All About Grandfather San Pedro: The Heart Medicine of the Andes

What is San Pedro?

Huachuma, achuma, aguacolla, San Pedrito, San Pedro (Saint Peter). There are many names in many languages for this beautiful, powerful healing cactus. Native to the South American Andes mountains of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, huachuma is one of many types of fast-growing mescaline containing cactus that has been used for thousands of years by Andean ancestors to invoke deep states of divination, healing, understanding, and to expand consciousness. At least 3,000 years of continuous ceremonial use by the Chavín culture have been documented in Peru.

In modern times, San Pedro is one of the most underrated, overlooked, and below the radar plant teachers on the psychedelic path. Because it grows quickly, and in abundance in the parts of the world where it is native, huachuma is a more sustainable option for working with mescaline over peyote, which is highly endangered and difficult to replenish.

San Pedro kept coming up when I first started researching plant medicine. I became curious. When I worked at a shamanic retreat center, we would joke that people come for the ayahuasca, but they stay for the San Pedro. Because it really is a powerful, powerful healing companion and partner.

It got its name when the Spanish arrived and found the indigenous people drinking this medicine. They said it brought them to the Gates of Heaven. St. Peter is at the Gates of Heaven. San Pedro. The other story is that the local people called it San Pedro so they could talk about it without anyone knowing what they were talking about. They appeared to have converted to Catholicism but were still talking about this cactus. I really like that story. The cactus is like a heart opener, and this opening of the heart and walking right up to the Gates of Heaven is really the same thing. They are synonyms.

In Ecuador, you almost can’t walk down a single street without stumbling into at least one cactus. When you have a relationship with it and you have healed with it, to walk around in a country where it grows on the street feels very magical.

How San Pedro Shares His Magic

San Pedro is considered to be an empathogenic medicine, creating feelings of connection to the all, a deep sense of love and openness, empathy, and awe. It is often called The Grandfather for its gentle masculine energy and spirit.

San Pedro does one thing very, very well. He puts us firmly, gently in our hearts. We are centered there, feeling, open, loving, and willing to remove the barriers that keep us separated from our true nature. Light, love, health, abundance. All the good things we can’t access when we are suffering in ourselves.

One of my teachers says Ayahuasca is medicine for the soul. San Pedro is medicine for the heart. They both take you to the same place, just through different routes.

I received so much of my personal healing by working with San Pedro and ayahuasca together and allowing them to work as a team to teach me how to heal myself. While ayahuasca gets a lot of the press and credit as the ultimate plant medicine experience, for me, San Pedro did a lot of heavy lifting as far as helping me take action to make real change in my life. What I get with ayahuasca can be very abstract and conceptual. San Pedro helps put that into more practical and actionable terms. They work in tandem, really beautifully.

San Pedro helped me take back my power from addiction, enabled me to stand in my own authenticity, and helped me connect to my highest purpose and the vision I wanted for my life. The grandfather also helped me call in partners, heal my relationship with the masculine energy, learn how to hold space in a safe way, and showed me how empathy was only the first step in learning how to work with others who are on the healing journey.

San Pedro brings your consciousness directly to your heart and helps you see everything through a lens of love, through rose-colored, heart-shaped glasses. It helps you see things as they really are, as your heart sees them, without the lens of the mind clouding anything. The mind brings the history of past experiences to each new scenario. The mind categorizes, labels, divides. With San Pedro it is very easy to see that everything is one thing.

The heart knows the truth. That is why this medicine is so powerful. It reminds you what you already know in your heart, that you are not only good enough, but that you are divine light, and you are part of a consciousness that is also divine light, and you are here for a purpose and for a reason. Whatever steps you had to take, whatever trauma you went through, whatever happened to you, all of that was to get you to this point. And it teaches you how to be grateful for the hard things in your life. It teaches you how to be in compassion.

I am so grateful that I was addicted to alcohol. Even when I say it now it sounds crazy, but it is not crazy. It is actually true. Because having that experience and overcoming it and choosing to have a different life, choosing to have the life that is aligned with my heart, that was my choice. And these medicines empowered me to make that choice.

San Pedro is also really great for making and breaking agreements. The ancestors called these plants of power, plants in whose presence agreements could be made or broken. We have agreements about ourselves, agreements about the world. Stories we tell ourselves, or that someone told us and we agreed to. Maybe someone told us we were not good enough and we were too young to disagree, so we said yes, you are right, I am not good enough. The Grandfather brings these agreements up to the surface. He shows you the agreement and asks: do you want to keep agreeing to that? Or do you want to break that agreement and make a new one? Think about how healing it is to break the agreement of I am not good enough into I am worthy of love. That is a drastic, drastic shift.

Drugs vs Medicine

A big teaching for me on the spiritual path is that sacred plant medicines are not drugs. These are not “trips” meant to entertain and amuse us and distract us from ourselves. One of the main reasons I went into integration work was that many people came to retreats expecting to have a fun drug experience or check off their bucket list, and instead opened up intense healing processes that they did not necessarily have the tools or support to deal with alone. These plants are here to show us profound truths about ourselves, and will do so whether we are ready for it or not.

San Pedro is a master consciousness here to teach us, protect us, and help guide our lives in a good direction. This is not a synthetic compound.

A lot of people come in expecting something like MDMA. And if you have taken MDMA at a rave and sat in a cuddle puddle with a bunch of people, that is not remotely what San Pedro feels like. That comparison does not do justice to the plant spirit guiding you through.

The medicines do not make us feel any particular way. They show us what we are already feeling, emotions and vibrations we are already carrying within us. They are not going to put anything into us. They are revealing what is already there. And when the heart opens, if there is hurt in the heart, that is what comes out first.

Why Working with San Pedro Can Be Difficult

Working with San Pedro, especially at first, can be a very intense physical, emotional, and spiritual experience.

Feeling enraged on San Pedro is absolutely normal. Feeling overwhelming grief, overwhelming shame, feeling dark and painful traumatic experiences come out is normal. That is what this medicine does. It is shadow work. You are doing the shadow work in the ceremony.

San Pedro can be quite fun. It has a magical, uplifting, connective quality that feels euphoric and wonderful and brings people together, creates a real sense of family and community, and helps many people feel more gratitude, love, and hope than they have in a long time. It is also a seriously strong medicine that can be super difficult for people, especially folks who have been through intense trauma or PTSD. I have seen people have ego loss on gentle doses, and when you are new to mescaline, the masculine energy can feel overwhelming, intense, and scary. It lasts a very long time and there is nothing you can do about it but wait it out.

Trauma is something we could not face at the time because it was too difficult. Storing trauma, having trauma responses, getting triggered, these are protective measures. Your consciousness is protecting you. But when we are not able to feel our emotions, they start coming out in other ways. Physical illness, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, insomnia, stress illnesses. San Pedro is asking you to look into the darkness.

For those of us who have experienced violence, trauma, PTSD, and who have other prior health or emotional conditions, San Pedro may be a very tough experience. It may not be the right medicine for you, and that is totally ok. There is no one right medicine for everyone, and it is very important to trust yourself and your experience and do what feels right for you.

But here is what is remarkable. The difficult part is a necessary first step in transmuting and moving through into love, into joy, into elation, which is our natural state. The trauma, the anger, the pain, it is like a blackout curtain on top of a window. All you have to do is open the curtain and the light is already there coming through. San Pedro is the lens through which you are able to feel the feeling. It softens your anger into compassion. It releases the power of fear and turns it into opportunity and excitement. It transmutes the feeling while you are feeling it.

And when you feel these things, when you really experience whatever has been holding you back and you let it through, you are not only releasing yourself. You are healing your ancestors, your family, your friendships, your relationships, your cells, your body. You are powerfully saying that you are a spiritual alchemist, alkalizing pain into joy, alkalizing whatever happened to you into a purpose. And the purpose is to enjoy your life and move forward in a way that feels like your heart is leading the way.

San Pedro does not treat you like a patient. San Pedro treats you like the empowered creator that you are. He will not do the healing for you. Every time someone does the healing for you, they snatch just a little bit of your power. The cactus sees you only as what you are, a piece of divine light and an empowered creator who is capable of healing themselves. He will invite you. The best advice is to accept the invitation.

What to Expect in Ceremony

San Pedro is prepared as a tea and drunk in ceremony. It lasts a lot longer than ayahuasca, typically twice as long, though everyone is different and these are generalities. Plan for a long ride. How much you drink will be very dependent on who is serving the medicine and how strong it is.

San Pedro can be hard on your body, particularly neurologically and physically. It can exacerbate joint and muscle pain, and effects often cause people to have trouble sleeping after the ceremony ends. San Pedro is a long acting medicine and can have effect up to 12 or more hours after taking a dose. Plan to rest and relax for a day after your ceremony to give yourself the most gentle experience possible.

I have grown to think of it as going on an exciting adventure with my grandfather. Sometimes that adventure will have very strong physical and visual heart-opening effects. Sometimes it will look like pain, anger, fear, especially at first. And sometimes you will feel so overwhelmed with love that it feels like your cells are exploding in your body with it. Like you cannot physically hold all the love.

Keep in mind that everyone’s relationship with each plant medicine is different, and there is no way to know exactly what will happen for you with San Pedro. The experience will be different every time. It is a personal relationship and a personal journey. You are building a connection with this medicine and it will meet you differently as you grow.

My best advice before you ever get on the plane or set foot in the ceremony is to prepare yourself to be willing. Willing to participate. Willing to surrender. Willing to say, oh my God, that is terrifying, and lean into it anyway, because that is what is being asked of you. Willingness is the key to all of it. It is in that place that is so terrifying that the key to your new life is waiting for you.

San Pedro is a medicine best used in ceremony, with structure, intention, and respect for the plant’s power and healing abilities. Having an experienced ceremonial guide is an important part of taking care to meet this medicine in a good way.

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