Meet the people behind Ayahuasca Satsangha

Zach Poitra

Zach began his exposure to shamanism between the ages of 10-14 when he moved to the Rosbud Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  He was fortunate in that his family became very involved in the local Lakota Sioux community.  Zach spent significant time both in and out of ceremony with Stanley Red Bird, Albert White Hat, and Norbert Running.  After moving back to the west coast at the age of 14, Zach returned to the Rosebud several times to attend Sundances and other ceremonies on the Rosebud.

Alex Good

I was born on February 14th, 1974 in England. My childhood was spent playing around in the expanses of nature that surrounded my parents house in the Thames valley. I left England at the age of 23 in 1997 and set about travelling the world for two years, since which time I have been living outside of England.

My personal development journey began at the age of 13, when a psychologist taught me to meditate to overcome teenage anger problems. Until an out of body experience at the age of 20, I was an atheist and had been trained to be a scientist and engineer. The out of body experience turned my world on its head, so much so that I blanked it for six months, pretending it had never happened. I simply had no frame of reference for it within all that I had learnt. And yet it had been undeniably real.

This lead to the start of my spiritual journey and ever since I finally accepted the truth of what had happened, my life has been dedicated to exploring altered states of consciousness and the other levels of reality that exist all around us. On my travels I would disappear into the wilds of various countries for weeks at a time and the extended absence of societal input catalyzed many a bizarre experience. These experiences taught me to trust my guides and I started using their input to make decisions in life.

In 2001 I came to Peru, was told by my guides that if I stayed there, all my dreams would come true (which they have! As have the nightmares!). So I settled in the mountain town of Huaraz with my partner at the time, bought 7 hectares of pristine Andean mountainside and set about building a mountain lodge at 3,712 above sea level. We called it ‘The Way Inn‘ to reflect our ideals of taking time in nature to reconnect and rediscover oneself.

In 2004, I started working with Huachuma, or San Pedro – the master teacher plant native to the mountains. At some point the plant told me that I would work extensively with Ayahuasca. It was in 2005 that I was first introduced to the magic of Ayahuasca. At that point I didn’t realise the full scope of that magic, of that power for transformation.

Then in 2007, a deteriorating relationship with my partner led me to the Amazon jungle to start that process and I have been working continously with blessed Momma Aya ever since.

As both a long term meditator and psychonaut, I can speak from experience when I say that Ayahuasca is the equivalent of ten years of meditation in a cup. There is, quite simply put, no more powerful tool for personal transformation on the planet. My personal belief is that this medicine is emerging onto the global scene right now for a reason and I wish to make the experience available to as many people as possible in my attempt to do my part to reach the global critical mass, the 100th monkey.

I have learnt a lot along this path and wish to share what I have learnt, hopefully being able to save seekers some of the 17 years of learning that have emerged from my dedication to the work of personal, conscious transformation (read as hyperbole for making plenty of mistakes, learning hard, painful lessons and wishing to help guide people around the pitfalls that I got stuck in!).

May all unfold in accordance with the greatest and highest good for all life, everywhere.

Andy Metcalfe

I was born November 28th, 1975 in Leeds, England where I lived for the first 30 years of my life. Since then I’ve spent time living in Devon, London, Nova Scotia and now Peru.

I’ve been on a spiritual path since I was about 19 years old when I first got hooked on reading books such as The Celestine Prophesy and the books by Carlos Castaneda. Since then my journey has been influenced by a huge number of authors and spiritual teachers including Stuart Wilde, Thom Hartmann, Deepak Chopra, Richard Bach, Terrence McKenna, Eckhart Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz and many many more.

In April 2009 I moved to Peru totally unplanned, basically just following a powerful intuition I had. I lived in Cusco in the mountains for 6 months and then I followed my heart to Iquitos in the middle of the Amazon jungle where I’ve been living ever since.

I first drank Ayahuasca in 2002 and have been working with the medicine ever since. It has certainly had a profound affect on my personal and spiritual development and it’s been my wish for a long time to be able to share the medicine with others.

For more than five years I’ve also been a freelance web designer by trade and I also own and run a social networking site, with over 20,000 members, for people passionate about holistic and spiritual living which you can find at http://www.holisticlocal.com