“Whether the plant will heal the body or the spirit or is it a part of the discipleship that makes it work, it is your good intention regarding the plant. They are creatures that have their own forms, or they may look like people with faces and bodies. When the spirit accepts the person and the person has the will, the spirit gives them energy. The path to knowledge is opened, and healing takes place. "
Guillermo Arevalo - Shipibo Maestro
In the tradition of the Amazons, working with the maestra's planets (teacher's plants) is called the Shaman diet. Work can be viewed as a conscious body of action to incorporate the plant spirit into one’s own spirit. From this incorporation or union, the vegetative spirit informs and teaches the maestro or student. They study magic chants (icaros), which refer to the power of the plant, how to use the plant for healing purposes, and how to strengthen the diet, both psychologically and physically. The goal of the diet is to prepare the body and nervous system for the powerful knowledge and expansion of consciousness provided by the teacher's plants.
He offers a serious problem for a reasonable Western mind to reconcile with the teacher's plants, and it takes a leap of imagination to turn on the “other” consciousness or spirit of the plant.
We also have a “linguistic” restriction (as an equivalent of the Inuit, there are more than fifty different words for snow), since the word “shaman” very recently appeared in Amazonia, across the Western world in the last 20-30 years. There are many words that denote the factory specialization of the maestro or vegetalists. Benjamin Ochavano, a 70-year-old Shipibo Vegebalist, says his father was known as Moraya or Banco (healer), in Spanish he was a curandero. Curandero can then specialize in a particular plant, such as chonta (bamboo) and be chontero. For example, curandero, specializing in smells and perfumes, will be perfumero.
Another challenge to our rational mind to enter the magical world to which we are transported by plants is that it is mainly accessible through the language of dreams or the expansion of imagination. Thus, dreams and our creative abilities act as doorways during the plant diet and connect us with the plant spirit.
The rational mind can only fight, take as an example the famous "love potion" of the Amazon, known as Pusanga. In rational terms, this makes no sense, as a mixture of leaves, roots and seeds attracts a lover or good luck to you? My experience with the shamans in preparing Pusangas (who is usually prepared from his clients, so he was privileged to be invited to participate in the preparation) showed me that they are far from interfering with the freedom of other people or imposing a “number” on them, we changed in themselves what was caused by the ingredients, the magic of plants. Anyway, it felt healthy and good. This is what is in itself ... its own magic. Asking Javier Arevalo (the shaman), what does Pusang really do, is it inside or outside of us? His answer was: “When you pour it on your skin, it begins to penetrate your spirit, and spirit is what gives you the power to pull people out. Spirit is what pulls. ”
The anthropological term “sympathetic magic” does not do this justice to illustrate this, the water used in preparing genuine pusanga (which was specially made for you) was collected from a deep trek in the rainforest, sometimes 40 or 50 miles away, where there are no people and where earthen pools gather, and thousands of the most beautiful colored parrots and macaws are going to drink from them for the maintenance of minerals. It now takes a big leap of imagination to bring in the knowledge, feeling, feeling that the water in Pusang attracted or attracted thousands of the brightest creatures on the planet. If you do, it can cause a change in consciousness in you.
You can try it for yourself, just find a quiet moment and space, close your eyes and use the power of your imagination as a launching pad, draw a green, rich forest filled with life, color and sound. Feel the rich dynamism of the rainforest as the only rhythmic rhythmic vital force of breathing. When you have this image, turn it around to include the moist warmth, the smell of the earth, the smell of plants, hear the sound of insects and bird songs, let all your senses experience it. Then with a conscious decision, draw this sensory experience in your being. When you're ready, open your eyes and see how you feel.
The maestro does not come up with diets, they are given by the plant alcohols themselves, but there is something more than just abstaining from certain products and activities. This includes a state of purification, retreat, commitment, and respect for our connection with everything around us — primarily the rain forest. When we listen to our dreams, they become more real and just as important as everyday life.
Shamans work in the power of plants in different ways, the colors of flowers, perfumes, their forms, shapes and associations. To illustrate this, another maestro Artiduro Aro Cardenas notes;
“Smell is able to attract. I can also create smells to attract businesses, people who buy. You just rub it on your face, and it brings people to your business; if you sell, people come to buy. I also make perfumes for love, and others for prosperity. It is the forces of nature, what I do gives it direction, so it has an effect. I use my experience of plants that I diet. I have a connection with plants and with a patient; I can't do it on a commercial scale.
When I am in a diet, I take the power of the plant, and it stays with me. Later, I find a person’s illness or suffering, or what he wants, and the plant guides me and tells me if it is right for that person, and I heal them,
He also (like many maestros) works with plants not only to cure diseases, but also to solve household and family problems;
“I force people to come to the rescue in order to give up drug addiction, people with family problems, assuming that the man left and left his family, my mother is here with me, and my father is far away. I pull him back, so he returns to his home so the family can consolidate again. In a short time, he will think about his children and his wife, and he comes back. I do not need to have real plants in front of me, I call the plant perfumes that work for it, Renaco, Huayanche, Lamarosa, Sangapilla, perfume, and I call its spirit back to the family home. I smoke to reunite them.
Another (very pleasant) quality, consciousness or spirit of a plant is used to attract benign forces - “los baños florales” or flower baths. In this, a person is bathed in flowers that are absorbed into water for hours. The maestro prepares the water by blowing out the corn tobacco (jungle) and at the same time putting his intention into the water-soaked water. Again, these flowers and plants were collected from sometimes deep and hard-to-reach places in the rainforest and were selected for their special qualities, which, according to the maestro, are necessary to help this person.
My friend Alonso del Rio, who lived with the people of Shipibo, and has the unique opportunity to be a bridge between indigenous wisdom and modern Westerners, says the following:
“The mind of the traditional maestro is very different from yours or mine. He lived in a tropical forest without contact with the Western world, therefore, to have access to the same visions, the same codes are difficult. But I have found that the expansion of consciousness and the power that a plant gives you to understand many things is perfectly fair.
The magical space in which we adopt — call it “unconscious” or any term you want to use depending on your psychological model — is one in which all the kingdoms of nature can communicate. That is, people can talk with plants and plants with minerals, minerals for animals and animals with people ... all in the same language. This is a very real communication and one of the greatest secrets that exists. This is what an English person or Peruvian born in Lima can experience as an Amazonian person. Because you can do it without speaking your native dialect, it does not pass through the mind, but between one spirit and another. ”
On the edge of the Amazonian city Iquitos is the commercial river port of Belen, where the famous Pasaji Pakito street is located, selling many tropical forests, herbs, plants, mixtures, tinctures. Chatting with Juanita, the owner of the stall where I buy plants, I remember how she described some potions, lotions, plants, tonics, barking, perfumes, roots, oils, aphrodisiacs and leaves and noticing “when you talk to plants you will learn how friends, they have their own mood, their own personalities. "
Take a look at a few of the plantar maestros,
The shamans say that plants connect us with nature, because they take their food directly from the earth, as well as the sun's rays, air and water. They allow us to know and recognize ourselves. The shaman must know this and must love his people in order to heal them.
Chiric Sanango Brumfelsia grandiflora; This plant is useful for colds and arthritis and has the effect of heating the body, so much so that the maestro advises a cold shower after each dose! This plant can be used in baths for good luck and to bring success in fishing, hunting, etc.
This landlord maestra also allows people to open their heart to feel love for people and animals (warms a cold heart) and makes it possible to identify with other people as if they were your brothers and sisters.
The plant grows mainly in the Upper Amazon and only a few “rest” (high land that never floods) in the Lower Amazon. The gift of Chiric Sanango is self-esteem, and it develops a deep connection with your inner self.
In a personal matter, I was dieting this plant, and although I considered the terminology of “warming my heart” a bit “trashy”, this plant really had an extraordinary effect on me, I really felt this inner glow of warmth and friendship, and, to my surprise, he still there! I feel like I am back from my research with this plant as a modified person.
Mozolinu Guayusa Piper; good for excessive acidity and other digestive problems in the stomach and bile. It also simultaneously excites and relaxes and develops mental strength.
Guayusa also has the most interesting effect that gives clear dreams, that is, when you dream that you know what you dream. The plant is also known as the night guard plant, because even when you are asleep, you seem to be aware of the external physical environment.
In another personal note, I found that the experience with this plant was also incredible. I found that the usual border between sleep and awakening should be more fluid than I expected. Even now, when I take the plant, my dreams are brighter, richer and clearer than before. Taking this plant, I sometimes wake up, not knowing whether I really “woke up”, or dreaming that I woke up. For those interested in the "dream", this is definitely a factory to explore.
Ajo Sacha Pseudocalymma; A very important mother planet at the beginning of the Amazon shamans. On the physical level, it purifies the blood and is used for people suffering from arthritis and rheumatism. Other benefits are that he brings mental strength, mental acuity, and he can pull you out of the payday (seen as an escape flight of failure, inertia, or a feeling of lack of vitality to the full). It is also used to release spells. The plant is used to enhance hunting skills, covering the human smell with the garlic smell of Ajo Sachi.
Master Shipibo Guillermo Arevalo also added that this plant opens the shamanic path - if we are ready to live up to the obligations of shamanism, for this we need the qualities of courage and do not be afraid of extremes or "ugly" things. We need to understand the role we will play in our community, and have the heart of a warrior. As a personal observation, Guillermo is one of the most respected maestros in the Amazon region and is considered an authority on the diet of this masturbation.
In another personal note, I discovered that my feelings are changing and amplified by this plant. I could scale up and focus on the sounds coming from the rainforest, my sense of smell became sharper, and in some unspeakable way I could tune in to the breath or rhythm of the rainforest. The sound of insects and birds was no longer an accidental phenomenon; these sounds became rhythmic breathing, rising and falling. It is not surprising that he is used for hunting, as his feeling is enhanced in an incredible way.
Reflections
On reflection, a dietary herb is completely different from a pharmaceutical drug that only affects while it is being taken; these types of herbal remedies seem to have a permanent effect, in some way, metaphorically or otherwise altering consciousness or "DNA."
One of the great revelations that we can experience when working with a spiritual or conscious plant is that we are not separated from the natural world. In our culture, we perceive ourselves as separate beings, in which our minds are firmly embedded in our physical being (usually our head). Plants can show you that this way of being is an illusion and that we are all connected, all of us and everything else is a discrete element in the great universal field of consciousness or spirit.
