Integration: The Real Ceremony Begins After the Ceremony
Why the psychedelic experience is not the healing — the integration is.
There is a moment after every ceremony when the fire cools, the songs fade, and the body returns to the soft weight of the Earth. The visions settle like ashes. The colors close their wings. The silence becomes a teacher.
And this is when the real medicine begins.
So many people believe the transformation happens inside the ceremony — inside the visions, inside the purge, inside the ecstatic or painful revelations. But after guiding hundreds of journeys and walking this path myself for many years, I know this truth intimately:
The psychedelic experience is not the healing.
The integration is.
The ceremony opens the door.
Integration is the walk through it.
What Is Integration?
Integration is the process of making the invisible visible —
turning visions into actions, realizations into choices, insights into embodied change.
It is how we take the medicine out of the maloca and into our lives.
Integration is not:
analysis or overthinking
rushing to interpret every symbol
returning to your old life as if nothing happened
Integration IS:
the willingness to change
the courage to feel
the practice of living from a new level of awareness
honoring what the medicine asked of you
In the Amazon they say:
“Medicine gives you a teaching. You must give it your life.”
🌬 Why Integration Is Harder Than Ceremony
In ceremony, the medicine guides you.
In integration, you guide yourself.
The ego dissolves under the influence of the plants —
but returns the next morning, confused and sometimes scared.
Integration is where:
old patterns try to reclaim you
relationships shift
emotions rise that were frozen for years
clarity becomes subtle and requires listening
the world expects you to be the same person you were before
This is why so many people lose their medicine —
not because it didn’t work,
but because they didn’t know how to hold it.
🐍 The Three Pillars of Integration
Below are the foundations I teach in my retreats and personal sessions.
Simple. Human. Deeply effective.
Rooted in Huni Kuin tradition, Amazonian plant work, and lived experience.
1. Slow Down: Don’t Re-enter Life Too Fast
The nervous system is open, sensitive, rewiring itself.
You cannot rush new wings.
After ceremony:
Avoid crowds
Avoid big decisions
Avoid arguments
Avoid screens and noise
Walk slowly
Speak less
Listen more
Let the medicine finish its work inside you.
This is the icaros still vibrating in your bones.
2. Translate Vision Into Practice
The most important question after ceremony is:
“What did the medicine ask me to change?”
Sometimes it’s small:
drink more water
breathe
rest
express yourself
Sometimes it is profound:
leave a harmful relationship
forgive someone
speak your truth
begin a new path
honor your creativity
heal your lineage
Write it down.
Make it real.
Create a small daily practice that honors it.
A vision without action is a dream.
A vision with action becomes destiny.
3. Community & Support — You Cannot Integrate Alone
Ceremony breaks isolation.
Integration requires connection.
This is why ancestral traditions always have:
elders
guides
listeners
circles
community presence
Talk to someone who can hold you — a facilitator, therapist, friend, elder.
Don’t disappear back into your old life.
Your new self needs witnesses.
🌿 What Integration Looks Like in Real Life
Integration is not mystical. It is practical, embodied, human.
It looks like:
waking up earlier to meditate
crying for the first time in years
making healthier food
respecting your body’s boundaries
saying “no” with love
saying “yes” to your creative fire
reconnecting with nature
calling your mother or forgiving your father
stopping substances or habits that numb you
allowing joy again
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