Hello fellow nexiuns...

I have started this thread as a journal for myself. If anyone else who reads it cares to comment please do. Perhaps what follows will also help others. I doubt that it will be particularly ground breaking given the history of the nexus, but perhaps it will be ground breaking for me personally.

I have been journeying with DMT for a little over a year now. And holy moly - is it something special? I have been blessed with some truly profound, beautiful and challenging experiences.

Context
My life took an unexpected spiritual turn several years ago. I went 360 degrees from a staunch atheist ruled by my mind. I found myself unwittingly thrown onto a spiritual path when I came across some spiritual teachers on the internet by accident. The possibility that actually despite my ‘intelligence’ I had no idea what this life really was, started to become very real. Beginning with the question 'Who / What am I?' Mooji, Adyashanti, Eckhart Tolle among others, opened the door to the beginnings of self-discovery.
Fast forward several years and I find myself in hyperspace after smoking changa at a music festival. Greeted by dancing entities and surrounded by eternal love, the changa confirmed some of what my spiritual explorations had been pointing to - in a very real way.
I was astonished. I was even more astonished to discover that I could make it myself. And a few weeks after the festival I had some self-extracted DMT crystals. A period of DMT exploration followed.
Ayahausca is next.

To shaman or not to shaman?
The challenging times on DMT made me fairly wary. 15 minutes of a cancerous, multiplying, seemingly malevolent entity only interested in my destruction or punishment, was an experience that made me cautious of diving into ayahuasca as brazenly as I first did with DMT.
I love being challenged, and feel like I can face anything that life has to teach me. Fear of death is beginning to lose its grip the further along this spiritual path I tread. But I started to question whether it was arrogance to ignore 4000 years of shamanistic practice. Their belief in evil spirits and their subsequent precautions, coupled with the 'holy shits' of DMT, make me more than wary. I don't personally believe in 'evil spirits' but I do believe in my experience. And my experience tells me I have no idea what I am dealing with. So precautions seemed sensible.

Set and setting
So for a long time I was resigned to my first ayahuasca experiences being undertaken under the watch of experience – weather that meant a curandero or a group of experienced travellers I didn’t really mind. Upon further research I decided that the amazon was a fairly expensive and unnecessary step. A santo daime church in Amsterdam seemed a closer and more affordable option. I even has a retreat booked, which unfortunately I was unable to go because of my grandma died.

I would have rebooked but I paused. I would much rather find a way of doing ayahausca without having to take a plane. Then my relationship with it can be much more in-depth and I can drink when I want.

Back to the drawing board. More research and soul searching. Why do I want to take ayahausca? - It’s because I need to experience the totality of what this life has to offer, and if DMT is anything to go by, ayahausca could be an incredible tool. Is there anything bad that can happen? - No. My experiences so far tell me that even the bad is good because it is what must happen. It’s all about perspective.
So I re-evaluated. True – I have no bloody clue what this all means. But I doubt I ever will, and that is the beauty right? So I decided that I would brew and journey alone.

But where? - My living situation is less than ideal for a full on ayahausca session complete with purging. I definitely don’t want any of my house mates walking in. And I want to be able to sing, chant, puke or scream in private.

Shanghigher gave me the idea of hiring an Air B&B somewhere. Another friend gave me the idea of using a Buddhist solo retreat. These are purpose built for solo meditations and equipped for cheap short stays – usually in the countryside.

Perfect!

Have a look at http://www.goingonretreat.com/solitaries.php if you want to find some solo retreats in the UK.

The next steps
I have a hut in the forest is booked for Tuesday evening. And I have just finished brewing my very first batch of ayahuasca. (thanks to ms_manic_minxx and the All About Aya thread - https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=8972)
I have been sitting on cappi, chacruna and some mimosa for some time now and I am excited and nervous to be finally using them. Tomorrow night I will have a cappi only brew (50g) and a good meditate.
On Tuesday I plan to dose 80g cappi and 4g mimosa.
I will report back.

Looking forward to your report in the future Whatis, keep up the good work and diary.

Whatis said:
Sounds like exactly what happened to James Oroc who wrote the book "Tryptamine Palace" he too was an atheist he claimed in his book until he tried 5-meo-dmt, and now is just the opposite. Growing up in a Church all my life, confirmation, etc. have always believed in God and his Son, Albert Hoffman, Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, and many of the past writers about entheogens openly talk about God and Divinity in their writings which seems to be a topic that is avoided these days writes James Oroc, but it seems one of the major points of entheogens is to open the heart to the divine and one's own inner divine spark for experiencing the infinite firsthand without just having to read about it in classic religious texts, the firsthand experience our society has swept under the rug and kept hidden and prohibited. Experiencing "God as Love" is something that not only James Oroc has written about, by I myself over decade ago received and experienced this same Universal message on an entheogen at the lowest point of my life, Aldous Huxley also talks about receiving this same message in his book "Moksha" and "The Divine Within" authored /the Religious Entheogen writer Huston Smith. Thanks for writing about your Spiritual transition, however you might currently describe this change & your new beliefs...which might even be entirely different from my own or maybe a bit similar, no matter, thanks for writing your views before and after.

Found a website on some of the teachers you mentioned that inspired you, look familiar maybe?
http://silentawareness.org/teachers/
hxxp://silentawareness.org/teachers/
Very interesting, thanks for sharing the names of some of the teachers that inspired you from the web.

Thanks tregar

I had not seen that website before. There they all are. . There are a lot of beautiful things in their teachings which seem to go hand in hand with what the entheogens seem to be pointing to.

So......

My first brew did not work, and I am trying to find out why. I started a separate thread for that purpose: Oh no! Not another 'My brew didn't work' thread. Help!...

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...;t=65307&find=unread