About Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca (known as “Mother Aya) is an Amazonian sacred plant medicine used by shamans to facilitate intense physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual healing. She should be treated seriously and only consumed in a sacred ceremonial environment under the guidance of an experienced shaman.

Ayahuasca — also known as the tea, the vine, and la purga — is a brew made from the leaves of the Psychotria viridis shrub along with the stalks of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine.

The Amazon mixture is a psychointegrator of the conscious and unconscious dimensions of the human being, individual, and group dimensions.

This Amazonian plant medicine has been used in a sacred context by indigenous and mestizo healers in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil for hundreds of years. It is the result of a mixture of 2 (or more) plants found in the Amazon jungle – the Ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi), and the Chacruna leaf (Psychotria viridis), which contains the powerful psychoactive dimethyltryptamine (DMT).

It is a brew capable of inducing altered states of consciousness. Ayahuasca is a Quechua word and translates to “vine of the soul” or “vine of the spirits”. It goes by many different names according to region, such as oni, caapi, natema, yajé, yagé, nepe, shuri, kamalampi, kaji and others throughout the Amazon Basin.