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Psychedelic Therapy 4
Mimosa Hostilis/Tepezcohuite (DMT) medicine
[Mimosa Hostilis] The Sacred Tepezcohuite Tree of Life Ceremony
October 2023
Contents
Introduction
Temazcal (Sweat Lodge)
DMT Round 1
DMT Round 2
DMT Round 3
DMT Round 4
DMT Round 5
Wrap-Up
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Introduction
Tepezcohuite (DMT): what the heck is it? was my first reaction. I won’t bore you with the details from a research point of view, but we’ll cover the basics. Tepezcohuite is a plant medicine from Mexico, known to the ancient Mayan civilization as Mexican ayahuasca. The scientific name for Tepezcohuite is Mimosa Hostilis. Also, Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is the organic compound found in the plant, which can produce hallucinations and life or death sensations when we’re in the driver’s seat smoking or drinking the sacred medicine.
Today, we’ll dive into a Tepezcohuite ceremony at a jungle in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. Okay, let’s put on the ceremony glasses!
Temazcal (Sweat Lodge)
The Temazcal is the warm-up before the Tepezcohuite (DMT) ceremony. The traditional Mexican sweat lodge is shaped as a small igloo, occupying six to eight people seated with their legs crossed. Standing up and walking inside isn’t an option for us adults; the entrance is too short.
“We’re going to have some magic mushrooms before we go inside the Temazcal,” says Sadie, the curandero (healer). I thought the agenda is to sweat it out for two hours and listen to Sadie pray and chant before smoking the Mexican ayahuasca.
I eat two chocolates with magic mushrooms, and so does Xenia, the retreat leader and psilocybin healer from last night’s shrooms ceremony.
Sadie, Xenia, and I crawl into the dark sweat lodge. He’s turning up the heat with sauna coal blocks the size of miniature soccer balls. Sadie begins the Temazcal ceremony by reciting a prayer.
My breaths get deeper while Sadie’s chanting ancient songs in Spanish. I’m sweating heavily from head to toe, quicker than I thought.
“We are going to do part three of the Temazcal. This one is the most intense. We will scream. Think of all the pain inside you want to let go. You will scream after we inhale. Okay, inhale,” says Sadie.
I exhale, screaming loudly and ferociously, clenching my fists and flexing my upper body. I see electrical blue and white lighting swirls inside the pitch-black sweat lodge.
I sit with my head down over my knees, in a hugging position, slightly whimpering. “Lay down,” says Xenia. A tear falls down from the right corner of my eye from the vicious shouting I did a few seconds ago.
Sadie, Xenia, and I crawl out of the Temazcal and walk to our seated areas. Sadie offers Xenia an additional dose of magic mushrooms. Xenia passes, I accept the chocolate, and Sadie starts the fire to kick off the Tepezcohuite (DMT) ceremony.
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DMT Round 1
The first two pipe hits of the Mimosa Hostilis plant, lit up by Sadie, along with the three magic mushrooms chocolates in my system, has me in beat with Sadie’s singing and wooden maraca shaking.
I recognize the song Sadie’s chanting in Spanish. It’s “The Earth is Our Mother,” a song I remember singing in third grade during a library assembly on a rainy day. I see Ms. O hitting a large spiritual conga drum with both hands. Her new age and plant medicine healer look and feel stands out compared to other teachers at my elementary school. “Heyana, hoyana, heyan-yan; heyana, hoyana, heyan-yan,” I sing in English, and Sadie says the chorus in Spanish.
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DMT Round 2
As I lay on the ground looking above me, huge tree branches covered with leaves hover like a canopy. To the top right of my view is a small circular opening with a full moon in the center.
I raise my right arm with my hand open, directing it to the moon, symbolically saying, “Give my soul healing energy.” A bright white border forms around the bottom half of the full moon. It shoots a light white laser beam at me, indicating that I’m on center stage. This reminds me of the beam coming out of the prism on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover, but what I see is a thin white beam rather than the album’s thick rainbow-colored beam.
The white moon laser beam disappears; my attention shifts to the jungle’s massive tree branches covering the sky, like a roof over my head. The leaves become dark gray and purple multidimensional voxels, similar to the 3D boxes in the Minecraft computer games.
One large tree branch above me, full of leaves, is aligned to my body. It would land perfectly on me if it were to fall down. I can feel the tree branch inhaling and exhaling and getting closer to me. A triangular box appears, resembling a face with 3D voxel leaves. The bulky tree branches and leaves surrounding the one large tree branch aligned above me transition to dark gray and purple 3D voxels.
DMT Round 3
The fire looks more colorful after smoking another round of Tepezcohuite. Light green circular rubies form an arch shield above the fire, while the bottom of the orange flames near the wooden logs have a nice blue border.
Across from me is Xenia, sitting upright in a lotus position with her hair tied and muscular shoulders bare, looking like the Hindu Shiva god. Xenia’s moving her arms and upper body elegantly, depicting a professional dancer from India.
Sadie takes a break from singing and talks about the roots of Mexico’s Tepezcohuite ceremony. He has my full attention. Sadie’s face disappears for a moment. His husky body frame shrinks a little and slowly fades as he elaborates. His all-white healer outfit slightly glows, transforming to a spiritual ghost.
I lay my back on the ground again, curiously observing the breathing tree branches in the jungle. I stop and stare directly above me. Nothing is crossing my mind. “I’m sorry to everyone I hurt; please forgive me,” I say quietly, shedding a few tears.
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DMT Round 4
I sit with my legs crossed, looking at the dusty jungle ground. Sadie sings and shakes his small maraca after smoking the Mimosa Hostilis.
My right hand holds my left elbow, and my left hand holds my right elbow. The dark hair on my forearms become sand-colored. The forearm hair is gradually disappearing. Now, there’s no more forearm hair. Thin dust streams, like a sand clock, slowly release from the flesh of my forearms, moving horizontally.
The flow of dust streams makes my forearms’ flesh skinnier. It’s a glimpse of what will happen when I’m dead and before I turn into a skeleton. Witnessing this is intriguing rather than terrifying.
DMT Round 5
My eyes widen and freeze after taking a final hit of Tepezcohuite.
Sadie and Xenia are across from me. A black 3D box falls from above like a curtain. I’m in a new dimension outside of the black jungle. Bold white music notes and exclamation points pop up and zoom out on top of the black 3D box, while the beautiful sounds from the gusli instrument, played by Xenia, amplify my hearing.
I’m on the front seat of a joy ride, speeding forward to the white light. A joker head pops out of an old-school jack-in-the-box toy, and there’s a dark red and light gray background. The joker head attaches to a thick steel spring, connecting inside the huge box. Gray toy-like icons come at me from my right view.
The 3D black box evaporates, enabling me to return to the jungle.
As Sadie packs up his stuff, I create soft and playful music with Xenia’s pocket-size kalimba piano to unwind from smoking the Mimosa Hostilis medicine.
I finish playing the kalimba just in time as Sadie gives Xenia and me the signal to head to the car to call it a night.
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Wrap-Up
The Temezcal (ancient sweat lodge) and Tepezcohuite (Mayan/Mexican ayahuasca) were two special ceremonies interdependent on one another. Consuming a dosage of psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and smoking Tepezcohuite (Mimosa Hostilis/DMT) helped me connect deeper with the external jungle environments, along with the curanderos (healers) Sadie and Xenia.
I had no negative side effects, such as a hangover, feeling as if my brain is fried, or exhaustion. This might sound farfetched, depending on who you ask, but I have a different perspective of plants, trees, and vegetation now. They have life; they breath; they give us life.
Using the Tepezcohuite (Mimosa Hostilis) plant medicine at a retreat center in Mexico is legal and safe. Every genuine retreat leader and/or healer will ask a few medical-related questions (less than 10) to determine if a psychedelic plant medicine is the right fit for us. If there’s no screening before we go into the details, even if the price is right, is a red flag. We want peace of mind before, during, and after our retreat and/or ceremony booking. The experience and healing is what matters.
