VISION
TRANSPERSONAL RETREATS
Our intensives are motivated by the understanding that psychedelic therapy education starts with, and must be intersected by, the thorough and conscientious work of the individual and the self; transforming ourselves in therapists that transmit authenticity from within our own paths.
Our pilgrimages with the different indigenous communities will provide the valuable opportunity to expand awareness, permitting the students to be deconstructed by the cosmogonic frameworks of these communities and by their ways of seeing and inhabiting their lives. We recognize that the western world has been experimenting and embracing psychedelic thought for a very short time and that these non-western logics of thought are masters in the field. We are working with communities that hold millenary entheogenic traditions that have evolved throughout many generations. We intend to break through comfort zones, both physical and mental, in order to experiment the spirituality of the universe’s vastness touched by the spirit of the desert with the Wixaritari-Huichol, of the Amazon with the Ai-Cofan, and of Africa with the Bwiti.
We believe in a participatory quest guided by these lived experiences and made possible through group processes that will push students to grow beyond their own corners of knowledge; to find connections to those realms, dimensions, and areas of consciousness that allow us to trace the origins of our own paradigms and inquire into transcendence. “How will you lead a patient through a door you have never entered yourself?” For this reason, our intensives and particularly our psychotherapy retreats are focused on understanding and experiencing the ways in which the psyche works within. In a cared and conscious space, students will be invited to explore the amplification of their psyche through psychedelics to understand how perception changes, how transference and countertransference is expressed, how doors in our conscience open, and how alternatives to living and to shaping our realities in this world emerge. Our students undergo a series of journeys that lead into the depths of the unconscious, connection with soul, and transformation of individual identities.
SOME WORDS ABOUT PILGRIMAGE
Pilgrimage is the mobilization of people toward places where they come in touch with the sacred.
There are some examples of pilgrimages in Islam -the Hajj to Mecca; in Hinduism, such as the pilgrimage to the Kumbha Mela and the Ganges; in Christianity, perhaps the most known is the way to Santiago de Compostela; in the Tibetan Buddhism to the caves of teachers such as the cave of Padmasambhava or Milarepa. In indigenous America, pilgrims travel to the pyramids, to the sea, to volcanos, to the peyote...
At the Psychedelic Therapy Training we recognize not only the importance of pilgrimage to sacred sites, known by their sacred energy and their instructor spirit; but also to living mystical cultures and authentic spiritual traditions. We believe that while our societies transition into globalization, authentic mystical cultures that have managed to stay alive present great opportunities for insight and wisdom.
Our time in the Wirikuta desert, in the Amazon, and in the Congo basin of Gabon, will not be as comfortable as the transpersonal intensives in our retreat centers. Many times we will have to sleep in tents, in simple indigenous houses, or directly on the floor of the sacred site as instructed by the elders. We will also have to spend some time in internal transportation, sometimes in the back of a pick-up, in a motorboat through the river, or walking in the desert. We believe that these are all very important elements of pilgrimage and are decided to offer students this all-terrain shamanic reality instead of a light disengaged interpretation.
OUR RETREAT CENTERS
GUASCA
Our Guasca retreat center has been a meeting place for different spiritual and therapeutic teachers and is normally used for our formations in gestalt, somatic therapy, and systemic constellations. This time, it opens the doors for two of the three transpersonal retreats of the psychedelic therapy training, where we will explore and work on experiential psychotherapy, personal work, healing, and self-knowledge. This is a space in the middle of the mountains in Guasca/ Cundinamarca- Colombia, one hour and 15 minutes from Bogotá the capital of this country. It has 34 rooms and 154 beds (this training is intentionally small leaving plenty of space), 24 hours of hot water, and 3 meditation halls. Our center also has a mushroom factory, native forest with natural springs and ecological trails, and a dining room for 100 people where we can find delicious and healthy dishes, lovingly prepared with vegetables from our own organic garden.
YUBARTA
Our Yubarta retreat center gathers mystery, wilderness, beauty and diversity. We believe in this place as a catalyst for consciousness because of its privacy, it’s virgin jungles, and it’s sea next to it. Here, the adventure of being in a place with a strong spirit, is in itself a transforming experience. Yubarta is located on Colombian’s pacific north coast in the Chocó department, 20 minutes by motor boat from Bahía Solano. It has 600.000 m2 of virgin tropical rainforest full of wild ayahuasca and tonga vines, wild mushrooms, and two private beaches of clear warm waters. The emptiness transpersonal retreat takes place here, where the environment invites and empowers us to go inward.