What It Takes To Be A Safe Ayahuasca Guide
By Neil Kirwan
This is a big subject and one without a single clear or definitive answer. Particularly in the context of Ayahuasca’s varied lineages and traditions alongside its global emergence around the globe. There has been a lot going on over the past 20 years, with over 4 million people across the globe estimated to have drunk Ayahuasca (Source: ICEERS Report).
It’s also a question that I can only answer from my own personal perspective and experience. Culturally and socially, there are many differences amongst the millions who have drank Ayahuasca and the millions more who will drink this sacred brew. There are also some commonalities that weave between our collective humanity. No matter who a person chooses to drink Ayahuasca with, what lineage, location, or time of the day they sit in circle for ceremony, there are some core tenets the person leading the space must be able to hold. Not only for those who sit with them but for themselves.
As a ceremony begins, so too does its nervous system, its communal energetic imprint. And at the center of that nervous system is the person guiding the ceremony. The responsibility is huge, the potential for harm catastrophic, the possibility for healing miraculous, balanced on a knife edge of choice and free will. Guided not just by any given moment that may arise but by the years of training, preparation, and experience that preceded each moment.
As Mohammed Ali once said: ‘The fight is won or lost in the gym, on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”
Leading a ceremony is not simply something you are born to do. It’s something you must train to do.
The Beginnings of Becoming a Safe Guide
Learning from and staying connected with one or more lineages of traditional Ayahuasca medicine carriers is the first and most important part of becoming a safe Ayahausca guide. The lineage carries the songlines and bridges into and out of the different universes that the plants transport us to and from. They carry the relationships with the guardians, gatekeepers, and ‘Ibo’ of the plant medicine kingdom.
To be without this ancestral wisdom during ceremony can very easily leave you lost at sea. And that’s the last place you or anyone that comes to sit with you wants to be during a stormy night. And there will be stormy nights - lots of them. Learning on the job is not safe; learning with an experienced captain is much safer. Be sure to know how much experience your Ayahuasquero has. If they have little experience, then it’s likely they need to be apprenticing with someone more experienced rather than leading.
A question about years working with the medicine doesn’t really provide the needed information on experience. I can work with medicine for ten years and only drink four times. Or I can work with it for four years and drink 400 times. How many times have they sat, and how many times have they led? Don’t be afraid to dive deeper into your guides’ experience.
Intentions With Integrity vs. Without Integrity
This is where it gets a little tougher, many of us like to play a little dance with our ego around our intentions, often concealing our true intention behind a more altruistic, socially good-looking intention. It happens to the best of us, it’s the story we like to tell ourselves to justify the path or direction we’re taking. Our external projections are of little importance, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve drank Ayahuasca, how many songs you’ve released on Spotify, what tattoos you have, or how varied your collection of hats is.
Your intention sits at your center; it’s the root of all-cause and effect, and behind your training and experience will ultimately determine what kind of outcomes flow from the medicine space you hold. Sure, you can have more than one intention driving what you do, if you have shadowy ones that you don’t recognize and own, you can be sure they’ll show up in the gnarliest of outcomes, and when you least expect them.
As an example, person A wants to serve Ayahuasca because they’ve experienced profound healing and now would like to share that healing with other people. It’s a common intention.
Yet underneath that intention, they also want to serve medicine because:
They get regular validation that they don’t currently receive
They enjoy being in a position of power
They believe they can make more money than they currently do
They crave the fame it may one day bring
It makes them adorable to the opposite sex
They have a fetish for feathers and rattles
They want to be paid for smoking tobacco and blowing it all over the place
There can be a variety of intentions, none of which are bad or wrong unless they are hidden. Knowing our intentions fully and asking why we do this work is perhaps the most important part of being in service to others and the medicine. We must constantly turn this over and check in with our reasons.
As the wave of medicine seekers continues to grow, exploiting them financially, physically, and emotionally through cult-like leadership and abusive power dynamic strategies is a very real opportunity. Now more than ever as the gates of the plant medicine world open, there is a need for medicine carriers with honest intentions and integrity.
And that’s really hard, easily said, but really hard to walk. Because the truth is we are human, and power corrupts. Our egos love power dynamics, and they secretly create them and feed on them when we’re unwilling or unable to bring awareness to them.
To hone those words around intention a little more, it can be very easy to discern if someone is working with the medicine for the right reasons. Their words and actions will often very easily give away just who it is they are serving. Are they serving the medicine to the people who come to sit with them or themselves?
If you want to learn how to have discernment when seeking shamanic guidance, check out this video by PMP CEO and fellow Ayahuasquera, Kat Courtney.
Humility Found in Service
One of the most memorable moments in the 80s film, The Neverending Story, is when the hero begins a sequence of challenges to test his courage as a warrior. One of the challenges involves the magic mirror gate, where the hero must face his true self. The hero’s dragon scoffs at the idea, ‘That won’t be too difficult.’
‘No, no, NO, that’s what everyone thinks.’ Protests the guardian of the challenges, ‘Kind people find out they are cruel, brave men find out they are cowards, confronted by their true selves, most men run away screaming.’
Hence in part, the terror sometimes people speak of in Ayahuasca ceremonies. As a medicine carrier, you will be asked to face yourself time and time again, pulling deeper and deeper into the layers of who you are. Ignore this work at your peril. The medicine will happily allow you to conflate your ego and dance around like you’re the master of the universe for years, only to completely pull the rug from under you at the most inopportune moment.
It is humbling every time. I always do my best to stay in that place of humility as much as I can. Anything else, and I’m ordering another rug pull on speed dial. Ironically the more competent you become at doing this work, the louder and stronger the accolades become. A thank you I’m always happy to accept being, ‘I appreciate the work you must do to be able to hold space like this.’
Err on the side of caution with anyone you see accepting compliments around, ‘Thank you for healing me.’ Or taking credit for healing people. You heal yourself, the guide and the medicine can be conduits, catalysts, and enzymes for that healing, but it is always you that heals you.
I don’t know any medicine carriers who haven’t had a rug pull at some point. You have to be committed to these rug pulls; seek them out even. Enjoy them, and be grateful for the revelation they bring. Be ready and willing to excavate the old self-time and time again to hone and sculpt yourself into greater levels of service. Every word and thought is up for scrutiny in ceremony. The standard is high; confronting yourself with yourself regularly is not an easy path.
The true power within the space comes from deep self-awareness, ‘know thyself’ as the saying goes. As intimately as you can, in the knowledge that it’s a game, you can never really win or complete as the mystery of self infinitely unfolds. And then act accordingly, walk your talk.
Someone who’s ready to work at this, constantly from now until their last breath, might be safe to work within the medicine space.
The Importance of Having a Relationship with Ayahuasca
Of course, all the above pre-empts are the most important part. You may notice I’m calling them all ‘the most important’ because they are. What kind of relationship does the Ayahuasquero have with the medicine? And not just the medicine of Ayahuasca but all the plants they have dieted.
Our relationship with the plants, how we pray with them, how we diet with them, and how we speak with them is a direct determinant of how we show up in ceremonies for the people we serve.
The plants guide us in everything we’ve mentioned above. If we have an abusive or negligent relationship with the plants we work with, then they will leave us high and dry in ceremony. Our team of plants and how we relate to them makes all the difference during the darker, more testing parts of ceremony.
They are our allies, our protectors, and our advisors. When our relationship with them is aligned, the container we create for ceremony is clean, clear, and impermeable.
Tightening the Ceremony Space
How we hold the container for each ceremony from the moment a person contacts us through into the integration process is hugely determinant of how safe our ceremonies are. Becoming trauma-informed within the plant medicine space is a must for anyone practicing or assisting in plant medicine ceremonies. It helps us to cut through any blurriness regarding our role and brings clarity.
This is essential in a world where altered states of consciousness are the order of the day. Being trauma-informed brings higher levels of awareness and safety for everyone involved, including the space holders themselves. It creates a framework within which we can determine our own limitations and the suitability of those who come to drink the medicine with us.
It gives us standards and ethics to adhere to, creates clear boundaries, and makes for cleaner, more healing spaces. No matter one’s experience or training, I feel it’s a much-needed piece of the puzzle that can help to greatly reduce harm in our medicine spaces.
A Commitment For Life
Working with these plants and serving them in ceremony is a way of life, not a job. Over the years, I’ve had moments where I’ve tried to make it a job, where I’ve tried to give my ego the ‘normality’ it obstinately sometimes demands. The freedom to do what others can do or what the old me could happily get away with scot-free.
It never works out.
We already have the freedom. The freedom to choose if we want to do this work or not. How we live our lives is how we show up in ceremony. We can wear masks, we can put on an act, and have a double life. It’s not going to end well. When we walk through the gate of carrying this medicine, we are bound by agreements like any marriage.
The more we live out of alignment and try to show up in the medicine space in alignment, the more chaos and deception we create in our lives. And it swirls around us like a hurricane gathering power waiting to wreak havoc.
We don’t need to be saints that get it right all the time. We can still have fun and cut loose a little from time to time. Pretending we are holier than thou can be equally ruinous and unhealthy for our psyche.
And yet there are lines and expectations. ‘Don’t take the piss,’ as they say in my home country. A phrase Ayahuasca has loved to remind me of over the years when needed.
Energetically we are responsible for keeping our vessel to a certain standard of cleanliness, and our dietas continually builds upon this. As I began dieting with Noya Rao, that level certainly jumped up a few notches. The medicine can’t work with us and trust us as a partner in the ceremony if we’re regularly bringing our own mess into the space. They can’t hold us in their field and harmonize with us if we’re constantly debasing ourselves with unharmonious frequencies.
How we live, and our lifestyle must reach certain alignments. Sometimes people think that means we won’t say boo to a goose, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Ayahuasca can be fierce, plants can be fierce, even the beautiful rose has thorns, and so can we if it’s called for.
If I’ve made the idea of serving medicine unappealing to you, then good. If I’ve made it appealing to you, then good. I could never say that any sacrifice made isn’t rewarded tenfold. I could never claim that I don’t deeply love the person the medicine has helped me become and continues to guide me towards. The honour of sitting with souls during their most transformational moments cannot be matched.
And often are the moments in ceremony, where I sit back in awe and whisper to myself, ‘I love doing this work.’
About the Author
Neil Kirwan has many years of experience behind and in front of the altar, apprenticing with Ayahuasca in the Shipibo-Conibo and Huni Kuin traditions. He has completed multiple Master Plant Dietas, including work with the potent, transformative Noya Rao tree. Neil is a trauma-informed, highly compassionate shamanic coach and guide, with an expertise in helping folks prepare for and integrate challenging Plant Medicine ceremonies, as well as leading Master Plant Dietas with dreamy, psychically connected Mugwort.
