My name is Berry and i live in Holland, where the grass is always green.

My quest brought me here and now, but i knew the Nexus site for about 2 years. I'm walking the psychedelic path for almost 20 years. 10 years ago i discovered DMT in the Ayahuasca form and the smokable form about 5 years. So i have a lot of experience with DMT. I feel like a loner on my path because of the materialistic Society where i live. I need to go deeper in the matrix, that's why i'm planing the put some questions on this site about a 2 week jungle Ayahuasca trip in Brazil or Peru. I had an account but it doesn't work anymore, actually i don't remember what user name i used when i made some post here. So please give me full authority to put the question on Nexus, because i need to go very fast into the rabit hole.

Thank u for reading this and love u all!

Best regards,

Berry

Tnx for the fast reaction!

Feel free to post your questions. It takes some time for the membership to allow people out of the nursery but it is a popular place here so you should have no trouble getting any questions you might have answered.

Oeps i thought i was promoted, sry about that i don't wanna be a jerk.

Ok here are my questions:

Does anybody know a place to go in the world where i can do Ayahuasca for 2 weeks or so. I know one in Peru: http://ayahuasca.pe/
I need some information about what u did liked or didn't.

Is there anybody who did some Ayahuasca in Thailand? I heard that there is some sessions in Koh Phangan at Haad tien beach. Google didn't help me on that one.

Thank u!

I have found as of recently that there are ayahuasca groups in just about every major city these days. It's gotten to be quite a popular event in the counterculture. I know this is going to sound insane but try asking a few hair stylists. I guess they tend to get to know people in these types of cultures or something but I know several and I swear every one of them know about it. Seems odd for sure but you may not have to travel out of your country. You could also try doing it yourself if you wanted to.

I takes a little while before you can get out of the nursery. If you are willing to put in the effort and you follow the rules of the site it wont take you long. I know you say you have a lot of experience but honestly anyone can say that. If you contribute to the group here I have no doubt that you will get full membership soon. We look at maturity and responsibility in peoples posts.

I want to go to the rainforest to do it day after day, with a shaman who's is a local there, to feel the spirit more then at home.
U must know that everybody knows that u can do Ayahuasca ceremonies everywhere and u must know that u feel more spririt in a rainforest than in a cold place like Holland.

I'm not going to throw my ego up right now, to say how much experience i am, but i respect and understand the policy where u talking about.

?!?!?

Welcome to the Nexus BerryRight! Holland is a cold place but it has its great charm too Yeah indeed in netherlands there are enough ayahuasca groups but I also understand your desire to do it in South America. I think you should think this very well, though. Im sure you have also heard about ayahuasca tourism becoming mainstream, and the negative effects it has on local culture too. There are a lot of unscrupulous "shamans" out there, and in places like iquitos I hear you dont even leave the airport and you already receive ayahuasca offers.

The other option you have is going to an already known retreat. These retreats tend to be very expensive and are much more adapted to western cultures. If you check out reviews, im sure you can find some very well organized retreats with curanderos or similar who lead ceremonies very well. But I dont know how 'commercial' it will be, if you know what I mean. I would suggest if you take the trouble to go all the way to south america, maybe do spend a bit of time in a known retreat to have some good ritual guaranteed, but dont settle only for this, also travel around on your own (carefully!), and maybe find more genuine shamans off the beaten path. I would suggest learning a bit of spanish at least (or portuguese if you go to Brasil).

I dont know about much about peru (except of hearing that iquitos is generally a starting place to venture deeper), maybe others can help. In brazil the state of Acre (north-west on the tip near border with peru and bolivia) is where there is a big concentration of indigenous tribes that use ayahuasca, mostly the Huni Kuin. Some villages you might be able to go in, some you'll have to pay a certain fee for being there, some might not want a foreigner, it depends. Ive participated in several rituals with the huni kuin and it was very special, to say the least. Some areas they are getting a lot of influence from Santo Daime, though, which I am critical of for some reasons, but there's still plenty of original cultures and isolated tribes.

Do note that if you want to make a real amazon trip, a couple of weeks are not enough, sometimes it takes many days to reach a certain place. Usually one goes by small (scary) airplanes to closer destinations, and then boat travelling. Please make all the research regarding how to prepare for such experience. It may happen that people try to take advantage of foreigners, charging more, etc.. Some people are very easy prey, but if you're reasonably street-smart (or have some good sense) and specially if you also learn the language, you can get around well. Also, I think when you're a good hearted person, its much easier to get along well and have people respect you as a person.

Last thing I want to comment on is how you establish that contact. Often outsiders relate in very uni-directional way. People come, exploit the 'native with his exotic behaviors', pay some amount and leave, maybe feeling good about themselves. But unless there is some return, more than just money, this ends up leading into a very dry relationship of 'paying for consuming a service' and it kinda perverts the whole spirit. If you go to some culture, I suggest research first, see if there's anything you can contribute, maybe stay for longer if your life permits and work on a small project there. Or in the very least, when you're there, show respect for their culture, ask if you can help in the daily tasks, learn, teach whatever you can of useful, etc

Anyways these are just some ideas, whatever way you take, I hope it turns out great.

See you around

I swear to god every one of them I have met and there are many has heard of it at the very least. I swear they are our messengers or something. I dont know what to make of it.Maybe it's just a local thing to my region or something. But people like that talk to other people all the time about their interests, That's my theory so far. Much like a bartender but most of your customers are a little less drunk.

Just how often do you get your hair done, Vovin?

Thank u you, endlessness, for the time time you took for me and give me some very good information, some things i didn't thought about so well.

Hi Endlessness,

As far as i can tell the "Nursery" is a place where newcomers are left to stagnate for too long, it has nothing to do with some form of moderatorship meant to garantee sanity on this site. In my opinion, the nursery's purpose seems dangerously close to ideology imposition: play the game or leave it because it's been decided that the people's own attitude & background are unsuitable, improper, insufficient... In short, the nursery ensures that the candidates will remember they're not fit to talk to the elite long after they get upgraded, should they ever happen to make it.

i really dont think its like that at all egzoset..

The purpose of the nursery was to prevent people from asking the same questions over and over in between all the people that want to have more advanced discussions.

Think about that for a second, in the past, when people joined they do a bit of research (ill admit ill look for a good 10-15 minutes on a subject using search and what not) and if i dont find an answer, i post a thread hoping for a quick answer.

Some people dont have that much patience, and with this sort of topic, a lot of people are pretty excited that they are going to make DMT, so you see where its going..

I joined, did a few posts and next thing i knew i could just post everywhere, i never had any ideas that the people who were past the nursery were elite or anything of that sort.

I think there was a few people also joining and trying to simple be an annoyance. this prevents that sort of material from making it into the more advanced discussions.


I dont feel like im elite, i actually like it when i see people posting with really low post count, it means they are here to bring new topics of discussion and angles of opinion.

There's a lot of unemployment so I have met hairstylists who work other places and I go to college so I have met several there. For some reason I tend to meet a lot of them.

Hi Eluna,

This holier-than-you screening mecanism is based on the assumption that all of the questions have been asked and all of the answers have been given already, for those who find no answers it's a deterrent and only serves the purpose of re-enforcing an impression of being rejected, IMHO.

Hey,

Thanks for the feedback. I would like to ask you to specificy a bit more what you mean, though. We're all humans and are trying very hard to keep this community running as smoothly as possible. We may make mistakes and need the feedback of other members to help us with that, but so far your post sounded more of an accusative tone than a constructive criticism one. So I ask you to be clearer with what you mean.

Every community and every human relationship has a set of rules, whether they are explicit or implicit. This place is no difference, we have our attitude section and we want people to respect it. There's plenty of other psychedelic-related forums out there. We rather not fall into the problematic behavior (in our opinion) that we see around such as immature posts ("yo dude fuck that shit, yo momma, lets smoke some deemz", or people being disrespectful to others, confrontational, or posting things that can have negative consequences (such as dangerous suggestions, etc).

But nobody is telling you what to think or say, inside this framework. If you respect the attitude but yet think very differently than others and calmly express yourself and justify your opinions, this is perfectly fine! In fact diversity in thoughts can be great. So I dont understand when you say that 'people's backgrounds' were unsuitable? Nobody here was ever suspended or put for longer in the nursery because of their background. Its only about respecting the attitude

Regarding the nursery, as Eluna said, was created to maintain the nexus' quality. Before, lets say there were 10 regular posters and then once in a while came someone new. This new person would quickly realize how the other 10 were talking to each other with nice quality posts and respectful attitude, so very quickly people would learn. Now lets say there's 20 regular older posters, and then 40 new people come in, a few of which may have very bad attitude (or trolls. Did you know we even had trolls really threatening members?). It becomes harder to maintain it working because the bad attitude overpowers the quality that has characterized the nexus. So the nursery works because it keeps badly intended people away from flooding the forum. The reasonable people ALL get promoted, sooner or later. Sometimes it may take longer because there's an ever-growing number of new users and there's a limited number of mods. We have also established ways that other non-mod members can recommend new members for posting so it helps that its not only our decision but the community keeps their watch on the nursery too. If you have a better solution that can take care of the inflood of people who have bad attitude, are badly intended or just keep asking the same old questions without doing minimal research, please go ahead and tell us!

By the way, if I may say another great advantage of the nursery I find is that it has allowed for a close iniciation, which is of course very fitting given we are talking about substances who's iniciation is a very important process. So now a member doesnt just suddenly pop in as if nothing had happened but there's an introduction, and people can have a close relationship. I must say I have often enough looked at someone's introduction essay much after they were promoted, just because its nice to see where one is talking from, to see one's developments.

Lastly, what is this 'elite' you are talking about? The mods? All normal members? I would love it if you were more specific and cited examples of behaviors you think are negative. Personally I couldnt care less if someone has X amounts of posts, the quality of one's posting speaks for itself. I know there are several new members I am very eager to read every message of, while there may be older members who's posts maybe dont call as much my attention. I would think that most nexus people feel the same way. You must have noticed how active the nursery is and how many older members post there, help others out. What do you mean that people 'are not fit to talk to the elite even if they are promoted'? Again this doesnt make much sense to me, being promoted means you can talk everywhere on the forum, not being promoted means you are in the nursery. But appart from that there should be no difference, no 'elite divisions', posts speak for themselves, good posts are good posts and you dont have to be an expert in a certain subject (like, say, chemistry) to post interesting things. We're all experts and we're all noobs in one thing or another.

Also its a misconception that people cant ask any questions and that its all answered. But people have to do a minimum amount of research. Just look at the nursery posts and how many interesting questions and discussions there are. What we cant do, though, is spoonfeed people answers that a 2-seconds search could also answer. If people make a minimum research (as in FAQ, WIKI and take a look at a few different teks, read the forums for a few days), there will still be plenty of good questions to be asked but the basic stuff will be understood. Accusing us of not wanting to help people or not answering questions really doesnt fit in, considering the path of this community since it started few years ago and all thats been done and being done.

As I said before, if you have some specific behavior you feel is negative, point it out, reason calmly why you feel so. We're all open to suggestions and changes, we need to always keep evolving, as individuals and as a community. Make it constructive, though, just accusing too broadly offering no solution wont really help in any way and it could eventually lead to negative unconstructive answers too (hopefully not).

Sorry for derailing the thread, OP. So:




Awesome, glad to be of help. If there's anything more you need some feedback on, do ask. And stick around, dont dissapear from the community See you around

Hi again Endlessness,

There is no tone intended, it's a point of view expressed by an outsider looking at what seems to be a verticaly structured hierarchy where "rank" gets strongly emphasised by keeping newcomers locked up inside some proofing space for days if not weeks, under the assertion that this method can help with discipline... That's only one perception and i'll stop there.

The nursery is a good place for new members to show that they're not douchebags. There are a lot of douchebags on forums all over the internet and we're trying to keep this forum free of them.

If you don't like it then go somewhere else.

Oh i got it a while ago, don't worry. I've had over a month to figure it out, actually...

Hey Egzoset, way to hijack the thread. Have a little self control amigo, you'll get there. In the bigger picture it's really of little importance whether you get full membership now or in 6 months. Patience.....

Berry, If I had the cash, I would do one of Peter Gorman's Amazon trips. Sounds like it could be the adventure of a lifetime. The guy has been tramping around the Amazon for 25 years and he also has a new book out about his close relationship with ayahuasca. I'm going to be saving up my $$ and try to go next year. He has a website and blog. Try googleing PGORMAN to check him out.
Peace