ReUnion with Grandmother - A Plant Medicine Journey 🌱

 In this special solo episode, I’m diving into my recent reunion with Grandmother Ayahuasca after an 18-month pause since my last journey. This eleventh sit—symbolically aligning with 1/11 and the new moon on Día de los Muertos—came at just the right time, ushered in by signs and synchronicities, and guided by the first female leader of one of the first indigenous tribes to work with Ayahuasca. Sharing it here feels like honoring the sacred nature of my experience while also opening up space to process, integrate, and share any insights with you, my beloveds. 

 I was joined by five other queer men for this ceremony, and the experience itself was both familiar and beautifully new. I began with a hape ritual, which grounded and opened me to Ayahuasca in a way that shifted my usual pattern. This time, the experience was gentler—no need to leave the space, no overwhelming discomfort. Instead, I found myself sitting with ease, receiving downloads with clarity. The purging took new forms: yawns, deep breaths, and laughter, each release bringing its own wave of insight.

 Some of the major takeaways centered on inner authority, sovereignty, and trusting myself more fully. Ayahuasca reminded me to create spaciousness in my life—spaciousness to slow down, limit caffeine, tune in more intentionally to my intuition, and reconsider my relationship with things like social media and Netflix. In a paradoxical yet timely message, I was encouraged to both seize the present moment and move forward without unnecessary haste.

 A second serving brought a more intense wave, confronting me with images of skeletons and snakes, and a primal fear of losing loved ones. This phase saw a deeper, physical purge, followed by a release of laughter and movement—each stage bringing a sense of relief and connection.

 This gentle reunion with Grandmother Ayahuasca was a gift, reminding me to honor life’s rhythms and embrace the power of presence. Join me as I unpack the lessons, magic, and moments of this sacred journey.

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Transcript

Wil Fisher  0:00  
Queerly Beloveds, we are gathered here today for some juicy conversations about all things spiritually, queer and queerly spiritual. I'm Sylvia Wilga rainbow, a spiritual life coach, retreat host with the most and a drag queen, and I'll be chatting with the most amazing folks, or simply sharings of wisdom on my own. If you like what I'm serving, please remember to subscribe so we can keep hanging out. All right, let's get super woo together in this spiritual AF, queer AF, cosmic container and blast off. Hello, beloveds. I'm so excited to record this first solo podcast in season three. I hope you're enjoying the season so far. And in this episode, I'm going to share about my recent sit with grandmother Ayahuasca. This is the first time I've shared in depth about a plant medicine experience, and I can't wait to get into it. I'm going to talk about the experience, I'm going to talk about the decision to do the experience, and I'm going to share about some of the learnings and some of the ways that this experience has changed me, has changed who I am. And I want to start by saying that I spent some time making a decision whether or not to share this you know, I wondered if sharing it would dishonor the sacredness of the experience. And what I realized was that this podcast is sacred to me, and so sharing it in a way actually honors it. And if it can be a value to anybody, and perhaps it's even a value to me as I get to process and, you know, record and remember what I learned and what I experienced then, that is a win, win. And so I do want to acknowledge that I probably won't share everything. In fact, I know that I won't share everything because of the sacred nature of some of the pieces, and I certainly won't share names, and that I hope that podcast listeners will listen to it with an open heart and an open mind, and hopefully you will find it, yeah, valuable. So I want to start by sharing about the decision to do it. So I have sat now with Ayahuasca 11 times, and after my 10th time, I decided to take a break. I wanted to really give more space to integrate all the amazing lessons and learnings and healings that had taken place in those 10 sits, which I had done over about a year and a half. And so I made this mindful, conscious decision to take a break from plant medicine work, and I didn't know how long that was going to last, and I did a lot of integration work, and I have shifted my gears and my approach to my personal growth and spiritual work to other modalities that aren't as focused on plant medicines. And I have grown a lot and learned a lot and integrated a lot. And I started getting curious about when was the next time I was going to be called to sit with the plants. And then an invitation appeared, and I needed to sit with that invitation. And so I really let it rest in my heart, and started praying about it, and I received some signs, and the signs helped affirm that this was the time that this was right for me to do, and I felt this desire to do it. And so by the third sign, which some of the signs included, this, like beautiful butterfly appearing like flying right past my windshield, right when I gave it some thought and attention, right? When I brought some focus to this decision, this beautiful butterfly appeared, and then that same day, a person brought up grandmother ayahuasca and their experience in this profound way that really landed for me. I can't recall the third sign, but I just remember getting that third sign and being like, Okay, three times a charm, I'm signing up. And so the other thing that really drew me was that I knew that I'd be sitting in ceremony with a tribe. And although the ceremonies that I've sat with previous to this sit had been certainly influenced by the the the tribes, the indigenous tribes and the medicine people, the facilitators have been taught and had mentored under the tribes. I hadn't been with the actual tribes, and so this was a really cool opportunity to be with the indigenous tribe. And specifically it was a female facilitator. The first female facilitator of this tribe would be leading this ceremony. And so that felt like a really beautiful, sweet calling. And then the other thing that felt like a really sweet calling was that I knew that there'd be five other queer men who would be there, and I hadn't sat with any queer folks before. Almost every ceremony that I can think of, I've been the only queer person. Person in the room. And when we did sit together, it was really sweet. We all ended up in a row, not like we planned it, but we we jokingly said we had this little gayborhood in the ceremony space. And then the other piece that was exciting was that it was happening on 111 and this was my 11th sit. And then, get this, when I looked to see how long it would take to get to the retreat center. It was one hour and 11 minutes. So I love all these, you know, these beautiful synchronistic numbers. I love Angel numbers. I love little winks from spirit in the form of numbers. And I also saw that it was happening on a new moon, a very potent New Moon. And it's always, I believe, really powerful to sit in ceremony on new moons, and to really use that opportunity, the opportunity of ceremony, to give energy to your prayers. And this was also happening on Day of the Dead, which you know, is a time to connect with our ancestors. And my experiences that plant medicines can really serve us in that too. So there are a lot of things lining up, and I was quite anxious, though I was, I was definitely had some fear. And part of that fear was that it was my first time sitting with any of the people that I would be with. I have always sat with a different community, and so this was my first time, kind of like going outside of that community, and I didn't know what to expect. So let me get into what I experienced. So the first little story is that on my way there, I had this moment of thinking about Hoppe, and I thought, huh, yeah, I'm glad that you know Hoppe isn't something that I'll need to do at this experience, because my experience generally with Hoppe is it makes me really nauseous and it causes some purging, and it's very unpleasant. And it's not that purging and nauseousness is bad. In fact, it's generally part of an Ayahuasca experience. But I just had this thought of, oh, I don't want to do Hoppe. I'm glad that I'm not going to have to do Hoppe. And then there we were sitting in the circle, and the medicine woman was speaking, and her translator said, and now we will all receive Hoppe. And I turned to my friend who had invited me, and I was like, Are we all expected to receive it? Is it kind of like requirement? And he's like, Yeah, sort of like, you should receive it. So I thought, Oh, great. Well, I guess I'm gonna start the night feeling really nauseous and uncomfortable and unpleasant. I guess I might as well jump in. And turns out I go up to sit, and I received it from her, and it came into my nose, and I immediately felt this, this burning sensation, this fire in me. And I didn't get nauseous for the very first time, experiencing hop in a totally different way. And as I sat there just being with the medicine and feeling it out. One of the things that came through was that I don't need to be so stuck in my expectations around how I am with medicine, around my relationship with medicine, around how it impacts me. And so that kind of set the ground for this journey with grandmother Ayahuasca. And I'll explain that further by saying that almost every time in the 10 sits that I've had, there's been a very clear pattern of how I have been with the medicine. And so what that pattern has looked like is the medicine comes down really, really strong and really, really fast, and I immediately start feeling quite uncomfortable. I can't figure out how to get comfortable. And then I feel very, very nauseous, and I hold out to not purge, because I want the medicine to really become, you know, ingrained, become part of me, and for me to receive the full dose of the medicine. So you're advised not to purge in an within an hour of receiving it, because then you lose the medicine. So I sit and try to hold off, and then eventually I use have have excused myself from the ceremony space and gone and done a big, long purge, which has been amazing in these 10 experiences, and I've had really cathartic realizations and really incredible healing experiences in these purges, but I've always chosen to do them outside of the ceremony space, and because I haven't wanted to disturb the ceremony, because generally, my purging can be quite dramatic, can be very loud, and involves my body moving in various ways. And often it is happening kind of early on in the night, which sometimes the space is. In a more peaceful kind of slumber state. And so it's always been, in my mind, the best interest for me and for the fellow journeyers, for me to excuse myself and go do my purging on my own. So and then the pattern continues that I finish my purging, I come back into the space I generally have received, started receiving some downloads, maybe I received some more. And then eventually, the more dancing kind of music picks up, and I join anyone on the dance floor. Sometimes, often I start that the dancing, because I'm very much into moving when I'm in the medicine, and then I, you know, experience the medicine the rest of the night, dancing and moving and enjoying that aspect of it, and really praying with my body and with my movement, and allowing spirit to to guide that experience and to move me. And so honestly, as I was thinking about this ceremony, I assumed that the same exact thing would happen. And in fact, I when I got to the space, I scoped out where I would go, when I would be ready to purge and just have this whole movie in my mind of how it was all going to go down. And so, because of that new experience with Hoppe, I actually decided to be open to a new experience with grandmother ayahuasca, and to really let that story go. And I'm so glad I did. So when I went up and received the medicine, I received a small amount because I'm quite sensitive to it. I went back to my seat, and in this ceremony, the recommendation is to stay seated up, with some practitioners. People all lie down. But with this, the invitation and encouragement is to stay seated up. And so I stayed seated up, and I felt really grounded, and I did a grounding meditation. So I sent my grounding cords deep into the earth, to the core of the Earth, and I really connected to the core of the earth, and that deep earth energy. And then I sent my light way up out of my crown chakra, up into the sky and past the sun and clouds, and all the way up, moon and and stars, because it was at night, and then all the way up into this the spiritual realm, and received light from above, and I felt this deep connection to below and to above. And then I started noticing that I wasn't feeling overwhelmed, I wasn't feeling uncomfortable or nauseous, and it didn't come on super fast or super strong, but it was present, and I was instead of feeling the need to go and puke, I was yawning really, really big these, like big, beautiful yawns where it was, like my mouth was so wide open and I was belching too, and it just felt like a more gentle purge, but it still felt healing and helpful. And then I started to receive downloads, and so I want to start getting into some of the downloads. What was neat, though was that, because it wasn't coming on so so strong, I was able to really stay focused on the downloads and track them and see what they all were meaning and how they were connected. And so the first one was really about connecting with my inner authority and choosing to completely trust myself and recognize that I have all the answers inside and that I can really from that place of self trust, embrace my sovereignty. And what was coming through for me was this realization that in order for me to fully connect with those answers and have a pure connection to the guidance from my highest self, from my guides, from the intelligence of the cosmos, that the way to do that was to give myself spaciousness and to make consorted efforts to find these answers. And so part of what is required for that, for me, is also to let go of the caffeine a bit. So I had taken a break from caffeine as part of my diet for this journey, and I realized in that break how addicted I was to caffeine. I was so tired for the first four or five days, and I was having so much struggle working, and I realized that I was when I was using caffeine every day, that I was fueled by it is what I realized. And so what was coming through was also that letting go of that caffeine fuel would allow for me to have more space. Consciousness and would allow me to tap into this deeper life force energy instead of caffeine energy, and that when I'm connected to that deeper life force energy that I'm able to to reach into deeper depths of my wisdom and find those answers. And that was really, really helpful. And it doesn't mean that I'm never going to drink coffee again. I love coffee, but it does mean that I'm going to be using it more sparingly and more mindfully and give myself more space for these for this opportunity to connect with my my higher self and my deeper wisdom. And the other piece that was coming through was that I needed to stop procrastinating. So there are these times where I'm like, Ah, I really need to do this thing. And there's like, decisions that I need to make, and I put them off. And so the the invitation was to create the spaciousness, which also means time, but to to do it now, like to not like to decide that you're going to do it and then create the space to do it in, instead of just kind of having this space that is not being filled with anything useful. It's just procrastination space, and a lot of that procrastination space was being taken up by scrolling social media, watching Tiktok, watching Netflix. And also in my diet, I had stopped watching social media or Netflix for five or six days leading up to this, and so I was realizing how much more spacious since I had as a result of that. And so this this call to stop procrastinating and to choose to give time and space to find the answers within, to connect with my intuition and find the answers within. And so this paradox was coming through that was called, that was that was called, don't procrastinate. And actually it came through in the message of the time is now, but then it also the very next statement was, and don't hurry. The time is now and don't hurry. The time is now and don't hurry. And so the idea is that, yes, the time is now. It's time to make the choice. It's time to make the decisions. The time the only time really there's no past, there's no future, is the present. And so to really embrace that and to make good use of the precious time that we have on this planet, but, and also not but, and also to not hurry to give it space. So those were some of the themes that were coming up for me, some of the downloads that I received. There were others, but I'll stop in the download section of this episode for now and share some other parts of the experience. So there was an opportunity then to go and to receive a second serving. And I felt ready for that, so I did that, and then I went deep fast. At this point, it did come on strong and fast. And what was happening was this imagery of skeletons. And it was interesting because, you know, it is Dia de los Muertos. And finally, this year, I really committed to skulls as decoration for the Halloween season. And so I've gotten really into having these, like, beautiful skulls around my house. And it was interesting, all these images of bones and skulls were coming into my head, and suddenly I knew that a big purge was coming on. And so I made wipe my way to the purge bucket, and I just surrendered. And I kept just saying, like, I surrender. I am here to to follow your lead, grandmother, like, take me through whatever I meant to go through. And I just kept surrendering. And it felt like my whole body was taken over, in a sense, and I was shaking and moving, and there was a lot of energy moving through me. It felt like there were, there was like a a bunch of snakes, like in my gut, and the purge just came from this deep, deep, deep place. I mean, I could, as I'm talking about it now, it's like I can still feel it, and it feels like deeper in my gut or in my system than where I could point to physically, and it just opened up and came out, and I could tell that it was a deep, deep perch from the way it tasted and the feel of it. It was burning as it came out, and at that point, the the folks who were guiding the the helpers were up and shaking rattles, and there were some people supporting my process, and I felt just this wave of energy release out of my system, and I was so grateful. And What? What? Coming through as what could have been being released was this fear of death, and specifically the fear of losing loved ones. So I have been sitting with that fear quite a bit lately, as my mom's been struggling with some health issues, and so I believe that that is part of what I was purging, is to let go of this terrifying fear of losing loved ones, knowing that when loved ones pass on, that I'm losing them in their physical form, but I am not losing my connection to them and to their spirit. And you know, that's something that I can know in my head and believe in my head, but it's harder to feel in my heart and to embody in my spirit and soul. And I believe that purge was supporting me in being better able to do that. So I'm always super grateful for purges. You know, for folks who are not familiar with Ayahuasca, I implore you to do some research. But it is a Iowa. It is a purging medicine. It is meant to help us release these things that are in our systems that are no longer serving us, these energetic things that are that are stuck, that are that are holding us from being our highest vibration, from being our highest self. And so the purging happens in a multitude of forms. And in my experience is the the puking, often is the deepest. But I was able to experience that, that purge, and then another wave of it came on. And this time, the purging also involved crying, and so I was kind of crying and spitting and snotting and getting it all out. I finally felt ready to go dump the purge bucket, which was part of the process. It was like leaving my space, and like finding the strength and courage to navigate while in the medicine, deeply in the medicine, to get up and to leave the ceremony space, to go outside and purge it in the assigned purging space. And I was able to do that. And then I was able to do some purging on the toilet. And at that point it was, I was not in this fear state seeing all the the bones and the snakes. So the purging actually, from the toilet was very Oh. It was like, pleasant. It was very pleasant. And I finished that, and I remember going and washing my hands. And I was like, Thank you sink. I was like, so grateful for the sink, for bringing water to my hands. And I was so thankful to the paper claws. I was like, Thank you paper claws for giving me a paper cloth to dry my hands. I was just in this like beautiful state of gratitude. And I found my way back to the ceremony space, and then the purging from there on out was really delightful. So I had this feeling like, Oh, am I gonna purge again? And instead of it coming up in those ways, the snotting or the spitting or the puking, it came up as a laughter. And this one person dancing was just bringing me so much joy, and I was laughing so hard. And then the second wave of purging came in movement. It was like, so clear that my body had to move, and I just allowed the medicine, the spirit of the medicine, to move my body in the ways that it wanted to. And that involved dancing and shaking and stomping. And fortunately, at that point in the journey, the music was very supportive of that. So it was really sweet to get to feel a sense of celebration, celebrating these things that I had learned and this healing that I got to receive as a result of this purging. And it was so special to be in the presence of grandmother Ayahuasca again and celebrate my union with grandmother ayahuasca and just feel her love and her wisdom and her support in my journey. And so it was just a really beautiful reunion. And I'm so grateful that it happened. I'm so grateful that I chose to say yes and that I got to be with her in a good way, and got to be led by this tribe leader in such a good way. I'm so grateful for them and for their leadership and for their prayers and the songs and the community and all of it my friend for inviting me. I'm so so grateful, and I'm grateful for the paper towels too. I'm so grateful for everything, and I'm also grateful for you all for listening. This was a really beautiful opportunity for me to get to share about my experience and honor in that way. And yeah, I invite you to reflect on your journeys with your inner authority and your trust and your relationship with time and remember this. I. Idea that the time is now and not to hurry, and to take anything else from this episode of value and to run with it, to to sit with it in a good way. And if you are interested in working with plant medicines, to really approach that with the utmost respect and intention and mindfulness and to know that I love you and I'm grateful to share this journey with you. Oh my god, as beloveds, what a joy it was to be with you today.

Let's hang out again soon. Okay? And if you can think of a friend who would benefit from hearing this, we share it with them, sending so much love and light to you today and every day until next time. Peace you.

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