Rainbow Spray

Illustration by Jon Juarez

My future people⠀
Blood of my blood⠀
The sprouted seeds of a vision⠀

They pledge allegiance to the sun⠀
Hands held over their hearts⠀
Humming in gratitude with the plants ⠀

Naked volunteers lay upon the smooth sand of a high tide⠀
Feeling salt on their skin—⠀
A lesson on shimmering⠀
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On any Midsummer's night I might find⠀
Virgins seated upon stones⠀
Teaching their bright bodies ⠀
The silence of cold⠀
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Veiled acolytes kneel close to the ground⠀
Lighting lanterns ⠀
Receiving communications ⠀
from a glow they know to be holy⠀
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A distant and anxious lover sit in contemplation⠀
Regarding the Phalaenopisis, temperamental orchid⠀
Admiring its ephemeral elegance ⠀
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A people in good standing with the earth ⠀
A people in good standing with the stars⠀
A people in good standing with all things beautiful⠀

I drink the water escaping from this dam ⠀
Pressing my face close to these miraculous cracks⠀
Bathing in the rainbow spray
⠀
I am thirsty like you ⠀
For the kind of water⠀
That runs free⠀
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The Dream Tree: A Mexican Folk Tale

While I’ve previously written posts about toé (Brugmansia suaveolens), the infamous deliriant of the forest, there is an bottmless well of interesting folklore I keep running into and want to share.

Endemic to south eastern Brazil, this plant is now extinct in the wild. Different preparations of the woody shrub (bark, flower, root) are used across the Amazon basin for various purposes, mostly for spiritual initiations of the highest order. This plant is known for its unparalleled ability to quickly plunge anyone who consumes it into a lengthy (several day) bout of total disassociative delirium, nausea, and psychosis. Those who have mastered the use of ‘teacher’ plants (vegetalistas, shamans, etc.) can use this plant to see the connections and communications between all living things.

My friend and colleague, anthropologist Adam Aronovich just shared with me this Mexican tale and image (a retablo, inspired by folk Catholic devotional works of art) which I thought I’d share here. Below is the original Spanish accompanying it, and following that is my translation.

ESP: Juanita Díaz fue a lavar ropa al río y de pronto le entró mucho sueño y no se fijó que estaba bajo un árbol de floripondio, empezó a soñar cosas muy extrañas dentro de un sueño muy profundo, de pronto vio a la Virgen del Rosario que le dijo; "Despierta hija, trata de despertar, porque si no lo haces ahora puede que no lo hagas nunca", y escuchó el ladrido de su perro y despertó, da gracias de haberse salvado ya que dicen que el que se duerme debajo de un floripondio a veces no despierta." El floripondio del jardín está lleno de flores y por la noche huelen muy bien. ¿Será que alguna mañana ya no despertaremos?

ENG: Juanita Díaz went to wash her clothes in the river, when suddenly she became very sleepy and she didn’t realize she was under the floripondio tree [NB: another name of toé]. She began to dream very strange things in a very deep sleep. Suddenly, in this sleep she saw the Virgin of Rosario, who told her ‘Wake up, daughter, try to wake up because if you don’t now, you may never,” and she heard the barking of her dog and woke up, giving thanks for awakening, knowing that it’s said that the person who sleeps under the floripondio sometimes never awakens. The floripondio of the garden is full of flowers, and in the evening it smells very nice. Could it be that one morning, we won’t wake up?

To see more of Selva Prieto Salazar’s wonderful retablo-inspired folk art, go here!

A Copal Purification Ritual by Pablo Amaringo

Taught by visionary artist and healer don Pablo Amaringo Shuña
Recounted by and reposted with permission of Jonathon Miller Weisberger, from his book Rainforest Medicine: Preserving Indigenous Science and Biological Diversity in the Upper Amazon (North Atlantic, 2013).

Follow Jonathon’s work here.

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Polychrome ceramic statue from Mexico of a priest of the cult of Quetzalcoatl,
the god of life, of light, and fertility and wisdom. He carries copal in his hands. Retrieved from the blog of Jonathon Miller Weisberger.

Following is a cure taught by maestro Pablo Amaringo, endearingly referred to as don Pablo, with the use of the aromatic resin of copal, which he referred to as, “an empire of spirits.” This cure is especially effective for people undergoing spiritual crisis or suffering from nervous disorders, for children who are restless and suffer from insomnia, for spirit possessions, types of autism and for illnesses that are not responding to treatments. It can work well for people who are good-hearted and sincere yet seem to be struck with misfortune.

“Copal is something sacred,” don Pablo went on to say, “It invokes rest and peace among spiritual beings. It cleanses darkened auras. Like an opaque metal that needs to be polished. Like gold when a person is wrong in their body, consciousness or aura, the gold they are wearing becomes opaque. Copal is used for cleansing a persons aura. It is the incense of the rainforest. Used since ancient times, since before the world became divided. The world has become divided by barbaric human laws. Today too many humans act like barbarians, even worse now, as they cover themselves up in etiquette.” Don Pablo paused, then continued to say, “Copal takes away negative and darkened stains on a personas aura, it pulls this away from the patient, bringing it up to the atmosphere and it returns it to the trees, who transmute the stickiness and allow for the renewal.”

This sacred cleanse was taught to Pablo Amaringo through a direct spiritual transmission. It was taught to him by celestial immortals from the Eternal Temple of Copal in a remote distant celestial island. Don Pablo was kind to share this spiritual secret and cure with me in 1998 at a visit to his home in Pucallpa Peru. Critical to the effectiveness of this cure, is the vital importance of upholding an integral way of life. For this reason, we ask you to please, doctor and patient read, in the days before the cure, Lao Tzu’s “Treaty on Response and Retribution” see below for links to the sacred text. This helps the doctor align spiritually and the patient to reflect on many aspects of life that are necessary for health and sanity to return. In particular, read the portion on the root cause of illness. This treatise summarizes the essentials for health and good fortune to be recuperated, this copal cleanse is a cure but also an initiation to the integral and normal life as expounded in this treaty. Don Pablo spoke of the importance of upholding an integral way of life for the cure to take effect, and work its wonders, over the long term. We read together the treaties and don Pablo fully agreed that the treaty coincides seamlessly with the effectiveness of this cure, and asked me to include this treaty here, as part of the cure.

The cleanse is used as an initiation to health, a commitment to living an upright and integral life. For riding the body and aura of the sticky negativities, spirit attachments, unwanted indispositions and illness of the auric level. Don Pablo, after he renounced the path of ayahuasca healing, continued healing with this method helping make well hundreds of people with this sacred cure. Once the cure is accomplished neither the patient nor the doctor should divulge that this was done, this means tell no one! Often times, given the situation, the cure needs to be repeated after a few days so go slow with the copal use it in moderation so that it doesn’t run out, make sure you don’t use all the powder in one use, save some in case it doesn’t work the first time. By the third smudge or 4th or 5th, it will work! A natural, normal, non-impulsive virtuous, ordinary and happy life can be recuperated, the joy of a good and healthy life is recuperated and happiness returns!

Photos: Jonathon Miller Weisberger

Cleansing Your Aura With Copal

>>>> Part One <<<<

The Cure: Grind some copal resin and place it in full sun until dry, letting it soak up the energy of the sun and like this get charged! Do not let it stay out over night as it will accumulate the moisture of the night and dew, it needs to be completely dry. Any if the dozens of types of copal resin will work for this cure.

Also imperative for the success of this cure, is that it must be the patient who makes the request for the cure. The patient needs to be willing to do this, the patient needs to understand and accept there is a problem and want to be healed for this to work. A concerned friend or relative can also offer the cure, and given the patient accepts also coincides with the effectiveness protocol. This psychological admittance and heartfelt desire to be healed, to move from heaviness to lightness, from chaos to clarity, to uneasiness to stability and self-assurance, is important for the effectiveness of the cure. If a child is to be cleansed, the parent can make the decision for the healing and request the cure or accomplish it themselves. Also, to be considered that sometimes it works better when a friend or not of the house hold relative accomplishes the cure.

Begin after night fall, once everything has settled, and the setting is calm. Make a prayer that the patient be healed, the cure be effective, and be witnessed by the divine supernatural immortal beings. Master Ni’s Golden Light Invocation, or any other type of solemn prayer dedicated to the celestial immortals that govern this utmost sacred spiritual cleanse, aligns one’s concentration in the appropriate channel. This cure transcends all religions and it is perfectly fine to make a prayer according to your very own faith.

If the mother is with a baby, do the cure once the baby is asleep. First do her alone. Then after the above has been accomplished, have her hold the baby and repeat the cure with her holding the baby, smudge the mother and the baby together.

Build a small fire and let it settle to coals, place red hot embers, a burning incense charcoal or BBQ coals once burned to red embers, placed on a ceramic plate, bowl or incense burner, where the incense, dried and ground into powder can be burned.

Alignment: The patient must face east, in front of the patient is where the fire coals or the embers on a plate is located, so that the patient is looking over the fire, looking towards the east. The person who will administer the cure stands in the east so that the patient is looking over the fire to the doctor, who is standing in the direction of where the sun rises, the doctor stands in the east, representing the sun.

Another important aspect of this cure is that the healer or facilitator must be “well-kept,” meaning a person who is sincere and who lives an integral life of poise and self-discipline—who is “clean” or “wholesome,” so to say, necessary attributes in order to invoke an appropriate response. A child or youth can also accomplish the healing and administer the copal, as children are not yet, for the most part, corrupted by the contaminations of the world. Prayers should be made for recovery of the person who is ill, imbalanced, or going through the crisis. Master Ni’s Invocation for Burning Incense from the Integral Way of Tao tradition can be recited, this prayer can be found below.

Procedures: Cleanse oneself by washing one’s hands with guayusa tea; take a shower make some prayers, meditate some. The copal powder is placed in a clean bowl, with an unbroken perfectly round rim and this is held in the left hand.  Take some of the copal resin powder with the right hand, hold it to the sky and make a prayer, a prayer to the celestial doctors that they witness this cure and that they make it effective on behalf of this most sacred copal resin. Acknowledge the celestial immortal temple in heaven dedicated solely to this most sacred resin that is not just a resin – it is a universe of divine healing spirits, devoted to a healthy and natural way of life.

Choose a place where no one will see what is happening, only the patient and the doctor can be present. Choose a place outdoors sheltered from the wind, like behind a garden fence or wall, in a patio near one’s house.

Place a small amount of the powdered resin onto the red embers or coals. The patient needs to be standing just in front of the coals where the copal is to be burned. Once the copal is placed on the embers the doctor needs to step back a little so only the patient in near the embers. The smoke will rise up and go onto the patient. A few things can occur that need to be considered for this to work, and the “sign” needs to be watched for. The “sign” is that the smoke needs to rise directly up along the patient’s body and make a straight column of smoke. Once this occurs, the patient turns around, so their back is facing the embers, they will now be facing west. More copal powder is placed on the embers until again the smoke goes up, and eventually straight along the patient’s body and rises as a column of smoke. Place enough copal resin so that abundant smoke is emitted yet start with a little and add more slowly. If too much is added it can burst into flames and this ruins the cure. The resin needs to burn as smoke and not catch on fire. For this ensure the embers are red coals, no flames present, or the copal will burn and make a hideous black smoke. We want a clean white smoke, for this to be effective. The incense powder is placed on the embers before the patient, and the fragrant smoke rises up toward his or her body. It should rise straight up one’s body, into the air above like a column. If the person is not that ill, and if he or she is virtuous and kind, this can happen readily. The above is what happens when the cure goes smoothly. If the illness is more complex, the smoke will go off to one side, off to the other side; it will not go straight up the patients’ body as we are anticipating.  If this is the case, the following will help.  

>>>> Part Two <<<<

If the smoke does not go straight up the patient’s body, after a few attempts, it just swirls off to one side then to the other side, try the following, so that “smoke” will “see” the patient, so to say, the smoke will “identify” that a cure is occurring, and that it is being summoned to “rise to the occasion.”

However, often times this in not the case. The patient is so ill that the smoke rejects him or her; the smoke drifts upward and off to one side or in a direction that does not go onto the person’s body. If this occurs after several attempts, the following can be done. The patient and the healer face each other, holding hands, arms out-stretched over the fire, that is in between them. Then, facing each other, they walk around the fire three times in one clockwise. This is then repeated turning around the fire three times, now in the opposite direction. After this, more incense powder is placed on the coals, if needed add more red embers, so as the new copal powder will burn emitting rich white smoke. More prayers can be made and offered as well. Then the smoke will eventually rise up toward the patient, enveloping his or her body, rising straight up into the air above in the shape of a column. When this is clear, without rushing, the patient turns around facing west, more copal resin is placed on the embers and again we need to see the white smoke go straight up along the patient’s back side of their body as a straight column of smoke rising up. This can happen even if there is a gentle breeze. If the smoke rises up straight like a column and is not deflected by the breeze, this is a sure sign that the healing will be effective. Then the process is repeated on the patient’s backside.

>>>> Part Three <<<<

“That night the patient is likely to have a lucid dream; this should not be told to anyone until at least a few days have passed, and then only share with someone of confidence, who can possible help with its interpretation.  Also, the fact that one has undergone this cure should not be rapidly divulged either; it is best to keep this a secret for a while, at least until one is healthy again. Then one can then share this cure with others who may be in need.”

>>>> Part Four <<<<

Vital for the effectiveness of this cure is the following: the patient must remain out of sight of all people until two in the afternoon. If they leave their room before 2PM, the patient will lose the energy and not be healed, the blessing will jump to the first person that sees them. For this reason, food is brought into their room the night before or it can be placed at the patient’s door, with a knock, let the patient know the food is there. Once the helper has left, the patient retrieves the food, like this, so as not to be seen.

>>>> Part Five <<<<

Here’s the final way to seal the cure so it can take hold. After lunch, no earlier than 2 PM or later that 4 PM, the patient must leave the house or the place where he or she has been, and go to a public place, greet people and shake their hands. They must let themselves be seen, then the cure takes root! He or she must hug a family member or friend and greet them in a cheerful manner, and everyone is enhanced by the life-affirming energy.”

Mayan tripod ceramic bowl with copal and jade beads, dated to 1300-1450 AD found in the sacred cenote at Chichen Itza, Mexico. Photo by Jonathon Miller Weisberger, taken at the MET in NYC

Invocation for the Burning of Incense

From: The Workbook for Spiritual Development of All People, by Taoist Master Ni, Hua-Ching

I cultivate myself and follow a heavenly way, with a lucid mind a subtle energy. With this incense I present my spirit and mind before the highest realms of universal integration

Incense is burned now so that I may unite my whole being, with that of all divine immortals. Eyes of the divine spirits, gaze upon my heart and reflect my devotion to a truthful way of life. Subtle light of the divine immortals shine upon this earthly alter and make my energy divine and effective

I humbly request that the most exalted divine energy of the multi universe respond to me. I offer this sincere petition on behalf of the fragrant vibration of this incense

>>>> O <<<<

The Supreme One, Lao Tzu, said: “Blessings and curses do not come spontaneously through gates: It is each person who invites these upon themself.”

#ThankYouPlantMedicine, Animal vs. Plant Learning

Note: This post was written on 2.20.2020 during the #ThankYouPlantMedicine campaign to destigmatize and show a massive wave of appreciation for plant medicines and psychedelics.

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“Healing ourselves and working to resolve the contradictions in the human-Earth ecology is the same work.”
– Elias Amidon and Elizabeth Roberts, Earth Prayers

Looking back, reflecting on nearly ten years (gasp!) of working with plant medicine, I believe that the greatest lessons I’ve learned have to do with the nature of learning itself.

I have been tremendously lucky and privileged to work closely with indigenous elders of, specifically, Secoya and Shipibo lineages. Half of the time I am in the West, and the other half of the time I am in the jungle – physically and psychically. In bridging these worlds and perspectives (forever guided by my interest and ‘calling’ to the plants) this is what I’ve observed:

In my culture, learning occurs in an outwards gesture: we discuss, we collect data, we speak on stages, we write books. Knowledge is produced in a discursive ‘body’ which exists ‘out there’. Scientists crawl out on hands and knees hunting for specimens for collections. Books are written about other books. My mind is a cave of palimpsests; a stew marinating with a million ingredients made of the thoughts and experience of others before me. Layering and layering, we tend to build knowledge through systematic argumentation and reasoning rather than by intuition.

From what I have come to understand, the Amazonian epistemology (method of knowledge-production), broadly speaking, is different. Through the subtle and steadfast art of concentration, working together with the plants, one journeys within. Knowledge that lives in the body becomes lived wisdom – wisdom that cannot be seen or heard – only felt deeply within. This wisdom moves the body, spirit and mind in different ways; ways that are attuned with the environment. With this wisdom, one constantly keeps score of the rippling cause and effect the body and thoughts have in relation to the ecology or 'family' of things.

Several indigenous communities in the Amazon commonly refer to a group, a pantheon of plants as ‘teacher’ or ‘master’ plants. This name is an interesting provocation: can plants teach? If they teach, do they think? Do they have agency, will? What does it mean about not only the plant, but the people who ascribe this kind of power unto it?

What we do know for sure is that plants learn. Scientists – botanists specifically – tend to shy away from this kind of language, opting in for more agreeable terms like ‘acclimatize,’ ‘harden’ or ‘evolve’. What is evolution but a learning process – an endless saga of biotic beings learning to adapt to environmental pressures in any given environment? By this logic, plants learn and therefore, can teach. Perhaps it is our definition of intelligence that ought to be adjusted.

Let’s look at animals for a moment. Animals took a different route on the path of evolution – they (we) are uniquely adept at moving. Our response to adversity is movement, always. We are physiologically compact and concentrated, making for quick and smooth movements. Perhaps this makes us faster in the game of evolution. And… it is yet to be determined whether this design is the best long-term and sustainable evolutionary strategy.

Plants took a different route. As modular beings with recursive, repetitive, even fractal patterning, these decentralized photosynthesizers are masters at adapting. Their diffused bodies smell without noses, see without eyes, feel without skin. They are in constant dialogue with chemicals, sun, soil, and other creatures around them, always adjusting to changes in the environment. In this purely physiological way, plants most certainly learn. Imagine, now, coming from a lineage of human beings who live in the most biodiverse terrestrial ecosystem on Earth (the Amazon) who, through practices of asceticism have dedicated their lives, forsaking family and pleasure in many cases, to learn together with the plants...imagine what there is to learn.

The global appreciation of plant medicine and wisdom transmitted by communities with lived, applied experience of these plants is timely. Today we develop solutions to our manifold environmental, economic, social problems ‘out there’ in the form of structural adjustments, taxes, technologies, think-tanks, satellites in the stars. We continue to search for answers and develop solutions ‘out there’ in the same mind-space that the problems were created in.

I do believe that the most promising aspect of the psychedelic renaissance and the global appreciation of plant medicines is in how we approach learning, problem-solving and adapting. This is, to me, ultimately a question of evolution. We learn, with these plants and traditions, that there is tremendous value to the art of looking within. Far from being a navel-gazing, "hippy" pastime, looking within and working with plant medicines will not only be useful, but vital for our evolution as a species. As my co-author of When Plants Dream Daniel Pinchbeck put it, “personal initiation leads to global transformation.” I am deeply aligned with this vision.

My maestro once said it like this: “We do this work to reset the patterns of our ancestors, transform ourselves, and liberate the future.” We have much to learn from plants, and perhaps plant medicine is the portal we pass through in order to recognize and celebrate their unique process and success.

Humans cannot see what we do not know or recognize. Thus, it is with the help of these plants that teach us to see with new eyes that we can awaken to the majesty of evolution of which we are a part, forever basking in the beauty of it all.

Thank you so very much to all of my teachers along the way, and #ThankYouPlantMedicine !

Heliotrope

Painting by Susan Boulet

An excerpt telling the story of Clytie’s love, her rejection by the sun-god Helios, and her transfiguration into a plant…

“The god of light no longer visited Clytie, nor found anything to love in her, even though love might have been an excuse for her pain, and her pain for her betrayal.

She wasted away, deranged by her experience of love. Impatient of the nymphs, night and day, under the open sky, she sat disheveled, bareheaded, on the bare earth.

Without food or water, fasting, for nine days, she lived only on dew and tears, and did not stir from the ground. She only gazed at the god’s aspect as he passed, and turned her face towards him.

They say that her limbs clung to the soil, and that her ghastly pallor changed part of her appearance to that of a bloodless plant: but part was reddened, and a flower like a violet hid her face. She turns, always, towards the sun, though her roots hold her fast, and, altered, loves unaltered.”

— Ovid, Metamorphoses (Bk IV: 256-273)

Ecotones

For the past few years I've spent most of my days in the Peruvian Amazon, usually WiFi-less standing in the rain or staring so hard into the center of the plants that I become them. While I find myself deepening my relationship to the elements of the forest, I also find myself growing father away from my very own country, landscapes and people.

More than once, I've had someone say to me "if you want to make a change, you should do something in your neighborhood!" Point taken. Ivan Illich put it well in a cutting speech titled "To Hell with Good Intentions" addressed to young Americans embarking on community service adventures in 'developing' countries:

"You start on your task without any training. Even the Peace Corps spends around $10,000 on each corps member to help him adapt to his new environment and to guard him against culture shock. How odd that nobody ever thought about spending money to educate poor Mexicans in order to prevent them from the culture shock of meeting you?"

Too often, volunteers working at American/European NGOs rock up in foreign countries with the intention of "helping" without any real idea of what needs to be done. I remember volunteering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2007. Creole and African-American communities in the Lower Ninth Ward who were disproportionately impacted by the storm found themselves living in devastating conditions with limited access to food and water for years. I was canvassing (surveying) the area, asking what people's most immediate needs were. A tired woman told me "they [NGOs] keep giving us fences when we need roofs."

This reminds me of what the Australian aboriginal activist Lila Watson said in response to missionaries coming to 'help':

"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let us walk together..."

The more often I switch between living and working with Amazonian communities and my North American kin, the more I realize we are the ones that need 'help'. Depression, PTSD, addiction, eating disorders, anxiety - these nebulous yet pervasive illnesses are epidemic in the West. While, of course, there are exceptions, these conditions do not haunt those who live in tightly-knit  communities in harmony and respect with their land with the same ferocity, ubiquity and persistence as they do in urban landscapes.

Unsurprisingly, psychedelics are proven to increase feelings of nature relatedness, which certainly helps to explain their evergreen presence and use by indigenous peoples across the world. The more that we, scientists and researchers explore the field of psychedelics, the more we realize there is so very much to learn.

This is where bridge-building comes in; the work of translating and uniting different worldviews and approaches to synergize new, holistic ways of seeing and being. In biology, we find a concept called the edge effect or ecotone. The edge effect is a term used to describe the place where distinct ecosystems meet. They're territories of confrontation, chaos, clashing. They're also territories of innovation, synergy, and even sites for the emergence of new species! Now think of this edge concept as an analogy for cultural cross-pollination and globalization. I, like many others, work in this space between indigenous and mixed, botanical and technological, romantic and practical, imaginary and empirical. These are contemporary edge zones.

The edge effect is expressed in mathematics as a shape called the vescia piscis - the intersection of two disks with the same radius. I learned about this years ago when I was eating formidable doses of LSD and studying sacred geometry. This shape holds significance for esoteric traditions and in Early Christian art, representing a sacred unity and meeting point. It is from this linking of two discrete circles that life multiplies (think of a zygote growing) and evolves into grander, more complex geometrical expressions of itself. It also looks quite a bit like the human portal into life ;)

Between traveling across the US with Head Talks educating audiences about plant medicines and indigenous epistemology (methods of knowledge-production) and doing my naked rain dance in the jungle, I find my appreciation for this concept/shape deepening and guiding my work. While I'm one of 'those guys' working with an NGO (The Chaikuni Institute, an amazing intercultural project in the Peruvian forest) it's very clear that solidarity isn't a one way street - foreigners, locals, indigenous folk and everyone involved are in a process of cross-pollination and mutual aid.

As we move beyond this model of 'helping' others in 'developing countries' or supporting justice work in any form, the wisdom of the edge can guide and sustain our actions. The edge/ecotone/vescia teaches us about interconnectedness and reciprocity, bridge building, world weaving. Our liberation will indeed be found through the mutual respect and love found in our edge-zones.

DMT Scuba Divers and Ayahuasca Analogues

People often ask me about ayahuasca analogues, suggesting that they could serve as solutions to awkward cultural appropriation and unsustainable Banisteropisis caapi harvesting in the Amazon. ⠀
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Ayahuasca analogues refer to a combo of plants similar to the ayahuasca mix - a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) and dimethyltryptamine (DMT). In theory, you could combine syrian rue (MAOI) and Mimosa hostilis (DMT) and produce an ayahuasca analogue. The MAOI is key - you could eat a whole bowl of DMT salad and see zilch. ⠀
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Exploring analogues could offer opportunities to develop new rituals. They could also make the ayahuasca experience more easily commodifiable, easier to serve over the counter. Easier to distribute the medicine, easier to democratize.⠀
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The thing is, ayahuasca isn't just ayahuasca; what we're talking about is ayahuasca shamanism and culture. The mature ayahuasca practitioner is a master of synesthesia, deftly guiding the drinker through visionary landscapes, laden with monsters and muses of the dark and misty realms of the unexplored mind. You can go yourself and risk getting lost - or have a guide. Traditionally, these guides are enrolled in a lifetime of ascetic and contemplative study and practice. In this respect, training wise you can think of them like doctors.
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Ayahuasca is considered star of the show, yet too often we neglect the profound sophistication and beauty of shamanic practices that accompany its use. In fact, the discovery of ayahuasca itself probably emerged from the shamanic intuition - not the other way around. ⠀
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There are analogues, and we could put ayahuasca in a pill, sell it in a market. Microdose it in a cold laboratory. But does this miss the point? ⠀

Maybe there is no 'point' - there is no center, there is no one commodity, no cut-and-dry easy thing, no perfect experience, no substitute. Perhaps what we're really talking about with ayahuasca is an elegant ecological, chemical, and magical machine held together by levers and pulleys made from leaves and vines, human memory and practice, bird feathers, sorcery, love, gestures and atonal chords vibrating with the cosmic memory of pain and creation. It is formless and complete.

Explore analogues, yes — and remember that the power of the human spirit and the magic of focus is the real medicine that will endure.

Nueva Mente, Nuevamente

I’m just landing now from a fourteen day dieta working with master plants from the Amazon. ⠀
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One meal a day of a little rice and beans and a few glasses of water. Dry fasting (no food, no water) for twenty two hours a day. Sometimes no tasting or touching water up to forty eight hours. All you do is concentrate. ⠀
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We give the plants our hunger and thirst because it is the only currency they accept, my maestro says. No materials will do. Attention is the currency of creation, and it’s in giving it everything - concentrating on being as still as possible and letting everything else fall away - that we receive information from the plants. It’s the art of reconstitution. When you drink water for the first time in three days you feel it it in every cell. You feel life and color in every cell. ⠀
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Fasting helps us remember just how interconnected we are. The sun is our heart in the sky, pumping life into us. We derive our life force from the plants who, over the course of millions of years, have evolved to elegantly translate the sun into nutrients. How wonderful! And to think that we are the most intelligent... ⠀
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We are always human, you know, but we’re so busy most of the time. I’ve never felt more human than I do now. What does that mean? The word human finds its origins from the Latin humus, meaning earth. These traditions, practices and plants teach me just that - that I’m of the Earth, a member in an ever-evolving family of things. Suddenly I don’t feel so strange on this planet. It brings me home.

The Lords of Adaptation

It's funny to think that humans are somehow more sentient, more feeling than other beings. I believe other living beings are far more sentient - their bodies, instincts and senses taking score of change, always, as it comes. Plants, fungi, insects and non-human animals feel the impact of winds moving in new directions, pesticides in earth, chemicals in water and the sun shining stronger. Wings disintegrate. Forgotten pollen turns to dust. Mothers go missing and some eggs never hatch. Trees fall and soil grows weary.

They notice when something - or someone - in their food chain goes missing. Us, on the other hand - we carry on as if everything was just fine, blissfully disconnected from the delicate network of feeling and sense that is ecology.

We are the lords of adaptation, damned with the superpower to feel nothing at all.