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Salvia's success with the Sacred Wood

A decade after their first iboga journey, Salvia reflects on how success with sacred medicines transcends our initial expectations, weaving together their experiences with chronic illness, heart healing, and the wisdom gained from multiple floods. Their story challenges conventional metrics of plant medicine "success" while acknowledging the subtle yet life-changing transformations that unfold over time.

Salvia's success with the Sacred Wood - Featured image

Success with Iboga, for some of us, is a relatively nebulous concept. Surely it’s clearer for those, for example, with severe addictions: did the Wood help them stop drinking? Have they used opioids again since their flood?

What about those of us whose measure of success is more ephemeral? How do we truly measure things like health, peace, groundedness, creativity, passion, flow?

I had my first flood a decade ago. Before eating the Wood, I made a list: a single page qualifying what I hoped to get from my experience with Iboga. At the time, I was in the midst of a lifelong health battle, struggling constantly with a severe and debilitating skin condition which left me exhausted and in enormous pain. I was also suffering from the after-effects of an abusive relationship with a powerful man, a relationship which left me crippled with self-doubt and unable to trust romantic partners. The list was clear:

Dear Dr. Iboga, please heal:

  1. My poor broken body
  2. My insecure mind
  3. My frightened heart

Not too much to ask, then 😂

Having written my list, I lay down on my sheepskin and started eating Wood.

How do I write about the journey I undertook that night? How can I put into words this vast meeting with such a compassionate, overwhelming consciousness? I had only rarely experienced psychedelics before then, and yet the Iboga space felt comfortably familiar, even if it was very uncomfortable at times. But there was so much, too much, much lost to memory and time, more yet that was indefinable and indescribable. Trying to write specifically about moments I had with the Wood only makes them seem trite and so much less than they were.

Suffice to say that when I stood up in the morning, I felt transformed. I had spent all night interacting with the Wood, watching vivid internal hallucinations like waking dreams, learning about myself and others and the world and the universe, processing thoughts at the most incredible pace, and going through waves of shattering emotions. So much had changed.

So, how does one measure success? I had had my flood, but in the next days and weeks I was still suffering from my debilitating skin condition, and my feelings about my ex hadn’t changed. Sure, I felt better, clearer than I had, and I had managed to make sense of and process an enormous number of spiritual teachings I had been struggling to make sense of - but my list, my list! My poor mind was so attached to my pre-defined metrics of success that it took me several months before I fully integrated my journey and could see how remarkable it had truly been.

Since then, I have had several more floods, each a most profound blessing and learning experience.

Also, since then, I have learned not only to love myself deeply, but also to trust the beloveds in my life.

…and my skin’s better.

Success!