Have you heard of the sacred master plant San Pedro? It is also known by the names of Huachuma and Awakolla, originating from countries such as Ecuador and Peru, with usage dating back to the beginning of Andean civilizations. Now, it is possible to meet with this plant in various settings, including at a San Pedro plant medicine retreat in Ecuador.
Ayahuasca and San Pedro are both master plants that come from South America. People have long used these plants for their medicinal properties on this continent. In recent years, more than ever, people from other corners of the world are feeling called to meet with these plants.
A retreat setting is a popular choice for people to sit with Ayahuasca, San Pedro, and other medicine plants. So, if you are interested in meeting the San Pedro cactus, why would a retreat setting be the ideal space to do so? Ayllu Medicina has a San Pedro retreat in Ecuador in March 2025. Here are five things to know about a San Pedro retreat to learn more!
1. Different San Pedro Ceremonies
There are different manners to meet with the medicine of San Pedro. A San Pedro retreat offers the chance to meet with the medicine of San Pedro in some of these ways. For example, we sit with San Pedro three times in our plant medicine retreat in Ecuador.
There are various ways that San Pedro is shared, depending on the medicine guide who is running the ceremony. At Ayllu Medicina, we share San Pedro in ceremony circles and different settings in nature on retreats. We also take a journey into the jungle nearby our center with the medicine. We usually do this at our Women’s Retreat and our San Pedro retreat in March.
2. Connect with the San Pedro Cactus
A San Pedro Retreat offers the opportunity to not only sit in ceremony with the master plant but to deepen your connection with its guidance. You will be in a retreat container with other purifications and tools to open space and center, such as sweat lodge purifications. You have a week to withdraw from everyday routines and distractions to take time to organize and enhance your inner self, so your outer world can also be enhanced.
At our Huachuma retreat in Ecuador, there will also be the opportunity to learn more about the plant, such as how San Pedro grows, how to plant San Pedro, and how to harvest it. The combination of a variety of healing tools, multiple ceremonies, and knowledge shared allows for a deeper connection and integration.
3. A Supportive Setting to Open
While some people may connect with the San Pedro cactus in different ways, it is a powerful medicine that is best navigated with support. A San Pedro retreat offers a container to learn how to prepare for ceremonies, navigate ceremonies, and integrate them, all led by guides with blessings to work with these medicines.
Some elders say the San Pedro is the medicine to open the heart. The medicine can help you center in your heart space, with heightened awareness and gratitude. It is important to find a supportive setting to feel comfortable and experience this opening.
After all, it takes a lot of time, training, and work to not only prepare San Pedro but to lead these types of San Pedro ceremonies. It is important to find a plant medicine retreat with reputable guides familiar with the medicines and have the experience to share them, such as at Ayllu Medicina.
4. Ayahuasca or San Pedro Retreat
Sometimes participants ask about the differences between Ayahuasca vs. San Pedro. Many of our plant medicine retreats work with both master plants during the week. One of the main differences is that Ayahuasca is from the jungle, whereas San Pedro is from the Andes mountains!
They are similar in that they are both sacred master plants with medicinal properties, which can offer healing in different ways. Usually, you are more active and present in San Pedro ceremonies. In our ceremonies we have a center fire and usually you keep your eyes open, whereas in Ayahuasca it is closed eye meditation.
San Pedro works by anchoring us in the present and heightening our awareness, so we can align with our hearts. The medicine helps guide you to find the answers within.
San Pedro can also help balance emotional states, and dissolve mind patterns and old ways of being that are not serving you anymore. He focuses on the opening of your heart so that you can enter into that energy, reaching a place of presence. A retreat container offers various ways of doing this, so you can maintain that state once you return home
In general, the effects of San Pedro last longer than the Ayahuasca ceremonies. Our plant medicine retreats are structured to support you before, during, and after the ceremonies, with activities and rest time catered to support integration.
5. The Medicine Within
It is important to remember that when you attend a plant medicine ceremony experiences can differ and we encourage participants not to research too many personal accounts of ceremonies. Why? Because it can lead to you having specific expectations- it might be the case that you do not see visions in the fire or experience a particular physical sensation like someone else.
However, a San Pedro retreat offers the chance to unlock states of gratitude and profound awareness. We can strengthen the connection to nature, each other, the elements and the music, which is always an ingredient in our ceremonies. You can listen to our guides’ medicine music here to get a taste of music often shared in San Pedro ceremonies with the water drum and rattle
Our San Pedro retreat is focused on being a nourishing week, with tools such as yoga, breathwork, meditation, plant-based food, and rest time in our retreat space to help you restore, recenter, and reignite the joy of the heart.
Attend a San Pedro Plant Medicine Retreat
There are many things to know about San Pedro, but experience is the best way to connect with this master plant. It is best to do so in a comfortable setting with reputable guides. A San Pedro retreat offers many healing tools and an opportunity to deepen your connection with this master plant.
Join Ayllu Medicina in March 2025 for our special San Pedro Retreat to learn more! Please feel free to contact us for more information, or visit this link for retreat details.
Are you feeling the call to connect with the master plants of Ayahuasca or the San Pedro cactus? Why not combine them during a transformational retreat week, while gaining other tools you can take with you?
Plant medicine retreats are now attended by people from all corners of the world. In South America, the sacred master plants of Ayahuasca and the San Pedro cactus are often used in ceremonial settings. An Ayahuasca and San Pedro plant medicine retreat combines these plant teachers, offering a unique retreat experience.
If you’re wondering whether to attend a retreat with these master plants, read on. Here are some reasons to attend a San Pedro and Ayahuasca retreat in South America.
An Opportunity to Pause
A plant medicine retreat is often the first opportunity many people have to take an intentional pause. When was the last time you slowed down? Factors such as fast-paced lifestyles, busy schedules, and stress mean people often need time to rest and reset.
A plant medicine retreat gives you the opportunity to slow down for an extended period of time with intention and support, so you can turn inwards. You have a week in a retreat container, away from any external distractions to explore your inner world. The week is full of nourishing practices, downtime, and integration tools to help you do this.
Make Space
Healing is not about adding more layers, it is about decluttering physically, emotionally, and energetically. A plant medicine retreat provides various purification practices and the support of the master plants to release what is no longer serving you.
Over the years everyone gathers impressions, such as patterns of behavior or emotions from strong experiences. The plant medicines and retreat tools can help you let them go. Once you make this space, you open up to new experiences and can connect with your true essence within.
Find Coherence
When your intentions, thoughts, and actions align, life flows. Whether you attend our Medicine of the Heart retreat, which focuses on heart technology, or you attend another type of Ayahuasca and San Pedro retreat in Ecuador, you have the opportunity to find this coherence between the body, heart, and mind.
Ayllu Medicina’s plant medicine retreats in Ecuador share a variety of tools throughout the retreat week, which help you navigate the plant medicine ceremonies, integration time, and the ceremony of life once the retreat week finishes. You have the opportunity to gain more clarity and empowerment to take forward in your life.
Prepare and Connect with Sacred Plant Masters
A plant medicine retreat in Ecuador gives you the chance to connect with sacred plant masters native to this land and continent of South America. You have the chance to meet with Ayahuasca and San Pedro once or twice with guides that honor the traditions of these plants, have blessings to work with these medicines, and can help support you in integrating each ceremony.
You also have the chance to experience how these plant medicines can complement each other and aid your journey. Usually, on Ayllu Medicina retreats, we first have Ayahuasca ceremonies. Ayahuasca focuses more on your roots, so after this, we meet with San Pedro later in the week. San Pedro (also known as Awakolla and Huachuma) can help raise your energy and strengthen your heart-mind connection.
Learn and Remember
When you attend a plant medicine ceremony, people can often forget about the integration, or be unsure about how to navigate experiences post-ceremony. Attending a retreat gives you a container to meet with these medicines, receive support, and gain tools you can take with you to use throughout your life.
For example, on Ayllu Medicina retreats, we share daily yoga classes, meditation techniques, breathwork, and other skills that you can take with you to stay clutter-free after retreat and to continue your adventure. You can also learn about the spirit animals that may appear in your plant medicine ceremony, how to work with the elements, sun and moon dynamics, and other details that only a retreat week can provide time to explore.
The intentional pause a plant medicine retreat provides is not only so you can learn. It is also so you can remember. So you can remember your connection to this Earth, the elements, and your inner being.
Discover Ecuador
An Ayahuasca and San Pedro Retreat in Ecuador also allows you to connect with the land where these medicines reside. Whether you attend the retreat week and get to experience the beautiful coast of Ecuador or have time to travel, it is the perfect opportunity to deepen your connection with these medicines.
Ayahuasca is from the Amazon and San Pedro is from the Andes mountains. Ecuador is an easy country to travel around and our team is happy to help you with travel recommendations.
Lasting Connections
A San Pedro and Ayahuasca retreat also offers a sense of community. You have plenty of alone time, but there are also other participants sharing the retreat experience with you. A sense of community is created quickly in these sacred spaces and continues once the plant medicine retreat finishes.
For example, our Ayllu Medicina retreats in Ecuador include preparation and integration support, which includes connecting with your retreat group online. We still share with groups several years later, and it is a space to give updates, ask for advice, or reconnect in other parts of the world.
There is also time to connect with our guides and learn about their paths, more about plant medicines, and larger ceremonies you can experience, such as Vision Quest. Learn more about our medicine guides, Aime and Hwaneetah, here.
Attend a San Pedro and Ayahuasca Retreat in Ecuador
If you feel you need to re-align and reset, or are feeling called to meet with a sacred plant teacher such as Ayahuasca, consider a San Pedro and Ayahuasca retreat. You will receive various tools to help with retreat preparation and integration of plant medicine experiences.
It takes courage to hit pause and look inside, but it can offer so many benefits for your life. However, not all plant medicine retreats oer the same supportive retreat container. Ayllu Medicina plant medicine retreats in Ecuador are led by experienced guides, with comfortable retreat accommodation on the beautiful coast of Ecuador.
Our first retreat of the season is our Meditation and Plant Medicine Retreat in November 2024, which includes two Ayahuasca ceremonies, one San Pedro ceremony, meditation workshops, and more. Learn more about this retreat and our other retreats this season here. If you have any questions, please contact us.
When people ask how to prepare for a plant medicine ceremony or retreat, we often suggest they start or increase their meditation practice. Why? Because meditation helps with plant medicine preparation, navigating ceremonies, and integrating plant medicine experiences into your life.
Plant medicine and meditation are two healing modalities that have long been used by humans, even having the same root word. So why not combine these two practices? After all, meditation can provide many benefits, not only for plant medicine preparation and plant medicine integration but also for your everyday life.
At Ayllu Medicina plant medicine retreats we always include meditation as part of our daily practice, and we even have a yearly Meditation and Plant Medicine Retreat to delve deep into these two practices. Read on to learn more about why you should practice meditation when preparing for and integrating plant medicine.
Make Space
Attending a plant medicine retreat or ceremony can be the first time you explore your inner being. Meditation helps you declutter the mind, making space between your thoughts and actions, and encouraging responses instead of reactions.
You begin to become aware of the wandering nature of the mind and not get swept up into thoughts that pass by. This means you can enter a plant medicine ceremony with more space to go beyond the surface impressions of the mind into the true essence of your inner being.
Find Presence
Meditation can help you re-center in the present moment, recognizing when your mind is focused on the past or future, or caught in an emotion. With different meditation techniques, you can bring the mind back to the present moment, which can generate more peace, clarity, and attention.
This can help you stay centered before a plant medicine ceremony, and even during a ceremony. You may feel certain emotions, or notice your physical body is tense. Coming back to the breath, and your surroundings, or making a physical adjustment can quickly change your ceremony experience.
Become the Observer
Master plants such as Ayahuasca and San Pedro are medicines that can help you explore your inner world and release what is no longer serving you. However, what is often overlooked is what the advice ‘surrender’ or ‘let go’ means in plant medicine ceremonies. How can you learn how to do this?
Meditation allows you to witness the emotions, experiences, and visions that may come up, but not become them. Instead, you learn how to stay as the observer, trusting that whatever comes up passes. This benefit of meditation applies to plant medicine ceremonies and everyday life.
Generate More Compassion
The space and peace meditation can help you see with more clarity. You can develop more compassion for your own experiences, and other people’s, moving away from judgement to a more compassionate lens.
During plant medicine preparation this can stop you from judging any emotions that may come up, and during a plant medicine ceremony meditation can help you stay grateful without labeling an experience as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. During plant medicine integration, meditation can help you process experiences, maintain space within, and help you re-center whenever you feel you need support.
A Tool for Life
You can use the practice of meditation throughout your life, whether you decide to continue to meet with the sacred master plants, or if you attend one plant medicine retreat or ceremony. You can practice meditation to integrate many experiences and impressions in your life, so you can always find a way to access the deep inner peace you have inside your heart.
Your plant medicine experience can depend on how you prepare and integrate. After all, you can sit in many plant medicine ceremonies but you also need the tools to integrate experiences, so you can continue to walk on your path with clarity, growth, and peace.
Join Our Meditation and Plant Medicine Retreat in South America
There have been many studies on the power of the mind and how it shapes your reality. Meditation and plant medicine are ways to ensure you are shaping your reality from the present. They can provide profound physical, emotional, and energetic benefits.
So, where do you begin? It is important to find a plant medicine retreat or ceremony run by experienced guides. At Ayllu Medicina plant medicine retreats in Ecuador, our guides have decades of experience, including with specific meditation practices.
Some retreat participants are new to meditation or plant medicine when they attend retreats, whilst others have already met with one or both healing modalities. Our Meditation and Plant Medicine Retreat in November 2024 is the perfect option to start or develop your meditation practice while getting to meet with the sacred master plants of Ayahuasca and San Pedro. There are several spaces left!
Contact us if you have any questions. We are happy to help by phone or email.
When we have days where everything flows, and everything feels in sync, it is easier to stay centered, responding, instead of reacting to what comes up. Did you know that your heart is partly responsible for this? More specifically, it is what HeartMath researchers call heart coherence, which is where our heart, mind, and other systems are aligned.
Heart coherence is a state we all aim to reach and maintain, but it can feel difficult to know where to begin. After all, there is often advice to connect with your heart or return to your heart- without a roadmap on how to reach the destination.
The good news is there are many ways that can help you connect with your heart center and discover its incredible intelligence. We are grateful to work with experts on Heart Technology, which inform many of our workshops and practices at our Ayllu Medicina plant medicine retreats, especially on our Medicine of the Heart retreats.
Here are some things to know about Heart Intelligence to help you get started.
Your Heart Has Its Own Nervous System
Your heart is more than a biological function that pumps blood around the body. Did you know your heart is also classified as a functional brain? Researchers have discovered that the heart has 40,000 sensory neurones. These can sense, feel, learn, and remember.
Many ancient civilizations, such as the Egyptians, focused on the heart as the center of emotions, intelligence, and thoughts. Now science is catching up, discovering the heart’s intelligence through research. Connecting to your heart intelligence allows you to connect with your true essence, acting from this space to reach your highest potential.
Your Body’s Most Powerful Electromagnetic Field
The heart is the most powerful electromagnetic field in the human body, producing a field that spans around several feet outside of you. Researchers found that the electric field is 60 times greater in amplitude than electric activity in the brain.
Connecting to this field allows you to connect with others on a deeper level, connect with the Earth, tune into your own knowing, and influence your own body in a positive way, down to the cellular level to support your functioning.
Your Heart’s Intelligence Guides You
Have you ever got a feeling about someone, or a situation, which turns out to be correct? This was probably your heart talking. Another example is that many retreat participants speak about feeling a call to come to retreat, without their mind being able to give a specific intention as to why.
It is the call of your heart – communicating your inner knowing.
Discoveries around heart intelligence help explain intuition, empathy, and other skills that humans have, such as clairvoyance. It is important to align your emotions and mind with the heart to tap into your own guidance. Your heart is constantly communicating with the brain, and sends signals to help guide our lives – the key is to be in coherence to tune into these signs.
Emotions Impact Your Rhythm
Research has found that your emotional state impacts your heart’s rhythm, with positive emotions bringing balance and a steady pace. It has also been found that the feelings that often come from the heart- such as gratitude, love, and compassion, stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, also known as the ‘rest and digest’. When you activate this system, you promote well-being in the body and conserve energy.
In contrast, emotions such as fear, jealousy, and anger, which we do not usually associate with the heart, can cause irregular heart rhythms and disorder. These emotions and rhythms can increase the risk of a variety of health problems, which is why connecting to your heart and its natural state of emotion can help enhance your well-being physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Learning how to reach states of appreciation and forgiveness allows you to move back into a space of well-being.
There Are Practices to Help You Gain Coherence
Learning about heart intelligence is the first step. The next step is connecting to your own heart’s intelligence and discovering the many benefits it will bring to your life. Heart coherence offers benefits such as:
More self-awareness
Reduced stress levels
Increased energy
Creativity
Clarity of thought
Better sleep
There are many physiological, psychological, and spiritual benefits of working with your heart’s intelligence. It is common to experience conflict between the heart and the mind. What should you do when your mind says one thing, and your heart the other?
Connecting to these heart intelligence practices helps enhance coherence and find peace between systems. Then you can live in a flow state, with systems working together. This allows you to listen and act from your heart with clarity, confidence, and awareness.
You can train the heart to develop new habits and find coherence. There are many different practices that can help you begin. A great place to start is to bring attention to your heart space, and even place your hands there for a physical connection.
You can also think about someone or something that brings you feelings of gratitude, joy, or love, then slowly expand this feeling throughout your body.
To go deeper into the teachings of the heart, join us at one of our Ayllu Medicina plant medicine retreats in Ecuador. Our Medicine of the Heart Retreat and Journey to the Heart Retreat specifically focus on Heart Intelligence, with daily Heart Technology workshops, the sacred master plants of Ayahuasca and San Pedro, and other ancient healing practices.
The next chance to join us is in June 2024 for our Journey to the Heart Retreat, which you can learn more about here.
Discover Heart Intelligence and Find Alignment
There is so much to learn about your heart and its intelligence. Learning how to connect to this space and live from it brings harmony, presence, well-being, and other healing benefits. Most importantly, it allows you to find alignment within, allowing all systems to work together, freeing energy and space to connect with your true essence.
The heart is formed and beats long before the brain is formed. It then remains in constant communication with your brain throughout life. It is time to listen to this communication once more and remember the incredible intelligence and power that comes from centering back into the heart space.
Join Ayllu Medicina in June 2024 for our Journey to the Heart Retreat to learn more. There will be daily Heart Technology workshops, plant medicine ceremonies, sweat lodges, meditations, daily yoga classes, and other healing practices to help you find alignment.
We would love for you to join us around the heart center of our fire, on the beautiful coast of Ecuador. If you have any questions, please contact us! Our team will be happy to discuss our retreats and offerings in more detail.
Do you feel connected to your menstrual cycle? In many societies, rites of passage through menstruation to menopause and invaluable knowledge about the power of our wombs has been forgotten. It is time to remember this knowledge.
Our cyclical nature has been painted as a burden, as something to hide, as something we are victims of and should try to forget about. When actually, connecting with your moon cycle (menstrual cycle) brings empowerment and understanding of your true nature.
So, where do you begin?
Ayllu Medicina’s guide, Hwaneetah, has been studying womb technology for over 20 years, sharing through 1:1 sessions, on retreats, and during a recent interview with Breathe and Flow (you can watch the full video at the end of this article!). She is currently writing her first book about womb technology and the feminine principle.
We give thanks for Hwaneetah’s invaluable knowledge and want to share five ways to connect to your cycle once more.
1. Understand Your Four Seasons
The Earth goes through four seasons each year, which are essential for all life to continue and thrive. Did you know that women also experience these seasons, every month?
As Hwaneetah explains in detail, Winter is when you are menstruating, which is when you are at your lowest energy point. Spring comes next, which is when you begin to open again and your energy begins to rise. Then you are in Summer, which is when you can reach 100% of your energy capacity, before Autumn, which is the week before your period.
Each season is 7 days of the 28-day cycle, so for example, Winter is seven days even if you only bleed for several days. A good place to begin this cycle synching is to download our Ayllu Medicina Moon Clock, so you can begin to track your seasons.
If you do not have a period for another reason, you can sync your cycle with the moon, by picking a moon phase for your Winter time each month. You can learn more about how to live cyclically during menopause, the seasons, and male dynamics by watching Hwaneetah’s full womb wisdom interview at the end of this post.
2. Recap and Rest
As Hwaneetah says, red is the color to signal stop for many reasons, from traffic lights to if we cut ourselves and see blood. So, why isn’t this applied to our menstruation time? Women bleed for days during their winter time, however, often it is expected that they carry on as if they are at their 100% capacity.
A good place to begin to connect with your cycle is to honor your winter time by taking a break. This may be by taking a few days rest, or being mindful to go slower these days. You will begin to see the difference it makes during your month when you work with the process of purification, which happens during your menstruation.
The process of purification leads to renewal. So along with resting during your winter time, you can also take the time to recap your month. Reflect on everything that has happened during the past 28 days, so you can start your Spring time renewed and with clear intentions on what you want to focus on during the cycle ahead.
3. Connect With the 13:28 Frequency
The Gregorian calendar was invented in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. As Hwaneetah discusses, this calendar only takes into account solar cycles, not lunar cycles. This makes women a ‘glitch’, with the design making it impossible to measure basic cycles of time for anyone.
The frequency of 13:28 was the old way we measured time. This frequency is present throughout the universe and in our bodies including:
Moon cycles of 28 days, happening 13 times a year
Our 13 menstrual cycles of the year, on average every 28 days
The 13 main joints of our bodies and in each hand and foot around 14 bones
Turtles who reach old age often have 13 divisions and 28 subdivisions
You can learn more about how we measured this frequency by watching Hwaneetah’s interview with Breathe and Flow. You can also learn more by visiting the Harmonic Factor’s website and downloading the lunar cycle calendar. This website gives a wealth of information about how to work with this 13:28 calendar, which equates to 364 days, with the 365th day being the ‘day out of time’.
4. Have a 1:1 Moon Session
You can also have a 1:1 online Moon Session with Hwaneetah to begin to connect with your cycle on a deeper level. These sessions help you activate the secondary functions of the womb and help you find healing. The sessions include:
Detoxing and balancing of the energetic field with sacred geometry
Deactivating of karmic or codependent cords in the uterus
Closing of lunar cycles and frequency alignment
You can do a moon session if you want to connect with your cycle, are perimenopausal or are in menopause. You can also have sessions to focus on a specific issue such as irregular periods, lack of vitality, fertility problems, cysts, or another specific difficulty.
The sessions last for around 2 hours. You can contact Hwaneetah directly to arrange via WhatsApp (+593-96 725 5701) or by contacting Ayllu Medicina.
5. Attend an Ayllu Medicina Retreat
Attending a retreat is the perfect way to delve deep into your inner world, with the help of the master plant teachers and other ancient healing practices. Ayllu Medicina holds transformational plant medicine retreats throughout the year, including one Women’s Power Yoga and Plant Medicine retreat each year, which focuses on womb function activation and the womb-heart connection.
Our Women’s retreat allows you to discover the magic of women joining together in a supportive environment. There are multiple womb wisdom workshops, practices, ceremonies, sweat lodges, and other activities throughout the week. The daily yoga practices and meditations are also centered around the cyclical nature of women and how to harness the power of this.
Our next Women’s retreat starts on 13th April 2024. We have a couple of spaces available if you would like to join us for this week of empowerment. Our next Women’s Retreat is in June 2025.
Connect With Your Cycle and Find Empowerment
It is time to become empowered by your cyclical nature instead of falling victim to it. The first step is to acknowledge the cyclical nature you experience inside, which is also reflected through the four seasons of the Earth.
More than ever there are ways to reawaken to the power of your moon cycle. However, it is important to connect with experienced guides and sources. Hwaneetah is an expert in womb technology and there are several ways to connect to her wealth of knowledge.
We are excited to announce that Hwaneetah’s first book will be coming out this year, you can sign up to our newsletter for updates on this and other Ayllu Medicina news. We would also love it if you could join us around the fire at one of our Women’s retreats on the beautiful coast of Ecuador. If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch!
In the meantime, you can watch Hwaneetah’s full interview with Breathe and Flow below, which details these ways to connect to your cycle along with more life-changing information.
