MAKING AYAHUASCA
This sacred medicine has been used for thousands of years by the indigenous people of the Amazon region. Each generation further developed and refined the science of spirit medicine, gaining a greater and greater understanding of the spirit dimensions and how to use intention to achieve balance and harmony within all the dimensions of their lives. Because of their direct experience with the spirit, each and every member of indigenous communities knew for themselves, having seen with their own eyes, that these spiritual dimensions form the core of our true reality. Because they always stayed in contact with the spirit worlds, they never lost touch with reality, and thus never strayed far from living in harmony with nature and all beings. Ayahuasca helped to open their eyes, to understand their place in the world, to know their destiny, and to stay on the path that would lead them to it.

The medicine contains two basic ingredients: the ayahuasca vine itself (banisteriopsis caapi) and the leaves of the chacruna bush (psychotria viridis) which are boiled together to produce a brown liquid that contains an orally active form of dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. Recent studies suggest that there may be a connection between the human brain's production of DMT at the moment of death with the exiting of the spirit from the body. It has been observed that the pineal gland in the center of the human brain produces a large amount of DMT only twice in a normal lifetime, around six weeks into the development of the fetus in the womb, and at the moment of death. The word 'ayahuasca' means 'spirit vine' or 'vine of the dead' in the native language of Peru, because when ingested, communication with the spirit world becomes possible.

The sacred brew is always used in a ceremony ritual that has been passed down from generation to generation, from teacher to student, and many distinct varieties of curanderismo have developed due to environmental influences and societal factors. But throughout the various schools, ayahuasca is always and only taken in a ceremony setting. During these ceremonies, the curandero sings in order to contact spirits in other dimensions. While the ayahuasca provides the phone line, so to speak, to allow communication, it is the healing songs, or icaros, that dial the right numbers to get through to those who can help. Ayahuasca is the tool with which Amazon curanderos have mastered the art of interdimensional communication. In Peru, the art itself is called "curanderismo."