When you sit in ayahuasca ceremony at Earth Connection Community, you are held by a team. It's not just one person — it's a group of spiritually prepared individuals, each with a distinct role. Knowing who will be with you, and what each person does, turns uncertainty into trust. This guide explains the two main ceremonial support roles at ECC: the ceremony facilitator and the ceremony angel.
These are two distinct spiritual roles, each earned through years of preparation, a deep relationship with the sacred medicine, and a real commitment to caring for participants. They are not clinical titles, and they are not interchangeable with one another. Knowing the difference matters — for your own peace of mind before ceremony, and so you know what to ask for if you need support.
What Is the Role of the Ceremony Facilitator?
The ceremony facilitator is the person who holds the ceremonial container. ECC's facilitators are trained within the Shipibo lineage of the Peruvian Amazon. In this lineage, the ceremonial leader spends years in apprenticeship with plant medicine teachers. That apprenticeship builds two things: a real relationship with the medicine, and the skill to work with others in the ceremonial space.
At ECC, facilitators are trained in the Shipibo lineage under Maestro Enrique Lopez. This apprenticeship includes periods of isolation dieta with plant teacher medicines, learning and embodying icaros, and direct transmission of curanderismo practices. Together, these give a facilitator the capacity to guide others.
During ceremony, the facilitator's primary responsibilities include:
- Opening and closing the ceremonial space. The facilitator sets the sacred container — the energetic and intentional boundaries the ceremony takes place within. This is not a metaphor. In this tradition, opening the ceremonial space is a real act: it invites protection, guidance, and right relationship with the plant teachers.
- Singing icaros. The facilitator's primary tool during ceremony is the icaro — a sacred song learned through apprenticeship. Icaros carry healing intention and guidance from the plant lineage. The facilitator sings different icaros at different stages of ceremony, and for different participants, to work with each person's specific needs.
- Guiding the ceremonial arc. A ceremony is not just a stretch of time when the medicine acts. The facilitator shapes the experience — knowing when to create space, when to approach a participant, and when to raise or soften the energetic intensity of the work. This takes real skill, and close attention to whatever is arising in the room.
- Working directly with participants who need support. Participants who are struggling — emotionally, physically, or spiritually — receive direct attention from the facilitator. This may look like the facilitator approaching and working with a participant using icaros, mapacho, or presence. It is spiritual support, not clinical intervention.
Key Takeaway: The ceremony facilitator is the spiritually prepared individual who holds the ceremonial container, sings icaros, and guides the arc of the ceremony. This is a spiritual role rooted in the Shipibo tradition — not a clinical or therapeutic one.
What Is the Role of the Ceremony Angel?
The ceremony angel provides compassionate, practical support to participants during ceremony. The facilitator holds the broader container and does the primary spiritual work. The angel's focus is narrower: individual participants — present, attentive, ready to help with whatever arises.
Here's the key difference: angels do not lead the ceremony. They do not sing icaros, unless they've been trained to. Their work is presence — a calm, grounded, compassionate body in the room, ready to assist.
During ceremony, ceremony angels typically:
- Provide physical support and comfort. Ceremony brings physical responses — the purge, shaking, movement, a need for water or a blanket. Angels meet these needs quietly, without disrupting the broader ceremony: finding a bucket, bringing water, adjusting a blanket, or simply sitting close when someone needs another person nearby.
- Offer grounding when participants feel unmoored. Some participants need a hand to hold, a quiet reassuring voice, or a gentle presence to help them stay connected to their body and to the ceremonial space. Angels provide this. They're trained to ground a participant in ways that work with the ceremony, not pull them out of it.
- Communicate with the facilitator. Angels are the facilitator's eyes in the room. If a participant needs the facilitator's direct attention, the angel communicates this. The facilitator cannot be everywhere at once; angels extend the facilitator's awareness throughout the ceremonial space.
- Hold space after the ceremony ends. The formal end of ceremony does not mean participants are immediately ready to return to ordinary space. Angels continue their work in the hours after ceremony ends — sitting with participants who are still processing, helping with the transition back to the ordinary world.
Key Takeaway: Ceremony angels hold a distinct and equally essential spiritual role in their own right — not a step toward becoming a facilitator. Their spiritual preparation, compassionate presence, and attentiveness to each participant's needs are what make it possible for the facilitator to hold the broader ceremonial container.
Training and Preparation for the Support Team
Neither role at ECC is filled lightly. Preparation is extensive, ongoing, and rooted in the same traditional practices that the medicine itself embodies.
Facilitators at ECC are trained under the Shipibo lineage through direct apprenticeship. Kano, ECC's co-founding facilitator, completed over a decade of apprenticeship under Maestro Enrique Lopez in the Peruvian Amazon. Brett Allred, co-founder and ceremony facilitator, has completed master plant dietas with Noya Rao and Bobinsana under the guidance of Kano and Maestro Enrique Lopez. These are not weekend certifications or online courses — they are multi-year, immersive relationships with the medicine and its teachers.
Before each retreat, facilitators also do a personal dieta of their own: clean food, sexual abstinence, less media and social contact, and focused time with the medicine. In this tradition, this preparation is essential — the facilitator must be a clear channel. A facilitator who isn't properly prepared can't hold the container the way it needs to be held.
Ceremony angels at ECC have sat in ceremony themselves. They're invited into the role because they've shown real presence, compassion, and groundedness in the ceremonial space. Angels prepare alongside facilitators and follow similar pre-ceremony protocols. They are not volunteers or first-timers — they are spiritually prepared community members, specifically invited and trained for this role.
What Is the Difference Between Spiritual Support and Clinical Intervention?
Ceremony is a religious experience, and the sacred medicine works on the spiritual level — so the care participants receive during ceremony is spiritual support: facilitators singing icaros, angels offering grounded presence, both extending spiritual counsel and spiritual care that meets what's actually happening in the room. This support has its own integrity. It restores a person's relationship with the divine, the natural world, and their own spirit — which is what the ceremonial space is for. It is not clinical care, medical supervision, or psychological therapy, because ceremony is doing a different, and older, kind of work.
If a participant has a genuine medical emergency in the ceremonial space, standard emergency protocols apply. But the ordinary experiences of ceremony — intense visions, strong emotions, the purge, fear, grief, surrender — are not emergencies. They are the medicine working. The facilitation team's role is to hold the space for this work, not to interrupt or clinicalize it.
Participants who have questions about how their specific health situation will be managed should raise these in the intake screening process before attending ceremony, not during it.
Key Takeaway: ECC's ceremony facilitators and angels provide spiritual support and ceremonial guidance — this is distinct from clinical care, medical supervision, or psychological therapy, which the ceremonial space is not designed to provide.
What Participants Can Expect From the Support Team at ECC
At ECC retreats, no one is alone in ceremony. The support team stays present the whole time — from opening the space to closing it, and for hours after.
Here is what you can expect:
- Introduction before ceremony. You'll meet the facilitators and angels before you enter the ceremonial space. Many participants call this pre-ceremony time one of the most important parts of the retreat: knowing who will be with you, feeling the quality of their presence, and making a basic human connection before ceremony begins.
- A consistent support-to-participant ratio. ECC maintains intentional limits on the number of participants per ceremony to ensure adequate support. The exact ratio varies by retreat format, but the principle is consistent: every participant should be able to receive individual attention if needed.
- Permission to ask for support. You do not need to wait to be approached. If you need an angel to come close, you can signal. If you want the facilitator's attention, the angel can communicate that need. You are not expected to navigate difficulty alone — that is what the support team is for.
- Respect for your process. The support team's role is not to manage your experience or steer you toward a particular outcome. It is to hold a safe container for whatever arises and to offer support when you need or ask for it. The medicine leads. The facilitator holds the container. The angel is present. Your process is yours.
"The facilitators and staff poured their love and attention into their work, making me feel welcomed and supported during my first encounter with the medicine."
Parker Slade, Ceremony Participant
Why This Is a Religious Practice, Not a Wellness Service
ECC is a 501(c)(3) religious organization operating under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The ceremony facilitation structure is not incidental to this — it is central to it.
Sacred ceremony at ECC is a religious practice, not a wellness service or therapeutic program. The people who hold ceremony are not healthcare providers or coaches. They are spiritually prepared individuals, trained within a traditional lineage, exercising a sincere religious role in a sincere religious community. Meet the people who hold this role on our facilitators page.
Here's why this matters: if you're considering an ECC retreat, you're considering a religious ceremony held by trained religious practitioners. You'll receive spiritual support from people who've dedicated years to this practice, and who take the responsibility of the ceremonial container seriously.
If you have questions about the facilitation team, the preparation process, or what the support structure looks like for your specific circumstances, we welcome that conversation as part of your spiritual discernment. Our facilitators are happy to speak with prospective participants before they commit to attending.