The Garden of Peace

Unfortunately I can not recommend this place.
I have sat a 6 week plant medicine diet in the garden of peace. The land is beautiful and very magical. The shaman and his family are very kind and have a lot of wisdom. But management of the place and facilitators miss very basic awareness around space holding and around trauma. I am a somatic therapist, trained in trauma, attachment and authentic leadership. Sadly, facilitators luck awareness in all of those fields, even though they worked with the medicine for many years, they still luck a very basic energetic atunement skills. Some examples of it is that on the ceremony nights, around midnight when the ceremony is officially over, the facilitators start chitchatting in between themselves and with people, dispersing the energy created during the ceremony, most of the time many people are still under the effect of the medicine, listening to other people talking is usually very interrupting to the healing process. sudden chitchat drastically changes the energy in the space. There were way too many other examples of how not attuned and at times neglecting the facilitators were. Some of their behaviour is actually dangerous – like not giving proper post diet instructions around food. Or not properly and wholeheartedly attending to people who are asking for help during the ceremony. This can actually be a re-traumatising experience for some. We all have stress and trauma stored in our bodies from past experiences, and in plant medicine work, this is very often coming up to the surface. It is of extreme importance that people who are with us, when we do this work are properly trained, so that they can create a missing relational experience – that is the healing experience, instead of potentially re traumatising. The common theme that I was noticing is that idea that “It is the diet, it is your past wounding talking” Instead of taking responsibility and saying ” Sorry, we messed things up, we will ensure, this is not going to happen again” _ Yes, our reactions are accumulation of our past experiences, as well as a direct response to the present moment, it is both, but this of no means should be used to avoid ones responsibility to provide a safe and caring container. We heal not by being poked in the wounds, but by having a new, different relational experience, it is of a hight importance to have a very safe and caring container. So if you have been neglected to some extend as a child, being in a neglecting environment will not support the healing process.