#20 - Journeying with Ayahuasca

In this short (10 min) guided practice Apostol leads a meditation on Joy inspired from the social meditation practices that he has been facilitating for the past 18 months in the Buddhist Geeks network and beyond.

While this guided meditation is focused on the simple cultivation of Joyful mind states, in a broader context Joy is connected to the concept of Mudita in Buddhism, which is one of the Four Immeasurables.

Instructions start at the beginning and guided practice starts at around the 4:40 mark.

Apostol & Max talk about the different aspects of South American Ayahuasca shamanism. Ayahuasca is a tea which is prepared by the mixture of the Ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis Caapi) and the Chacruna plant (Psychotria viridis) which together enable a multi-hour DMT journey. In the amazon jungle, various tribes have used  it for many generations for shamanism and healing. In the past years ayahuasca has gained popularity in the west for it's potential for healing chronic illness, trauma and various health  issues that western medicine does not have good solutions for. The conversations focuses on the tradition of the Shipibo Tribe for dieting and healing through the connection with various plant teachers.

Resources mentioned:
Graham Hancock "The War on Consciousness" banned TED talk
DMT The Spirit Molecule Movie and Book

Apostol and Max talk about the Huachma which is also called San Pedro and is referred to the grandfather medicine (compared to Ayahuasca being the grandmother). Max shares his recent experience of a 2-week Huachuma retreat in Peru and Apostol shares his one-time initiatiory experience involving Huachuma and a Temazcal (swedge lodge). They extensively talk about ancestoral trauma and how to work with it using plant medicine. At the end Max shares his comparison between MDMA and Huachuma as two hear-opening medicines.

Notes:
The social meditation practice at the beginning is inspired by similar practices created by Vince Fakhoury Horn from Buddhist Geeks.

Resources
Huachuma Wasi
The Forgotten Psychedelic (documentary)

In this episode Max and Apostol talk about the healing effect and power of MDMA. Max shares his personal experience of discovering MDMA and subsequently having a very profound and powerful healing experience on it. He shares how he felt afterwards and also his experience with two other journeys. Apostol also shares his own single healing journey with MDMA that happened recently. They talk briefly about safety and dosage.

Resources:
MAPS Treatment Manual MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD
The Secret Chief Revelead - by  Myron J. Stolaroff

Max and Apostol talk about the Secular and Shamanic approach to journeying with psychedelics and sacred plant medicines for the benefit of psychospiritual healing and growth. They go into their personal experience and recommendations on how to approach these medicines. They discuss reasons and intent for working with them, research and preparation, sourcing, preparation of the mind, body and physical space and some tips on integration and working with 'bad trips'. All of this with the strong emphasis on safety and best practices.

This episode is meant as a precursor for some future elements deep-diving into different forms of psychedelics and sacred plants. We highly recommend listening to this first before listening to any of the future episodes :).

This episode is an invitation to practice together with Liana and Max.  Liana introduces and explains the social mediation practice they chose to share. Together they will demonstrate a Multidimensional Meditation on Inner Adulthood as an extension of the previous episode.   This is an invitation for a social inquiry and an opportunity for attunement to mature curiosity.  

Liana and Max are candidly discussing what inner adulthood means for each of them.   They talk about strong resistance to adulting, challenges with finding a healthy balance between maturity and carefree energy that is typically associated with childhood,  self-agency and relating to self from different perspectives, and how 13 specific qualities of Self from IFS ( Internal Family System) model gives an inspiring list of traits for an aspiring well-functioning adult.  Join them in inquiring how it is different from the inner parent and its relationship with the numerous inner children.   There are fascinating insights that arise spontaneously from the joint field of engaged curiosity and kind awareness.  To give you a taste, the infinite intelligence, worthiness, and interconnectedness all make a brief appearance before the sudden realization turns the burden of adulthood on its head.  Finally, they leave you with some food for thought and even Peter Pan and Captain Hook are thrown into the mix as a parting favor. 

Max continues to explore the topic of worthiness and how to find a physical manifestation of it in the body. He shares how feelings of not-good-enough and guilt showed up in his body. At the end he offers a guided meditation aimed to rediscover a physical sensation of worthiness in your body.

Max continues his exploration of worthiness. He shares his views on how we loose our sense of worthiness and what the mechanisms are that teach us that worthiness is not welcomed. 

The second half again offers a social meditaiton practice to the listeners.

Max explores the topic of worthiness in this first solo episode. He explains what worthiness means to him and how it was his antidote of feelings of insufficiency, not feeling good enough, not feeling loveable.  Common variations of insufficiency are explored and how worthiness is something unconditional and inherent for all of us.

The second half of the episode offers a social meditation practice for the listeners to join in to explore the topic of worthiness for themselves.