In this episode of Ayahuasca Podcast the host Sam Believ has a conversation with Salimeh Tabrizi
We touch upon subjects of Ayahuasca, non duality, awakening, Zoroastrianism, psychedelic history of religions and more.
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Find more about Salimeh at
https://www.vibrantlifecounseling.com/
Transcript
Sam Believ (00:04)
Hi guys and welcome to Ayahuasca Podcast as always with you the host Sam Biliyev. Today I’m interviewing Salime Tabrizzi. Salime is a clinical counselor, she’s a plant medicine facilitator, a founding member of Canadian Psychedelic Association and she used to organize Cannabis Hemp Conference and Expo in the past. Salime, welcome to the Ayahuasca Podcast.
Salimeh (00:32)
Thank you, Sam. Great to be on here and meet you.
Sam Believ (00:37)
Salim, talk to us a little bit about ⁓ your background, the short story of your life and how ⁓ your life brought you to work with plant medicines.
Salimeh (00:48)
Yeah, definitely. So I’m originally Iranian. I was born in Tehran and my family moved to Canada when I was nine. And, you know, I ⁓ definitely as an Iranian, we have these strong roots ⁓ and deeply actually deep roots into in plant medicine, which I realized a lot more as I was going through my journey with ayahuasca. And so I started my career in, you know, conventional therapy and soon enough,
Salimeh (01:17)
I realized that talk therapy and just engaging with people on ⁓ the trauma level ⁓ without the energetic understanding was, I was hitting walls and my clients were hitting walls. And so when I was working with individuals in my internship as a therapist in training, ⁓ I had to deal with a lot of individuals with anxiety and depression and.
Salimeh (01:46)
sexual trauma, as well as bereavement, addictions, the whole gamut. And I was realizing that when I was working with them, I was starting to get autoimmune issues. And autoimmune issues now I know is like self -resistance, self -doubt, self -hatred, you know. So a lot of my pieces were coming out as I was picking up other people’s energies. So that kind of started me on my own awakening journey where I, you know,
Salimeh (02:14)
grabbed onto whatever I could get my hands on, whether it was acupuncture, reiki, ⁓ different kinds of energy work. And then I came across an article on Ayahuasca and met with the author who is a dear friend and colleague of mine. And I asked him, I was like, how do I do this? Where do I go? And this was over 10 years ago now. So it wasn’t as common, but he connected me with a wonderful group in Yalapa, Mexico. And I went down there.
Salimeh (02:43)
around three months after ⁓ by myself and sat with a Peruvian shaman. And my first experience with ayahuasca were through the Chippewa lineage.
Sam Believ (02:55)
Great story, I have so many questions. Can you tell us about ⁓ what is this ⁓ Iranian plant medicine? I’ve never heard about it.
Salimeh (03:07)
Yeah, yeah, great question. So in Iran, we actually, on a daily base, we use the seeds of Syrian root, which in Farsi is called Esfand. And Esfand is actually a cousin of Ayahuasca. You can actually derive DMT from it. And so it’s so interesting to me because growing up, we use Esfand as similar to sage.
Salimeh (03:38)
So you burn the seeds and you, you know, in a kind of metal container, you carry it around the house. And it’s not only to ward off negative energy, but it’s also just like Sage is, it cleanses spaces of microbials and fungus and things like that. And so ⁓ when I went back to Iran, because we…
Salimeh (04:01)
usually go back. My mom goes back every year. I go back every two years or so. And when I went back to Iran after having my experiences with ayahuasca, I started seeing the fractals and the flower patterns in the Persian carpets, in the mosques, in the calligraphy. And, you know, Iran is such a mystical country. And so I started just seeing the DMT patterns everywhere. And I thought,
Salimeh (04:29)
wow, this is so interesting to me again, how humans have been activated through DMT, through plant use and ⁓ the achievements in art and history and poetry that they have had access to because of, I think because of the connection to the DMT plants, the DMT derived from plants.
Sam Believ (04:51)
Interesting. Yeah, you hear about the other DMT containing plants and ⁓ but generally the in ayahuasca you have the vine which is the MAOI inhibitor and then you have the chacruna or chagra that is a DMT plant. So if you were to eat that Syrian Rue
Sam Believ (05:15)
you wouldn’t feel much but if you burn the smoke and then you then inhale it you should you should be able to feel something so I’m just wondering if people when they you know use the salmary and incense and burn the smoke if they maybe felt something reminds me of that story of a burning ⁓ acacia bush and in the in the bible right there was also apparently dmt containing so
Sam Believ (05:45)
Yeah, I think I’m beginning to believe that all religions and all spiritual practices have their roots in some form of a psychedelic experience, whether exogenous or endogenous. So I don’t know if you have any opinion on that, but maybe ⁓ talk to us about in Iran, they…
Sam Believ (06:13)
They used to have a different religion, right? It was called Zoroastrianism. Have you ever studied it or maybe noticed any patterns between your newly discovered psychedelic work?
Salimeh (06:26)
Yeah, great question. ⁓ So with with Siri and Roo with Esfand, I don’t know if people are, I don’t, I don’t believe that you can have a psychic active experience, but it’s definitely something it’s still, we are still imbibing it. And so I believe that they, again, just like the chemistry of the plants, I believe you have to maybe cook it and add, I was reading around some of the recipes, like how to make Esfand.
Salimeh (06:55)
psychoactive. And so there is a brew process for it. ⁓ And yes, as Zoroastrian is the first model, ⁓ the Aztec religion, and that’s been documented. And so when we think about where, you know, the different kinds of religions come from, Iran, Iraq, that area, like between the Tigris and the Euphrates, it was the cradle of civilization.
Salimeh (07:25)
And it’s really fascinating to me ⁓ what rituals and what concoctions, what elixirs they were drinking in Zaktustrian religion. ⁓ And Zaktustrian religion is also, it’s committed to the light. And so the fire element is really powerful in that religion. And of course, now we know through the different kinds of maybe our own experiences or the study of
Salimeh (07:54)
physics and modern understanding of this simulation or what we’re even experiencing here is that it’s all light. And it’s a vibration of that light. And so, ⁓ yeah, it’s really interesting. I’m still learning more. ⁓ And to come kind of full circle, I started reading about the lineages and what initiations
Salimeh (08:23)
different cultures were going through. And this past eclipse, not the plastic eclipse, but the eclipse before in October, I actually went to Egypt for the first time. And I also went to Greece, I went to Athens and I went to Eleusis. And in the mortality key, the incredible author of that book writes about the, again, the initiations in those cultures and,
Salimeh (08:52)
You know, Egypt is its own ⁓ thing. It’s, you know, the access codes and all the downloads that individuals get walking through those temples is one thing. But ⁓ in ⁓ ancient Greek culture, they would actually have a pilgrimage from the Parthenon in Athens all the way to Eleusis. And in Eleusis, the large temple that was dedicated to Demetra was a place where they would be drinking ⁓ some sort of
Salimeh (09:22)
concoction, they don’t necessarily know if it was soma or if it was, you know, whether it was mushrooms or it was cannabis or another mix, but they, it was, you know, the mystery schools, everything was hidden. It was not spoken about. And the individuals would walk and go through, you know, these kinds of, and it was only accessed by people that were training to be priests and priestesses.
Salimeh (09:48)
So, and here we are in this incredible time in our lives where we have access to the medicines to be able to connect with God ultimately in the deepest ways.
Sam Believ (10:00)
Yeah, I read a book about it. I think it’s called Road to Ellusius. And ⁓ I believe the drink was called Kikion. And it’s incredible to kind of understand that people who created Western culture, as we know it, homers of the world, they were drinking a psychedelic brew. And ⁓ there is also reasons to believe that ⁓
Sam Believ (10:30)
it later on went on to become what we know now as Christianity and like early Christianity might have been a psychedelic cult. We don’t really know the answers but it’s pretty easy for me to believe that ⁓ it’s they might have used help from plant medicines to ⁓ get all this information to them later on put it in the book ⁓ or books. So ⁓ talking about religion,
Sam Believ (10:59)
I know you’re a big fan of ⁓ the topic of non -duality as a complete ⁓ newbie in this topic myself. Please talk to us a little bit about that and how, ⁓ what is the connection there between plant medicines and non -dualistic states?
Salimeh (11:19)
Yeah, I’m definitely a newbie and a student on this path as well. So, you know, we’re all learning together and my, just my experience, very limited experience with the Vedic texts and Buddhist traditions of, you know, non -attachment, full acceptance, and really ultimately what I received in my first experience of
Salimeh (11:48)
5 -Me -O -D -T, which there, it was even beyond love, you know, that experience of complete expansion into what felt like, ⁓ you know, in lack of other words, the majesty of the divine or what we could understand, what our limited mind can understand as God. And in that space, there was no good or bad or, you know, even up or down or…
Salimeh (12:18)
or self or other, it just was. And I think, you know, a lot of the questions that the Eastern ⁓ sages continuously ask is who am I? And to continue to come back to that space of the essence of our beingness. And ⁓ so ⁓ that’s, you know, as far as I’ve gotten.
Salimeh (12:45)
And I continue to remember that moment when I went into the ⁓ complete dissolution of self. And a lot of people say it’s love, but it was for me, there was not even the essence of love because then the duality of love is fear or hate. It just, it was beyond all of that.
Sam Believ (13:08)
And how did you achieve that state?
Salimeh (13:11)
It was through a 5MEO DMT experience.
Sam Believ (13:16)
⁓ Talk to us a little bit about that 5MeO is a is a Bufo, right? ⁓
Salimeh (13:23)
Yes, yeah, this is the synthetic version, but yes.
Sam Believ (13:27)
Mm -hmm. And ⁓ how a lot of people ask us, you know, when they come to the wire there, do we do we offer five MEO DMT? We obviously we don’t, but because because there is a word DMT in it, there is a lot of.
Sam Believ (13:47)
misconceptions that it might be something very similar or same, but in reality, even if you rewrite the psilocybin formula, you can also call it some kind of DMT. So as somebody very experienced with iOS, can you try it? 5MBO DMT. What similarities or differences have you noticed and what is your belief system regarding, you know, the tradition ⁓ of it or lack thereof? How did it feel?
Salimeh (14:17)
Yeah, so of ⁓ course the Bufo experience is different. The secretion from the toads from Sonoran desert, again, it’s just wild, this life, you know, this toad species in the desert ⁓ has ⁓ one of the strongest psychedelic secretions.
Salimeh (14:43)
that we know of. And so my experience was with the synthetic because personally, I just, I’m even with Campbell, I’m very, very sensitive on how the medicine is received from the animal ⁓ and what kind of state they’re going through as far as shock or, you know. So ⁓ I went with the synthetic and it’s, as a lot of people have mentioned, it’s a rocket ship.
Salimeh (15:13)
into that space of a complete unity or oneness or the majesty of what this experience as a human is about. So of course I can’t really put any words to it, but if someone has experienced it, they can kind of understand. ⁓ And it’s not that everyone always goes to that extent of complete unity with God or the hand of God on their back.
Salimeh (15:42)
or feeling that essence. If there’s, as you know, if there are blocks or other things that need to be released, then those things will be released as well.
Salimeh (15:56)
But ⁓ yeah, I, again, we know from DMT, it’s released when we are born. It’s released when we ⁓ are passing. It’s released in the mother and the baby when the baby is born, around the hours of two to four a in the morning. There’s an increase of that, especially when we’re in deep states of REM. And so, you ⁓ know, they call it the God particle. There’s a reason why.
Salimeh (16:24)
there are so many plants that have it. And ⁓ yeah, it’s an incredible opportunity to ⁓ allow your ego and your body to think that it’s dying ⁓ and to go into that, you know, transition point where again, the Egyptians and the Buddhists, especially in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, that’s what they were training for, to stay very calm and present and in the space of non -duality as they were going through that. But
Salimeh (16:52)
Here we have a chance to die before we even ⁓ die. And then we receive the gift ⁓ that people receive at the end of life when they think that everything is okay and they’re just received in this incredible bliss and love. And we have that chance to feel that now and while we’re living. So how does that impact us? As we’re going through our life and stressors come up, I always think ⁓ it doesn’t matter.
Sam Believ (17:24)
If you die before you die, you don’t die when you die. ⁓ I ⁓ think in this ⁓ illusion mysteries, this was the motto of the, of the, their, I ⁓ don’t know, what is it, religion or a sect or organization. Since we’re talking about ⁓ plant medicines or should we call them animal medicines or ⁓ natural psychedelics,
Salimeh (17:29)
you
Sam Believ (17:54)
Obviously you work a lot with ayahuasca and ⁓ can you talk to us how an ayahuasca experience ⁓ resulted in you starting this big cannabis conference and ⁓ why ⁓ was it about cannabis?
Salimeh (18:14)
Yeah, definitely. ⁓ You know, before we jumped on the call, we spoke a little bit about guidance and being open to the messages, as many of us are, that come through the plant medicine experience. And I would love to hear a little bit more of like what the how your inception story opened up with ayahuasca and why you are now, you know, the ⁓ steward and the guardian of the largest.
Salimeh (18:43)
retreat space in Columbia. And so for me, it was the same. It was, ⁓ I, it wasn’t like I consciously went for it where I was like, ⁓ I think I need to do a cannabis conference this year. It was not like that at all. I was already working in the ayahuasca, ⁓ ceremonial spaces ⁓ for two years in Vancouver. And during that time, similar to what you were experiencing,
Salimeh (19:12)
The medicine was telling me in the ceremony space, sit with this person, work with them in this kind of way. I’ll show you how energy moves from the sacral to the third eye. Let me show you how the Kundalini moves through people and support them in opening up their chest and their heart chakra. These kinds of things were happening in the ceremonial space. ⁓ And ⁓ then it was just through a meditation without any medicine that I had the spirit of cannabis come in.
Salimeh (19:42)
And as I’ve shared this on different podcasts, the spirit of medicine, the spirit of cannabis, which I refer to as Santa Maria, ⁓ which is from the kind of the Daimae traditions. ⁓
Salimeh (20:01)
it came through as a feminine entity and said that she was really abused and feeling misunderstood and even to the point of being prostituted. And so from that point on, I started just engaging with different cannabis researchers and advocates and activists in the Vancouver community and started just asking them, I would tell them the story ⁓ and then I would tell them, ask them,
Salimeh (20:29)
Would you like to come and speak at this conference? And so the first year was, it was very small, 200 people. It was at Simon Fraser University ⁓ with three panels. And then the next year it really grew to around 30 speakers, two day conference, as well as an expo. And this was before, you know, cannabis was legalized in Canada, but it had a very strong ⁓ influence and culture. And…
Salimeh (20:58)
The third year we moved to University of British Columbia and then the fourth year it became the largest cannabis, largest plant medicine conference in Canada. And so the spirit of ⁓ like, you know, I always say similar to maybe you too, is that I wasn’t, it wasn’t like Salome was doing things. It was ⁓ one of my favorite video games when I was growing up with Zelda on Nintendo. And it just literally similar to what you were saying before is like I was being
Salimeh (21:29)
controlled or things, I was just the head and the mouth and the hands of the medicines talking. ⁓ And it, you know, it was intense. It was like 17 hour days. It’s something that I look back on and I think, wow, how was I so possessed to be able to like channel that energy? But it was incredible. And a lot of amazing people came together to make it happen.
Sam Believ (21:57)
Thank you for sharing and as you asked me that question, ⁓ 17 hour days and the video game analogy that sounds very familiar to me. Because I think in the first days of the war, he was maybe even more than 17. It would be like, I’m kind of sleeping but kind of working. And when right now our team is 23 people.
Sam Believ (22:26)
But in the past it would be just me, my wife and the tita. So I would be at night facilitating in the ceremony. Then trying to sleep a little bit, waking up in the morning. My wife would cook the breakfast. I would serve it. I would wash the buckets and then I would start the sauna for people in ice bath. So there was not much sleep involved, but a lot of passion, that’s for sure.
Sam Believ (22:54)
So talking about my story as, yeah, I told it to you before we started recording. But that’s a side of me a lot of people don’t know about. I don’t generally talk about it a lot because I’m afraid to scare some people away. Because I kind of think that medicine is for everyone, but a lot of people get scared by too much spiritual talk.
Sam Believ (23:23)
or too much woo woo things as ⁓ you can refer to them. But ⁓ what I realized that when I first came to work with the medicine, I looked at it as a, ⁓ here’s this plant medicine and you take it and change something in your brain and it heals you and you’re good to go, that’s about it. And everything else is just noise.
Sam Believ (23:45)
to then changing to okay there is some spiritual aspects to it. ⁓ To now I would say ⁓ it’s probably equally so if not even more spiritual process than just the chemical process. But what started my ⁓ journey as a somebody who organized an ayahuasca retreat synchronistically so was one specific experience where
Sam Believ (24:15)
I went and I was drinking ayahuasca in the jungle and I had an extremely deep experience where ⁓ a few things happened. Number one, medicine gave me my Icarus, meaning that I was chanting those indigenous chants that I don’t, ⁓ I never heard before, I never did before. I didn’t even, it was almost as if I was just listening to myself making those.
Sam Believ (24:40)
⁓ noises but it was clearly chanting then ⁓ it showed me this vision of how the universe works it was as if i lifted the bonnet on the car and i was looking at the engine but it was this but with like this reality and there were some moving sides to it which kind of remind me of those ⁓ you know this things with many eyes like angels caravans whatever it is
Sam Believ (25:05)
And there were entities there and they told me, feel free to look around, but we’re busy. Can’t really engage with you, but here’s how it is. Then I started seeing many visions of ⁓ me healing people with my hands and there were like very specific instructions. One of them was that I’m supposed to drink ayahuasca and I supposed to give ayahuasca to the person and then one on one. And I clearly saw that my legs were…
Sam Believ (25:34)
I had to have bare feet and I have to stand on the grass and I have to touch the person and ⁓ move the energies and it was all very bizarre to me because I’m an engineer by trade. I come from one of the least religious countries in the world and I can admit that I used to be zero spiritual. So for me it was very hard to accept. But the same night there was a person in our group that had a headache.
Sam Believ (26:02)
and he was walking from hammock to hammock asking for ⁓ somebody had pills for headache ⁓ and then he asked me and I said no he came back to his hammock and I medicine guided me as you’re saying in this video game analogy I just felt myself drawn to come ⁓ next to his hammock I then told them I know this is weird but I
Sam Believ (26:30)
I’m getting instructed to help you with your headache. Is that okay with you?” And he said, yes. I could see in his head, I could see like a orange triangle that to me represented the pain. Then the medicine told me to put my hands on his head, one hand on his head and the other hand on the ground because in the jungle, Malochos have earth floors. And then I was doing this.
Sam Believ (26:56)
spiritual effort through which I was removing his pain passing it through my body and putting it in the ground and as I was doing so it was this weird ⁓ spiritual effort and I could see like jaguar patterns that’s that’s what I recall so far surprisingly so his headache went away which was surprising for me because I still doubt some of those things.
Sam Believ (27:21)
But then he also, he was not really connecting to the medicine. He would drink, but he would be complaining that, you know, he’s not seeing much visions. He stood up and as he was walking to the bathroom, he literally fell on the floor and got like so connected he couldn’t walk anymore. And I think that was something, might’ve had something to do with the process that we did with him since then.
Sam Believ (27:51)
I started after this experience, which was extremely powerful and profound for me. I started asking all the Taitas, what is it? What do I do with it? And all they told me, drink more medicine and it will teach you. So I started drinking more medicine that led me into studying drinking a medicine from home that led me into studying an iOS retreat. And many synchronicities later, we ended up with the current version of the wire, but.
Sam Believ (28:19)
I’m probably missing some parts of it but since then I’ve been drinking medicine, you know, I drink at least once a month and maybe two or three times a year I get those instructions once again where medicine tells me go help that person. Normally I go sit next to them, hold their hand and it starts showing me things in their body like as weird as like I could be like flying around their body killing parasites and or removing something and
Sam Believ (28:49)
putting it somewhere or taking something from somewhere else. I can’t explain it because there’s no words for it. And it’s something that I rarely talk about, but it obviously is a core part of Loira. And I’m still heading towards that direction where maybe ⁓ I can learn enough ⁓ to be able to do it on demand or be like, yeah, here’s here, let me help you. But right now I’m just waiting for instructions. So this is.
Sam Believ (29:16)
I think one of the reasons I don’t mention too much, I wouldn’t want to be in position when somebody very sick comes to me and says like help me and I’m like well, you know, I don’t really know how to necessarily so I feel like I’m on your podcast now and not the other way around. I don’t generally spend so much time talking so ⁓ let’s go back to you. From the work that you’re doing, stuff that I’m mentioning, does it sound familiar? Have you heard anything about that before?
Sam Believ (29:46)
and how your personal guidance looked like, maybe specific experience where it came to you.
Salimeh (29:54)
Thank you so much for sharing and I appreciate you because you have been really committed and devoted to this path and having ⁓ three different retreats come in every month where you’re holding again so much energy for individuals with all their…
Salimeh (30:13)
you know, anxieties and beliefs and traumas and ⁓ ways of suffering ⁓ to come through. And, you know, I have so much respect for retreat spaces who are really doing it from the heart. And because I always say to like on this path, we really get paid through love. It’s not like this is a way ⁓ the medicine definitely has kept me in check. Like this is not about.
Salimeh (30:41)
financial gain. Like this, this absolutely is about service. And yet we are so held and so taken care of through that service. So it’s a beautiful trust and synchronicity that happens and so much learning. So I agree that we, ⁓ again, we kind of come from ⁓ me and you, like you’re Eastern European, Latvian, and Iranian. So we have a little bit.
Salimeh (31:11)
different roots. ⁓ But ⁓ the levels of healing and like herbs has been has been a part of my DNA in this lifetime. So I wasn’t maybe I wasn’t as ⁓ close off to it as you you can and which is so interesting for you right because you can speak to a different kind of population who’s going through a similar awakening as you did. And I think it’s so important that different people share their experiences because you’re going to touch different populations.
Salimeh (31:40)
But for me, I was, ⁓ I was psychically attuned and quite intuitive ⁓ prior, but ⁓ all of those pieces kind of came online a lot more when I was going through the work with medicine. And that’s where I support my clients now too. Like we all as humans are multidimensional beings. We have access to all of these clairvoyant, clairsentient, you know, attunements.
Salimeh (32:09)
that’s what we are. We’re ⁓ tuning in always to our environment, to each other, to ourselves, and hopefully more and more to our earth so we can start to live differently and feel differently. So ⁓ I…
Salimeh (32:31)
For me, it was definitely, there wasn’t even a place that I couldn’t trust. Like in those early ceremonies when the medicine said I have to go and sit with somebody and put my hand on their chest or on their womb because there was like a miscarriage energy that was being released. Like this has been in the indigenous lineages for centuries. So we’re just tapping into it now. ⁓ And,
Salimeh (32:59)
I feel that my trust has increased. ⁓ However, even before every ceremony where I’m sitting with somebody one -on -one or I’m working with a couple or I’m in a bigger group, I still have that like deep prayer of medicine, please allow me to be the best conduit of this energy. And may I, and so sometimes I’ll still sit there and meditation. I’m like, is it going to happen?
Salimeh (33:28)
Will it happen this time? Just like it’s happened every time. So I love that it’s not a, you know, a button that we can turn on. No, it’s really through humility and through strength. And like I have to be at a really good energetic level to be able to serve. And I don’t take that work lightly. And I also think it’s interesting because not a lot of people are working with ayahuasca in the way that I feel that I’ve been.
Salimeh (33:57)
cult to do, which is being attuned to what they’re going through and speaking to them. It’s like psychotherapy with Ayahuasca, ⁓ whereas with MDMA and psilocybin that has come online where individuals are, you know, being asked questions or with LSD. But with Ayahuasca, it was like that for me from the beginning. So when my clients come, they’re not just left on their mat, which is beautiful as well.
Salimeh (34:26)
I think when individuals go into a group setting and the e -chorers are being sung or the vocables or the songs and they’re getting transmissions from and they’re being worked on. But I remember when I was in groups, I felt that people were going through certain things and they weren’t being supported and they were just kind of like in the struggle and the ceremony was lasting, you know, 10, 12 hours. And I remember like being like, ⁓ just going over to them and telling somebody, hey,
Salimeh (34:55)
You’ve got to breathe right now. Like take a breath, circulate your energy. This is about your mom. Or like this is a piece around your dad. Or this is the trauma that you had when you were six. When I could actually like engage with them in that moment, they felt like there was a relief that happened. That while somebody within this deep, deep space of healing is feeling me and seeing me. ⁓ And they’re with me.
Salimeh (35:24)
And we are relational. We are relational individuals. And I think the time of like people doing things on their own or being alone ⁓ is maybe there is a transition. ⁓ So, but blessed like again, I feel that there is so much transmission of Aya in so many different ways, you know, from the UDV to the Santo Dime to the Baroque Churches to, you know, what we see in the Shipibo tradition when it’s dark and they’re like,
Salimeh (35:53)
you’ve just left alone and then the facilitators just step out. What’s happening beautifully with the Tatas in Colombia, you know, and the Ecuadorian traditions. And so it’s, for me, it’s all so beautiful and there are different paths to the ocean, rivers to the ocean. But, you know, with my work, again, I go very deep with one person, we kind of clean up the whole house, internal house. And so usually each cup is a chapter.
Salimeh (36:23)
So, you know, I’ll just share with you my client that’s coming in next week. She fainted. She had a concussion in 2015 where her life got turned upside down. It was the start of her awakening ⁓ experience, but she was never the same. And so it’s really like slowed down her processing, but also has opened up her gifts. So I have a sense that next week when she does come here,
Salimeh (36:52)
It’s going to be similar to what you said, a lot of work in the brain. And then opening up her meridian chakras, meridians and chakras in her hands, because I have a feeling that she’ll be working with people on one -on -one like that as well. And ⁓ also like sexual clearings and healing so that she can draw from her root up into the crown. ⁓ So.
Salimeh (37:18)
you know, it’s just fascinating working with people in that way. And then the medicine said that it doesn’t want to be wasted because a lot of people will keep drinking and keep going back into that ceremony. And for me, I don’t feel that unless, you know, you’re like really, really on the path of someone like you who’s working with people and to be able to like have your maintenance. But otherwise, I feel like one or two or three ceremonies when done really deeply. That’s all that people.
Salimeh (37:48)
need. But that’s just my sense. I always tell people don’t believe anything I say, it’s just my subjective experience.
Sam Believ (37:58)
Yeah, there’s many different ways to skin the cat and many different methods. I think ayahuasca is self -regulating when it comes to drinking too much or too little because if you drink too much it will just tell you why are you back so soon and what about that homework I gave you and then give you a terrible trip so you don’t come back for a while.
Sam Believ (38:18)
⁓ Speaking about the awakening, you know, your story, I never called mine the awakening, but it’s definitely ⁓ the beginning of it because I don’t feel like I have awakened completely ⁓ this whole imposter syndrome as we talked about is not an easy thing to deal with. But ⁓ what about it? Like, I know you like talking about the…
Sam Believ (38:45)
this change that’s happening in the world now, what is happening? Why are so many people being put on that path and being yanked out of their normal life as an engineer or as a lawyer or as a storekeeper and end up finding themselves in the jungle or in the mountain? What is going on with the world?
Salimeh (39:06)
Yeah, and I would love to hear your perspective because we’re working with so many people coming and receiving that support too. Currently, one of my other populations that I work very deeply with is the individuals from the US military ⁓ vets who have gone through multiple deployments.
Salimeh (39:33)
and are in the special operations units of the military. So this is like the top one, 2 % of the military. And they are actually going through ⁓ my dear friend’s clinic, Ambio in Tijuana, and it’s through ⁓ an amazing organization called Vet Solutions, that’s putting these special operations vets through an Ibogaine journey plus a 5 -MeO ⁓ journey.
Salimeh (40:02)
within four days of a retreat. ⁓ And so me and my nine colleagues who are coaches, we see them two sessions before and three sessions after. Five of these wonderful individuals and their partners came down in May for an ayahuasca retreat to just give you like to answer your question of like what’s happening and why do I feel that ⁓ someone
Salimeh (40:29)
who has been like deeply in the military complex is now completely aligned to the plant medicine path. And so you can imagine, you know, what they have gone through from ⁓ TBIs, made rage and anger towards their family ⁓ because of the head injuries, because of the trauma that they’ve experienced, multiple deployments in war zone countries, as well as,
Salimeh (40:58)
you know, addictions to pharmaceuticals and, you know, full on ⁓ alcohol dependency. So they come in with a massive gamut of things that they’re dealing with. And they’re also really highly trained to repress and to just get through. Like, that’s the whole training, right? Keep it together, compartmentalize, don’t talk about it. Suffer in silence. And these are like,
Salimeh (41:28)
epic men, incredibly strong, incredibly bright. So, ⁓ you know, I feel like Aya is, is activating ⁓ wisely who she’s bringing in and who, you know, who’s being called to the medicine. And obviously there’s been a complete misbalance of the masculine and feminine in our, in our world. And so when these individuals came down and they,
Salimeh (41:58)
you know, as couples also, ⁓ came ⁓ down and sat in ayahuasca ceremony and, you know, received more and more healing. Why do I feel that’s happening is because each one of those individuals is going to go back to their own community ⁓ and be a conduit of light and be ⁓ a ripple of change that’s, you know, as you know, too, with all the people that…
Salimeh (42:27)
you know, you’ve held space for and what they do in their world afterwards. Right now, me living in Costa Rica, and it’s been, you know, three beautiful years, even for me, I knew that I was not regulated. I’m still working on being regulated, being nervous and having my nervous system be regulated. And I feel like from the Western cultures, we are in some ways addicted to anxiety.
Salimeh (42:54)
That’s what my Ibogaine journey was all about. He’s like, I am still like this in a lot of ways in my life. So when a trigger happens, my rational mind is like, whoa, be independent, be strong, push through it, work hard, you know, all of those stories of survival. But in actuality, I realized that that’s not survival. That’s only going to get me to place a burnout.
Salimeh (43:22)
So extreme highs, extreme lows, extreme highs, extreme lows. And being in Costa Rica and really ⁓ like being so held by the nature here and also learning from the Costa Ricans who’ve grown up here, they see life with equanimity. I don’t see them going up and down through their days. If anything, our nervous system like that.
Salimeh (43:51)
expats and the travelers coming here who are like excuse me where’s the coffee place and I need to get this done right now and like my car is not working and they’re just like whoo poor Vida like it’s all okay it’s all happening ⁓ and they just have a essence of beingness that you know is really
Salimeh (44:15)
I don’t know. It’s teaching me a lot just to say that. And I feel that what’s happening in the Western culture is just a lot of people don’t, they can’t, they can’t even live in that vibration anymore. So ⁓ yeah, they come here, they drink, they come to you, they drink, they go into the Amazon, they drink. They’re doing all kinds of medicine work in the States and in Canada, and they’re anchoring a new vibration in.
Salimeh (44:44)
And they’re saying, no, I’m not gonna run around like a chicken, I’m sorry, with his head cut off anymore. I’m gonna pay attention to my meditation. I’m gonna take time with my partner. I’m gonna go and rest in the afternoon. So I feel that that’s the only way we might be able to make it through this time of crisis on our planet. If we’re not grounded, I don’t feel like we’re.
Salimeh (45:13)
What’s it all for then, if we can even be peaceful? And that’s where I think the new alternative might come from. It’s not gonna come from anxiety, it’s gonna have to come from relaxation.
Sam Believ (45:30)
Yeah, it’s somewhat similar here in Colombia. There’s not ⁓ as much stress, I guess, in the Western world, but everything ⁓ is manana. So you can always, as I like to joke, don’t postpone to tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. But ⁓ where do you think it’s leading us?
Salimeh (45:51)
I’m sorry.
Sam Believ (45:58)
people getting awakened and then awakening more people because obviously some people know my dream is to wake up in the world where ⁓ yesterday everyone had ayahuasca because I believe it would be pretty hard for ⁓ people to be anxious or angry or aggressive after that but ⁓ I hear some people talking about like ascension or different dimension different vibration I must admit
Sam Believ (46:26)
I know nothing about it, I still ⁓ somewhat, I guess, not criticize it but I’m not ready to accept that but maybe you can change my mind. What is happening, what is gonna happen to the planet? I don’t know if you believe in that version.
Salimeh (46:45)
Yeah, and again, I would love to hear your ⁓ feelings around it. You know, individuals who come and dream, then, you know, what are they feeling? What do you feel that this whole ⁓ journey, playground, life school is about?
Sam Believ (47:04)
Well, what I’m gathering now from people having their processes and coming back and then telling us what they saw is that ⁓ there’s an overwhelming pattern ⁓ that ⁓ this life and this existence is a like a training place where the souls go to learn something to graduate or you know go to the next level which is a good belief system personally for me because it’s better.
Sam Believ (47:33)
I’d rather believe that we’re a soul and we’re gonna ⁓ go somewhere else than, you know, that we’re just ⁓ a sack of meat that dies and rots and nothing else happens. So that’s what I’m gathering so far. But regarding like Planet and ⁓ I’ve heard being mentioned 5D, generally we really focus on the healing side of it. So people come and they heal and everyone comes. But there’s always two, three people in the group that talk about this other side of things, which is like…
Sam Believ (48:04)
something to do with aliens or maybe it has to do with like a very very deep ⁓ spiritual but like new age spirituality which I ⁓ I don’t I just don’t understand it yet I don’t know much about it so I don’t know ⁓ the things you mentioned sort of sound this way maybe you can explain to me what has gone on maybe I can finally piece it together
Salimeh (48:28)
⁓ Again, I think we’re on the journey together. ⁓ I would love, ⁓ you know, to…
Salimeh (48:37)
to one day have the absolute truth. But I feel like that really only happens when we do transition. And…
Salimeh (48:52)
one of my friends, you know, this is kind of dark humor, but one of my friends once said, this is probably like some alien show. Like it’s a really bad reality show that aliens are watching and they’re like, let’s see if these humans make it. ⁓ And I don’t know. ⁓ And, you know, I oftentimes will talk about my one.
Salimeh (49:20)
really potent experience in Spain. It was during the World Ayahuasca Conference, which, you know, my dear friends from ICERs put on. And this was in Spain in 2019. And different lineages would have different ceremonies every night. And so during the days we would go and just like the cannabis conference, there would be speakers. And ⁓ whether it was the research track or the therapeutic track or
Salimeh (49:50)
the ⁓ indigenous tracks ⁓ in the evenings, you could go and experience different kinds of ceremonies. ⁓ And so I went to Alex Polari’s ceremony was a daime ⁓ experience with around 50 people in this old fort building, old Spanish style fort building. And Alex Polari, like incredible gentleman, an elder.
Salimeh (50:17)
but so strong in the force of the medicine. He was singing and the main ⁓ central anchors were singing. And during that ceremony, the medicine started showing me ⁓ a potential timeline where there were millions of deaths on the planet, you know, because of tsunamis and fires and earthquakes. And I was just really impacted.
Salimeh (50:46)
as an empath, like really, really impacted. And I would start crying and crying and I couldn’t stop. And I just didn’t understand why the medicine had to show this to me in such a strong force. And I kept telling it that it was enough. And I didn’t understand why I was being shown this. And so eventually I started to kind of come back into more grounding and the messages that I received, and again, take what resonates were that there will be
Salimeh (51:15)
come a time on our planet potentially. Again, it’s a timeline. There will come a time where it doesn’t matter what car you drive, what family you’re from, what your job is, what you’re doing. Doesn’t matter. None of that matters because there won’t be anything to hook onto ⁓ except God and accept your connection to.
Salimeh (51:45)
that sense of yourself and knowing. So that was one of the messages. The second message was that there would probably be a time where there will only be song and prayer. Like there won’t be much other activity on the planet, just people sitting together in song and prayer, which we are seeing more and more of that happen in the different lineages and communities. The third thing that I received in that ceremony was this
Salimeh (52:14)
this phrase of enlightenment is survival and survival is enlightenment. And I reflect on that and I can see it more and more in my life. It’s like, okay, if you want to live without disease, without trauma, without continuous tension in the body, without chronic, you know, immune issues, that is highly correlated with
Salimeh (52:44)
how ⁓ non -attached ⁓ you are, how fully present you are, how attuned you are to the full acceptance that everything is perfect. And so, you know, the Buddhist traditions of equanimity, which are enlightenment, what is an enlightened being, a person who moves through life as love. And so that…
Salimeh (53:12)
correlated very strongly to survival in this lifetime, at least in the way that it was showing me. So I thought, ⁓ that’s going to be interesting. Maybe as humans, we’re going to go through massive crises. We are in some ways in the sixth extinction. As David Suzuki says, he’s an incredible environmentalist and activist based out of Vancouver. And he says we as a species are in a car going towards a brick wall. And we all.
Salimeh (53:41)
can kind of see that this brick wall is there and nobody’s pulling the brakes. And so, you know, here we are again, a runaway culture, anxious, anxious humans. And what does it mean to be able to survive on the planet if we do face these crises? And that’s one of the reasons why I got called to Costa Rica, you know, for me, it was a really big reason of like food and water security.
Salimeh (54:11)
baseline, you know, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, baseline of ⁓ food and, you know, safety and shelter and water. And again, wherever we are on the planet is perfect. Our soul has agreed to be there. And I have a feeling that there probably will be some communities of the future, like more tribal living that’s going to start taking place. And people are already migrating out of cities in a lot of ways.
Salimeh (54:40)
People are already thinking about, you know, how do we set up systems where even in the coldest climates or if the grid systems go down in the United States, which are very old and very sensitive. If there are solar flares, which we just saw last month that created the aurora or borealis as low as Vancouver. ⁓ Like, you know, these these we are very vulnerable ⁓ beings.
Salimeh (55:07)
when it comes to these things. Let’s say money gets, like you can’t take cash out of the bank account. You can’t buy your food. And the electric system goes down because of a grid and your plumbing isn’t working. Your fridge is not working. And I think about these things a lot. And I talk about it openly because ⁓ I just feel that a lot of people are just like, on there.
Salimeh (55:31)
scrolling and in that zone, you know, and they’re like, okay, I don’t have the capacity to even feel this or look at this. But as we start to open up and expand and feel and really ⁓ take in everything from our world, what does that mean? And, you know, how can we create these sanctuaries of light or sanctuaries of survival that other people can be brought into them as well?
Salimeh (55:59)
if there is a time period where this transition does happen. Again, it sounds like a movie, it sounds like sci -fi. I don’t feel like it’s that strange to think about. And many, many people have gone downloads around this. And I ⁓ would love, and I’ll end on this, I would love…
Salimeh (56:24)
you know, for, and I think it is happening to your point of like why lawyers or people in tech or engineers such as yourself who were, you know, like very smart. If we can have a solution summit, you know, bring in the Silicon Valley that’s being activated by LSD and psilocybin microdosing right now, bring in like the top individuals who have been activated by medicine.
Salimeh (56:53)
and get them into a summit and we start talking about ways that we can ⁓ shift the wealth transfer, start to balance things out on our planet, regenerative agriculture, bringing back the soil health, starting to get back into the coral reefs and reactivating. It’s possible. I really feel as humans, we have creative energy.
Salimeh (57:23)
that is an essence of God. And if we do ⁓ channel it in the right way, I’m so excited to see what can happen. I have a feeling we can reverse this. Is everyone gonna physically maybe make it on the planet? Maybe not. But even that is a, you know, we have to just trust the process. And I think that’s where people are kind of ⁓ losing their…
Salimeh (57:53)
way is like they’re they’re over reactive to things. ⁓ my god that has happened ⁓ my god the fear aspect and that was another piece with Aya that I forgot to mention in that ceremony. She said ⁓ you’re either in love or you’re in fear.
Salimeh (58:12)
or even further than love, the equanimity that I spoke about. You just actually are. Nothing is affecting you.
Salimeh (58:23)
except being in the essence of your breath. So it’s a it’s an incredible training time. I literally feel like the Egyptians and the you know, the Buddhist in the Tibetan book of the dead that I spoke about that we’re training for death. We are training each day of our life is training for death. And how do we stay completely anchored and connected no matter what is happening around us.
Salimeh (58:50)
That was a very long sharing. Sorry, but I hope that it answered or at least brought some reflections that you can tune in with too as well.
Sam Believ (59:03)
So yeah guys, just in case, meanwhile, buy a cow, plant some fruit trees, move near to the water source. But yeah, hopefully we can prevent something bad from happening. I think the good way to do it would be ⁓ if I could only get all those presidents here to drink ayahuasca. Maybe we could avoid the nuclear war or something like that. But yeah.
Salimeh (59:08)
Thank you.
Sam Believ (59:29)
there’s definitely some frictions and tensions all over the place but in the end of the day as I did a podcast with ⁓ Ayla Schaefer a few days ago and she said heal yourself first and if everyone heals themselves and all of a sudden everyone is healed so ⁓ to end it on a positive note if you’re afraid come come live at Loire we have plenty of water plenty of
Sam Believ (59:58)
light and starlink internet so we’ll be okay planting fruit trees fruit trees now and ⁓ probably need to get a few more cows ⁓ salim may what
Salimeh (60:07)
Yeah, I ⁓ appreciate your ⁓ humor and your positivity around it because, and I love that ⁓ the podcast speaker that you had previously who spoke to that, and that’s one of my favorite Lao Tzu ⁓ quotes that, you know, to bring light into the world is just through our own self -transformation. So it’s not like even what I said about the intention of the solution summit.
Salimeh (60:37)
or all the different hearts and minds of the planet, or a lot of people I’ve spoken to where you said of going to the UN and having like a ceremony, an ayahuasca ceremony at the United Nations level. Like if we can hold intentions of that, right? The manifesting can happen if more and more of us are feeling into that. However, it’s not from a place of that needs to happen or okay, that’s the only solution. Absolutely not. I just think about some things.
Salimeh (61:06)
say it and then I come back to myself and I’m like what am I doing today exactly as she said and you said. I’m like what is what is what am I doing today to create transformation and within myself and from that place divine inspiration happens just naturally.
Sam Believ (61:26)
Thank you Salome, thank you for this episode. I think it was very interesting and people will enjoy it. ⁓ Where can people find more about your work?
Salimeh (61:37)
Yeah, I really enjoyed our conversation too and enjoy your energy and how grounded you are. And for individuals who want to connect with me, my website is probably the best. So vibrantlifecounseling .com. ⁓ And otherwise just through my name, they’ll be able to come across some other podcasts and ⁓ places where they can learn more about plant medicine.
Sam Believ (62:08)
Thank you Salome guys, check out Salome and her work and you’ve been listening to Ayahuasca Podcast and I will see you in the next episode.
Salimeh (62:18)
Thank you so much.