After randomly getting thrown a hundred episodes backwards in time on a random shuffle of the Aubrey Marcus Podcast, I discovered Hamilton Souther… a Westerner who had studied and become an ayahuasca shaman in the Amazon decades before Westerners even knew what that meant. He spoke of exploring consciousness like no one I had ever heard before. I immediately knew I needed to know this man. I needed to experience the medicine with him. I desired to study under him and learn from him… whatever that meant. As luck would have it, he’s a pretty in tune guy. I added him on Instagram and decided to sleep on my approach of how to talk to him. I woke up the next morning to a DM from him asking to interview on my podcast. Isn’t it wonderful how the matrix works when you’re tapped in??? From our interview, we built a friendship and he invited me to his first retreat back since COVID shut everything down. This just happened to be the week I had planned to have free in Peru after deciding against another ayahuasca retreat center. So I threw my then plan of 8 days of surfing to the wind in pursuit of someone I believed would change my life. And I was right….

I had just finished up almost a month in the sacred country of Peru. Peru began calling to me a year before I was able to arrive there. I spent the first 2 weeks touring sacred sites and dabbling in various plant medicine ceremonies including ayahuasca, San Pedro, and hape. CLICK HERE to read about my Sacred Earth Journeys Tour for 10 days including Machu Picchu, The Sacred Valley, and Lake Titicaca. 

But this 5 night retreat was specifically geared towards 4 ayahuasca ceremonies in the Amazon Rainforest of Peru with Maestro Hamilton Souther. 

I flew into the tropical city of Iquitos. A place I instantly fell in love with that reminded me of the many pueblos in Central America I have visited. Rain. Tropical birds. A wide variety of people, some dark and shady, others full of life and vibrant. 

On our first morning, we were met by Hamilton Souther and the Blue Morpho Retreats team at the Victoria Regia Hotel where I had just stayed the night. After signing our lives away (or for protection from the government, as Hamilton called it), we were off to the boat terminal. 

 
We managed to squeeze all 25 of us onto 2 boats, along with all our luggage (I had managed to acquire A LOT in my previous two weeks) and embarked on an hour and a half long boat ride up the Amazon River from Iquitos. Heliconia Amazon River Lodge was our destination. What a beautiful destination it was! Tucked in the jungle of the amazon and thoughtfully crafted in every way. Its high palm drawn ceilings kept us ever dry when it rained. Its elevated walkways off the ground keeping us safe from the purely wild land below. The walkways through the jungle allowed for interaction as you sought it. The pool was delightful and cooling. The private hammock in my room against an open but screened in wall allowed me to relax while viewing everything and immersing in it from the comfort of my protected quarters. Electricity was available but unnecessary. I never saw my shoes for 5 days. The Amazon River flowed right out front, continuously moving energy through the beating heart that IS this sacred rainforest. Pink and grey dolphins alike play nearby. Everything in the jungle is filled with passion and play and ecstasy. As my retreat-partner-in-crime would describe it, everything in the jungle was DTF. But side note, there was no fucking allowed… not even for already established couples. And for good reason. 

(^Check out this video I created for Blue Morpho Tours on the beautiful Heliconia Lodge.)

Meeting Hamilton for the first time, I was a little unsure what to make of him. He’s a seemingly normal and down-to-earth dude with profound thoughts on our existence and consciousness. In hindsight, I see how he wields this, warming you up to his persona and allowing you to be comfortable arriving for a healing journey. But he is constantly keeping the secret of how profound the experience will be.  Allowing each person their own process. We all came to the table from wildly different places, all at different points of our journey. It’s important to honor that and Hamilton does an incredible job of paying attention and tailoring each night for each person. 

 After my ayahuasca ceremony a couple weeks prior that was the most challenging experience of my life, I was grateful for the low dosage, warm-handshake I received from ayahuasca my first night. It was almost too little. But just what I needed. And it was clearly a lot for many others. The purge noises and processes that night were intense and I honor them all!

Purging on ayahuasca takes places in many ways… vomiting, shitting, laughing, crying, moving, breathing. In fact, deep breaths can help move the energy through your body so it doesn’t get stuck and need an immediate escape route. But no two ceremonies are alike. And the purge will always be different. Don’t ever trick yourself into thinking you’re better than or have overcome any of them. 

One of my goals for my Peru trip was to get back in touch with my sexuality. My own connection to that divine power within, without the reflection off anyone else to validate it. My second ceremony night, I got my groove back. On a bigger dose than the first night, I spent much of the night dancing with the Amazon. I had desired to play and connect with the land, and it rose to support and honor me. I danced with the jaguar and flirted with the snake. We moved all my energy around and grounded me in the space so that I could embody my essence. It was absolutely beautiful. And for the 4th ceremony in a row, I didn’t vomit… keeping all of the medicine down which made me feel like my trip lasted forever. Until about 5am when I finally began to purge... and realized just how slow my body was at digesting rice. The next day was rough for me… barely having slept. I was grateful for a day off. A day of integration. And a day I decided to stick to fruits and vegetables for the rest of the retreat.
(^An artistic depiction of me, after I got my sexuality back)

It was challenging to embody my sexuality greater than i’ve ever felt it before… in a place where all things sexual were off the table for the sacredness of the medicine and the fragile state everyone finds themselves in. I was grateful to have a wise and understanding connection with someone there, who was able to allow me to play and express myself in ways that flirted with the rules but always respected them. We were both big believers in the parameters of the container, but also interestingly had Hamilton’s blessing to build a connection. I felt like a lion cub constantly playing, rolling around with each other's energies or soaring and tumbling through the air as two swallows do. 

Ceremony night 3, Hamilton expressed that the spaceship was fortified and we would all be going deep into consciousness. So I asked for a hefty serving of a formula he called “The Light.” A few of us were planning to go deep and test the telepathy powers between us. Instead, we were blasted on our asses. As my brother, Gill put it, “The telecoms were down!” There was no navigating that space, only surrendering to it. But it was also pretty awesome. I discovered the joy of ear plugs this night… and that changed the game. To be so inwardly focused on my own journey felt like a super power.

After the depths of it wore off, I asked for a smaller additional cup of what I’d had. And that sent me to an entirely more navigable space. I was able to see the rest of my romantic life. Liberated from traditional chains. I became pure love and pure light and that didn’t deserve to be tethered. It was clear I was meant to be free like a bird. To love he who enters my field when he is around. To honor his sacred flame as it is a division of my own. To be so entangled in someone's energy that the physical act of making love doesn’t even seem necessary because our spirits do so much more. That night unlocked me. It opened me up to all that I’m capable of. As I also came to Peru to work on my relationship to relationships, it showed me all the answers I needed. How freeing! This would also be the night that I would experience why you should never trust a fart on Ayahuasca. My come down was actually a bit rough and I spent the rest of the night taming my purge out of my bottom end. I purged in every single way this night. So truly, what a beautiful ceremony. 

Now that I was unlocked, it was the most appropriate time to swim with pink dolphins in the Amazon River. Not something they usually let guests do, but as I’d previously negotiated it with Hamilton, he was honoring my connection to my spirit animal and made it happen. This day of newly unlockedness yielded countless pink dolphins! What a truly magical experience that I’m so grateful for.  (^Swimming with pink dolphins in the Amazon River)

The minds of the others seem to go quite into the depths from ceremony 3 as well. I’m impressed at how everyone at the retreat was willing to find the words to express themselves and shared their experiences. This tribe who had risen to be a part of Hamilton’s first retreat back after COVID was just incredible. Each person holding a special place in my heart. 

Feeling unlocked and more authentically myself than I had ever been before, I wanted to do it all over again. But in talking to Hamilton, he had a special brew in mind. As if he were a master mixologist and wanted to serve me his finest craft cocktail... of ayahuasca. Luckily, I’m a massive fan of mixology. As Hamilton told me he wanted to send me deep into the depths of DMT land, I felt my fear rising. That hand’t gone well 2 weeks ago. But now, I was with the Maestro. My new mentor. My friend. The one person who had ever helped me navigate these depths. So instead, I decided to trust fall into him. If I was struggling, he would save me. But maybe I could save myself. 

That night as he poured me my concoction, it warranted a bigger cup. A full dose of the original brew, with a float of the light, and then some. His smile was maniacal but with deeply conscious depths that made me excited to play in this space he was creating for all of us. I, too, was ready to expand my mind beyond the deep constraints it was familiar with. My retreat-partner-in-crime was too… he and I both took this psychonautic master brew from Hamilton. 

What happened that night changed everything. Just when I was thinking I must be getting pretty near the end of profound discoveries, here I went again! At first, I wondered what I had done. Everything was so dark. The brew was a challenge to keep down through the nausea. The familiar clowns with sharp teeth rose from the depths to greet me. I had been struggling with them for quite some time. They never seemed to allow me to breakthrough on DMT. As I felt a deep purge emerging from inside me, I wondered what I had allowed Hamilton to do to me. And was regretting it. 

A deeply painful purge was being sucked out of my mouth by these evil clowns when it occurred to me that maybe they were more like the tall goblins in a scary movie I had seen. Relatively harmless and misunderstood. I came here to play after all, and if they were all that I had, then it was time to play with them. I asked if they were just the guardians of the breakthrough? And they nodded and smiled for the first time. The fact that I had finally directed kindness and play in their direction seemed to excite them. They helped continue to pull the painful, gut wrenching purge out of me… I wondered where on earth it was all coming from. And as I finished and lost the ability to differentiate between eyes open and eyes closed, they lay me down and opened the doors to my first breakthrough. 

WOW. Just wow. The depths I went to warrant a follow up blog post where I describe this in great detail. But it was profound how the surrender took me deeper and deeper into absorption into source. Reminiscent of what happened to me on bufo, or 5me-O-DMT. I relaxed and explored what pure consciousness felt like. I was one with it. And enabled to explore the knowledge here. I felt like a newborn baby, wide eyed and observing, unsure of what I could really even do in this realm. But this was the place for asking questions. This was the place where telepathy was enabled and I played with many others’ consciousnesses. I received lessons from long ago ascended masters. Third eye knowledge downloads that were growing my own personal skillsets. There was just so much play it was unreal. I don’t think my soul will ever stop playing again! I could feel myself flying and soaring like a bird. Circling and playing with another's energy, the falcon holding space for the room. 
 

As it wore off… I had to go back! I made my way up to the front of the room and asked Hamilton for another cup of the concoction again… and ran into my fellow psychonaut, arriving and asking for the same. I managed to discover the time, and couldn’t believe how early it was! I had been gone for an eternity. That made me all the more excited to blast off and do it again.

This second cup was met by a similar deep purge after about 30 minutes of keeping it down. This time my goblin clowns were excited to see me… even though I questioned if I had fucked it all up somehow. Eventually they opened the gates, and it was all different again. I got my deep surrender with the universe. And then opened my eyes and discovered this beautiful nest our entire ceremony house was in, nestled in the jungle. Everything was beating and pulsing. The source code was everywhere. I no longer needed to wonder what someone was thinking. I knew what everyone was thinking. We functioned as a unit. A hive almost. I’d never seen anything like it. And suddenly, everything was apparent to me. How all of my choices led me to be in the exact time and space I was now. How I had created it all. And I could see where the mycelium had risen up to support me every step of the way and would continue to do so. I had been creating my own reality… and now that I could see how it’s done, I wanted to harness this super power and continue to do so.

The mycelium told me it would protect me in my endeavors and how it desired to be shared with the world, through my voice and actions. I was to rise and share plant medicines, to be a beacon and a voice for what Hamilton’s mission is and to third party validate what he’s doing. I discovered how I could reach out into everyone and everything and tickle it from the inside or expand it. I sent love around the room and watched as it lit up like a ball of lightning, zapping around. The room filled with love and laughter… and this was, in fact, validated by many. I was in touch with my true witch powers, cackling and laughing, playing with the dolphins, flying with the birds, and seeing how in deep surrender, the mycelium would rise its tendrils up to catch my foot everywhere I stepped. This is my mission. This is my journey. And I have a lot to share with the world to help it heal and expand everyone’s consciousness. 

Finally, my fellow psychonaut had to come to me and contain me. Apparently others desired their own journeys and while I thought we were all on the same frequency, apparently some were astray and needed more autonomy. It was a big important lesson that just because I CAN reach into everyone, I perhaps shouldn’t. I feel like a student at Xavier’s School For the Exceptionally Gifted… learning how to control my fireballs so I don’t accidentally light delicate things on fire. This training would continue in my reactivation dreams for the next several nights... even triggering a 5.0 earthquake in Lima. Talk about a lesson.

But wow, just wow. WHAT AN UNCHAINED EXPERIENCE. As Hamilton would say, the walls of the space ship held... and I am hooked. Deep Space 9 is exactly where I want to be. 

The healings that also went on for everyone in the room were profound. Both physical and mental. Really assuring that ayahuasca finds the flaws in your body and energy and fixes them. I personally feel forever changed and continue to integrate the lessons learned. I hope this feeling never dissipates. I’m sure it won’t. And it has me all the more excited to return. I’m already planning to return in January 2023. Hamilton is clearly the best mentor I’ve ever had access to in this space. A deep explorer for decades on his own. I can only hope to follow along and see what he’s mastered in hopes of doing the same. 

If ayahuasca is calling to you, and you desire to join me in Peru with Hamilton at a Blue Morpho Ayahuasca Retreat... CLICK HERE to learn more and fill out the initial application. 

*Watch my follow-up interview with Hamilton Souther on The Modern Hippie Podcast below*