The plants are our connection to the sensations and musing of the land upon which we live. For those living in the Northern hemisphere there is no better plant than Mugwort to connect us deeply to the land and heal the parts of us modernity may have harmed.

It’s great to see that our people first approach which is centric to our work has been recognised. We are now listed on journeyaya.com, a useful resource for people wanting to find safe, trusted and verified places to drink Ayahuasca in Central and South American. If you want to take a look at what they say about us click here.

In this episode of Behind Our Eyes, host Liane Grimshaw sits down with an old friend - someone who knew her back in her party days in Manchester, and whose life has also taken one of the most extraordinary turns imaginable. Fiona Kirwan is now a plant medicine facilitator living in the rainforest on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. She and her husband Neil co-founded Sowa Soma, a trauma-informed ayahuasca retreat centre, after Fiona walked away from the PR agency she'd spent years building.

We are constantly surrounded by plants and trees of all kinds here in the jungle and so we’re blessed to have their wisdom and magic with us daily. That magic is everywhere in the world, even the densest of human environments has plant life. From roses to dandelions their physical presence, scents and artwork are everywhere carrying an energetic vibration.

How your experience meeting the spirit of Ayahuasca goes is often hugely dependent on how you prepare. The work you do before the ceremony is the beginning of the relationship and often sets the tone for how things will go.

Drinking Ayahuasca is not without its risks, so needs to be treated accordingly. 

Choosing to drink with someone who not only understands this but prioritises safety in all aspects of their practice, is one of the most important factors to consider. 

Image: Mauro Reategui Perez

I love the complex and nuanced energetic fields of Ayahuasca with awestruck enthusiasm. I’m not surprised people are intrigued by this work and pulled in to discover more about the hidden parts of themselves. 

I am however surprised by how much people pass up on the basic fundamentals of nature as a medicine for their well being. Sunlight, fresh air, movement and the sights, smells and frequency of the forest carry such a regulating medicine attuned to our biology. The power of this feels too often overlooked.

Shame should feel like a bruise and not a tattoo. It can direct us to make better decisions if acknowledged and let go of or direct our actions on a subconscious level if we don't have awareness.

We're talking about shame in the context of our own individual actions and choices as adults, as opposed to things happening against our own free will or without informed consent and, as a result cause us to feel shame.

It’s a disease of the ego that makes us want to be right at all costs and someone else wrong when we don’t share the same belief systems. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way, all ideas can coexist at the same time if we approach religion & spiritually with curiosity and an open mind. We are all free to think and believe in what we want to, we don’t need to demonise something just because it’s different. 

Working with plants is on the whole socially acceptable to people, borderline, but just about acceptable.

On the other hand, being open about plants speaking to me and having a voice can be very divisive.  People either get it, because they’ve also experienced it. Or they think I’m absolutely insane.

For us it’s not a buzzword or a sales pitch. It’s central to how we operate and guides every decision we make.

There are some key distinctions in understanding what this term means and how it applies to a plant medicine setting that we can hopefully bring more clarity on. 

Image: Cosmic Bloom by Brian Nori

This is a question we get asked frequently.

For us there is a distinct difference between hallucinating and what you experience when you drink Ayahuasca. Here we share our thoughts on what happens when we drink this sacred brew.

Grounding Part 2

Grounding is an essential part of integration process post any modality of energetic work. Our bodies and minds benefit from feeling the repetition of the mundane - the movement and sensations in our bodies, the physical contact with others. If we always want to escape and live in the ether, we are running away from the work of what it is to live the life of a well balanced human.

Here we share some very practical tips on what this could look like.

Grounding Part 1

Our minds play an important role in discerning what is delusional and what is actually guidance when working with plant medicines. It is a fine line between taming our egos only to gain a spiritual ego, as we experience the vastness that these plants offer our consciousness. Grounding back into this reality is fundamental to any energetically opening work.

The sacred mirror that Ayahuasca shows us is often the thing that most scares us about working with this medicine. There is an innate resistance/protection in us all to fully see our true selves and not just the persona we believe ourselves to be. 

Mama Aya helps us to meet those parts, with love and grace, for when we have greater understanding and compassion for ourselves we can embrace it all and show up in the world in all our flawed yet beautiful completeness. 

I really wish this had never even happened but it has. The world of spiritual practice has merged with social media and the results are confusing at best but if we’re being honest it’s mostly a hellish cringe fest.

I spoke about this a year ago, asking that ceremony be kept sacred and not filmed or photographed to be used for social media.

My point being that ceremony is carried by our intention, and if you are filming it, the intention changes to attention automatically.

Seen by many as a weed, this plant is nothing short of majestic in my eyes and can be added to the list of under valued, under appreciated plants. Though many herbalists have gone a long way in extolling the virtues of this tenacious plant, I still feel it has some way to go before it can shake its image as an invasive weed and be fully appreciated for its medicinal and spiritual qualities.

It’s been incredibly joyful and expansive to reconnect deeply with Indricana (Cannabis) this past month. Over the past few years I’ve been holding dietas with this miraculous plant but this year she has come in full force to make her presence and gifts felt. I’ll add here that Indricana is the name we call Cannabis.  It’s the name she gave me and it’s stuck for us ever since.

A master plant diet is a sacred process of communion with a plant or tree practiced by many Amazonian tribes and their healers.

Done with the purpose of learning to become a curandero or prescribed to a patient as a process of healing, more often than not, dieting a plant involves a combination of learning and healing. Beyond the chemical compounds the plant offers through consumption, a master plant dieta allows us to merge consciousness with a plant and experience its traits and energetic signature.

Integration Series Part 3. 

For us integration means alchemy. When we take those challenging lessons from our experiences and shine a light of truth on them. Having more awareness, love and compassion for ourselves so that we are able to create new outcomes in our life. Truly embodying those learnings in our everyday life. 

What does integration mean for you?