Why it matters to drink with a shaman from a lineage

You can find ayahuasca ceremonies in many big cities today, often led by people who trained for a few weeks or months. Some of them are kind and mean well. I'm not here to put anyone down.

But yagé isn't only a drink. It's a body of knowledge that belongs to living cultures, and it takes a lifetime to learn. I'm still learning it, and I live here.

What a lineage is

A lineage is a line of teachers and students, often within one family, that carries knowledge from one generation to the next. Taita Miguel Mavisoy grew up in one. His father is a taita, his mother is a healer, and the knowledge has been passed down in his family for twelve generations.

Nobody becomes a taita by deciding to. It takes many years of learning: the plants, the diets, the songs, how to read people, how to prepare the medicine, how to care for someone in a hard moment. In the end, his elders and his community recognize him.

Why it matters for you

Safety

Someone who has sat in thousands of ceremonies knows what's normal and what isn't. They know how to help when a person is struggling, and when to stop. They also know the medicine they serve, because they prepared it themselves.

Depth

Ceremony is more than the cup. The songs, the fire, the cleansing with leaves, the words of the taita: all of it is part of the medicine. A lineage holder carries all of it.

Respect

Drinking with an indigenous taita on his own land supports the people who've protected this knowledge for centuries, and the forest where the plants grow. It keeps the medicine connected to its roots.

Questions to ask any retreat

• Who leads the ceremonies, and where did they learn?
• Who prepares the medicine, and how?
• How many people are in a ceremony, and how many guides are there?
• Is there a health screening before you're accepted?
• Is there someone who speaks your language and supports you before, during and after?
• How is integration handled?

A good retreat will be glad to answer all of these. Here, the ceremonies are led by Taita Miguel or Taita Leonardo, who both come from a Kamëntšá lineage, on their own land. The yagé is prepared fresh for each group. Groups are small, and I'm there throughout: I prepare you in the month before, help hold the space in ceremony with the other guides, and support you in the month after.

If you've been to a ceremony somewhere else, what would you have wanted to know beforehand?