The Bufo
Ceremony.

The medicine of
the desert.

Bufo is the newest of the sacred medicines in widespread ceremonial use, and the one whose story is still being written. The toad, Bufo alvarius, also called Incilius alvarius, lives in the Sonoran Desert, across northern Mexico and the borderlands. Its defensive secretion contains 5-MeO-DMT, a compound so potent that the experience it produces is measured in a handful of minutes.

Unlike ayahuasca or the sacred mushrooms, bufo does not come with centuries of documented ceremonial lineage. Its traditional use is debated, and its widespread ceremonial practice is largely a phenomenon of recent decades. What has grown up around it, in the hands of serious practitioners, is a ceremonial framework drawn from the broader traditions of Mexican plant and animal medicine: the altar, the cleansing, the prayers, the calling of the guardians, the careful holding of a person through something overwhelming.

This honesty matters. Lunita doesn't claim bufo as an ancient unbroken tradition, because that's not the truth of it. What Lunita offers is something more careful: a powerful medicine, held within a genuine ceremonial structure, by a medicine man who understands both the chemistry and the spirit of what he's working with.

The medicine itself is among the most powerful known. The container around it (the preparation, the prayers, the holding, the integration) is what makes it a ceremony rather than an experience. That container is the tradition Lunita stands inside.

What happens during
the ceremony.

Bufo is held one person at a time. When two people receive on the same day, the others are present, gently holding space while each takes their turn. No one goes through it in a crowd, and no one goes through it alone.

The space is prepared.

Before anything begins, the altar is built, the space is cleansed, and the guardians are called. This is the same careful opening that begins every ceremony at Lunita, the space made ready and made safe before the medicine enters it. Bufo is most often held in front of the Grandfather tree, or in the Crystal Shala with the energy of the cenote water just to one side.

Edgar explains, and you breathe.

Before the medicine, there's an explanation: what's about to happen, what to expect, how to meet it. Then breathwork, to settle the body and prepare the system for what's coming.

The microdose.

You begin with a small dose, a way to make contact with the medicine, to let the body and spirit feel it before the full experience. As you receive it, you read a prayer written for this work, a way of setting your intention and asking the medicine to meet you well.

The macrodose.

Then the full dose. This is the heart of the ceremony, the minutes that can feel like everything. Edgar holds the space through all of it, watching over you completely. There is nothing you need to do but let it happen. You will be held the entire time.

Integration.

When you return, there's rest, and then integration, making sense of something that often resists being made sense of. With bufo, the integration matters as much as with any medicine, sometimes more, precisely because what happened can be so hard to put into words.

In some retreats, bufo is the only medicine of the day. In others, it's held in the morning, followed by rest and integration, with ayahuasca or mushrooms in the night.

Who leads
the ceremony.

Bufo at Lunita is held by Edgar, a Zapotec medicine man, local to Puerto Morelos, who carries several Indigenous Mexican lineages and has spent his life inside ceremony.

Bufo asks something specific of the person holding it: the steadiness to guide someone to the edge of a complete dissolving and stay with them, fully present, through every second of it. There's no room for distraction, no room for anything but total attention. Edgar holds bufo the way it has to be held: calm, watchful, unhurried, entirely there.

He prepares each ceremony individually, reads each person carefully in the intake, and adjusts everything (the doses, the pacing, the holding) to the person in front of him. No two bufo ceremonies are run identically, because no two people arrive the same.

Read more about Edgar →

What people come
to work with.

Bufo draws people who are looking for something total.

For some, it's the dissolving of the self, the experience, however brief, of existing beyond the boundaries of who you think you are. Many spiritual traditions point toward this; bufo can deliver it directly. People often describe it as a glimpse of something they'd only read about.

For some, it's a reset. A life that has become unbearably heavy, a mind that won't stop, a sense of being stuck so deep that nothing else has moved it. Bufo's totality can interrupt patterns that have held for years.

For some, it's grief or fear, including, for some people, the fear of death itself. The experience bufo brings is, for many, the closest thing to dissolution they will knowingly encounter, and people often return from it less afraid.

And for some, it's the simple, enormous desire to know what's there, to meet the thing the mystics describe and see it for themselves.

What we won't promise is that bufo will fix any of this, or that the experience will be gentle, or even that it will make sense. What it offers is one of the most complete experiences available to a person. What you bring back from it is the work of the integration that follows.

Things to know
before you sit.

Bufo is the most concentrated medicine at Lunita, and its intake is the deepest we do. Before any bufo ceremony, we go thoroughly through your medical conditions, the medications you take, your history including past trauma, and your intention for the work. Here is what matters most.

⚠ Heart and blood pressure: this is critical.

5-MeO-DMT places sudden, intense demand on the cardiovascular system. Your heart rate and blood pressure rise sharply and fast. Any cardiovascular condition (heart disease, arrhythmia, high blood pressure, a history of stroke or cardiac events) must be disclosed during intake, and several of these mean we will not hold the ceremony. This is the contraindication we are strictest about. It is not negotiable.

Psychiatric conditions. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychosis, and certain other psychiatric conditions are contraindicated. The totality of the bufo experience can destabilize these conditions seriously. If any are part of your history or your family's, we'll discuss it carefully, and sometimes the answer is no.

Medications. Several medications interact with 5-MeO-DMT, including some antidepressants and, critically, anything affecting the cardiovascular system. We go through everything you take during intake. We never ask you to stop a medication on your own.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding. We don't hold this ceremony for pregnant or breastfeeding women.

Psychological readiness. Bufo is not a place to begin if you're in acute crisis or profound instability. Because the experience is so total and so fast, readiness matters enormously. For many people, the honest guidance is to do other, gentler work first, and come to bufo later, if at all.

Bufo is not a rite of passage to be collected, and it is not for everyone who feels drawn to it. If it isn't right for you, or isn't right yet, we will tell you plainly. That honesty is part of how we hold this medicine.

Practical.

Duration

The peak of the experience is brief, often only minutes. But the ceremony around it runs longer: the preparation, the breathwork, the microdose, the macrodose, the rest, and the integration. Plan for the ceremony to take a meaningful part of the day.

One at a time

Bufo is held one person at a time. When two people receive on the same day, the others gently hold space while each takes their turn.

The structure

Space prepared and cleansed, guardians called, explanation and breathwork, a microdose to make contact (with a prayer read by the person receiving), then the macrodose, then rest and integration.

Where

Most often in front of the Grandfather tree, or in the Crystal Shala with the energy of the cenote water just to one side.

Same-day combinations

Sometimes bufo is the only medicine of the day. In some retreats it's held in the morning, followed by rest and integration, with ayahuasca or mushrooms at night.

The intake

The deepest of any ceremony at Lunita: medical conditions, medications, history including past trauma, and intention.

Group or private

Held within hosted retreats and personal retreats alike, always one person at a time. Included in your custom retreat proposal, never sold standalone. Available within MoonSeeds retreats at a reduced ceremony cost.

Common questions

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