Ayahuasca is known at the "vine of the soul." For those of you who don't know, Ayahuasca is a brew made from the vine of the Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotoria viridis leaves. The process of making the brew is a long and extensive one that should only be done by experienced brewers. The end result is a dark, thick tea that contains DMT which the Drug Enforcement Administration classifies as illegal.

It has been used by the Shipibo people, the natives of South America, as medicine for centuries. Only recently has Ayahuasca, La Medicina, attracted the attention of westerners. Last week, dozens of healers gathered at the Visionary Convergence in Hollywood, CA. The goal was to bring awareness to etheogenic plants. Sitaramaya, who goes by Sita, is the organizer of this event. I have had the opportunity to have Sita as one of the healers with me in ceremony at Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual in Iquitos, Peru. The center is owned by Dr. Joe Tafur, an MD from Phoenix, Arizona, and Ricardo Amaringo, a Shipibo shaman, and Cvita Mamic, a Canadian shaman.

Sita tells the Huffington Post how she first got involved with Ayahuasca:

"I got sober from drugs and alcohol when I was 25 years old and started a yoga practice at the time. I was introduced to the concept of ayahuasca through my yoga teacher in 1996, and I was pretty staunchly opposed to drug use. But there was a kindred feeling between myself and my yoga teacher, and when I witnessed my teacher I thought, ‘Wow, this teacher is walking the walk.’ There was a disconnect between what I thought drugs were and what I was witnessing and what I was learning.

I had to sit with it for a year. I practiced and I sat with it and then I thought, ‘I’m feeling really drawn to this.’ Then it was another year before I got the opportunity, and I took it. My first ceremony was in 1998. My life changed after that. Ayahuasca didn’t change my life but my life changed as a result of that initial experience."

As I've mentioned before the experience of Ayahuasca is not one that can be put into words. Even if I were to tell you my experience or if you hear the experience of someone else it will not even come close to what you will experience. Not only is Ayahuasca different for every person but it is different for every person every time. Mama Ayahuasca is unpredictable but one thing is certain. She will show you exactly what you need to see at that particular time.

A view from the moloka in Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual at the Nihue Rao trees. Nihue Rao is a master plant said to be more powerful than Ayahuasca. Healers diet this plant when they are training to become shamans.

Sita shares an experience she had during an Ayahuasca ceremony:

"I once had an experience in an ayahuasca ceremony of these sheets of light unfolding repeatedly. It was as if in the seam of each one was a light that I experienced as all that is, but then it would fold back again. I came to this place of understanding -- we can keep going but there’s nothing behind that screen. You could pull back that curtain but it would just be another curtain. It never ends. We are that, born into human form. I believe that it’s our soul taking form to know the divine within.

Another experience I had many years ago in Brazil happened after I did a 28-day dieta (a process of developing and cultivating a relationship with a particular plant while restricting intake of other foods and substances.) Midway through I had a vision of a crystalline palace up on a mountain top with tiers leading up to it. Those tiers represented the suffering of the universe: fire, floods, dismembered bodies. I cried and cried and cried with this deep spiritual connection I felt to all the hurt. The palace represented everything is divine. We all get to go to that palace but some of us are doing it with a limb hanging off our body. It was so moving. I felt just very deep compassion and connection, and for me that’s very spiritual."

Watch Sita as she talks about her experience with Ayahuasca.