oh for frog's sake

Hello, my name is Selva and I’m happy to share my Kambo experience here.

So, before Andy officially announced this session, I bumped into a friend. I hadn’t seen him for many years. When we first met, we were sitting next to each other in a circle, in a little village in Peru, waiting to receive burn marks on our skin and the poison of a frog to be applied, our bellies full of 2 liters of water that we had to drink as preparation.

For both of us it was the first time. He went first and I could watch his whole body going very pale and somehow grey-greenish – and my last thoughts were OMG now the only way out is through… Then the violent, heavy purge set in. When my body was done and calmed down, I looked around at the other persons. Another guy next to me almost unrecognizable, his face was dark red and severely swollen, his eyes almost not visible anymore. He didn’t mind - he said this always happens.

In the days after this experience, I found myself in deep peace of mind, very focused, very open to the beauty of the incredible nature around us and my senses unusually sharpened. I could hear dogs barking many kilometers away. My olfactory sense was hyper too. I suddenly could smell the strangest things and also things my travel companion could not.

Why was I putting myself through this?

At that time, I was still thinking change had to be drastic. I was stressed, overworked and constantly battling health issues. I even had to postpone this journey to Peru because last minute I fell sick. I was ready to try everything, so I dared to try the “jungle vaccine”, hoping for help and also hoping for a quick fix. Looking back now, it was also a quest for purpose, belonging and community.

For the “jungle vaccine” to properly work it was said we would have to do it 3 times. But… I couldn’t. The one-time experience for me was enough. Not just because of stressing the frogs to harvest the venom or the heavy purge, but also my struggles about the whole circus around it in general, that I didn’t enjoy.

I have deep love and respect for the portal into profound inner work that the indigenous medicines are opening for us. I’m glad and forever grateful that I could experience it. And at the same time, I was always repelled by the woohoo, the consumerism and the business involved in the once “sacred”.

So Kambo was no stranger to me and it revealed itself in the weeks before our session night. I’m working with animal communication, and especially with Andy and the spirit world in this way for more than 3 years now. I’ve noticed that they actually always reveal themselves, it’s just a matter of attention and connecting the dots. The random encounter with my friend was a sign. Then I suddenly noticed the very heightened olfactory sense again. And that skill of full, undivided presence, no matter what. I was in the middle of travel preparations to drive across Europe to Germany and many things went different than planned. Usually this would have stressed and worried me to the max – this time I was calm and just present with what is. and the tasks that I had under control. Everything else was not important. Without the usual hustling and going in slow speed I still arrived perfectly on time.

With that long journey and much movement and action going on here in Germany… I was wondering if I might have the time and space to really go deep with this session. Would I be able to really feel into it and take the time to sense and observe and go into the inner processes without my lonely retreat space in the middle of nowhere, my meditation space, my time, my rhythm? City life is so much faster and distractive. And then Kambo showed me how.

I suddenly felt how every moment can be our meditation place and space. It’s what we choose to focus on.

I felt the spirit in every move, it was supporting me during the whole time and journey in a subtle and important way: I could keep my heart open and connect truly from the heart. There was no other way than opening up and it was joyful, playful and contagious. We had so much fun!! I could consciously dive even deeper into being present and focused, and that made all interactions and encounters rich and incredibly beautiful. I felt very naturally really good boundaries. Noise, stress, draining mental chatter and distractions did not belong into my zone and just didn’t enter. Navigating the different pace and speed of city life was easy. At one point I realized I didn’t even wear my glasses anymore, which is actually kind of impossible. I didn’t need them. It’s not that suddenly I could see 100 percent again, it was more as if I trusted other senses and found my ways perfectly around.

Other participants in the session shared about purging, irritated stomachs, red eyes, tummy doing funny things. I also felt my belly to be huge – all the signs pointed into one direction. Another one was when during driving to Germany my car out of the blue suddenly played the song Kambo by Nick Barbachano.

And then when I had arrived, on a walk in the beautiful Bavarian forests, a little frog jumped right in front of my feet. That was my final sign and when I asked Andy if it was Kambo, he confirmed my intuition to be true.

So when the night of the session arrived, I this time knew what was waiting for us – and it made me feel anxious.

When it started, I felt especially my right side and leg, the place where once were the burn marks. Then I felt pain in my liver area and an intense headache. My breathing got slow and shallow. I saw crystals, colorful, beautiful. They turn into drops, raindrops or dew on leaves. I feel small, I am on the forest floor, under plants and leaves, I feel the drops on my back, too. I am a frog. Then I feel something brewing in my real body, lots of yawning and then I start to cough. Heavily. I have to sit up and cough for about half the session… deep from my belly, coughing and in the short pauses between I have a „frog“ in my throat. Then laying down again, silence. In spirit, I’m trying to fly up into the trees, the Forest, the jungle and merge with all the spirits there. But my body feels dense and is anchored to the floor. I wonder if it is because I’m in this city concrete jungle and the exhausting speed here… And then deep sadness arrives. Sadness about the disconnection of us humans from nature, the exploitation of everything living as resources, how everything sacred is now also a business, how we never stop to want more.

When and how did the fascination for technology, for artificial, replace the fascination for the natural intelligence? The urge to manipulate and control, to dissect and know every little detail instead of being enchanted, of marvel in awe at the magic and mystery of the inexplicable and incredibly orchestrated flow of life?

When the session ends, I’m wondering if I was really jumping in this time or was I afraid to surrender because I had an idea in my mind about what was coming? Did I really feel it all? What would have been different not knowing? I understand why Andy usually doesn’t reveal the spirit before, but only after the journey – to keep expectations and the mind at bay so we can relax into the experience.

Later that night I dreamed of my travel companion back in Peru. She was not part of the Kambo circle or session. We were friends, but the friendship suddenly came to an end during the pandemic. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years either. The next day, walking to the metro station in Munich, she passed me on a bicycle. Also on that day, I received a present – it was a patch that showed crystals just like in the session and said “Protection from assholes”. The humor of the spirits, I love it so much!! And raindrops everywhere. We definitely see what we focus on. There were synchronicities all over, as if to confirm: Yes, what happened last night is real.

Kambo in spirit was so much more gentle and gifted me with trust in my roots, confidence, trust in myself and the game of life. A playful, joyful focus on the beauty of this world and the beauty of genuinely being human – the ability of presence and witnessing, to connect and communicate from the heart.

I have been seeing eagles on the way to Germany and other birds of prey and beloved crow family as a daily reminder of the many beings living next to us. And as an anchor in the crazy swell of modern life. Connection and belonging is a place deep within, and finding it changes everything. Some years ago I was just looking for it in all the wrong places.

The heavy purge this time was more of a mental purging –outdated ideas, beliefs and conditioning cluttering the mind and spirit.

Fascinating though, how very similar things are going on in spirit and in the physical session, just on different levels.

It was a very powerful journey, gentle, way more subtle and less aggressive in spirit – at least for me, I think other participants had different experiences of purging. It was deep inner work, that needs no outer recognition and no burn marks either. Thank you dearest Andy and Kambo Spirit for another remarkable journey.