I'm Jonathan and I'm left of center.
And I'm Rich and I tend to lean a little bit more to the right.
But the bottom line is, is together we try to look for the balance
of what it means to be human in today's world.
All right, let's get started. Welcome to Living in the Matrix, everyone.
I'm Jonathan. This is my co-host Rich. Say hello, Rich.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Heatwave Part 2.
It is 93 degrees in normal 70 degree Ventura, California.
And hope everybody's staying cool out there. It's toasty.
Awesome. Today we have this.
I have been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now and looking forward to it.
And they said, yes. Today we have Bailey and Annie.
Welcome the two of you. It is a pleasure to have you.
And I'll introduce you a little bit. Go ahead and say hello.
Thanks, guys. It's a pleasure.
Yes, it's great to see you all. Actually, it's been a couple of weeks.
And so it's great to see you all's faces.
Absolutely. So Bailey and Annie were our guides in our ayahuasca ceremony.
And this episode is about unpacking the idea of the ayahuasca ceremony,
Bailey and Annie's journey, and really understanding what is this thing that is popping up.
I have 25 friends who have done an ayahuasca ceremony.
So it's not like it's fringe anymore.
People are going out to the deserts. They're sitting under the stars.
In ours, we sat in a geodome.
And they're creating a space where they can face their trauma
and the things that are really keeping them stuck.
And they're doing medicine work.
So I want to start with sort of understanding what drew the two of you to this idea.
As in working with ayahuasca.
Yeah.
I can tell you how I found ayahuasca and then what led me onto this path.
You know, it was probably 2016. I was in a deep, dark hole that I dug myself and I was lost and depressed.
I had PTSD. I was in the military.
I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what my purpose was, why I was here.
And I was on YouTube and I was just looking for inspirational videos.
Just for anything, just give me a little hit of happiness.
A documentary on ayahuasca popped up and I was like, that's it.
And two weeks later, I was down in Costa Rica doing it for my first time.
I'll tell you about my first couple nights with ayahuasca.
The first two nights, I didn't have any experience at all.
I thought it was some kind of crazy cult.
It kind of brainwashed me with the music and all this stuff.
The third night, I sat down.
I was like, OK, I'm just going to surrender myself and just be open to this experience.
I had never done a psychedelic before in my life.
And so I got to that place where I surrendered in.
And my experience was a brain surgery by these Egyptian.
I can't explain it was the Egyptian praying mantis is what they looked like with the with the feral hats.
And they had these cones on their hands that looked like the barber shop.
They had those those poles outside that spin and they're going through my brain.
And I just hear this popping and popping and all the stuff.
They were rewiring stuff in my brain and they left.
And then I laughed uncontrollably for probably the next three hours.
And I would stop nonstop. It was the you know, laughter is a beautiful medicine for me.
Were you feeling joy? All the joy.
It's all this this pent up stuff that was I was holding on to from childhood,
from all that stuff that I never just released.
It was it was released through this laughter and it just opened opened me up, opened everything up for me.
there was just so much more space in my embodiments.
And I knew right then and there, this is what I want to do.
I want to help people.
I want to make something.
And just that led me on the path of finding other ceremonies.
And I went down to Peru for a while
and volunteered at a couple of retreat centers.
And then I found this church that brought me in,
and I started working for them.
And I just fell into the role of a facilitator.
And now that's where I met Annie.
And now this is where our path kind of began.
Annie, how about you?
How'd you get started?
Yeah, same thing.
I was in the dark hole.
And I couldn't, like my friend, she
had HER2-positive breast cancer, which is a really aggressive
breast cancer.
And she started taking ayahuasca with this solo woman.
They do one-on-ones.
And then she started bringing it in.
She got her own medicine, and she did it every other day.
And her breast tumor shrunk completely and was gone.
And she described the medicine as teaching her
how to go into her trauma and to heal it.
And so that was pretty miraculous for me,
because she had a 50% chance of surviving.
And it was shrunk in two weeks.
And then she did a surgery, because she had some
of the cancer in her lymph.
And they went in, and there was nothing there.
There was no cancer.
It was all gone.
And so part of her journey was so I
met a lot of people down in Peru through her.
And she also connected me with the same church.
She told me about the same church.
She was working for the same church, too, because after that,
she was like, all right, my life's plant medicine.
I'm going to go down and start with the curandados down there.
And so she's doing a diet down in Peru.
She's still doing one.
It's been a three-month.
Well, she can do a four-month diet.
Yeah.
So four months of just a really, really strict diet.
And you run with a shaman.
And you do the medicine along with you do a master plant.
And the master plant has a teaching for you, a healing
or a teaching or both.
And the ayahuasca opens up all your senses
so that you can receive the teaching.
And then the diet, the food that you eat or don't eat
lowers your stimulation.
It's really non-stimulating food so
that you are sensitive to everything around you
and sensitive to that plant so that you can learn
the lessons of the plant.
And so through her, she introduced me to this,
I guess you could call her shaman woman.
I don't know what to call her.
She's a little fairy.
And I did the medicine with her and didn't
feel it the first time.
And for some reason, she didn't give me a second dose.
And I was pretty angry with that.
So that was my integration on that.
And then the second time, I laughed hysterical
the whole time and thought that Jesus
was the answer to everything, which in some ways he is.
He is.
Yeah.
Jesus is the bleep.
And then the third time, then it got me.
Then the shadows came out.
And I was like, oh, OK.
OK, this is what's going on here.
And it scared me the third time.
But I keep going back.
It's kind of like I'm a musician.
And when I was a kid, I had to play.
I wrote songs since I was 12.
I play piano, I play guitar, I write songs.
And I'd have to play jazz.
And I had to perform on stage.
And I would keep doing it.
I was 15, and I bombed.
I performed in front of my whole high school and totally bombed.
And then I did it again and again and again.
Even if I bombed, I had to keep doing it.
I had to keep playing.
So with this medicine, regardless if it was hard or easy
or blissful or not, I had to just keep doing it.
It's a calling.
You can't help it.
So it's like, how did I end up working with Bailey
and organizing this group?
I just have to.
Like, it's like there's an impulse that just kind of
arises and I just follow it.
So yeah, I started working with that group.
And I worked with another woman in particular.
And she trained me a lot.
And then the medicine teaches a lot.
When you put yourself in the positions,
your spirit or your medicine will teach you
what you need to know along the way if you listen.
Wow.
How would you describe the process of ayahuasca
versus what you know about other psychedelics?
Because again, Jonathan and I have
been studying this for a while.
We've seen amazing work with psilocybin, right?
Johns Hopkins University, where stage four cancer victims
have had a hero's dose.
And they're fearful.
And they come out of it without fear.
They have this cosmic feeling of being connected to love,
to the source, to the universe.
We've heard this with acid.
PTSDs can be solved through MDMA.
There has been a push for these things.
How does ayahuasca in your mind either level that playing field
or provide something different that the world
should know about?
Yeah.
Well, first with ayahuasca, it seems
there's some kind of initiation with the purging
and the discomfort that you have to go through to get
the full benefits.
Yeah, the full benefit of it.
You have to go through it.
And something about ayahuasca, it really
brings you inside of yourself.
Like you go into the jungle.
You go into the darkness.
So you go into that with ayahuasca.
So you're able to tap into the darkness.
Really, ayahuasca is like a spotlight.
It's kind of showing you all the stuff that
needs to reveal itself and allows
you to get a different perspective of what
you think is going on and then what's really going on.
So, Donal, what do you think, Annie?
I mean, they're all beautiful.
I mean, they all help create a space and openness for you
to open up yourself enough to feel the trauma
or feel the shadow.
So they're all an opportunity for that.
And they all have a different kind of energy, I think.
And I'm not as familiar with other psychedelics.
I don't work with them a lot.
But particularly with ayahuasca, I
feel like there's a strong teacher in that medicine,
a strong guide that's kind of telling you,
this is why this is happening.
This is what's going on here.
And I don't really get that with the other medicines
quite as much.
Some of them feel more intimate between me and my mind mind.
Some of them are very technical.
Ayahuasca feels very physical.
I like my little metaphor.
It's like you're drinking liquid light into your body.
And it's going to reveal all the shadows and trauma in the body.
And so it's very physical and physically healing.
And really, I think it helps us along with our cleansing.
Bailey was telling me, I don't know
if I want to get into this, but if there's parts in the body
where there's trauma, parasites and candida
and all that kind of stuff will go right to that trauma spot.
And so it's even harder to heal that area
if you're trying to rid yourself of parasites or disease
or things that are affecting the wound.
And so this is really an opportunity
to really fully help heal.
Going into those areas that your body is protecting yourself
from and won't let you in, this medicine really does do that.
But as far as the difference, it does feel more in the body.
Doing more of that physical healing than other ones.
Others seem to be a little more up here.
It's also, from my perspective.
No, that sounds fair.
Yeah, absolutely.
It felt like a medicine, whereas LSD or ecstasy or psilocybin,
they can be used much more recreationally.
I wouldn't see anybody doing ayahuasca recreationally.
It's not in that vein.
It's meant to be, I loved how you guys really
created such an atmosphere of compassion and joy
that really pervaded the room.
It was through the entire night, because we
went till 3 o'clock in the morning on both nights.
It's in a different category.
And that's why I walked away really feeling like, for me,
it was very much a medicine.
Because we've had several guests on the podcast
that talk about the experience and having done it 11 or 12
times, and that it's a progression of first getting
over yourself.
For the first night, I was trying to get over myself.
I was resisting it.
And then the second night, I was like, OK,
I had this wonderful Saturday afternoon,
ready for Saturday night.
And I was like, OK.
And then I had these wonderful experiences.
And it's like a progression of learning.
The more you surrender, the more the guide will tell you
what you need to do with.
And that doesn't happen in the other psychedelics.
It's very almost directed in that way.
And that's why I think it is a different class of psychedelic,
because it's very much medicinal.
The purpose is to face what's going on inside of you.
It's to get to that root of what's going on
and help you purge it.
And as our friend Whitney would say, when you purge,
you don't feel like it's bad.
You realize, oh, I'm releasing something.
And I didn't feel that until I was sitting right
in front of you, Annie.
I'm sure you remember when I was arched, just vomiting.
You handed me the bucket.
And I was like, I'm in the middle of a room
with 23 people throwing up.
And I realized, no, this is a ceremony.
It's like an initiation.
I'm going through something.
I'm suffering from something for the sake of releasing the pain,
not holding onto it.
Well, I'm always rooting when people are purging.
I'm just rooting them on, because it makes me feel good.
Because it's such a release.
It is.
It's a release.
It is.
Yeah.
Tell us a little bit about it, because one of the things
that you both mentioned is that it didn't work for you
immediately.
And we hear about this.
There's a combination of things.
It could be surrender.
It could be dieta.
Jonathan and I were screwing around with social media,
even in the middle of that week, where you're supposed to pull
back and you're getting desensitized.
And I think there's something about the intentionality
you bring to that week.
But there are catalysts.
There are other traditional medicines
that not necessarily medicines, as you say, because it's
tobacco.
But there's additional things you
can do to help kick things in.
Can you describe a little bit more about the tobacco
or other things that have been helping the process work
itself out a little bit better?
Yeah.
You know, the biggest blockage, I guess, to the experience
is the mental chatter.
It's getting out of the head and dropping into the heart,
not trying to be the bus driver of the experience.
So that's one of the biggest hurdles for people,
is to be able to do that and to be vulnerable in that space.
But we use tobacco.
It's mapacho.
It's like jungle tobacco.
It's called like a vuelo.
It's a grandfather energy, like a protection.
And so we get people to kind of blow
the smoke across their body.
And at the beginning of ceremony,
just kind of clear that energy and bring in that protection.
And even during ceremony, people will come up and get a sopala
if they need some clearing, which
is like a blessing with the tobacco,
and kind of trying to move that energy.
Yeah, tobacco does a lot.
It has a lot of good energy, a lot of healing ability
used in the right way with the right intention.
I guess along with the mapacho, there's
rape or hape, which is the ground up tobacco in Woodash.
Each tribe kind of makes it a little different.
That's another one that's used with intention
goes a long ways with that as well.
That's used during ceremony to help move some energy
as in a purge that needs to come out.
Rich, you experienced that, the raphe.
Yeah, I did.
And it wasn't painless, right?
But it was absolutely cathartic in terms of, yeah,
I mean, you watch Michael Pollan do it
at the beginning of How to Change Your Mind on a Netflix
series, right?
So he had it done.
And I saw that and just what he went through.
But for me, it went like right through the back of my head.
And then there was this.
Rich, explain the experience because it's important.
It's like you're fully animated and aware of things.
But at the first few seconds, all you're doing
is just trying to hold on to your breathing and your body
and your nostrils and everything.
It's a rush, right?
It's a full rush, just like a good when
you're smoking tobacco, there's a rush to that.
But this was that on steroids.
And the first time I did it, it was a milder, let's say,
example.
And I did purge after that a little bit later.
And it was a little bit of a purge.
But the second night, Bailey, it was a little bit more
significant in that I literally had to lean over and just
let it go.
And the thing that I would say is it's about the breathing
and about just being in that moment and embracing it.
And the beauty of it was once that purge happened,
that's when you felt like you could just be free.
It's where you could just now start
to experience things around you.
It's where you've felt people.
I went outside and I just hung out
with some fellow practitioners or what have you.
The moon was breathing and was a beautiful lotus blossom.
It was a feminine night.
It was amazing.
It was absolutely incredible.
And it was a catalyst for me because I
was a little stuck, right?
And so I would recommend that.
And have some tobacco experience before you go in
if you're ever going to try that.
But I will say that it was very helpful for me.
I thought the hopate was invigorating.
Yes.
Essentially a snuff that they blow into your nostrils
with a pipe.
And it's very much a ceremony.
It's like an experience the way that he created that.
And it's like Rich said, it's like the back of your mind
is just blown out.
And I think what it does, how I took it,
is it's this sensation of what aliveness feels like.
It's like all your senses are on firing on all cylinders.
And it kind of woke me up to getting out of the way.
Because I had just vomited.
I had just purged.
And then I did it.
And it was like a whole new chapter
to go into because I was still feeling the ayahuasca pretty
intently.
And then it created a great shift for me to kind of, OK,
move past the purge.
Now I've got the freedom to really say, OK,
what is the rest of this night alive?
The whole element of the experience
was like the music.
And the second night, we did a lot more dancing and just
kind of this sense of community that the whole ceremony.
I think that's the thing.
It's not just the ayahuasca.
It's the ceremony that brings so much of the intention
to the process.
And I want to commend you guys because I
walked away telling Rich, I said,
the thing that captured me the most
was your level of intentionality to that space.
Because I've been doing this a lot of times.
And I've seen both sides of that.
And you guys carried it so wonderfully when
people were having hard times.
Share a little bit about how you've
crafted that since you started it to create what.
Did you guys copy the ceremonies that you've learned
or have you added to them?
How have you guys grown that?
Yeah, absolutely.
We copied from several different shamans and facilitators.
And we've also learned what to do and what not to do.
And I feel like Bailey and I, our intention
is to fully come from love.
We have some technical stuff, some container structure,
things like that.
But just really, we want this place to be where we fully
come to love and help people move into their heart space
and just to try to have, for lack of a better word,
maybe high vibrational space.
Where we're really holding a space where our intention is
to bring in their high vibration or to bring in higher self,
to bring in God, to bring in love,
and just like the medicine is, to be the medicine,
to reflect the medicine, to reflect love, to reflect God,
and hold that space.
And not against the shadow or the darkness at all,
because that's going to be something that comes out
for us to all love and integrate and meet.
So.
Yeah, the container is important.
It's because people need to feel contained and safe
and be able to open up and be vulnerable.
And so we don't have a fixed container
that's protecting people, but it's
the intention in the whole space and knowing
what to do with certain times.
We're really hands off, because it's
a personal experience between you and the medicine.
And so we're hands off unless there
needs to be something, a movement of something,
of an energy to keep the container sturdy.
And we had several moments like that in the ceremony.
When do you decide to participate in what's going on?
Because you set the intention, let everybody
have their own experience.
But when do you decide to participate
in what they're doing?
What's going on to make you answer that question?
If someone asks specifically.
Of course.
And then if someone's really going through it
or making a lot of sounds, I'll check in on them
and make sure that they're OK.
Also, if someone's making a lot of sounds,
we'll ask them to go to a different space
so that the container in the room can stay, where everybody
can experience their own personal journey
and not the other person's.
Although, that can happen too.
We're all in the room together, and the group heals the group.
And the group is what is outside of us is inside of us.
So if they showed up, your experience
is a little piece that you want to work on
and you want to see.
And there's a shadow in that.
But yeah, I guess those two things.
Yeah.
Yeah, it can be tricky, right?
Because sometimes people need to go through certain experiences.
And who knows what that looks like.
And so it might be some noise and stuff.
But it's something they might, in that moment,
they need to go through.
And like Andy was saying, we're all intertwined.
And so we all end up, our journeys,
weave together in this experience.
And so someone's going through something on the other side.
And you're sitting up here struggling.
And they're purging really loud.
That might be something that you needed over there.
It's like, oh, I needed to purge, but he's doing it for me.
I really appreciate that.
And so when we step in, it's OK.
It might be disturbing the whole room.
Something we might need to move the safety out so people
can stay in their zone, in their place.
And so we try a bunch of stuff before we actually,
well, let's take you to a place where you can kind of express
freely without having to worry about being a disturbance.
So we'll come around with Agua De Frida or Palo Santo,
just trying to clear energy.
Or maybe tobacco might help.
But if it's consistent, then we'll
take them to a different space so they can really
go through that experience that they need to go through.
I felt that, specifically with the drum and then Bailey,
when you played the ukulele, there was something magical.
And it was a transition.
It was a movement to move others and to move yourselves.
And sometimes it involved people getting around.
And sometimes it was individual, right?
And so sometimes you're center stage.
But I think one of the things that was so profound to me,
and again, this is what's crazy.
It's the dieta beforehand.
It's the intention you bring to the ceremony.
It's the smudging.
It's the actual ayahuasca.
It's the music.
It's the ebb and the flow and the ceremony itself, right?
So that's, again, a huge distinction
between this and anything else you might do out there.
And what I loved about it is that whatever you knew,
whatever you've experienced, whatever somebody literally
and explicitly comes to you, sometimes it just seemed to flow.
And you just felt the people.
And there was this wrestling and striving sometimes.
And then they were just relaxing and everybody
was in themselves.
And then it would rise up to something very funny.
And we were laughing.
And I think that's part of the magic, right?
And that's why I have to do this again.
Not only because I need to go deeper into the shadow,
but also just to have the experience
and to just learn from what Pachamama has to show us more.
One of the things that you brought up Jesus before, Annie,
and one of the things that Christians believe
is at the end of the day, the good guys will come back
and there will be no more shadow and darkness.
And there'll be this kind of eschaton, right?
Where there's this new Jerusalem and Zoroastrianism, I think.
And like, if you think about the force,
it's always a duality, right?
It's always light and dark.
What do the indigenous tribes
and what has your experience been?
Is there a place where there will be no shadow anymore,
that we will have the light finally,
we'll get rid of it all and we'll be able to live
in this amazing kind of thing?
What's your thought on that kind of stuff?
I mean, no stone will be left unturned, right,
when we reconcile with God.
So all the shadows will be revealed.
All the, you know, when we,
and that is reconciling with God, I think.
Okay.
Meeting the wound, meeting the shadow,
that is the reconciliation.
That's the balance.
That's the, it's all the same, you know?
Well, you even shared with me
that your whole idea was around church.
Yeah, because your whole idea of you could see this
turning into a church and a community.
I felt that.
There is a deep sense of church.
I've said to you, that was the greatest church experience
I've ever had.
Because of the level of intentionality that you've created.
And I grew up in the church.
I have a degree in theology.
I went to a Christian college.
You know, it's like, it's the experience.
What's that?
I was a worship leader.
Yeah. Wow.
I was talking about Ben.
Yes.
And where music comes from, yeah.
And your voice is still beautiful.
And like vineyard, yeah.
Vineyard, huh?
Yeah.
Oh, charismatic, very charismatic.
Oh yeah.
Charismatic, and we did the whole speaking in tongues.
100%.
Now we're familiar with all that.
Yeah, there was, what's his name?
Down in Van Nuys.
Oh my gosh.
He was Church of the Ways or something like that.
Oh, forgot his name.
But yeah, it was, I mean, that's what,
I mean, that kind of yearning and groaning,
the whole, the earth, all creation is groaning.
That's what's happening right now.
It's groaning and yearning and it's waking up mentally,
but also in its own, in its gut, right?
That's the groaning is like a woman in childbirth.
That's the kind of description you get out of scripture.
And it seems like a rebirth is coming on, right?
And I think this is a way to facilitate that, right?
Yeah, it is.
It's a teacher.
It connects us with God.
It connects us with the truth.
It connects us, it teaches us how to meet ourselves,
meet the darkness that's been hidden, you know?
Yeah, I think it's totally,
I'm very grateful that I have a background
in reading the Bible because it all makes sense now.
Like the living word makes a lot more sense
when you have the experience of God,
when you actually have not someone teaching you
and telling you from words
and the mind connecting with it,
but connecting it from your soul, your whatever words,
your light, your truth.
It's a different experience.
It's nice to have all of that going on for me personally.
I don't know if I answered your question though.
What did it-
No, you did.
It's beautiful, yeah.
Bailey, what was your experience of God growing up?
Was it new when you had the ceremony
or did you sort of have a background?
You know, I had a little bit.
I go to church ever so often.
And then when I was going through my depression,
I really got into like reading the Bible
and Christian apologetics and all that stuff.
And I found a really good church.
And, but that was the extent of it really.
I mean, I still, I love the New Testament.
Like Romans always makes me feel good.
But yeah.
There's some heavy theological stuff in Romans,
but there is some really good,
that's amazing stuff in there, right?
Because I think that was the thing that
I would encourage anybody going through the ceremony,
prepare to meet God.
Mama I is this divine feminine that kind of is a teacher,
but at the same time is not gonna let you
hold on to your bullshit.
And I think I had a very,
the second night I had a very present experience.
I went through my purge
and I didn't have anything happen visually.
The first night I had a lot of visual first,
but the second night it was all second.
And then I purged, I laid down and I closed my eyes
and my third eye just opened.
The visuals were intense, but it wasn't just the visuals.
It was the presence of God.
And I saw this orb that looked like a,
it was just this, it looked like a lava lamp
going in 16 different directions, kind of like that.
And I knew it was God.
Have you guys had that experience going through this?
I mean, yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm full on awakenings
over and over and over again.
And it's-
Because that's the intent of why I think this is medicine
is it almost gives you the possibility
to kind of cut through all the bullshit and experience God.
And I know a lot of people that were there with us
had that type of experience.
Yeah, yeah, it was a beautiful weekend.
It really, really was.
It removes like that separation feeling.
Yes, yes.
Yes.
Yes, that's the best way I would describe it
is there was no barrier between God and myself.
I was part and connected to God.
And it was, this is the way it is.
It's not their separateness.
This is the way it is.
So it was ushering into that experience of I am part of God.
I don't have to worry about this disconnection anymore.
It's this connectivity that is so intense
because you can't ignore the feelings
that come with those experiences.
You have all these visuals,
but it brings this intense feeling of belonging
and connection that is so profound.
And I would ask, you guys also took it,
but you guys have been doing this
hundreds of hundreds of times.
Do you guys still purge or go through that?
Cause you were acting more as moderators,
but you took it with us.
What is your experience going through it
during the ceremony?
You know, intention, like intention for us,
where our intention is to be of service
and to hold space and do all that stuff.
So the medicine like shows up in that way for us.
And so we got to do our work in the jungle.
We'll go and do the yeti
and that's where we tap into our stuff.
But when we're in ceremony, holding ceremony,
it's like the intentions all just to be there
and be present with everyone.
And so the medicine like just keeps us in line.
Yeah, you just take enough
so that you're in communication with spirit,
with medicine, with what you guys are also,
we're all together networking in the vine, right?
And then I'm being guided more because I'm more open.
You know, so, and then, but the whole, yeah,
the intentions to help you guys hold the space
and channel the music, you know,
that comes from spirit as much as possible,
to be a vessel.
No, you were transformed, Annie.
I described that the sonorousness of your voice was,
it was definitely a magical, it was very special in terms,
and then how you would resonate with some of your,
your more experienced people who are around there
and just the, and when Bailey, you got involved,
it was just incredible in terms of that synergy
you were totally in, in the zone, so to speak, right?
That in this spirit, in that particular process.
One of the things I wanted to ask is,
have you heard and experienced any really cool experiences
where Mama Aya is kind of present even afterwards
in the integration period where some magic takes place
afterwards, like in between or like days after,
because I certainly felt something happen
that was kind of like, whoa, I was hiding that
and it came out and it's not hiding anymore.
That's so, I wanted to ask you guys,
if you've seen or felt something where she's working
after it's all over.
We're all always, always, always.
Mother Ayahuasca spirit, you know, once you choose,
you know, the intention's everything.
You choose, you wanna open up,
you wanna connect with God, you wanna know the truth,
you wanna see how we're connected.
You're gonna see how we're connected.
We're gonna see the signs and synchronicities
and the gifts from God and the gifts from spirit
and how this person said this at the same time as this.
And more and more and more you're open,
the more those miracles, you know, become the way, you know.
All the understanding doesn't just all come to you
right there in ceremonies.
It's when you get back and you're like, oh, okay.
That makes sense now.
That you start connecting the dots once you get home
and softening it into it.
All the, okay, you start connecting the dots
and it starts making sense.
And that, like a lot of people call it the glow.
Like the after glow.
It's like just you're radiating, you're like feeling so good.
It's still the medicine still flowing through you.
And so.
Yeah, are you guys getting the after glow?
Well, I had an experience where I think that I was
hiding something still and not fully pulled it out.
And it came to the surface and it was a breath of fresh air
that it was out in the open.
And it was kind of discussed with my wife.
And there was a little bit of servant stuff that I did,
you know, in terms of just otherness, you know,
and selflessness where you're feeling, you know,
that it's not just about you, you know.
It feels like it's good to serve, you know,
outside of that space.
But I wouldn't say that it was like, you know,
I sat under the Bodhi tree and, you know,
and I'm walking around, you know, weightless.
I'm not expecting that.
But certainly there was some magic happening after the fact.
Yeah, my friend, she just says,
each time you get to spend those moments with God,
blesses God so much.
Like times that we do ceremony, we connect.
Like it blesses God a thousand times.
I don't know what the number was, but yeah,
each little pocket.
Saturday was a profound day for me
because I felt like I had lifted off something
and I didn't even know what it was
because I had violent poops.
And it was like something was trying to get out of my body.
And I mean, it was truly violent.
And Saturday I was like,
because I lost 10 pounds from the trip.
And it was this deep sense of peace
as I just sat there in the living room of the house
and everybody was kind of walking around,
having a little breakfast throughout the day.
Rich and I sat outside, he was smoking a cigarette.
And it was just this, wow,
to be reminded of what it feels like to let go of something
that I shouldn't have been holding on to.
It's like, it's a heavy weight that once it's lifted,
you're like, oh man, why am I holding onto that?
And I didn't have a deep sense of what it was,
whatever my body was releasing.
And I felt that glow all week.
And I did, it was just, and I could see,
Annie, you and I had a conversation around starting a church
or some kind of community
that can support that integration process.
Cause I think what happens is you go back to the world
and the world takes over.
And not having that sense of consistent dialogue
creates a space where it's like, oh, wait a minute.
I need that intentionality in my life
because I don't think the world
likes that level of intentionality.
And it's so, I loved that vision that you had
because I've experienced communities like that.
That was probably the most healing moment I've had
in probably 10 or 15 years.
And I was deeply grateful for it.
What is your vision going forward with communities like this?
I don't know how much you wanna share,
but what would you like to see happen?
I mean, I would like to see it, I mean, for lack of a better
word, church or a spiritual community,
would like to see that being in everybody's,
at least in lots of cities, like around the country.
And so that people can experience God,
like have the experience of God through ceremony,
through this teacher plant.
And then also have each other to talk to about it.
So that when they go back to their regular lives
to integrate, it's like, do you want to integrate into that?
Again, for lack of a better word, lower vibration
or like the matrix or the mind, the conditioned way of being,
or do you wanna be around people who are connecting
and learning and trying to open up their heart space more
and not doing the grind, and that this is normal,
this is life.
And so to have that reflection to come to on a regular basis
and walk people through integrating or how to process
their shadows and their life experiences.
And just almost just to see like, this is normal.
Coming together, playing music, loving one another,
supporting each other, this is normal.
Yes.
That's not normal.
The other thing is not normal, this is normal.
And so to have that community to bring this into normalcy.
If you go back to the concept of normal,
tribes used to use ayahuasca to heal the people
that just came back from battles or had family wars
or had family arguments.
It's the intention of it is over found good.
That's what I love about it.
Yeah.
Its intention is to heal.
We're like going back to the early church.
The early church was these small communities
that loved and served.
And when there was a plague,
the Christians would go pull them babies off the heaps,
that they treated women well.
And they had these small house churches.
Then Constantine came along
and then it became a big powerful machine.
And we're trying to go back to the original,
back to the source, if you would.
Go back to the community of humility and love
and not about power and about all these things.
I mean, there's a sense of power in that.
The power is love and the power is in community
and helping each other out.
I just felt that way.
Your dad, Timothy, I was hugging him the first night,
Bailey.
I love the man.
I love that you guys are our blood.
And just I've kept in touch with a semi.
Unfortunately, Nikki left right away.
I was hoping she was gonna stay an extra day,
but we had some fun times just chatting.
And I thought I was just money milling business,
just walk into the Kaibo.
And then I just launched my largest vomit
that I can remember in a long time.
And we were all laughing about it.
It's like, all right, I'm watering
that little plant right there.
But that's the thing that I think we need to foster.
And I see, obviously people came back that last night,
you had Adrienne and a few others who shared a lot.
And one of the things that she mentioned
that second night was the sense of community.
We were helping out Dave
because he was going through a lot.
And Ana and you were right there with him.
That was a lot that night.
And for those moments of the waning hours of the night
where there was just a lot going on.
And it was great that we were able to be that community.
And it was one of those things
where it was less about me and Jonathan,
I think, and more about that.
But I got a lot of work to do.
We gotta go back and we gotta do this again
and dig in some more, lean in.
Hey, I wanted to ask you guys,
what's one of your favorite stories about doing this?
Cause you guys have led hundreds of ceremonies.
What's one of your favorite stories?
Oh gosh.
Like of our personal journeys or something?
In terms of something you,
it can be from your own experience
or something that you've witnessed
that really made you realize this is good.
It's always like that.
Each weekend tops the last weekend.
You're like,
I missed episodes.
They just get better.
Like this was the best one ever.
How can it get any better?
It is like that.
I'm like, this is the best weekend we've had so far.
Just seeing people go through the experience
when they show up, how they are and then when they leave,
you know, that just, it's so like,
it gives us so much. It doesn't get old.
It doesn't get old.
Like I think we have some funny, goofy stories,
but you know,
but as far as just,
you know, the miracles of the miracles,
like it is nice to be outside.
Sometimes we get to be outside and watch the stars.
We've seen some like things that look like spaceships
and comets and comet spaceships.
You know, we've had those weekends where,
well, that one was a doozy,
but it was like, it was powerful and it's going right.
You know, and we get a lot of learnings in the doozy's.
Like what's a doozy?
Like it's a, like a Friday night, but with, you know,
just a lot of energy, a lot of healing going on
where it's like, okay.
Everybody's, oh yeah.
Like we had in the other church that we were in,
there was like, I called it like a spiritual ER
because like everybody needed help.
So where like all the musicians stopped playing
and everybody was getting helped.
And it was pretty wild.
Everybody was like, oh my God, you know,
but I haven't had one of those in a while,
but that one was fun.
And you do have moments where you have to separate people
who are, because there's a lot of trauma that does come up.
How do you help people work through their trauma
when it's coming out?
Because we had a lot of people that were going through,
they were moaning, they were crying, they were wrestling.
How do you help people go through that?
Is it, you're just present
or are you helping them process it?
What are you doing?
A lot, just a lot.
So like we said earlier, you know,
maybe they just need help moving some energy.
And so really some polos alto or tobacco or, you know,
like Aguadilla Florida.
But some people just need to come back to themselves.
They're, you know, they're not wanting to surrender
so they get stuck in a loop or stuck in whatever.
Cause they're not wanting to let go of something
or they're scared to look at something.
And so it's getting them to come back
and to not be scared of what's going on,
but to look at it and process it.
Because yeah, what do you?
Yeah.
I mean, it's tricky, like traditionally,
you don't really talk in ceremony.
Right, right.
We do from time to time, like I'll remind someone
to go into their body and focus on their breath.
Everything that's looped out,
people who are having trouble, it's just their thinking.
They're judging, they're thinking,
they're judging their pain, they're judging
and they loop in it.
And I guess I'm simplifying it if you go deeper than that,
but that's more or less what's going on.
So if you can just get into the breath, get into the body,
feel the breathing and just stay
in that present moment space, you're feeling what wants
to show up, you're being present for what wants to show up
and then that shadow can dance, that energy can move.
So it's like a big one that I recommend for people to do.
But things like tobacco and Palo Santo,
it's supposed to clear the mind.
It's supposed to, like when I gave you the sopla,
it was just to clear the mind so that the body
can go back into the body and feel what wants to feel.
So I don't think, God doesn't live anywhere else
but in the present moment.
Let's meet God, how do we do that?
We breathe, we go into our body, we stay present
and all that other stuff, demons and hell realm,
I don't know.
I like using different languages for all this stuff,
but yeah, that's the issue is that realm.
And it gets exasperated by where we've stored traumas
in our bodies, right?
So it comes up.
So yeah, all those things, the Palo Santo,
just singing and moving energy in the room can help
just kind of stir it.
One person over there purging can help that person
over there, because it's an energy that's being cleared
and felt together collectively and all the issues that,
I feel like I'm changing the subject.
It's okay.
It's because of my other channel, I channel,
like I just, bleh.
You're sharing the experience.
Let me ask you guys a question in terms of one of the things
that was really profound for me, but I think like,
as you just said, music can change the mood in the room.
You guys are both musicians and singers.
How did you learn to add to the value of the ceremony?
Is that something that they trained you on
or did you over time learn the music?
Because I can honestly say your Ayahuasca song, Bailey,
I have heard in my head a thousand times.
It keeps coming back because it's such a simple,
beautiful song, but I still have in my dreams.
Of course.
It's all the medicine.
I didn't have any musical, anything.
I didn't touch anything or sing or anything
until the medicine, so I started doing this stuff.
Wow.
And so that's amazing.
Yeah.
I mean, literally healing cancer, musical ability.
I think that that's kind of underrepresented
in terms of the kinds of things that it can do.
Everybody thinks in terms of trauma,
like you relive the pain of when you were six years old
and it's lived and it's buried down there
and you wonder why your life is fucked up and boom.
Some things that you might not even be aware, right?
There's things that you know happen
and then there's things that there are some like channel,
like in Inception, where you've got Leonardo DiCaprio.
Have you guys seen the movie Inception
where he instills something in somebody's mind
and he goes all the way deep.
It's almost like going deep, deep, deep
past the railroad tracks where his gal, Mal, is
and he screwed her up in a bad way.
And so what I'm getting at is,
I mean, are people starting to see more?
Because I mean, you'd almost want to say,
hey, listen, here's the X-ray of this gal with breast cancer
on Tuesday of last week and here's her X-ray on,
Tuesday of two weeks later.
It's like, I don't know if people just need that these days
but you never really hear about those kinds
of magical aspects of ayahuasca today in terms of,
I had never heard of that kind of gift that she gives
in terms of what you just described so far today.
Are you seeing more of that or is it just commonplace
and it's just one of those unspoken things?
You know, it's already there
and she's just kind of revealing it, right?
She's removing the blockages and the layers to that,
to your talents, to your medicine, your own medicine
because you are the medicine.
And so, yeah, she's, yeah.
I heard a quote from Rumi today.
It was in my Instagram feed and I'm paraphrasing
but essentially is, your job isn't to get love.
Your job is to remove the barriers that keep you
from experiencing what's already there.
And I think that's what you did is you,
part of the ceremonies, for me at least,
was I went in with an open heart and open mind,
like, okay, I'm open to anything.
And for you, it was like, hey, it removed a block to see,
oh, I am musical.
I have that part in me.
And for me, it was really recognizing that
so much of life is the blocks that I place
in front of myself.
My whole first night was about letting go
of my own resistance.
And I can see how a progression,
I can see the value of three nights in a row.
We only did two, that you can keep going down
the rabbit hole and discovering more things to eliminate.
Like, that's the intention.
You're not going to get something.
You're going to eliminate something
that allows you to see everything.
That's the matrix.
Yeah.
Neo always had the gift.
He just, all the barriers just went away, right?
And then, there was a NPR thing about this guy.
It was called a hidden brain.
This guy dove into a pool and cracked his skull open
on one of the steps in there.
He didn't see it was there.
He wakes up out of his coma, starts playing the piano
like he's never played.
Now that was a different kind of catalyst,
but this is what we're opening the world to,
is that we're realizing that if we lead with love,
especially Bailey, I think you've learned once the trauma
and the PTSD of the military and the things you do,
once you lead with love, then all of a sudden,
it's just opening.
It's like, I always had this.
Now, maybe your thumbnail wasn't that long before,
so you could play the ukulele better,
but I'm sure that we lean into that, right?
Definitely.
All this, everything is just coming back to yourself.
Just always coming back to you.
Yeah, we always had it all.
We always had the love.
We always had it.
We always have it.
We have it.
Let me ask you guys this question.
How is this journey?
So, Bailey, I think you said 2016, 2015, 16,
and Annie, when was your first time?
Same thing.
Same time.
2016, yeah.
My question is, how has the experience over the last
eight years for both of you changed you guys?
I guess for me, it's being able to separate out
the character of Bailey that's been created
and structured into a way that was causing
a lot of suffering to me inside,
because it wasn't me.
It was a make-believe character that I've been.
Yeah, exactly.
And so, it's really removed just dissolving that character
and letting my true self come out
without the limitations of that box
that that character put me into.
And so, for me, it's just a constant removing of the layers
of that character and finding myself
and realizing I am everything that I need is within me.
And whatever thoughts or beliefs that it's not there,
it's the character, and I need to remove
some more layers to that.
And so, it's completely changed my life.
I didn't know what I was doing or where I was going.
And now I've found my way and service
and just being a light for other people to find their way
so they can find their light within them.
Annie, what about you?
Yeah.
That's a really hard question to answer.
I don't know why.
I'm probably very similar as I was eight years ago,
and yet, I don't need to...
I'm less of a seeker in a sense that I don't need
to figure anything out anymore.
I don't need external validation like I used to.
So, I don't need to be anybody or anything to exist.
I don't have those programs any longer.
And so, I feel a lot less burdened and more free.
I don't even have to, if I don't want to clean my room,
I don't have to because there's not a voice telling me,
or I'm not really fighting the voices telling me
I'm no good because my room's a mess.
I'm just giving you an example.
Sure, yeah.
But for anything, you need to make this kind of money,
you need to have this kind of job,
you need to be this kind of mother.
I just don't have that so I can follow
more instinctual impulses of what my spirit and soul
wants to do in those moments.
And I'm not getting caught behind so much of the doing,
of the matrix of the conditioning.
So, I've just missed.
Yeah.
And that's a big difference for me.
Yeah, because we, over the course of this podcast,
we've sort of listened to the definitions of the podcast.
And I think the matrix is our perception
of what everybody else thinks about us.
And we're trying to control that.
And by trying to engage that, we become controlled by it.
So, we're trying to fulfill all those expectations.
And to get out of the matrix is to,
is not to leave it behind because we still live
in the world that has all those voices,
it's not to be controlled by them.
And that's a very powerful place when the world can't
control you because it's freedom,
going back to what I think Jesus really was trying
to communicate is the sense of freedom to be who you really
are, which is part of God, which is you were created from God.
And that freedom allows us not to have to worry about
appeasing all those voices in our lives.
And it sounds like you guys have really done that.
I saw you guys are two of the most compassionate people
I think I've ever met.
Yeah.
So, honestly, I mean, that's my blessing to you
because I think you guys really brought,
again, I've been doing healing work for 30 years on myself
and with other people, and I deeply appreciated
the level of intentionality and you can only,
and I've learned over those 30 years,
you can't create the level of intentionality
to create that level of compassion
for a large group of people without a deep sense of love.
So thank you.
Yeah, and we all felt it.
So Rich, any final questions?
Well, I just knew the first time I chatted with Bailey,
when he sent us all these, when he sent us a text,
just to see if there were any questions,
I just knew that it was going to be a good ride.
And the thing that I think about going back to the scripture
and he's like, seek ye first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness and all these things
will be given unto you, that's it.
It's the kingdom, it's the kingdom within
and it's this community and you seek that,
you lead with love and everything else will fall into place.
And that's, it's so simple, it's just timeless, right?
And I think the more we spend time with each other
and learn and share and love and even struggle through stuff,
this is all part of the way, this is the way.
And for our viewers, how do people find you
and when is your next retreat?
Yeah, so we're on Facebook, ayahuasca soul tribe.
On Facebook, we have a Facebook page.
Instagram is ayasoultribe.org.
Yeah, ayasoultribe.org is our website,
which will guide you to the Facebook and the Instagram
if you wanna check out our next ceremonies in Joshua Tree,
October 25th, six, seven, right?
And...
You have an option to join the tribe
and we just will send out emails with updates
and upcoming happenings and all that stuff.
And I will put all of this in the show notes
for anybody listening so you guys can click through.
I know Rich and I and Dave talked about doing it again,
because I think my journey is,
I have a lingering thought of what was that third night
not gonna be like, and I didn't do it.
So I wanna continue the process,
knowing there's more there for me to discover
because I think it's something profound.
So if any of our listeners wanna go, reach out to us,
we will, cause we are planning on going again.
Hey, I wanna thank you guys.
Thank you so much for joining us.
This has been one of my funest episodes.
I mean that, it is, cause I love you guys.
You guys are our medicine, you guys are our doctors.
And you're our medicine people.
I have a wonderfully deep appreciation for that.
Yeah, thank you guys.
Thanks Jonathan, thank you, Rich.
It was an honor and a pleasure having y'all out there
a couple of weekends ago.
Y'all have great energy and looking forward
to hearing more of your podcast.
It's a beautiful thing that y'all are doing
and speaking your truths.
And so thank y'all so much.
Yeah, absolutely.
Rich, any final words?
No, just I'm looking forward to a deeper journey.
This has just been a kind of,
we knew this is gonna be a fun episode,
but at the same time, it's just reinforcing,
a lot of things, right?
And it's gonna be a fun ride.
I'm looking forward to digging in more and learning more
and eventually maybe,
spending a lot more time in a community or a church,
whatever we call it.
And we actually build this little microcosm
bigger and bigger at a time.
The world needs this.
They need this experience.
There's so much pain and trauma and stuckness, right?
There's a lot of people stuck out there
and why not embrace it
and see what that could look like and envision it, yeah.
Yeah, so I wanna say to all of our listeners,
this is probably the one time I'm gonna say it
is I recommend this for anybody
who wants to be intentional about transforming their lives.
It's probably one of the very best experiences
I have ever had that you just participate in.
And if you can face your fear
and overcome your own sense of,
ooh, is this voodoo?
It's not.
It's medicine.
And it was medicine for me.
So for those who are listening,
please just take a look at it
because if it's something that your spirit
and your body needs, it is profound.
And my experience and Rich's experience
and Dave's experience and a lot of the community's experience
was profound.
And that happens over and over and over.
I think this is growing
and I encourage anybody to look, follow Bailey and Annie,
listen to what's going on and check it out
because it has tremendous value
that is way outside of the matrix,
but it is one of the very best ways,
I think, to introduce you to life outside of the matrix.
So for all of our listeners, please subscribe, comment.
Let us know if you would like to join us
on the retreat in Joshua Tree coming up,
please let us know.
We'd love to host you and have you come along with us.
To Bailey and Annie, thank you so much for joining us.
This has been an absolute wonderful experience
and much love everybody.
Have a great weekend.
Thank you.