Integration & Community
Solitude
In my personal experience, the most valuable component of the retreat and of the Paititi Institute in general, is the focus on integration and reflection. Throughout the retreat every participant was strongly encouraged to spend time with themselves in nature in order process, reflect, and integrate all that was experienced and learned in a deep and meaningful way without excess activity and distraction.
Sharing Circles
A nourishing balance with procesessing in solitude was fulfilled most notebly by the post-ceremony sharing circles. By listening to each participant share their experience (which usually feels very vulnerable after a night with ayahuasca), everyone was united on an even deeper level as connections are understood and linked to others' reflections and insights. Along with the gift of more puzzle pieces fitting into place from hearing others' experiences, great waves of compassionate peer support was felt and shared as participants processed deeply rooted thoughts, beliefs, and emotions now coming to the surface to be revealed, released, harmonized, and integrated into more holistic expression. Many centers which focus on medicine work in the amazon don't provide as intentional of a space for solitude and group sharing as Paititi does. Another benefit are guides like Roman whom help to navigate individuals' processes from a scientific, psychological, mythological, and spiritual perspective.
Community
When elements like solitude, group sharing, self-work, physical/spiritual nourishment practices, health & science education, permaculture ethics, group meals, and harmonization with nature is synergized into a community system, a regenerative model of sustainable living can begin to blossom. I am impressed and inspired by Paititi's ability to provide this evolving model yet I feel if I could add anything, it would be an integration of practice and education in arts, music, and embodied expression like dance and creative play. I feel like activities such as these would add an element of lightness and nourishment to counterpart the intense and sometimes serious undertones of working with plant medicines and ancient spiritual discipline transitions.
After the retreat in the Amazon, a large number of us from the retreat spent another month together in the Andes further integrating, exploring, and sharing in the warm and beautiful familial spirit which ran through us from all the life we had shared as a group since early March. I have since returned to Peru and again spent the majority of my stay with the Paititi family, reuniting with previous retreat comrades along with new friends whom had more recently joined the Paititi community as volunteers and retreat participants. I feel so grateful for all the valuable connections I have made through this organization and continue to reflect upon and nourish them in my daily life.
Retreat Design Tool
OP Process Reflection
Overall, the process of creating this output has been very stimulating, empowering, and nourishing. These experiences have impacted me deeply and I knew without a doubt that I wanted to create an OP documenting and reelecting upon them. The retreat structure was so well designed that I felt the framework would be relatively simple to map out and implement. Though I have found this to be true I still find myself questioning whether It is coming across more as a journal than a design analysis. My hope is that by Gaia U standards, It reflects a healthy marriage of both.
We Made It!
Personal Outcomes - Health, Consciousness Transformation, & Practicality
The key outcomes from my experience at Paititi are
- A deeper understanding of how to work with entheogens in a more meaningful, respectful, grounded, and practical way, both for my own process as well as in the assistance of others'. This has allowed me to better understand and integrate my relationship with altered states utilized as a catalyst for personal insight, growth, and evolution.
- A higher standard of self-discipline and personal commitment to living the healthiest life possible while actively learning and maturing in order to embody my fullest potential for both personal and planetary empowerment.
- A greater openness and trust in life, nature, and unfamiliar/exotic or intense experiences, appreciating the moment for what it offers while understanding that every state of perception is relative, all will come to pass, and the only absolute is presence.
- A more realistic and practical approach to life through integrating intense experiences. This was actualized through experiencing extremes of intensity and purification with the plant medicines, making me very grateful for the state of ordinary waking consciousness, humbling myself to approach life with more practically, diligence, and gentleness.
- A greater understanding and appreciation of south american shamanism and indigenous cultures.
- A deepened sense of receptivity and presence within the moment, remembering that rather than attempting to analyze and pick apart situations to find solutions through the mind, simply being is the only way to truly find peace with the present, allowing all information and realization to flow naturally from a place of centeredness, 'neither clinging nor pushing', as Roman would say.
- A greater network of allies whom are dedicated to personal and planetary evolution, supporting one another in his/her unique gifts and visions with compassion and respect.
Outcomes in the Field
Paititi Seeds & Patrix Busting
From my perspective Paititi is a revolutionary model for self-growth, consciousness transformation, and personal/planetary evolution and stewardship. Through retreats like the one I attended, through multiple traditional modalities and disciplines, Paititi aids in empowering individuals to become more whole, effective, and conscious beings. Everyone that completes a Paititi retreat is like a seed imbued with the imprint of experiences that have profoundly impacted them in one way or another, free to pollinate the world with the emanation of their insights and reflections, growing greater the network of heat-centered, conscious, stewardship oriented individuals. Paititi take this process to a deeper level by integrating plant medicines as participants are given the space to learn through direct experience, personally processing, reflecting, and integrating what they learn, absorb, and release through their own unique relationship to the specified plant medicine. Traditions and practices involving these plants and ceremonies have been nurtured and preserved for thousands of years by indigenous cultures and it is a tremendous gift to be able to participate in and with them. Virtually without fail, experiences with the plants (when used in a supportive environment) remind us of our intimate symbiotic relationship with our planet and the entire universe, which is ideal for anyone interested in the aims of patrix busting, permaculture, and eco-social design. Participants commonly leave Paititi with a fresh perspective and deeper connection to the whole of nature, where they are free to take their learnings into any field where there gifts can be nurtured and used to better life for themselves, others, and the planet as a whole.