My Plant Medicine Journey: Healing Addiction, Celestial Surgery, and Talking to God.

Let me start by saying there isn’t anything “special” about me. I’m not a clairvoyant, chosen one, channel, or anything like that. My childhood wasn’t remarkable. I’ve led a pretty good life for the past 45 years, and never experienced any serious traumas or massive awakenings. I’m just a normal guy. I build websites and buy and sell domains. But, like many others, I always felt like there was something missing in life, something I couldn’t quite grasp.

In my twenties, I couldn’t escape the insatiable feeling that there was a void I needed to fill. Unfortunately, I tried to fill that void with alcohol. By the time I was in my thirties, drinking had become a serious addiction for me. I wanted to quit but didn’t know how.

Plant Medicine and Coincidences

In 2009, I was traveling through Ecuador and had an opportunity to use plant medicine—a tea brewed from a mixture of vine and bark grown in the Amazon—with a shaman. I only had one cup, but the next day and for four months afterwards, I had no desire whatsoever to drink booze. It was very strange for me that I no longer liked the taste of alcohol, but that’s what happened.

Fast forward six years. I was constantly traveling during that time and eventually got back into the habit of drinking. And again, I knew it was impeding me instead of helping me, but I couldn’t stop on my own. I found myself in a bar in Venice Beach at eight o’clock in the morning, still drinking from the night before. I was chatting with the bartender about my experience with plant medicine in Ecuador when all of a sudden, this guy at the bar chimes in, “You know, you’re drinking at eight o’clock in the morning, maybe you need a tune-up on the plant medicine.”

I saw that this guy was wearing some kind of band on his wrist. He went on to tell me that he’d been looking for a place to do plant medicine himself, and was thinking of going to Columbia, when he came across a place called Rythmia Life Advancement Center in Costa Rica (where his wristband was from, he’d just returned from there). It felt like the universe was speaking to me through a coincidental meeting, in a bar of all places.

So the next day, I looked up Rythmia online and was really impressed with what I saw. Thirty days later, I was there. This was a totally different type of scenario than my experience in Ecuador. It was a five-star resort, compared to roughing it in the Amazon. They have four plant medicine ceremonies per week, and since I booked myself in for two weeks, I participated in a total of eight ceremonies while I was there.

The ceremonies at Rythmia take place in this open hall, with everyone on their own beds, with blankets, pillows, bathrooms—it’s all very comfortable. And each ceremony is led by a different shaman. Going in to the first ceremony, I was kind of nervous because it had been so long since my first plant medicine experience and I just didn’t know what to expect. Everybody was talking about throwing up and well, I don’t like throwing up, so I was nervous about that. Ironically, I didn’t throw up at all during the entire two weeks.

Celestial Surgery

Just a warning: this is going to get weird.

Once the medicine started working, I felt like these little LED-type bars were doing an MRI scan of my body. My impression was that these celestial surgeons were pinpointing what was wrong with me. Then I looked at my left hand and it started raising off the ground and I saw that it was completely covered in jewels, which was really cool. I didn’t know what to make of it. It wasn’t jewels like rubies and sapphires and diamonds, but it was like an electronic version of those things. It was very strange. And then my hands began performing surgery on my body. Yeah, for real.

With each ceremony, as the days progressed, it got more and more intense. I pretty much had no control over my body apart from breathing and opening and closing my eyes. They even lifted my body around, like if they needed access to another part of my body, they would flip me over. It was really insane. Over the course of two weeks, the celestial surgeons performed many surgeries all over my body. And I had no control over the surgeons, they just did their thing.

The celestial surgeons were doing everything—giving me a new liver, a new heart, replacing my ribs, even hair implants—you name it, I had it done. But even though I wasn’t controlling what was happening, I knew everything that was going on every second. I never felt scared, in fact, I felt an incredible sense of love and peace.

There was only one time when the celestial surgeons put me to sleep and I believe it was to remove a kidney stone. Whenever the surgeons tried to touch my kidneys, I would flinch. So they knocked me out for that surgery. When I woke up, there was a surgeon looking at me in the eyes.  It was the most peaceful look I’ve ever seen in my life. I had no fear whatsoever.

Conversations with God

After this series of surgeries during my first seven plant medicine ceremonies, in the eighth and final ceremony, the medicine told me not to do anymore. “Not tonight,” I asked it? “Not ever,” it told me. “No more for you. Your work with the medicine is complete.” Since I realized I was talking with it, and it was talking back, I asked, “Who are you, what’s your name?” “I am God,” it told me. I was like, “Wait, I thought God was just a spirit, not someone I could have a chat with.”

But then God started speaking through me. No joke. And so, then grabbed a notebook and filled about four pages of paper with a Q&A with God.

After about four hours of that, I was exhausted. I just couldn’t ask any more questions. I said, “God, I’m sorry, but my paper is running out and I’m tired as can be. Can we can do this again sometime?” Then I remembered, “You told me not to do plant medicine anymore, so how am I going to be able to communicate with you?” But he told me not to worry about it, and he assured me that I don’t need to have plant medicine to communicate with him.

So that was in July 2017, and I still communicate with God on the regular whenever I want to. The process is very simple. If I lie down, lower my heart rate, and slow my breathing, I can just ask questions. The more relaxed I am, the easier it is. It doesn’t take any effort. My hands start delivering the message just like when I was on the plant medicine. God doesn’t give me any limit on how many questions to ask or when is the best time to chat or anything like that. He’s told me a number of things that are going to happen in my life, but says it’s hard to predict precise timing because there are always so many moving parts. He tells me it’s time for me to be in the passenger seat, chill out, and let him do his thing.

Before my experience at Rythmia, having regular conversations with God was definitely not something I could imagine myself doing.  I wasn’t raised hardcore religious or anything like that. In fact, I asked God if he wanted me to join a religion and he said, “No, we have a good enough connection. You don’t need that.” I know this sounds crazy, but I realize now that there are realms we just don’t understand.

Back to Reality

When I got back from Rythmia, I didn’t drink at all for several months. Now recently, I can have a drink or two socially without the need to keep drinking or do it every day. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the constant dull pain I had from a broken rib five years ago is gone. That rib never healed properly and I saw multiple doctors about it over the years. Now that pain is just gone. I also have more stamina—I can bicycle or walk a lot further, I just feel better in general. I’m actually happy inside. There’s no longer a void I feel I need to fill.

I’ve done many psychedelics in my life, but nothing came close to this experience. This wasn’t just about getting high, this was a true healing. Unless you’ve done it, I know it’s probably very difficult to understand what I’m talking about. When I did plant medicine in Ecuador in 2009, there weren’t very many people from the Western world looking into it—mostly cancer patients or people with terminal illnesses. But I’ve noticed that more and more people are open to these types of experiences now.

Is Plant Medicine for You?

If plant medicine is something that you’ve considered for yourself, I can tell you from my experience that it can be very powerful, healing, and life-changing. Now that I’ve experienced this medicine in different settings, I do believe the setting affects the experience.

Having a place like Rythmia available definitely makes these types of experiences accessible to more people. Not everyone’s going to go into the jungle in South America or feel comfortable in an illegal ceremony in their own country. But just about anybody, if they can get together the funds to go to a resort in Costa Rica, would be more than comfortable doing plant medicine there. I would send my mother there. As a matter of fact, I may actually do that…I think this is something everyone should experience if they can.

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