I was nervous the first day of Frog Detox Training. We woke up in the morning, went down by the water for yoga, had breakfast, and started with some background education and medical information on kambo. To hear the stories from practitioners was amazing! I was excited to learn about the potential healing stored in this magical frog
secretion. We learned about the history of kambo and how the tradition has been passed down over the years. For those of you new to this, the frogs are not harmed in the harvesting. In fact, in order for the peptides to even be created by the frogs they have to be in their natural environment eating the local food. One of the great things about the particular training I attended is one of the educators, Donnell Wicklund, worked deeply with live blood analysis. We all had the opportunity to look at our blood under the microscope before our first session. You could see free radical damage, bacteria, uric acid crystals, and get a general idea of your health. We analyzed the blood again on the 3rd day after our 3rd session to track changes. I will probably do another post on the blood analysis down the road.
After a full day of education, it was time for our first kambo. Typically kambo is done while fasting, so the morning is prime time. Yet for this particular day we were going to work with kambo in the afternoon/evening, since enough time had passed since breakfast.
There are two other medicines worked with in many kambo ceremonies; sananga and hape.
Sananga is an eye drop medicine. It is from the Tabernaemontana genus of shrubs (“milkwood”) from the Amazon. It is used for ocular issues such as astigmatism, myopia, near/far sightedness, and color perception. On an energetic level, it lifts “panema” (low vibrational energy) out of the body, while opening and balancing the pineal gland and crown chakra. Nothing can really prepare you for your first time with sananga. It is powerful and it stings! The drops are placed on the tear duct area of your eyes while the eyes
are closed and contacts are removed. Then you open your eyes and allow the drops to slide down. The next 5-7 minutes are pretty intense. The urge to scream, claw your eyes, move, or cry are all very common. I tell my clients that the most important thing is remember to breathe and allow the energy to move through the body, even if it means rolling around on the ground. :)
One of the unique things about sananga on an energetic level is that it helps lift anger out of the body. Our eyes connect to the liver meridian and the liver is associated with the emotion of anger. It is great to use when you are feeling blocked, frustrated, or just need a reset. It is used pre-kambo (in the tradition I learned) and is great for setting intention and grounding the body in preparation for ceremony. After about 10 to 15 minutes the eyes have reset and you are ready for hape! Gracias sananga.
Hape, also known as rapé, is a sacred tobacco snuff powder that is not smoked and is legal in the US (as is sananaga). On a physical level, tobacco is a powerful detoxifier, sometimes making people feel nauseous.
Upward purging occasionally happens after a particularly powerful session. Tobacco is grounding and it clears the energetic body of negative energies or attachments. It also assists in carrying our prayers to Spirit. This snuff powder is typically applied via a “tepi”, which is a long applicator tube. A prayer or blessing is performed before application, then the practitioner blows the powder up the subject's nostrils. Unfortunately, in the Western world, we have turned tobacco on its head and added many things to it that make it unhealthy. Thus it is no longer used in ceremonial form. In the Amazon and among Native American traditions, tobacco is offered to Pachamama as a blessing and thanks for all that is provided us from Mother Earth. There are different kinds of hape and many are blended with various herbs, roots, ash, and other plant materials to create a specific “energy” for each variation. There are also varying levels of intensity. You can choose the hape that resonates with your particular ceremonial intention. Gracias Mapacho.
It was time to move on to our first kambo session...Yikes! I am not going to lie, I was nervous. I knew I would be treating some big points during this trip and I was not sure what was going to unfold for me. As mentioned in my previous blogs, still no upward “purge” (vomit) after 6 or 7 kambo sessions, as I felt I had a block around it and some scar tissue along my spine that was preventing some of the signalling from the gut to the brain.
When working with kambo, you drink a lot of water beforehand. We drank about 1.5 liters (give or take how much your body can hold at that time). This is done to assist in the purge process. Since I was used to NOT purging in my previous sessions I typically felt like a water balloon after….but I always wanted to follow tradition. Again, I knew I had a block around throwing up and I also knew I probably didn’t have the proper gut/brain communication going from scar tissue. One of my goals throughout this whole year was to heal my spine, so I knew the reconnection and ability to physically purge would come with time...would this be it?
***photos by Andrea Sarcos***
*To learn more about kambo and if it may be a good fit for you, please visit this link or reach out to Carly 336-403-6181*
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