And the first question, I just want to say again, you know just being here for the first time with the audience of spiritual sparkle we want to know a little bit about your journey and where you're at and why you led into this dedication of indigenous wisdom and the healing traditions

well my journey my more conscious journey started in 2001, when I embarked to heal an illness that was considered to be incurable in the Western world, I had Crohn's disease in my intestines, which is a chronic genetic and in many cases also terminal illness.

And when the modern medicine, the allopathic medicine stopped being effective for my condition and all the pharmaceuticals failed, the only other option was to go through surgical procedures and remove portions of large intestine for the rest of my life once a year.

And then I embarked on the journey to find an alternative healing for this condition.

And that eventually brought me to the Amazon rainforest.

And then I ended up staying there for three years.

I got into full remission.

But have you learned other medicines in that area when you were there?

Hmm.

And it's this illusion of separate, solid self.

And then, of course, people go to different extremes where people think it's about annihilation of the ego.

But the ego has its essential purpose in life.

It's not the main purpose.

But without the ego, we wouldn't be able to eat or shit or do the most basic functions of life.

And so, as you mentioned, the ego has to learn how to be a channel, rather than being the soap opera bubble, as I refer to it.

Does that make sense?

What would you say are some signs that someone needs grounding and containment rather than another medicine journey?

Hmm.

Well, something that my teachers have shared with me is that, uh, experiences come and go, right? So if I'm just chasing experiences, it's gonna be very fleeting and meaningless in my life in the long term.

And so the most essential in these traditions is the attitude.

That's the only thing that I can take away from these traditions.

Because, yeah, I can have an afterglow with the medicine work, but then it wanes.

And then what is left afterwards? What is my attitude towards life? Am I resisting life? Am I getting upset and blame everything and everyone for me being miserable or do I take responsibility for my life and begin to change my attitude towards it? And so these lineages, these traditions, they help to instill this, so to speak, enlightened attitude towards life.

So you touched on fear, and I wanted to ask you, for someone feeling called to ayahuasca but also afraid, what would you want them to hear?