Iboga - Sacred plants, are they good or bad?
The journey of the Shaman (and yes, I am using this word in the modern sense of native people’s wisdom keepers), sometimes involves the use of a sacred plant.
In the past few months, the Iboga plant made an appearance in our community. So much so that Larry has researched the plant with the possibility of joining a ceremony. Finding a place has been quite an adventure spanning the globe from Africa to Portugal to Canada and Mexico. The plant itself remarked to larry and I that it’s journey out of Africa, specifically from the medicine bags of the Pygmy, was intended to assist people through the time we are in now, specifically shifting consciousness from light dark to light, and that the secrecy it was kept in carried it forward to now in full power undiluted. Many current voices we listen to have had direct experiences of a pretty remarkable transformation, a real choice point that makes a big shift in their lives from one littered with negative low frequency limitations such as addictions and traumas held as PTSD to a life free of the burden of packing these around. A week or so, in some cases a month, of prep ceremony and after integration, and many report a return to the state of mind they existed in before the traumas or addictions took over their lives. The one they were born as. One shaman expressed there are three paths he was aware of those who use iboga follow, some for addiction release, some for coming of age, and some enter with a meditative mindset. It appears the plant root is becoming very interesting to light shamans, brides and grooms of gaia, and those whose choice of mission is now to become, be, pure light.
I was of the opinion, fifteen years ago, that no sacred plant drug was going to enter my body, no matter what! I was very, very stern about this opinion.
One day, I woke up to the vision of an ancestor, a Machi, an old lady with no teeth, looking at me and saying, “mushroom”.
I jumped into righteousness and said to her, “not going to happen! No mind altering, strong or hallucinogenic drugs are entering my body. No way, no when.”
She kept coming back, over the next few weeks and months, continuously, only one word in her lips, “mushroom.”
And I kept reacting in the same way. “Not going to happen.”
One day, I woke up with the constant back pain I was used to from the age of 18, after having injured my back in a motorbike accident. This pain was something chronic and something that I would manage with the processing exercise. It never went away, but it became less intense in the morning after processing so that I could get on with my day.
That day, however, the pain did not lessen. Instead it intensified. By four in the afternoon, it was so bad I felt my body going into shock. I called my husband at the time and told him I needed to go to the hospital. Knowing how I felt about doctors and hospitals, he knew it was serious. He rushed home and rushed me to the emergency room. I got there just as the ER shift was changing, half a dozen nurses saw me through the car window and ran over. They put me in a gurney and ran me all the way to the back, where the most injured people are seen.
I was treated for shock and then seen by a doctor. They started intravenous pain medication and I was not fighting these drugs because I was literally dying. None of them worked. They kept asking me if I took pain medication because apparently my resistance to them was absolute, I told them that the only one I ever took was ibuprofen or aspirin. Yet, nothing was working. They went to higher and higher doses, until a higher dose would be lethal, then changed to a different drug. Morphine, and other such things. Nothing worked and my body kept going back into a state of shock, which at a certain point can be deadly.
At some point a doctor or nurse came in with a medicine that was different to the rest. She explained that it was their last choice, due to whatever. I don’t remember exactly what she said as by now it was the early hours of the next day and I was ready to just die. I nodded for it to be administered, she made me sign some papers, and she placed it in the IV. At that moment, the old lady with no teeth popped up in front of me, smiled and nodded. She then said in a relaxed voice filled with humour, “mushroom.” Then vanished.
I then saw a whole history of Earth and Gaia, and much more. The pain vanished immediately.
After my body recuperated from the pain and shock, I asked the nurse/doctor what that medicine was, she said, “it is a mushroom derivative, rare and last resort.”
After that, I decided that if that toothless lady ever turned up again and suggested something, I would do it immediately. No need to be tortured to the point of death twice!
Some years later, she came back and said, “Ayahuasca”.
I immediately said, “yes ma’am.” I then researched it for a few months, connected with the plant, got the ingredients, prepared it and did ceremony, got my body ready and took the sacred plant. We will talk of my experience of this ceremony in the wisdom keepers part of our podcast, available at drivingtotherez.com for subscribers, since this is private in nature.
I first learned about iboga / ibogaine from Bryan Hubbard's appearances on Jillian Michaels and Joe Rogan. He mentioned the Beond treatment center in Cancun. But the price is $10-15k for a 10 day stay. That's not accessible to me at the moment. I opted to microdose via Dream Labs Boga Mind and bought a 3-month supply is $130. It's a long wait as it ships from Australia. Has anyone tried microdosing?