The Dieta

Each participant will be required to schedule a screening call at least two weeks prior to our gathering. This phone call will be used to review personal history (medical, mental, emotional, and spiritual), go over expectations of the ceremony, review preparation steps, overview logistics and accommodations, as well as any other concerns that should be addressed before the ceremony.  

Before entering an Ayahuasca/Yage ceremony, it is important to prepare yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually with the intention of love, protection, high vibration, positive energy and prayers for healing and transformation. We strongly recommend you follow the preparation for at least 5-7 days before the ceremony; however, the longer your preparation process, the more ready you will be to tap into these higher vibrations. The following guidelines support our members and ceremonial participants in this phase before the actual ceremony. 

Physical Preparation 

The practices and dietary protocols leading up to a ceremony are known as a Dieta ⁠— and though the word most obviously refers to food intake, the preparatory practices extend to behavioral abstinence and spiritual practices, as well.

The way we physically prepare our body for an expanded state of consciousness is of utmost importance. To cleanse and purify the physical body is done for the specific purpose of enhancing the healing potential of a journey with medicine. 

In other words, it is best to simplify your diet as much as possible, at least one week leading up to the ceremony. Eliminate processed foods, colorings, and preservatives; avoid salty, sugary, and spicy foods; cut out animal products including dairy, particularly red meat and pork; try to adhere to organic healthy food and drink a lot of water and herbal teas. 

Addictive substances like alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, recreational drugs, cannabis and other psychoactive substances should be avoided for a minimum of two weeks before the journey. Keeping in mind that the more effort you put into the preparation process, the results for the healing and the experience will be significantly better. 

Try to get enough rest before attending a sacred ceremony, to avoid the possibility of falling asleep during ceremony. 

Another change in behavior suggested before meeting the plant spirits is abstinence from sexual activity, both with others and on your own. Shamanism understands sexual intimacy as a form of energetic connection between the people involved; it would make sense then that in ceremony, you might feel the energy or presence of that person strongly. This can lead to a confusing experience, distracting from your ability to focus on your own healing and to see your connection with the other person clearly.

Women who are pregnant are not permitted to participate.

Women on their period (moon cycle) should not participate in ceremony. 

Let us know if you have had any type of surgical intervention in the two months prior to ceremony. 

Avoid Consuming:

• Dairy products like milk, cheese, yogurt, etc. 
• Red meat (pork, beef, goat, etc.)
• Processed, canned, sulfured food and chemical preservatives
• Fermented and aged foods such as soy sauce, tofu, soybean paste, bean curd, miso soup, teriyaki sauce, shrimp paste and pickled foods
• Sourdough bread
• Processed sweets, chocolate, and anything with refined sugar and products containing sugar (e.g., bread, sauces) unless homemade
• Artificial sweeteners (Splenda, sweet’n low)
• Spicy and excessively salty foods
• Products high in gluten such as cakes, cookies, and white bread
• Various protein- and yeast-based extracts or supplements
• Fruits like bananas, pineapple, papaya, avocado or rich in fiber
• Onions, garlic
• Black coffee, green/black tea, kava, matcha 
• Alcohol of any type, including wine and beer, even minimal amounts in cough syrups
• All recreational drugs, including Marijuana
• Violent and erotic films and video games
• Specific medicinal herbs such as: St. Johns Wort, Kava, Ephedra, Ginseng, Yohimbe, Sinicuichi, Kratom
• Any form of sexual contact, including masturbation

Recommended Foods:

• Food, fruits and vegetables fresh, locally grown, and organic
• Organic grilled chicken
• Fresh fish wild caught 
• Organic eggs
• Oatmeal, quinoa, buckwheat, rice
• Homemade bread, gluten-free
• Raw cashews or almonds, unsalted
• Little salt
• Coconut or olive oil, sparingly
• Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated
• Herbal teas

Medications 

Inappropriate circumstances and as necessary, we will work with our medical practitioner and ceremonial participants in determining, in what time frame they can eliminate their reliance on allopathic prescription drugs where possible. 

Particularly if you consume monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI) or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) drugs, as these medications will directly block the effects of many plant medicine. 

DO NOT attempt to participate in a plant medicine ceremony while taking these medications without consulting with us first!!  

IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT ALL MEMBERS AND CEREMONY PARTICIPANTS BE 100% TRUTHFUL AND ACCURATE WHEN DIVULGING THEIR CURRENT ALLOPATIC MEDICATIONS, PRIOR MEDICAL HISTORY AND ADDICTIONS!!

Try not to ingest any of these medications for at least 10 days, without consulting with us first: 

• Antidepressants: SSRI’s, MAOI’s, Serotonin enhancing medicines like Seroquel
• Antihistamines: medication for colds, sinus problems, hay fever or allergies, sleep aids
• Antibiotics: penicillin, amoxicillin, etc
• Medicine for asthma, bronchitis, or other breathing problems
• Antipsychotics
• Appetite suppressants (diet pills)
• Central nervous system depressants
• Opiates or synthetic opioids, Morphine, Vicodin and similar
• Amphetamines: Ritalin, Adderall, Dexedrine, Benzedrine and similar
• Hormonal supplements 
• Prescription drugs against high blood pressure, please notify us what kind you are taking

Spiritual Preparation

Setting your intention

Coming into any ceremony involving the consumption of plant medicine as a sacred sacrament, it is essential to bring a purpose. Your intention plays a crucial role in the entire process, and it will take you to explore and to identify with more precision the reasons why you are going to the ceremony. 

So, what are intentions exactly?

They are nothing more than a response to the question you have had coming up within yourself. These intentions are very important for the actual ceremony and in the days, weeks, months, and years following to adopt new lifestyle habits that enable you to continue to grow, heal, and thrive.

When our intentions are clear, when we are sure about what we want, we give the universe full permission to deliver it to us. When we focus on what we don’t want, the universe is likely to deliver us more of the same negative energy that led us to want to transform our day-to-day reality. Clarity of your objective, of your purpose and intention, will enable you to experience profound healing beyond your expectations.

When setting an intention for this work, you may like to contemplate the following questions:

• What is it I want to realize for myself? 
• What would be my ideal outcome?
• How would I like to feel?
• What is my main aim or objective? Think about this in terms of what you want (not what you don’t want).
• What is my purpose for wanting to do this work? Be sure that it is an authentic purpose, not simply wanting to check an experience off your bucket list.
• How does this purpose look and feel to me? Try to imagine it in your mind, write it down or draw it out.

Setting your intention includes the mindset. Your intention of the journey’s mindset is defined as the emotional and psychological state of your approach. An intention is like a prayer; it is a statement of one’s motivation or direction. Your intention directs your journey and communicates to our Higher Self what it is that we are seeking.

You can support the process of setting an intention by making art, playing music, singing, or writing as a way of expressing what is coming through. Try to write every morning in your journal. Read through old journeys (if you have journeyed before) and reflect on how far you have come. Explore wounds, painful memories, and issues, and open up emotionally.

If you are not a meditator, begin a simple daily practice of mindfulness. You can take 10 minutes and focus your attention on your breath and journal. Record your dreams and discover your subconscious.

We believe that establishing an intention is primordial to manifest your healing. To establish an intention before any meditation, any experience with the sacred sacrament, or even on your day-to-day life, could be a powerful practice as it could be the first step to incarnate what you want, as we center our mind in a specific intention. The ceremony takes in place in silence so that your mind is free of any conversation and external stories that might not be relevant. 

Step back and take a look at your current lifestyle. Where is there negative energetic baggage that you can reduce or eliminate in preparation for your journey? The spiritual preparation for a healing experience involves clearing your mind and your energetic space. Take a break from your television and Netflix subscription, cut down your internet time, and spend more time in quiet solitude. Get out into nature as much as you can to breathe and connect with Earth.

Preparing for a ceremony can be through observing a period of silence. Just listening to the inner self requires quieting the mind to practices such as meditating, breathwork, prayers, mantras or sutras.

Mental and Emotional Preparation

In expanded states of consciousness, we are granted access to the domain beyond our normal ego structures. The veil that lies between our conscious mind and the vast ocean-like realm of our unconscious becomes more permeable because expanded consciousness gives us access to these normally elusive layers of our minds. A person should be thoroughly prepared before entering the space, we can do this by becoming familiar with the ways the mind functions.

As human beings, we develop defenses and strategies as well as ways to cope with the painful experience of not getting our needs met or having been attacked in any way. These defenses and strategies take shape as behaviors in confronting patterns, ways of thinking, habits, and fears. On a basic level, the function is to create safety and avoid emotional pain associated with challenging psychological situations. 

It is a basic animal instinct to not want to feel pain and to do whatever is possible to avoid it. Expanded states of consciousness have the effect of reducing your psychological defense strategies and bringing us face-to-face with the content of our ego structure normally keeps hidden.

We also want to become familiar with the content of the emotions that arise in our body and consciousness. The more in touch we are with the way the states arise within us, the more profoundly we can engage our emotional center and expanded states of consciousness.

To best engage the preparation process on the level of the mind and emotions, we begin by bringing mindfulness to our immediate experience. In this way, we begin to prepare a conscious mind through the simple act of becoming aware of our actual states, whatever they are. For most people, the thought of going of exploring our internal world, mind will trigger apprehensions and spiritual concerns (answers and questions). 

Just like in everyday life, expectations are the root cause of disappointment. Although we live calculated, scheduled, and, for the most part, predictable lives, we are usually under the illusion that we are in control of many things. At any given moment, disruption to our routine and predictions can incur massive frustration and loss just because it’s unexpected. On the other hand, experiences we look forward to and build up in our minds often underwhelm us because they are different from the image, we constructed beforehand.

The answer to having a constructive journey…. 

It’s good to have an intention but no expectation. Let go and surrender!!!