Harvest Time.

Language seems irrelevant when trying to express my last year. If someone told me 10 years ago that I will live in a beautiful medieval city, in house with small garden, that I would go outside and see the mountains, honestly, I would not believe it. Things take time.

I have never manifested through visualization and through out the tools that are out there. For me manifestation was driving by curiosity. “I wonder how it would be to work there?” 2 years later, I got a job in that company. “I wonder how it would be to travel to the States?” Bam! I got that also when I was ready for it. I wonder how it would be to have a relationship with this type of a person. The list goes on.

And yes, the Devil is in the details and God is in the unexpected.

When I was in my late teens, early twenties, I found out about Ayahuasca. I said: You will come to me, or I will come to you if our meeting is destined. Fast forward Oct 2020, I was 32 years old, and I have met the Amazon Grandmother. I went to her with a sincere heart and asked her to show me who I am. Many ceremonies followed, me learning how to stay in my own energy grounded and how to hold space, how to work with energy and deep dive on my shamanic path.

Everything was familiar like I’ve done this before. And I said to myself: this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. It’s been 5 years since I’ve been gardening on my inner temple, my values, what feels right for me, building my code of conduct. There is this great mirage (and I totally understand it) that the ones that feel at home with the Amazonian Grandmother are headed in the direction of serving her. For me it was so much more than serving her. It was about getting to know her and understand how she would like to be served.

I’m a white east European woman with no direct lineage to Amazon. That’s the truth. I’m also aware that harvesting of any kind of plants should be done in reverence to their medicine and making sure that we, humans, do not destroy their habitat and worse, over-consume them. The worst scenario it would be that the medicine of remembrance that these plants hold, will be extincted just because we went on a rampage.

There has to me balance in what we do as humans. There must be respect for the ancestral ways and our blood ancestors too. While at a higher level we all share the same ancestors, and everything is allowed on this planet, just because it is allowed should we, do it? I’d be a hypocrite not to admit that I firsthand received the love and space for my healing and this plant spirit came to me, but I also wonder about the future. What is the legacy that we give to our future generations if overconsumption is leading to extinction of this ancient ways. You will say we evolve. Indeed. There was a reason why these Master Plants were kept hidden and protected (with the wisdom keeper’s lives) and that is to help us in times like this. Should we not also carry the torch of protecting them and consume them mindfully, consciously?

Now we have plantations of Ayahuasca. Medicine people from South America are ushering people to grow their own plants. San Pedro is also almost extinct in wild. The Bufo frogs are also endangered. We do not honor Lady Ganja, and we treat her with chemicals because our purpose is getting high.  Los Ninos, the mushrooms that how everything about the interconnectedness are grown in sterile spaces. And yes, I completely understand that a higher level, Oneness level everything is part of the One, everything is allowed, but is it ok? The human touch was supposed to bring comfort, love, care. It can also bring destruction, intentionally or unintentionally like a kid who destroys in a game of finding our boundaries and consequences.

Palo Santo, Sage, Blue Water Lily, Ayahuasca, San Pedro these are just a few of them that are going through this cycle with us, showing us unconditional love and support. Shouldn’t we also reciprocate this? We can’t always take and never give away.

The sourcing of medicine is an important factor in a medicine person’s practice. Honoring the ways it was harvested, giving back to the communities that take care of them, consuming with responsibility, protecting, not taking more than what is needed, praying over the plants, the people involved and those who are consuming it.

They say that some people need one journey with Grandmother, 10, 15, 200, 1000 and others none. It depends on the journey that you have with Spirit. I needed more than one journey because I was in a learning curve that was preparing me for my next steps, but with all honesty, all the answers I ever needed were in my first ceremony. All of them. What I did was to take these answers and put them in action during next ceremonies and going deeper in my shadows. I had to intimately know my shadow before engaging with others, offering my medicine to the world.  

While I like to laugh at myself, I’m dead serious when it comes to ceremonies and plant medicine world. I will use my voice on this platform to address what I have been noticing across the years, but for now, I invite to go in your heart space and ask yourself: how can I serve my medicine in integrity, alignment with Mother Nature and my own self? No matter what the medicine is. We must bring to light our shadows and work with them from a place of self-compassion, radical honesty and respect.

In service to the journey,

Alexandra, Guardian of Ianara