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Temple of the Way of Light
The Temple of the Way of Light is a traditional plant-medicine shamanic healing center located in the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest that offers intensive ayahuasca retreats with female and male Shipibo healers. We are dedicated to providing our guests with the opportunity to benefit from the ancient healing wisdom of the Shipibo people, and to helping this unique culture preserve its knowledge and identity in the 21st Century.
We work with some of the most respected and powerful healers (Onanya) from the Shipibo tribe. They are highly experienced, gentle, caring, and deeply dedicated to healing and embodying the wisdom and sincerity of their people. The healing traditions of the Shipibo people offer an ancient yet pioneering path to health, re-discovering our true nature and re-awakening to our true purpose.
The Temple firmly believes in respecting and honoring the ancient practices of the Onanya, experts in ayahuasca healing and plant-spirit shamanism of the Amazon. They bring a rich cultural and medicinal legacy to the healing process: time-honored rituals, intricate practices, an expansive cosmology, an encyclopedic knowledge of medicinal plants of the Amazon, and a far-reaching ancestral lineage.
The Temple has safely facilitated healing for thousands of people since 2007 and has forged an exemplary reputation for stringent safety protocols, compassionate care, and a balance of female and male healers and facilitators. We have used our experience to fine-tune a synthesis of ancient Shipibo medicine traditions and modern and Eastern integrative practices that now extends to comprehensive aftercare and integration support long after guests have returned home. All this takes place with an institutional focus on sustainability, permaculture, ethics, and social responsibility.
We offer ayahuasca retreat programs of varying duration, focus, and intensity, with a balance of female and male Shipibo healers, experienced western facilitators, floral baths, a steam bath, a high ratio of healers to guests, a high number of ayahuasca ceremonies, individual consultations, a nutritional and balanced ayahuasca food diet, and a strong focus on how to process and integrate healing, both during and after each ayahuasca retreat.
The safety of our guests is paramount. We are constantly working to offer the safest container and most effective ayahuasca healing experience in the Amazon. We have developed the most stringent health and safety protocols available on any ayahuasca retreat in Peru. The Temple’s commitment to guests begins with in-depth medical and psychological screening during our booking procedure and continues after the retreat through our integration support. Guiding you safely through deep personal healing and growth is our priority, both in and out of ceremony.
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SerpentVine
July 24, 2015 at 12:00 amWords cannot even express our 12 days at the Temple of the Way of Light. It was the deepest and most holistic healing experience that my husband and I have ever embarked on. From the moment we met Debbie and Claude, we knew we were in good hands!
We are so grateful for the wonderful experience at the Temple and the powerful medicine that Ayahuasca is.
The Temple exceeded any expectations that we had and we always felt nurtured, cradled and so supported through the entire process.
I would and am recommending this retreat to everyone who wishes intense and deep healing that will be insightful, transformative and definitely life changing.
Here is to all you wonderful beautiful people at the Temple, in and behind the scenes, who give it their all to preserve the rich Shipibo culture and tradition of healing humanity with the mother plant medicine Ayahuasca.
IRAKU!
Kerry1
June 24, 2015 at 12:00 amMy experience of the Temple of the Way of Light was spectacular. I work as a therapist in private practice, and when I heard about the healing potential of ayahuasca I simply had to go experience it myself. It was more than I had anticipated and hope for.
I’m very thankful I choose the Temple as my destination. Their website says their intent is to provide healing to all of their guests, and I found it to be more than true. All the individuals involved in the operation were compassionate, kind, and tried to make it a healing experience for everyone.
The facilitators and healers gave generously from their heart with compassion everyday. We met with the healers individually and were given specific plant medicine based on our physical, emotional, and spiritual concerns. Then we were all blown away by the power and intensity of the ayahuasca medicine.
Personally I received healing of some physical concerns, including getting my sense of smell back. The main goal I wanted to get out of the experience was to experience my True Self to a greater degree. This occurred to a level I wasn’t expecting, and I’ll never forget it. I also was faced with a lot of negative, dark energy in my body and mind. I was able to purge that negativity and feel so much freedom after.
It’s been almost 2 weeks since I returned home and i feel like I got my mojo back. As a therapist I was feeling drained, empty, wore out, and had little reserve to take on people’s burdens. I feel refreshed and charged up again. I’ve had an extremely busy schedule catching up with clients but it’s been one of the most easy weeks. Ease….that’s been the experience. I’m not straining for wisdom…it’s been coming to me naturally with ease. I have a greater clarity, wisdom, perspective, compassion and love. It’s been a wonderful experience. I’m sure I’ll be back when i need to recharge myself again.
Coatzalcoatlxx
May 8, 2015 at 12:00 amHaving had a few weeks to adjust to returning “normal” life after my two week stay at TOTWOL, I can look back and without a shadow of a doubt say that the entire experience was one of the most remarkable experiences/inner journeys of my life.
I am now still in process, and suspect I will be for quite some time as I digest and attempt to make sense of my experience and inner shifts. Subtle yet profound.
Right from the beginning, when making contact with the Staff to signup for the two weeks, I found the co ordination and running of the operation to be impressive and consistent. They did everything and more of what they said they would do. The facilities and co ordination that makes the whole place run is exemplary.
The indigenous healers in my humble opinion where excellent. They gave their very best, and on several occasions when their skillwas obviously needed and called for, they really shone. Each of the evenings ceremonies had them always delivering 100% when in session, or singing their hauntingly beautiful Icaros. Weeks later I can still feel the vibration of their song working through me at odd and unexpected intervals.
I found the three facilitators along with the support staff (Alan, and to be top notch individuals. I enjoyed every moment of the delightful conversations with each of them. An enormous amount of experience amounts them. An enormous word of thanks Guys!
Accommodation is adequate. I so hoped for a secluded abode, and got exactly that. Others wanted to be closer to the main facility, and they had that option. The tropical downpours experienced at night without windows was something wow. Only the insect screen and the mosquito between me the night must have been one of the highlights of my rather colourful life.
I so enjoyed the entire operation harmonising with nature at every level from sewage disposal using natural methods to growing their own food, collecting rain water for showers etc etc.
Food was simple but exceptional. Always enough, with seconds available. Just two weeks on this diet was enough to clean up the system and provide a healing of its own. Plenty of FRESH fruit available. Awesome home cooking.
Sessions where intense. I spent much of my time nauseas and or vomitting. The relief afterwards is in describable. Something clearly shifted on many levels somewhere within these sessions.
Have to say that Ayavausca is NOT a recreational experience. To sit through 7 sessions requires determination and a willingness to face one’s own sh1te. The reward was worth every ounce of hardship. Great to see so many healers for the group. We had 7 for about 22 pax. Seven healers 3 where women, created a great energetic blend or mix that a single healer alone could never attempt. The method and diversity of healers created a no escape strategy to oust unhelpful energies tightly help within the body. I am still in awe at how a Women could sit down infront of me, and within minutes Id be experiencing the urge to purge or the act it self to purge. Something rather significant at work.
I would have no hesitation to return to the TOTWOL for a second experience when the dust has settled.
And lastly a final word of thanks to the many hidden fairies (helpers) behind the scenes that make things happen when I wasnt looking, whether that be the lighting of lamps, the removals of the sewer buckets, cleaning of the showers and toilets, changing of bedding, the chefs and so many more. Thank you all!
I will be back.
christova
March 29, 2015 at 12:00 amWow wow wow..
15 years of therapy in a 12 days retreat… its all i have to say about my retreat at the temple… Blowing mind experience and tones of deep healing that actually last and last and last…
I would recommend no other place to go for ceremony.. In the jungle, at the temple of the way of light, with maestro and maestra, doctors of jungle..
I really healed what i came for to heal.. I still can’t really believe it but man, it is just amazing how my every day life has just changed.. I have been totally rewired, it is like all the connections in my brain are now back to normal.. My thoughts are clear and i am centered and solid and strong… I see life for what it really is and all the illusion we are all trapped in.. I can just smile all the time when i see people living the comedy de la vie, being enslaved by belief system that i don’t relay to anymore.. Life is a joke and a blessing.. Thank you Ayahuasca, thank you Mathieu, debt and all the people out there for an amazing internal healing journey to heal and transform the outside world.
For accommodations, I am a bit picky, i wish i knew it was so wet and humid i would have brought my own pillow and a little cover ( sensitive to smell)… Nothing last long under the tropics in the rain forest, so be prepared for it.. Cabines are rustic, lots of life and crawling life.. Mosquito loved me. But never mind, my experience there, at the temple, a BLAST…
Thank you all over there.. I Love you.. You are my best move ever for taking care of myself in this life time of mine..
SF Rex
March 29, 2015 at 12:00 amIn Oct 2014 I watched a Lisa Ling documentary on CNN where she followed a group of war vets with PTSD to an ayahuasca retreat in Peru and immediately decided that I would travel to Peru to try ayahuasca. After watching the show I jumped on the web and within maybe 15 minutes landed on TOTWOL and it just felt right so I booked the trip (note I am not a war vet but I do have PTSD type issues resulting from non-war traumas).
Fast forward a couple of months and I’m in the Amazon jungle at the temple … I’ve never done anything like this so I am wide-eyed, excited, anxious and a little scared at what is to come. For perspective, I’m 56 years old, have traveled internationally fairly extensively for all manner of adventure type travel and am not easily impressed. But I would have to say that I was completely impressed by pretty much every aspect of this operation. The facilitators were genuine, attentive and super on top of my experience (which was very challenging). The shamans were friendly and very legitimate. The facilities were authentic structures for a jungle setting and quite adequately met all my needs. The food was plentiful and much better than I anticipated. The ceremonies (there are seven over a twelve day period) were awesomely authentic and so powerful it defies explanation … you just have to experience it.
I was also impressed by the number of people in our group (Dec 2014) who were there for their 2nd and 3rd time and really felt that this was a great testimony to the legitimacy and efficacy of this retreat. In fact, I am returning for another 12 day retreat this coming July 2015.
One area that cries out for improvement (actually it cries out for development because it currently does not exist) is some type of aftercare / outreach / counseling for individuals who experience a rough landing when they arrive back home, as I did. I was met with a totally unexpected major life change upon landing at my home city airport that I really think had some connection to my healing experience with the plant medicine and could have used some type of follow-up support … yet there was none. I emailed the facilitator and received no response. I do realize that aftercare was never guaranteed nor promised but I think it’s a missing link that would be very powerful if offered.
Bottom line, I highly recommend Temple of the Way of Light for an authentic and powerful healing experience.