When I believed I had found my path, I was already years into walking it.
I had worked alongside the Huichol people, attended ceremonies, crossed deserts, and traveled deep into the Amazon where I worked with the Shipibo to drink Ayahuasca. I had completed dietas, fasted, prayed, and disciplined myself under the guidance of different traditions. Through Hikuri — peyote — I experienced powerful revelations and built what felt like a living relationship with the medicine. Aya, too, had opened doors within me.
The dietas taught me something simple yet severe: be careful what you consume. Not only spiritually — but physically. Especially food. What we eat carries memory, intention, vibration. Nothing we take into ourselves is neutral. Even the smallest indulgence leaves an imprint on the body and the spirit. Discipline is not restriction; it is refinement.
And yet, after all those years, I found myself uncertain.
During my fourth dieta in the Amazon, something unexpected happened. Hikuri appeared in my inner world. I felt a deep longing for peyote, even while sitting in Ayahuasca ceremony. It confused me. Why would I miss one teacher while sitting with another?
When I spoke to my teacher Akano , he said something that shifted my understanding.
“Plants are like people,” he told me. “You establish deeper relationships with some than others. You can build a strong bond with one — or you can move around, like sleeping around. But depth requires commitment.”
It was blunt. But it was true.
Around that time, the annual pilgrimage was approaching — the journey with the Huichols to Wirikuta, the sacred desert where Hikuri grows. The pilgrimage is not tourism. It is prayer in motion. It is offering, sacrifice, remembrance. We go to leave offerings to the spirits, to the land, to the ancestors — and to harvest the medicine with reverence.
But I was not sure anymore if the spiritual path was truly mine. I even considered stepping away. I wondered if I had wasted years chasing something that would never solidify into a life. I questioned whether I should stop going to Mexico, stop organizing my world around ceremonies and deserts.
Still, something pulled me back. A quiet but undeniable calling.
I returned to the pilgrimage.
Xittiamá — the first Huichol I had ever met — told me it was my time to organize the journey. That recognition humbled me. Responsibility replaced doubt. With the help of friends, I coordinated the trip. We traveled into the desert, prayed to the land, left offerings, and harvested Hikuri with respect.
After the harvest, once the final offerings were placed, Xittiamá called me to the altar.
She placed my first Muwieri — a feather wand — into my hands.
The Huichols use the Muwieri to move energy during prayer. It is not symbolic. It is functional. It is responsibility made visible.
I was shaken.
After years of waiting, I had finally received one.
Then they told me something that unsettled me even more: “Your path has just begun.”
Begun? I thought. I have walked with you for four years.
I felt both honored and irritated. Blessed and humbled.
An elder looked at me and said, “We recognize the work you have done. This is a gift. Use it wisely.”
Then they said something that pierced deeper:
“The path is open for you — if you wish to become a Mara’akame. The door is open.”
A Mara’akame? A shaman? A singer of the spirit?
Years earlier, when I first began, that is all I wanted. But now… I hesitated. I was no longer romantic about it.
I realized how ignorant I had been in the beginning. I did not understand the discipline required. The sacrifice. The stripping away.
So I asked Casimiro, the Mara’akame I follow deeply and the brother of Xittiamá, what it truly takes.
He gave me two answers.
First: “Keep coming to the pilgrimage every year.”
Second: “Do not get attached to anything.”
No woman.
No job.
No dog.
No house.
No business.
“If we tell you to follow us, you follow. If we say in two weeks we leave for another state, you leave. You must be unattached.”
The teaching was clear: learn to be free. Free enough that Spirit can move through you without obstruction. Free enough that nothing owns you.
That was the message I received — learn how to be unattached. Learn how to let Spirit flow without resistance.
And that is how I found my path — the path of the Spirit of the Blue Deer.
Six months later, I did the exact opposite.
I became attached.
And that is where the real teaching began.
