Safe Ayahuasca Retreats
80+ Trusted Plant Medicine Centers in 7 Countries.Ayahuasca Retreat Centers
Aya. Spirit Vine. Yagé. Daime. Vine of the Soul. La Medicina.
However you call her, an encounter with Mother Ayahuasca can be among the most profound, mystical, meaningful, and healing experiences of a lifetime. Sometimes quite difficult or painful, the Aya journey is not for the faint of heart, but is often deeply rewarding and personally insightful.
Across several Central and South American countries Ayahuasca is regarded as sacred medicine by native peoples, and has been traditionally used for millennia in a ceremonial setting.
Only in modern times has the larger outside world been introduced to this powerful psychotropic brew. Many Ayahuasca retreats have been established to bring this awakening, healing modality to visitors from beyond the Amazon. At this moment in history it is serving as an important ally in healing individuals and shifting global consciousness – the planet desperately needs this.
At Journey Aya we’re creating the most comprehensive list of safe Ayahuasca retreat centers on the internet – it’s a work in progress.
Each Ayahuasca retreat has been screened for a pattern of negative reviews, with a particular concern for reports of abuse or malicious business practices. Please inform us if any of our listed retreats may no longer be safe – we’ll investigate.
Featured Ayahuasca Retreats
Journey abroad, to journey within.
Ayahuasca Articles
Our most recent posts.
How to Prepare for an Ayahuasca Retreat
Working with a plant medicine as powerful as Ayahuasca is never something to be taken lightly. In short, you’re taking your soul for surgery, to be reweaved into coherence with your body. It’s energetically intensive work, though often one of the most rewarding things a person will ever experience in life. Preparing correctly…
Soltara Scarlet Valley
Soltara Scarlet Valley is located in the lush mountains of the Central Pacific Valley, near Carara National Park. This rainforest destination is alive with wildlife, more than 400 species of birds, dozens of fruit trees, and vibrant tropical gardens. The retreat offers sprawling valley views, a temperate mountain climate, and deep sense of peace…
My Ayahuasca Story
I first heard about Ayahuasca from a friend. Her clients’ stories of recovering from depression, anxiety, and trauma sparked my curiosity. The more I learned about Ayahuasca, the more I grew determined to have my own experience and to form my own opinion. After careful consideration, I chose a spiritual retreat in Holland…
Ayahuasca Memes
Words to consider.
When you drink Ayahuasca, and you get to see divinity, you can almost never speak of it because it’s too big for words.
Just be. Don’t push, and what is rightfully yours will come. What you have been put on this Earth to do will present itself.
Liem Browne
She is the MOTHER of all medicine. A tool to help you find yourself, to know yourself, by destroying the image of who you think you are, and illuminating the truth… This is an inner journey, where only LOVE and FAITH can guide you.
Don Juanito
“Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up… This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.”
Terence McKenna
“You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding.”
Terence McKenna
“Through all of history, mankind has ingested psychedelic substances. Those substances exist to put you in touch with spirits beyond yourself, with the creator, with the creative impulse of the planet.”
RAY MANZAREK
There is a gathering that is happening across the planet right now. People from all walks of life are becoming aware of new purpose and inner creativity in an extraordinary way… People are waking up and remembering something hidden within their hearts.
Ralph Miller
Ayahuasca is not a drug in the Western sense… it opens up parts of yourself that you usually have no access to. The parts of the brain that hold emotional memories come together with those parts that modulate insight and awareness, so you see past experiences in a new way.
Dr. Gabor Mate
Ayahuasca is a catalytic influence in changing global environmental consciousness, which is something that’s got to happen if we’re to get out of the mess we’re in.
D. McKenna
“People are running, running, but there is no place in the world to which they can flee to escape themselves. Ultimately, each one must face themselves.”
Paramahansa Yogananda
Drinking Ayahuasca provides a profound challenge to the dominant Western rational paradigm.
Jeremy Narby
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
RUMI
On the other side of the spirit veil, I spend more than a little bit of time researching the hallucinogens. I personally believe Ayahuasca is also the greatest natural healing agent, period.
Chris Kilham
The longest journey you will ever make is the one from your head to your heart.
Indigenous Proverb
Ayahuasca is the greatest of enigmas. How, in a forest of at least eighty-thousand plants, did anybody figure out to use one particular species of vine and one leaf, cooked down into a concentrated psychoactive potion? The very notion of trial and error falls apart. Shamans uniformly insist that the plants communicate their uses directly.
Chris Kilham
“The spirit of the plant puts people in touch with their repressed pain and trauma, the very factors that drive all dysfunctional behaviors. Consciously experiencing our primal pain loosens its hold on us. Thus may Ayahuasca achieve in a few sittings what many years of psychotherapy can only aspire to.”
Dr Gabor Mate
symbiotic
ally of the
human
species.
☍
Dennis
McKenna
entheogens as
mere entertainment
is to play
marbles
with
diamonds.
What is Ayahuasca?
This ancient and mysterious Amazonian brew.
Ayahuasca [eye-ah-wah-ska] is a foul-tasting reddish brown tea made from two naturally-occurring Amazonian plants boiled together in water – from the leaves of the chacruna shrub [Psychotria viridis] and stalks of the Ayahuasca vine [Banisteriopsis caapi].
Together, this plant combination produces a potent psychedelic brew that has been used as physical, psychological, and spiritual medicine by the many tribes of the Amazon Rainforest for millennia.
Among these ancient Shamanic cultures, Ayahuasca is a sacrament and healing modality that is central to their spirituality and should be approached with great respect and proper intent.
DMT: The Spirit Molecule
DMT [dimethyltryptamine] is the psychoactive component in Ayahuasca, a chemical produced naturally throughout nature, even in the human brain. However, the chacruna leaves contain high quantities of this mysterious compound, aptly named The Spirit Molecule.
Taken alone, the DMT in the chacruna leaves will be quickly broken down by enzymes in the stomach and liver, called monoamine oxidases [MAOs], with no effect, so the sacred vine is added.
The Ayahuasca vine is an MAO-inhibiter, allowing the DMT to pass into the blood and into the brain, opening the Doors of Perception. What follows is an extraordinary journey into visionary state, self-exploration, deep healing, and even mystical, spiritual realms.
Into the Circle: Ceremonial Space
Traditionally, Ayahuasca is taken in a ceremonial setting under the guidance and care of a trained Maestro or Shaman. Participants…