Huachuma Healing
Over the last couple of decades, the traditional use of plant medicines has undergone a cultural resurgence. While many individuals with an appetite for self-discovery have turned their eyes to Ayahuasca, its lesser-known counterpart, Huachuma, is beginning to draw increasing interest.
Huachuma (also known as Wachuma or San Pedro) is a sacred cactus native to the Andes. Used for millennia by the region's indigenous people to commune with the spirit world and connect with their ancestors, it’s often considered one of the most powerful teacher plants due to its ability to bridge us to higher realms.
While Ayahuasca often feels like the sledgehammer approach to healing, Huachuma offers a gentler alternative. Rather than slapping you in the face with its teachings (albeit a loving slap in the face), Huachuma whispers them, taking your hand and guiding you deeper into spirit.
This teacher plant is recognized for its powerful ability to restore us to our natural state and guide us back to the heart where life is best lived. While Huachuma promotes healing, spiritual growth, and transformation, this sacred cactus offers so much more which is why a growing number of people are seeking it out.
San Pedro is simply Spanish for Saint Peter, and one of the Spanish priests who experienced Huachuma called it that because he said "It opens the gates of heaven".
How Can Huachuma Help?
Teacher plants impart knowledge when we work with them, and each teacher plant has a different voice in which it shares it. Huachuma’s teachings can be subtle, which encourages you to pay attention. Given that you listen carefully, its teachings can be very transformative.
Huachuma brings us clarity. That’s because Huachuma can be seen as a mirror to universal truth - to pure consciousness that exists beyond the layers of conditioning, programming, and grime we’ve accumulated throughout our life experiences.
We often put up walls to protect ourselves, however, these walls also disconnect us from the heart space (the deeper expression of the soul). Huachuma gently takes down the guards that undermine our self-confidence and obscure the purity of expression that has been buried underneath the baggage.
In this sense, the cactus is not necessarily revealing anything new. Rather, it’s illuminating who we truly are underneath all the padding. Huachuma does not make up stories or show us distorted truths, it simply illuminates who we truly are underneath the surface, stripping away the armor and returning us to a place of purity, freedom, and lightness.
Common Uses of Huachuma
Among the many reasons why people seek it out, Huachuma is most well-known as a heart opener due to its ability to guide us back into our heart space. People often feel as if they’re connecting to the energy of love pulsating through the universe, because Huachuma removes the barriers that make us feel disconnected.
The primary gatekeeper is the ego, and Huachuma helps us step outside of the ego.
Living from the heart is a pure expression of consciousness, something that many of us forget how to do. Rather, we learn to live from the ego - through identity, disconnection, and a sense of self-importance that fails to provide joy, but rather the illusion of satisfaction.
Huachuma guides us back to our roots, to connect with nature, spirit, and other people, helping to cut through the fog and find balance with the natural world while restoring our place within it.
Every person’s journey with the cactus is different because every individual is different, but there are some common themes.
People tend to seek Huachuma medicine for:
- Opening the heart space and stepping deeper into heart-centered feelings
- Connecting more deeply with nature, oneself, and the universe
- Restoring a sense of balance or equanimity in life
- Gaining clarity on big decisions and life changes
- Inspiring deeper feelings of direction and purpose
- Help release deep emotional pain and trauma
How Huachuma Aids the Process of Healing
With some teacher plants, you need to strap in and hold on for dear life. But rather than leading the experience, you’re the driver. Huachuma just provides the vehicle and perhaps sets up a few signposts. This means that Huachuma grants you more control over where you want to steer the experience, whether it’s toward healing, guidance, or deepening your connection with spirit.
Whether you want to dig into stubborn trauma and let go of past experiences, or connect with feelings of universal support and connectedness, you have more control over where you want to travel, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
The Beauty of Huachuma is in the Narrative
Rather than being thrown into the rapids, Huachuma gives you space to reflect while gently goading you to steep deeper into your inner awareness. This spacious feeling that Huachuma often provides can be very helpful as people often have room to reflect and work through their thoughts and feelings.
This space allows us to begin deconstructing outdated or stubborn belief systems, mentalities, and mindsets, and helps us return to a place of neutrality. Although Huachuma can certainly connect you with higher bodies of information and throw you in the deep end, the essence is in the narrative.
Common Effects of Huachuma
Huachuma is a long-lasting medicine, and the effects tend to come on gradually over 1 - 4 hours, and can hang on for up to 12 hours. Huachuma is often described as more of a visceral experience, meaning that people tend to ‘feel’ Huachuma more than they see it.
During a Huachuma ceremony, you may experience:
- Grounding and connectedness with nature
- Feelings of unity with the universe
- A deeper embodiment of oneself
- Heightened senses
- Magnification of emotions
- Deeper awareness and sensitivity to energies
- Feelings of lightness or heaviness in the body
- The feeling of expansiveness or spaciousness
- A general heart-opening effect
- Stimulation of feelings of love, compassion, and gratitude
- Changes in thought patterns
- Feelings of calmness, serenity, and peace
- Deeper introspection and reflection
Although it’s generally less visionary than Ayahuasca, Huachuma can still produce powerful visions. The visuals of Huachuma often involve:
- A green/reddish glow or hue around objects
- More pronounced details and clarity (and a higher visual awareness)
- Some visual distortions often involving a waving or breathing effect
- Dreamy closed-eye visions or visual effects
- Visuals of moving patterns and sacred geometry
Depending on the potency of the medicine, Huachuma can produce dream-like experiences that act as channels for receiving information, insights, and knowledge from the teacher plant.
While some people are transported to other realms and report contacting spirits, undergoing ego-death, and having transcendental experiences, this is the exception. While it’s true that some people are highly sensitive to the medicine, for most, it’s relatively subtle.
Why is Huachuma Known as a Heart-Opener?
If there’s anything that Huachuma is known for, it’s opening the heart space. Particularly, it opens the heart chakra by helping us process blockages, barriers, and pain that we store in this part of our energetic bodies.
Because of its heart-opening effects, Huachuma tends to enhance our interpersonal relationships by helping us form a deeper intimacy with other people. Guests often say that a Huachuma ceremony is when their connection to the group, or other individuals in the group is solidified because the medicine bridges the gap from friends to brothers and sisters.
You can expect to have heart-to-hearts with other guests as the medicine guides us towards deepening our connection with ourselves and others. Often there are beautiful conversations, plenty of hugging, and sometimes tears shed while basking in feeling the love and gratitude for family and friends during Huachuma ceremonies.
Likewise, for people who are rather shy or introverted, Huachuma can help take them out of their shells and facilitate deeper emotional connections with others, which some people see as a highlight. Because these properties help us connect emotionally, Huachuma is commonly referred to as nature’s MDMA.
Does Huachuma Cause Purging?
Although it usually doesn’t happen, it’s not uncommon to purge after drinking Wachuma. With that said, it is common to experience some nausea or discomfort, especially as the effects begin to kick in.
Regardless, Huachuma is safe to drink. Purging after drinking Huachuma doesn’t indicate that anything is wrong. Generally, it’s the medicine’s way of removing stagnant energies or blockages that are causing friction in your life.
Huachuma is Medicine
While for the most part people really enjoy this experience, it is important to remember that Huachuma is medicine. It is a peer of Ayahuasca, capable of bringing deep healing. It is very good at releasing the energies of blocked emotions and trauma. It is not uncommon for some people to spend a couple of hours crying, as they release the pain and sorrow they have been carrying for years. Often since childhood.
These deep releases are profoundly cathartic. If this arises for you, it is something to be embraced with gratitude, knowing that energy will be forever gone from your body.
Ayahuasca vs Huachuma: Key differences
Ayahuasca, arguably the more well-known teacher plant is the feminine counterpart, the mother who picks you up when you’re broken, supports you, and cleans you. Huachuma on the other hand is the masculine counterpart, the father who guides you in the right direction, encourages you to find alignment, and pushes you to take your first steps on that path.
While Ayahuasca can kick in hard, Huachuma creates a story and guides you through it. This is a great opportunity for personal and spiritual growth because you’re given a pen to rewrite that story in a way that aligns more closely with your desires, motives, and intentions.
Due to the more gentle, consistent nature of the experience, people are less prone to feeling overwhelmed during a Huachuma ceremony. This makes it a preferred medicine for a lot of people who can find Ayahuasca too intense.
Both medicines are Master Teacher Plants, each with a unique personality. Although it's not fair to draw comparisons, each medicine can help us in different ways, and teach us different things.
Huachuma Ceremonies at the Hummingbird
After being given a detailed briefing about Huchuma the previous day, the ceremony will start in the morning and run into the night. Huachuma ceremonies at the Hummingbird Center are a rather informal processes. After a brief opening ceremony, every one consumes the medicine, and then it is a time with you, the medicine and nature.
It’s a time to be present with the medicine void of distractions, and guests are encouraged to have a clear intention. It’s suggested to spend at least three hours focused on the medicine and not be talking to others or distracting the mind. The rich healings and teachings Huachuma can bring are unlikely to come if one is not focused on the experience.
During a Huachuma ceremony, the curandero is available if anyone needs assistance, but otherwise, interaction with guests is minimal as they’re encouraged to sit with the medicine and avoid distractions. Facilitators will periodically check on people to see how their journey is unfolding. Snacks of raw vegetables and fruits are provided at 12:30 pm, and a pot of vegetable soup is served at 4:30 pm. The soup is left out all night so people can eat at their leisure.