“Did I Make It All Up?” Trusting the Mystery After Ceremony
You came back transformed.
Maybe you saw visions that felt like ancient truths.
Maybe you heard a voice that spoke directly to your soul.
Maybe you met the spirit of ayahuasca herself—and she showed you what no one else ever could.
It was real.
In your body, in your heart, in the deepest part of your knowing—it was real.
But now… you’re home.
The streets are loud.
The phone is buzzing.
The people around you don’t speak in dreams, or symbols, or icaros.
And doubt begins to whisper:
“Did I make it all up?”
“Was that just the medicine?”
“What if none of it was real?”
This is the moment many seekers face—the moment the sacred collides with the ordinary.
In the Shipibo Tradition, Visions Are Medicine
The Shipibo-Conibo people of the Peruvian Amazon have been working with plant spirits for generations.
They do not see visions as random or delusional.
They see them as language.
The geometric patterns, animals, ancestors, colors, and songs that arise during ceremony are part of the cosmology of the plants themselves.
To a Shipibo healer, the medicine is not a hallucination.
It is a teacher.
A conscious spirit.
A living intelligence that communicates through images, dreams, and song.
You didn’t imagine that voice.
You listened.
You didn’t create that vision.
You received it.
The Modern Mind Seeks Proof
In Western culture, we are taught to trust only what we can measure, explain, or replicate in a lab.
But plant medicine doesn’t speak that language.
It speaks in metaphor, sensation, soul.
So when the modern mind returns from a ceremony, it often panics.
It wants to categorize the ineffable.
And when it can’t, it starts to doubt what the heart knows to be true.
This is not your fault.
It’s a cultural wound.
And part of your integration is healing it—by learning to honor mystery as its own form of truth.
Try This: “The Vision That Chose Me”
A sacred art ritual to honor what you received.
Sit quietly. Place your hands on your heart.
Ask yourself: What image or message still lingers from my ceremony?
Without judgment, draw it. Paint it. Collage it.
Underneath or around it, write:
“I honor this as real. I may not understand it, but it belongs to me.”
Let this become a prayer—not for proof, but for trust.
The Mystery Is Not Meant to Be Solved—But Carried
You are not meant to explain your experience to those who cannot hold it.
You are not meant to translate sacred visions into language that others can approve of.
Your only task is to keep your medicine alive.
Through your breath.
Through your choices.
Through the art and beauty you create from what you saw.
The vision was not given to everyone.
It was given to you.
Because you were ready.
Not Everyone Has Earned the Right to Hear Your Story
Be mindful of who you share your ceremony with.
Some people are not unkind—they are simply not initiated.
They may try to minimize or mock what they cannot feel.
That’s not your burden.
Let your experience remain sacred.
Speak it only where there is reverence.
If you’re wondering whether what you saw, heard, or felt was real—look not with your eyes, but with your life.
Has something shifted in you?
Do you relate to the world differently now?
Are you more aligned with your soul?
That is the proof.
Want to Honor What You Received?
Join a Creative Integration Circle to keep your vision alive
Or book a 1:1 session to explore your journey through art and heart-based integration