | AMP #34

In my first ever Solocast, I describe the intensely transformative medicine journeys of the last three months, including an errant foray into the world of Kambo, and the most challenging Ayahuasca journey of my life. This is the only place I intend to discuss these very personal experiences.

AUBREY: Hello family, what's going on? We're doing something a little different today. I just got back from 16 days in Peru, and had four Ayahuasca ceremonies, ended up with two wachuma ceremonies, a Bobinsana ceremony, which is a different plant. And generally, I go on, and I do the podcast tour, and I tell about all these crazy stories. But what happened down there was incredibly personal and incredibly powerful. So, I'm going to tell the story one time, and here it is. And it's just me, and my good friend Orlando, who might pipe in if anything I'm saying gets a little too weird or a little confusing, maybe he can bring me back in. But for the most part, I'm just going to be kind of recounting my story, and telling it here.

So here we go. And I guess the story really begins. And it's something I haven't mentioned to anybody, but about two and a half months ago, after my first wachuma ceremony down in the jungle, I'd been hearing about this "medicine" called Kambo. And it's a toxin from one of the most poisonous frogs in the world, the Kambo frog, which looks like just a mean motherfucker with this weird triangle angular face, spelled with a K. K-A-M-B-O. And it's supposed to be great for the immune system. The tribes in Suriname use it for hunting, and supposed to be this really great medicine. So, as kind of an adventurer, a psychonaut, explorer, someone curious about these things, I decided to give it a go. And I was given it a go not in Suriname, not in the jungle, but in Southern California. And that was probably my first mistake there. But I'd talked to some people who'd done it. So I decided, fuck it, we'll give it a go.

So, how they administer this medicine is they get a stick, a pointy stick, really, really hot. And then they burn holes in you. And in the corresponding holes, they put resin made from this toxin that they get from this distressed frog, which is actually truly a poison. And then that supposedly goes through your body and makes you purge, and then you feel amazing. You feel like superhero for the next few weeks or month or whatever. So I was like, alright, I can do that. So, we show up early in the morning and I go in. And, the guy administering says, "What do you think about 11 points?" Well, points are how many times they burn you with a stick. Well, I have no fucking point of reference. I don't know what 11 points is. I'm like, yeah, okay, whatever, that sounds good to me. Later, I find out that everybody in the traditional practice starts with five, then they go to seven, then they go to nine usually. But anyways, I get started off with 11 which is 220% more than I should. So, I get poked with the burning stick, it opens up the skin pretty easily because the stick is smoldering, hot. And that wasn't as bad as I thought. And then they put the poison in. And I go and I sit down and we're outside. And immediately, I feel my face start to swell shut. My eyes are swelling shut, my lips are swelling, my throat starts to close, like full on anaphylactic shock. And I was actually out there with animal expert, Donald Schultz. So he's looking at me like, oh shit, this motherfucker might die right now. And then the puking starts. And I've puked before on medicine, I've puked before when I got sick, but this was on another level. I mean, I am just curled over, my face swollen shut, and just retching. Retching this bright yellow bile from like the depths of my liver and soul. And it was the worst... You can't even describe it as nausea. I mean, it was a painful extraction of fluids from my body that was just convulsing on the ground. And this lasted for like two hours, just like puking solid. Miserable. And then finally we finish, the nausea ends. I got nothing left in my body. Absolutely nothing. Just coughing and hacking the last bit of any fluid that could come out. I mean, if there was fucking semen in my balls, I probably puked it. Like any place there was fluid, it was fucking gone out of my body.

And then we go, and everybody else, a lot of people had a hard experience. No one as hard as me. At some point my throat was like breathing out of like a drinking straw. But again, I was like, "Well, that was terrible. Hopefully at least there'll be some positive benefit from it." Took me all day, my face is swollen all day. I feel like hell. Next day, I'm exhausted. I feel like hell. And as the days kind of wear on, I realize, man, I'm not feeling any benefit from this, and I'm fucking exhausted, and have no energy, and my liver hurts. I was like, this is probably not a good idea.

So finally, like two weeks later, the final scabs are wearing off, and I'm kind of feeling okay, and I see this big bullfrog on my porch, which is really odd. And I was like, man, frog, like, I'm sorry, can you just let up on me? Like, if you could talk to this fucking spirit of frogs for me and just let them know, I'm sorry, that someone tortured you to get your poison and put it on my body, but I promise, I've paid the price. Like, please, just let me feel normal again. And frog didn't do anything. But whether or not it hurt me, or whether or not it was just time, I started to feel at least a little bit better.

But there's that subtle balance between what is medicine, and what is poison. Pretty much anything, any compound that's good for you, and especially compounds that are borderline, if you take too much, it's not going to be good for you. And that's true with whatever. I mean, whatever compound you can imagine, there's a threshold where it becomes toxic. You can call that the LD-50, the lethal dose for 50% of the population. And almost every compound has that. Well, I was pretty fucking close to doing that with the kambo.

So the reason I'm telling that is that I was going into this ceremony, and it was only about two months after that, and I'm still not really physically healthy, especially in the liver part of my body. And that would play a role as I kind of continued on, and just not having the general normal vitality that I would going into one of these medicine ceremonies. But again, so I'm anting up and it's time to go back to Peru. And this time, I'm going to do ayahuasca and I'm going to do wachuma. And I've done Ayahuasca six times before, I've told those stories on Rogan and many other places. And it's always been, even when the visions were intense, it's always been a pretty pleasant experience overall. The DMT visions are beautiful. You have a purge, but it's nothing like the kambo. You kind of puke and you feel okay. And you just feel really clean and grounded. And that was my recollection of ayahuasca. And of course, the wachuma, I had just an amazing experience a couple of months ago, down in Peru at Spirit Quest Center. So, I was looking forward to it. It's intense work, but I was looking forward to it. But one of the things that kind of signifies any of this medicine work is as soon as you commit to doing it, they say the medicine starts working. And what they mean by that is some of the stuff that is going to come up for you starts to come up already. It's as if your mind knows, like, alright, we have to get ready for this major processing of material. And so that was certainly happening for me. Doubts that were unusual started to come up. Other circumstances in my family and other situations started to come to light. So, I knew that this was going to be a pretty big kind of transformative event.

I was bringing an amazing group down to the jungle there, a lot of my good friends. Amber Lyon was there joining me, and I'm sure she'll be talking a lot about it. Donald Schultz again, my good friend and videographer. And Dr. Dan was there. The list goes on of all the great people that were there with me. So, we show up and I'm pretty stoked. I figure I got this, I understand ayahuasca, I'm good. I'm going to see some visions, I'll tell some cool stories, I'll get on the podcast. I wasn't really that stressed about it. I thought that was cool. So we get down there, great reunion with Don Howard, who I call Gandalf the White Wizard. He's done Ayahuasca over 1500 times and done cactus medicine for over 50 years, led ceremonies. One of the great last practitioners in the world.

And so, it's great to see him again and great to connect with the group. And we get down into the jungle, get kind of settled in. And right away, we start with the preparation of our own ayahuasca, which was awesome. One of the only places I know of where you can actually take a part of brewing the brew that you're actually going to make. So we pounded out the vines with these big hammers. And so it basically pounds it out into this almost mulch looking bark. And I had some pictures of the vines we were doing that with. And then we start shredding the leaves. And so the Ayahuasca, you know, is what the brew is named for, and that's the vine. And we're using a particular type of ayahuasca called the Cascavel, which is what a lot of people think is the premium type for these deep spiritual journeys. And the mixture that they use, the admixture of plants that they use that contain the DMT component, because the ayahuasca contains the MAOI, which makes it orally active, and then the DMT component comes from the leaves. And we use three different types of leaves; the chacruna, which is the most common which just contains N-DMT, which is your standard DMT, the DMT you would get if you were smoking DMT. Not the frog DMT, that's 5-MeO-DMT. But there was also two other plants they use in there in the main part of the brew. One is called [inaudible 00:10:17]. And that contains 5-MeO-DMT and N-DMT. And then there another plant called huambisa which contains bufotenin, 5-MeO-DMT and N-MDT. So you're getting kind of a broader spectrum. And my experience of the difference between N-DMT, and 5-MeO-DMT, is that 5-MeO-DMT seems to be a lot more emotionally charged. Like N-DMT is the fireworks, it's the visions, it's the colors, it's the kaleidoscope. It's a lot of that aspect that you see, it's really incredibly pleasant. The 5-MeO-DMT seems to dig deeper into your system and pull out different emotional currents and things. And then the bufotenin is a compound similar to my friend, the frog, but a little different, that actually really facilitates this kind of physical evaporation where you don't really feel your body anymore. And then the only other plants in there, we put three leaves of [inaudible 00:11:18], which is a plant that is often misused and overused in Ayahuasca, because it's very visionary, but just almost at the homeopathic threshold, just to get the energy of this plant in there, and help with some of the deeper visions. So, we put literally three leaves in a giant cauldron of the brew. And I was actually able to put one of those leaves in myself, which was cool.

So, we go to the ceremony. We shred all the leaves the night before, and then the ceremony the ayahuasca is brewing and we add more leaves and add the plants and sing the Icaros. And it was beautiful to kind of be a part of brewing what we're going to drink. So it wasn't a mystery. We got to put our own energy and our own intentions into the brew. But still, that night, we were going to drink and it was going to be our first ceremony. I got to say, I'm still a little cocky. I think, "Oh yeah, ayahuasca, I got this shit." Ayahuasca to me was like, I could compare it to like having to eat a bunch of carrot cake. Like, you know you're going to get sick at some point, because there's so much carrot cake, but it's like, fuck, "But fuck, I'm just eating carrot cake." Like, it's not that bad, it's going to be fun, and sweet. It's going to be cool. Maybe at some point, I'll get sick but it's not so bad.

Honestly, the first ceremony was a little bit like that. So I'll get into the very first ceremony. And it was really the only ceremony that was like that, as you'll find out as this kind of story goes on. But I had my full strength, my liver had recovered to a pretty good level and I had my full strength, and I was ready to go for the ceremony. So, we go up and facilitating the Ayahuasca ceremony is not only Don Howard, but a traditional curandero, Don Rober. And Don Rober has also been doing ayahuasca ceremonies locally in his tribe and in his area in Peru for 50 years. And he has the title of Bunco Curandero, which is the equivalent of like the coral belt in jujitsu or something. It is the absolute highest level, highest honor that an ayahuascero or a curandero can get. And so he's a true master. Don Howard is a true master. And Don Rober also has his wife Eliana who helps administer, and his son who's his apprentice. So, we're sitting in there with four shamans. It's like the full on wizards council.

So feeling great, I got my friends and allies in the room. I got to say, I'm pretty pumped. My little sisters there, which was awesome. So, get a pretty good sized cup. And, they let us know that the first day is going to be the mildest, and then it's going to ratchet up from there. It's like, okay, cool, sounds good. One piece of carrot cake today, have two pieces next time, three pieces next time, no worries. So, we get going, and I was expecting it to be pretty mild, because I've had some pretty mild ayahuasca ceremonies. But right away, I could tell after I drank, and the brew was a little thinner I have to say than I'm used to. It tasted different, maybe because of the admixture, maybe because it was so fresh, and we just brewed it that day. But it was a little thinner, and it wasn't that big a deal. So, I drank it down and I start smoking by mapacho, which is the tobacco which they call it a bridge between... They call it a bridge basically. So it's a bridge to the spirit world or a bridge to other states of consciousness. So they recommend smoking that both for cleaning the energy, or also forming a bridge to another plane or another level or another pattern of thinking. So, I light up the mapacho, and I start to wait because it takes about an hour. And the first thing I start to see was something that I was very familiar with from my Iboga journey. And that looked like, I'm in outer space and there's this like advent calendar. Advent calendars are those things where you push out the chocolates as you count down the days till Christmas, like little doors would have little treats inside. So it was this advent calendar. But inside were the spirits of all my friends, living, dead. And they were there ready to talk to me. Except it was a little different than the Iboga, which I found out right away, when I started getting into discussion with my sister Shannon. In Iboga, the spirits were, it felt like their highest goodest self. They were happy and conscious to an unbelievable degree, and it felt like their ultimate true highest self was being represented.

This felt more like I was talking to them, just disembodied from them, more like their earthly spirits. And I started to kind of get some ideas about these distinctions just based on the personalities I was encountering. Because what happened pretty much right away is I got in a pretty heated debate with my sister. And, she certainly had an advantage because she's in spirit form, I'm in irregular form. But she was definitely kind of kicking my ass in this debate. I got my points in, but we had this full on conversation for like 10 minutes in the spirit world, where at least on my side of things, I really kind of bridged some issues that had come up between us. It was nothing serious, but we kind of got to a greater understanding of each other through that. And it was pretty cool. And I can actually see, after coming back, I can see the changes that have happened in my own perceptions just from having that conversation with her, and a deeper understanding and compassion and love. We've always had a lot of love, but it was nice to be able to have that. And even though she doesn't know about the conversation in this level, I'd mentioned that we had it and somehow it feels like, whatever happened there happened, even if it can't be recalled. It's very interesting how that worked, even if the changes just happened on my side. So I was like, alright, well, that's pretty cool. And then I'm kind of allowing that to pass, I talked to the other spirits that I wanted to talk to. And, I see a fly on a purple flower. And sometimes you see shit like that and doesn't mean anything. But when it has meaning it just kind of sticks in your visual field. And you start to realize, uh-huh, well, I guess there's something here. So, it just kind of stuck, and I was paying attention to it. And then the fly starts to speak. The fly says, "Why do you hate me?" I get taken aback. Well, and I answered, "Well, I guess because I don't understand you." And the fly says, "Yeah, exactly." It's like, "Do you want to know what the world looks like without flies?" And I was like, "Sure." And it showed me the world without flies. And it showed me debris piling up everywhere, feces and debris, and all of this stuff that these flies clean for us by taking into their body wouldn't have gotten cleaned without the flies. And of course, other insects help do that too. And I was like, "Uh-huh, yeah, that's no good, we need the flies." "And then the fly was like, "And not only that, not only are we cleaning the debris, but we take that into our body, process it, and then other animals eat us, which couldn't eat the debris," because without the fly processing it, it wouldn't be viable food. And I saw the frogs that eat it, and the lizards and the birds and whatever else eats the flies. I saw that, and I was like, "Uh huh." The spiders and all the other facilitation of the whole web of life. I was like, "Uh-huh."

So, basically, I understood that I was hating something simply because I didn't understand it and I didn't appreciate it. And as that realization was sinking in, the fly comes, flies into my eye, and turns around, and is now outward facing out of my own eyeball. And the last thing that fly says is, "Now you have my vision, so you won't misunderstand things anymore." And I was like, "Alright, right on." That was a awesome lesson from a fly. Like I didn't expect that at all. So, beautiful. And then another vision comes. And this vision is like every fucking insect you've ever imagined in one, and believe me, I'm not like trying to talk to insects. Insects are not my favorite subject matter. But I see this other spirit being that is like absolutely every insect. It has the legs of a centipede and iridescence of the fly and this... The joints of all the beetles and arthropods you've ever seen. Every aspect; pinchers, stingers, the whole thing that you could imagine. Every insect combined amorphously in this kind of writhing, amorphic presence. And I look at it, I was like, "Uh huh." And I could feel that it had a spirit to it, a presence. And I said, "Who are you?" It says, "Well, I'm the master of insects." The master of insects, okay. So as it looked, it was like this collective consciousness spirit of all insects that I was talking to then. And I say, "Say, are you male or female?" And it immediately chuckles, it laughs at me and says, "That is a human problem." I go, "Oh, yeah. I guess that doesn't really matter. Because you're a spirit being." So, then the master of insects goes on to explain things to me. And it says, "You know, Aubrey, insects are actually perfect beings. They're perfect because they don't have freewill. They operate exactly according to their operating principles, which are inspired by life itself, source itself, that blueprint that pushes life forward. They have no free will to violate that, so every action they take is a perfect action." And I kind of let that sink in. And it started to open up one of the big topics for me throughout this, which was definitely free will. And I understood, okay, you know, that makes perfect sense. Insects, as they've done experiments on digger wasps and things, you can basically hack into their mind frame, and they will do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, because that is part of their principle of operation. And while we may think that, "Oh, that's stupid insects," really in a way, not having the freewill to go a different direction and make these other choices, they are perfect beings. They can't act imperfectly, they can just act according to their principles. And these principles have been developed over millions of years of evolution to be most optimal for both them and the environment that they live in. So I kind of let that sink in. And, the master of insects was like, "Alright, now I'm going to have you talk to more insects." I say, okay. And introduced me to the spirit of mosquito. Now, especially when I'm in the jungle, mosquitoes are like nemesis number one. So I was like, "Fuck, the spirit of mosquito? Okay, great. I'm really looking forward to this." But the spirit of mosquito comes up, and it was a pretty friendly spirit, and I could more feel the presence and hear it, than actually see anything from the spirit of mosquito. And it says, "Hey man, we're just wealth distribution." I was like, "Wealth distribution?" He's like, "Yeah, we're like the taxes." He's like, "You mammals have so much extra blood, we just take a little bit, goes into our body, and then other things eat us. We're just distributing the wealth, man, that's all. No reason to hate us." I was like, "Oh, yeah, I guess you're kind of like wealth distribution." I was like, "Well, what about malaria?" Because obviously, malaria sucks. And I hear the mosquito's voice in my head, it goes, "Motherfucker, we don't like malaria either. That's a parasite to us. You can't blame us for that, you can talk to the spirit of malaria." And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, all right, I get it, you don't like malaria, not your fault. I'm not talking to the spirit of malaria. It's not going to happen." He's like, "Yeah, yeah, cool." But even that little simple thing, I wish I was clever enough to think about that. But it was cool to just kind of reframe what the mosquitoes are kind of doing and the role that they play. Yeah, they're wealth distribution, take a little blood from the mammals, and then provide that blood to the bats and to the frogs, and to all these other creatures, so that, life can be facilitated. Of course, the parasites that are attacking the mosquitoes, passing those on, you can't blame the mosquitoes for that. And I'm sure if I did talk to parasites, like the spirit of malaria, I'd get a better understanding of them as well. But I didn't do that. So I have no insights to malaria, unfortunately. Well, maybe the next time I'll be brave enough.

So then we're continuing along with my tour of former nemeses. And we get to the spirit of cockroach. I was like, "Fucking great, spirit of cockroach?" And as soon as the spirit of cockroach arrived, I had this impossible urge to retch, to purge, to puke. So I puked in my bucket, and let it all out. And by the time I puked and figured that out, cockroach was gone. And I have to say, I wasn't even mad. So I actually really don't know what the spirit of cockroach was going to tell me. But I've been seeing a lot of cockroaches since and I tried to kind of sort it out. So I may have an idea, but it's never as good as when you're like right there in the vision and you can hear the voice. But anyway, so I don't really know what the cockroach was going to say.

So I'm sitting there, I'm kind of cleaned up from my vision. Cleaned up from my purging, I should say. And I'm sitting in my chair, and I put the mapacho, which they call the bridge, the chacaruna, I think is what they call it. And I put that over my right ear. And in the tradition, the right side is the hemisphere of spirit. And the left side is the hemisphere of creation, or Mother Earth. So that's kind of the balance of spirit versus creation. So, I have the mapacho in my right ear. And I say, I'm just kind of chilling out, and I was thinking about all the things that I'd learned from the insects. And, I hear a voice come from distinctly my right hemisphere, where the mapacho is. And it says, "Good for you, son." And I kind of chuckled, and the voice is super clear. I kind of chuckle, I was like, "Who is that, God?" And then I hear this answer, "Well, if you prefer to call me that." And I go, "What the fuck?" Like, oh my God, what is going on here? I was totally blown away by that. And just to be clear, my understanding of God is not anything to do with the biblical reference, anything to do with anything that anybody has actually put out about that word. To me, it just signifies that collective consciousness, that spirit of creation, the force that... The only thing that God has done is said yes to life itself, and to creation. But it tends to, in this shamanic sense, have a traditional masculine archetype, whereas creation has a feminine archetype, Mother Earth, and these types of things. So I'm not talking about any biblical thing or anything like that. So basically, I'm saying, who is that, spirit? And so, Spirit responds, "Like, yeah, if you want to call me that." And so, I'm totally blown away. And I'm like, here I am talking to the spirit of life itself. And I don't have anything to say, right off the bat. I mean, I'm just totally blown away. I was just talking to insects, let alone the spirit of life. So, the first thing I say is, "Well, how do you have time to chat with me?" And the Spirit just kind of smiles, and says, "I got infinite time." I was like, "Oh, yeah, I guess you do have infinite time." That question didn't make any sense. And so I start floundering for all of these questions as I'm like, churning in my head, because I'm afraid that voice will go away. And I won't have anything to ask it. And very patiently, it just waits through these questions, basically kind of chuckles and says, "You know the answer to that, you know the answer to that." So I finally get it a question that's meaningful. And the first question that's meaningful, is, "Why aren't I as happy as I could be?" And Source answers, "Well, you don't have enough faith." And I let that sink in. Pretty typical, right? Source or spirit talking about faith. And what I understood, though, is what was meant by that is that, all of these worries and all of these situations that present themselves that occupy your time, you're generally worried about some future event, worried about a perception that someone might have, or it's these fears and worries and attachments. But if you look back from a bird's eye view back at your life, you always learn something from these things, and you always overcome them. But despite the fact that you're batting a thousand in overcoming these trials and hardships, even if they take something from you, presumably, that you think is valuable, you still learn these lessons and overcome despite virtually batting a thousand in our lives. We're still incessantly worried about these future events coming. And that detracts from our future happiness, our current happiness, I should say, because we're always worried about some other event.

So I kind of let that sink in. So, I ask God or source or spirit, I ask spirit, I said, "Well, what is the nature of faith?" And, spirit replied, "Faith is belief without knowledge." So basically, you don't know how things are going to turn out, because the future is undecided. But if you believe that it will all be okay even without that knowledge, then that's what faith is. So, that kind of definition sunk in. I was like, alright, that makes sense. We won't always be able to know anything about the future. But having that belief is really the key part of faith. And then I asked spirit, I said, "Well, is belief the most powerful force in the universe?" And spirit replied, "Everything that we see is here because we believe it." And we meaning both itself, the spirit itself, and all of us here. And that basically belief is the driving force behind everything that we see. So that tended to be an affirmative answer on that regard. And then, my next question was, I asked, is there evil? And spirit replied, unapologetically, said, "Yes, there is evil. It is the consequence of freewill." And so, in allowing free will for beings, as I said before, insects may not have free will, they operate by their own code. And you couldn't ask, you couldn't say that anything an insect does is evil, it's just operating by its blueprints, it doesn't have a choice. But once you give choice to a being like a human, that's what gives room for evil, because you cannot choose freely without being able to choose the dark side. So, evil is the consequence of free will. But ultimately, free will is what makes this whole game interesting. Without free will, we're just marbles on a track going through, and how dull is that. So it's the unavoidable consequence of free will. So, anybody who laments that there's evil in the world, it has to be there. It has to be there if there's choice, if humans can make a choice between one thing or another, a true genuine choice, then the full spectrum has to be available, and some of the negative side will become manifest.

So as I was kind of digging in, those were kind of my best questions I had. But I started to feel this presence on the other side of my head. So I said, basically I say, "Spirit, I feel like I got another visitor here, would you mind?" And spirit answered, "Sure, go talk to your mother." And so I switched the mapacho over to my left ear, and I was talking to the voice of creation, or Mother Earth, probably has a lot of names as well. And it was a really beautiful conversation that kind of opened up. And I ended up talking to that presence, about a lot of my personal life. I talked about relationships, I talked about girls, I talked about marriage, I talked about kids, I talked about all of these things that you would talk to your own mother about if your mother was the wisest, collective mother of all, that knew all the fucking answers to everything. And had this amazing conversation while I could still on the other side of my head, feel that kind of paternal presence of spirit. And, it's funny thinking about it now. And a lot of what I talked to her about, I wouldn't share, it was pretty personal. But just a beautiful opportunity to talk to these presences. And I've said it a bunch of times before, whether this is accessing parts inside myself or external parts, it doesn't really matter to me. I'm not trying to tell anybody, "Yeah, I talked to God, yeah, I'm something special about it." No, it doesn't mean that to me. But it was the highest intelligence form of spirit, and the highest intelligence part of creation. And it felt like a paternal force, and it felt like a maternal force. And the wisdom that I got from both of those is really what matters. And I don't have any issues with whether that was my in my own head, or whether that was external, doesn't really matter to me, because I believe those forces are both within and without anyways. So, that distinction doesn't really matter. And you can argue, whichever way and I won't be offended to the slightest. If you say, "Oh, it's just the drugs causing that in your head." Great, that's fine. I still got the wisdom, I still got the understanding that I'm looking for. And that's really what matters. So after this conversation, I kind of bring it together.

I bring it together and I smoked the mapacho. That was kind of like the harmonizing of both of those elements, and brought it together. And then I had visitations from some other spirits that started to come because this was still pretty early on in the session, and ayahuasca lasts about six hours. So, I started getting visitations from other beings. And the first one that came was the bear. And I remember the spirit of bear coming in, and I think I kind of sought it out because I have an affinity for bears. And bear says, "What do you want?" And it was super gruff, like I was annoying it. I was like, "Oh, Bear. I mean, I just want to get some understanding and learn from you." So that kind of softened bear up, and Bear says, "Well, I'll tell you about being a bear." He said, "The life of a bear is simple, we carry all of our possessions in our body." And what he meant by that is all the food that they eat, everything they collect for hibernation, it's all stored in their own fat. So he said, "We don't have to worry about wealth, and all of these attachments and all of this shit that you humans worry about. We carry everything we have, everything we are in our own flesh. Life of a bear is simple." And I saw the bear scratching on a tree, eating salmon, eating berries. And I was like, alright, I get it. That's kind of a beautiful way to live, carrying all of your possessions in your own body. That must be actually very simple and very freeing. And the Bear said, "Yeah." And then, just as I was leaving the spirit of bear, bear says, "But I'll tell you a secret. Sometimes when we're hibernating, we dream of being human." And I just kind of laugh, I was like, "Alright, bear, right on." And then from there, I started talking to the spirit of dolphin. And the spirit of dolphin, quite contrary to the spirit of bear was super happy, like the happiest spirit I've ever talked to in my life. And dolphin was like, "Hey! What's up? Glad you're here." He's like, "Let me tell you about being a dolphin. Life of a dolphin is awesome! It's like, we have free will but the only thing we want to do is fish. And we're really good at it." I had like a vision of the dolphin hunting down these fish. And it was so easy. He's like, "We're so much smarter. And then we play and then we fuck, and life is great for a dolphin. We have freewill, no stress, and we get to do all of these awesome things that we love." And I was like, "That's great, dolphin." I was like, "But what about us humans? We kill you sometimes, and we do bad things to you and that must suck." And dolphin was like, "Yeah, that's kind of a bummer. But we got a lot of dolphins." I was like, "Alright, right on." I guess even that doesn't bum the dolphins out. So spirit of dolphin was just a cool and lively, happy, energetic, energetic being as dolphins are. Except when they're getting tortured at SeaWorld or something.

So then, spirit of snake was next. And spirit of snake had absolutely no interest in talking to me. So I'm in there, spirit of snake I'm asking him questions. It doesn't answer me in anything that I'm asking. Like I want to learn about snake, doesn't do anything. And then finally I was like, "Well, snake, can you at least tell me a story?" And snake says, "Okay, one time, I looked at my reflection. And I didn't like what it did to me. So now I keep my belly on the ground. I was like, "Whoa, that sounds like a Aesop's riddle, fable, something like that." And as it kind of sunk in, I realized the meaning, the deeper meaning behind that is that for the snake, there's no separation of judgment of what it sees itself as, and what it is. The snake is just being constantly, it's connected, it's present, it's alert, it's watching. It doesn't have this judge that says, "Oh, I am a snake and I am supposed to do this." It is just being a snake, it never looks at its own self in the reflection and says, "Hmm, look at me, I'm a snake. What should I do?" It is just constantly in the present moment. And it was kind of cool to have that image and that little snippet of wisdom from spirit of snake even though didn't really want to talk to me.

So, I was finishing with all these animals. So then my final question was to communicate with any alien spirits if they're out there. And sure enough, some alien spirit comes. And I asked the alien spirit, what it had to tell me. And the alien spirit said, "You know, basically that life on Earth, and life as a human was totally enviable," even for the aliens. He explained to me that they had solved almost all of the natural mysteries, they had come to consensus on most everything in life, and they become extremely efficient in the way they lived, the way they communicate, the way everything happens. So, efficiency had replaced struggle, and answers had replaced mystery. And so, it was explaining that life for them, although it was stable, and they don't have these wild swings, it was a little boring. And that the life of a human right now in this existence, in this struggle that we're in, is truly enviable. Because we're discovering things, we're exploring, we're struggling, we have challenges. And that's a beautiful place to be. And so I took that wisdom, took that wisdom to heart, and just felt truly appreciative. And then, so as the ayahuasca was kind of leaving me and I felt kind of full of all the visions I could stand, I kind of asked this masculine spirit, source as I'd call it, and the feminine spirit, Mother Earth or creation. I said, "Can you guys tell me a story? One final story." And source answered, said, "I'll tell you the greatest love story ever told." And didn't say any words, but showed me the love story between source and between creation, how that spirit interacts, and truly loves the creation that is the physical counterpart for it, and how that dualistic dance plays on for all eternity. And it's just a beautiful image that was implanted in my head. And at that point, the visions were kind of over. And I felt like I downloaded like a new operating system into my brain. And so, I actually got up and started to stretch, and had to kind of move around my body and was kind of analyzing everything, and realized some of the ways that I'd trained, and some of the things that I'd done that created muscular imbalances, and I was just kind of looking at him like, oh, wow, what did I do to this machine here? I got to sort this out. I got to stretch these ligaments out there too tight for, for what's going on. And I felt like I just downloaded a new software that was looking at the hardware, like, who the hell was running this show? What have you been doing? So that was cool, because that gave me a lot further understanding of different ways that I want to train, some myofascial things that I want to do to loosen up some areas, and strengthen some areas of my core and do some other things. So very kind of practical finish to that first ayahuasca session. And that was it.

And so, session number one was in the books. And, I didn't sleep very well. But, you know, I felt great. And I'm truly honored and couldn't believe the access to that kind of information that I was given, and just kind of humbled that I was given that gift from all of those guides, as I said, whether they're in my head or whether or not, the wisdom that I took from that is something that I'll never forget. And just the understanding and how it shaped my perceptions, talking to all those insects, which I formally detested, and understanding them, understanding the lessons from source and lessons from all of those other guides that I received. Just feeling truly grateful.

The next day, I was starting to get pretty tired. And, we had a day off, fortunately, and we woke up with a flower bath, which is cold water and Icaros which is a song sung by Don Rober, and it kind of closes off the ceremony. And continued throughout the day, and just kind of tried to regain some strength and rest and connected with my friends. And the next day, we were going to have another ceremony. And so, going into the second ceremony, I was really looking forward to it. I was like, "Well, man, I had such a great session this last time. I can only imagine that this one's going to be even better." I was like, "More carrot cake, yay!" So I sit down to drink. And what happened next was the start of what became the most challenging series of medicine journeys of my life. And I became acutely aware of some personal issues within myself, that were really limiting me from being the most effective person and the happiest person that I could be.

Without going too far into detail, there was some part of me that was constantly judging and watching my own actions, unlike the snake who keeps his belly to the ground and doesn't look at his reflection. I guess being in the public eye and having all of these opinions about me, coming at me positive and negative, and kind of having that implanted even earlier than that maybe, there's like a judge, like a watcher. That it's almost like a splinter out of my mind that is constantly filtering my actions through that, which takes me out of the present moment a lot. And it's something that I'm ready to get rid of. But it really showed me that aspect and gave me a good view of myself. And I think one of the best things I got out of that second session was this view of myself not as a monkey, I think of myself as kind of a monkey a lot. But it showed me myself as a bear. And it showed me like, when I'm eating, how sometimes I get really, like I get really excited, but not as a person but as a bear would. Like, imagine a bear that's still wild, and it gets a bunch of food, and it just gets ravenous, just gets overcome with hunger, and just eats as much as it can. I saw that part of myself that eats like that. And then I saw the part that gets stressed and nervous, as like a bear that was in anticipation of some danger, something else that was coming. And I was able to look at myself as this other animal organism that is responding to our external stimulus without my knowledge of it. When you're inside that thing, you don't really think about how ravenously you're eating the food or how scared you are, or stressed you are, or worried, you're just in it. You don't look at the organism and say, like, when you're stressed, like, "Hey, settle down, it's alright, take some deep breaths. I know you're fired up, I know things are happening biochemically inside, just relax body, relax bear, take it easy." Or if you see a plate of food, or something really appealing a beautiful girl at a bar, something that causes you to really have a strong reaction, having the ability to say, hey, hey, settle down, do what you want to do, just make sure you're making a conscious choice, not just acting on the imperatives of the biological organism that's inside you. But other than that lesson, it was really about seeing a lot of aspects of my shadow, seeing the parts of myself that I wanted to change. And the experience itself started to become hellish. I would have visions that pass through that didn't have any content, and extreme nausea. And I remember that the nausea, I was really debating kind of the whole time whether I should puke, or whether I shouldn't puke. And finally, I just said, "You know what, like, I trust that if I need to puke, it'll tell me to puke. Like I have faith that if I need to puke, it'll tell me to puke." And as soon as I gave ayahuasca that faith, and gave my body that faith, like two minutes later, I just had the uncontrollable urge to retch. And got it all out. And again, I started seeing that yellow bile coming up from my liver. And generally, I think that's a healthy thing as I said, in moderation to kind of purge these things, because it pushes a lot of toxins out. But for me after this combo, when I was already depleted, that started a depleting process for me, personally, kind of coming in wounded.

And so, it was very challenging and very painful little retch, and the nausea continued through a lot of the night. But I felt good about that lesson about faith. And that really became one of the other main themes for me, as I kind of weighed that there's really only two choices. And the choices we have is to choose fear or faith. When presented with any situation, you can either be afraid of the negative outcomes that might come, be afraid of what's going to happen. Or you can have faith that whatever happens is going to work out. And that is really the primary choice of free will, fear or faith. We don't know anything. Faith, again, is belief without knowledge. We don't know anything that's going to happen. So, whatever the future holds, we can approach that with fear of faith. And approaching it with faith is going to lead to a much, much happier existence. And not being unaware of danger or unreasonable. You don't go and put your hand in an anthill and have faith that you're not going to get bit, that's just stupid. That's not having faith. That's just being silly. You don't whack a hornet's nest, and expect not to get stung because you have faith. But, in general, with all of these unknown future events, choosing faith over fear is going to serve you much better. And I kind of took that in and that's been one of the major teachings from this whole session that was reinforced time and time again. So then we did the bobinsana ceremony the next night, or maybe it was two nights later. And that was really pleasant, kind of gave us a little like alcohol buzz, as it was distilled in alcohol and kind of give you a warm feeling. And I started a little dance party, they were singing songs and banging drums, and started a little dance party in the jungle. And that was a nice break. Nothing too crazy to report there as far as deeper understandings. Just a good communion with the tribe and with the family that I brought there. So then, on to the third ceremony.

And the third ceremony was one of the more challenging experiences I've ever had. I started to learn, I took the cup, and I started to go into the visionary state. But immediately the nausea was just unrelenting, and my body just felt exhausted. And so I descended into what I call the beautiful hell, because the colors and the things that I was seeing were beautiful, but they didn't seem to really carry much content. I had a few encounters. I had an encounter with a being called the master of serpents. And the master of serpents basically showed my heart as this egg that was in a nutshell. And it was like a luminous energy that was kind of in a nutshell. And I wanted to get the nutshell open to allow that to open, but there was still fear there, so I couldn't pry it open. And so, it kind of gave me that image and then the nutshell turned into this armored scorpion with these scales on its back. And it could open up the scales and shine the light and receive it, but for the most part, it was closed off and afraid and had a stinger. And, I think a lot of us have closed off the most, what we feel is the most vulnerable part of ourselves, our heart. Closed it off, because we're afraid it's going to get hurt.

But when doing that, it doesn't emit the light that could connect you with other people. Because to be able to emit, that it has to be open to receive it. So, I had this vision of this little armored scorpion that sometimes opened it up, but it was very guarded and protected. And I don't know exactly how it got that way, life just makes it go that way. I mean, you get people who insult you or things that you judge yourself and ridicule yourself. So you end up guarding your most sacred part of yourself, your heart, that which is most important to you. So, I got that vision. But for the most part, it was just this beautiful hell, and emphasis on the hell. And as I kind of started working with this, and working with these thoughts, I had some other thoughts. I had thoughts about judgments. And I realized judgments are really what are the things that separate you from true appreciation and compassion for other people. Because if you lay a judgment in between yourself and that other person, that person's this way, that person's that way, he's ignorant, or he's lazy, or he's stupid, or that person is such and such, doesn't allow you to see that person truly as what they are. You see the judgment, and that judgment forms this barrier. And it's so fucking hard not to have judgments about everything. But at least seeing that, how judgments provide this layer that keeps us from closeness with everybody was kind of a really cool insight that I had. I had some other thoughts that were kind of interesting. I took some notes here. I had the note that in Viking myth, they have that rainbow bridge to Valhalla. And it's this really colorful bridge that takes people from other worlds into their world. And I realized, like, man, I wonder if they'd got some access to DMT to figure that out. Because DMT really feels like the Rainbow Bridge. I mean all of these colors, that give you access to this other world of higher knowledge and inspiration. So little thoughts like that, that are somewhat inconsequential. But most of the part, I was just kind of locked into this hell.

Some of the thoughts I had were that, currently, the scientific understanding has evolved incredibly over the last 50 years. And there's a tendency for people to think that whatever the science is now, is the science that will be there forever. And that tendency has existed since the beginning of time. When the Earth was flat, the Earth was fucking flat, and that wasn't going to change. When people started talking about quantum physics, that was bullshit at that point, because they hadn't figured it out. Well, now we've kind of opened up that frontier. And that's the border line. So all of these things, these medicines and the energy that flows, I fully believe that they'll have... We'll find the scientific bridge between those and hard empirical data. I just think we haven't developed the science yet. Like if you took a scientist from 50 years ago, put them in a room with WiFi. I know Brian Redband loves this analogy, put him in a room with Wi Fi, and ask him to detect the WiFi, well, how the fuck is he going to do that? Doesn't mean it's not there, doesn't mean it's not detectable. It just means he hasn't developed the tools and the methodology to understand what's going on there. And I really think that's the case that we're going to find with a lot of these, what are now metaphysical or almost borderline paranormal events, they'll become more normal and more explainable by scientific phenomenon. Just like quantum entanglement. How do you explain how you separate two photons, and you manipulate one to spin a different direction on one side of the world. And simultaneously, the paired photon in the other side of the world starts spinning the same direction. I mean, people just put that in a category called a phenomenon. Well, how the fuck does a phenomenon happen? We don't have a good explanation of why, like what the bridge is between those. And I think we'll start to fill in those gaps. And as we fill in those gaps, we'll get a further understanding of all of these events. But that's just a thought, who knows. Maybe we got it just right this time, maybe the science as it is, as it stands, at this very moment is the science that will be forever. For the first time in history, we just nailed it. But I don't think so.

But the final ceremony, as you kind of finish and as they close it off, they have this kind of bundle of leaves that they use as an instrument for the Icaros. And as they're closing it off, they kind of whack you on the head with it and sing this little song. And Don Rober comes around, and he's whacking me on the head. And he's whacking me on the head like, really pretty hard. And I was like, "Wow, this is kind of shaking my whole body as he's doing this." And I've had a hellish experience anyways. And he finishes the little song. And as he finishes, he moves along, and I felt something start to rumble up from my stomach. And I'd already puked like twice. And it felt like this little marble or like a little a egg that came out of the left side of my body, came up the left side of my esophagus, and came out my mouth. And I really felt like I spit like a little pebble out. And it was dark, and I couldn't see what the hell it was. But some little egg of something just kind of came out of my body and right into the bucket. I was like, "Whoa, I don't know what the hell that was." But something kind of shook loose or some energy was able to get out. And I realized that one of the understandings that I'm developing is that thoughts have physical forms. And obviously, you see that in the placebo and the nocebo effect. Your thoughts will affect how your body responds and that's a known phenomenon, but it's not extrapolated to the extent that it should be. All other thoughts, stresses, traumas, whatever, they have physical form too. As above so below as the saying goes. And I started to realize that probably, when you're looking at these situations with both being connected, by purging something physically, it can help you purge it mentally. By purging something mentally, it can help you purge something physically. Everything is connected. Obviously the best is to purge it both ways. Which is one of the reasons why I think ayahuasca is called the master medicine. So, we finish with the third session. The next day, I am just fucking exhausted. I mean, I am worn out, I have no energy. It felt like I did after that frog ceremony. I'm just exhausted, I'm done. And we have another ceremony the next day. So, I was planning on not doing that, not during that ceremony, I was planning on just sitting it out, and not drinking because I really didn't feel well, and I was processing a lot of heavy shit about myself and it was very personal. And anyway, so I'm sitting in the circle and Don Howard, the master wizard, comes up to me. He hadn't said anything to me before the ceremony yet. And he says, looks at me in the eye, and he says, "A warrior's heart beats as one heart." And I just think, "Oh, fuck, now I got to drink." Because all my friends and brothers here are drinking tonight. And what if I receive something from the medicine that I can bring back that's valuable? I have to do it. This isn't just for me. This isn't just for my comfort. I'm doing this to be of service. So I was like, "Alright, fucking here we go. Beautiful hell round three." So, I drink and it's a full cup. Like, oh man, full cup, it's just... I can't even fathom the fact that I'm doing it and smoking this mapacho, just waiting. And sure enough, the beautiful hell starts, but it's even more savage than I ever recalled.

So, I'm curled up in the fetal position on the mat. And I started coming to an understanding that I was dying. And I've had that feeling before on ayahuasca. And so, I was like, okay, yeah, take me, it's fine. So, I surrendered to my death. But that wasn't enough. The understanding carried further and said, "You know what, not only are you dying, it doesn't matter, doesn't matter that you're dying because you're nothing. You're water borrowed from the ocean, and the ocean forgot that you borrowed it. You're just going to spill back into the endless source. And it's going to be meaningless. Your spirit, whether it comes back, whether it doesn't, none of that matters, you're nothing. You're the gum on nothing's shoe. So, with that, everything that I had held important was gone. The specialness of my eternal spirit, what I was planning to do in this life, everything that I was attached to, everything that I'd hoped to be, everything that I thought I was, it was all taken from me. I was going to die, and it didn't matter. Just water spilled back into the ocean. No one would even notice.

So I started to cry. And just lying there, fetal position, tears rolling down my face. And that lasted for, I don't know, a minute or two. Just sinking deep into my bones that this was it, and it didn't matter. And then I heard a voice. And the voice said, "Get up, Aubrey, get up." And it was the voice of my grandma. Said, "Get up, Aubrey, you got to fight. You got to fight." And I didn't know what I had left in me. I'm sitting there, but I just listened to it. I said, okay, okay. And she kept saying, "Get up, Aubrey, get up! You got to fight. Get up!" And I was like, I didn't think I could even get up. I didn't think I could move. But I pulled myself up with the last shred of strength that I had, and wiped some tears from my eye. And my grandma kept going and said, "You know, I fought my whole life. You know, I fought against the oil companies that were trying to take away the wetlands. I fought to have your mother, your mother fought to have you. So you got to fight." And then like a distant drumbeat in the distance, I started to feel that that fighting spirit come alive in me. It was like, I was like an animal backed into a corner.

And I started to feel it. I said, "Alright, grandma, alright. I'll fight. I'll fight with whatever I got. I'll fight with my toenails, I'll fight with my fingernails, I'll fight with my elbows, I'll fight with my knees. I'll give everything I got to the fight." And at that point, I could see, like that scene from [inaudible 01:03:16], all my old enemies outside of the maloca, all my current enemies. It was fear and greed and hate and corruption and ignorance and violence. And all of these embodied forces were right outside the ceremonial hut. And they were trying to get in, and all the people I loved were inside that hut. And I knew that if I didn't step up to fight those things, they would touch everyone that was in there. And so my resolve got stronger and stronger and stronger. I breathe and I can feel that vitality, that force, that warrior ethos, that willingness to fight well up inside me. And I started calling on some of my friends and brothers in the room. And I called on, Donald was to my right, and I said, "Donald, will you fight with me, brother." He said, "That's what I'm here for." He's South African. It's like, all right. And then Dr. Dan, I said, "Will you fight with me?" He said, "To the death, hermano." And I started calling on the key allies in my life, and all of them stepped up to the plate. And I knew then that we had a chance to defeat all those enemies; fear, greed, ignorance, corruption, hate, unconsciousness, all of these other forces, these consequences of free will, that we're steering the way that the world is turning, and would potentially destroy it if people don't step up and play their part to fight against those things.

And so, that was probably the most significant moment of my life, because at the brink of nothing, at the total annihilation of myself and all of my attachments, I found something inside myself and it was the willingness to fight. And now, shit, I've had a warrior poet blog, and I use the word warrior all the time. But did I know that I had that in me? Was I sure? Yeah, I've been tested in sports and tested in some other events. But did I really know when I was at the very end, and I really felt like the end of my own death that I had that in me? No, I didn't know that. And now, I know that one little thing about myself. And that's like a rock upon which I can build whatever else. But at least I know that one thing, that pushed to the end, I will fight. And fight for what is good. And so, that to me was, probably the most significant moment of my life right there. And the rest of it, it was still hellish. It didn't change anything. But the way I approached and way I felt about that hell that was around me was completely different. I just accepted it and that's what it is. And towards the end, I had one other thought. I was trying to recall this name. I'd been trying to recall it for like a week, and I couldn't recall it. And I asked ayahuasca, I said, "Are you going to give me this name?" It's kind of an inconsequential name, but it was a game I was playing with myself. And ayahuasca said, No, that name is lost. But that doesn't matter. Because a warrior makes do with what he has. And to me, that was another kind of piece of the puzzle. You don't just fight when everything's perfect, and you have all your resources. You just do the fucking best you can with whatever you have, whatever you can bring. Whatever you can bring to the fight, you bring that and you go with that. And that's what being a warrior is.

And as I was kind of closing out these visions, I had one final vision, and it was of this giant half battleship, half pirate ship, and it was this symbol for this fight against all of these forces. And on the helm of the ship were these like bobbleheads and these little toys that were like bouncing around. And I heard a voice say, "It's great you're going to fight, but don't lose your sense of humor. Like, don't take yourself so seriously." And I kind of laughed and smiled, because it was a pretty heavy event. And I think the final lesson was, yeah, this is, this is great, this is what you're supposed to do. But, don't make it too grand. You just do what you got to do. And that closed off the ayahuasca ceremony. And from there, the rest of the week was really, and I could go into different visions of the wachuma, but it's already been kind of a long podcast.

But from there, it was really about adding little tiny pieces to that rock that I formed during that Ayahuasca session. Little things that I could understand, but there really hasn't been that much to add and nor has there been that much need to add things. And what's come since, I ended up getting pretty sick actually down there and got some kind of stomach illness and felt pretty weak, in general, my whole body. But what's come is this just kind of deep inner peace about who I am that really can't be affected by anything else out there. And no one can tell me that deep inside, I won't fight for what I believe because I felt that, I saw that. And that's really the only thing that matters. All the rest, my positions in the company or my opinion of me in the public, or all of these other things that you could concern yourself with, are really inconsequential because I know at least one thing about myself. And that was the great gift of the event.

And fuck, I'll tell you, man, it was nothing like eating carrot cake. It was serious work. And the wachuma obviously is a whole other story, and that was beautiful, and really bonded the group together and powerful in its own way. But the ability for ayahuasca to get in and test you to your limit, pull out the very most important thing, and give that to you, is pretty unrivaled. The wachuma is great for aligning you with mission and banding you together with the group in a kind of a collective consciousness and what you need to do, and opening your heart further, and giving you appreciation for life. And ayahuasca is just about purging and showing you all your shadows and demons, so that you can be the cleanest vessel possible.

So, here I am. It's been a week and I think it's going to be a little while before I do medicine again. But people already were getting freaked out about how many times I did the medicine prior. But to me, it's like working out. It's like working out for your spirit or working out for your mind. There's overtraining, sure. I mean, you can over train with your body, you can work too hard till everything's broken down, and you haven't had enough time to recover. But you wouldn't tell somebody who trained one week, if they went in to go training the next week after they're fully recovered, and you wouldn't tell, "You're going to work out again, bro?" You know, but for some reason, there's this connotation of, whether it's the drug connotation or whether it's just losing your mind idea that's kind of in the ether, that if you do this more than some arbitrary number of times, it's too many times. It's really limited by how much you can recover. And by recover, I mean, integrate.

And, for me the integration process for this last event, there's no way I can see it lasting less than six months. Just to fully be able to process all of the content that happened there without adding new things to it, I would say it's going to be at least six months before I can do that. Doesn't mean I'm going to jump right back into a medicine ceremony immediately, as soon as I feel integrated. Shit, it could take a year, could take two years, I don't know. I mean, at minimum, the guidelines are saying it takes two months to integrate from any kind of big journey, but I did six ceremonies. And that's a lot. And I feel very grounded and very kind of complete in this cycle. Not that I won't need it more and not that there isn't more wisdom to be had out there. But for me, feet on the ground, I'm way more interested in a bottle of wine and some good conversation over dinner, than drinking any kind of fucking jungle potion, or traveling anywhere down there.

So yeah, just appreciative to be where I am, appreciate you guys tuning in if you made it this far, and, you know, happy to share this wisdom. The medicine's not for everybody. You'll feel a calling to it when you're ready. And there's some great places to do it, I have them listed on my blog, warriorpoet.us/faq. Eventually, that'll go to aubreymarcus.com. We're going to make that transition here pretty soon. But for now, you can go see it there. And the two main places are bioparc.org, which is the spirit quest sanctuary where I went with Don Howard. And there's another great place called the Temple of the Way of The Light. And that's also in Iquitos. And just hearing raving reports from my close, close friends that I trust about that place too. So, if you feel the calling for ayahuasca, look at one of those two places. I can vouch for them. And as well as my old shaman, Maestro Orlando Chujandama. A lot of you have been there, and I know he does great work as well. So, if you feel the calling, look into it. If you don't feel the calling, you can wait. There's plenty of other ways to do it.

Wachuma is amazing as well. And I think if you feel the calling for that, look into that. And there's a lot of really powerful technologies out there that can help really benefit your life. And it's not really as much about the experience, it's about what you can take from it, you know, the practical guides to it. How that's going to color and affect your life from then on. And more often than not, shit, everybody else in that group is able to look back and have gained some amazing insights from this. And that tends to be the case. There'll be some people where it doesn't work out for, some people where that medicine is too much, it uncovers too much right off the bat. And there was one case of a guy there who had that situation. It moved too much dirt off the top of some major issues, and he had a really challenging time. And that can happen. But, generally, the medicine has a real wisdom to give you what you can handle. And I have a lot of faith in it. So, if you feel the calling, please take a look and do the research, and enjoy it.

And also, be wary of local practitioners and the people who come through. I know some of them are good, but don't get stuck in a situation like I got with that crazy frog that poisoned me, where you just eager to try the medicine and you get yourself in a situation that can be damaging. Because as I said, there's a thin line between what dose is medicine and what dose is poison, and it's really easy to cross that boundary. So, make sure it's with people of highest integrity and really good situations. And that's my parental advisory there. But I got a lot of love for all you guys listening, and thank you so much for the support and I just hope that I can be of service, and be a benefit in any way possible. And, feel free to continue to reach out to me in any way, and I'll continue to fight the good fight. I know that for sure. So, you don't have to worry about that. And I'll be back again next week with another podcast with Cheyenne Weldon, who is the Texas director of Normal, fighting for marijuana legalization. So, I'll see you guys on that episode. And Lando, you didn't stop me. I hope that means it's good, or maybe it just was terrible.

ORLANDO: So many life lessons.

AUBREY: But thank you for running the tech on this, and I'm out, everybody. Much love.