Five Reasons To Attend a Plant Medicine Retreat

Five Reasons To Attend a Plant Medicine Retreat

by | Jul 5, 2022 | Ayllu Medicina Retreats

The word ‘retreat’ gets used a lot nowadays, but what is a retreat? If you search for spiritual retreats in South America, a range of options will come up. But essentially, to retreat means withdrawing from your everyday routine to rest, go inwards, and heal. 

You can retreat in many ways, but one of the best ways is to attend a retreat designed to support your transformational healing process. Do you want time to go inwards and connect with plant medicines such as Ayahuasca? A plant medicine retreat could be the best option for you. 

Read on for five reasons to attend a plant medicine retreat in Ecuador with Ayllu Medicina. 

1. Take a Pause

How often do you give yourself the chance to stop? One of the main reasons why retreats are important is because they help you pull the brake, slow down, and catch up with yourself. 

It is no secret that spending time in nature and slowing down can promote healing. A retreat offers a chance to simplify and focus on yourself without your everyday commitments. A break from your usual environment will allow you to pause, strip back distractions, and gain new insights.

Once you enter the retreat space with Ayllu Medicina, everything is included, such as nutritious meals that follow the plant medicine diets, so you can relax, receive, and enjoy the jungle location. You can even hand your phone in if you want some time away from technology.

2. Center and Connect With Your Heart

One of the main benefits of a retreat is that it is an opportunity to go inwards. Attending a plant medicine retreat in Ecuador allows you to root back into your true nature and remember. It is a transformational week to get to know yourself and, as a result, feel more connected to the whole. 

As our guide Hwaneetah says;

❝When we lose touch with our inner self, we naturally become unhappy. To sustain happiness in life, we must sustain a good connection with the inner self so our inner destiny can be revealed.❞

You are in a space catered for healing, with an Ayahuasca and San Pedro retreat also offering plant medicine ceremonies to aid your inner work. During a plant medicine retreat with Ayllu Medicina, you will be given different tools to help you stay centred in your heart space, which allows you to integrate all the lessons from the plant medicine ceremonies into your everyday life. Activities include breath work, meditation, yoga, womb wisdom workshops, music circles, and art time. 

3. The Plant Medicine Retreat Container

People often search for Ayahuasca ceremonies in South America, which can be life-changing. However, with any master plant, preparation and integration are key to a positive experience that you can carry with you throughout your life. 

When you attend a plant medicine ceremony, the healing does not stop when the ceremony ends; it is only the beginning. One of the top reasons to attend a plant medicine retreat is the retreat container, which allows you to integrate what comes up in a comfortable, tranquil, and trusted space. It allows you time to process and prepare to return to the ceremony of your everyday life. 

The retreat container we create can provide the community, support, and space to go deeper into your own healing. You are surrounded by nature, with the same group of people who quickly become family, and plenty of time to yourself. You will also have access to Ayllu Medicina staff to help support you through your transformational healing process.

4. Learn Ancient Practices

One of the benefits of a retreat is that it gives you the opportunity to learn more about the ancient traditions and cultures of the country you visit. When looking for the best retreat place in South America for your needs, consider a retreat that honors the ancient traditions and plants it works with.

After all, a plant medicine retreat is not just about the Ayahuasca and San Pedro ceremonies. You will encounter many different medicines during a plant medicine retreat in Ecuador. Everything from the retreat location, the elements, and the food, to the ceremonies, prayers, and music are medicine. 

At Ayllu Medicina plant medicine retreats, you also participate in temazcals (sweat lodges) to aid transformation and rebirth. Agnihotra and yoga are examples of other ancient practices you can experience.  

You also have the opportunity to learn from our guides, Aime and Hwaneetah. They have been working with plant medicines for over twenty years and have plenty of wisdom to share from their own journeys. 

5. Travel With Intention

Attending a plant medicine retreat in Ecuador allows you to discover a new country and yourself. So, why not give yourself this opportunity to travel with intention? 

During Ayllu Medicina’s transformational plant medicine retreats, we have the main intention of peace, love, dignity, and joy. You will also have the opportunity to set an intention for your week, which may change and simplify as the week progresses. 

Sometimes people have many different reasons to attend a plant medicine retreat, but what everyone has in common is that it is a call from their heart to put themselves first and, as a result, also benefit those around them. The plant medicines, retreat space, and week of transformation may also reveal reasons why it is time for you to go inward.

There Are Many Reasons To Attend a Plant Medicine Retreat

If you feel the call to sit with plant medicine, a plant medicine retreat could be for you. These are some top reasons to attend a plant medicine retreat in Ecuador, but there are many.

It is important to research your options if you want to attend an Ayahuasca and San Pedro retreat in South America. Not all retreats will have the same offerings or experienced guides. Take the time to find one that suits your needs, respects the plants, and provides a comfortable retreat setting for your experience. 

Ayllu Medicina offers transformational plant medicine retreats tucked away in the jungle on the coast of Ecuador. We have designed our retreats to help support your journey of connecting, healing, and ordering your inner universe. 

Feel free to contact us to learn more. We would love to help answer any questions you have and hear the reasons why you want to come to a plant medicine retreat in Ecuador!


Why Five Ceremonies?

Why Five Ceremonies?

by | Feb 2, 2021 | Ayllu Medicina Retreats

We got a question recently about why our retreats had so many ceremonies – 2 Ayahuasca and 1 San Pedro. Why not just 1 ceremony, some yoga, and a chance to relax and detox?

Our response was, it is actually 5 or more ceremonies – since Sweat Lodge (or Temazcal) is also considered a ceremony, and we always do at least two if not more of these powerful purification processes.

In fact, we believe that there is actually very little that can happen from ONE ceremony. Everyone has many layers that need unravelling for true transformation and commitment to integrating what you experienced back in your life to be possible. So a process involving a series of ceremonies is much more effective, and during a 1-week retreat, much can be healed and realized.

As we talk about in this blog about Sweat Lodge, we always begin a retreat with this strong purification process which allows you to begin grounding your energy. It is also continuation of the detoxification which you hopefully began before arrival via your diet.

During a retreat, and starting in the sweat lodge, you are receiving a complete detoxification from:

  • certain foods that are not supporting your health (no sugar, salt, spices, caffeine, alcohol),
  • what you are seeing (the sweat lodge involves praying and singing in the dark, and Ayahuasca ceremonies involves the focal point of the fire),
  • the speed that you usually move in (all ceremonies are long and slow processes that also need long and slow unstructured time in between for integration),
  • and from the things you are normally speaking about (we encourage participants to pause from normal conversation topics, and to take time to integrate before fully sharing about their visions/learnings. We lead circles to give you a chance to share what feels necessary and helpful).

After the first Sweat Lodge on Day 1 of the retreat, we have the 1st Ayahuasca ceremony on Day 2. This is when you will begin to ground and work the outer layers that you brought with you. This is just the beginning. We are like flowers, that little by little begin to open as we dedicate to this transformational process of detoxification and grounding.

Then, we have a rest day, and another Ayahuasca Ceremony on Day 4. This is when you will not only be working to understand and peel back your outer layers, but also beginning to ground your energy back to yourself, where it’s meant to be.

Ayahuasca especially works on the roots of your being and your family tree. With two ceremonies working with Ayahuasca, you will be opening space so you can gain a deeper understanding of your roots, clear the roots that are not supporting you, and begin to connect back to your heart.

And then from that grounded point, and having done some healing with your Ayahuasca journey, we go into a San Pedro Ceremony on Day 6. It is with this Grandfather spirit Awakolla, San Pedro, that you will begin to work with the upper branches of your tree. After grounding with Ayahuasca, you will now be ready to work more deeply on the heart.

During our retreats, you have the rare chance to spend the entire week in a focused, calm, and supported space so you can truly clear out what you no longer need and connect deeply to your purpose. The ceremonies are just one piece of the journey, and can assist you to see and clarify your path. However, the real ceremony begins when you leave the retreat – the ceremony of life. All of our participants so far have expressed their readiness and excitement in applying all they experienced back to their life and with their friends and family. AND you may even find that you would like to continue to do even more ceremonies, and can likely find a place to join a Sweat Lodge or singing circle!