The last time I came to South America I was seeking the mystery of ayahuasca, but this time the “vine of spirits” was no mystery. After drinking with over two dozen curanderos throughout Peru, as recounted in my memoir Aya: A Shamanic Odyssey, and living through a grand quest to unite the separate streams of Amazonian and Andean shamanism, I had come to understand that ayahuasca was like a woman, la Madre, the mother, and from the infinite abundance of her giving all things were made manifest.