Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - One From The Vault - Plant Medicine with Jose Saenz - Episode 19

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Are you feeling the curious calling to learn more about or experience working with plant medicine? Have you been researching Psilocybin or Ayahuasca and wondering what they are and if they are right for you? DISCLAIMER: I in no way shape or form make any recommendations that anyone work with plant medicine. My purpose on this show is to remove the blindfolds from the programmed mind and provide access to facts and alternative methods of thinking outside the box we live in. This is a very popular topic these days and one mostly misunderstood. I can assure you, it’s not what you think. MY EXPERIENCE: I’ve just returned from the Amazon Jungle in Peru and experienced the most powerful transformation of my life. I’m excited to have the owner and chief Dharma officer Jose Saenz as my guest on the Rise Up with Dragon Podcast on Wednesday, December 14th to unveil the facts of what Ayahuasca is in its purest form and help assist people to better understand the value in plant medicine and determine if it’s a good fit for you. This will be one for the vault. Watch It On Yourtube: https://youtu.be/a6kCR1VlIGY  ***** Contact Jose : Arkana Spiritual Center: www.arkanaspiritualcenter.com Connect With Dr. JC: https://zez.am/makessense Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/makessensepodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcdoornick Instagram: @drjcdoornick   06:18 - How do you know its the right time to try ayahuasca? 09:28 - What is plant medicine? 17:12 - How does Ayahuasca work? WHat happens when I consume it? 21:22 - What can I expect at the retreat? 25:22 - What is the role of the Shaman? 27:49 - What can ayahuasca do for various traumas and disorders? 31:43 - Is it safe for women to travel to the Amazon? 33:59 - What if i am taking antidepressants or similar meds? 38:03 - Whats it like to be on Ayahuasca and Sapo 46:24 - How do you choose the right facility? Why Arkana? 48:04 - What is the future for Plant Medicine? #RISEUPWITHDRAGON #PERSONALGROWTH #SELFDISCOVERY Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Makes sense. This is your boy, Dr. J.C., a.k.a. The Dragon, as many of you know, because I've been speaking about it a lot. I recently, after four years of picking it apart and looking at it with my analytical mind, I finally just accepted the calling and went to the Amazon jungle, which is a whole topic that we'll talk about. And I experienced sitting with plant medicine, completely unknown what this was. going to be like, but I knew that it just felt right. Some of that story will come out naturally in this, in this interview. But what I want to do is couple my experience, but also with an interview of a very, very special person that I had the opportunity to meet there. And this is Jose Sanz.

How do I pronounce your last name? I never asked. Sines. S-A-E-N-Z, correct? Jose S-A-E-N-Z, correct. Jose S-A-S-E-E-N-Z. And Jose is the owner, and, you know, chief Dharma officer. I had the luxury in my first experience meeting the guy that owns this and some of his head facilitators. And I know that he's not always there. He's very often there. What an amazing individual this is who, in my opinion, after doing all this research, he's kind of like the big cheese maybe of ayahuasca and plant medicine because he's doing it right. And he and I have forged a wonderful friendship that has carried on even after. So I want to welcome to the Rise Up with Dragon show slash Jose signs.

Morning, Jay-Z. Thank you for hosting me. It's a pleasure to be here. And you're in Arizona right now. Yeah. I actually got to come home for a few weeks. So I'm enjoying the downtime here in the desert. People are filing in and I see some people, you know, saying hi to you.

Hey, Bob. That's right. Roberts here. And so we're going to hear a lot of people that have either experienced this or are planning on it. So what I want to do, we're not going to have time to go through my whole experience. I've actually in the process of writing a book about the whole thing. The book is going to be called Bring forth my first time with ayahuasca. I don't know if I told you this, but during every ceremony,

while I was actually in ceremony, which was not very easy to do, I actually had my journal with me and I made an attempt to write everything that happened down. Now, at some point, we'll have to give you some screenshots and show you what it actually looks like. but it's quite amazing because I'm going to be able to share all that stuff. So that's coming soon. So let's start off, Jose. On this show, we always look at what people do, but it's always important to look at why they do it.

Let's talk a little bit about your background, because it's a pretty interesting thing. I believe you started working with plant medicine about six years ago before this amazing facility came into play. So just share a little bit because I know that Jose went to an Ivy League school. He lived this life where he had all of them, All the things that most people think that they want with money and all that is on Wall Street. And I think he found himself very much like me depressed and for some reason and upset, which led him to the calling.

So share with us a little bit of your background. Sure. Well, I'd like to say that my path where the medicine started when I was 19. When I was in college at 19, a good friend of mine gave me a book about Pejote. It's authored by Carlos Castaneda. And at the time, I was very interested in, you know, with the world of shamanism, you know, a new world of plants that seemed to me. So I found myself getting a lot of existentialist questions. You know, why are we here?

But unfortunately, I can't get any answers. So I said, okay, put that aside and let's go with what seemed to be the proven route to success, which in my mind was find a good woman to marry. have lots of kids, make lots of money, and that was happiness. I went on that route. Like you said, I ended up going to an Ivy League. I went to Harvard. I got an MBA to Harvard. I ended up working on Wall Street for a couple years.

I started my family. And, you know, things were going great. But when I checked all the boxes, there was something missing. So I was depressed. My personal life sort of started falling apart at some point. And, you know, 20 years after I basically put that book aside, I ended up splitting up, divorcing. And it was then that I decided to pick up where I left off, you know, at 19. So 10 years ago, I decided to do Pejote first.

One day, I just felt a calling. I Google Pejote. There happened to be a place only two and a half hours away from my house here in Arizona called the Pejorie Way Church. And that was my first ever psychedelic. experience with plant medicine. It was a bit different than, you know, what we do in a retreat. You're basically by yourself in the desert with your cup of peyote, like no shaman, nothing else.

And it was quite an interesting night. Let's put it that way. Payote led me to ayahuasca, and here we are. You know, I found my way to the Amazon like yourself nine years ago. I ended up going to another ayahuasca retreat. I-A-Wasca forever changed my life. Here we are nine years later. What's interesting about hearing that is he's the,

I think I saw somebody call you, Luis calls you the master Pepe. I mean, I kind of look at you like that as well. We're hearing it from him. And even he tells the story of being called. And I know what that was like for me. But let's talk a little bit more about that because, you know, when you come home from a retreat like this

and you know a lot of people, that might be the first time they've heard about it. Or they might say, oh, I've been thinking about doing that. I met some people on the plane and shared what it was that I had just done. And they said, oh, man, that's so cool. I've been thinking about that. So now that I've done it, I realize what it means to be called to do it. Because what I find, Jose, as I come back, is I'm refraining from telling people that they should think about doing it. And the reason why I'm doing that is because I know the organic nature of it. But you said you went through what you went through and people will

start commenting on what it means to be called to do it. And some people might be watching this right now. They've never done it. And they feel the calling. They just don't know it's the calling. But you went through that somewhat chaotic phase of your life. And then you said that you were, you were called to do peyote. And then that led you to the jungle. What does it mean to be called to do that? Because on the outside looking in with my rational mind, that's where I started to say like, ooh, this is a little mysterious, you know. I understand it now. Talk a little bit about that

because there's a lot of people are going to watch this and listen to this and resonate with this idea that they're being called. In my case, I felt like an inner voice. And, you know, going back to the book and just living through his experience, this book was about this anthropologist

who goes down to the southwest. He meets a shaman and he's basically initiated into the world of shamanism. So I'd say that I'm a very adventurous soul. Like I'm curious about a lot of things. I have lots of questions. And to me being called is to really listen to that inner voice that screaming for help. At the time, I was in the middle of huge distress in my personal life.

I was trying to seek answers. I can find them. And this story that was fed to me by society, by my parents, I didn't find a happiness. So I was pretty upset about this. When I basically did what I thought that was going to end up in happiness, it was quite the opposite. So I think when you were in that distress and you have this inner feeling that, you know, something is missing. You started looking for answers and you connect deeply with that voice that tells you, yeah, do this or go here. I mean, you can call it intuition.

You can call it self-guidance. But in my case, that's how I ended up going to the Peyote place, no? Yeah, it's really interesting. And I'm sure a lot of people resonate with that, but I know from experience, but also from all the research that I did with my highly analytical brain that I very much don't resonate with anymore. Sometimes there's some symptoms that show up in relation to that calling that push people there. I know a lot of people that have had experienced PTSD and I know depression,

anxiety. We're not saying that this is a way of treating them, but that's part of the reason why a lot of people go out there. And with the rational mind and you're following the herd mentality and you're just listening to what you've been told to think your whole life, it could seem somewhat controversial. And I would assume that's probably because people don't understand what plant medicine really is. So I want to get into that. I want to get into this concept of plant medicine because when I first thought about doing it, I heard all these people say that they did it, people that I really respected

and I watched their lives completely transformed. And I'm always an observer of that. But at the same time, watching all these movies like The Doors and, you know, just I assumed it was going to be more of an experience, some sort of like I'm going to climb up on a mountain and do something and find my eagle spirit

or something like that. And I looked at it from the outside in that I was going to go do something and feel something, right, or something like that. I had no idea what it was. Let's start off by, let's start with ayahuasca. Because interestingly enough, ayahuasca used to be used just by shamans, right? I mean, so I'd like to talk about what ayahuasca is, why it does, has the power that it has,

but also how it's kind of like evolved from something that shamans, correct me if I'm wrong, shamans would take ayahuasca to empower themselves to heal others, am I right? Yes, correct. I also want to add a little context. In my case, I grew up in Mexico, like with a very conservative. I started dating my ex-wife when I was 16. And her family, you know, drugs were found upon. It was something that only stupid people would do. So I grew up with that. I smoked my first joint at 37 or 38 when I separated from her because I've grown up with this. So in my mind, all of these, plants, they were drugs. And drugs have a negative connotation. You know, we think of abuse, we think of addiction. But it was my ignorance that was thinking that. And this is why it was such a taboo topic. Once I decided to really do some research about it, I found that they're not drugs or they're not recreational drugs. They're medicine. And I think that makes all the difference. when we approach these plant medicines,

as medicines as something that heals, and it's not there to get high and just to trip out, things take a different meaning. So I just wanted to throw that context in there. Ayahuasca, like you say, it's a brew, it's a concoction of two plants. There's many different recipes. Because Ayahuasca has been used for hundreds of years.

I mean, there's really not, no one really knows the origins when people start drinking it. But they say that it goes back as far as 1,000 years or maybe more. People have been using it all along the Amazon basin, more specifically the countries of Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Brazil. In Peru, back in the old days, they say that it was only the shamans that would drink the medicine. So this medicine, it's made up of two plants. Like in the simplest form, the recipe where shamans use, it's only two plants. It's the ayahuasca vine and the chakruna leaf.

Chakruna leaf has the DMT, and the ayahuasca vine has an M-A-O-I inhibitor. So basically, when you combine these two plants, it creates the ayahuasca brew that produces the magic pretty much. In the old days, it was only the shamans that would drink the medicine. And they would do this to enter into a trance, so they would enter the world of plant spirits. And this is how they, through the medicine songs that they sing in ceremony called the Icaros, that's how they used to heal people. The patients, they would benefit from the healing just by sitting in ceremony with this shaman and just by receiving this medicine songs. So yeah, that's a way, you know, they used to work with this medicine for many years.

And it was only in recent years when they decided that it was a good idea to share it with the patients so they could speed up the healing process with people. So fascinating. And I just want to set the record straight just from my own personal experience. It would be impossible for me to explain to you what happened while it was there because I would either just be thrown in jail or just misunderstood just because it was my experience. And we know how there's a thunderstorm of thoughts in our head. But from my own experience, when I was young, similar to you, I played with all sorts of drugs. And I didn't say no to many things when I was a kid. And it was fun. And it was, I guess I could say it was enlightening. But it was not as productive and transatlantic. transformative as what I've just done. But for, I would say for the past almost 10 years, I mean, it's the nature of my business. I'm a, I'm a transformational health coach. There's very few people that live like I do. I mean, I don't even drink. I don't smoke. I don't even smoke pot.

Nothing. I can't even remember the last time I did a drug. So I very much resonated with the idea of plant medicine because I wasn't looking for a good time. A lot of people when I came back, Jose, they said, was it fun? You know, how do you? How do you? I do you know, how do you? I answer that question. I mean, when I look at it, it was, I said it was really fun to meet Jose. And I built all these wonderful friends. I have friendships that are going to last a lifetime. And we have follow-up puddles that we're going to do, being with those people and supportive fun. But it was work. And that's something that I didn't know from the outside looking in. If you're somebody and you're listening to this and you're kind of on a journey of personal

growth and self-discovery, you're looking at someone right here that's probably spent to $300,000. on personal growth and discovery. I mean, I've read a book every week. Shout out to my friend Jim Quick, who taught me how to speed read. There's very little about personal growth and self-discovery that I don't know. And I found myself,

when I was feeling the calling, I was curious and interested, but when I got to the point where Martin Luther King calls at the fierce urgency of now, I felt pulled to it, to go by myself, fly to a place I've never been. I don't know if you know this, Jose,

but like three days before I, I flew there. I didn't tell my wife this because she said I could come. Three days before I flew there, there was a freak accident at the Lima airport, which is a beautiful airport, by the way, just as nice as any airport you've ever seen, where a plane was taking off and hit a fire truck or something like that. So I'm like, man, I hope my wife doesn't watch that. So that calling was strong enough to bring me out there. And I would say the reason why I went out there and, you know, as a father with a lot of responsibility to go out there, fly there, fly to another place. called Akitos that I never knew about, which is a beautiful, beautiful place. Take an hour and a half bus ride and then get in a small boat where if you stand up,

it could tip over for almost two hours down the Amazon River to go to this place. So the calling was strong enough for that. But what I found, and I'd love you to talk a little bit about this, I find that I've gotten to a point where in my life where I can continue to do personal growth and self-discovery, and there's value in that, and I will. But I noticed that my programmed and analytical slash rational mind always gets in the way. So what I was looking for, and I found an experience that I could say right now, I'm 51 years old, Jose, that was the most enlightening, profound, transformative experience of my entire life. And I'm just waiting for your website to populate the dates that I want so I can book.

I'm going to go two weeks next time, and I'm going to bring some friends. But I wanted to experience what it would be like to look at life without my analytical mind. I wanted to shed my judgmental, programmed analytical mind. And I was hoping that's what it would do. And that's what I found there. I found that I could communicate and learn things while in ceremony and not get in the way of them. Why is that? What is it about ayahuasca and DMT that put me in that state where, yes, I had visuals.

and we can talk about the funny aspects of that. But I got concrete clarity on some things that I couldn't have done without it. What I see is that many times our mind gets caught on these loops. For a lot of people, these are destructive loops, where we keep telling ourselves, you know, limiting stories, or I don't deserve happiness and not good enough. And what I Waska does, it interrupts these patterns. What I like to think of these is that inner voice that tells you this limiting stories,

I like to think that that's the ego, no? And what Ayahuasca does, it really humbles you. You know, it dissolves that ego, where that ego is no longer present, like in ceremony. And it's basically, you get to see the reality, and you get to have an encounter with your true self without having that interference of that voice messing you up. And you can look at trauma from a different person. perspective, wearing different lens, where it's not about reliving the pain and the suffering,

but it's understanding why things happened in a particular way, no? So I'm always amused that people come down to the Amazon expecting, you know, they really want to come and find the complex formula of the universe. And what I've found in my own personal experience is that the most profound teachings are the most simple one. And they're the ones that are always there. But we're just numb to them. We don't see them. For me, the one recurring lesson that I get all the time from the medicine is to live with love. As simple as that, you know, once you really connect with that inner feeling of love, it's endless. It keeps going and going and going, no?

So I can totally relate to the analytical mind. You know, I'm an engineer by training. I work in finance. I was really good at numbers. And your mind, that can be your biggest ally or it can be your biggest enemy. can really, you know, trip you up and sabotage you, you know. So when I work with the medicine, many times my work is to really, you know, quiet the mind and just observe what the medicine is trying to teach me and what it's trying

to show me, you know? Yeah, I can relate to the analytical mind, too. I'm starting to recall, you and I had so many conversations. And I so greatly appreciate the friendship that we made and also the time that you took with me and so many others, you know, I mean, you really are hard to know that about somebody until you're actually alongside them. I mean, this is a man that is super passionate about this. This is a very, very successful, wealthy man that is not about that at all, you know, which is probably why he's so successful. I mean, he actually grants scholarships for people to come there. And by the way,

what my plan is, is when I come out with my book, bring forth, I don't know, I want to charge like a nominal fee, but to fund people. that want to go on this trip. So I want to join you in that. I want to try to fund two or three scholarships a year or something like that to the right person. We'll have to figure out how to do that. But I want to put this in context.

One of the things that I was afraid of from the outside in, even after I had committed to it, and I remember speaking to you, we had a Zoom. He got on a Zoom with me. And I was probably like just trying to ask him questions about everything.

Like, what time should I get there and all that stuff? And I just remember seeing him just in this calm state. And he was just kind of like, yeah, if you want to come, just come, you know. So that was kind of the way I saw him carry. But what is very hard to know, even if you hear about it, it's a very, very well-organized, like to the point where when you get to this facility, which is called the Arcana

Spiritual Center, he's got a facility in the one I went to in the Amazon jungle, right off the river. He's got one in the Sacred Valley over by Machupeachu. You know, he's also, I think, in Mexico, Costa Rica. So, you know, this is a very, very big thing that's expanding, but he's doing it right. So just to put it in context, I've never felt so cared for and safe in this environment. So for those of you that are like, because I had this vision that I was going to like just be somewhere out in the jungle with like a mosquito net, you know, and fending off jaguars and things like that while I'm taking this. this is a very, very comfortable, organized place that is very, very safe to the point where,

just to give you context, when you're in ceremony, you know, we're all in there. I think we had 20, we started off with 23. I think we ended up with 21 just because a couple of people got lost, not lost in the jungle, just lost in their lives. But we're all in this room and we just are all deeply connected, sitting around in a circle, lights are out. And in the middle of this circle are these. aliens slash magicians, you know, people, I've never met anybody in my life like these,

you know, maestro, maestra, and these shamans that I got to be honest with you. And I don't want to put anybody else down because I know that there's probably a lot of other great places. But I spent a lot of time researching Arcana. And I see a lot of people out there claiming that their shamans and things like that, but I met people at your facility, like Louis, I think his name was that has been called to this since you was seven, you know what I mean? And they live in the jungle and stuff. So let's talk a little bit about that experience because when I was in there, I was guided by these people. I was protected by these people and your facilitators. Everything was taking care of so that I could have my experience. How did you set all that up? Because that's what, when I hear other

people tell me their experience, they don't have it that way. How did you know to set that all up? And let's talk a little bit about the rule of the shamans. Well, the essence of the experience is to surrender, really, to the medicine. And the only way you can surrender is if you feel safe. So safety has to be the number one, you know, element on this equation. If you don't have that safety, people don't open up and it's impossible to do the work. You know, being in other centers, Like, you know, I had the good fortune of fending up in a pretty reputable center in the keep us when I went there. But it was different back then. You know, it was a little more rustic.

The experience wasn't as fine-tuned. So in my case, I said, okay, we can take that as a starting point. And in all fairness, you know, this place Arcana, it's a center that used to exist under a different name. It was called Paul Stewart back then. And to be honest with you, I thought to myself, you know, I would have never started a center from scratch. You know, to build this kind of structure in the middle of the jungle, it's quite challenging. At some point after Wall Street, you know, I ended up doing hotels in Mexico. And I had those hospitality backgrounds, you know, that experience.

So I said, I can definitely take this and turn it into, you know, the next level. And in my mind, feeling safe has different components. On the one hand, medically you want to feel like nothing is going to happen to you. But, you know, you've got all the bases covered. At the same time, the facilities, they need to be comfortable enough where, like you say, you're not concerned, you know, more with mosquitoes as opposed to paying attention to the experience, you know, in the middle of ceremony. So this past year, or actually at the beginning of this year,

2022, we basically closed down the center for a few months and we remodeled it. And we made it, you know, like a really comfortable experience. And lastly, it's, you know, once you feel physically safe, once you feel that, you know, medically, you got the vases covered, energetically, you need to feel safe. And that's, you know, ending up to the role of the shaman. The role of the shaman, it's about maintaining a clean space, cleaning you, of your personal things that you carry with you that you may not even know you have them.

And that's key in this experience, no, because when you run a ayahuasca ceremony, there's a lot of energies. You just said it, you know, you're sharing the space with other 20 strangers, and these people come from all kinds of backgrounds, and they come with all kinds of energies to the ceremony. So in the ceremony, all these energy is,

rise up, not to the surface. And that's the Shaman's job to keep cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. So, you know, you don't end up with anybody else's issues, no? And rather than you taking anything on, it's about releasing, releasing trauma, releasing pain, releasing things from your past, now. Yeah, and that's important. I guess in the back of my analytical mind, looking from the outside in and hearing stories, you know, I would hear stories from people say, They would say things like, oh, make sure you do this, make sure you do that. One of the most common things people would say is like, if things get really, really dark, go towards it.

And I'm like, why the hell would I do that? You know, I just remember on the outside looking in, just because you don't know what you don't know. But I just want to let everybody know that like while you're in this experience, you know, whether you're experiencing something very, very positive, you know, which was my first night, or somewhat sad where you potentially dealing with something that you think, think that you've resolved, but it still brings you sadness, but you've been tucking it away. That could happen too. But while that's happening, the shamans are guiding you and you feel as if they're speaking to you. And Jose started this new event, you know, in the experience where he allowed

us to have full conversations and ask questions to the shamans. And it was translated. And it was interesting to hear them speak because they were talking about what they were there for. And to some degree they were protecting us from from negative energy and and talking about you know how much negative energies in the world and and how they were protecting us from it and and guiding us and it's really strange because at times even though I think there were five of them chanting at the same time I would pick up on one that I felt was speaking to me so it was it was a very very profound experience I want to address one quick question from Krista that just came in you know she's basically asking She says, can you elaborate on the guidance given?

It's just the guidance given for people that experience trauma, PTSD. You know, because I saw that take place there. And man, those people. And shout out to you guys, you know who you are because they're some of my best friends now. I saw them have massive breakthroughs. And also this idea of a woman. And I understand, Krista, what you're saying, because like maybe I'm not a woman, but I felt like a woman going there by myself, like the way you're talking about it.

I was scared. Sounds like that's what you're saying. So specifically the safety of a woman. and traveling solo to the Amazon. So how would you address that? Because that would be an analytical outside-in concern. Sure. It was because of process.

And, you know, regarding the guidance for trauma and PTSD, we start off with intentions. At the beginning of the week or the few weeks that people will be with us, you know, we have meetings with each participant and the rest of the team, the shamans, the facilitators. and we really go, allow them to explain to us, you know, why are they there, how can we help out? And the way we phrase it is, instead of focusing on the problem, we would like to focus on the solution. Let's say that someone is dealing with trauma or, you know, depression, anxiety, and they said, oh, I want to get rid of my depression.

sometimes we may end up repeating the wrong mantra. And by saying, oh, I want to get rid of my depression, my depression, you know, you lose the first part of the phrase. And you end up manifesting that depression onwards. So we ask him to phrase that intention on a positive way. We say, okay, if you were to get rid of that depression, what's on the other side? Is it freedom? Is it tranquility, you know, peace, happiness? And focus on that.

And we're talking about the same issue, but coming at it from a different angle. Now, the other thing that happens, as the week starts to progress, is every morning after ceremony, we have group share. And in group share, that's when the integration process starts to kick in. When people try to articulate their experience the night before, and you listen to other people's experience, things start to make sense. On occasions, either the shamans or ourselves, you know, we'll chime in, trying to help interpret you know, what they were experiencing in the night.

And things start to make sense. I want to make it very clear. Ayahuasca is not a magic overnight pill. To think that you're going to come, you're going to drink one or two times and it's going to solve all your problems, it's not. Ayahuasca's not going to heal you. You are going to heal yourself.

Ayahuasca just sets a stage where you can, like I said, observe these situations that you've experienced in your life from a different perspective, from a different angle. is associated from that pain where you can actually go to the root cause. Western medicine, you know, when we go to a psychiatrist and, you know, and we're experiencing depression, they'll give you a pill and that's only going to blunt and numb the pain.

But it doesn't really go to the root cause. Ayahuasca goes one step farther. You know, it allows you to see, you know, what is the root cause and tackle that from the roots. That's, you know, what I can say about guys. guidance and, and like I said, 50% of the work you're going to do at the retreat and 50% you're going do back home in the integration. And that's actually the most important, you know, part of this. During the retreat, we organize different activities that are going to help you and guide you through the integration process. So when you go back home, you know, things are easier and the process continues to unfold. Now, regarding the

The last question about, you know, safety for women traveling solo and to the Amazon. You know, we've all heard these stories of women being abused by shamans. And, you know, to some degree, a lot of them, they're true. You know, these sort of things happen. And this is why you want to be very careful and vetting, you know, the place that you're actually going to be drinking. When we drink ayahuasca, we put ourselves in a very vulnerable state. So that's why you want to be surrounded by people who really care for the work they're doing. They're very ethical and they're impeccable in their service.

In our case, I'd like to say that 65 to 70% of the people that come to Arcana, their solo travelers. When people travel outside of the States, it's about, you know, using common sense. And the same kind of things you would do when you travel to any country, basically. You know, you don't walk out in the middle of the night, you know, and change. 80 parts of town. It's really easy to coming to contact with other people who are going to be at the same retreat, people that are going to be your very intimate friends at some point.

And it's about, you know, spending time with them before and after the retreat. The experience can be very safe as long as you do your property diligence and end up going to like a reputable place. I love it. I want to address a couple of things. So first of all, quickly, Krista, not only are there women shaman, but like the big cheese shaman is a woman. And she, hostina, who is just one of the most amazing, amazing humans ever. And I don't know if we'll have time, but Jose told me how he met her.

And she really has become a mother to him. As far as the safety goes and some of those stories that you've heard, like I said, you know, I became friends with people that were like me. and I met people that on the first day were so incredibly traumatized and fragile and afraid of everything. And if any of them were here right now, they would explain to you that this was a very, very safe, controlled space for them to have a massive, massive breakthrough. Jose, I don't know how you, how would you answer this question? You know, Robert is asking about if somebody's taking antidepressants and things like that.

a lot of people read that they're incompatible with plant medicine and medications and things like that. How do you address that somebody that might be afraid of getting off of meds and things like that? I mean, yes, they are incompatible. It's really dangerous to mix antidepressants specifically with ayahuasca because the combination can be lethal. So basically what happens in those situations, we require people to get off of them. it's very important not to prop them, you know, overnight because, you know, there can be some withdrawal symptoms. So what we advise them to do is every medication has a half-life. This is the amount of time that the medicine is still in your system.

So based on this medication half-life, we advise them as to how far in advance they need to suspend the medication. for some medications it may be two weeks, three weeks, and we asked them to talk to their prescribing physician so they can come up with a wean-off schedule. So they can gradually decrease a dose until the point where they actually suspend the medication well in advance of the ayahuasca retreat. When we think about safety and doing ayahuasca,

that's what I tell people, you know, doing ayahuasca rights. is paying attention to the medications, suspending them when you're supposed to, and also not doing ayahuasca and if you're one of those contraindications. There's some mental diseases, specifically schizophrenia, bipolar,

and for these people, it's not a good idea to do ayahuasca. In the case of bipolar, you could say it's like a coin touch. 50% of the people will heal, and 50% this can bring in, you know, negative consequences, you know, bringing in paranoia and manic phases. So when I say, you know, doing ayahuasca, right, those are the two components, paying attention to the medications and not doing it if you fall into one of these contraindications. Well said, and it's important, you know, this is one of the things. It's like, I'm sharing with you from my personal experience

that this is one of the most transformative, profound things that I've ever done in my life, which would prompt people that know me to say, I want to do that too. But it's not for everybody. And when you look at the parameters, what I learned is that Jose and his team doing it in this perfectly safe,

well-executed environment, they're just saying to have the best experience, this is what it is. They're not telling you their opinion. You know what I mean? So that's important. So many other questions that people have. And I just want to put a bow on a lot of those technical questions.

All I can tell you is that even while completely lucid, I met people there that are just like some of you and had the same questions that had pivotal, pivotal experiences. Another answer, as somebody said, is Hustina, the female shaman at the jungle? Well, of course she is because that's how I met her because I was there. and so many just massive breakthroughs there. And I also want to give you guys insight into the fact that it's not just like Jose and the shamans. He's got these, you know, I give a shout out to Billy and Carolina and Daniela and Alex,

you know, these facilitators that are just alien creatures from another world as well, that are just like the most stoic, nonverbal, listening, comforting people in the world. This is a conversation that obviously could go on. for like three hours, but I want to keep it moving in a direction. So another thing that was happening there is we had the experience and a lot of people want to know some of the particulars like, you drank, I drank the ayahuasca just to give you the technical stuff that you hear about. And it's not like 30 minutes later or something happens, right? You know, I want you guys to know that while I'm sitting in ceremony, there were times where I was just just completely

conscious and like to the point where I could turn to you and have a full conversation while something profound was going on. So it's nothing like the drug mindset that a lot of people have. As a matter of fact, one night, I was three hours into it. And I said, oh, you know, it kind of, you know, it's fun, you know, but I don't think anything happens, you know. And then all of a sudden I heard some sort of a, I think Billy was playing the harp and it just triggered me. And all of a three hours later, I had the most profound visual and experience and, you know, breakthrough that I had. But while it was there and also on the outside looking at something that might, trained and learned mine, was very, very afraid of, yet very, very curious about. And I know a lot of

people find out about this. There was an other option there. And I know it's something that's very, very dear to your heart that you guys call Sappho, which is from, I believe it's from the Bufo Frog. But I kept hearing about it. And it's just a much, much more accelerated DMT experience. And I got to say it scared me. You know, so when I first got there, people say, are you going to do Sapo? You're going to do Sapo? And I said, oh, no, that's not why I came here. And I was protecting myself from it. And I was probably doing that because I'm a dad and I have a lot of responsibilities. But then I sat and I started to listen to Jose explain what it was. And I saw people that I would very, very much respected friends of mine do it and come and tell me it was the most

profound thing that's ever happened to them. So I went up to Jose one day and I said, hey, by the way, I've decided to do Sapo. And he kind of laughed and he goes, yeah. I know you're going to, but, you know, but let's talk a little bit about this, because this is kind of outside the realm of ayahuasca, and it's not something everybody has to do. But I will say that I did experience this, and very hard to explain, but it's probably the most amazing thing that I've ever experienced in my life. One that the trained analytical mind would probably look at the wrong way. But just tell us a little bit about something. Sapo, because this is another form of medicine.

And I got to tell you, there were two people on our trip, and they know who they are that were really, really struggling in life. And they were really seeking answers. And it wasn't really happening for them after the first two ceremonies. But then they did Sapo and everything shifted. So what is Sapo and why is it such an effective thing to work with? Sopo is a medicine that's very dear to my heart. It's a medicine that I started working with

about I would say 10 years ago. Well, actually, it was 8 years ago. Now, once I started working with ayahuasca, then I continued with Sappho. Sappho comes from the Toad. It's called the Sonoran Desert Toad. And this Toad lives in the Sonoran Desert in the border of the United States in Mexico.

And the toad contains this venom called, you know, that has this alkaloic called 5MEO DMT. The V&T in Sappho is very different than the V&I.O.S.ka. We could say they're distant cousins, but they're not very related. Words fall very short in describing the Sappho experience. You know, I can really try, but the best experience I've heard of Sappho, it's in two words. And it's universal orgasm. It's a colleague of mine coined that.

And I actually find it quite accurate. And that's the most precise way of describing Sapo. Saupo is really good at unclearing blockages that we may carry that ayahuasca hasn't quite come to them. Sappho really flushes all that from your system. So for a lot of people, like you say, Sappho is like the highlight of the retreat or it's actually the turning point. Because like I said, once those blockages are cleared, it's easier to connect with the matter. medicine with ayahuasca and to continue doing the work. We're actually one of the few centers,

ayahuasca's centers that actually do sapo, because I do believe that they really complement each other, the two medicines, ayahuasca and sap. Another way to think about sapo is also, it's one thing for the rational mind to try to get your arms around the concept of we are all one and, you know, we're all this one energy. and it almost sounds cliche.

With Zapo, every single cell of your being remembers that. And I say it remembers because I truly believe it's something we've already known all the time, but we just get to, with all these programs put on to us by society, we forget what that is. I do believe that we are energy, that we're just wearing this earth suits. and SAPO gives you an opportunity to go back to source. So your energy merges with everyone else's, and you get to experience that, you know.

And a lot of people get really curious about it. When they come out of their experience, they say, how long was I in? And I find that irrelevant, because when you're in the experience, it's a brief moment of eternity. There's no time. There's no body. It's only energy, and you're there with everything, no?

And everything is you. So, yeah, South was really, really effective. It's like a straight shot. And I'd like to say it does the job, and it heals a lot of people in many different ways. And my take on it, first of all, the people that were asking, if, you know, people are scared and is this a safe place? Just hear me and know that I was afraid of that

and the experience and getting to know them and getting to know Jose and being in the environment gave me the space to say, I'm going to say yes to it. So that's one way of looking at it. I actually have a little video clip that I want to show you of me. I had my friend,

his actual name is Adam, and he's from Australia. And the funny thing is, is that for the first half of the trip, I was calling him for some reason Gary. So I actually call him Gary Adams now. But he took my phone and videotaped me doing Sappos. I'm just going to show you a little clip, but just to put it in context,

I sat there and, you know, Jose was right next to me and this just angel from heaven, Carolina, they're on either side of me. They prepared it. And, you know, I felt very, very comfortable and safe about it. I had a big smile on my face. So I breathed it in and I was like a vapor of sorts. And what you'd see if you watch the whole video and I'll show that to you when I make the documentary is I lay down very, very peacefully, a huge, smile on my face, but what you don't know is that I'm not there. So I'm as far as I can explain it, just flying through the sky and seeing colors and just experiencing something that's unexplainable, but I'm completely out of my body and my analytical mind and experiencing the world without it.

But when I came back, and that's what you're going to see in this video, it's just about a minute long, I experienced a level of peace and gratitude that I've never, ever, ever experienced in my life. So, you know, I'm looking through the chat. You know, we're coming up to the top of the hour. And, you know, I'm probably going to have to have, you know, a part two with Jose. And there's, there's so many more things that we want to talk about, like, you know, the future for ayahuasca. And I'll ask you a question about that future of plant medicine. Because if we're not careful, you know, you know, you know, how humans are. You know, we're seeing people. do it the wrong way now. When you're in Peru, you can buy some of these things in the store,

right? And there's a lot of danger associated with that. And now there's this, the drug trade out there that's trying to take advantage of things. So there's so many different components. But I just want you to know before I forget that Jose is kind of like I would look at as a guardian of the truth. And it's, you know, it's most pristine, pure state. So when you go to Arcana, who knows what's going to happen in the world because, you know, that's just out of our control. But when you go to Arcana, and I met people that went to other facilities on my plane and they didn't have the same experience, but when you go to Arcana Spiritual Center, you're going to not only have an amazing experience, but you're going to do it the right way as well. I see a lot of people talking about that you're

going to experience some downtime and, you know, and some hard work. One of my friends from California, Alex, who was there for three weeks, so jealous when I left and those guys were staying. I said to Alex, I said, what's it like? And he says, well, it ain't no fucking vacation. That was funny because it was a lot of work. It was deep, deep work. And that's why it was so profound. And a lot of people are talking about how people are doing ayahuasca and sapo without shamans.

I don't know what that's like. This is not something that you should be just winging and doing. And if your friend down the street tells you that he went to the jungle for two weeks, weeks and he's a shaman now, like, that's what you should be afraid of. You know, you should be really understanding that this is a guy that's doing it right. But let's talk a little bit about the future of plant medicine and stuff, because, you know, you're somebody that for six years has been running this facility. So you have a lot of understanding about how popular it's getting and how it's getting mainstream. You know, we're seeing it pop up maybe in the future in music

festivals and all that stuff. What do you see as the future for plant medicine and what needs to be done to maintain its purity? I mean, yes, things have changed dramatically. Like when I first started doing ayahuasca, it was back in 2013, you know, when I went back to Mexico and I was talking to friends about ayahuasca, no one knew what ayahuasca was. It was something completely foreign to them. And fast forward a few years. And now there's ayahuasca ceremonies, you know, in major cities. You can find them very easily, you know, weekend ceremonies, that kind of thing. I think there was also like an inflection point, like in 2018, there was a Michael Pollan came out with a book called How to Change Your Mind. and that really brought a lot of attention to the psychedelic space.

Like I said, for a long time, you know, psychedelics were considered this taboo thing, you know, it's drugs. And when this book came out, it started, you know, garnering the interest of everyday people, no? People maybe well in their, you know, middle age or even older, you know, and they started. thinking about, you know, whether psychedelics were for them, no? Then you started having all these research projects in the States, you know, June Hopkins, NYU. Most of these research projects were based in psilocybin. But in some degree, they're very similar, you know, psilocybin, ayahuasca,

and some of these other natural plant medicines. So, yes, these medicines are coming mainstream, no. Now you see Aaron Rogers come out and say, oh, you know, it was doing ayahuasca was a big part of him, you know, winning the Super Bowl and being the MVP and all that. So we need to be very careful into how we approach this space going forward. One is we need to, you know, with all this popularity, obviously, ayahuasca is going to become scarce, you know, if people don't plant more vine, no? an ayahuasca vine has to grow for at least six or seven years before you can actually cut it and use it and make it into a brew. Like three or four years ago, we started our own ayahuasca plantation because I believe, you know, being responsible in its use means if you cut one vine, you need to plant 10 or more. And this is something that we plan to continue growing.

There's a lot of centers in Akitos and other places in the world. And not many have ayahuasca plantations. There's actually only a handful of us who do that. So it's really, really important to be ethical and be responsible in how we use this. And like you say, many people just come down for, we've had people who come and they facilitate with us for a few months. and then I find them doing ceremonies with 50, 80 people down in Playa del Carmen, which I feel it's completely irresponsible.

There's also an issue as to cultural appropriation, no. In my case, I've done ayahuasca hundreds of times. I've never done the ayahuasca about myself without a shaman presence because I see the power of ayahuasca and the potential risk of opening doors that you need to be able to know how to find your way back from from those situations and these shamans, Massagustina, our main shaman, she's been working with the medicine for 45 years. So becoming a shaman, it's hard work, you know, and it's not something they do over a few months or, you know, a year or two. It's something that they do. It's a lifetime choice

that they do, you know. And to become a a good curandero, a good healer, they need to, you know, work with plants for many, many years before they can actually serve it to other people and heal people with that. So I think we need to be very selected and how we use these plants

because otherwise we're going to end up in the same, with the same trouble that we ended up, like, back in the 60s, where people were choosing them to get high as opposed to using them for healing, you know? Yeah, it's such an interesting concept as we kind of wrap up. I mean, listen, I've experienced and played with drugs back in my day. It's been a long time, but I get it. I mean, there's a lot of curiosity and that and stuff. And, you know, I don't regret all of those times. But it's just interesting to evaluate the world right now and looking things like alcohol and drugs and things like that and just really observe what they're there for. for and in some way, shape or form. I mean, we could justify and say that we're doing it for enlightenment and things like that. But for the most part, there are some sort of a reactive thing, some sort of a distraction from how you're feeling. Or, you know, and we see marijuana becoming

legalized now. And, you know, people are using that as, I guess, a form of medicine, you know, and that's a master, master plant. But when you start looking at medicine, what's interesting about it, And you can't really experience this unless you go to the Amazon jungle. You're looking at like trees that are just as the size of buildings. And you're just looking at nature in its unruined form yet and things like that. And you just realize that the most just advanced form of technology, because we're trying to advance technology and medicine right now, but it's already there.

The most advanced form of technology and medicine is already there. It's in nature. And when you walk through the Amazon jungle with one of these people that are from the area, they basically show you that it's got everything that they need. He's like, oh, this is what we use for this. This is what we use for that. You can eat from it and everything. So, yeah, I think that we are probably for the most part just unconsciously on the hamster wheel going through life.

And a lot of the questions that I see being asked are, you know, is it right for me? Is it right for me? The truth is that you're not going to know what it's like for you unless you experience it. And that's not me telling you to go do that. But I'm just telling you that everybody has a different experience. When you go and you experience this, first of all, you don't have to do it, right? I saw some people drink a couple of nights and then not, you know. And that was what was right for them.

But it's something that you won't understand unless you try it. And that's very, very important to understand. So, Jose, you know, God, there's so many different angles that I want to go to in this. One last thing that I want to talk about before we close out is that I had a lot of trouble understanding before I did it until now is this concept of, you know, the female nature of ayahuasca. We refer to her as mother, ayahuasca, or a grandmother. So that was one thing. But while I was in ceremony, I was having all sorts of visual. I remember this one moment where I looked at my buddy next to me in the bed next to me.

I thought I was fine. And then I looked at my friend Mateo from Zambia, like all of a sudden turned into a 900-pound giant. Like that kind of stuff happens, right? That's fun. But Jose taught me something really interesting. He says sometimes the visuals that you get are very, very distracting from the message. And I took his advice and I started to find that I could speak to the medicine and ask her questions and get responses. Now, that is something that I don't think somebody that's never

experienced it could experience. But while I was in ceremony and seeing things and feeling things, I was actually having a conversation with it and asking very specific questions about me and getting answers. How do you explain that? Well, I mean, that's part of the mystique of this medicine, no? Some people say, oh, it's your higher self talking back to you. And that's pretty arguable, no? Regarding the nature of ayahuasca, whether it's a she or a he, it's quite fascinating because in the Peruvian tradition, it's a she.

In the Colombian tradition, they refer to it as a he, yeah. So, you know, there are differences in the plants. But for most people, people report back that they see a female presence or they see a female figure, usually as a grandmother. In my case, I'm not a very visual guy, I'm more auditory. I have these conversations. And I always tell people when you work with ayahuasca, it's about encouraging that interaction,

as opposed to just being a passive observer of things that are shown to us. It's about interacting with the medicine. And I tell people, yes, it's always good to have an intention. But, you know, you want to have a list of questions in your back pocket. because sometimes our intentions are answered pretty quickly at the start of ceremony and you want to make the most of your time sitting with the medicine.

So you can, you know, ask questions and she'll definitely answer. So it's hard to explain to a rational mind, you know. I'm going to give you this plant and you're going to have this conversation with this entity, which happens to be a female. But, you know, that's part of the beauty of it. I remember, like, in the first week when I was doing ayahuasca at this other retreat, there was a young doctor from Columbia University. And the guy, he was trying to make sense of all these things that he was experiencing in ceremony, you know?

He was trying to, his scientific mind, you know, make rational sense. And I was always amused by that, no? because at some point I tell them, you know, you need to welcome the possibility of magic in the world. Because if you try to explain everything with science, you know, you're going down the rabbit hole and no one has definite answers for that, no. At some point, like if you open up to the fact that, you know,

magic exists in this universe, things are going to be a lot easier to digest. You're speaking my language. So just to put a bow on that, most of the questions that everybody that has never done it are asking. You're asking from your human brain that has been programmed to be that way. So I wrote something. This is an excerpt from the book that I'm writing about it.

And I think this will kind of help you. So I said, I asked for strength. This is my relationship with Mother Ayahuasca. I asked for strength and she gave me difficulties to overcome. I asked for wisdom and she gave me problems to solve. I asked for significance. That was a big one I asked. I asked for significance and she showed me I was no better than others.

I asked for courage and she gave me dangers to overcome. I asked for love. I asked for love and she gave me. me troubled people to help. I asked for the experience of a lifetime, and she showed me that being alive is just that. So take that for, I got the chills when I read that because that's where I'm at. And I was doing a testimonial for Arcana at the end. And one of the things that I explained into cameras, I said, I just finished our closing ceremony, which is very sad to say goodbye to those people. And I witnessed 21 people all looking at each other saying, we're coming back again.

So if anybody wants to know, like, I don't know what odds you need, but all 21 people on my trip said, we're coming back again and we want to do it. You know, and I understand how percentages work out, but I can for one tell you that I am. So when my book comes out and when we start raising some of those funds, you know, we're going to invite some people to come back. I will be going back at the same time next year, but this time for two weeks. So I'm excited. I hope you'll be there. I mean, I just want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. I know that you're finally got some time at home and you traveled to San Francisco and you're, you know, expanding the awareness and the reach. And thanks for being here and just thank you so much for

putting all the blood, sweat, and tears into creating this experience for for people like me to have such a breakthrough. Thank you, my friend. It's my real pleasure, and I do it with all my heart, my passion. I never expected that I was going to be running ayahuasca centers in the middle of the jungle. But I guess the universe had other plans for me, and I can be, I've never found myself as happy as, you know, living in plenitude as I do now. And to me, to witness every week how people come and get their lives transformed is just a validation of the work we do, no? And that gives me all the strength to keep going, you know, to keep expanding, to doing things right, making it more accessible for more people to come and heal.

And, yeah, and, you know, I'm really excited to see what you're going to write from this, from the Soppa experience, from my ayahuasca. I can't wait. I love and appreciate you, my brother, and I'm looking forward to our friendship. And I'd just say goodbye in a great, great morning, great afternoon to everybody. As a reminder, this will end up being, this is in the Rise Up with Dragon community in our Facebook page, but we will also have an edited version with a lot of other fun videos that will go on YouTube. This will also show up probably next week sometime on our podcast in audio format and will sound much better and much cleaner in there.

And that's Rise Up with Dragon on all platforms. I do a morning show that is about five to 15 minutes. It's live here streamed, and that's Monday through Friday, and I challenge anybody to use that as a morning routine and check-in, and those show up on the podcast as well. Love and appreciate you, my friend. Thanks again for being here, and thank you, everybody, for taking time to be with us today. Bye for now. Makes sense.