In 1953, renowned author and notorious drug experimentalist William S. Burroughs made a trip to the Amazon rainforest on a quest for yagé, a name for the plant Banisteriopsis caapi, also known as ayahuasca.
“This is not the chemical lift of C, the sexless horribly sane stasis of junk, the vegetable nightmare of peyote, or the humorous silliness of weed. This is an instant overwhelming rape of the senses,” Burroughs would write to poet Allen Ginsberg on July 8, 1953 in a letter that would be published a decade later in the book The Yagé Letters. Two days later, he would write from Lima: “Yage is space-time travel. The room seems to shake and vibrate with motion … You make migrations, incredible journeys through deserts and jungles and mountains.”
The plant is recorded to have been used by humans on a widespread level since the 1800s in South America, although its true origins have yet to be verified. It’s culled from a process of maceration, boiling the caapi in a brew that brings out the spirit rope’s psychedelic chemical dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT, and monoamine oxidase inhibiting harmala alkaloids, the substance needed to make DMT orally active and able to be processed through your liver.
Once ingested, the increased amounts of serotonin in the gastrointestinal tract stimulate the vagus nerve, which may or may not cause the person to vomit. Its an adverse effect that gives way to what many consider a spiritual awakening via hallucinogenic imagery and other psychological enhancements triggered by the influx of serotonin caused by the DMT. It is often reported that those under the influence of ayahuasca have been able to communicate with spirits and gain a stronger sense of insight into the true nature of their being. Its even been used to help people overcome drug and alcohol addiction.
“This is the most powerful drug I have ever experienced,” proclaimed Burroughs in a letter to Ginsberg. “Yagé is not like anything else. It produces the most complete derangement of the senses.”
What’s different in the 70 years since Burroughs made his private journey to the Amazon is that you don’t have to risk life and limb to achieve the mystical experience that ayahuasca offers the person seeking its benefits.
That’s where Rythmia comes in. Hailed as the “leading all-inclusive plant medicine retreat” according to their website, this lavish sanctuary located in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, allows its patrons to achieve their highest potential with a 7-day program called “The Rythmia Way.”
During your stay, you will be set up in the resort’s gorgeous, newly renovated casitas that provide the finest in luxury lodging, fashioned with brand new beds, furniture, healing art and bathroom fixtures. You can choose from a private king casita or share a space with other guests in the double and triple casitas. There’s no doubt these amenities will be the perfect way to cap off your nights while immersed in The Rythmia Way.
Other amenities include yoga, metaphysics classes, volcanic mud baths, life coaching, hydrocolonic cleanses, Rythmic breathwork, massage, and farm-to-table organic food in an all-inclusive, luxury setting.
In the waking hours, however, you will experience four plant medicine ceremonies throughout the course of your stay. With the assistance of renowned healers and shamans trained in the Colombian tradition by Taita Juanito, each ceremony is crafted to help you achieve what you are looking for in The Rythmia Way.
As of this writing, the resort has conducted over 72,000 individual ceremonies. And perhaps one of the most famous guests to enjoy the resort thus far has been longtime Lil’ Wayne cohort Mack Maine, who took to Instagram to confess how his time at Rythmia proved life-altering.
“I’m feeling amazing today,” he proclaimed after holding hopes the “medicine” will “get rid of all the toxic stuff” following his retreat. “It was definitely a life-changing experience. I’m still floating a little today and I actually feel a little lighter than when I got here. I’m just grateful and I’m thankful that I had this experience.”
For Mack, participating in The Rythmia Way helped transform the perceptions he’s held about his own motives while walking this planet.
“My greatest revelation was, of course, to merge back with my soul,” he explains in the IG post. “But by me doing that I was able to see my purpose again. I think somewhere down the road, I lost sight of my purpose. We were all sent here; we all have a calling in our lives. We were all sent with gifts and purposes. We all were sent with gifts and purposes. And I kind of realized that, but I wasn’t sure because I’m one of those guys that to other people [its like] ‘oh he has it all together’ and this, that and the third. And then you realize, I’m human, too. I’m not perfect. So somewhere down the road, I lost sight of my purpose. I became who other people saw me as. I probably became who other people wanted me to be. You also become who other people need you to be. And in the midst of it all, you lose sight of who you need to be for yourself and who you need to be for the higher power that sent you.”
Yet perhaps no other person has received more benefits from the Rythmia experience than the center’s founder, Gerry Powell, especially upon taking that first journey into the realm of plant-based medicine.
“She gave me an outline,” he recalls, referring to the ayahuasca experience that would go on to change the trajectory of his life. “That medicine saved my life. I was a dead man walking. And then she asked me to do this for others, and I said yes.”
There have been critics who’ve accused the center of exploiting the authenticity of the experience, Powell asserts that providing a safe, structured, inclusive environment is not mutually exclusive with the way Burroughs sought out ayahuasca in the 1950s.
“We didn’t dilute the experience,” he says. “We elevated it.”
A decade later, Powell remains steadfast in the lessons that educated him on truth, soul and freedom and how they’ve helped see his vision through despite the barriers that were ultimately overcome.
“It’s been an incredibly difficult journey, but all the while, it’s been the greatest honor of my life.”
