First Ayahuasca: Meeting the Mother

I arrived at the retreat center with equal parts excitement and dread. I'd done therapy for three years working on childhood abandonment wounds, and I knew this medicine was calling me to go deeper.

The first night, nothing. I felt disappointed but also relieved. The second night, 20 minutes in, the room began to breathe. Colors intensified. Then I felt her—a vast, ancient presence, somehow both inside and around me. Not a visual, exactly, but an unmistakable knowing of feminine intelligence.

Without words, she held me. And all the grief I'd been storing in my chest—the abandonment, the feeling of never being enough—poured out. Not gentle tears; deep, primal sobbing. I could feel her simply receiving it, asking nothing of me, just witnessing.

For what felt like hours (though time dissolved), I was bathed in the most profound unconditional love I'd ever experienced. Not romantic, not familial—beyond those categories. It was like being held by existence itself.

Afterward, the facilitator said I didn't need to talk. I knew she was right. I slept deeply for the first time in years.

Integration: Three months later, I'm still unpacking this. The grief has released in waves—sometimes sadness, sometimes anger, sometimes joy. But underneath it all is a fundamental shift: I know I'm held. This isn't belief; it's felt knowing. My relationships are changing. I'm speaking up more, trusting more. Still doing therapy—the medicine didn't "fix" me, but it cracked open a doorway to a part of myself I'd forgotten.