Pura Vida Collective
Pura Vida Collective
If you found this page while searching for an ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica, you are in good company. Many people arrive at this work through that same search. So let me say it plainly before anything else: we do not serve ayahuasca. I have deep respect for it.
That distinction matters, because it says something important about how we hold medicine: the goal is never to choose the most intense experience. It is to choose what is appropriate for the person in front of us.
Ayahuasca is a profound medicine with deep roots in Amazonian traditions, and I honor it. But I do not believe every person needs to begin with the deepest or most intense door available.
In my language, ayahuasca is an excavator. It goes deep, and it can go fast. It can bring forward grief, memory, fear, old patterns and parts of ourselves we have spent decades trying not to feel, often all at once.
Sometimes an excavator is exactly what is called for. But intensity is not the same thing as depth, and deeper is not automatically better. Many of the people who come to us have already been broken open by life: divorce, loss, burnout, a changing body, a role that ended. For them, the most extraordinary thing may not be going harder. It may be finally feeling safe enough to soften.
One of the ceremonies we may offer instead is Acacia and Syrian Rue. The two are sometimes compared with ayahuasca because both involve a DMT-containing plant together with plant compounds that inhibit MAO-A, allowing the DMT to become orally active. They are not the same preparation, tradition or experience.
| Ayahuasca | Acacia and Syrian Rue | |
|---|---|---|
| The visionary plant | Chacruna leaf (Psychotria viridis) | Acacia root bark (Acacia confusa) |
| The plant that opens the door | Ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) | Syrian Rue seed (Peganum harmala) |
| Traditional / cultural context | Amazonian traditions | Syrian Rue has longstanding traditional use across parts of the Middle East and North Africa; acacia also carries ancient symbolic associations, including in Egypt |
That pharmacology matters for safety. Acacia and Syrian Rue require careful medical and medication screening, including attention to potentially dangerous interactions with antidepressants and other medications. That conversation is not optional.
What matters to me is how a medicine meets the person. I consider Acacia and Syrian Rue a gentler plant medicine path than ayahuasca. In my experience, it can still be deep and visionary, but it often leaves more room for breath, body awareness and relationship with what is arising. Gentler does not mean shallow, easy or predictable. It means that, for many people, the medicine can open profound material without feeling as forceful or excavating as ayahuasca. That is one reason I may choose it for someone beginning this work or for a person whose system has already been carrying a great deal.
Acacia also carries layers of historical symbolism. The tree appears in ancient Egyptian religious and funerary imagery associated with life, renewal and protection. I hold that history with respect without pretending it proves a continuous ceremonial lineage. For me, the meaning is less about claiming an ancient practice and more about approaching the plant with humility.
The question worth asking is not, “Which medicine is the most powerful?” It is: is this the right medicine, in the right context, for this person, at this point in their life?
That is why no two guests at REVIVE follow an identical path. Your transformative path is individually curated with you, after medical and psychological screening and private consultation, based on your history, intentions and readiness. For some people, medicine is part of that path. For others, the most important work happens through breathwork, somatic practice, ceremony, nature and circle without a visionary medicine at all. Every threshold is yours to cross or decline.
Whatever medicine you are considering, and wherever you go, ask about the container as carefully as you ask about the medicine: how many people are in the circle, who is holding the space, how you are screened and prepared, how consent is handled, and what happens when you go home. A profound experience and a transformed life are not the same thing. Integration is what helps an experience become something you can actually live.
If you are still drawn to ayahuasca, I understand. Choose an experienced, ethically grounded, trauma-informed team, ask hard questions about screening and integration, and do not confuse intensity with quality. And if something in you is asking for a gentler door into this work, we would be honored to talk with you.
Read next: The Medicine at REVIVE · How to Choose a Safe Plant Medicine Retreat
REVIVE 2027, a luxury women's healing & longevity retreat in Costa Rica's Blue Zone. January 16 to 23, under the Wolf Moon.
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