GETTING WARMER
“When you act from within the wisdom of love, you become the medicine and sustain the circle. It shapes you as you draw it. The wisdom of love is the medicine. This medicine is the serpent swallowing its own tail. Alpha and omega are just pulsations within the coiling.”
— RICHARD POWER, PLANETARY EMERGENCY, PERSONAL EMERGENCE: PATH OF AN EVOLUTIONARY
"When we heal ourselves, we also heal our ancestors, our grandmothers, our grandfathers, and our children. When we heal ourselves, we also heal mother earth."
— RITA PITKA BLUMENSTEIN
I WOULD HAVE TO LOOK outside of the country for treatment, as iboga was illegal here in the United States. Why? I wondered. Yes, it was powerful medicine, but I was learning that it could be safe in the right hands.
Maybe it’s illegal because it works too well, I mused. Or maybe because the plant itself can’t be patented, as something already so perfect growing straight out of the ground. Or maybe...because of a deeply ingrained puritanical prejudice against visionary medicines and the “heathen” indigenous wisdom traditions that hold them. No matter the reason, we’d have to leave familiar territory.
In my search for a healer, I found a smattering of medical detox facilities in the world that featured ibogaine, rather than iboga.
Ibogaine had clearly helped many people. I understood that certain people would surely feel more at ease with a medical and Western therapeutic approach, but I did not feel called to it for either Chor or myself. I was feeling in the dark on behalf of both our searching spirits.
Finding the right healer, tradition, and medicine is an extremely delicate and intuitive matter, for we are all unique. I felt magnetized to the natural medicine and a traditional shamanic healer. Maybe Chor’s ancestors were whispering to me. And mine.
There were very few providers in the world offering drug detox treatment with the natural iboga plant medicine, and even fewer that featured traditional roots. My antennae tingled when I found a website for a retreat center called Iboga Sanctuary in Panama featuring Mopunga, a 12th generation Bwiti shaman from Gabon, Africa, where the medicine grows.
Mopunga seemed to be a living bridge between two very different worlds. The medicine was literally in his blood. Mopunga was a traditional African shaman, yet he worked at a healing retreat center accessible to the Western world. He had grown up in a tribe in Gabon, yet he spoke fluent English and he had an understanding of American and Western culture. It seemed vital to be able to communicate intimately with one’s healer. Mopunga had many years of experience healing drug addiction, and he had a team of medical doctors on call for support if needed.
Hmm. We are getting warmer.
In one video, Mopunga explained that “taking iboga without a qualified guide is like driving a car while blindfolded.” In another video, he expressed sadness over the bad press about iboga, for people had reported bad experiences only when they had inadvertently disrespected or misused the medicine.
I watched the many video testimonials on the Iboga Sanctuary website. Visitors would bare their souls and reveal their most intimate struggles and victories before the camera. Former addicts, trauma survivors, veterans, and people recovering from depression spoke bravely about their miracles with iboga—and with Mopunga. My body shimmered with resonance. My eyes widened and my senses sharpened as I struggled to catch every detail. I leaned forward, my heart reaching. I felt the excitement of possibility and a sensation of inner light. Each testimonial touched me. These people were putting their faces out there for this place. I could feel the palpable frequency of sincerity and genuine healing.
“Look at these, baby.” Chor and I curled up with the laptop on our big, cozy, velvet, modern, earth-colored couch. It had been our first big adult purchase together, and it had served as our sweet sanctuary ever since. The couch cradled us as we watched the videos together. Chor was intrigued. Opening. Softening. Listening. His mind opened a sliver more.
Chor did some of his own research in the next few days, though he was still tentative. A good sign, but he was headed in a different direction. He sent me links to some medical detox centers that used ibogaine.
I had to voice my sixth sense on the matter. “Love, I encourage you to experience the natural iboga—with the complete plant spirit and all the alkaloids—in traditional ceremony. It just feels like the right thing... for you .”
He balked at my intuition and pagan predilections. “You just think you know everything!” He didn’t outwardly display much respect for my take on things. Sometimes expressing my opinions to Chor felt like a subtle battle.
Like a brute lawyer, Chor challenged me on every positive point I brought up regarding Mopunga and the natural medicine. I wondered how much of his aggravated vibe was the demon inside him, resisting banishment. But at least he was still engaged in this conversation, desperate to survive and thrive, and open to possibilities for the medicine.
I showed Chor a video interview I found in which Mopunga spoke about the difference between iboga and ibogaine; he shared his perspective that ibogaine lacked the complete plant spirit. So great was his passionate reverence for the natural plant medicine and Bwiti ceremony, he seemed to beam over the borders of the little screen right into our living room. I could see Chor contemplating; Mopunga’s words were simmering and settling within him.
“This is a traditional shaman,” I pleaded. “He has thousands of years of experience distilled in him. He is from Africa where this medicine grows.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, being from Africa!” He argued, slinging suspicion. His eyes narrowed into arrows pointing right at me. “Crooked motherfuckers can be anywhere!” He built a bitter fortress with his words. So I retreated for the moment.
Despite his acidic attitude, I still felt drawn to this oasis in Panama, to the plant spirit, to this man, Mopunga.