How Can I Use Cannabis Like Ayahuasca?

“Hey Becca … what’s the best way I can use Cannabis to make it similar to a ayahuasca ceremony? Can I use the Cannabis and make a similar setting as if it was a ceremony by myself at home?”

– Steven V.

 

Dear Steven, 

You don’t say what country you’re in or where you’ve experiences ayahuasca.  I would ask what it is about ayahuasca ceremonies that you are drawn to replicating?

Psychoactive plant medicines around the world are indigenous to various geographic locations. For instance, ayahuasca comes from the Amazon rainforest, iboga from Western Central Africa, peyote from Mexico. The medicine people – or shamans, in these various locales work ritualistically with their respective medicines in ceremony.

Generally speaking, the medicine people act as a medium between the visible world and an invisible spirit world and “escort” their participants into and through the spirit world for healing, divination and even control over natural events. This shamanic “intermediary” is an incontrovertible element of such ceremonies.

On the other hand, in stark contrast the cradle of cannabis is central Asia and India, where the approach to using cannabis as a psychoactive ritual plant medicine is historically much different. This is the world of deep meditation, where a practitioner explores their subconscious for their own healing and transformation, relying only on themselves. In these cultures, there is not a shamanic intermediary that ushers you into the invisible spirit world and fights the demons for you. You fight your own demons – and might I say that these “demons” are nothing more than the difficult emotions that reflect trauma manifesting as deep emotional pain and suffering.

Having said that, I employ cannabis the way the ancient “holy men” from India intended it – to support and amplify an individual’s meditation … to venture deep into the exploration of one’s deep inner resources, from which all “knowing” can be accessed. My favored discipline to pair with cannabis is kundalini-like practices, a highly active and vigorous form among the ancient yogic approaches. If you haven’t been a regular meditator because the quiet sitting practices (called mindfulness meditation) have not come easy for you, this approach is gonna blow your socks off.

So to circle back and answer your question Steven, my advice is don’t compare the two plant medicines and try to make cannabis fit the mold of ceremonial ayahuasca. Although controversial, I believe that cannabis works as an adaptogen, meaning she increases one’s resistance to stress by supporting the individual in whatever they need physiologically and psychologically.

When we embrace cannabis with our meditative practice (I highly recommend the “Emotional Liberation” practices I teach) we can clear out deep emotional blockages that are causing anxiety, fear, self-doubt, grief, anger, depression and loneliness, among others.

In my Cannabis Elevation Ceremonies we light each other’s pipes or joints with the blessing: “May the Spirit of this Plant make a you a Master of your emotions” and then begin a series of breath and body movements that stir these energies up so that we can bring an influx of subconscious psychic material into the conscious realm to release, reset and renew.

I invite you to join me for my monthly ONLINE Cannabis Elevation Ceremony. As my gift, the experience allows anyone who longs to explore emotional release and relief through my work, Emotional Liberation.

With Love, Becca

P.S.  you might want to take a listen to this podcast where Psychedelic journalist James Kent discussed the new age fascination with the “myth of shamanism”, problems with ayahuasca and tragic misadventures of ayahuasca tourism.

https://www.dosenation.com/listing.php?smlid=8856

 

 

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