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This podcast is all about the journey. The journey of self-discovery, the journey to reach our highest potential and the journey to understand the nature of reality.
Podcast host Garett Renon is currently studying shipibo style plant medicine and is an apprentice under world renown shipibo curandero and ayahuasquero Ricardo Amaringo. Garett brings a unique perspective and insight into the world of shipibo style plant medicine documenting his year long sama with the powerful master tree ayahuma.
Join Garett on his journey as he discusses: The power and potential of Plant medicine, Human potential, The power of the mind, The nature of consciousness, Supernatural phenomena and much more.
Welcome to the deeper you go, the weirder it gets. I'm your host, Garett Renon. So in this episode, I want to give you an update on my journey of becoming the Ayahumero. So two years and three months. That's how long it's been since I've been a
Garett:passenger in a ceremony.
Garett:Which means, for over two years, no one has cleaned me energetically except me. And it wasn't because I thought I didn't need it, it was the opposite. I knew I was becoming energetically dirty. But I got caught up in the work, helping people, showing up, staying in the grind. And every time I thought about stepping back and getting cleaned, another opportunity came in, another ceremony, another person who needed help.
Garett:So I pushed it off again and again and again until it caught up with me in a way I couldn't ignore. But before we get into all that, I wanna take a moment to thank you all for being here. This show runs on your support. And if these conversations resonate with you, here are a few simple ways to help keep it alive. You can share the show with a friend.
Garett:You can subscribe and leave a review. It genuinely helps more people find it. You can get some podcast gear. You can sign up for the newsletter. You can grab a copy of the unplugged journal or get some organic pine pollen or a elysian tallow.
Garett:And speaking of podcast gear, I just released an updated version of the quote from mother series, which has been a big hit. And my personal favorite is the Ayahuasca University shirt and hoodie. On the front, they say Ayahuasca University. On the back, they say the deeper you go, the weirder it gets. And, honestly, I don't know why I originally left that slogan off because it makes perfect sense.
Garett:And those of you that have listened to the show know that that phrase doesn't come from branding. It came from ceremony. See several years ago, I came out of an Ayahuasca ceremony completely blown open. I went deep. I saw entities, world cities.
Garett:I saw the origins of religion and their connection to plant medicine and nature itself. And it was weird, not in a bad way, but in a way that was completely strange, impossible to explain, and yet somehow deeply familiar. It felt real and unreal at the same time. It felt alien and ancient, impossible and intelligent. And later that night, talking with other participants, I found myself saying it out loud.
Garett:Man, the deeper you go, the weirder it gets. And that sentence stuck because it captures the essence of the experience perfectly. And you know, this must be said, not all Ayahuasca experiences and methodologies are the same. Just drinking the medicine is not the same as working with the medicine, which is why I'm such a fan of Shapebo style medicine because they aren't about chasing visions or surfing the cosmos. They're all about obtaining knowledge.
Garett:They're about learning directly from the plants and mother nature. And in fact, they approach the medicine the same way you would approach a university, not as entertainment, but as an initiation. A university is a gateway to expansion, and nothing expands the mind quite like Ayahuasca University. So grab a shirt or a hoodie and represent your alma mater. And let me tell you, adding the slogan on the back makes these shirts and hoodies a head turner and a conversation starter.
Garett:So, anyway, let's get on with the episode. Alright. So the title of this episode is who heals the healer an Ayahumero Update. And it's been about eight months since I've given you all an update on my journey, so let's zoom out for a second. So my rookie year ended with me opening up my own with Ayahumero, which I talk about in episode one zero seven titled El Ayahumero, The Rookie Year.
Garett:Now I went in now I went into that dieta with two very clear intentions. The first was to connect with Ayahumero on a deeper level and continue the training. Because like I mentioned in episode one zero seven, I received a very clear message that this Dieta was part of my Ayahumero training plan. The second the second intention was to develop through the the protection and skill needed to do this work without getting my ass kicked because that's exactly what was happening during my rookie year. Every single ceremony took something out of me.
Garett:And more often than not, after it was over, I couldn't sleep, I was in constant pain, and I felt sick, like my entire body had been poisoned. It was absolutely brutal. And I remember one ceremony in particular near the end of my rookie year. I was back in my room, lying on the floor, sweating, shaking, completely wrecked. And this thought popped into my mind, was, I can't keep doing this.
Garett:And I had this feeling that if something didn't change, that this work was going to kill me, literally. And it was it was quite terrifying. And in that moment, I seriously thought about quitting, which is crazy because I'm not a quitter. I don't quit just because something is hard. But it all but in that moment, it all felt like too much, and it felt dangerous and even stupid to continue to go down this path.
Garett:But, thankfully, that at the end of my rookie year changed everything. It gave me protection. It gave me structure. And most importantly, it taught me how to feel energy without taking it all on. And quick side note to give you a little more context.
Garett:Chapibo style ceremonies are no joke. As practitioners or curanderos, we are not sitting around singing kumbaya. During ceremony, we spend a lot of our time and effort cleaning out heavy energies, dark energies, sometimes even sinister energies, the kind of energies that keep people stuck, sick, addicted, and disconnected, the kind of energies that prevent people from waking up, healing, growing, and becoming better versions of themselves. Now, don't get me wrong, these ceremonies are not always dark and heavy. They can also be uplifting, insightful, enhancing, and full of love and light.
Garett:But this is all to say that as should people stop practitioners, we are doing way more than just putting on a playlist and quote unquote holding space. Right? What we do is an extremely dirty job, but one that is necessary to really unlock human potential. And that's exactly why training, discipline, and sacrifice are nonnegotiable if you want to do this type of work safely and effectively. So, anyway, at the end of the anyway, after the end of the year, Dieta, I entered my sophomore year.
Garett:And overall, things went well. My energy management improved, my awareness improved, my effectiveness improved, and my protection improved. Honestly, almost every ceremony, I got a little better. Now don't get it twisted. It wasn't all smooth.
Garett:There were still struggles, but they were different. They were the kind of struggles that sharpen you and make you better because that's the truth. Right? Growth doesn't come from comfort. It comes from pressure, from resistance, from overcoming.
Garett:And there's actually a sweet spot with this when you're pushed just outside of your comfort zone. Not too easy, but not too overwhelming either. Because if something is too easy, you don't grow. And if it's too much, you can shut down. But right in the middle, that's where the progress happens, and that's where the skills get built.
Garett:And that's where we and that's where we become better. And that basically summed up my sophomore year. It was a year of growth. And now we're in year three of the journey. And let me tell you, since the beginning of this year, I've hit the ground running.
Garett:My schedule has been jam packed in a good way. In the first three months alone, I facilitated six ceremony weekends and opened up two diyetas for a couple of close friends. And just recently, I went to Kumankaya for two weeks to get worked on. But here's the truth. See, it's been over two years since I've been a passenger in a ceremony, which means for all that time, no one has energetically cleaned me except me.
Garett:And at some point, you have to be honest with yourself. We all need help. Right? Healers need to be healed. Trainers need to be trained.
Garett:See, no matter how good you think you are, you still have blind spots. No matter how much experience you think you have, we all need someone outside of us to help us see what we can't see, to clear what we can't clear, and to give us a different perspective. And that's why the best in the world still have coaches. Right? Guys like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Cristiano Ronaldo, all at the top of their game, still being coached, still being pushed, still refining.
Garett:Because growth doesn't stop just because you get good. So that's why I went to Cuminkaya, which is a Chapibo style center located in the Mayan jungles of Mexico. And I went down there for a few reasons. One, the owner, Remi, is a good friend of mine and a highly skilled practitioner. Two, I wanted a change of environment.
Garett:And three, the ceremonies there are smaller and more intimate. Now don't get me wrong. I love Ni Weirau, and it'll always have a place in my heart. But right now, I'm not feeling called to go there. And that's part of the path too, learning to listen to those insights.
Garett:Now here's where things get interesting. The journey to get down to Kumankaya was not smooth at all. So on Thursday, March 12, just three days after finishing a ceremony weekend, I laid down for bed and felt a slight tickle in my throat. Nothing crazy, but enough to make me think that this might be a problem because I was flying to Mexico in just two days. The next morning, I woke up feeling slightly worse.
Garett:Not sick, but definitely not feeling great either. That in between stage. Right? You know what I'm talking about? That stage where you're either about to get sick or you're just going to feel off for twenty four hours, and then magically, you're gonna be fine again.
Garett:But how I was feeling in that moment didn't matter because I had to pack my bags and get moving. So after packing up, I head to my girlfriend's house for the night because she lives closer to the airport. I then proceeded to have an absolutely terrible night of sleep. And to make matters worse, we had a 3AM wake up call for a 07:15AM flight. And here's the thing, I hadn't told her I wasn't feeling good.
Garett:I was hiding it. Partly because I didn't want to admit it, partly because I hate saying the words I don't feel good or I'm sick, and honestly, because I was in denial. There was no way I was sick again. And I'll speak more on that later. So we get to the airport, and as we're standing in line for some coffee, I start sneezing a lot.
Garett:And I mean a lot. And after my sneezing fit, my girlfriend looks at me and goes, wow, you're sneezing a lot. What's going on? And right then, it hit me like a train. I could I could no longer deny it.
Garett:I said, I think I'm getting sick. And from that moment, my sickness started to intensify. There was nothing like boarding a plane for a six hour flight to Cancun with a runny nose, headache, sore throat, and body aches. And as time went on, it proceeded to get worse. And by the time we landed, I was a complete train wreck.
Garett:After landing, we had to navigate the chaos of the airport, immigration, and aggressive taxi solicitation, which is never fun, especially when you feel like garbage. After about another hour and a half, we finally made it to our hotel and grabbed some food, which provided some slight relief for about fifteen minutes. But then boom, I get hit with a pounding headache. And at this point, there was nothing left to do but hit the pharmacy for some cold and flu medication. And I'll be honest, I don't like taking that stuff because it can interfere with the body's natural healing process, like suppressing a fever, which is actually one of the ways our body fights off infection.
Garett:But at this point, I didn't care. I needed relief, and most importantly, I needed sleep. So I took the pills and went to bed. And pretty quickly, I started to feel some relief. Then not long after, I broke into a fever, which was interesting because in a way, it felt like a good sign, like I was getting the best of both worlds.
Garett:It seemed like the meds were providing some physical relief while my body was still able to activate one of its best immune system functions. And after the fever broke, I was able to get just enough rest to stabilize. The next morning, I wake up feeling slightly better but still sick. But there was no time to feel sorry for myself as our journey to Kumankaya had just begun. We had to keep moving.
Garett:So we woke up early to get some breakfast before catching a two and a half hour train ride to Felipe Carrillo, Puerto. And then from there, we had an hour long drive to Kumankaya. So after about four more hours of travel, we finally made it to our destination just in time to eat some lunch. And after eating and settling in for a couple hours, it was time to meet with Remy, Ashley, and his team to go over my intentions. And my intentions were simple.
Garett:I need I need a reset, a full overhaul, a complete cleaning. I needed an energetic oil change, a tire rotation, a fluid flush. I needed the Shipibo car wash, as they called it. Because, as I mentioned earlier, the work that I do takes its toll physically, mentally, and emotionally. And the fact that I showed up sick was not a coincidence.
Garett:See, I've always been a healthy person. In fact, I am literally one of the healthiest people I know. And that's not by accident, it's because I put in decades of work into my body, my habits, my discipline, and my health. But in the last two years since I began doing this work, I've been sick more than I have been in the previous twenty years. See, I went from being sick maybe once a year, if that, to being sick every few months, which is very telling.
Garett:So that's why I went to Kumankaya, to get clean, to get centered, to recalibrate my entire system. But there was also another reason I went down there, and that's to become better at what I do. So I wanted to use this opportunity to learn from a more experienced practitioner. I wanted to learn how to become more efficient, more effective, and more and a more protected curandero. Because at the end of the day, even the healer needs to be healed, and the practitioner needs to continually practice.
Garett:Anyway, more updates on my time at Kumankaya coming soon. See you on the other side.