This experience may be right for you if you feel a sincere call toward deeper self-understanding, emotional honesty, personal responsibility, and meaningful inner change.

It may be especially relevant if you are ready to meet old pain, grief, trauma, or repeating patterns with support; if you feel disconnected from purpose, direction, or aliveness; or if you are seeking a grounded ceremonial experience with preparation, care, and integration.

This work is not suitable for everyone, and timing matters. Readiness is not about being perfect, fearless, or fully healed. It is about being willing, stable enough, honest enough, and appropriately supported.

The best first step is a personal consultation with Maestro Sani before arrival. This gives you space to ask questions, discuss your intentions, understand the process, and explore whether this experience is appropriate for you at this time.

Our aim is not to convince anyone. Our aim is to create clarity, trust, and alignment. Sometimes the most supportive answer is yes. Sometimes the most supportive answer is not yet. Both can be part of the path.

Trust is built through transparency, preparation, conversation, and clear agreements. From the first contact through the retreat itself, we help participants understand the process, ask questions, and feel informed.

The most sacred gift of this work is not only the ceremony itself. It is what happens around it: the preparation, the processing, the understanding, the self-awareness, and the integration that continues at home.

This is where many retreat experiences fall short. People may have powerful ceremonies, but without the space, language, and support to understand what happened, much of the meaning can be lost.

At Soul Journey, transformation is not treated as a single event. It is a process.

A process that includes physical, emotional, relational, and ceremonial safety. This means appropriate screening, informed consent, supportive facilitation, clear boundaries, respectful group agreements, and access to help whenever needed.

You are also entering a space with other people who have chosen to be there for their own reasons, questions, and hopes. While everyone is encouraged to honour their own process and personal space, a sense of community often develops naturally. Participants often support one another through kindness, respect, and shared understanding, helping create an environment where people can feel welcomed, seen, and less alone.

We do not promise that nothing difficult can happen. What we do promise is that safety is taken seriously, and that we do our best to prepare for the realities of deep inner work with care, responsibility, and support.

It is natural to feel fear or nervousness before a powerful or unfamiliar experience. Understanding that fear is often part of the path is something we acknowledge and explore.

Fear may point to where you need more clarity, grounding, questions answered, or support before, during and after the experience. It can exist alongside excitement, anticipation, and uncertainty. In itself, it is not a sign that you are making the wrong choice. It may be a sign that you are heading in the right direction.

Our pre-journey preparation is designed to help participants understand what may arise, how to navigate challenging moments, and how to ask for support. The aim is not to remove fear entirely, but to help you arrive informed, grounded, and supported.

Challenging experiences can happen. They may include fear, grief, nausea, confusion, emotional intensity, difficult memories, or spiritual imagery that feels confronting.

If this happens, you will not be left alone. The team is present to provide support, reassurance, grounding, and guidance. Maestro Sani may work directly with you through song, presence, prayer, or verbal support where appropriate.

Our intention is to help you move through difficult moments with steadiness and care. Not every challenge becomes an immediate breakthrough, but difficult material can often become meaningful when it is met safely and integrated afterwards.

Our screening begins during the consultation process. We ask about health history, medications, mental health, current treatment, and any conditions that may affect participation.

Participants receive written guidance and may be asked to consult a licensed healthcare provider before attending. In some cases, we may require medical clearance or decide that the retreat, or certain parts of it, are not appropriate at this time.

On arrival, we review key safety information again to confirm that nothing has changed.

Ayahuasca can be powerful and meaningful, but it also carries real risks and may not be suitable for everyone. Safety begins before you arrive, through honest disclosure, careful screening, preparation, and clear guidance.

Some conditions, medications, and psychological states may make ayahuasca unsafe or inappropriate. Potential contraindications may include psychiatric medications such as SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs, and other medications that affect serotonin, mood, blood pressure, or the nervous system; serious heart conditions; high blood pressure; pacemakers; stroke history; seizure history; epilepsy; certain brain injuries or neurological conditions; serious respiratory vulnerability; pregnancy; substance use; recent medication changes; dehydration; physical vulnerability; or an inability to safely participate in a retreat setting.

Certain mental health histories also require careful consideration. We may be unable to accept participants with current or recent psychosis, schizophrenia, delusions, mania, acute instability, or psychiatric medication use that is contraindicated with ayahuasca.

Participants must be over 21 years old and must fully disclose medical history, mental health history, medications, supplements, substance use, and relevant diagnoses. If you are under the care of a doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, or other licensed provider, we strongly encourage you to discuss your interest in this retreat with them before making any decisions or changes to medication or treatment.

For PTSD, CPTSD, depression, anxiety, or trauma history, we assess carefully and individually. Having a trauma history does not exclude someone, but current stability, support systems, treatment history, readiness, and ability to remain present and supported are important.

During consultation, we discuss risks, contraindications, preparation, and aftercare, and provide written medical and preparation guidance so each person can make an informed and responsible decision.

Our safety approach includes preparation, screening, informed consent, group agreements, experienced facilitation, clear communication, and on-site support.

Guests are supported before they arrive through the preparation process, including clear written guidance, pre-retreat consultation, and online video sessions. This helps participants understand what to expect, ask questions, raise concerns, and begin the journey feeling more informed, grounded, and safe.

Key elements include medical and psychological screening questions, medication and contraindication review, written preparation guidance, group orientation and agreements, staff support during retreat activities and ceremonies, emergency protocols and access to local medical support, and integration support after the retreat.

The facilitation team is made up of experienced staff with a clear track record, appropriate training, disciplined preparation practices, and a strong moral code. Their role is to hold the retreat space with care, responsibility, respect, and clear boundaries throughout the process.

This work is not simply a role for our team. It is something we live. Our staff are committed to the path of transformation, and that lived commitment informs the care, presence, and responsibility we bring to every participant.

You will be guided by Maestro Sani, and supported by the Soul Journey team. Maestro Sani leads the ceremonial and transformational processes, while the team helps maintain the practical and emotional container of the retreat and holds some of the classes.

Maestro Sani teaches 15 hours of guided self-awareness training, education, and processing across the retreat, helping you understand and integrate your experience with greater clarity and responsibility.

The whole Soul Journey team supports the practical and emotional container of the retreat, while also guiding massage, Kundalini yoga, myofascial release, and breathwork sessions. Together, they help create a grounded, respectful, and supportive environment throughout the experience.

During ceremony, Sani may use prayer, song, presence, guidance, and traditional ceremonial elements. The support team helps with practical needs, reassurance, and maintaining a respectful environment.

You are not expected to navigate any of the experience alone. At the same time, your autonomy matters. You will be supported, not forced. Your boundaries, consent, and wellbeing remain central.

Feeling nervous about a group setting is normal. Many people arrive with some concern about being vulnerable around strangers.

Before arrival, you will have opportunities to meet Maestro Sani, some team members and the group through video calls. These calls help build familiarity, answer questions, and create a sense of shared respect. Because the journey begins before arrival, participants often come to the retreat already feeling connected, familiar, and welcomed into the space.

On the first night, we discuss safety, confidentiality, boundaries, communication, and group agreements. The aim is to create an environment where people feel seen, respected, and not judged.

We cannot promise that every group will feel like family, but many participants do form meaningful connections. We take group culture seriously because it directly affects safety, trust, and integration.

At Soul Journey, transformation is not treated as a single event. It is a process.

Pierce/Maestro Sani brings more than 25 years of combined experience guiding people through deep personal transformation. This experience shapes the way participants are prepared before, supported during, and guided afterwards as they return to daily life.

We believe that if you cannot communicate an experience, it is much harder to integrate it. That is why processing is central to the Soul Journey approach. Through conversation, reflection, guided preparation, and integration support, participants are helped to make sense of what arises and carry that understanding into their lives.

Every person’s experience is different. Some people arrive hoping for one thing and discover that the retreat brings something entirely different.

Many participants describe the Soul Journey Retreat as a powerful encounter with themselves. Some speak of reconnecting with who they are beneath old patterns, protections, fears, stories, and survival strategies. Others describe a greater sense of self-understanding, emotional honesty, compassion, forgiveness, and love for themselves and others.

People may experience a sense of lightness, release, clarity, or inner spaciousness. Some describe feeling as though their heart has opened, or as though they are able to meet parts of themselves they had previously avoided, resisted, or forgotten.

For some, the experience can bring deep reflection around grief, anger, shame, fear, trauma, relationships, purpose, or the direction of their life. This can be a powerful part of healing.

Within the traditions that work with ayahuasca, the plant is often understood as a teacher. Many people describe the medicine as having an intelligence of its own, one that works through feeling, memory, vision, emotion, body awareness, and direct inner experience.

Mother Ayahuasca is the spiritual and the maternal aspect. Some speak of feeling held by the medicine, experiencing the nurturing, protective, and wise, maternal guidance. Finding comfort, trust, or courage within the process.

The possible benefits are not only about what happens during the experience. They are also about what you choose to do with the experience afterwards. Insight becomes valuable when it is integrated into daily life, relationships, choices, habits, and the way you meet yourself. This is why integration is central to the Soul Journey approach: we support guests in reflecting on what has opened, understanding its meaning, and finding grounded ways to carry it into life at home.

Soul Journey is a carefully prepared, responsibly held space where sincere participants can meet the process with openness, respect, and support.

Yes. It is possible to meet with Maestro Sani before attending. This helps build trust, answer questions, discuss intentions, and create clarity, care, and alignment before the retreat begins.