What is
huachuma?
Huachuma, also known as San Pedro, is a sacred mescaline-containing cactus native to the Andes of South America. Used ceremonially for thousands of years, it has been held by the Q’ero people of Peru and many other Indigenous Andean communities as a medicine of connection, clarity, and relationship with the natural world.
Often described as a bridge between earth and sky, Huachuma can feel both deeply grounding and expansive. The experience unfolds slowly, inviting us out of the noise of everyday life and back into what is real, immediate, and alive.
Its name is often translated as “to remove the head,” reflecting the medicine’s ability to quiet the thinking mind so the heart can lead. In that opening, familiar distractions can soften, perspective can shift, and the things that matter most often become easier to see.
Huachuma is a medicine of relationship. Relationship with the body, the land, other people, and the larger living world we are part of. It can bring vision and insight, but also humor, tenderness, compassion, and an unmistakable sense of connection.
At ETÉREO, our work with Huachuma is rooted in respect for its Andean origins and our living relationship with the Q’ero lineage, while creating a contemporary ceremonial container here in the desert of Baja California Sur.
Huachuma Retreats
at ETÉREO
Our Huachuma retreats unfold outdoors in the desert of Baja California Sur, where the medicine has space to move. Days are spent walking the arroyo, resting beneath trees, gathering around the fire, and allowing the landscape to become part of the experience itself.
Our work is informed by Fletcher’s initiation within the Q’ero lineage, while remaining distinctly ETÉREO. We create intimate containers with thoughtful preparation, experienced facilitation, and room for each person to follow their own relationship with the medicine.
THE ARROYO
The day begins at ETÉREO AIRE LIBRE, our open-air glamping space set within 24 acres of desert land and the future home of the completed ETÉREO center. We gather to open sacred space, speak our intentions, sit with the medicine, and drink Huachuma together. From there, we begin the descent into the arroyo in silence, a moderate 15-minute hike that takes us from the land above into the wide, quiet canyon below.
Once there, our lead facilitator, Fletcher, invites each person to find their own power spot within the landscape. And then, we let the day unfold. There is nowhere to be. Time opens for introspection, wandering, conversation, laughter, stillness, and deep reverence for the natural world. We practice the profound art of listening: to the medicine, to the land, to one another, and to whatever becomes easier to hear when the usual noise falls away.
As sunset approaches, we make our way back up to AIRE LIBRE to close the ceremony around the fire. Chef Paul prepares a grounding meal, and we spend the evening together, eating, laughing, sharing stories from the day, or simply sitting beside the fire. The ceremony is not separate from any of this. The walk, the canyon, the meal, the laughter, the people beside you. This is the work, too.
HUACHUMA
FAQs
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Yes. Huachuma, commonly known as San Pedro, is a mescaline-containing cactus native to the Andes of South America. It has been used ceremonially for thousands of years and is often associated with connection, clarity, compassion, and a deepened relationship with the natural world.
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Every experience is different. Huachuma is often described as heart-opening, grounding, expansive, and deeply connective. This medicine is gentle, yet powerful, and asks that you meet it halfway.
A day may include introspection, emotion, laughter, conversation, movement, stillness, or simply lying on a rock for a few hours. We make room for all of it.
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Huachuma is a long, slow medicine, and our ceremonies unfold across an entire day. We begin together in the morning and allow plenty of unstructured time for the experience to develop naturally, eventually returning to AIRE LIBRE to close around the fire, share a grounding meal, and spend the evening together.
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Overnight retreats include lodging at ETÉREO AIRE LIBRE, our private glamping environment set on 24 acres of desert land in Baja California Sur. Accommodations include spacious glamping tents and individual teepees, with a hot shower, flushable bathroom, a desert kitchen, communal gathering spaces, and a whole lot of desert sky.
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Inclusions vary by offering, but our Huachuma retreats may include accommodations at AIRE LIBRE, ceremony, preparation and integration support, nourishing meals prepared by our private chef, and time together on the ETÉREO land. Exact inclusions and schedules are provided with each retreat.
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You don’t need previous psychedelic or ceremonial experience to join us. Everyone completes an intake and readiness process before participating so we can understand your intentions, health history, medications, and what is bringing you to the medicine. More than anything, we look for a willingness to arrive curious, participate respectfully, and engage with the experience as it unfolds.
MEET FLetcher BURDICK
I didn't find Huachuma when I had my shit together. I found it somewhere on the long road back from having almost completely lost myself. There were years when I knew how to disappear. Addiction. Lying to people I loved. Lying to myself. Becoming whatever version of me I needed to be to keep things moving. So when I talk about huachuma, I'm not talking from some fucking mountaintop. I've been in some pretty dark rooms.
My relationship with Huachuma eventually took me to Peru, into the Andes, and into relationship with the Q'ero. I received teachings and initiations there and spent time with wisdom keepers who have been carrying these traditions for generations. And honestly the thing I remember most isn't some profound teaching. It was watching the Paqos and Nustas laugh. They were completely themselves. They'd joke around, stumble over a sentence, get distracted, laugh at each other. Then they'd turn around and do something sacred with a seriousness that was primordial and palpable.
Nobody seemed particularly interested in looking like a holy person. We've gotten pretty good at the performance of spirituality over here. The long slow breezy voice. The flowy whites and neutral beiges. The crystals arranged just so. Somehow always speaking exclusively in metaphors. I've never been able to pull that off. And I don't want to.
I'm Fletcher. I wear beat up shirts and jeans to ceremony. I swear. I roll my own cigarettes. I've fucked plenty of things up. I have a heavy sense of humor and a pretty low tolerance for bullshit. I also have an enormous amount of respect for this master plant and a lot of reverence for the lineage. And for me those things coexist pretty comfortably.
When we sit with Huachuma, I'm not trying to create some perfect spiritual experience. I'm there to pay attention. To the fire, to the people, to the medicine. I watch for the person who's getting overwhelmed and the person who's trying too hard to have an experience. I notice when somebody needs help and when they need to be left alone. Sometimes I'll say something. Sometimes I'll sit beside someone quietly. Sometimes the best thing I can do is hand them some water and stay the fuck out of the way. I know my role, and I also have enough humility to remember that I’m working with something I could spend a lifetime learning from.
The ceremony has a rhythm to it. We open the space, acknowledge huachuma and the lineage. Those who came before us and those who will come after us. We drink. Then we go down toward the arroyo. Through the desert. Toward the water. The day gets big. People wander. They talk. They laugh and cry, sit under trees and lay on rocks. Eventually the afternoon starts giving way into evening and we make our way back up the mountain. There's a fire. There's food. Somebody has a story. Somebody else is staring into the flames.
And after all the strange and beautiful shit that can happen during a day with Huachuma, we're eventually just sitting around a fire eating together. That's one of my favorite parts. Because eventually you have to come back to your life. The dishes still need washing. Time becomes a reality again. You still have the same house and the same people waiting for you there . The question is what you do with what happened.
I've never been interested in collecting extraordinary experiences. I've had enough in my own life to know that you can have the biggest experience imaginable and still go home and do the same stupid shit on Monday. I'm more interested in what gets quieter. What becomes harder to lie about. What you finally stop carrying. What you decide is worth your time and where you're going next. I take the lineage seriously. I take the medicine seriously. I take the responsibility of sitting with people seriously. I just don't think any of that requires me to pretend to be somebody that I’m not.
The Q'ero taught me something without ever needing to turn it into a lesson. You can carry something sacred and still be completely human. You can laugh when you’re not “supposed” to. You can fuck up a sentence. You can smoke a cigarette. You can sit around a fire and talk shit. And when the moment comes, you can become very still and quiet and remember exactly why you're there.
That's how I work with Huachuma. I show up as myself. I bring everything I've lived through with me. And I make room for you to do the same.