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Shamanism

• Bloodletting with Peter Gorman – Interview and Book Review

  Posted by Morgan Maher • Category: Experiences, Shamanism, Spirit & Healing

  

  In the words of Dennis McKenna; Peter Gorman has “been way, way beyond the chrysanthemum on many a dark jungle night.” Gorman’s long awaited book Ayahuasca in My Blood: 25 Years of Medicine Dreaming tells the story of his long, deep relationship with ayahuasca. This book review, and an interview with the author, sets up camp to explore the edges of an astonishing journey.

  Tags: Experiences, Gorman, Julio Jerena, Jungle, Matses, Shamanism, Teachers
  

• Self-Control

  Posted by Steve Beyer • Category: Shamanism

  Steve Beyer, author of Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon, talks about the differences — and similarities — between healers and sorcerers in the Upper Amazon.

• The One-Song : The Goddess of Interconnectivity, Animism and Art by Daniel Mirante

  Posted by admin • Category: Shamanism

  

  We slowly can come to understand ourselves as focal points of the Whole, learning to broaden our conception of ’self’ to include communities, ecosystems, the planet and galaxy, and beyond. For all these compose the primordial definitions of our being.

  Tags: deep ecology
  

• The Tradition of Vegetalismo & Dieta by Lunaya Shekinah

  Posted by admin • Category: Botany, Shamanism

  After 8 years of integrated research and experiential learning on this topic, I wanted to write this article about the ancient South American shamanic tradition of Ayahuasca dieta. May this article demystify this beautiful practice, clearing up misconceptions and empowering informed relationships with the tradition.

  Tags: dieta
  

• Kambô, The Spirit of the Shaman

  Posted by admin • Category: Shamanism, Spirit & Healing

  Marcelo Bolshaw Gomes
  “Kambô circulates in the heart. Our shaman said that when we take Kambô it makes the heart move accurately, so that things flow, bringing good things to the person. It is as if there was a cloud on the person, preventing the good things to come, then, when it takes the Kambô; it comes a ‘green light’ which opens its ways, making things easier.”

  Tags: frog, kambo, venom
  

• Communion With The Infinite – The Visual Music of the Shipibo tribe of the Amazon

  Posted by admin • Category: Shamanism, Visual Art

  Howard G. Charing
  Underlying the intricate geometric patterns of great complexity displayed in the art of the Shipibo people is a concept of an all pervading magical reality which can challenge the Western linguistic heritage and rational mind. These patterns are more than an expression of the one-ness of creation, the inter-changeability of light and sound, the union or fusion of perceived opposites, it is an ongoing dialogue or communion with the spiritual world and powers of the Rainforest. The visionary art of the Shipibo brings this paradigm into a physical form. The Ethnologist Angelika Gebhart-Sayer, calls this “visual music”.

  Tags: art, quiquin, shipibo
  

• On the Origins of Ayahuasca

  Posted by Daniel Mirante • Category: Overviews, Shamanism

  Daniel Mirante
  How could such a complex synergistic potion be discovered amongst over 80,000 catalogued plant species of the Amazon forest? Studying Ayahuasca, modern minds have puzzled the origins of the discovery of the Great Medicine, since it is commonly said that being a synergistic potion, there is no effect when only one of the plants are consumed.

  Tags: discovery, gaia, intuition, jaguar, origins
  

• Ayahuasca: Peruvian National Cultural Heritage

  Posted by Steve Beyer • Category: News, Shamanism

  The Peruvian National Institute of Culture resolved that indigenous ayahuasca rituals — “one of the fundamental pillars of the identity of Amazonian peoples” — are part of the national cultural heritage of Peru, and are to be protected, in order to ensure their cultural continuity.

  Tags: culture, heritage, peru, tradition
  

• Mestizo Shamanism and Vegetalistas

  Posted by Sachahambi • Category: Shamanism

  What is mestizo shamanism?
  The Loreto province of northeastern Peru (and to a lesser extent to Ucayali province south of it) is virtually unique in Latin America in that indigenous shamanic practices have been adopted and adapted by the mestizo population, and become a part of the mestizo culture.
  While mestizo curanderismo is not unknown elsewhere in [...]

  Tags: mestizo, Shamanism, vegetalista
  

• The Yurayaco Declaration of the Union de Medicos Indigenas Yageceros de la Amazonia Colombiana (UMIYAC)- Yurayaco, Colombia

  Posted by admin • Category: Shamanism

  “We consider yagé, along with our other medicinal plants and our wisdom and knowledge, to be a gift from God and a great benefit for the health of humanity. We have a duty to demonstrate to the world, with determination and solemnity, the importance of our values.”

  Tags: , columbia, taitas, yurayaco declaration
  

• Vomiting

  Posted by Steve Beyer • Category: Overviews, Shamanism

  By Steve Beyer
  Yes, ayahuasca makes you vomit. Is that a problem?

  Tags: Achuar, Alice Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Ayahuasca, dieta, guayusa, ojé, purge, vomiting, William S. Burroughs
  

• Ayahuasca in the Upper Amazon: A Very Basic Introduction

  Posted by Steve Beyer • Category: Overviews, Shamanism

  By Steve Beyer
  This post answers the very basic questions you may have been afraid to ask about ayahuasca in the Upper Amazon — what it is, what is in it, what it does, how it is used, how it fits into the religious culture of the region, and how it tastes. If you are new to the subject of ayahuasca, this is a good place to start.

  Tags: Ayahuasca, chacruna, chagraponga, chaliponga, huambisa, ocoyage, sameruca, yage
  

• Plants and Spirits

  Posted by Steve Beyer • Category: Shamanism, Spirit & Healing

  By Steve Beyer
  The plants, in addition to being real medicines, contain madres or genios, the beings who teach. A cure is not caused by the ingestion or topical application of an herbal medicine; rather it results from the benevolent intervention of the mother through the intermediation of the plant. Amazonian shamans sing to the plants, charge them, cure them, call the spirits that invest themselves in the healing process.

• Shamanism primer, from my experience

  Posted by admin • Category: Shamanism, Spirit & Healing

  By Peter Gorman
  Among the flora of the world as we know it, several plants are not just allies, they are considered Master Plant Teachers. You might extend that to read: Master Plant Teachers of Man. These plants might be considered gate keepers. These plants are the plants that allow us, we humans, to slow down enough to communicate with the mountains; to speed up enough to communicate with a hummingbird, to visit the other realms past and present and simultaneous that are here but that we don’t ordinarily see or hear within the band widths of our senses.

  Tags: dieta, plant teachers, Shamanism
  

• What is a dieta?

  Posted by Ayahuasca dot com • Category: Mythos, Shamanism

  Morgan Brent
  Dieta describes behavioral regimens that allow one to move most safely and effectively into working relationships with such plants. These relationships can bring about profound transformations, and the dietas are designed to best facilitate them.

  Tags: diet, dieta, Shamanism
  

• Ayahuasca, Religion and Nature

  Posted by admin • Category: Mythos, Overviews, Shamanism, Syncretic Religions

  By Morgan Brent
  In ayahuasca, dialogue is deepened to include all manner of elemental, plant, animal, ancestor, and deity. These then appear less as an “other,” and more as participants in the metabolisms of yet larger bodies, such as regional ecosystems, or the earth itself.

  Tags: deep ecology, morgan brent, santo daime
  

• What Are Spirits?

  Posted by Steve Beyer • Category: Mythos, Shamanism

  By Steve Beyer
  Each species of teaching plant has what mestizo shamans call a madre, mother, or genio, genius, or espíritu, spirit. Informally, we generally translate all these terms simply as the spirit of the plant, as if the meaning of the term “spirit” was perfectly clear. So: what do we know about these spirits?

  Tags: Healing, plant, plant teacher, spirits
  

• Thoughts and Knowledges About Women in Indian Universe and Life

  Posted by Sachahambi • Category: Mythos, Shamanism

  This story gives a sense of what “Pachamama” means (the feminine universe) and also gives a sense of the Andean conception of gender roles.

  Tags: creation myth, indigenous
  

• Mermaids

  Posted by Steve Beyer • Category: Mythos, Shamanism

  Steve Beyer
  They travel on boas. Indeed, sometimes they turn into boas; if the woman sleeping next to you turns into a boa during the night, that is a good sign that you have been seduced by a mermaid.

  Tags: mermaids, sirens
  

• What indigenous groups traditionally use Ayahuasca?

  Posted by Sachahambi • Category: Shamanism

  The region of traditional Ayahuasca use is the Upper Amazon, that is, the western part of the Amazon Basin, and the western part of the Guiana Shield. (The Guiana Shield, which encompasses much of Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana, is not technically part of the Amazon Basin, as its rivers do not drain [...]

  Tags: Amazon, indigenous, traditional