the beginning
In February 2024 on a farm in Middle of Nowhere, Portugal, I embarked on a deep transformational experience using the very intense healing power of the plant medicine: Iboga.
I want to stress the potential danger of Iboga without scaring people away from this deeply healing plant medicine: Iboga is a incredibly powerful and should be approached with care. This blog contains no medical advice and is only my personal experience. Unless proper precautions, such as a medical team and EKG machine constantly monitoring your heartrate, complications and even death can occur.
Iboga is a plant medicine that is known for it’s Grandfather energy; to me it feels very grounded, earthy, accessing ancestral and potentially past life information ingrained your roots. I would compare it to Ayahuasca in the sense that Ayahuasca is equally powerful and is known for it’s Grandmother essence. To me, because Ayahuasca is enlightening and the energy exists up around your head and your upper chakras; where as Iboga is more grounded in your lower chakras and physical body.
The two sacred plant medicines have similar but different energies in many ways. Iboga comes from the root bark of a shrub in Central Africa, whereas Ayahuasca comes from the rainforest of South America and both are used by indigenous people in sacred ceremony.
safety
Before the ceremony we got our blood drawn and the medical staff assessed our weight (for dosing), our blood pressure and our heart rate. During the ceremony we were hooked up to the EKG machine the whole time of 36 hours to make sure we were okay and healthy enough to continue taking the dose. Iboga can cause arrythmia which can lead to death, so if you are considering working with Iboga, take this into consideration in selecting which center you use.
We had a breathwork session before the Iboga and we talked about how using this plant medicine is very much embarking on a Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey was a story-model designed by Joseph Campbell where a normal person goes through something intense, wins and is transformed. We knew that we would be different after this experience.
the ceremony
When the effects of the Iboga began I was mentally and metaphysically preparing to ‘fight’ a monster: I knew that this monster represented all of my doubts, insecurities and fears and in fighting it I was proving my worthiness, my courage and my strength to myself.
Initially, there was fear and doubt in my mind questioning 1. could I win this fight? and 2. would I literally die if I didn’t? This pattern of doubting myself has been present in my past and I decided I was sick and tired of letting it direct my life. Even though I didn’t feel 100% ready I knew I was as ready as I’d ever be, I also knew that when you are afraid is the only time you can be brave and I found comfort in that.
My mind created the fighting arena: there was a bridge I had to cross with a door on the other side into a castle, naturally the monster was on the bridge blocking my path.
I had to jump at bridge, at the monster, kill him and get into the door behind him. He was big and scary but I imagined my brother being in danger behind the door and that gave me the inspiration I needed to begin my attack.
As I jumped toward the monster with all the courage (and a cool sword) I could muster and I suddenly felt this bottomless well of resilience rise up inside me. It began in my solar plexus and my heart moving and flowing throughout my body to my appendages. It was incredibly visceral and my real physical body moved and undulated with this energetic flow. It felt like the deepest strength and loudest courage, like my heart was transforming into a very literal ‘heart of a lion.’
This bottomless well was previously unbeknownst and unfamiliar to me, but I realized it was my birthright and I claimed it. Any doubts that tried to dance through my head like “but what if you can’t,” “what if you fail,” suddenly died, dissolved and turned to ash and I knew these were lies. What was left was an even stronger, tangible and more resonant truth that echoed in my bones: “there’s no way you can fail,” “there is no such thing as failure.” It felt like every cell in my body had turned into sunshine.
Once the monster came to his end with the blade of my sword, I opened the door of the castle and I met Iboga. Telepathically, he spoke to me in a deep voice, and I tumbled even further back into my subconscious, not falling, but weightless. Under the mentorship of Iboga I was able to deep work - it was almost as if my ‘Jess Avatar’ was broken down into the smallest particles and spread throughout the farthest reaches of the known universe so I could see all my parts and components - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and work with them.
One of the things I learned was Iboga shows you the things that you have been avoiding, for me this looks like 1. sadness, because it reminds me of being depressed in the past so it doesn’t feel safe to access 2. avoiding and suppressing the thoughts that I’m an imposter and not good enough 3. thinking that I’m an failure 4. that everything is my fault and 5. thinking that I’m unworthy and unlovable and 6. that I don’t deserve my wild and abundant life.
feeling myself die
During the experience I felt (knew) I was dying, but I also was deeply aware that I was dying in order to be reborn.
Iboga helped me feel all the things I was afraid of and I died through each emotion I was resisting. I experienced death through sadness, death through being not good enough, death through failure, death because it was my fault, death through my unworthiness and death through being undeserving. I died through embracing and accepting these things; this was so painful and felt awful and like the most suffering I had ever suffered. But it felt like this old Jess had to die through these things in order to be reborn into a new unwavering resiliency and courage. Old Jess couldn’t fathom those things, so she needed to die.
Kill the boy and let the man be born.
This whole ceremony took a day and a half and by the end of my semi-psychedelic journey I walked through hell. The Iboga wasn’t done teaching me yet. In hell I saw the most awful things - my imagination is incredibly vivid but the things I saw in hell were surprising, even for me. Hell was barren and dead and the color was all bleached out, it was bleak, hopeless and reeked of the deepest despair. Just as quickly as I wanted to resist it I realized it was better to surrender and I decided to keep walking - much like the Winston Churchill quote.
If you're going through hell, keep going.
In surrendering to this entire experience, I realized I was okay. Even dead and in hell, I was okay. This was a truly enlightening experience: I was okay in this hell, I sat with the despair, the pain, the suffering, the agony. I didn’t resist what I was feeling, seeing and going through. Through sacred surrender I felt this spark of sunshine and acceptance deep inside myself. I realized I was in hell, and that’s okay. I was suffering, in pain and scared, and that was okay. I was fearful I would never get out, and that was okay. I was afraid I was a failure, and that was okay. I was afraid I was unlovable and unworthy, and that was okay. I felt like I was an imposter and undeserving of my wild and amazing life, and that was okay. Suddenly no matter how negative my brain’s thoughts spiraled, the resonant truth that it was all okay echoed like a heart beat in and around myself.
being rebor
What a revelation it was! Surrendering to every thought of doubt and despair started to shape an innate and immovable self acceptance. I was able to hear the electricity that energized my heart and the blood pumping through my veins.
I realized I was listening to my own aliveness.
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy.For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger –
something better, pushing right back.
―Albert Camus
I realized at the deepest level of existence there exists incredible pain - however, that pain is paired and indistinguishable from the most orgasmic feeling of love and electricity. The very essence of life itself?! How lucky was I to experience this fantastical and life changing truth?!
Even though I was in pain, dead, in hell and suffering, there was this dogged determination to continue, a passion and zest for life’s juiciness even at rock bottom. Due to my prior work with death and transformation, I am comfortable at rock bottom because I know that it’s where the deepest transformation can occur.
I was being initiated.
My intention before the Iboga was my continued passion, zest and love for life, my desire to go on, live loudly and unapologetically. I have always lived like I was telling the best story ever told and I wanted that magic to be branded on my soul.
Through this activation, I realized there was no such thing as right and wrong, there are only varying perspectives based on the color of our filter of experiences. That we are all one, that we are all different versions of each other, that we are all still twelve years old trying to figure out life, scared and insecure and doing out best. It made me weep tears from the deepest parts of my bones and DNA.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”- Rumi
coming back in my body
When I was coming out of the experience I heard Jason crying and ‘knew’ it was because I had died; I was upset because I ‘knew’ he had to call my parents and tell them I was dead and they would be devastated.
Physically, I was feeling horrible and when I told the medical staff the look on their faces was of concern, so that only deepened my conclusion that I was dead - that somehow I did Iboga wrong and it had killed me. Jason came into the room asking for a hug and I ‘knew’ it was because he wanted to see me one last time before my body was taken away.
He came into the room and hugged me and suggested we sit outside in the sunshine and once I was finally able to get up, we sat outside. I told him how much of a failure I was, I didn’t deserve him, everything was my fault and I asked him if he called my parents - to my surprise he laughed and asked what I was talking about - I continued “but I’m dead and someone needs to tell my parents.” He assured me I was not dead and in fact, very much alive as I had been reborn through this process.
We sat in the bright afternoon light of springtime in Portugal looking at the yellow flowers that tumbled out into the field in front of us. We talked, connected, shared insights and vulnerability, cuddled and loved one another without any resistance, hesitation or expectation. The love I felt in these moments exceed any love I’ve ever felt in my life. It was life in the form of love after feeling dead; the most alive and vibrant love I’ve ever experienced.
A day or two later we did 5MeO-DMT which is a very powerful psychedelic to complete the circle of the ceremony. It was the most beautiful DMT experience I have ever had: as I relaxed down to the ground my body wanted to stretch, so I did, and the further I stretched the better it felt. I laughed with the purity, effervescence and unencumberedness of a child’s laugh: a laugh free from the wisdom and pain of life’s experiences. I sobbed and the sobbing felt just as good as the laughter: it felt like I was releasing the deepest sadness that had occupied my internal organs and dwelled in my DNA. I cried for myself, my family, my friends, and my ancestors, I cried for everyone I knew, and then everyone who had ever been.
It felt delicious to allow it to come out, to be expressed, to be witnessed, and to be healed.
the healing process
The healing process continued with similar intensity and took another full week. I was exhausted and felt like a raw nerve walking around; my nervous system felt fried, lights were too bright, any sounds were too loud, people were way to people-y. I found it difficult to interact with my fellow humans. I had just been in hell - it was hard to relate.
During my healing process in this heavy dream-like state, I found out that one of my closest friends died. Tiffany Barsotti was my mentor, medical intuitive, spiritual counselor, roommate, co-worker in the realm of biofield and subtle energy sciences and a light in the life of anyone who was lucky enough to know her.
Because I was feeling dead, it felt impossible that Tif and I were both dead. I felt like I was in the ‘woods between worlds’ so I reached out to Tif through the aether, I felt her presence and energy. She visited, energetically hugged me tightly and assured me that I was not dead and would continue to live; and she shared that she was on the most incredible adventure.
Being in this state of in between life and death felt oddly synchronous because I felt close to her in this nebulous state where nothing and everything was simultaneously real; where everything was impossible and possible at the same time.
waking up into my aliveness
Now that I have fully come back from this experience I feel AMAZING. When I speak, my statements feel more authentic to my truth and my soul. My listening to understand has improved, my desire to connect and understand others has deepened. It feels like the back of my brain woke up.
I am inspired to live deeper, I feel healthy, vibrant and alive. I feel centered in myself, aligned in my soul and grounded in my path, purpose, and mission.
I am so grateful for my courage to work with this plant medicine; I am grateful for this Hero’s Journey through this spiritual ceremony and deep healing process with Iboga.
In this space I realized that grief is a gift and that sitting with grief allows the sadness to become sacred.
Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.
―Jamie Anderson
~
I hope you enjoyed my personal journey with Iboga. If you have any questions about it I would love to connect with you. Once again, it’s important to select a good center with a medical team if you decide to take this journey! It’s hard, but worth it!
~
This blog is dedicated to and in honor of the life, the light, the love and the work of Rev. Tiffany Barsotti M.Th, PhD.
Please consider donating to her fund here to continue her work and legacy to advance the field of biofield sciences, and increase collaborations that foster connections between healing practitioners and scientists.
