BUFAYA Founder + Practitioner
Avi Awakened
Urubamba · Peru
My work is rooted in coming back to yourself, learning to see yourself clearly, and creating space for all of who you are to be present.
Medicines I Serve
Bufo · Kambo · Ayahuasca · Psilocybin · Sananga · Mapacho
Modalities
Breathwork · Mirroring · Nonverbal Hypnosis · Sound · Energy Work + Clearing · Vipassana-Influenced Meditation · Integration
My Relationship With Medicine
I want to know medicine through relationship.
My relationship with these medicines is deeply personal. I don't serve them simply because I was trained to work with them. I have spent time sitting with them intentionally, learning from them, allowing myself to be supported by them, and developing my own relationship with each one.
I feel deeply connected to Mapacho, Kambo, Ayahuasca, and Sananga. Each has met me differently and taught me something different about myself, this work, and what it means to sit beside another person while they move through something vulnerable.
Bufo is my medicine.
There is a connection there that is difficult for me to reduce to an explanation. I feel called to it, supported by it, and deeply connected to serving it. That relationship continues to deepen through sitting with the medicine myself, serving others, listening, and remaining open to what I still have to understand.
What Is My Medicine?
What I carry comes from what I've had to meet within myself.
My medicine comes from the things I've had to heal within myself. Sexual trauma and molestation, abandonment, alcohol abuse, hypersexuality, unhealthy relationships, and deep self-abandonment have all been part of my story.
Healing those parts of myself changed the way I understand pain, survival, and the ways our experiences can continue to shape us long after they're over. What I've learned through healing my own wounds is what allows me to recognize and hold space for those wounds in someone else.
That is where my medicine lives. Not in what happened to me, but in what I've been able to understand, heal, and transform because of it.
I'm a mirror. I use what I've learned through my own healing to help you see yourself more clearly, without telling you what you should see.
Coming Back To Yourself
So much of life teaches us who we're supposed to be, how we're supposed to act, what we should hide, and what parts of ourselves are acceptable.
Who I Am
Remembering who I am has been part of the work too.
At the center of everything I do is a belief in coming back to yourself.
My own healing has been just as much about remembering who I am as it has been about healing what hurt me. I believe there is a part of us that never stops being a child, the part that wants to laugh, play, be curious, and experience life without performing for anyone.
I take this work seriously, but I don't believe we have to take ourselves seriously all the time. I want to laugh. I want to play. I want to be fully myself, and I want the people around me to feel free to do the same.
Medicine continually asks me to look at myself honestly. If I'm going to ask you to explore the deepest parts of yourself, I believe I have a responsibility to continue exploring my own.
My Approach
I don't enter ceremony with an idea of what your experience should look like.
The way I work is intuitive and deeply individual. I pay attention to you, your breath, your body, your energy, and the energy of the medicine. I listen, trust what I feel, and respond to what is unfolding in the moment.
When you're in my care, you don't have to make your pain smaller or hide the parts of yourself you're still learning how to hold.
You can cry, scream, grieve, release, sit in silence, or simply be held.
You don't have to explain what's happening or make it make sense. Whatever comes forward, there is room for all of you here. My role is to hold that space without judgment and let you move through what is yours in the way you need to.
How I Work
The tools support the work. They are not the center of it.
I don't use every modality simply because it is available to me. Different moments ask for different kinds of presence. Sometimes breath is where we begin. Sometimes silence says more. Sometimes mirroring helps someone recognize what they have been unable to see clearly on their own.
I want enough flexibility to respond to the person in front of me rather than asking the person to fit inside a method.
Breathwork
Mirroring
Nonverbal Hypnosis
Sound
Energy Work + Clearing
Vipassana-Influenced Meditation
Integration
Who I Feel Called To Support
There are experiences I recognize from the inside.
Your story does not have to look like mine for me to sit beside you. My own experiences have given me a deeper understanding of how pain, survival, identity, and the ways we learn to protect ourselves can continue shaping us long after the original experience has passed.
Sexual Trauma + Molestation
Abandonment
Alcohol Abuse + Recovery
Hypersexuality
Self-Abandonment
Unhealthy Relationship Patterns
Self-Worth + Identity
Inner Child Recognition + Healing
Beyond Ceremony
I teach this work while continuing to live it.
I'm the founder of BUFAYA and an educator of medicine practitioners. I also work closely with my maestro in Iquitos, where I continue my own study and bring people into the Amazon for master plant dietas and deeper work with the plants.
The way I teach comes from the same foundation that shapes the way I serve. Technique matters, but discernment, preparation, integration, boundaries, and knowing when not to serve someone matter too.
I don't believe the practitioner is the healer. The practitioner is the bridge. My responsibility is to keep doing my own work, remain willing to learn, and create a space where another person can move through what belongs to them.
Carrying medicine doesn't mean there is nothing left for me to learn.
Work With Me
Where we can meet.
I'm based in the Sacred Valley of Cusco, Peru, where you can travel to work with me in Urubamba. I also work in Iquitos, Peru for master plant dietas and am available for select travel retreats around the world.
Urubamba
Sacred Valley · Peru
Iquitos
Amazon · Peru
Travel
Select Retreats
Sit With Avi
Feel called to sit with me?
If something in my story, the way I work, or the medicines I carry feels connected to what you're looking for, you can begin here.
Apply to Sit →