Temple-Abzu

Menu
Begin Your Journey

Preparing for Ceremony

Hearing the Call

The decision to sit with the sacraments isn’t just about curiosity—it’s about knowing, deep down, that something needs to shift. If you’re here, you probably already feel it. Maybe it’s been nudging you for a while—through conversations, books, synchronicities, or a quiet but persistent pull that you can’t explain.
But knowing you are called is different from knowing you are ready. This path requires trust, courage, and a willingness to meet yourself fully. The sacraments reveal, but they don’t do the work for you. The real transformation happens in what comes after—the integration, the choices you make, and how you apply what you receive.
In our digital age, with so many stories floating around, it’s easy to get caught up in the extremes—sensationalized accounts of deep purges, intense visions, or people confronting their darkest fears. But those are just fragments of the whole picture.

The truth is, this work is rooted in love, healing, and remembrance. The sacraments don’t exist to punish or break you down—they exist to open you. They illuminate what has been hidden, not to overwhelm, but to offer a path toward healing. This journey is one of compassion, understanding, and ultimately, forgiveness. If you feel the call but also feel fear, that’s natural.

Hearing the Call

The mind resists what it doesn’t understand. But healing isn’t about control—it’s about surrender. Are you willing to trust what’s unfolding? Are you ready to let go of what no longer serves you?

Contact Us

Here’s how you know:

You feel deeply called, a magnetic draw from a deep space within yourself to the sacraments. This magnetism is undeniable and persistent, one that keeps showing up for you and feels like a strong but gentle pull. It is more than curiosity; it feels like a deep knowing.

The sacraments and opportunities to sit with them seem to have appeared synchronistically in your life. Things seem to be falling into place, and you seem to have many signs pointing you toward ceremony with the sacraments.

It is your and only your decision to sit with the sacraments. The path may have been opened by someone you know, but you are doing this because you feel the deep call, not because you believe that someone else expects it from you or that you will gain something from them by doing it.

You are not simply looking for a quick fix. You understand that the sacraments provide great healing, but that this is only 50% of the work, and it is up to you to make the changes to grow fruit from the new seeds that have been planted. Working with the sacraments is about personal honesty and taking responsibility for one’s own life.

You are in a space in which you can commit to a new path. You are at a level of stability where you are able to support yourself as you process an experience of this depth. The sacraments continue their internal work when you leave the ceremony, and you need to have some tools, as well as the capacity to commit to yourself post-ceremony.

You approach this path with respect, humility, and curiosity. We are working with unaltered plant spirits and not synthetic or altered/extracted substances, and as such, you are building a relationship with the spirit of the medicine. You understand that to receive the incredible wisdom, healing, activation, and guidance, it is essential to approach this work with an attitude of intentionality and reciprocity.

In this process, it is important to acknowledge the role of your logical mind. The mind is a powerful force—it evaluates, calculates, and makes sense of the world based on past experiences and reason. It helps us navigate the complex waters of life. But it is not all-encompassing. There is more to us than what we can reason through. Beyond this analytical mind lies another realm of intelligence—intuitive, deep, and unspoken. This is the voice of the gut feeling, the instincts that often pull us in directions that don’t always ‘make sense’ in the traditional sense.
Intuition is an ancient knowing—one that doesn’t require proof, one that doesn’t need the logical framework to be understood. This is the wisdom that speaks to you when you sense that something is right or wrong without knowing why. It’s your internal compass guiding you in ways that bypass the ego’s desire for control. And when you trust this voice, it opens you to paths you may have never considered. These paths lead to uncharted territories, where challenges arise, but also where deep lessons are learned. The beauty of this unfolding is that it is not always a smooth, predictable journey. But it is a rich one.
Trusting your intuition is not easy. We are taught, from an early age, to prioritize logic and reason. It feels safer, more controlled. But the unknown—the space where your intuition calls you—is where the magic lies. This is where healing happens. To trust this voice is an act of bravery. It requires you to step away from certainty and lean into the unknown. It’s a leap of faith that connects you to the broader intelligence of life itself.
Preparing for Ceremony

Preparing for Ceremony

Working with plant medicines requires preparation—physically, mentally, and spiritually. This preparation is not about limitation; rather, it is an investment in yourself. The goal is to amplify and deepen your experience with the sacraments, creating an environment where healing can unfold naturally and powerfully. You’ve taken a significant step by investing your time, energy, and resources into this journey. Approach the preparation with love, gentleness, and a full heart. Everything you do in this time—every choice, every action—is part of the devotion to your growth and to honoring the sacred process you’re about to enter. Perfection is not required or expected, but an open and willing heart and doing your current best in the preparation process will have clear benefits for you in the retreat.
Dieta

Dieta

Leadng up to ceremony, a strict physical and mental diet is important to prepare the body, mind and spirit. Our body absorbs and filters all that we come into contact with in this life. It easily becomes blocked and energy does not flow easily. Allowing energy to begin flowing through cleaning up the diet creates the best environment for the sacraments to do their work, essentially making you a clear channel. The dieta also includes abtaiing from sexual activity, negative energy and substances that can intersect negatively with the sacraments. Though an ayahuasca retreat is often defined by the time spent at the retreat center, most participants find that the journey begins the moment they commit to attending. This decision alone sets a spectrum of changes in motion, activating a healing process rooted in the dedication of time, energy, and intention required to show up to a retreat

abstain from:

  • Sexual activities of any kind, including masturbation
  • Dark media
  • Social media consumption
  • Alcohol
  • Cannabis
  • All street drugs (cocaine, MDMA, amphetamines, etc.)
  • Spicy foods
  • Ice, ice cream, or ice cold drinks
  • Refined sugars
  • Red meat
  • Junk and processed foods
  • Salt or pepper
  • Sweets or chocolate
  • Oils (if you must use oil, use olive or coconut oil very sparingly)
  • Animal fats (lard, etc.)
  • Carbonated drinks (including diet sodas, energy drinks, non-alcoholic beer)
  • Dairy products
  • Fermented foods
  • Caffeine & other stimulants
Afterwards the same restrictions apply.
Upcoming Retreats

Medical Considerations

Certain medications and supplements can interact negatively with the sacraments, potentially causing serious health risks. Some substances, even if not directly harmful, can interfere with the ability of the sacraments and the facilitator to connect to and work with your energy during the ceremony.

Ayahuasca in particular is not recommended for people with psychosis or bipolar disorders. While ayahuasca has rarely caused issues for people with major heart conditions, it’s important to approach this with caution. Many drugs haven’t been tested for compatibility with the medicine, so it’s important to be open about anything you’re taking. If you’re on SSRIs, you’ll need to be off them for at least four weeks before ceremony.

If you have a medical diagnosis, we recommend consulting with your doctor to ensure you get the right guidance, especially when it comes to tapering any medications. Please don’t stop or change any medications or medically necessary supplements without first discussing it with your primary care doctor.

Safety is our priority and medical screening is required for all participants.

Emotional and mental preparation

Emotional and mental preparation:

It is helpful to practice mindfulness and other introspective emotional and spiritual practices in the period before comin gto a retreat. These can include meditation, journaling, a morning practice, somatic work, movement, time in nature or any practice that resonates with you and allows you to come into yourself. This will help ground you into the experience and be in the best place to receive the wisdom of the sacraments.

Self Care

It is recommended to step back from the busyness and hustle and bustle as much as possible before coming to ceremony. Creating sacred space for yourself, even it if is just a few minutes a day, helps to regular the nervous system and brings us into a state to receive and surrender, a deeper plane of existence than the constant thoughts and stimulation we are receiving on a daily basis.
Releasing Expectations

Setting Intentions

It is important to ender into ceremony with a clear idea of our intentions. Intention are our heart’s desire, what we are wanting to feel, experience and creat from deep within the heart space. Although we can never know exactly what will show up in ceremony, knowing in general what energies we are currently working with, looking to grow through and transmute give us a palace of clarity and groundedness to being with. The quality of guidance that you receive can largely depend upon the intention and the attitude with which you approach the medicine.

Releasing Expectations

Our expectations about what we will experience, what guidance we will receive and how, limits our openness to insight. No two experiences are the same and working with the sacraments is always stepping into the unknown. Expectation is simply the ego attempting to keep us safe in the known rather than embracing the unknown. Likewise, when you interpret the experiences, it is helpful to maintain a detached or symbolic point of view.

Have an Integration Plan

Be prepared to take some time for self care, introspection and to allow for the process of deep change to occur in you after Ceremony. This could mean taking a day ot two off of work, scheduling bodywork or other practices. Deep rest will be important and so plan to get extra rest for at least a week after ceremony. It is beneficial to receive integration coaching to process an experience. Know the options available.
How to Know When you are ready to sit again

How to Know When you are ready to sit again

The experience of the sacraments is often described as a journey, but for many, it’s not a singular adventure. Just like life itself, it can be a series of experiences, each with its unique challenges and revelations. If you’ve gone down this path, you may find yourself hearing the call again, maybe even unexpectedly.
Life is ever-evolving, with new challenges, aspirations, and moments of introspection constantly weaving into our existence. Just as new chapters open in our lives, ceremony too may have more insights and lessons to offer. While your initial experience might have provided clarity or healing for past issues, the ebb and flow of life might present new questions, new wounds, or even new aspirations.

For those who have previously partaken in ceremony, it’s common to reminisce about the initial experience – the challenges, the breakthroughs, and the profound moments of clarity. It’s only natural to wonder, “Am I ready to dive deep once again?” It’s essential to remember that every journey is distinct, shaped by your current state of being, your intentions, and the lessons you’re primed to learn (and what you integrated since the last experience). While your first experience might have been framed by a particular set of circumstances, your subsequent ceremonies can be entirely different, offering fresh perspectives and revelations.

So, if you feel the call in your heart once more, trust in the process. Trust that you are being guided towards further growth, deeper understanding, and another step on your path to self-discovery. And as always, approach it with an open heart, ready to embrace whatever the journey unfolds.

Scroll to Top