Reflections & Experiences

Spiritvine is a magical place. The founder and visionary of Spiritvine, Sylvia, together with her team create an enabling environment where all guests can unfold and access the healing powers of ayahuasca in a safe and cocooned environment. During my 9-day retreat in November, I had the fortune to connect in a very sincere and meaningful way, not only with untapped parts of myself but with other like-minded people and the beautiful surrounding nature. Words can’t properly describe how incredibly fortunate I feel to have had this opportunity. I look forward to returning soon.

The beauty of Spirit Vine literally took my breath away. What Silvia Polivoy has created here with all of her hard work and dedication is incredible. Silvia is so full of love and caring for everybody at Spirit Vine – she is wise and intelligent, but also has a great sense of humor. I just want to hug her again as I’m writing this! I found it tough at times – you don’t always hear what you want to hear, but you definitely hear what you need to hear. Silvia and all at Spirit Vine have helped me so much to understand myself better and put me on the right path. And then there was TiO – so kind and helpful, and dedicated to putting his heart and soul into everything he does at Spirit Vine. Every time I make food now, I miss his happy little face standing there describing everything I am eating! 🙂 And also a special mention for Noor, such a happy, peaceful and kind soul and a great guy to have around. As for the other people taking part in the retreat – what an awesome, diverse group of people. We laughed, we cried, we healed together. I have so much love for everybody who was there, especially Fotini, who helped me more than she knows with her wise advice!

The ayahuasca was pure and strong, and took me to some incredible places. Ceremonies were sometimes spectacular, sometimes tough, sometimes funny, but always a great learning experience. I think everybody should experience ayahuasca and I can’t imagine there being any better place. You feel safe and well looked after at all times.

There is so much to say about Spirit Vine I could be here all day. The day trips to the stunning beach and waterfalls were amazing! And it was definitely good advice to stay on in Itacare for a few days after the retreat – absolutely loved it!

I would especially like to express my gratitude for the final daytime ceremony. I had no idea what to expect with this one, as ayahuasca is normally always at night time in the dark. I can only say WOW!! I was straight into that beautiful pond, with the bats chasing each other above my head, all of the stunning birds and insects coming to play, and every tree alive with wisdom. I actually felt like I was bathing in the Garden of Eden. Nothing will ever come close. If I could go back to re-live just that one day, I would be there in a heartbeat!

Thank you so much Silvia – your advice and wisdom to me were exactly what I needed and I feel like a stronger, better person now that my path is clearer. I hope to return in the near future to your beautiful paradise! Lots of Love to all of you beautiful people

It’s now a week after the retreat and I’m still buzzing from how amazing my time was at Spirit Vine! Going into an Ayahuasca experience for the first time, I had a lot of nervous energy and emotions. I didn’t know what exactly to expect and I had a lot of expectations on areas of my life I wanted “fixed”. My nerves were quickly calmed as soon as I stepped onto the Spirit Vine grounds. This place is a true oasis. There’s a beautiful pond in the middle of the grounds where participants can float, swim, and relax. I spent a lot of my days laying by the pond or diving into it –so much healing in just relaxing and meditating by the water!

Silvia who founded the retreat is the most amazing, wise, and pure soul you will meet! The center and program she has built is incredible. Her and Ti0, who facilitates the retreat with her, were incredibly kind, generous, thorough, and genuinely put you at ease going into, and during, the experience. We had incredible workshops before the ceremonies that really helped get to your essence and unleashing our unlimited potential. I really loved that there were therapeutic components built into the experience. For me personally, these workshops primed the experiences that I had during the ceremonies and helped me to dig a layer deeper. It was also really empowering to share our journeys afterward and listen to others as well. Our days were so well organized and helped cultivate an amazing energy for the ceremonies at night.

In addition to the beautiful grounds, you will meet the most amazing people at the retreat. I feel like I have close friend’s all over the world now and am so grateful to Silvia for creating this space for people of all walks of life to come together to improve themselves and be there to support each other. I’m completely overwhelmed by all the love and light I feel after the retreat, and am so looking forward to making this a yearly tradition. I can’t recommend a more a supportive, loving, peaceful, and safe environment for your aya experience!

This is my second go around and I can’t wait for next year to continue my journey in understanding my physical, mental and spiritualness.

Sylvia’s has done an amazing job at providing a well structured, organized and safe experience in her retreat. It shows in how her staff interacts with the participants and the day to day running of the retreat.

Sylvia, Tio and Noor genuinely wants to see people get better and have an amazing experience. That is their primary focus and it shows as to how the whole event runs.

I am truly appreciate and thankful for the amazing experience and can’t wait to come back!

I have been attending retreats at Spirit Vine since 2012, and I wouldn’t go anywhere else. If you are in doubt where to go this is THE place. In all the time that I have been visiting this center I have not met a single person who didn’t LOVE it. If Ayahuasca is your thing then this is your place

Transformational!

My intention coming to this retreat was to clear out the things that were holding me back from realizing my true potential. I realized that intention and more.

The first two ceremonies put me right in touch with my body – in particular with my visual, auditory and kinesthetic senses. From this place I was highly sensitized to my conscious control patterns and then deeper into my unconscious patterns – the things I did habitually to avoid the present moment – to avoid and sabotage life.

I felt coming into this retreat that I was a master of running away from myself. I hadn’t realised what a master I was! Mother Ayahuasca showed me clearly the many ways I do this, some obvious and some very subtle. I now feel freed up to embrace life – the brakes have been removed. I had heard others say that ayahuasca is like doing 15 years therapy in a few days. It totally is. Ayahuasca amplifies the issues and helps you heal at an astonishing pace – what a gift.

Massive thanks to Silvia Polivoy for creating this paradise in the tropical Atlantic rainforest of Bahia. The setting is beautiful, the team are wonderful and everything is taken care of for you so that your focus can be 100% on your journey. The retreat centre is stunning, the food is cleansing and optimized for Ayahuasca, the workshops are incredibly helpful and the retreat group really added to the process.

I couldn’t recommend the retreat more highly.

I have read that people talk about their pre Ayahuasca life and their post Ayahuasca life; I have fully and profoundly stepped into my post Ayahuasca life and power, with the greatest gratitude, love and thanks to Silvia and her amazing team.

Earlier this year I made the decision to research and find an Ayahuasca retreat for my husband, Mark (Weston) and myself to attend. After reading many reviews and watching many videos, including Silvia’s lovely video on the Spirit Vine website, my mind was made up and we both agreed that we should book the 11 day / 5 ceremony retreat we have just experienced. To say that this experience has been life changing, wonderful, profound and beyond any expectations I had, is an understatement!

If you are considering booking an Ayahuasca retreat, I can’t recommend Silvia and Spirit Vine highly enough; personally I can’t wait to return and I haven’t even left Brazil yet!

Silvia is one of the most incredible, talented, experienced, wonderful, loving, caring women I have ever met. A gifted, approachable, humble, understanding Shaman of the highest order. I feel so blessed to now call her my friend. What Silvia has created in this wonderfully remote, beautifully wild, part of the Brazilian rainforest is truly amazing. I was totally blown away by the retreat and its surroundings, by Silvia, her wonderful retreat team and her brilliant, happy and hardworking support team. I felt totally safe, cared for and loved in every way possible. At no point did I feel out of my depth, scared or even apprehensive – every aspect is so expertly dealt with and catered for, from the talks and incredibly valuable workshops, to the delicious food and comfortable beautiful accommodation. The whole experience is worth every ounce of planning, commitment and energy. It can be personally challenging at times for sure; it would be unfair for me not to be honest about this, however the rewards far far outweigh any challenges and my life will never be the same again.

Thank you, once again, dearest Silvia, Ti O, Noor and staff. Thank you also to all the other wonderful souls/participants of our retreat whose experiences and input, kindnesses and friendship enhanced our understanding and overall experiences.

If you are reading reviews at this website, you would seem to be making an effort to be mindful regarding the choosing of a retreat center. You should be mindful as the full range of quality is possible, from very good to very bad. I have attended retreats at several centers in Brazil and Peru and Spirit Vine stands head and shoulders above the rest. I recommend you do your due diligence, carefully research the possibilities based upon what you want and then choose Spirit Vine. Here are three questions I encourage you to consider.

How do I know what is in the medicine I will be drinking? At Spirit Vine the plants (Caapi Vine and Chacruna) are grown onsite and ceremonially brewed with NO add mixtures. The medicine is clean and strong. Period.

Will I feel safe? At Spirit Vine you will not only feel safe, you will feel pampered. The campus is within the Mata Atlantic Rainforest, beautifully landscaped and includes comfortable bungalows, lagoon, an amazing Temple, massage room and “restaurant” that serves high quality, Ayahuasca diet friendly vegan and vegetarian fare. Special dietary requests are considered upon request such as gluten free, etc. All of this provided with the non-profit center.

Do the staff know what they are doing? The answer at Spirit Vine, is that staff clearly know what they are doing. Lead by Silvia Polivoy, formerly trained as a psychologist who has spent considerable time with shaman, using many medicinal plants. The combination of education and practice in clinical psychology with decades of experience with medicinal plants as well as facilitating retreats gives participants access to an unique set of skills. Activities are designed to help you open up to the possibilities arising in ceremony. Ti O and Noor are there to assist with every imaginable request while housekeeping and the chef’s make you feel pampered. There are other delights like massages, yoga, trip to nearby beaches on the Cacao Coast of Bahia and if you choose, after the retreat to the charming surfer town of Itacare, Brazil.

I have now attended four retreats at Spirit Vine and hope to return again as I view it as Sacred Ground, and I am agnostic!

You are looking at reviews to decide where to experience Ayahuaska, and you have found the right place. Here’s why:

Imagine an incredibly intelligent, curious, and driven woman from Argentina with a PhD in clinical psychology and 20 years of experience with her private practice. Imagine a person of this caliber going on a personal journey to investigate modified states of consciousness in Mexico, Peru, Brazil and more, learning about Ayahuaska, San Pedro, and other plant medicine from many shamans, gaining a deep understanding of the traditions and benefits of plant medicine. Committing herself to years and years of intense immersion in this field.

Now imagine that she has created a not for profit retreat in Brazil where you can go to have your own experience in a completely safe and supportive environment, and benefit from all she has accomplished.

The place I’m describing is the Spirit Vine Retreat, and the woman I’m describing is Silvia Polivoy.

I’ve just finished my first 11 day retreat and am completely blown away by what I have learned about myself. I have done a lot of personal work over the years on my own, but this retreat broke through many blocked areas that I have been unable to sort out on my own.

I recommend Spirit Vine without reservation. Silvia and TiO hold a beautiful space for us to meet ourselves. Don’t miss the opportunity!

You’d be hard pressed to find a safer, more organized, and more effective space for the respectful and mindful use of Ayahuasca anywhere else in the world.

The well planned and considered retreat takes place in a somewhat remote section of Atlantic Forest in Brazil’s breathtaking coastal state of Bahia. Set among a small cluster of rustic but comfortable bungalows is a pond for swimming next to a large and authentic Ayahuasca ceremony room with attached bathrooms. The undisturbed beauty of the nature on the piece of land where the ceremonies take place yields plants, insects, and animals that combine to show guests an experience of Brazilian countryside you would normally have to pay for a tour through the jungle to have access to.

Not only does Silvia and her wise and incredible staff have a deep respect for both the participants as well as the plant medicine itself, but they all have extensive personal, firsthand experience with this profound and potentially life altering substance. This generates an environment of professionalism, safety, and the ability to meaningfully integrate your experiences. Typically I did this through either the therapeutic workshops, art therapies, yoga, and full body muscle relaxation massages, or just by chatting with Silvia, her fellow staff facilitators Ti-O or Nur, as well as the other retreat participants over the delicious food prepared 3 times a day by a talented kitchen staff.

I could not have anticipated the quality and standard of professionalism shown by the facilitators on this retreat and was constantly assured that I had absolutely made the right choice in coming here. I could not recommend more highly and would without question both personally recommend to friends as well as seriously consider coming back.

Thanks for everything, and may our paths cross again in the future.