How I Knew I was Ready to Drink Ayahuasca

By Samantha Gabbey

Knowing when to drink the powerful plant brew Ayahuasca is essential to setting ourselves up for a breakthrough, rather than a breakdown. We talk a lot about having a calling to do this work, but that can feel nebulous and confusing to those of us who are new to the process. This is my personal journey about answering the call to work with this wildly challenging and beautiful medicine.

When the time came for me to first drink Ayahuasca, I knew I was ready because the plan for us to meet and work together became so urgent that it took on a life all its own. In fact, the first concrete sign that I was ready for her was that I found myself reserving a spot in an upcoming ceremony. Nothing could have sidetracked or deterred me; I was absolutely single-minded in the pursuit of finding and booking a ceremony. What had once been a curiosity was now a blazing, inarguable calling.

After I had reserved a place in my first ceremony, even though the date was less than a month away, it could not come fast enough for me. Scheduling the retreat was simply a real-world, working manifestation of a calling that had been there for a long time but had up until then lacked definition.

It Can Feel So Sudden When Ayahuasca Calls; But Is It Really?

In truth, I was pretty slow in getting to the point of “overnight” Aya readiness, which I know is relatable to many. I remained oblivious to her call for months as it became more insistent, taking the form of a dear friend who kept urging me to read a certain Rolling Stone article about psychedelics and plant medicines.

This friend had passed along the article several months earlier and recently reminded me for the umpteenth time to read it saying, “The one thing I never want to try is that Ayahuasca,” (emphasis hers), which immediately made Grandmother Aya a lady I was most eager to meet.

I read the article at last and “suddenly,” it was my time. At some point within two days of reading it I had found a facilitator and reserved a spot in my first ceremony. The fact that it manifested with such ease and grace was a surefire sign that the desire to connect was mutual; Aya was definitely calling me in.

I’m in a Yurt with 20 Strangers. How Did This Happen?

Now, several years later, I cannot quite remember how I connected with the person who facilitated my first ceremony.

I’ve had the opportunity to speak to quite a few people about how they came to the medicine and the vagueness of my memories around how I located a facilitator does not seem unusual. When I found Aya, I had already been a seeker for many years, searching to find ways to heal the trauma of my childhood and the injuries that had layered themselves on top of that trauma. Entheogens—plant medicines that induce altered states of consciousness—came into my awareness in the course of this search for healing, after I ran out of more conventional modalities to explore.

In the past 20 years I had been prescribed almost every variety of psychiatric drug on the market. My protocol usually consisted of some combination of whichever samples my latest psychiatrist had in his closet. At one point I had considered almost everything, including electric shock therapy, in the hopes of soothing my unrelenting depression. Now here I was, on my way to sit in an Ayahuasca ceremony, driving to a remote, secret location with three wonderful strangers; a circumstance that had been years of trial and error and at least 15 doctors in the making.

So in truth it was not months but years of preparation before I was finally ready to be introduced to Aya. The introduction happened at long last once I was truly ready to meet her. And once I was ready, it all seemed to happen at such a breakneck speed that when I was there all I could do was ask “How did I get here?”

Still I knew there was no place I would rather be and not once did I question the rightness of my being there or consider changing my mind. I’d felt compelled to come to this place and everything had aligned to get me there. As the old saying goes, when you know, you know.

Other Important Ways We Know Its Time to Meet the Medicine

If you are embarking on your first Ayahuasca journey, you should certainly read everything you can find about her and other people’s experiences with her . Just know that you can never truly be prepared for what it will be like for you when you work with her. This is true whether it’s your first time, your two hundredth time or even your thousandth (this I’ve heard from those who are vastly more experienced than I am). Each experience is different for each person, each time.

But I can still offer a few helpful suggestions to guide you in co-creating a gloriously safe and healing experience for yourself. A few of the most important things you can do to prepare for your experience are:

1.    Please do all the research you can; books, articles, blogs documentaries, Facebook groups and consultations with experienced friends—if you have any—to make sure this is right for you. Know that even though your experience will be entirely different than anything you read on the internet, getting educated about what is possible will allow you to feel truly ready to answer the call. Here are a documentary and a book list to get you started.

2.    Make arrangements to speak with an experienced Ayahuasca integration coach before your ceremony to set intentions and ask any questions that your research may have unearthed, and especially after your ceremony to aid in processing your experience. Integration is as important as the ceremony itself, so please do not skip this step. I truly wish that someone had told me this before my first ceremony.

3.    Talk at length with your ceremony host to know what to pack, how to prepare, and how to set yourself up for success as you embark on this journey into the unknown.

4.    Most importantly, follow your heart. Go to Mother Ayahuasca because you feel a connection, not because you’re looking for a cure. Go because you’re ready to deepen your relationship with yourself and your healing, not because you expect her to do this for you. We are prepared when we are ready to accept that anything is possible, but whatever happens is indeed for our highest good.

Mother Ayahuasca is a Patient Lady

Just as Mamma Aya gives each of us what we need in ceremony, when your time comes to work with her, she reaches out to you in the way that you can best hear her—a way that speaks uniquely to you. The key here is that we are listening, and paying attention, to any signs she throws our way. Then it’s up to us to know when we ourselves are ready.

The way the “calling” manifested in my own life was as the brainchild of a compassionate friend. But no matter how she reaches out to you, she’s come into your awareness for a reason. Just remember that when this happens, there is no rush at all. You have all the time you need. When the moment is right, you will know, and Aya will be there waiting with open arms.