Drinking San Pedro is an experience all in itself; it tastes like everything you would think powdered cactus tastes like, gritty, clumpy, and difficult to swallow. I think these medicine taste bitter, or unsavory, to ensure that the people taking them are committed to the healing and teaching that they can provide, as opposed to just taking them to "go trip in the jungle".





After about an hour I started to feel the effects of the San Pedro, it comes in waves, bring you very gently in to a higher state of consciousness before settling you back into this reality. I felt happy and sad at the same time, and realized that there is this duality in all of us. The secret is not to try and fight the duality, but to embrace it and the differences it brings to us.

As San Pedro fully took hold of me, I was sitting on the steps of tambo really connecting with the jungle. I sat for a long time feeling the green energy of the jungle. It was palpable and I felt as though I could just breathe it into me and become part of the jungle. I looked up at one point and saw a small monkey playing in the tree above me. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I knew the jungle had just given me an amazing gift, that the spirit of the monkey would forever be part of me.





After receiving the gift of the monkey spirit, I was able to connect to that playful part of myself that had been hidden away for so long under this guise of control. I lay in a hammock and swung it as high as I could, then I would spread out my arms and fly. While in the hammock flying, I was an astronaut, just like I used to pretend I was as a child. We shut these fun and playful parts of us off for so long that as time passes, you don't realize that it’s missing anymore until you find it again.





It's funny, this fear that I was facing or really being myself, I thought I knew who I was, then as this childish playful part of me returned, I had a realization that I spent so much of my life believing that if I didn't act or speak a certain way that the people I loved and cared about wouldn't love or care about me anymore. As I found this playful, fearless, free part of myself, I knew that I was not my fear anymore, and that fear was no longer part of my reality. When we trust the universe to provide for us, we have to believe that it will give us exactly what we need when we need it.

After the intensity of Ayahuasca, I was looking forward to the gentle teaching that San Pedro had in store for me. Before drinking San Pedro I had a session with an amazing energy worker, Paul, and walked into the world like I was looking at it for the first time, colors were vivid and I was noticing things that I had taken for granted. It was a good start to my first experience with San Pedro.