When Walter first came to us,
he had already dealt with a lot of his addiction demons.
He had been through AA.
He had been sober for eight solid years,
but somewhere along the way,
this anxiety started welling up in him.
-Just a little bit anxious? -Yeah.
I'm nervous.
A lot of these anxieties that I've carried with me
for a few years now came up.
Everything was magnified to the point where I just...
I felt very uneasy.
I did not like the feelings that I was having,
and I had this energy just turning in my chest.
Steve: Mother Aya come in that first night,
and she grabbed Walter by the chest and threw him on the bed,
and she pulled from him his anxieties from his shadow self
and brought them all to the forefront,
and this really rattled him.
Walter was totally off-balance,
and she put him through the ringer,
but what he didn't understand at that moment,
the spirits, they're testing him
because they're very interested in working through him as well.
Tlawil: ...back of your heels.
Walk your fingers forward.
Inhale.
Steve: Tlawil is very skilled in yoga,
and I find that to be a very, very beautiful thing
before going into the second ceremony
when Tlawil is able to work with them through yoga.
And relax. Bend your knees.
Relax your back, your head,
your shoulders, your elbows.
Walter: When I woke up this morning, I just --
I felt a release from all that pressure and anxiety
that I had yesterday.
It takes a lot of courage to sit with ayahuasca,
sit with Mother Aya
because when you're really facing all your hard-core stuff,
she will bring out the good, the bad, and the ugly.
When I first came across ayahuasca,
my father had just passed away a few years before,
and I was at a breaking point emotionally.
My dad was awesome.
We were close.
Once he was diagnosed with lung caner, he passed away.
I think it was three months afterwards.
After my father passed away,
I was angry at everything and everybody.
Why did things have to take place like this?
Why'd my father have to pass away?
For being such a awesome man, why did this happen to him?
I started having vivid dreams, and during these dreams,
I would have a black jaguar that would come and visit me.
To find out that the jaguar represents ayahuasca,
I felt like ayahuasca sought me out.
During that first ceremony,
Mother Aya made me feel love for the first time.
A lot of comfort and healing has come from being in the ceremony
and having that experience.
Like someone is lifting you up from the...
Teri: Walter has been through a lot of shit in his life.
He's been through addiction.
He's been through ups, downs, sideways,
a little bit of everything, and inevitably in every ceremony
he's in, people just tend to gravitate to him at some point.
You know, they will confide in him,
and he is more than happy to sit down
and, you know, talk with them and help them out if he can,
and I genuinely feel with every fiber of my being
that Walter was put here to help people.