Sacred Frog Ceremony · Austin, TX
a return to what
is already there.
Kambo (Phyllomedusa bicolor) has been used in Amazonian ceremony for generations as a way of clearing — a full-body purge that assists in releasing what the mind alone cannot shift. Physical. Emotional. The things you've been carrying that have stopped serving you. I've trained with the tradition and hold this work with precision, care, and deep respect for where it comes from.
What is Kambo
one of the most complex
natural secretions on earth.
Kambo is the secretion of the Kambo frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor), a tree frog native to the upper Amazon basin. For generations, indigenous peoples of the rainforest — among them the Matsés, the Katukina, and the Yawanawá — have worked with this secretion in ceremony as a way of clearing and preparing the body and mind for what life demands of them.1
Across the Phyllomedusa genus, researchers have characterised more than 277 unique peptide sequences — many found nowhere else in nature — since the first isolation was documented in 1966.2 Over 70 patents for compounds derived from Kambo secretion have been filed in the United States alone, reflecting the scale of pharmaceutical interest in what Amazonian peoples have understood through centuries of direct experience.3
The ceremony is an encounter — direct, physical, and often profound. What people consistently report in the days after is a clarity and lightness they had forgotten was possible.
1Nogueira et al. (2022). The Amazonian kambô frog Phyllomedusa bicolor: Current knowledge on biology, phylogeography, toxinology, ethnopharmacology and medical aspects. Frontiers in Pharmacology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2022.997318
2Ibid. — peptide characterisation data and genus-level sequence count.
3Thompson & Williams (2022). Review of the physiological effects of Phyllomedusa bicolor skin secretion peptides on humans receiving Kambô. Toxicology Research and Application. https://doi.org/10.1177/23978473221085746
277+
unique peptide sequences identified across the Phyllomedusa genus — many found nowhere else in nature
70+
US patents filed for compounds derived from Kambo secretion
1000s
of years of ceremonial use among indigenous Amazonian peoples
Live Webinar · Thursday, May 22
One hour. Everything you need to know. $49 goes directly to Puerto Miguel, Peruvian Amazon.
What you're stepping into
some things can only be
met directly.
the encounter.
A ceremony lasts three to four hours. Kambo secretion is applied to small points on the skin. The body responds completely — a purge that is physical, direct, and over within the first hour. What consistently follows in the days after is a quality of clarity and lightness that most people describe as unlike anything they've arrived at any other way.
who arrives.
People who have been in therapy for years and feel something still unmoved. People who have built the life — the career, the relationship, the practice — and feel the gap between what they have and what they thought it would feel like. Artists and creatives blocked at a depth that discipline alone won't break. People in grief. People coming out of a long period of numbness or performance. People who have done the breathwork and the plant medicine and know the difference between an intense experience and an actual shift. People who are done negotiating with what they already know needs to go.
before you step in.
Begin with the webinar. Complete the intake. We may speak by phone before your place is confirmed — how we begin shapes everything that follows. Dietary preparation and full logistical clarity are covered well before the day.
after.
What surfaces in a ceremony deserves somewhere to land. I stay close in the days and weeks that follow — available for the conversations that make the difference between an intense experience and a lasting shift.
Live Webinar · Thursday, May 22
One hour. Everything you need to know. $49 goes directly to Puerto Miguel, Peruvian Amazon.
Reciprocity
the frog must be protected.
Kambo (Phyllomedusa bicolor) is native to the upper Amazon basin. In traditional practice, the frog is not harmed — it is called, held, and returned. But this animal is under real and growing pressure.
Amazon deforestation is destroying its habitat. The rapid, largely unregulated global spread of Kambo ceremony — without lineage, without ethics, without relationship — is putting additional strain on wild populations through irresponsible harvesting and trafficking.
The $49 webinar fee goes directly to Puerto Miguel and the surrounding communities of the Peruvian Amazon — the people who have lived alongside this frog for generations and remain its most committed protectors.
Origin
where it comes from.
Kambo has been used for generations by indigenous peoples of the upper Amazon — the Matsés, Katukina, Yawanawá, Kaxinawá, and others. For these communities it was never fringe. It was practical, sacred, and woven into daily life. Hunters used it before going into the forest. It was given to women and children for illness, fever, infection. The tribes called the low energy that accumulates in a person over time panema — a kind of spiritual heaviness, bad luck made physical. Kambo cleared it. What remained after the ordeal was a person restored to themselves.
Kambo — Phyllomedusa bicolor, the Kambo frog — lives high in the Amazonian canopy. Relatively unbothered by predators, he moves through the forest with a kind of quiet authority. The secretion he produces is one of the most complex peptide cocktails found in nature. The tribes who worked with him did not need a laboratory to know this. They knew it through generations of direct experience, passed down through families and ceremony. Today, like so much of the Amazon, his world is shrinking. The canopy that Phyllomedusa bicolor has inhabited for millions of years is disappearing at a pace no previous generation of the frog has known. What threatens him now is not nature. It is us.
read the full story +
The Western world first encountered Kambo in 1986 through Peter Gorman — an investigative journalist living among the Matsés in Peru. He earned their trust slowly, witnessed the practice, and eventually brought a sample to researchers John Daly and Vittorio Erspamer, whose analysis confirmed what the Matsés had always known: this secretion was unlike anything previously documented. Gorman's work appeared in Toxicon, in Science magazine, and eventually in his book Sapo in My Soul — still the most honest account of where this practice comes from and what it asks of those who approach it. He passed away in recent years, leaving behind a lineage of people dedicated to the continuation of this sacred practice.
Like Gorman before me, I travelled to the Peruvian Amazon and received initiation directly from the frog — tracking him through the jungle at night, holding him gently, praying with him, carefully extracting the secretion, and returning him to exactly where he was found. Three ceremonies across consecutive days followed, which the tradition considers a full cleanse. That transmission came through the teachers of those communities, the same lineage my teacher Victor carries, having studied alongside Gorman and with master practitioners from the surrounding Amazonian tribes. That is what I bring into every ceremony I hold. Victor will be featured here soon — long-form conversations about the tradition, the frog, and what this work actually demands of the people who sit with it.
Live webinar · May 22
everything you want to know
before you decide.
A one-hour webinar covering what Kambo is, what to expect, who it is and isn't right for, and how we work together. We open with footage from the Peruvian Amazon — the forest, the frog in its habitat, the people who carry this tradition. Ask anything.
Your $49 goes to the source
Every ticket is donated in full to Puerto Miguel and the surrounding communities of the Peruvian Amazon — the traditional custodians of this ceremony and the frog's most committed protectors.
Thursday, May 22
Nine days before the Blue Moon ceremony window opens.
$49
reserve your seatNot ready for the live session? The recording will be available on demand.
Webinar participants receive a direct invitation to enquire about the May ceremony dates.
Footage from the Amazon community — played at the opening of every webinar.
The Blue Moon window
three days. one moon.
May 31 falls on a rare Full Blue Moon. Ceremonies are offered across three consecutive days — each a separate sitting, each with limited places. You may come for one, or participate across all three: what the tradition considers a complete cycle, with the Full Moon at its centre.
Saturday, May 30
Sunday, May 31
Full Blue Moon
Monday, June 1
Places are limited · Ceremonies held in Austin, TX · Location shared upon confirmation
Kambo ceremonies are offered as a traditional Amazonian practice. Nothing on this page constitutes medical advice. This is not a medical treatment and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. Participation requires a screening process. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider before participating, particularly if you have any existing health conditions.