In 2020 (it was a strange year), I did a digital at-home shamanic (!!!) retreat with Blue Morpho and Hamilton Souther (see more here). I wrote a draft about my experience afterwards but for some reason did not publish it. Here it is.

I did my research. I heard about Hamilton’s work before – I watched documentaries and listened to podcasts with him. His approach fascinated me. His ballsy take on creating a DIY digital retreat in line with traditions of the Peruvian shamans who work with ayahuasca was intriguing. Would it work? I was hopeful and skeptical at the same time.

We were asked to block 3 days, prepare to go on a dieta (a fast) and choose non psychedelic plants to use. I used the tea that my aunt gave me as a gift, a mix of Hawaiian red rose, jasmine and mallow. I prepared and isolated my room (boys were fending for themselves), set the intention (as always, a list of questions), prepared the altar, incense, blankets, face mask, etc. I was very excited about and apprehensive at the same time of trying the dieta as I have strong attachment issues with food.

Well, the experience blew my mind. Whether I was hallucinating from only having smoothies for 3 days 🙂 Hamilton’s trance inducing icaros (shamanic songs) going on for hours or the whole retreat programme (which included meditation, yoga, qi gong, embodiment exercises, etc), I had profound visions – not as strong as on psychedelics, but definitely more defined and structured than dreams.

My top 3 visions were:

1. the return of my spirit animal, wolf (and being shown a symbol for summoning him);
2. meeting the cosmic snake (see my attempt at capturing it here);
3. tree of abundance.

My top 3 epiphanies were:

1. when stuck, choose easy;
2. when dealing with toxic people or negative situations, see emptiness as empty, otherwise see it full of beauty, light and awe;
3. my purpose in life is Fire Fox and A Shadow Hat Man, whatever that means! 🙂

The top 3 practices I was shown:

1. dumping mind stuff into the heart full of love;
2. a gesture to unblock energy in the third eye;
3. how to invoke spirit.

Blue Morpho team are now back to running their in-person ayahuasca retreats in Peru and sadly don’t offer online retreats anymore. But if you ever hear of a digital retreat, it may be an interesting experience.