tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86222377387092860212024-03-05T05:26:34.594+01:00Legitimos GuerreritosWriting about Ayahuasca since 2007Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-70628504596978824162017-02-01T15:27:00.001+01:002017-02-01T15:27:32.149+01:00Poder Verde - A previewAs you know I've been hard at work finishing the rewards for our kickstarter campaign.<br />
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As <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com.es/2016/09/songs-of-ayahuasca-preview.html" target="_blank">Songs of Ayahuasca CD</a> is well on its way I've turned my attention to the second promised CD:<br />
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PODER VERDE!<br />
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Last week I spent two sleepless nights at DJ Akasha's house finishing the mix. We had a blast doing it and are super happy with the results.<br />
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Here are some selections from the 50 minutes mix, let us know what you think!<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/304147096&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe>
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Here's the full liner notes<br />
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ABOUT THIS MIX<br />
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Poder Verde is a sound journey through some of my favorite Amazonian audio: <b>Cumbia</b>, the <b>sounds of the rainforest</b>, the radio ads of <b>travelling curanderos</b> and the songs of <b>real ayahuasqueros</b>.
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LA CUMBIA<br />
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In terms of total listeners <b>Cumbia</b> is probably more popular all over South America than all the better-known styles (in the global North) such as salsa, merengue or bachata put together.<br />
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Cumbia originated in Colombia’s Caribbean coast and parts of Panama as a courtship dance practiced among the African population that had been brought to America as slaves. Cumbia unites West African rhythms, indigenous instruments (Milo and Gaita flutes from the Kogi and Kuna tribes) and European instruments (the Spanish guitar and later the accordion, brought by German immigrants.)<br />
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During the mid XXth century Colombian musicians created a more refined form of cumbia that became very popular, expanding all over South America, as time passed it gave birth to a great variety of regional styles. Today Cumbia is truly a panamerican music, there are distinct Andean, Argentinean, Chilean and digital cumbia styles, among many others. This mix contains a number of such styles:<br />
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<b>“Classic” cumbias</b> – The “reference” style, if such thing can even be said (tracks ) where the african influence is clear. I picked these tracks off <a href="http://bit.ly/poderverde1" target="_blank">a great mix from the Ritmo y Sabor blog</a> <br />
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…I haven’t been able to find out much about the original artists, other than <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2ORJukKQo" target="_blank">Virgenes de Sol</a> is from the Mexican <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/luis-ornelas-y-su-grupo/id261838942" target="_blank">Luis Ornelas</a><br />
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The <b>Peruvian cumbia</b> sound sprung as a distinct style in the early 60´s, when Henry Delgado took the accordion -which was the staple sound of the original Colombian Cumbia- and substituted it with the electric guitar, creating a sound that, by our standards, is reminiscing of surf music. Soon there were regional variations of the Peruvian sound. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocym9HVyMP0" target="_blank">Juaneco y Combo</a>, together with the fantastic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rMwiE3sxvM" target="_blank">Los Mirlos</a> were the major originators of the Cumbia Amazónica, also known as Cumbia de Oriente or <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com.es/2008/12/ayahusca-and-cumbia-peruana.html" target="_blank">Poder Verde</a>, a style which appeared in the 70´s together with the first oil boom of the Peruvian Amazon.
The style has experienced a revival of sorts recently thanks to reissues by <a href="http://barbesrecords.com/" target="_blank">Barbes Records</a>, and new re-recordings by bands such as <a href="http://www.bareto.net/" target="_blank">Bareto</a>.<br />
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This mix includes tracks from <a href="http://munster-records.com/en/releases/cumbia-beat-vol-1" target="_blank">Cumbia Beats Vol. 1</a>, <a href="http://barbesrecords.com/release/the-roots-of-chicha-2/" target="_blank">The Roots of Chicha Vol. 2</a> and the less known but absolutely killer <a href="http://masstropicas.blogspot.com.es/2010/09/ranil-lp-news.html" target="_blank">Ranil’s Jungle Party</a>. If you love the music, please support the artists by buying some of these records<br />
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<b>Cumbias rebajadas</b> – Meanwhile something strange happened in the 70s in La Campana and Independencia, two rough neigborhoods in Monterrey, Mexico where Colombian Cumbias were very popular. People began to listen to the 45 rpm records at 33 rpm. It all started as an accident when Sonido Dueñez’s system malfunctioned and started playing cumbias at half the speed. The audience, instead of complaining, loved the new sound, the voices had become psychedelic, the rhythm hypnotic. People began to ask for their cumbias “rebajadas” (slowed down) Dueñez began to put out mixtapes of rebajadas, which became enormously popular. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSEeH_TAoJ4" target="_blank">Here's the full story</a><br />
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The style spread all over Mexico and then all over the Americas, eventually influencing other genres. It is believed, for example, that the Screw Rap style from Houston is a sort of rap <i>rebajado</i>.<br />
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The rebajadas on this compilation come from <a href="http://bit.ly/poderverde2" target="_blank">this great mix</a><br />
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JUNGLE FIELD RECORDINGS<br />
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Altogether I must have spent nearly 2 years of my life in the Amazon, including a few months deep in the jungle. I’ve been into weird experimental music and sound art for many many years, that means that I will actually listen to just about any sound (musical or not) with some interest. From that perspective the jungle soundscape is –to me- nothing short of sonic luxury. You’ll never find so many sounds, most of them beautiful, all of them interesting, going on at the same time, and with so much variation as the day progresses. I could listen to the jungle all day and a number of times, I have!<br />
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I’ve collected I this mix some of my favorite Amazonian field recordings, including sunrise and sunset, insect and frog choirs, and a full-on tropical rainstorm, starting with the first drops for rain, passing through the giant thunders and downpour, all the way to the growth of the rivers’ flow after the storm. I’ve placed them throughout the mix in a progression from calm morning to sunset, to rainstorm, to morning after, that in a way follows the progression of an ayahuasca experience.<br />
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If you want jungle field recordings without the cumbias, Paco Lopez, the big Kahuna of Spanish experimental sound is <a href="http://www.franciscolopez.net/env.html" target="_blank">your</a> <a href="http://www.rotordiscos.com/catalogo/la-selva/3116/" target="_blank">man</a><br />
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AYAHUASCA MUSIC<br />
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I've also included number of Ikaros and other songs recorded during ayahuasca sessions.<br />
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The first track is called "Amazon Indian ayahuasca song.mp3" I downloaded it from <a href="http://www.slsknet.org/news/node/1" target="_blank">soulseek</a> many many years ago. I tried to find out more about it because I really like it, but I was unable. It remains a mystery to me. Let me know if you have any info about it.<br />
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The second ikaro is by Maria Luisa Tuesta Flores who worked with Howard Lawler at <a href="http://biopark.org/peru/ayahuasca-spiritquest.html" target="_blank">Spirit Quest</a>. She was also one of Steve Beyer’s teachers, <a href="http://bit.ly/poderverde3" target="_blank">he wrote about her here</a><br />
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The third is Madre Ayahuasca, received by Rosa Giove and sung by Jacques Mabit<br />
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The fourth song is not technically an ikaro. It’s a song to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonantzin" target="_blank">Tonantzin</a>, the Mexican mother goddess. But it was sung by a friend named Sofia the morning after an aya session. I really like it and decided to include it.<br />
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Fourth and fifth ikaros are from that same session, sung by Raffaelle Mackay with Fabian and Nico, refer to <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com.es/2016/09/songs-of-ayahuasca-preview.html" target="_blank">Songs of Ayahuasca</a> for more info.<br />
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CURANDERO RADIO ADS<br />
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The last and perhaps the most original element of the journey are the curandero ads from <a href="http://www.radiotropicalperu.com/" target="_blank">Radio Tropical, Tarapoto</a>. (on tracks ) In the Peruvian jungle where I’ve spent most time everybody that can afford a small radio receiver has one. Generally it’s on all day. It keeps them company while they work on the chacra. It was out of those radios that I began to hear ads for travelling curanderos, magical remedies, medicinal plants and removal of evil eye and witchcraft. I was completely fascinated by these ads (some as long as infomercials.) One part snake oil salesmen, one part XXIst century shamanism, seven parts crazy reverb and boombastic radio hosting, these ads read to me like the audio embodiment of the worst collective fears of Amazonian folk: the envy of others manifested as witchcraft, bad luck in crops, in business and in health, the loss of love though the calculated actions of others… The themes will be familiar to anyone who has spent time around indigenous and mestizo curanderos in the Amazon, yet I’ve never heard them expressed with such force and destructive paranoia. Scary stuff meant to scare, down to the ghoulish sound effects...<br />
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A friend in Madrid once told me “A<i>dvertising is the tax that the irrelevant have to pay.</i>” Later a friend in Perú told me “<i>No real curandero would ever buy an ad on the radio.</i>” Indeed, real curanderos, like good chiropractors, don't need advertising. Word of mouth is enough to keep them relevant and fully booked. It is these travelling medicine-show curanderos, who pass by town and leave, and who therefore have no local reputation to bank on (or to protect) that need to fill the radio waves with ads as <b>amazing and disturbing</b> as the one’s you will hear here.<br />
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ENJOY!<br />
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It took Akasha and I a couple of sleepless nights to complete this mix, we hope you have as much fun listening as we had making it<br />
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Madrid, Jan 2017<br />
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<span id="goog_1506847093"></span><span id="goog_1506847094"></span><br />Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-89771901281702840382016-09-08T16:11:00.001+02:002017-01-07T15:21:53.918+01:00Songs Of Ayahuasca - A previewIt is with <b>much trepidation</b> (and a long delay, my apologies) that I present <b>a preview of the Songs of Ayahuasca CD</b> that I've been preparing as a reward for our Kickstarter backers. <br />
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As you will see the it is a lot more ambitious than a collection of songs, it is designed as <b>a journey through ayahuasca musical traditions</b>, starting with the most ancient, in Ecuador and moving through Colombia, Perú, Brazil and finally the rest of the world. <br />
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The CD will be accompanied by ample notes in 2 languages as well as transcriptions and translations of the song lyrics.<br />
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What follows is a partial preview of the liner notes of about <b>half of the tracks that will appear the 2 CD compilation.</b><br />
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<b>LINER NOTES</b>
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<b>About Songs of Ayahuasca</b><br />
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When we started with our ayahuasca documentary project in 2002, we had a simple objective: To make <b>a film that documented all the different manifestations of ayahuasca culture(s)</b>. It took us a few years to realize how naïve we’d been. <b>It was impossible, traditional ayahuasca cultures were just too too varied</b> to fit into one film.. or even in 10 films.<br />
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I am glad we tried, though, in the attempt we got to witness the <b>incredible richness and diversity of ayahuasca cultures </b>which include:<br />
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-More than 70 Amazonian indigenous groups that use it (and quickly expanding to indigenous groups that didn’t have a history of previous use)<br />
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-Mestizo Vegetalismo and urban curanderismo<br />
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-The three main lines of syncretic churches in Brazil (Santo Daime, Barquinha and UDV plus numerous offshoots) some which have now expanded across the world<br />
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-Neoshamanic, psychedelic therapists and other alternative groups of every imaginable persuasion.<br />
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In the 10 years that we spent going from place to place, naively trying to fit all of the above in one film, it occurred to me that despite the <b>enormous differences</b> from group to group (in everything from the way the brew was prepared to philosophy and ceremony and dietary restrictions) there were a number of <b>common threads</b> throughout:<br />
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The first one was that everyone everywhere agreed that drinking ayahuasca was a <b>Good Thing</b> (this might seem obvious, but it’s more important than you think.) <br />
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The second common thread was that <b>everywhere we went everyone sang to ayahuasca.</b> These Songs of Ayahuasca, often inspired by Ayahuasca, to be sung for and during Ayahuasca, represent the musical embodiment of the Ayahuasca experience, they direct the experience, modulate it, sustain it, hold it and drive it. <br />
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Where there is Ayahuasca, there is song. <br />
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<b>About the song selection</b><br />
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This collection represents a selection of <b>some of my most cherished personal recordings</b> after 10 years investigating traditional ayahuasca cultures in Brazil, Perú, Colombia and Ecuador. I organized the tracks it as <b>journey</b>, starting with the manifestations that are most ancient in origin and slowly moving towards the most modern, but always staying within the range of “tradition.” <br />
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In the past few years, with ayahuasca’s expansion there’s been an explosion of new Ayahuasca music being generated, some of which uses studio recording and modern instruments and amplification. I enjoy these new styles myself (and I have included some links at the end notes for those interested in finding more) but for this collection I have chosen to stick to tradition, by this I mean raw recordings, most time recorded live during real ayahuasca sessions and without any sort of instruments or amplification (the last 2 songs being the exception).<br />
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I’ve also done my best to <b>transcribe and translate the lyrics </b>so you can read the words as you listen and <b>understand better what is being said</b>.<br />
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The end notes include additional information, research and links in case you want to investigate further.<br />
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<b>I hope you enjoy listening to these Songs if Ayahuasca as much as I‘ve enjoyed putting them together.</b><br />
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Jeronimo M.M. – Ibiza August 2016<br />
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<b>1 – Fidel Andi Grefa - healing</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.ayaconference.com/index.php/ponentes-bio/?lang=en/#grefa" target="_blank">Fidel Andi</a> is a Kichwa healer from Tena by Napo River in Ecuador. He comes from a long family tradition of curanderismo and has a <a href="https://colonos.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/interview-with-a-yachak/" target="_blank">very interesting life as a indigenous rights & traditional medicine activist.</a> This healing song was recorded live during an ayahuasca session (you will notice the throwing up in the background)<br />
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This is where the journey begins, for it is theorized by some researchers that <a href="http://www.ayahuasca.com/ayahuasca-overviews/unraveling-the-mystery-of-the-origin-of-ayahuasca/" target="_blank">the origin of ayahuasca use lies in this very geographical area</a>, the Napo river, in Ecuador.<br />
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Here’s a quick summary of these theories: In the Pleistocene Age (2 million BC to 10000 BC) there were a series of glaciations that put most of the American continent under a sheet of ice. During these glaciations there were certain areas called Pleistocene refuges where the ice didn’t reach. In the entire American continent there were only 9 such refuges. It was vegetation from these areas, veritable centers of biological diversity that re-populated the continent when the ice ages passed. The Amazonian Piedmont of Ecuador and Colombia is recognized as one of the areas with the highest biodiversity in the world. All of it <b>originated in the Napo Pleistocene Refuge</b>, which includes the Napo River and spans the area between the Aguarico River and the Caquetá River in Colombia.<br />
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Most of the plant species in today’s Amazon come from that refuge, including -it is theorized- the ayahuasca vine. Thus the indigenous groups of that area are thought by some academics (G. Zuluaga, G. Highpine) to maintain the <b>oldest, longest, traditions of ayahuasca use</b>, starting with the Napo Runa (which would include Fidel) and then further down to the Siona, Kofan, Kamsá, Koreguage, Ingano and others. It is in these tribes where ancestral ayahuasca use can be proven. It is also among these groups that wild vine use is has prevalence over cultivated vines. Some academics (P.Gow, Brabec de Mori) believe that <a href="http://www.singingtotheplants.com/2012/04/on-origins-of-ayahuasca/" target="_blank">in other tribes ayahuasca use can be as young as a few hundred years old.</a><br />
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Fidel’s style of working is slightly different from what I have seen further downriver in that right after the effects are felt he will begin the individual healings which are fairly long in duration. So on any give night he won’t treat more than 8 people or so, after he's done he will talk in the patient's ear for a while, telling them you what he’s seen and giving advice.<br />
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THE STORY<br />
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When Fidel did his healing on me after singing the song that you hear here, he said the following on my ear:<br />
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“I looked at you and saw you are alright. It’s just that recently you were born again and that’s why you are still a bit weak, like a baby."<br />
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"In order to get strong you need to drink tobacco”<br />
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“Drink tobacco, how?” I asked<br />
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“You take a large <a href="https://www.heavenly-products.com/cart/images/mapacho4.jpg" target="_blank">tobacco roll</a> and cut a slice, leave it in a glass of water overnight. In the morning you filter out the tobacco leaves out and drink the water on an empty stomach.”<br />
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“But if you leave tobacco in water over night the water gets really really dark” I said<br />
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“Precisely” he answered<br />
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“But I’ve drunk such tobacco juice before and it made really <b>really</b> sick”<br />
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He clicked his tongue<br />
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“That’s because you had NO FAITH in it."<br />
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"You have to drink tobacco.”<br />
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And with that he sent me back to my place.<br />
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It took me a few years to realize how right he’d been, but that’s another story for another time. I’ll just say that nowadays I drink tobacco as he prescribed, and it no longer makes me sick. I learned to have faith in tobacco.<br />
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<b>2 - Humberto Piaguaje - Healing Song</b><br />
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This is a live recording of a healing performed by Siona Taita Humberto Piaguaje. Humberto is one of the sons of <a href="http://www.visionchamanica.com/yage_EMC/taita_pacho.htm" target="_blank">Francisco (Pacho) Piaguaje</a>, one of the best-known shamans of the Putumayo River and founding member of the <a href="http://amazon.dead-city.org/umiyac-declaration.html" target="_blank">UMIYAC</a>. The Piaguajes come form a long family of Siona shamans, as well as a long history of interaction with researchers. The number of people who have passed by the Piaguaje house since the 50s reads like a veritable who is who of Ayahuasca research: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Evans_Schultes" target="_blank">Richard E. Schultes</a>, <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com.es/2009/03/writers-and-ayahuasca-1-william.html" target="_blank">William Burroughs</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Weil" target="_blank">Andrew Weill</a>, <a href="http://www.vibrant.org.br/downloads/v4n2_langdon.pdf" target="_blank">Jean Langdon</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ayahuasca-Weaving-Destinies-Jimmy-Weiskopf/dp/9584477609/ref=sr_1_39?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473283832&sr=1-39&refinements=p_27%3AJimmy+Weiskopf" target="_blank">Jimmy Weiskopf</a> among others have spent time and written about the Piaguaje family.<br />
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In the previous song we spoke about the theory of some academics that the origin of ayahuasca use lies with the Napo Runa, and in general in the Amazonian Piedmont of Ecuador and Colombia. We are now a bit further downriver, in the border between Ecuador and Colombia. As you can hear there are similarities in the song.<br />
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Nowadays one can observe in these piedmont ayahuasca cultures mostly a therapeutic use of ayahuasca, usually in collective rituals, led by a healer, that include individual healings, usually at the end of the night. These rituals might actually be late <b>adaptations to colonial forces that pushed shamanism into the corner</b>, only allowing for its therapeutic expression, while repressing the more communal, mythical, and political side. We don’t know.<br />
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This aspect, the healings at the end of the night, are common to the Ecuadorean, Colombian, and Peruvian traditions I’ve seen, what’s different in Humberto’s Siona tradition is that <b>the bulk of the Yage session is run not through song, but through silence.</b> It is only at the end of the night, after drinking the second cup, that the taita begins to call the participants one by one, to sit in front of him and be healed, with the song that you can hear here.<br />
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<b>4 - Emilio - Icaro </b><br />
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On the first song we spoke about the Pleistocene/Napo theory of ayahuasca dissemination. There is a second theory, championed by Cambridge anthropologist (and all-around beautiful person) <a href="http://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-francoise-barbira-freedman" target="_blank">Francoise Barbira-Freedman</a>, who spent a number of years of researching Lamista shamanism and speaks Quechua fluently. According to Freedman the vector of expansion of ayahuasca throughout the Amazon are a series of <b>migratory waves from Quechua Lamista populations</b> who descended further and further into the lowlands and <b>trading medicinal plants</b> (including cursare and ayahuasca). Napo o Lamista? The jury is still out, I’ve seen academics argue quite passionately for either option. It is also <b>possible that both things are true at the same time</b>, since we are speaking of two separate river systems and each group could have taken ayahuasca down their own rivers.<br />
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In any case, we have arrived to the Lamista area of Perú, in the Alto Río Huallaga area, the area where I’ve done most of my fieldwork. This is high jungle (800m over sea level) the distinctly hilly area, where the Andes meet the Amazon. Because of its height and different soil composition this area of jungle is somewhat cooler but most importantly more bio-diverse than the flat, sandy soils of the low jungle. This bio-diversity manifests itself in a type of shamanism that have a much richer repertoire of plants than those of the low lands. Indeed Lamista Vegetalistas such as Emilio, <b>consider ayahuasca just one more plant in a very large plant toolkit</b>, that includes dozens of other purgas, and an equally large number of palos and dieta plants.<br />
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THE STORY<br />
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Emilio was born in the Alto Huallaga, in a hamlet a couple of hours away from Chazuta (where in the 40s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_C%C3%B3rdova-Rios" target="_blank">Manuel Cordova Rios </a>went to gather curare for NYC pharmaceutical companies)<br />
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Emilio's story is similar to that of many vegetalistas. After number of terrible working accidents he found himself chaining one therapeutic dieta after another, on the seventh dieta, one night the spirit “el genio” of the plants appeared to him in his dreams, and told him:<br />
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“It is high time you begin to cure, to soplar (blow tobacco) and pulsar (read people’s pulse)”<br />
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“But I don’t know how to do those things” Emilio answered<br />
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“We are about to teach you” Replied the spirit and they sang to him the icaro (song) that I have included here.<br />
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“Nothing is as marvelous” Emilio says in the interview “as when one hears a song in dreams and then wakes up in wonder.”<br />
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This icaro includes a number of structural features that are common to this cultural area. The icaro lists a number of plants, animals, spirits, and places and one by one calls them to come to the help of the curandero so that he might bring back the soul of the sick person. We’ll see this structure re-appear in the Peruvian icaros that follow as well.<br />
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In the following video he tells the whole story, sings the icaro and explains it line by line<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KzigKazf4dc?rel=0" width="750"></iframe></div>
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Ikaro transcription & translation by <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jaume_Sanz-Biset/publications" target="_blank">Jaume Sanz Biset</a></div>
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ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI IKARUytay KAYAMUNCHI</div>
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I call (the spirit of the sick person), we (the ones present) call (this lost soul)</div>
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IMALAYAy IKARUytay MUYU WAYRAy IKARUytay</div>
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Who do I call? I call the muyu wayra (spirit that causes “susto” and has trapped the sick person’s soul)</div>
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MUYU WAYRAy IKARUytay PUSHAMUYNAy ALMANTANAy</div>
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Muyu wayra, bring back the soul (of the sick person)</div>
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ÑUKANCHImay DEFENDENCHI IKARUYPI IKARERUy</div>
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We defend (the sick person) (with our) icaro (and the) icarero(s) (genios)</div>
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PAYKUNAMAN IKARERU NINANKUNAy SUPAY RUNAy</div>
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(We call) the icarero (genios) (and) the supay runa (devil-man, another genio)</div>
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ÑUKANCHIMAN KAYAMUNCHI WAKAMAYUy RUNAKUNAy</div>
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We call the guacamayos (the spirits of the parrots)</div>
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PAYKUNAMAN WAKAMAYUy NINANKUNAy IKARERUy</div>
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(We are calling the spirits of) the guacamayos (parrots) and the ikarero (genios)</div>
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PINSHARUNAy IKARUytay PAYKUNATAy CHASKIMUYNA</div>
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Pinsha (Toucan, its genio) catch (the muyu wayra)</div>
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URKU PUNTAy IKARERU PAYKUNAMAN IKARUytay IKARERUy</div>
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On top of the hill, there they are (Toucan, muyu waira y and the soul of the sick person)</div>
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AGUAJEPIn PUKLLAMUNKIay ÑUKANCHIMAN KAYAMUNCHI ALMANTANAy</div>
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(Now) you play in the aguaje (thorny palm) we call the (lost) soul</div>
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PUSHAMUYNAy IKARUytay IKARERU ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI IKARUytay</div>
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Ikaro and ikarero (genios) bring (the muyu wayra), (thus I) call (you with) this song</div>
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IMALAYAy IKARUytay MUYU WAYRAy IKARUytay</div>
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Who (am I calling)? (I am calling) the muyu waira (the genio who caused this “susto”)</div>
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ALMANTANAy PUSHAMUYNAy IKARUyty KANTAMUNCHI</div>
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Bring the soul (of the sick person) (with the) icaro (that) we (are) singing</div>
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ÑUKANCHImay DEFENDENCHI IKARERUy</div>
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We defend (the sick person) (with the) icarero(s) (genios)</div>
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ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI CHAYPINA CHAY PUKLLAMUNKIay</div>
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I call (the muyu waira). There you are (muyu waira) playing (with the soul.)</div>
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URKU PUNTAy PUKLLAMUNNA CHAYPI MAÑAY CHOKAMUYNA MUYU WAYRAy</div>
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(On) the top of the hill (the muyu waira) plays, there it crashes (with the rock walls)</div>
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IMALAYAy IKARUytay ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI KAMERAMAN PUKLLAMUNKIay</div>
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Who am I (calling)? I call you (muyu waira), (you that) plays in the branches of the Came (Came Renaco tree, used to heal bones)</div>
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CHAYPI MAÑAY ALMANTANAy TRAPICHINAY IKARERUy IKARUytay</div>
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There I ask (of the sick man’s soul)(that with the muyu waira they move the branches of the Came tree, making a sound like the) trapiche</div>
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SHIMBILLOPIN PUKLLAMUNKIay ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI YACUWAIRAy</div>
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(Now)(you muyu wayra) play in the Shimbillo (fruit tree)</div>
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I call you yacu waira (genio of the Shimbillo) (so that you bring muyu wayra)</div>
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IKARUytay PAYKUNATAy KAYAMUNCHI IKARUytay</div>
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(With the) icaro we call (the genios) (with the) icaro</div>
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YACU COCAy IKARUytay ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI NEGRO NEGROy YACU RUNA</div>
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I call the genio of the Yacu Coca. You Yacu Runa (genio of the yacu coca) black black (I call you)</div>
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YACU SUPAY IKARUytay ALMANTANAy PUSHAMUYNAy</div>
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Yacu supay (genio de la yacu coca) bring back the soul (of the sick person)</div>
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ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI ALMANTANAy DEFENDENCHI IKARUyty</div>
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I (with my icaro) call you (yacu supay) (so that) you defend (the soul of the sick person)</div>
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BOBENSANAy IKARUytay ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI YACU WARMI IKARUyty</div>
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(with) the icaro of the Bobensana (medicinal plant) I call you yacu warmi (genio of the Bobensana) (so that you bring the muyu wayra)</div>
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BOBENSANAy IKARUytay ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI YACU WARMI IKARUyty</div>
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(with) the ícaro of the Bobensana I call you yacu warmi (genio of the Bobensana) (so that you bring muyu wayra)</div>
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SIRENAmay YACU WARMI IKARUytay</div>
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(I call you) sirena (genio of the Bobensana). (I call you) yacu warmi</div>
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ÑUKANCHIMAN KAYAMUNCHI IKARUytay KAYAMUNCHI</div>
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We call with the icaro, we call</div>
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MUYU WAYRAy IKARUytay ATUNPLAYAY PUKLLAMUNNA</div>
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We call the muyu wayra (that now) plays (with the soul of the sick person) in a large river beach</div>
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CHAYPINA CHAY IKARERUy BANCORUNAy IKARUytay</div>
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There (is also) that bancoruna (genio) (I call him so that he brings the soul of the sick person)</div>
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BANCORUNAy IKARUytay ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI</div>
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(with the) bancoruna (genio that brings the muyu wayra), I call you (muyu wayra)</div>
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LAGARTOmay BANCORUNAy PAYKUNAMAN YACU SUPAY IKARUytay</div>
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I call the bancoruna and the crocodile (its spirit).</div>
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I call the yacu supay (water devil)</div>
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(I call you) (so that you bing the lost soul)</div>
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TIBIWAMAN IKARERUy ÑUKANCHIMAN KAYAMUNCHI IKARUytay KAYAMUNCHI</div>
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To the genio of the Tibiwaman (bird) we call, we call</div>
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ALTOPURIY SUPAYRUNAy IKARUytay IKARUytay PAYKUNAMAN IKARERUy</div>
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On top of the road (is) the supay runa, we call him (to bring the lost soul)</div>
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PAYKUNATAy KAYAMUNCHI IKARUypy KAYAMUYKI</div>
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We call these ones, we call the genios</div>
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ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI ALTOPURIY SUPAYWARMI IKARUytay</div>
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I call you supay warmi (genio) on top of the path, I call your power</div>
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TIBIWAMAN IKARERU PAYKUNATAy KAYAMUNCHI</div>
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We call to the genio of the Tibiwaman (bird)</div>
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TIBIWAMAN IKARERUy PAYKUNAMAN ALMANTANAy PUSHAMUYNAy</div>
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We call the genio of the Tibiwaman (bird) so that you bring (the lost soul)</div>
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ANGUILLAMAN IKARERU ÑUKAmayay KAYAMUYKI</div>
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I call the genio of the anguiia (eel fish)</div>
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ANGUILLAtay KAYAMUNCHI YACUSUPAY IKARUytay</div>
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(we) call the anguilla, (and the) yacusupay (genio of the anguilla)</div>
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ATUN COCHAy PUKLLAMUNNAy CHAYPINA CHAY MUYU WAYRAy</div>
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(in) a large lagoon (the muyu wayra) plays, there he plays</div>
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MUYU WAYRAy IKARUytay PAYKUNATAy IKARERU IKARUytay</div>
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We call (to the) muyu wayra genio</div>
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KAYAMUNCHI PAYKUNAMAN ÑUKANCHIMAN KAYAMUNCHI</div>
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We call to them (muyu wayra with the lost soul) we call</div>
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IKARUytay IKARERUy</div>
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(we call their) ícaro, (their) genio</div>
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LOBO MARIN IKARUytay PAYKUNATAy KAYAMUNCHI</div>
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We call the genio of the lobo marino (giant otter), we call it (to bring the muyu wayra)</div>
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LOBO MARIN IKARERU PAYKUNATAy IKARUytay</div>
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We call the genio of the giant otter</div>
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(so that it brings the muyu wayra and returns the lost soul to the body of the sick person</div>
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<b>5 - Jacques Mabit - Icaro de las Tribus (by Maestro Solon Tello)</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYhi-SHOFwF_8b4zKlC8sCUTNAHe7jDTTNDqgf7TlYoUI0eLc6T5EHOZyyO8GsxMknjze6kKuevmMqDi_0-JUknky_SR0QnxoSBAbC2jrLK2teKi-wSwApPgsZlW_aaA3yYE2CK4jyzOo/s1600/jacques3picts.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYhi-SHOFwF_8b4zKlC8sCUTNAHe7jDTTNDqgf7TlYoUI0eLc6T5EHOZyyO8GsxMknjze6kKuevmMqDi_0-JUknky_SR0QnxoSBAbC2jrLK2teKi-wSwApPgsZlW_aaA3yYE2CK4jyzOo/s640/jacques3picts.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Jacques Mabit was born in France where he studied medicine, and moved to Tarapoto, a few hours form Chazuta, in the late 80s to work with Doctors Without Borders. His encounter with traditional doctors and ayahuasca was to change his life forever. In 1992 he founded the Takiwasi center that pioneered the integration of western and Amazonian medicine for the treatment of drug addicts. He was one of the main characters in The Jungle Prescription.<br />
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In the 20+ years that the center has been running a veritable who’s who of ayahuasca shamans have spent periods there, these periods produced rich interchanges of knowledge and song. More 20 years later Mabit’s icaro repertoire contains dozens of songs, from many sources. The following song is one such example. This icaro is originally from Maestro Solon Tello (1918-2000) who was one of Iquito’s most respected vegetalistas. He lived to be 92, and ran ayahuasca sessions on the back of the kitchen of his Iquitos apartment.<br />
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<b>6 - Jacques Mabit - Madrecita Ayahuasca (by maestro José Campos)</b><br />
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The story of this song goes like this: in 2007 while doing research for the film in Perú I met a man who was convinced he was possessed by the devil. I won't go into the details, he looked normal enough. I'll just say that when I met him he had been drinking ayahuasca for a few months with no major effects. The first 2 times I drank with him it was uneventful. The third time, however, something happened. During the session what he called his devil "came out" in the open for the first time. It just so happened that I was recording audio that night.<br />
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I will save you from that recording, suffice it to say it is some of the most hair-raising shrieking I have ever heard. The entire rom was terrified. When I revisited the recording I could barely listen for more than a few seconds. That night it took the curanderos all their power and more than an hour to get the situation to the point where the shrieks became a whimper.<br />
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When there was finally silence, the entire room breathed out a collective sight of relief.<br />
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When the room was finally at peace Jacques Mabit sang this ícaro: madrecita ayahuasca.<br />
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Mabit told me that the author of the ícaro is maestro José Campos. This ayahuasca song is almost a battle chant, meant to cast off evil, and claim the space back. Mabit calls to his side the spirits of the most powerful plants, and of everything he holds most sacred. It's almost a declaration of principles, a manifesto, stating where the curandero stands, and under which forces his sessions are run. As you will see it is also full of poetic turns, and inspiring calls.<br />
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I will say no more. I think the song speaks for itself.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FJ6cddlgEvI?rel=0" width="750"></iframe><br />
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The video has english subtitles, click on the gear icon to activate<br />
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<b>6 - Jacques Mabit - Les Trefons (J. Mabit)</b><br />
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This is one of Mabit’s own icaros and the only icaro in the French Language I have ever heard. It is absolutely beautiful. Jacques told me the song, together with its melody came to him in a dream. Most icaros in Takiwasi have a very specific function, almost like tools. I’ve heard Jacques say that Les Tréfonds is an icaro for childhood issues & hurts.<br />
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<b>8 - Jacques Mabit - Madre Ayahuasca (by Rosa Giove)</b><br />
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Jacques Mabit’s wife Dr. Rosa Giove is co-founder of Takiwasi and has been working side to side with him for more than 2 decades. She is also the author of a number of extraordinary icaros -although she would certainly disagree with the author title, arguing that <b>she never composed the songs, she merely received them</b>, in this aspect she's in agreement with vegetalistas and daimistas, who claim the exact same origin to their songs<br />
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Madre Ayahuasca is perhaps the best known of all of Rosa's icaros. It has transcended Takiwasi and <b>taken a life of its own</b>, I’ve heard it sang many times in many different places, often by people who didn’t know its origin.<br />
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THE STORY<br />
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Rosa wrote the first time she heard this song being sung to her was during an ayahuasca session. She says she saw a vision of a young girl flowing out of a bottle. It was ayahuasca, who started to dance around her, always playfully. The young dancer then became an old woman who kept dancing without losing her grace, then with a twinkle in her eye, she went back to being a young girl.<br />
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The girl then took Rosa by the hand and walked her across a great forest, all the way to the sea, then she took Rosa inside the water, in spite of Rosa´s resistance. To her surprise Rosa found there was nothing to be afraid of, the sea floor was full of fish, coral, and light, on the bottom of the sea was a chest, and inside Rosa knew was a part of her that she had locked up. Then and there she understood the mischievous look that ayahuasca had given her.<br />
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Rosa was then taken out of the water and through a trail lined with flowers, the path lead to a stone tower. Rosa understood that there was a treasure inside the tower, and that one could only access it if they had the key. Ayahuasca reappeared, dancing around Rosa, and Rosa <b>realized that she'd had that key all along</b>. However, the young girl explained, it is not enough to have the key, one must also find the door and the lock, and even then, one must know how to open it.<br />
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Rosa had the key and she realized could see the lock, but there was a strong feeling she shouldn't open that door, <b>someone else must do it.</b><br />
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She realized that “Everyone must find their own role along the path of life, but also their own complement, the other that will make them whole.”<br />
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At that moment a song came to her, it started to play in her head. She tried to ignore it, but the icaro wouldn’t let her be, it kept returning, in dreams, in other ayahuasca sessions, until -against her own resistances- she had to sing it.<br />
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That’s how Madre Ayahuasca came to be<br />
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MADRE AYAHUASCA</div>
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Madre Ayahuasca, madre …</div>
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Mother ayahuasca, mother</div>
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Llévame hasta el sol..</div>
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Take me up to the sun</div>
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De la savia de la tierra hazme beber</div>
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Make me drink of the sage of the earth</div>
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llévame contigo hacia el sol</div>
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take me with you towards sun</div>
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del sol interior hacia arriba,</div>
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from the inner sun, going up</div>
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hacia arriba subiré.</div>
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I will go up</div>
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Úsame, háblame, enséñame</div>
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Use me, talk to me, teach me</div>
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enséñame a ver, a ver más allá.</div>
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teach me to see, to see beyond</div>
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Madre . . .</div>
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Mother</div>
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Enséñame a ver,</div>
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teach me how to see</div>
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a ver al Hombre dentro del hombre</div>
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how to see the Man inside the man</div>
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a ver el Sol dentro y fuera del hombre</div>
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how to see the sun,</div>
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(that shines) inside and outside of man</div>
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enséñame a ver …</div>
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teach me how to see</div>
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Usa mi cuerpo, hazme brillar</div>
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Use my body, make me shine</div>
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con brillo de estrellas,</div>
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with the glow of the stars</div>
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con calor de sol,</div>
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with the heat of the sun</div>
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con luz de luna y fuerza de tierra,</div>
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with the light of the moon</div>
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and the strength of the earth</div>
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con luz de luna y calor de sol</div>
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with the light of the moon</div>
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and the heat of the sun</div>
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hazme brillar</div>
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make me shine</div>
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Madre Ayahuasca … madre …</div>
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Mother ayahuasca… mother</div>
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<b>10 - Rosa Giove - Icaro de la "S"</b><br />
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This is one of my favorite icaros from my favorite curandera, Dra. Rosa Giove. I'll let her explain it in her own words<br />
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"During a 2 year period I received a total of 6 icaros. They came to me in different places and times, without any premeditation on my part in terms of content or order. The songs always came to me unexpectedly and involuntarily, through visions, dreams, or the semi-dream state produced by dietas and ritual work with plant teachers. <br />
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This icaro corresponds to the base chakra, related to sexuality and the letter "S" It's represented by a small red snake, a fire snake, that starts its ascension (the awakening of Kundalini?) by crawling slowly towards the abdomen. It's related to the life energy, the body's healing power, and the ascending force of life that moves upward, towards the sun.<br />
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I listened to the small plant-woman sing this icaro to me with a soft voice, dragging all the SSSSS, as if emphasizing the snake's crawl. I looked at the other people in the ayahuasca session and saw a red glow in their base. Suddenly there was a voice is coming out me that I didn't recognize it as mine. It was singing this icaro"<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/281944993&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe>
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Introdúceme en tu cuerpo</div>
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Introduce me in your body</div>
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desde allí yo te hablaré.</div>
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i’ll talk to you from there</div>
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Introdúceme en tu mente,</div>
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Introduce me in your mind</div>
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desde allí te alumbraré.</div>
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i’ll light your way form there</div>
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Introdúceme en tu corazón,</div>
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Introduce me in your heart</div>
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desde allí te daré calor.</div>
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i’ll warm you up from there</div>
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Oirás mi voz de serpiente</div>
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You will hear my snake voice</div>
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deslizarse en tu oído.</div>
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slide into your ear</div>
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Verás mi luz sin verla</div>
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you will see my light without seeing it</div>
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a través de Los sentidos...</div>
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through the senses</div>
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y mi calor te seguirá</div>
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and my warmth will stay with you</div>
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más allá del frío frío</div>
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beyond the cold cold</div>
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Y seré parte de ti,</div>
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And I will be a part of you</div>
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tierra lanzada al infinito...</div>
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earth flung into the infinite</div>
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Mi voz te susurrará</div>
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My voice will whisper</div>
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cosas que crees no saber.</div>
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things you think you don’t know</div>
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Dentro de ti vas a encontrar</div>
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Inside of you, you will find</div>
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la respuesta a tu ser</div>
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the answer to your being</div>
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Ocho (8), doble círculo fecundo</div>
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eight, fertile double circle </div>
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dos serpientes enroscadas,</div>
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two coiled snakes</div>
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que te hablan sin decir...</div>
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that talk to you without speaking</div>
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que te dicen sin hablar...</div>
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that speak without saying</div>
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NADA</div>
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nothing</div>
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Soy la energía en ti dormida,</div>
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I am the energy asleep within you</div>
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despiértame ya.</div>
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wake me up already</div>
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Quiero ascender, reptar de una vez,</div>
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I want to rise, crawl up</div>
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Cruzar el cero (O) ya,</div>
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cross that zero now</div>
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<br /></div>
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cerrar el círculo aquel,</div>
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and close that circle</div>
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<br /></div>
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donde la flor duerme en la cruz...</div>
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where the flower sleeps on the cross</div>
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<br /></div>
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Cuando el azul llegue a tu cara</div>
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When the blue reaches your face</div>
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<br /></div>
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y la luna a tu cabeza,</div>
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and the moon reaches your head</div>
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<br /></div>
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a su encuentro yo iré,</div>
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I will come to meet you</div>
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<br /></div>
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serpiente roja, desde la base,</div>
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red snake, rising from the base</div>
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<br /></div>
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a fundirme con el sol...</div>
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to meet with the sun</div>
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<br /></div>
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Y mi voz te guiará a través del agua</div>
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And my voice will guide you across the water</div>
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<br /></div>
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con el color del amor... </div>
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with the color of love</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br />
<b>11 - Rosa Giove - Icaro de la "M"</b><br />
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I heard once Jacques Mabit say that rituals are a collection of gestures that are only operative when they are "the outward manifestation of an internal process." In other words, the same ritual could be a meaningless charade or a transformative experience, full of significance and power. It all depends on the intention (internal state) of the person performing the ritual.<br />
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New patients in Takiwasi, for example, before they join the other patients undergo an entry ritual where among other things, they make a fire, burn something of their past, walk around the fire backwards and then forwards, while inside a circle formed by his future companions, the other patients.<br />
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There are many such rituals in Takiwasi, patients plant a tree, make a mask of their negative face and then burn it, or, in this case, literally dig their own grave, and then lay on it, to be buried and reborn.<br />
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The common thread among all these rituals, is that they address -or make visible- what in my opinion is an important aspect of the recovery process in addictions: The reckoning of the patient with his past. Ayahuasca often brings in the former drug addicts vivid recollections of how much they have hurt themselves and other people, followed by a lot of guilt and shame over things they have done in the past. All of these rituals, the walking backwards, the planting the tree, address the issue in different ways, as they embody ways to the deal with negative aspects of a person's self and past.<br />
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The earth ritual is by far the most powerful. I think the images speaks for themselves, a symbolic death and rebirth of patient is being enacted. It's tough to watch, one can only imagine what it feels like. The patients take certain things from themselves and leave them on the earth. This is symbolized by the 3 coca leaves they throw in the river, and lay under their body to leave behind in their grave. They are given a tube to breathe and they are covered with soil. Halfway through their burial a sound is made by hitting a stone, so that the patient knows he's halfway through and he'll soon be coming out. <br />
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I've seen 5 patients got through this ritual, with very different reactions, some could barely stand being covered by the earth, others found being underground "extremely peaceful."<br />
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<b>About the icaro</b><br />
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This song by Rosa Giove, is part of a series that she has been receiving for some time. The most popular icaro of the series is "Madre Ayahuasca" which has become something of an anthem.<br />
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This icaro of the "M" is part of the same series, but it is not a song to spirits, but to matter, to physical reality, to the body, and to the earth. This is the chakra that follows the sexual one, activated by the icaro of the "S" (see above.)<br />
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Here's what Rosa said about this icaro<br />
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"The second infra-umbilical chakra corresponds to the letter "M" which I visualize as solid, resting on the earth, concrete, material. It's a sound that comes from the belly, which is the cradle of our instincts, the origin of fear, life and death"<br />
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I have included 3 versions of the song. The first is sang by Rosa Giove herself, then Jacques Mabit, sings, then Jaime Torres, so you can heard it sang by all three main curanderos in Takiwasi. I also added English subtitles although as usual I fear some of the poetry is lost in the translation.<br />
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To activate the English subtitles click on the gear icon next to the timer. <br />
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<b>14 - Santo Daime - A Meu Pai Peço Firmeza</b><br />
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This song was recorded in the state of Acre, in the Brazilian Amazon. It is one of the opening hymns of a Santo Daime ritual, from the <a href="http://www.santodaime.org/site/religiao-da-floresta/pad-sebastiao/breve" target="_blank">Padrino Sebastiao</a> Hymnbook. For those unfamiliar with the Santo Daime it is a syncretic church that mixes European Catholicism, African spirituality, and the indigenous use of ayahuasca. It was founded by <a href="http://www.santodaime.org/site/religiao-da-floresta/mestre-irineu/biografiamestre" target="_blank">Raimundo Irienu Serra</a>, a descendant of African slaves, who at the beginning of the last century was part of the first wave of immigrants to the jungle -the seringueiros or rubber tappers- who came in contact with the indigenous populations, and with ayahuasca. The result is a most wonderful combination of traditions. Daime rituals, or “works”, revolve around the singing of hymns. These songs of ayahuasca, often "received" under its effects hold and contain within them the "doctrina" the teachings, of the Santo Daime. Part spiritual revelation, part entheogenic inspiration, part Nordestino folk music. They are some of my favorite ayahuasca musics.<br />
<br />
THE STORY<br />
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This congregation you see in the video is headed by <a href="http://www.santodaime.org/site/religiao-da-floresta/discipulos/luis-mendes-do-nascimento" target="_blank">Luiz Mendez</a>, who lived with and met Irineu Serra while he was alive. This recording took place in Fortaleza, their ranch, where approximately five families of Daimistas live together and try to survive off the land.<br />
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Their ritual works take place in a wall-less building by the jungle’s edge. They were some of the most intimate, beautiful, and emotional Daime works I have ever attended. To this day they remain one of my fondest memories of Brazil. About 25 people, 10 of them children, sat around a table lighted by candles and sang for hours with almost no instruments, just the voices weaving in and out. It was simply one of the most beautiful collective songs of praise I have ever witnessed.<br />
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At the end of the night everyone stood up, held hands in a circle, and sang one last song. Holding my left hand was a child of about 10, holding my right hand was a very old man.<br />
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We sang like that, holding hands, feeling the circle of song and life pass through us and it must have been the Daime I drank, but I could barely hold back the tears.<br />
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A Meu Pai Peço Firmeza</div>
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Padrinho Sebastião</div>
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A MEU PAI PEÇO FIRMEZA</div>
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To my Father I ask for firmness</div>
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E NÃO SAIA DA MINHA MENTE</div>
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And to stay mindful</div>
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DOU ENSINO A QUEM NÃO SABE</div>
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I give teachings to the ignorant</div>
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<br /></div>
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E ACONSELHO OS INOCENTES</div>
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And advice to the innocent</div>
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MEU PAI A TI EU PEÇO</div>
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I pray to you, My Father</div>
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<br /></div>
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E NÃO SAIO DO MEU LUGAR</div>
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to stay by my side</div>
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<br /></div>
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DAI-ME FORÇA E DAI-ME AMOR</div>
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To gimme strength, and gimme love</div>
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<br /></div>
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PARA EU PODER TRABALHAR</div>
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So that I do this work</div>
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<br /></div>
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MEU PAI A TI EU PEÇO</div>
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I pray to you, My Father</div>
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<br /></div>
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E AOS TEUS PÉS ESTOU</div>
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I'm at your feet</div>
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<br /></div>
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ROGANDO PELO POVO</div>
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Praying for the people</div>
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<br /></div>
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PARA SER MERECEDOR</div>
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to be worthy</div>
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<br /></div>
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OH! MINHA VIRGEM MÃE</div>
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Oh! My Virgin Mother</div>
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<br /></div>
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OH! VIRGEM PROTETORA</div>
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Oh! Virgin Protectress</div>
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<br /></div>
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ÉS RAINHA DO MAR</div>
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You are Queen of the Sea</div>
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<br /></div>
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ÉS MINHA PROFESSORA</div>
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You are My Teacher</div>
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<br /></div>
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OH! MEU BENDITO PAI</div>
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Oh! My blessed Father</div>
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<br /></div>
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OH! MEU JURAMIDAM</div>
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Oh! My people of Juramidam</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
CHAMA DE UM A UM</div>
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Call them one by one</div>
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<br /></div>
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PARA RECEBER O PERDÃO</div>
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to receive your forgiveness</div>
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<br /></div>
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SE TODOS CONHECESSEM</div>
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If everyone knew</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
O PODER QUE MEU PAI TEM</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
the power that my Father has</div>
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<br /></div>
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DEIXAVAM A ILUSÃO</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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They would leave behind</div>
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<br /></div>
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QUE É COISA QUE NÃO CONVÉM</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
their inconvenient illusions</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
O MUNDO ESTÁ EM BALANÇO</div>
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The world is in balance</div>
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<br /></div>
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E TUDO VAI BALANÇAR</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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And all will swing</div>
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<br /></div>
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MAS NOS PÉS DO MEU PAI</div>
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But at the feet of my Father</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
TODOS TEM QUE SE CURVAR</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
all must bow</div>
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<br />
<b>16 - A Barquinha - Culto Santo & </b><b>17 - A Barquinha - Sao Sebastiao</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirOWLuR-MBCeLIdR757W3VICh7Q3F-iso6-7Kj4DHqbt9r7EivCmEyY9gJnud9t_vFbrozgRL3GYvjXH9Txkw0MQcF63Orb6ixVJ3P1jdVBn_iJtys_X3r35S__0qaM5KKMfByfFNy8J0/s1600/pict+strip+barqu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirOWLuR-MBCeLIdR757W3VICh7Q3F-iso6-7Kj4DHqbt9r7EivCmEyY9gJnud9t_vFbrozgRL3GYvjXH9Txkw0MQcF63Orb6ixVJ3P1jdVBn_iJtys_X3r35S__0qaM5KKMfByfFNy8J0/s640/pict+strip+barqu.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>These songs were recorded in one of the 3 Barquinha churches in Rio Branco. These churches were founded by Daniel Pereira Matos, one of Irineu Serras disciples. A Barquinha shares with the Daime many of its hymns and culture, but integrates more rituals of African/Umbanda origin. Daniel had a vision that his congregation was sailing towards God on a boat, so he called his church A Barquinha (the little boat) To this day its members, many of whom have never seen the sea, dress in homemade sailor uniforms to drink ayahuasca, pray, sing and dance.<br />
<br />
THE STORY<br />
<br />
The dance you can see in this video was the conclusion of many hours of singing in the temple. I'm not much of the dancing type, but to my surprise after a while I found myself joining the dance. While I was lost I the middle of the reverie I came to two no less surprising insights:<br />
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The first insight was that far from being a superstitious error, the act of devotion to the divine was somehow intrinsic to human beings. I let go of my postmodern skepticism, and had to admit that what I was witnessing: the praying, the singing, the dancing, seemed not deluded, or superstitious, but actually very natural: The expression of something that was very much not only integral dimension of the human experience, but also an important part of being alive.<br />
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The second insight -and this was quite a surprise- was that I realized in a flash that one day I would have children.<br />
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Both realizations were completely in contradiction with what I had been thinking and believing about religion, and about parenthood, up to that point. I was very surprised to find myself thinking these thoughts.<br />
<br />
They marked a first step of what has been a long road for me. More than a decade I am the father of two girls, and I have a very different attitude towards spirituality... But at the time I didn’t know any of this would happen, I did feel I should give thanks, and dance, and that is what I did (as you can see in the video .-)<br />
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Recorded at Antonio Geraldo da Silva Filho´s church. Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil.<br />
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Begins with Salmo de Abertura e Fechamento do Trabalho, o 'Culto Santo. Followed by a hino-ponto de Abertura dos trabalhos do Parque (bailado) e, last a hino-ponto para São Sebastião.<br />
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<b>18 - Raffaele Mackay & Fabian - Morning Improv</b><br />
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These two last songs are the only ones that stand outside of any indigenous/mestizo/syncretic traditions, but they are *so* beautiful I had to include them. We recorded them on the twilight of an ayahuasca session in Nabi Nuhue, Colombia, as the sun was coming up the Pasto mountains at the very entrance of the legendary Sibundoy Valley.<br />
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<a href="http://www.rafaellemackay.com/" target="_blank">Rafaelle Mckay</a> is an old friend, extraordinary vocalist, composer and voice coach from Montreal, she was accompanied by Fabian, <a href="https://kajuyalitsamani.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Kahuyali Tsamani</a>'s apprentice, on the harmonica<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/281938326&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe>
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<b>19 - R</b><b>affaele Mackay & Nicolas Jolliet - Morning Improv 2</b><br />
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Here's another morning improv from the same day<br />
<br />
Rafaelle Mackay on voice accompanied by musician, filmmaker, drone hacker, VR guru and all around cool guy <a href="http://deep-inc.com/team-members/nicolas-jolliet/" target="_blank">Nicolas Jolliet</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/281940875&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<b>Next up: We'll begin to post selections from The Ayahuasca Conversations Book!</b><br />
<br />Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-27255155286535917012013-05-02T12:44:00.000+02:002013-05-02T13:07:20.770+02:00Joining the ICEERS Foundation and coming out in public<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>ENGLISH TEXT</b> - (texto en español abajo)<br />
<br />
It is with <b>great joy </b>that I announce
that I have been asked to join ICEERS's <a href="http://iceers.org/iceers.php#chapterTwo"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>board
of directors</u></span></a> as secretary. <b>I am honored</b> to be part of
such an incredible group of people.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://iceers.org/iceers.php#.UVtnW1t4ZFw"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>ICEERS</u></span></a> is a charitable non-profit organization founded in 2009 by
Benjamin De Loenen in the Netherlands and is dedicated to:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>The integration of ayahuasca,
iboga and other traditional plants as therapeutic tools in modern
society</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The preservation of the indigenous
cultures that have been using these plant species since antiquity
on, their habitat and botanical resources.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">ICEERS is dedicated
to marshall the forces of the ethnobotanical knowledge of the
indigenous peoples and modern therapeutic practice, responding to the
urgent need for efficient tools for personal and social development.</span></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDpexr228aANbCaT9zCur8t3Wi7gRG9GXJuTyN6b4ii1XG835RnVSbjClj3uI70KfQqiCcnSEF0sd8i6VZ2aMXdIVkcy14N0bjIPI4CV4Nz0tBy0T31Q5pNLAr9IUpCkMqRUuBAYFn-sQ/s1600/ICEERS_logo_new_Horizontal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="94" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDpexr228aANbCaT9zCur8t3Wi7gRG9GXJuTyN6b4ii1XG835RnVSbjClj3uI70KfQqiCcnSEF0sd8i6VZ2aMXdIVkcy14N0bjIPI4CV4Nz0tBy0T31Q5pNLAr9IUpCkMqRUuBAYFn-sQ/s640/ICEERS_logo_new_Horizontal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
...as you can see I am feeling right at
home! ;-)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
ICEERS has promoted a number <b>of
important projects</b>, from organizing <a href="http://news.iceers.org/2010/10/iceers-ibogaine-conference-barcelona/"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>conferences</u></span></a>
and <a href="http://news.iceers.org/2010/09/ibogaine-training-program-2010/"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>training
programs</u></span></a> on Iboga, to keeping a close eye on the
<a href="http://news.iceers.org/2013/01/revision-criminalization-ethnobotanicals/"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>latest
movements</u></span></a> of the international drug authorities to ban
ethnobotanicals.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It was on ICEERS’ request that the
International Narcotics Control Board confirmed by letter that DMT
containing plants such as the ones used in ayahuasca are <b>not themselves under
international control</b>. In other words, until individual countries
take steps to make ayahuasca containing plants illegal (like France did) they are not
technically illegal, anywhere. That letter in itself has helped to
keep a <b>number of people out of jail</b> in a number of countries like
Spain and Chile. (We must add that in some countries, like the US, taking those legal plants and cooking them together to make aya is in itself ilegal)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
ICEERS is also currently running a
program <a href="http://news.iceers.org/2013/02/iboga-analysis-project/"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>to
test the purity of iboga extracts,</u></span></a> so people know what
they are using and more insight is gained into <b>the quality, purity
and possible contaminants</b> of the available materials on the market.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii60J8AiMLH7rXbhMv9jdaT1B6TtEiSVYppBIWqQqIqV8LqV6a1QhhrU3lf7J_MlwI7RwqAgbDVuXXJCs7ZrzZ9rJIixnRCFOJyf3Pyw9eVQZ2CxVqBOeTgWsxxmtP5m3lYiDqmiNhN_o/s1600/ICEERS_Leaf_new.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii60J8AiMLH7rXbhMv9jdaT1B6TtEiSVYppBIWqQqIqV8LqV6a1QhhrU3lf7J_MlwI7RwqAgbDVuXXJCs7ZrzZ9rJIixnRCFOJyf3Pyw9eVQZ2CxVqBOeTgWsxxmtP5m3lYiDqmiNhN_o/s320/ICEERS_Leaf_new.jpg" width="227" /></a>They also helped fund the publication
of <a href="http://news.iceers.org/2012/08/scientific-research-ayahuasca/"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>Jose
Carlos Bouso´s seminal study</u></span></a> on long-term ayahuasca
<br />
use for the scientific journal PLOS, a respected online journal,
making these important findings available for the scientific
community as well as the general public. <b>This is the largest study to
date on the effects of long term ayahuasca use.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
And there is a lot more coming... We
all know how much <b>misinformation and misunderstandings</b> about ayahuasca and iboga is out there. The idea behind ICEERS has always
been to make the best objective <a href="http://iceers.org/science-interest-ayahuasca.php#.UVtnDlt4ZFw"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>science-based</u></span></a>
<a href="http://iceers.org/science-interest-iboga.php#.UVtnN1t4ZFw"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>information</u></span></a>
about these plants and their legitimate uses widely available. We
have prepared <b>a number of guides</b> for first time consumers of
<a href="http://iceers.org/interested-taking-ayahuasca.php#.UVtislt4ZFw"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>ayahuasca</u></span></a>
and <a href="http://iceers.org/interested-taking-iboga.php"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>iboga</u></span></a>,
as well as guides for those interested in travelling to the <a href="http://iceers.org/travel-to-amazon.php#.UVti9lt4ZFw"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>Amazon</u></span></a>
and <a href="http://iceers.org/travel-to-gabon.php#.UVtjEVt4ZFw"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>Gabon.</u></span></a>
But we are also working on a more ambitious project, an <a href="https://helpcenter.iceers.org/"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>online
help center</u></span></a> where people with questions and concerns
can consult one-on-one with experts on these matters. Going beyond the users, <b>we
are preparing a body of documents and guides </b>for ayahuasca
<i>providers</i>, from best practices to a set of minimum safety standards. The purpose is generate a series of
guidelines to minimize risks and maximize benefits, to help draft a
set of safety and ethics standards (like the <a href="http://www.plantaforma.org/codigo_etico_eng.html"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>plantaforma</u></span></a>´s)
that can help ayahuasca and iboga providers <b>self regulate</b>, in order
to avoid situations like the one that took place in Chimbre.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDJY0xd4L408dYrR-OQZstcu3sn49vj2oELXXnofjdHQR3votQtedWEG-kEn0D-LFF55I9PsYXxcxSRpy_x5pnUtrqxRkiqkK8GVUW90se8tQ3zNQwHTSQNcG8q6QNDrnnYAXLLb4qvfU/s1600/BenDeLoenen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDJY0xd4L408dYrR-OQZstcu3sn49vj2oELXXnofjdHQR3votQtedWEG-kEn0D-LFF55I9PsYXxcxSRpy_x5pnUtrqxRkiqkK8GVUW90se8tQ3zNQwHTSQNcG8q6QNDrnnYAXLLb4qvfU/s1600/BenDeLoenen.jpg" /></a></div>
So, like I said, I couldn't be happier
to join an organization whose aims are so closely aligned with my
own. On a personal note, I have always felt an affinity with
Benjamin, who started as a documentary filmmaker, and ended up has an
activist and advocate for the very plants he was filming. Benjamin
made a <a href="https://shop.iceers.org/shop/ibogaine-rite-of-passage-documentary/"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>documentary
about Iboga</u></span></a> (trailer <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMTSA6bP7hs&feature=context-gau"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>here</u></span></a>)
in 2004, which became an international reference on this matter.
What started <b>as a personal interest as a filmmaker became much more</b>,
and began to demand from him a different type of commitment. It is a
story that has many parallels with my own.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I think at this point I should confess
that when I began began making a documentary about
ethnobotanicals with Mark Ellam, my main motivation wasn't so much
making a film, as it <b>was getting closer to a topic that greatly
interested me</b>. The film gave me an excuse to travel, to contact
perfect strangers whose work I admired and to ask them questions, what a great idea! More than 13 years later,
and on my 4th documentary the results have been
tremendously rewarding. But I have been feeling for some time that
<b>making films is not enough</b>. It is as if the plants are demanding a
bigger commitment, they have been so instrumental in my development
that it is time to <b>give back</b> to them in a more meaningful way. It is
time to move from generating information into more <b>direct forms of
action</b>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This has been manifested in my work the<a href="http://www.asociacioneleusis.es/"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>
Asociación Eleusis</u></span></a>, the <a href="http://www.plantaforma.org/plantaforma.html"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>Plantaforma</u></span></a>,
The Platform for the defense of Ayahuasca and now the ICEERS
Foundation. It has been a gradual process of coming out in public.
For many years I kept all my work with ethnobotanicals hidden under a
<i>slight</i> pseudonym. For all documentary and ayahuasca publications I
was <b>Jeronimo M.M</b>. For the rest of my other work, I went by my real
name. It was a clean split. I had 2 email addresses, 2 facebook
accounts, 2 lives.<br />
<br />
I think it is a good time to put an end to that, and come out of the closet.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
For the past 8 years my avatar, as Jeronimo M.M. has turned its back to the public gaze </div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZeVLNx6CxbnCRbpez9W63OPfO8Ufv0MsiTxB4lY6_C5Xlk6GdoOqEcorIk1lwKQGJAmAAym0jwCnmFqe7t3DG9R7NiKN_7-0p9q_XNTKDrYExuZJNDi9vRXqKRYSYODdywP3ppELyHO8/s1600/2+oje.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZeVLNx6CxbnCRbpez9W63OPfO8Ufv0MsiTxB4lY6_C5Xlk6GdoOqEcorIk1lwKQGJAmAAym0jwCnmFqe7t3DG9R7NiKN_7-0p9q_XNTKDrYExuZJNDi9vRXqKRYSYODdywP3ppELyHO8/s200/2+oje.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I think it is time to face the world</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZsC2zwvfe9-k9jZ0-M6tZuQki6rwYc4Ki9LAq0Dv92SmAx6YtAIrZhztGYc1p_bhKMeLV7jjExYhyQ4yWmfgTijMFHcniYqMizb_uEpZLjuYPOciJZx5tQickMNKBkebGsTXirYhnck/s1600/Captura+de+pantalla+2011-11-20+a+las+00.05.11.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZsC2zwvfe9-k9jZ0-M6tZuQki6rwYc4Ki9LAq0Dv92SmAx6YtAIrZhztGYc1p_bhKMeLV7jjExYhyQ4yWmfgTijMFHcniYqMizb_uEpZLjuYPOciJZx5tQickMNKBkebGsTXirYhnck/s1600/Captura+de+pantalla+2011-11-20+a+las+00.05.11.png" /></a></div>
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See you arround! .-)</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
PD if you want to know more about ICEERS´ activities please join our <a href="http://news.iceers.org/subscribe-to-newsletter/"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>mailing
list</u></span></a></div>
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<b>TEXTO EN ESPAÑOL</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Me da <b>mucha alegría</b> anunciar que he sido invitado a formar parte de la <a href="http://iceers.org/iceers.php?lang=es#chapterTwo" target="_blank">junta directiva</a> de ICEERS como secretario. Es un honor para mi unirme a un grupo de gente tan estupenda.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://iceers.org/index.php?lang=es" target="_blank">ICEERS</a> es una organización sin ánimo de lucro fundada por Benjamin De Loenen en el 2009 dedicada a:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>La integración de la ayahuasca, la iboga y otras plantas tradicionales como herramientas terapéuticas en la sociedad occidental</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>La preservación de las culturas indígenas que han utilizado estas especies botánicas desde la antigüedad, su hábitat y recursos botánicos.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Integrar el conocimiento etnobotánico de los pueblos indígenas en la terapia occidental actual, en respuesta a la necesidad urgente de herramientas eficientes para el desarrollo personal y social.</span></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDpexr228aANbCaT9zCur8t3Wi7gRG9GXJuTyN6b4ii1XG835RnVSbjClj3uI70KfQqiCcnSEF0sd8i6VZ2aMXdIVkcy14N0bjIPI4CV4Nz0tBy0T31Q5pNLAr9IUpCkMqRUuBAYFn-sQ/s1600/ICEERS_logo_new_Horizontal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="94" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDpexr228aANbCaT9zCur8t3Wi7gRG9GXJuTyN6b4ii1XG835RnVSbjClj3uI70KfQqiCcnSEF0sd8i6VZ2aMXdIVkcy14N0bjIPI4CV4Nz0tBy0T31Q5pNLAr9IUpCkMqRUuBAYFn-sQ/s640/ICEERS_logo_new_Horizontal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
...como podéis ver me encuentro como en casa! ;-)</div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Desde su fundación ICEERS ha promovido toda una serie <b>de importantes proyectos,</b> desde la organización de <a href="http://news.iceers.org/2010/10/iceers-ibogaine-conference-barcelona/" target="_blank">conferencias</a> y <a href="http://news.iceers.org/2010/09/ibogaine-training-program-2010/" target="_blank">programas de capacitación</a>, hasta el seguimiento de las actividades de las distintas autoridades internacionales de control de drogas con respecto a las plantas tradicionales.<br />
<br />
Fue bajo petición de ICEERS que el International Narcotics Control Board confirmó por carta que las plantas que contienen DMT, como las que se usan en la ayahuasca,<b> no están por si mismas bajo fiscalización internacional. </b>En otras palabras, hasta que los países tomen de forma individual las medidas oportunas para fiscalizar estas plantas (como ya ha hecho Francia) estas plantas no son tecnicamente ilegales, en ningún lugar. Esa carta por si sola ha sido suficiente para <b>evitar el encarcelamiento de varias personas en España y Chile</b>. (Una nota de caución: En algunos países, como EEUU, aunque las plantas son legales, cocinarlas para obtener ayahuasca es ilegal)<br />
<br />
ICEERS también está llevando a cabo un <a href="http://news.iceers.org/2013/02/iboga-analysis-project/" target="_blank">programa para analizar la pureza de los extractos de iboga</a>, para los facilitadores que trabajan con ella, y se gane un mayor conocimiento de<b> la calidad, pureza y posibles contaminates</b> de los materiales disponibles en el mercado.<br />
<br />
ICEERS también contribuyó a financiar la publicación del importante <a href="http://news.iceers.org/2012/08/scientific-research-ayahuasca/" target="_blank">estudio de José Carlos Bouso</a> sobre los efectos del uso prolongado de ayahuasca, en PLOS online, una muy respetada revista cientifica. Dando a conocer estos importantes hallazgos a la comunidad cientifica y el público en general<b> del mayor estudio jamás realizado sobre los efectos del uso prolongado de la ayahuasca</b>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii60J8AiMLH7rXbhMv9jdaT1B6TtEiSVYppBIWqQqIqV8LqV6a1QhhrU3lf7J_MlwI7RwqAgbDVuXXJCs7ZrzZ9rJIixnRCFOJyf3Pyw9eVQZ2CxVqBOeTgWsxxmtP5m3lYiDqmiNhN_o/s1600/ICEERS_Leaf_new.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii60J8AiMLH7rXbhMv9jdaT1B6TtEiSVYppBIWqQqIqV8LqV6a1QhhrU3lf7J_MlwI7RwqAgbDVuXXJCs7ZrzZ9rJIixnRCFOJyf3Pyw9eVQZ2CxVqBOeTgWsxxmtP5m3lYiDqmiNhN_o/s320/ICEERS_Leaf_new.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
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Y hay mucho más en camino... todos sabemos cuántos <b>malentendidos y desinformación</b> hay alrededor de la ayahuasca y el iboga. La idea detrás de ICEERS siempre ha sido hacer pública la mejor selección de información <a href="http://iceers.org/science-interest-ayahuasca.php?lang=es#.UYIxuYJMYzM" target="_blank">objetiva</a> y <a href="http://iceers.org/science-interest-iboga.php?lang=es#.UYIxkIJMYzM" target="_blank">científica</a> de calidad que hay sobre estas plantas y sus usos legítimos. ICEERS ha preparado una <b>serie de guías</b> para aquellos que vayan por primera vez a tomar <a href="http://iceers.org/interested-taking-ayahuasca.php?lang=es#.UYI0h4JMYzM" target="_blank">ayahuasca</a> e <a href="http://iceers.org/interested-taking-iboga.php?lang=es#.UYI0qIJMYzM" target="_blank">iboga</a>, así como guías para aquellos interesados en viajar al <a href="http://iceers.org/travel-to-amazon.php#.UYI1LIJMYzM" target="_blank">Amazonas</a>, o a <a href="http://iceers.org/travel-to-gabon.php#.UYI1FoJMYzM" target="_blank">Gabón</a>, en busca de estas plantas. Pero también estamos trabajando en un proyecto mucho más ambicioso. Un <a href="https://helpcenter.iceers.org/" target="_blank">centro de ayuda online</a> donde personas podrán llevar sus preguntas y dudas y consultarlas individualmente con expertos en estos asuntos. Más allá de los consumidores estamos preparando un <b>grupo de documentos y guias</b> para <i>proveedores</i> de ayahuasca, incluyendo un documento de mejores practicas y uno de standards de seguridad mínimos. El objetivo es generar una serie de consejos para maximizar beneficios y minimizar los riesgos de la ayahuasca, así como para contribuir a la redacción de códigos éticos y de seguridad (como el de la <a href="http://www.plantaforma.org/codigo_etico_eng.html" target="_blank">Plantaforma</a>) que pueden <b>ayudar a la auto-regulación</b> de los proveedores de ayahuasca, para evitar situaciones como la de Chimbre.<br />
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En fin, que estoy feliz de formar parte de una organización cuyos objetivos son tan cercanos a los míos propios. Personalmente hablando, siempre he sentido cierta afinidad con Benjamin, el fundador de ICEERS, que <b>empezó como realizador de documentales</b> para acabar en el <b>activismo y abogacía</b> de aquellas plantas que había estado filmado. En el 2004 Benjamin hizo un <a href="https://shop.iceers.org/shop/ibogaine-rite-of-passage-documentary/" target="_blank">documental sobre la Iboga</a> (aquí <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMTSA6bP7hs&feature=context-gau" target="_blank">el trailer</a>) que se convirtió en una referencia internacional sobre el tema. Lo que había empezado como <b>un interés personal</b> como cineasta pronto se convirtió en algo más grande, que pedía de él <b>otro tipo de compromiso</b>. Es una historia que tiene muchos paralelos con la mía. <br />
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Creo que es hora de confesar que cuando empecé a grabar junto a Mark Ellam un documental sobre los enteógenos mi principal motivación no era hacer una película, sino <b>acercarme a un tema que me interesaba mucho</b>. El documental me dio excusa para viajar por el mundo, y contactar a gente cuyo trabajo admiraba para hacerles preguntas, fue una idea estupenda. Más de trece años después, y trabajando en mi 4 documental, puedo decir que los resultados han sido de lo más gratificantes. Pero desde hace algún tiempo vengo sintiendo que <b>no basta con hacer películas</b>. Es como si se me estuviera pidiendo un compromiso mayor, estas plantas y prácticas han sido tan claves en mi vida que es la hora de <b>devolver</b> de una forma más activa. Es la hora de pasar de generar información hasta <b>otras formas de acción más directas.</b></div>
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Creo que este impulso de ha ido manifestando en el trabajo que he venido haciendo como parte de la <a href="http://www.asociacioneleusis.es/" target="_blank">Asociación Eleusis</a>, de la <a href="http://www.plantaforma.org/" target="_blank">Plantaforma</a> (La Plataforma para la Defensa de la Ayahuasca) y ahora en <a href="http://iceers.org/index.php?lang=es" target="_blank">ICEERS</a>. Ha sido un proceso gradual de salida del armario en público. Durante todos estos años he mantenido todo el trabajo relacionado con enteogenos oculto bajo un <i>pequeño</i> pseudonimo. Para todo mi trabajo con el documental y articulos sobre ayahuasca era <b>Jeronimo M.M.</b> (o Jerónimo M. Muñoz). Para el resto de mi trabajo usaba mi <b>verdadero nombre</b>. Era una división total, tenía dos direcciones de correo, dos cuentas de facebook, dos blogs, dos vidas.<br />
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Creo que hoy es un buen día para acabar con ello y salir a la luz.<br />
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Durante los últimos 8 años mi avatar como Jerónimo M.M. le daba la espalda al público </div>
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Creo que ya es hora de dar la cara.</div>
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Nos vemos por el mundo! .-)</div>
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PD Si queréis saber más de las actividades de ICEERS podéis suscribiros a nuestra<a href="http://news.iceers.org/subscribe-to-newsletter/" target="_blank"> lista de correos</a></div>
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<br />Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain38.908950999999988 1.428114999999934338.859526499999987 1.3474339999999343 38.958375499999988 1.5087959999999343tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-27720541857972231662012-09-27T19:53:00.002+02:002012-09-27T19:53:08.790+02:00Ayahuasca Track and Workshop MAPS 2013 Psychedelic Science Conference Oakland <span style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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Via Bia Labate, here is the official schedule for the Ayahuasca Track during <a href="http://www.maps.org/conference/" target="_blank">MAPS 2013 conference</a>. It is incredible to watch how much the field of active ayahuasca research has grown in the last couple of years.<br /><br />MAPS is preparing its Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century conference April 18-22, 2013, in cooperation with the Heffter Research Institute, the U.K.-based Beckley Foundation, and the Council on Spiritual Practices. The conference will be held at the Marriott Hotel in Oakland, California. The conference is wide ranging, with a focus on the scientific research into the medical use of psychedelics. Research topics include MDMA-assisted therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Ibogaine for opiate addiction, LSD and psilocybin for end-of life anxiety. At the conference top researchers will present the latest research from Harbor-UCLA, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, and private clinics in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Brazil, Spain, Israel, United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada and the United States. The conference will feature three tracks: (1) clinical research: (2) a “qualitative/psychotherapeutic track” (combination of topics including psychedelic psychot<br /> herapy,<br />non-clinical research, medical marijuana, arts and culture); (3) ayahuasca.<br /><br />Ayahuasca is a psychoactive substance that is increasingly popular in the public eye. It holds great potentials in the treatment of for substance use problems, and is an international test case for religious freedom. This academic conference will encourage open rigorous debate on the benefits and ricks of psychedelics, and will help make the argument for drug laws that are based on research, not fear and misunderstanding. It will provide a venue for experts to share their knowledge with medical professionals, researchers, and educate general public.<br /><br />Bia Labate will facilitate the ayahuasca track and a day-long ayahuasca workshop.<br /><br />See below information on both of them.<br /><br /><b>Ayahuasca Track: 19-21 April 2013</b><br /><br /><b>1. Linking Ayahuasca, Mental Imagery, and Internal Attention with Functional Neuroimaging<br /><br />Dráulio Barros de Araujo, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />The hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca, a rich source of serotonergic agonists and reuptake inhibitors, has been used for ages by Amazonian populations during religious ceremonies. Among all perceptual changes induced by ayahuasca, the ones regarding the visual system and internal attention are remarkable. This presentation will aim at presenting results from studies conducted by our group, which used functional magnetic resonance imaging to better understand some neurophysiological aspects of these two perceptual changes induced by ayahuasca.<br /><br />Dráulio Barros de Araujo received his Ph.D. in Physics Applied to Medicine and Biology from the University of São Paulo in Ribeirão Preto in 2002, where he engaged in post-doctoral studies on Functional Neuroimaging, became Assistant Professor, and then received the title of "livre-docente" (Associate). In 2009, he joined the Brain Institute at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), where he is currently Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, and Full Professor of Neuroimaging. His research deals with several aspects of neuroscience, using the methods of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and electroencephalography (EEG). In the last few years, Dr. Araujo has focused on the investigation of the cognitive and neural substrates of the Ayahuasca experience.<br /><br /><b>2. Psychedelics in Unlocking the Unconscious: From Cancer to Addiction<br /><br />Gabor Mate, M.D.</b><br /><br />Complex unconscious psychological stresses underlie and contribute to all chronic medical conditions, from cancer to addiction, from depression to multiple sclerosis. Therapy that is assisted by psychedelics, in the right context and with the right support, can bring these dynamics to the surface and thus help a person liberate themselves from their influence. Special focus will be given to the speaker's experience in treating addictions and other stress-related conditions, both with aboriginal people and in non-indigenous contemporary healing circles. This work has been done under the guidance of indigenous Peruvian shamans and their Western apprentices.<br /><br />Gabor Maté, M.D. is a Canadian physician, speaker and the author of four bestselling books published in nearly twenty languages on five continents. His interests include the mind/body unity as manifested in health and illness, the effects of early childhood experiences in shaping brain and personality, the traumatic basis of addictions, and the attachment requirements for healthy child development. He has worked in family practice and palliative care, and for twelve years he worked in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, notorious as North America's most concentrated area of drug use. Currently, he teaches and leads seminars internationally. For more information, see: <a href="http://www.drgabormate.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.drgabormate.com</a><br /><br /><b>3. How Similar to Dreaming is the Ayahuasca Experience?<br /><br />Sidarta Ribeiro, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />Dreaming is one of the most common metaphors for the ayahuasca experience; but to what extent does this metaphor represent a true biological resemblance? In my presentation, I will review the neurobiological features shared by subjects who have experienced dreams and those who have consumed ayahuasca. Vivid dreaming occurs almost exclusively during rapid-eye movement sleep (REM), a physiological state of intense cortical activity. During REM, a selected set of forebrain areas gets activated, including portions of the hypothalamus, amygdala, septum, and ventral striatum, as well as the anterior cingulate, orbitofrontal, entorhinal, and insular cortices. Furthermore, it has been shown that dreaming ceases upon lesion of mesolimbic pathways connecting reward centers with the thalamus, striatum, and cortex. This suggests that dreams promote the integration of sensory and motor processes with mechanisms for reward seeking, leading to the notion that dreams evolved as adaptive simulations of possible future behaviors. Observation of brain activity during the ayahuasca experience revealed increased activity in various regions, including the precuneous, cuneus, lingual gyrus, fusiform gyrus, middle occipital gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, superior and middle frontal gyrus, and inferior frontal gyrus. The visual association regions modulated by ayahuasca (upper cuneus, lower lingual gyrus, and the fusiform gyrus) are also activated during dreaming (within REM). During lucid dreaming, a special kind of dream in which dreamers are aware within the dream that they are dreaming, extra activation occurs in the occipital and frontal regions. The existing data suggest that the ayahuasca experience is akin to dreaming in the sense that both conjure visual memories in tune with the emotions of the subject. Further investigation is needed to determine how close the ayahuasca experience is to either lucid or non-lucid dreaming. The use of neuroscience tools to compare dream states and psychedelic states holds great potential for the understanding of consciousness.<br /><br /><br />Sidarta Ribeiro, Ph.D., holds a Bachelors degree in Biological Sciences from the Universidade de Brasília (1993), a Masters in Biophysics from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (1994), and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Animal Behavior from the Rockefeller University in New York (2000). He performed post-doctoral studies in Neurophysiology at Duke University from 2000 to 2005. Currently, he is a Full Professor of Neuroscience at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), and Director of the Brain Institute of UFRN. He has experience in the areas of neuroethology, molecular neurobiology, and multi-electrode neurophysiology, and works mainly in the following areas: sleep, dreaming and memory; immediate genes and neuronal plasticity; vocal communication in birds and primates; and symbolic understanding in non-human animals. He is greatly interested in the study of the neural bases of consciousness and its alteration. He has been involved in the public debate on the medicinal uses and the legalization of cannabis in Brazil.<br /><br /><b>4. Ayahuasca Admixture Plants: An Uninvestigated Folk Pharmacopoeia. An Updated Review<br /><br />Dennis J. McKenna, Ph.D. and Eduardo Luna, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />Ayahuasca is a psychedelic beverage utilized in the ethnomedical and shamanic practices of numerous indigenous peoples of the Amazon Basin. It has also been adopted as a sacrament in several syncretic churches originating in Brazil. The hallucinogenic properties of ayahuasca derive from the presence of DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine), in one or more species of admixture plants, that is rendered orally active by ß-carbolines alkaloids, potent monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI) found in the other key ingredient, the liana Banisteriopsis caapi (Malpighiaceae). Although these ingredients are necessary and sufficient for its visionary properties, in many ethnomedical traditions ayahuasca preparations often include other biodynamically active admixtures. Some are added to alter or modulate the acute effects of ayahuasca, while others may be utilized in combination with, or separately from, the ayahuasca brew as components of the “dietas.” These plants are regarded as “teacher plants” and are consumed within dietas in the context of shamanic apprenticeship. Ayahuasca is, in fact, at the center of a vast and largely unstudied folk pharmacopoeia of associated medicinal plants. Although the biologically active constituents and medicinal properties of some of these admixtures have been cursorily investigated, many have not, and this uninvestigated pharmacopoeia is a promising area for ethnopharmacological and phytochemical studies that may point to the discovery of novel compounds or plants with novel medicinal properties. This presentation will discuss the botany, chemistry, pharmacological properties, and potential uses of some of these lesser known species that are utilized by indigenous ayahuasca traditions. The presentation will include an updated overview of some of the admixture species discussed in our 1986 paper on this topic, as well as new species that have come to light since that paper was published.<br /><br />Dennis McKenna’s professional and personal interests are focused on the interdisciplinary study of ethnopharmacology and plant hallucinogens. He received his doctorate in 1984 from the University of British Columbia, where his doctoral research focused on ethnopharmacological investigations of the botany, chemistry, and pharmacology of ayahuasca and oo-koo-hé, two orally-active tryptamine-based hallucinogens used by indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon. Dr. McKenna received post-doctoral research fellowships in the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health, and in the Department of Neurology, Stanford University School of Medicine. He joined Shaman Pharmaceuticals as Director of Ethnopharmacology in 1990, and relocated to Minnesota in 1993 to join the Aveda Corporation as Senior Research Pharmacognosist. He joined the faculty of the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota in 2001. He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute and serves on the advisory board of non-profit organizations in the fields of ethnobotany and botanical medicines. He was a key organizer and participant in the Hoasca Project, an international biomedical study of ayahuasca used by indigenous people and syncretic religious groups in Brazil. He recently completed a project funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute to investigate Amazonian ethnomedicines for the treatment of schizophrenia and cognitive deficits. At the Heffter Research Institute, he continues his focus on the therapeutic uses of psychoactive medicines derived from nature and used in indigenous ethnomedical practices.<br /><br />Luis Eduardo Luna received a Ph.D. from the Department of Comparative Religion Stockholm University (1989) and the title Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, from St. Lawrence, Canton, New York (2002). He is the author of Vegetalismo: Shamanism among the Mestizo Population of the Peruvian Amazon (1986), a co-author with Pablo Amaringo of Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman (1991) and co-editor with Steven White of Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters with the Amazon¹s Sacred Vine (2000). He is a retired senior lecturer of the Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, and the Director of the Research Center for the Study of Psychointegrator Plants, Visionary Art and Consciousness, Florianópolis, Brazil. For more information, see: <a href="http://www.wasiwaska.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.wasiwaska.org/</a><br /><br /><b>5. Ayahuasca Characterization, Metabolism in Humans, and Relevance to Endogenous N,N-Dimethyltryptamines<br /><br />Ethan McIlhenny, Ph.D.</b><br />The metabolism and excretion of DMT and beta-carbolines following ayahuasca consumption has not been studied systematically in humans. We developed a liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry procedure for the simultaneous quantification of the major alkaloid components of ayahuasca, including several known and potential metabolites. The assay was applied to a variety of ayahuasca samples and modified to be applicable to human blood and urine samples before and after consumption of ayahuasca. Less than 1% of the administered DMT dose was detected in urine or blood plasma, despite the inhibition of monoamine oxidase afforded by the presence of the harmala alkaloids in ayahuasca. The major metabolite of DMT was the corresponding N-oxide, DMT-N-oxide, which was found in both blood plasma and urine, although it was not detectable in ayahuasca samples. The methods developed would be suitable for the study of ayahuasca in human and ethnobotanical research, as well as in forensic examinations of ayahuasca preparations. The characteristics of the methods suggest that their sensitivity, selectivity, and reproducibility are adequate for use in further toxicological and clinical research on ayahuasca as well as functioning as an assay to screen biological samples for endogenous hallucinogens. Based on the results of these studies, we present a critical review of 69 published studies reporting the detection in human body fluids of three indole alkaloids that possess differing degrees of psychedelic activity. Suggestions for the future directions of ayahuasca and endogenous psychedelics research are offered.<br /></div>
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Ethan McIlhenny attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs New York and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Neuroscience in 2006. Ethan entered a Neuroscience Ph.D. program with a teaching assistanceship at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana and completed his Masters of Science degree in 2008. Ethan completed his Ph.D. at Louisiana State University in the Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine in 2012 under the mentorship of Dr. Steven Barker, where he received a 4-year board of regents grant fellowship. Ethan continues research pursuits with the Cottonwood Research Foundation.<br /><br /><b>6. Ayahuasca and Profound Healing<br /><br />Chris Kilham</b><br /><br />This presentation, based in fieldwork carried in Peru, will explore ayahuasca’s therapeutic potentials. True healing puts into order the body, mind and spirit with the past, present and future. Ayahuasca, also known as La Medicina (The Medicine), works in a manner that radically expands the definition of healing, working not only on a variety of common and idiopathic disorders, but also on root existential conditions of ignorance and separateness.<br /><br /><br />Chris Kilham is a medicine hunter, author, and educator. The founder of Medicine Hunter Inc., Chris has conducted medicinal research in over 30 countries. He is the FOX News “Medicine Hunter” and appears on FOX News Health online and in 100 international television markets. He also writes a weekly column for FOX News Health and is on the Medical Advisory Board of “The Dr. Oz Show.” Since 1994, Chris has worked, traveled and studied with shamans in Brazil, Peru, and North America. He has participated in many dozens of ceremonies, both with and without the ingestion of ceremonial psychoactive drugs. He is experienced with ayahuasca, San Pedro cactus, peyote, coca, and tobacco. Chris is recognized as a chief in Vanuatu, South Pacific, is known as “Maxipe” which means “black vulture” by the Macuxi indians of Brazil, and has lived with and visited dozens of native tribes in Amazonia and in other cultures. Shamans in both Brazil and Peru recognize Chris as one of their kind and a bridger of worlds, and have engaged in numerous ceremonies to bolster his energy and support his work with medicinal plants and native cultures.<br /><br /><b>7. Ayahuasca, the Scientific Paradigm and Shamanic Healing<br /><br />Stephan V. Beyer, Ph.D., J.D.</b><br /><br />Current scientific research focuses on what the sacred plants can do for us: heal our wounds, cure our addictions, and expand our minds. This paradigm sees the sacred plants as useful prepackaged collocations of active molecules. But in indigenous cultures, shamans heal because they are in a personal and mutual relationship with the healing spirits. In such cultures, when the sacred plants are used, encounters with the world of the spirits are not visits to the therapist; they create a relationship that entails obligations as well. In this view, the sacred plants are autonomous others who are not means to our ends, but rather ends in themselves. This presentation explores whether our understanding of the sacred plants is enhanced by viewing their uses—like vision fasts or dreams or talking circles—not as conventionally therapeutic, but rather as a sacred shamanic ceremony that has its own often unforeseen purposes, which may not be to heal us, or to heal us in ways we do not expect.<br /><br />Stephan V. Beyer, Ph.D., J.D., has doctoral degrees in both religious studies and psychology, and has taught as an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the University of California - Berkeley, and Graduate Theological Union. Expert in both jungle survival and plant hallucinogens, he lived for a year and a half in a Tibetan monastery in the Himalayas, and has undertaken and helped to lead numerous four-day and four-night solo vision fasts in the desert wildernesses of New Mexico. He has studied the use of sacred and medicinal plants with traditional North America herbalists, in ceremonies of the Native American Church, in Peruvian mesa rituals, and with mestizo shamans in the Upper Amazon, where he received coronación by banco ayahuasquero don Roberto Acho Jurama. Steve’s current interests center on the indigenous ceremonial use of the sacred plants. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Shamanic Practice, and currently serves on the advisory board of the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service. He is the author, among other books, of Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon. The Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions at the Smithsonian Institution has praised his “unparalleled knowledge of sacred plants.”<br /><br /><b>8. Integrating the Modern Practice of Traditional Ayahuasca Shamanism<br /><br />Joe Tafur, M.D.</b><br /><br />In an effort to bridge the world of academic medicine with traditional healing knowledge, Dr. Tafur will review his experience treating individuals at the traditional Amazonian healing center Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual in Iquitos, Peru. Successful treatment of several western diagnoses will be reviewed, including treatment of<br />psychological illness (PTSD, Depression), psychosomatic illness, and autoimmune disease (multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis). Traditional treatment techniques will be reviewed with a central focus on treatment through ayahuasca ceremony and traditional Shipibo shamanism. We will review traditional Shipibo shamanism and explore the relationship between this work and exciting and relevant topics in modern medicine, including: integrative psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, functional medicine, epigenetics, and the use of psychedelic medicine in modern psychiatry.<br /><br />Dr. Joe Tafur, M.D., is a Colombian-American integrative family physician<br />who has been involved in traditional Amazonian plant medicine since 2007. In addition to his involvement in South America, he has published several scientific papers and has worked on academic projects with the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine, the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine, and the UCSD Center for Integrative Medicine. From 2007-2009, Dr. Tafur also worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the UCSD Department of Psychiatry, investigating low-intensity light therapy and psychoneuroimmunology. He now spends over half of the year working at the traditional Amazonian healing center Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual (<a href="http://www.nihuerao.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.nihuerao.com</a>), along with his partners, Master Shipibo Healer Ricardo Amaringo and Cvita Mamic. Nihue Rao specializes in traditional Shipibo plant medicine, integrative healing, and in particular, traditional ayahuasca ceremony.<br /><br />9. The Therapeutic Potential of Ritual Ayahuasca Use for the Treatment of Substance Dependencies<br /><br />Anya Loizaga-Velder, Ph.D. cand.<br /><br />This presentation is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation, which consisted of a qualitative study that included interviews with 14 therapists who used ayahuasca professionally in the treatment of addictions, as well as with 15 substance-dependent individuals who participated in ayahuasca-assisted treatment in varying contexts. The presentation addresses the value of ayahuasca for substance dependency treatment from a psychotherapeutic perspective, and the variables that may influence treatment outcome. Special attention is placed on the role of ritual and integration.<br /><br />Anya Loizaga-Velder is a German-Mexican clinical psychologist who has been investigating the therapeutic potential of the ritual use of psychedelic plants for over 15 years. She is founding member and collaborating researcher of the Nierika, Multidisciplinary Association for the Preservation of the Indigenous Traditions of Sacred Plants in Mexico. She holds an M.A. degree in psychology from the University of Koblenz/Landau in Germany and currently is a doctoral candidate in Medical Psychology at Heidelberg University. This study is part of the special research group Ritual Dynamics and Salutogenesis (RISA, <a href="http://www.risa.uni-hd.de/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.risa.uni-hd.de</a>).<br /><br /><b>10. Ayahuasca-assisted Therapy in the Treatment of Addiction<br /><br />Philippe Lucas M.A. and N. Rielle Capler, M.H.A.</b><br /><br />This presentation is a comprehensive overview of an unpublished observational study of ayahuasca-assisted therapy for addiction and patterns of dependence conducted in British Columbia, Canada, in 2011. The study took place in the longhouse of a coastal First Nations band in cooperation with the Band Council and health office. The research tracked the progress of 12 indigenous participants of the “Working with Addiction and Stress” retreats organized by Dr. Gabor Mate (author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts; Close Encounters with Addiction), which combines 4-5 days of psycho-spiritual counseling with 2 ayahuasca ceremonies in the Peruvian Shipibo indigenous tradition. This presentation will begin with an examination of “observational” research design to evaluate the therapeutic potential of illicit substances like ayahuasca, and will then discuss researcher observations of the retreat itself. Ayahuasca-assisted addiction therapy was shown to have a significant and lasting positive impact on the lives of many of the retreat participants. This talk will close by sharing the final study results, and a discussion of the challenges and opportunities of using ayahuasca-assisted therapy to reduce drug-related harms and address stress, trauma, and problematic substance use in aboriginal and non-aboriginal populations.<br /><br />Philippe Lucas, M.A. is a Research Affiliate with the Center for Addictions Research of British Columbia and a founding Board member of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies Canada and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. His research interests, projects, and publications include the use of cannabis, ibogaine, and ayahuasca in the treatment of addiction. Currently, he is a Primary or Co-Investigator on a number of studies examining “cannabis substitution theory,” and is Coordinator and Co-Investigator of an observational study of ayahuasca-assisted treatment for addiction and stress.<br /><br />N. Rielle Capler, M.H.A., has worked as researcher and policy advisor in the medical cannabis field for 13 years. She helped pioneer Canada’s first compassion club, where she worked as the policy analyst and research coordinator from 1999 to 2007. Rielle is co-investigator on several community-based research projects, including the Health Effects of Medical Marijuana Project (HEMMP) with UBC’s School of Nursing, and the Medical Cannabis Standards, Engagement, Evaluation, and Dissemination (SEED) Project. Rielle is a co-founder of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries (CAMCD) and Canadians for Safe Access, a national organization promoting safe access to cannabis for medical use and research. She sits on the advisory board of the Drug Policy Committee of the BC Civil Liberties Association. Rielle is also a co-investigator on an observational study of ayahuasca-assisted therapy in the treatment of addiction that took place in British Columbia, Canada, in 2011-2012. She is currently a doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of British Columbia.<br /><br /><b>11. Four Hypotheses Regarding Ayahuasca’s Mechanisms of Action in the Treatment of Addictions<br /><br />Mitch Liester, M.D. and James Prickett, D.O.</b><br /><br />Ayahuasca is a medicinal plant mixture utilized by indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon River basin for healing purposes. This medicine contains a combination of monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI’s) and N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT). When ingested together, these medicines produce profound alterations in consciousness. Ayahuasca is increasingly being explored as a treatment for addictions. However, the possible mechanisms of action by which ayahuasca treats addictions remain unknown. We propose four hypotheses regarding ayahuasca’s biochemical, physiological, psychological, and transcendent effects that may help explain ayahuasca’s anti-addiction effects.<br /><br />Mitch Liester, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice in Monument, Colorado. After graduating from medical school at the University of Colorado, Dr. Liester completed his psychiatric residency at the University of California, Irvine under the tutelage of Dr. Charles Grob. He has published in the areas of transpersonal psychiatry, near-death studies, and psychedelic medicines.<br /><br />James Prickett, D.O., is a resident physician and burgeoning researcher at the University of Arizona Department of Psychiatry. He received his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from Des Moines University. Dr. Prickett’s primary interests lie within psychopharmacology, traditional medicine, and the relationship between belief, spirituality, and mental health. He has been a guest speaker on topics including autism, psychedelic drugs, adolescent substance abuse, and addiction. He has traveled to Ecuador on several occasions to study traditional medicine in both the Andes and Amazon Basin. His research regarding the possible mechanisms by which ayahuasca treats addictions has been published in The Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.<br /><br /><b>12. Twenty years at Takiwasi: Reflections on the Spiritual Dimension as theInterface between Drug Addiction and Traditional Amazonian Medicine<br /><br />Jaques Mabit, M.D.</b><br /><br />Based on 20 years of experience at the Takiwasi Center, Peru, it is proposed that the pathology of drug addiction inevitably implies more than simple physical intoxication or psycho-affective problems; it also implicates a semantically existential dimension, which is of a metaphysical, or what we refer to as a spiritual nature. Within the context of healing rituals with psychoactive plants, Traditional Amazonian Medicine addresses the physical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions simultaneously. For this reason, this traditional Amazonian treatment has the potential to offer a solution to the problem of addiction. The Western approach, however, often denies the sacred or the spiritual, resulting in a tendency to confuse extreme psychedelic experiences with spiritual experiences. In this paradigm, psychoactive plants are more often used to facilitate psychotherapeutic processes rather than to open a door to a genuine relationship with the spiritual world. In our intervention, we propose criteria for discerning between the psychological and spiritual dimensions, and for transitioning from one dimension into the next.<br /><br />Jacques Mabit first came to Peru in 1980 with the Medecins Sans Frontieres Organization as an M.D., specialist in tropical disease and natural medicines. He was honored as an honorary professor for the Southern Scientific University of Lima, honorary member of the Peruvian Association of Psychologists, and as a fellow for the Ashoka Foundation. From 1986 onwards, he has been developing participative and auto-experimental research on traditional medicines and especially Amazonian medicines. These investigations led him to define an original therapeutic protocol for drug addiction treatment. In 1992, he founded the Takiwasi Center in upper Peruvian Amazonia to initialize the first pilot experiment of this treatment. The Takiwasi Center welcomes drug-addicted residents from Peru, Latin America and Europe. This model has also been implemented in other countries and has been applied to other pathologies. Jacques Mabit has made numerous public statements on the subject through publications, conferences, and other media.<br /><br /><b>13. Ayahuasca: Dope or medicine?<br /><br />Josep María Fábregas, MD</b><br /><br />This presentation will show the results of an investigation of long-term users of ayahuasca to assess the addictive capacity of the substance in comparison to its capacity to be used for the treatment of drug abusers. In this study, a large group of ayahuasca users were administered the ASI (Addiction Severity Index) to assess the extent that ayahuasca use provokes problems in their lives. In the second part, I will discuss the methods and outcomes of research at the Institute of Applied Amazonian Ethnopsychology (IDEAA), an establishment created by a Spanish group in the Amazon with the goal of studying and applying the use of ayahuasca to the treatment of drug addiction and in aiding processes of personal growth.<br /><br /><br />Josep María Fábregas graduated from the Central University of Barcelona with a degree in Medicine, specializing in Psychiatry. He completed his studies at New York Staten Island Psychiatric Hospital. He was a resident physician at the Marmottan Hospital under Claude Olivenstain. He is the Director of CITA (Addiction Research and Treatment Center) since 1981, and in 2000, he founded IDEAA (Amazonian Ethnopsychology Applied Institute). He has lectured extensively about drug addiction and altered states of consciousness.<br /><br /><b>14. Ayahuasca and the treatment of drug addiction: A review of the evidences and proposals for the future<br /><br />José Carlos Bouso, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />Although ayahuasca has become popular among the psychedelic community as a kind of medicine to treat drug abuse and addiction (there are nearly 150,000 entries in Google for ‘ayahuasca drug addiction’) evidence is weak, fragmented and disperse. Its fame as a potential anti-addiction treatment is supported mainly by claims from former drug users who recovered after joining an ayahuasca religion and also by reports from clinics treating drug addicts in South America. In this presentation we will review all the fragmentary evidence regarding the effectiveness of ayahuasca in the treatment of drug addiction. Although there is some promise in the therapeutic potential of ayahuasca based on the evidence examined, the lack of systematic<br />studies precludes reaching definite conclusions. A clinical protocol for assessing outcome will be presented.<br /><br />José Carlos Bouso received his PhD from the University of x in 2012. His studies addressed preliminary data on the safety and efficacy of different doses of MDMA administered in a psychotherapeutic setting to women with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of a sexual assault. He also has been conducting neuropsychological research into the long term effects of different drugs such as cocaine or cannabis. He has also done transcultural research studying extensively the long term effects of ayahuasca use in different cultures and ecosystems, both in Spanish and in Brazilian communities. José Carlos Bouso is co-author of several scientific papers and book chapters. He currently combines his activity as a clinical researcher at the IMIM - Institut Hospital del Mar d'Investigacions Mèdiques - with his work as Scientific Projects Manager at ICEERS (International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service –<a href="http://www.iceers.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.iceers.org</a>).<br /><br /><br /><b>15. Evaluating the Therapeutic Potential of Ayahuasca for Substance Use Problems: What Can We Learn from Treatment Research Projects and Paradigms?<br /><br />Brian Rush, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />This presentation will provide a broad framework for the different types of research necessary to investigate and understand the therapeutic potential of ayahuasca. It will briefly summarize what we know about the effectiveness and active ingredients of treatment of substance use problems; the definitions and methods used to define treatment “success”; and the implications for ayahuasca treatment research. An important distinction will be drawn between studies of basic mechanisms of therapeutic effects; clinical research on small samples under tightly controlled conditions; and substance use services research that investigates treatment settings, samples and outcomes in naturalistic settings. Across this spectrum of research strategies, I will offer an overview of the emergent literature on treating problematic substance use with ayahuasca, both in the biomedical and social sciences field. I will argue that a broad systems lens is necessary to fully investigate the various ways ayahuasca is used therapeutically. Effective scientific research should describe the people and sub-types who seek out this healing strategy and the theoretical and practical orientations of the people and programs that offer help. It is also critical to understand culture-bound interpretations of concepts such as “help-seeking,” “treatment,” and “positive outcome.” The presentation will close with an outline of an interdisciplinary research project to investigate the therapeutic offerings of a group of centers in Latin American countries incorporating ayahuasca as a key component of the treatment of substance use problems.<br /><br />Brian Rush, Ph.D., is an Epidemiologist and Health Services researcher working as a Senior Scientist and Head of the Health Systems and Health Equity Research Group with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He is also Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, Canada. His areas of interest and expertise include the evaluation of substance abuse and mental health treatment systems and services including the use of epidemiological data to plan integrated treatment systems; assessment of the costs, processes and outcomes of treatment and individual and community-level impact; and the study of the understanding, acceptance and implementation of evidence-based practice in community treatment and support settings. Currently, he is in the initial stages of formulating an interdisciplinary research project to evaluate ayahuasca’s potential in treating drug abuse in the Latin American context as well as research in Canada on the prevalence and pattern of ayahuasca use in the general population and self-reported reasons and benefits of use.<br /><br /><br /><b>16. A Psychological and Neuropsychological Evaluation of Hoasca Users within União Do Vegetal in The USA<br /><br />Paulo Barbosa, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />Ayahuasca, or Hoasca, is a hallucinogenic brew originally used for magico-religious purposes by Amerindian populations of the western Amazon Basin. Throughout the last two decades, Brazilian syncretic churches, such as Santo Daime and União do Vegetal (UDV), have helped spread the ritual use of ayahuasca abroad. This trend has raised concerns that regular use of this N,N-dimethyltryptamine-<wbr></wbr>containing tea may lead to mental and physical health problems associated with drug abuse. Lawsuits involving tensions between drug control laws and principles of religious freedom were filed in Europe and in the USA. In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the UDV, allowing it to import, store, and use hoasca. In 2009, the District Court of the State of Oregon ruled a similar decision in favor of a local branch of the Santo Daime Church. These decisions point to the definitive establishment of this practice in American religious diversity. The few rigorous studies that have been completed on the psychological and medical effects of ayahuasca suggest mostly positive effects of religious ayahuasca use, but concerns about the potential for harmful effects remain. To further elucidate the effects of religious use of hoasca, we propose a case-control study in which 35 North American users of hoasca within the UDV are compared to 35 matched Christian control subjects with no history of hoasca use. The assessment will include instruments on quality of life, personality, spirituality and religiosity, mood, neuropsychological function and altered states of consciousness.<br /><br />Paulo Cesar Ribeiro Barbosa obtained his Ph.D. in Medical Sciences at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) in 2008 working on a follow-up evaluation of religious ayahuasca users. He obtained his B.A. in Social Sciences at Universidade de São Paulo (USP) in 1992. Since 2001, he has worked on a variety of projects involving psychiatric, psychological, neurocognitive, social and cultural assessments of ayahuasca users within Brazilian urban contexts. Dr. Barbosa was appointed Professor of Scientific Methods in 2002 in the Departamento de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas at Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Brazil, and is currently doing post-doctoral studies at the Psychiatry Department of the University of New Mexico. Dr. Barbosa’s main research interests and activities concern the relationships among psychiatric, psychological, and anthropological methods of evaluating the effects of ayahuasca in Brazilian urban settings.<br /><br /><b>17. A Survey of Quality of Life and Antidepressant Use in Brazilian Members of the UDV<br /><br />Luís Fernando Tófoli, M.D., Ph.D.</b><br /><br />This presentation introduces the unpublished results of a recent survey with almost 2,000 UDV members from different parts of Brazil, and focuses on two points: quality of life and use of serotonergic antidepressants. Quality of life of ayahuasca drinkers from the Brazilian ayahuasca religions has not been previously assessed in a considerable number of subjects. The putative risk of serious adverse effects from the concomitant use of ayahuasca preparations and the highly prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) is a yet undetermined subject that could be better understood with information from regular ayahuasca drinkers. In this study—conducted by a multidisciplinary Brazilian-North-American research team—literate subjects volunteered to fill in a self-report instrument that included 1) a socio-demographic questionnaire; 2) a World Health Organization scale about quality of life (WHOQOLBref); 3) a questionnaire about past and present substance use; and 4) a questionnaire about the use of antidepressants and their reported effects on the ayahuasca experience. This presentation will include the results regarding general quality of life, the effects of SSRIs on the ayahuasca experience, and the relationship of these results with socio-demographic variables.<br /><br />Luís Fernando Tófoli is a medical doctor with a residency and a Ph.D. degree in Psychiatry at the University of São Paulo (USP). He is a professor of Psychiatry at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and his production as a scholar is focused on community mental health policies, mental health in primary care, and ayahuasca and mental health. He has studied the onset of mental disorders in UDV members and is currently working on three projects concerning ayahuasca: a survey about quality of life and history of drug use in UDV members, the validation of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Hallucinogen Rating Scale, and a preliminary study on the influence of drug, set, and setting in ayahuasca experiences.<br /><br /><b>18. Long term effects of the ritual use of ayahuasca on mental health<br /><br />José Carlos Bouso, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />Over the last decades, ayahuasca use has expanded throughout the world. An uncountable number of people are being exposed to this potent hallucinogenic beverage. At the same time, little is known regarding the long term effects of ayahuasca use. The few studies published until now conclude that ayahuasca seems not to be deleterious at the long term. In this presentation data will be presented from a longitudinal study where different areas of mental health have been assessed in a large sample of regular ayahuasca users (n = 127) and controls (n = 115). The assessment included potential drug abuse-related problems, personality, psychopathology, life attitudes and neuropsychological performance. Results are in line with previous studies. Potential biases that share all the published studies will be also discussed.<br /><br />José Carlos Bouso’s studies addressed preliminary data on the safety and efficacy of different doses of MDMA administered in a psychotherapeutic setting to women with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of a sexual assault. He also has been conducting neuropsychological research into the long term effects of different drugs such as cocaine or cannabis. He has also done transcultural research studying extensively the long term effects of ayahuasca use in different cultures and ecosystems, both in Spanish and in Brazilian communities. José Carlos Bouso is co-author of several scientific papers and book chapters. He currently combines his activity as a clinical researcher at the IMIM - Institut Hospital del Mar d'Investigacions Mèdiques - with his work as Scientific Projects Manager at ICEERS (International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service –<a href="http://www.iceers.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.iceers.org</a>).<br /><br /><b>19. Ayahuasca for PTSD: Integrating Psychedelic Therapeutic Strategies for Neurotrauma into a Bioinformatics Framework<br /><br />Jessica L. Nielson, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />This presentation is part of our work developed at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), which uses a bioinformatics framework and multivariate statistics to fully characterize the syndrome of spinal cord injury (SCI). The bioinformatics approach we have developed can be applied to other forms of neurotrauma, including traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Studies about MDMA-assisted psychotherapy have demonstrated safety and remarkable, long lasting beneficial effects in treatment for treatment-resistant PTSD. Our perspective hypothesizes that by incorporating the data from these clinical trials into our bioinformatics framework, along with additional studies from previous and future PTSD trials, we will be able to identify syndromic risk factors for treatment-resistant PTSD and their appropriate treatments. We will present here a pilot study currently being developed in collaboration with two healing centers in Peru; Shimbre Shamanic Center and the Paititi Institute. Our project is to collect data from individuals suffering from ailments including PTSD who have voluntarily traveled to these centers to participate in shamanic ayahuasca ceremonies in order to heal themselves. Our study will use similar outcome measures that are currently being used for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD (e.g. CAPS) to assess the effects of ayahuasca on PTSD, including pre-treatment and post-treatment follow up interviews. If preliminary results demonstrate a consistent beneficial effect of ayahuasca on PTSD symptoms, additional outcomes will be collected for psychological evaluations, physiological measures (qEEG, vital signs), and blood and urine analysis to detect ayahuasca levels during treatment. The goal of this project is to identify the potential risk factors for treatment resistant PTSD, and to determine whether substances such as MDMA and ayahuasca will prove to be additional therapeutic options for veterans suffering<br />from PTSD.<br /><br />Jessica Nielson, PhD, received her B.S. in biology from Cal Poly Pomona in 2003, and her Ph.D. in anatomy and neurobiology from the University of California, Irvine, in 2010. During her doctoral work she resolved a century-old controversy regarding the fate of the corticospinal tract following spinal cord injury, demonstrating definitively that this important motor pathway survives injury and is available in chronic cases for therapeutic interventions to promote regeneration and functional recovery. She joined the Brain and Spinal Injury Center at University of California San Francisco in 2011 as a postdoctoral scholar, where she has been developing a novel bioinformatics approach to characterize syndromic features of spinal cord injury, with future plans to apply this approach to traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.<br /><br /><b>20. Classifying Ayahuasca: The Role of Subjective Experience in Psychiatric Research with Psychedelics<br /><br />Brian Anderson, M.Sc., M.D. cand.</b><br /><br />Recently, neuropsychiatric studies with the psychedelic brew ayahuasca have been initiated by a small group of researchers in Brazil. Their research alternatively portrays the modified state of consciousness induced by ayahuasca as psychopathological, psychotherapeutic or spiritual by, respectively, using ayahuasca to model psychosis, to treat depression, and to induce religious visions. Through interviews with the scientists doing this research—complemented by my previous ethnographic study of the ayahuasca religions—I develop a case study of how these researchers’ subjective experiences with ayahuasca, as well as the experiences of religious ayahuasca users, shape the researchers’ classifications and representations of the ayahuasca experience. The inclusion of such subjective experiences in considerations about the nature of the ayahuasca experience lends itself to establishing a complex understanding of the brew’s effects that is often at odds with conventional psychiatric understandings of psychedelic drugs, particularly the categorical delimitations between what is considered psychopathological, psychotherapeutic and spiritual.<br /><br />Brian Anderson is currently an M.D. candidate at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He also holds a MSc from the BIOS Centre at the London School of Economics and a BA in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. Since 2006 he has been a researcher with the Núcleo de Estudos Interdisciplinares sobre Psicoativos (NEIP, <a href="http://www.neip.info/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.neip.info</a>). His anthropological fieldwork experience includes work with the undocumented Mexican immigrant population in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and with the União do Vegetal, an ayahuasca religion, in Bahia, Brazil.<br /><br /><b>21. The Effects of Participation in Ayahuasca Rituals on Gay’s and Lesbian’s Self Perception<br /><br />Clancy Cavnar, Psy.D.</b><br /><br />The practice of drinking the psychoactive drink ayahuasca has been shown in several studies to have positive long-term effects on mental states, and several studies have suggested it has a particularly strong positive effect on perceptions of identity. This research sought to discover if and in what way, these previous findings would be seen in gay people, who are often taught by their culture and religion that their lifestyles, values and sexual orientation are unacceptable. This qualitative study examined the interview responses of 17 gay and lesbian- identified participants who had used ayahuasca in a group in the past three years regarding their self-perceptions. The results indicated that all participants reported positive effects on their lives from ayahuasca rituals, including affirmation of their sexual orientation, and no participants reported negative effects on perception of identity. Findings will be reported and the implications of psychedelic research with gay and lesbian people will be discussed.<br /><br />Clancy Cavnar attended the New College of the University of South Florida and completed an undergraduate degree in liberal arts in 1982. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute and graduated with a Master of Fine Art in painting in 1985. In 1993 she received a certificate in substance abuse counseling from the extension program of the University of California at Berkeley. In 1997, she graduated with a Master's in Counseling from San Francisco State University. In that same year she got in touch with the Santo Daime in the USA and has traveled several times to Brazil since then. In 2011, she received a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.) from John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, California, with a dissertation on gay and lesbian people's experiences with ayahuasca. She is co-editor with Beatriz C. Labate of the book “The Expansion and Reinvention of Ayahuasca Shamanism” (Oxford University Press, in press). She is also a researcher with the Núcleo de Estudos Interdisciplinares sobre Psicoativos (NEIP, <a href="http://www.neip.info/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.neip.info</a>).<br /><br /><b>22. Santo Daime in Europe: ritual transfer and cultural translations<br /><br />Jan Weinhold, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />Santo Daime rituals have been conducted in several European countries for the last 20 years, involving an extended cross-cultural exchange of ritual practices between European and Brazilian churches. Despite the similarity between ritual structures in Brazil and Europe, there are several contextual differences: the illegal status of Daime/DMT in some European countries and language differences being the most obvious. In this paper, issues around this “ritual transfer” are discussed: How do ritual participants in Europe adapt the ritual practices and belief-systems of Santo Daime to their own cultural contexts? How do the legal status, language differences, and other cultural contexts influence rituals and meanings of ayahuasca-induced altered states of consciousness? How can empirical research tackle such problems on a conceptual level?<br /><br /><br />Jan Weinhold studied psychology at the Humboldt-University Berlin. Since 2002, he has been working as a research psychologist within the Collaborative Research Centre "Dynamics of Ritual" (SFB 619 "Ritualdynamik") at Heidelberg University, where he completed his Ph.D. in 2011. His research interests cover the use of psychoactive substances in relation to ritual studies, drug-abuse prevention, cross-cultural psychology, altered states of consciousness, and systemic psychotherapy. He has published articles in the field of ritual studies and drug use and has co-edited the volumes Rituals on the Move [Rituale in Bewegung], LIT-Verlag, 2006; Therapy With Psychoactive Substances: Approaches to and Critique of Psychotherapy with LSD, Psilocybin and MDMA [Therapie mit psychoaktiven Substanzen: Praxis und Kritik der Psychotherapie mit LSD, Psilocybin und MDMA], Huber, 2008; The Problem of Ritual Efficacy, Oxford University Press, 2010; and The Varieties of Ritual Experience, Harrassow<br /> itz,<br />2010.<br /><br /><br /><b>23. Transnationalism, Legal Pluralism and the Expansion of Ayahuasca Traditions<br /><br />Kevin Feeney, J.D. and Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />This chapter will explore globalization, diversity, and issues of social justice by examining the global expansion of ayahuasca religions through the lens of transnationalism, and against a backdrop of global legal pluralism. Politics have often equated cultural groups with particular national boundaries, and, proceeding from this premise, have made legal and cultural exceptions for groups that were seen as specifically situated geographically. A perfect illustration of this is in a provision of the article 32 of the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which permits signatories to make reservations for “plants growing wild which contain psychotropic substances…which are traditionally used by certain small, clearly determined groups in magical or religious rites.” The provision reflects a view that exemptions for psychoactive drug use are acceptable if they are confined to a specific locality, and to a specific culture group. The ayahuasca religions pose a particular challenge to this line of thinking. The originally Brazilian-based religions of Santo Daime and the União do Vegetal have established a global presence with international adherents, followers who are not constrained by national boundaries, and not identifiable as members of any particular ethnic categories. As these religions expand outside of their traditional regional and cultural contexts, they come to be viewed through the Western framework of the “war on drugs,” and become classified as criminal enterprises. The expansion of the ayahuasca traditions will be used as a foundation for examining issues of international human rights law and protections for religious freedom within the current global milieu of cultural transnationalism.<br /><br />Kevin Feeney, J.D., received his law degree from the University of Oregon in 2005, and is currently a student of Anthropology at Washington State University (USA), where he is studying the religious use of peyote in American Indian traditions. Other research interests include examining legal and regulatory issues surrounding the religious and cultural use of psychoactive substances, with an emphasis on ayahuasca and peyote, and exploring modern and traditional uses of Amanita muscaria, with a specific focus on variations in harvest and preparation practices. He is co-author, with Richard Glen Boire, of Medical Marijuana Law (2007).<br /><br />Beatriz Caiuby Labate has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the State University of Campinas (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, UNICAMP), Brazil. Her main areas of interest are the study of psychoactive substances, drug policies, shamanism, ritual, and religion. She is Visiting Professor at the Drug Policy Program of the Center for Economic Research and Education (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, CIDE) in Aguascalientes, Mexico. She is also Research Associate at the Institute of Medical Psychology, Heidelberg University, co-founder of the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP), and editor of its site (<a href="http://www.neip.info/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.neip.info</a>). She is author, co-author, and co-editor of eight books, two with English translations, one journal special edition, and several peer-reviewed articles. For more information, see: <a href="http://bialabate.net/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://bialabate.net/</a><br /><br /><b>24. The Economics of Ayahuasca<br /><br />Kenneth Tupper, Ph.D.</b><br /><br />This presentation considers the emerging status of ayahuasca as a commodity in international trade networks and the global economic system of the early 21st century. It explores how the brew and its constituent plants are variously represented as a medicine, sacrament, or plant teacher by people who drink it, and how drinkers (and suppliers) negotiate these representations with the competing status of ayahuasca as a consumer item in the global marketplace. Is ayahuasca drinking becoming a bourgeois luxury for the affluent of the global North? Does the commodification of the brew somehow profane it? How does ayahuasca consumerism fit within the politics of international drug control? Is ayahuasca, as the International Narcotics Control Board suggested in its 2010 Annual Report, simply an example of the “increased trade, use and abuse of . . . plant material” containing psychoactive substances? These and other questions lead to reflections on what the economics of ayahuasca might reveal about the nature of money, value, and ecology at a critical moment in world history.<br /><br />Kenneth W. Tupper, Ph.D., is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. His 2011 Ph.D. dissertation focused on ayahuasca, entheogenic education, and public policy. His other research interests include the cross-cultural and historical uses of psychoactive substances; public, professional and school-based drug education; and the creation of effective public policies to maximize benefits and minimize harms from currently illegal drugs. For more information, see: <a href="http://www.kentupper.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.kentupper.com</a><br /><br /><b>25. A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Ayahuasca: Insight, Transitional Space and Potential Side Effects<br /><br />Eduardo Gastelumendi, M.D.</b><br /><br />This presentation will explore differences and continuities between psychoanalysis and the ayahuasca experience regarding both their nature and scope. These might be considered two of the few “royal roads” that lead to inner exploration, transformation, and growth. They rely mainly, but not only, on insights; whether in the form of meaningful and new true understandings that emerge in an intimate interpersonal relationship (as may happen in psychoanalysis) or under the form of emotionally intense and vivid visions and the grasping of truth (as in the ayahuasca experience). It will be noted that ayahuasca may produce negative side effects, such as the “inflation of the Ego” or taking as real visions that should have a metaphoric or “as-if” quality. The Winnicottian psychoanalytic concept of "transitional space," essential to developing the capacity to play, create and love, may help to clarify and better understand occasional problematic effects of ayahuasca.<br /><br /><br />Eduardo Gastelumendi is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst working mainly as a clinician in private practice in Lima. He is Member and current Vice-president of the Peruvian Psychoanalytic Society, Member and former President of the Peruvian Psychiatric Association <a href="tel:%281999%20%E2%80%93%202000" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" value="+5719992000">(1999 – 2000</a>) and Member of the International Neuropsychiatric Association. He lectures at the Institute of the Peru Psychoanalytic Society. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Revista de Neuro-Psiquiatria (founded in 1938 in Lima). He has participated in the Freud – Jung dialogues between the IPA (International Psychoanalytic Association) and the IAAP (International Association for Analytic Psychology) since 2006. His main theoretical interest is to explore the interface between different disciplines (Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis; Psychoanalysis and Neurosciences) and between psychodynamic approaches and traditional medicine, especially related with ayahuasca, substance he has known for more than two decades.<br /><br /><br /><b>Ayahuasca Workshop: Ethnobotany, Safety & Expansion: April 22nd, 2013.</b><br /><br />9:00h – 9:30h - Opening and Introduction by Bia Labate<br /><br />9:30h –11:00h – Ayahuasca’s Evolving Worldview and Practices: From Indigenous-Mestizo Ceremony in 1976 to a Global Phenomenon in 2013, by Kathleen Harrison<br /><br />As recently as the 1970s, the ayahuasca culture of the Peruvian Amazon exhibited a worldview that was a blend of indigenous and mestizo elements and practices. The living tradition exhibited an astonishing depth of knowledge on the varieties of botanical form and their parallel spiritual content. Based on original fieldwork carried out in Peru in the seventies, the speaker will begin by describing that worldview and its traditional means of transmission via the oral tradition, shamanic performance, and direct experience. We are now midway through a fascinating evolution of worldviews that has developed over the past forty years. The spread of ayahuasca culture has pollinated external worldviews with nature-based knowledge, ideas of animism, concepts of causality (fate, health, luck), the dynamics of personal and collective ceremonial experience, and complex interactions with apparent shamanic power. The newcomers have gained much, yet have overlooked, changed and, to some extent, homogenized or depleted the diversity that those sources held. By regarding the “bio-cultural diversity” of the ayahuasca complex such as plant species, varieties and attendant perceptions, we still have much to learn and to investigate. As the metamorphosis continues, what is a possible model for the future of ayahuasca use?<br /><br />11:00h – 11:15h – Break<br /><br />11:15h - 12:00h – Discussion with Kat and Bia<br /><br />12:00h -13:00h – Lunch<br /><br />13:00h - 14:45h – Ayahuasca, safety and biomedical research, by Luis Fernando Tófoli<br /><br />This section will offer a general overview of the biomedical research on ayahuasca with a special focus on the discourse about its safety. Some claim that the interpretation of biomedical data generally points to a considerable safety in the use of this decoction with psychedelic properties, provided that certain precautions are taken. On the other hand, the corpus of biomedical findings on ayahuasca is interpreted skeptically by those who stress that there is no absolute absence of risk to health in its consumption. Although there is no unconditional impartiality in the life sciences and the interpretation of scientific research is subject to diverse worldviews, some issues in ayahuasca research require more biomedical evidence. Based on the analysis of the scientific literature and the author's experience with ayahuasca, some dilemmas in the biomedical universe of ayahuasca will be discussed. These are: its general toxicity; the use by pregnant women, children and adolescents; drug interactions; and effects on mental disorders and substance misuse, among others. This section will also explore new paths for the potential development of biomedical research in the field of ayahuasca, and its contextualization within the broader disputes concerning psychoactive substances.<br /><br />14:45 - 15:00h - Break<br /><br />15:00 -17:00h Ayahuasca For All the Senses, by Chris Kilham<br /><br />The ayahuasca ceremony is both a journey into a spirit landscape, and a remarkable display of multi-sensory activity, from the singing of healing songs, called icaros, to the burning of Amazon tobacco (mapacho) and Palo Santo, wood of the saints. Visions, body sensations, purging, and even synesthesia, a joining together of various senses, occur in the ayahuasca journey. In this workshop, we will explore the ethnobotany of ayahuasca. Further, we will dive into the deep end of the sensory pool, with trance, smoke, song, lavish images and more, all derived from traditional Amazonian ayahuasca shamanism.<br /><br />Beatriz Caiuby Labate has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the State University of Campinas (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, UNICAMP), Brazil. Her main areas of interest are the study of psychoactive substances, drug policies, shamanism, ritual, and religion. She is Visiting Professor at the Drug Policy Program of Center for Economic Research and Education (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, CIDE), in Aguascalientes, Mexico. She is also researcher with the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP), and editor of its site (<a href="http://www.neip.info/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.neip.info</a>). She is author, co-author, and co-editor of eight books, two with English translations, one journal special edition, and several peer-reviewed articles. For more information, see: <a href="http://bialabate.net/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://bialabate.net/</a><br /><br />Kathleen Harrison, M.A., is an independent scholar and teacher of ethnobotany. She has initiated and participated in recurrent fieldwork, mostly among indigenous people in Latin America, since the 1970s. She is the president and co-founder of Botanical Dimensions, a non-profit organization that has worked for 28 years to collect medicinal and shamanic species and the lore that helps us understand how to regard them. Kat teaches at various universities (currently University of Minnesota, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Albany College of Pharmacy, and Goddard College), specializing in tropical ethnobotanical field courses in Peru and Hawaii and integrative healing traditions in California. She helps her students understand the nature-based worldviews of traditional cultures, along with the role of plants in healing and story. She is based in rural Northern California and Hawaii. For more information, see: <a href="http://www.botanicaldimensions.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.botanicaldimensions.org</a><br /><br />Luís Fernando Tófoli is a medical doctor with a residency and a Ph.D. degree in Psychiatry at the University of São Paulo (USP). He is a professor of Psychiatry at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and his production as a scholar is focused on community mental health policies, mental health in primary care, and ayahuasca and mental health. He has studied the onset of mental disorders in UDV members and is currently working on three projects concerning ayahuasca: a survey about quality of life and history of drug use in UDV members, the validation of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Hallucinogen Rating Scale, and a preliminary study on the influence of drug, set, and setting in ayahuasca experiences.<br /><br />Chris Kilham is a medicine hunter, author and educator. The founder of Medicine Hunter Inc., Chris has conducted medicinal research in over 30 countries. Chris is the FOX News Medicine Hunter and appears on FOX News Health online and in 100 international television markets. He also writes a weekly column for FOX News Health and is on the Medical Advisory Board of The Dr. Oz Show. Since 1994 Chris has worked, traveled and studied with shamans in Brazil, Peru and North America. He has participated in many dozens of ceremonies, both with and without the ingestion of ceremonial psychoactive drugs. He is experienced with ayahuasca, San Pedro cactus, peyote, coca, and tobacco. Chris is recognized as a chief in Vanuatu, South Pacific, is known as “Maxipe” which means “black vulture” by the Macuxi indians of Brazil, and has lived with and visited dozens of native tribes in Amazonia and in other cultures. Shamans in both Brazil and Peru recognize Chris as one of their kind and a bridger of worlds, and have engaged in numerous ceremonies to bolster his energy and support his work with medicinal plants and native cultures.<br /><br /><br /><b>Documentary Screening and Discussion: “AYA: Awakenings”</b><br /><br />Directed by Rak Razam and Tim Parish<br /><br />90 minutes<br /><br />(forthcoming 2013)<br /><br />Discussion with Rak Razam<br /><br />Synopsis:<br />AYA: Awakenings is a narrative documentary into the world and visions of ayahuasca shamanism, adapted from the cult book 'Aya: a Shamanic Odyssey' by Rak Razam. As Razam sets out to document the booming business of Amazonian shamanism in the 21st century, he quickly finds himself caught up in a culture clash between the old world and the new. Braving a gringo trail of the soul, he uncovers a movement of ‘spiritual tourists’ coming from the West for a direct experience of the multi-dimensional reality shamanism connects one to. Central to this is ayahuasca – the “vine of souls” – a legal South American hallucinogenic plant that has been used by Amazonian people for millennia to heal physical ailments and to cleanse and purify the spirit, connecting it to the web of life. In researching the mystery of ayahuasca, Razam undergoes his own shamanic initiation, undergoing numerous tests and trials in the jungle and the psychic landscapes the vine reveals. On the way he encounters a motley crew of characters, from rogue scientists that conduct DMT-brain scans on jungle psychonauts to indigenous and Western shamans that slowly unravel his cultured mind and reveal the magical landscape of the spirit world. And the more he drinks this potent jungle medicine the deeper it leads him: from the wet jungle where the ayahuasca vine grows and on into the raging heart of consciousness itself. By blending narration directly from the book with video footage, interviews with practicing curanderos, samples of traditional icaros or magic songs, photographs and cutting edge special effects, Aya: Awakenings reproduces the inner landscape of the visionary state in unprecedented detail, invoking a spiritual awakening in the viewer. Featuring the artwork of Pablo Amaringo, Andy Debrenardi and more; video editing by Verb Studios, soundscapes by DJ Buttons Touching and music by Tipper; Darpan, Lula Cruz, Sphongle and curanderos Guillermo Aravelo, Percy Garcia Lozano, Ron Wheelock and Kevin Furnas. For more information, see: <a href="http://vimeo.com/20458066" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://vimeo.com/20458066</a><br /><br />Rak Razam is an author, prolific media maker and networker. He wrote the book Aya: A Shamanic Odyssey and the companion volume of interviews, The Ayahuasca Sessions (<a href="http://www.ayathebook.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.ayathebook.com</a>). He is a frequent lecturer on ayahuasca and the shamanic revival sweeping the West, and is the co-director with Tim Parish for the forthcoming Aya: Awakenings documentary. He was also interviewed and appears in the CBS (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s) 2007 audio documentary In Search of the Divine Vegetal (<a href="http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/2266458" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.podcastdirectory.com/<wbr></wbr>podshows/2266458</a>) talking about his ayahuaca experiences. His video interviews for website Reality Sandwich, New MAPS of Hyperspace, (<a href="http://vimeo.com/album/1688275" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://vimeo.com/album/<wbr></wbr>1688275</a>) feature Sasha Shulgin, Alex Grey, Stan Grof, Rick Doblin, Ralph Metzner, Mountain Girl, and more luminaries. His popular podcast show In a Perfect World (<a href="http://in-a-perfect-world.podomatic.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://in-a-perfect-world.<wbr></wbr>podomatic.com</a>) has featured Dennis McKenna, Mitch Schultz (DMT: The Spirit Molecule), Stephan Beyer (Singing to the Plants), Darpan, James Oroc (Tryptamine Palace) and dozens more. For more information, see:<a href="http://www.rakrazam.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.rakrazam.com</a><br /><br /><br />Register here: <a href="http://www.maps.org/conference/3-day-conference/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.maps.org/<wbr></wbr>conference/3-day-conference/</a><br /><br />See press release here: <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/9/prweb9916480.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.prweb.com/releases/<wbr></wbr>2012/9/prweb9916480.htm</a><br /><br /></div>
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Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-66556411099599935322012-05-30T01:21:00.002+02:002012-06-14T00:30:00.373+02:00funded, again<br />
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Our second crowdfunding campaign in <a href="http://igg.me/p/63681?a=383676" target="_blank">indiegogo</a> was a success!<br />
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The reality of creating a documentary that looks feels and sounds like this has meant a tremendous amount of love, work and effort in the service of something we believe to be overwhelmingly important - not less than a change in the conscious approach to medicine.</div>
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In a sea filled with sometime chaotic messages we want to create something that you can give to anyone and say: Watch this, you will understand what ayahuasca is about. To valorize the use of the medicine, to bring traditional Amazon practices out of the margins and present them to the world defended in a cloak of respectability supported by science.</div>
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In the past 6 months, almost 850 people have pledged nearly $64000 to help us accomplish this dream. <br />
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THANK YOU</div>
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<br /></div>Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-86846404026079317952011-12-20T19:19:00.000+01:002012-03-14T13:51:45.994+01:00Comment terminer un documentaire sur l’Ayahuasca après 10 ans de travail.<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note : Ceci est la traduction en français de notre </span>campagne<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> est <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/p/support-fr.html" target="_blank">ici</a></span></span><br />
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</div>Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-12957828018543612702011-12-06T12:57:00.001+01:002014-01-08T13:31:18.727+01:00We´re back 2: Takiwasi - Estamos de vuelta 2: Takiwasi(Texto en español después del vídeo)<br />
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...Continued from <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2011/12/were-back-1-kogi-estamos-de-vuelta-2.html" target="_blank">we´re back 1</a><br />
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We had to cut our experience in Colombia short because exciting news had arrived: After 10 years of pushing -together with <a href="http://flavors.me/ayahuasca#5b6/custom_plain" target="_blank">partners Mark and Robin</a>- our ayahuasca documentary had been picked up by the <a href="http://cbc.ca/" target="_blank">Canadian Broadcasting Corporation</a> (CBC), to be broadcast in their most prestigious science show: <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/" target="_blank">The Nature of Things</a>.<br />
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Being a two thirds Canadian team we had thought of The Nature of Things as the perfect home for our film from day one. With more more that 50 years on air it is <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/50-years-of-the-nature-of-things.html" target="_blank">the longest-running documentary program in the history of TV</a>. In Canada the show, and its host <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki" rel="wikipedia" title="David Suzuki">David Suzuki</a> are national institutions on the fields of nature, environment, and technology. We were beyond excited to have them host our film. We couldn´t think of a better home.<br />
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In our 10 years of research into ayahuasca we had visited everything from indigenous and mestizo shamans to western psychotherapists, and syncretic afro-christian churches. The manifestations of ayahuasca across the Amazon are enormously rich and varied. We had decided to focus the documentary on a much less frequent use of the ayahuasca: <b>The treatment of addiction</b>. The reasons for this were twofold: First we could better show what ayahuasca can do to people by showing the <b>dramatic process of change</b> that the addicts undergo. Secondly, we´d make a clear statement - the very same plants can be <b>poisons or remedies</b>, depending how they are used.<br />
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Our film follows the story of <a href="http://drgabormate.com/" target="_blank">Dr. Gabor Maté</a>, a writer and addiction expert who -<b>frustrated with the low rates of success of conventional treatments</b>- hears of a treatment center in Perú where they have been treating addictions using a combination of traditional amazonian medicine and western psychotherapy. After a visit to <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/indexen.html" target="_blank">Takiwasi</a>, Dr. Maté decides to start <b>an experimental program in Canada</b> using ayahuasca to treat hard-core drug addicts. The films follows the story Dr. Maté and his patients, and of Takiwasi´s founder -Dr. Jacques Mabit- and his patients, as well as of a team of researchers studying the effects of ayahuasca, and a group of indigenous shamans who are meeting to defend their medicine and traditions.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark´s McGiver broom camera contraption</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The resulting shot looked very very good</td></tr>
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So, while unit A followed the bulk of Dr.Mate´s story in Canada, I handled the <b>South American end of the documentary.</b> I spent 5 months, together with cinematographer <a href="http://www.grisjordana.com/" target="_blank">Gris Jorda</a>na, filming the patient´s life in <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/indexen.html" target="_blank">Takiwasi</a>. The center <b>opened their doors to us</b>, and the patients gave their permission to let us film their everyday lives. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWf5Vfu0vT1FQtVRfKLGoiRMeFNM4yDUPDH7fPuUKJIiHQYc0IqvDoIIC_fNlU1Q-IFC3Vk_QvZ-8YskqIHeUDvav67VZAl2RlzsmOShChremqWamCp6K7kiC-1C1A5OIYbrIUTJFDaY/s1600/Captura+de+pantalla+2010-05-31+a+las+21.03.03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWf5Vfu0vT1FQtVRfKLGoiRMeFNM4yDUPDH7fPuUKJIiHQYc0IqvDoIIC_fNlU1Q-IFC3Vk_QvZ-8YskqIHeUDvav67VZAl2RlzsmOShChremqWamCp6K7kiC-1C1A5OIYbrIUTJFDaY/s320/Captura+de+pantalla+2010-05-31+a+las+21.03.03.jpg" height="177" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Group therapy at Takiwasi</td></tr>
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We filmed <b>every part</b> of the <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/eng/ttetapas.php" target="_blank">process of patients in Takiwasi,</a> from arrival to departure. We attended ayahuasca rituals, therapy sessions, work schedules, meals, siestas, their fights, realizations, and reconciliations. I felt <b>privileged</b> to be able to witness Takiwasi´s work so closely. Although their focus in on addiction, the main lines of their work with plants can be applied to just about anyone interested in "dealing with their issues". A condition for our being allowed to get close to the patients <b>was that we too participated of the Takiwasi plant treatment</b>. How could we properly film a process we didn't understand? Both me a Gris were assigned a psychologist each, and put on <b>Takiwasi´s program</b>, including purgative plants, ayahuasca sessions, and <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/eng/dieta.php#enqueconsiste" target="_blank">a week long dieta</a>. In no small way, we became patients ourselves. I will make a longer post soon about my experiences, but I will just say that those 5 months were some of the most difficult, wonderful, transformative times of my life. Everyone hopes to work in something that will not just pay your way, but enrich your life. I think for both me and Gris this became <b>a job like no other</b>. By participating in this process, and by filming others doing, I learned so much, about myself, about ayahuasca, and about life, than it is hard for me to even remember what I was like before this experience. I remain thankful to Jacques Mabit, and everyone at Takiwasi for how much they helped me, as a filmmaker, but specially as a human being. And I am specially thankful to <b>my wife an daughter</b>, who followed me to the middle of the jungle, and patiently put up with all of it!<br />
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The shoot in Perú was followed by 2 trips to Colombia to film with the <a href="http://www.amazonteam.org/index.php/218/Indigenous_Gatherings" target="_blank">UMIYAC</a> (Union de Médicos Indigenas Yageceros de la Amazonía Colombiana) a trip which deserves its own post, a meeting of traditional ayahuasca doctors from <b>9 different tribes</b>, more than <b>30 ayahuasqueros of the highest degree</b> drinking together. I am certain there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBSt0EAL2NvrXDt5XTa5wLOzY2F4kmSRBZLWYAtOcezlU3CCaq8R16hqF7UB6Dkh9X4Dq5TP5NeXLdOP0z1x0wXiDn9ukbbnOXPMcopqLpAi5No0dUxTwbV3guE7jlc8czIPhnqLKsLi8/s1600/umiyac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBSt0EAL2NvrXDt5XTa5wLOzY2F4kmSRBZLWYAtOcezlU3CCaq8R16hqF7UB6Dkh9X4Dq5TP5NeXLdOP0z1x0wXiDn9ukbbnOXPMcopqLpAi5No0dUxTwbV3guE7jlc8czIPhnqLKsLi8/s640/umiyac.jpg" height="324" width="640" /></a></div>
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After the shooting ended I spent nearly a year and half, across several trips, in Canada, where the film was painstaninkly put together...<br />
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....to be continued but <b>here is the trailer</b><br />
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<i>Would you like to see the rest of the film? </i><b>Please <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ayadox/the-ayahuasca-project-the-jungle-prescription" target="_blank">help us finish it</a></b><br />
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<b>TEXTO EN ESPAÑOL</b><br />
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<i>¿Quieres ver el resto de la película?</i> Por favor ayúdanos a terminarla!<br />
<br />
...continua de <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2011/12/were-back-1-kogi-estamos-de-vuelta-2.html" target="_blank">Estamos de vuelta 1: Kogi</a><br />
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Tuvimos que cortar nuestra estancia en Colombia corta porque habían llegado buenas noticias: Después de 10 años empujando, junto a <a href="http://flavors.me/ayahuasca#5b6/custom_plain" target="_blank">Mark Ellam y Robin McKenna</a>, nuestro gran proyecto personal (y la razón de este blog) se iba a hacer realidad. Nuestro documental sobre la ayahuasca recibió la financiación de la <a href="http://cbc.ca/" target="_blank">Canadian Broadcasting Corporation</a> (CBC) que lo iba a emitir en <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/" target="_blank">The Nature of Things</a>, su programa de ciencia más respetado.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGKFvmVdyw4S0rKrXZ9PRQD2aUi5T-stNzH_91ifk1Q-EoMaogHpAiZPLgvsX4NZfabRrtP_vErK1y1FFWlWgw7LJ8XtW6ARqrZEscaFdr60aG07aV0zEWqjZVUH0Di346M2OY9pdBkEo/s1600/IMG_0825.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGKFvmVdyw4S0rKrXZ9PRQD2aUi5T-stNzH_91ifk1Q-EoMaogHpAiZPLgvsX4NZfabRrtP_vErK1y1FFWlWgw7LJ8XtW6ARqrZEscaFdr60aG07aV0zEWqjZVUH0Di346M2OY9pdBkEo/s320/IMG_0825.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><br />
Siendo un equipo dos terceras partes Canadiense, siempre habíamos visto The Nature of Things como un hogar perfecto para nuestra película. Es el programa de documentales <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/50-years-of-the-nature-of-things.html" target="_blank">que más tiempo lleva en antena de la historia de TV</a> 50 años ininterrumpidos! En Canada el programa, y su presentador, el científico David Suzuki, son figuras de referencia y tremendamente respetadas en temas de ciencia y medio ambiente. <br />
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En los 10 años que llevamos investigando la ayahuasca hemos visitado desde curanderos indígenas y vegetalistas mestizos hasta psicoterapeutas occidentales, pasando por iglesias sincréticas afro-brasileñas. Las manifestaciones de la ayahuasca lo largo y ancho de la Amazonía son tremendamente variadas. Nosotros decidimos enfocar nuestro documental en un uso de la ayahuasca muy minoritario: El tratamiento de adicciones, por dos razones: La primera es que el dramático proceso de cambio que experimentan los adictos era una buena manera de mostrar al mundo la forma en la que la Ayahuasca bien aplicada puede <b>afectar a las personas</b>. En segundo lugar, evidenciar a través de los adictos, que las mismas plantas pueden ser <b>venenos o remedios</b>, según la forma en que se utilicen. Queríamos hacer una película que no solo <b>rindiese homenaje a la riqueza del conocimiento indígena</b>, si no que también mostrara un ejemplo de cómo éste conocimiento se puede llevar a la práctica por occidente, y los beneficios mutuos que estos intercambios pueden aportar (cuando son <b>recíprocos</b>!). <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAilZ3UmUdc7yIBikbtuqaj9sPI8bqwIrh0Ql69CSnHfRhyphenhyphen78cPte_qwp-HdJyxCXO4r6iLBL3kGzqS7pAy6jQPmtATOOnXjivueRE1Nt4aaQQ403hoOQqVmXkRS6leJM3cJjNp-Qi79I/s1600/Gabor+%2540+Takiwasi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAilZ3UmUdc7yIBikbtuqaj9sPI8bqwIrh0Ql69CSnHfRhyphenhyphen78cPte_qwp-HdJyxCXO4r6iLBL3kGzqS7pAy6jQPmtATOOnXjivueRE1Nt4aaQQ403hoOQqVmXkRS6leJM3cJjNp-Qi79I/s320/Gabor+%2540+Takiwasi.jpg" height="177" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr Gabor Maté en Takiwasi</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcLYfOgf39YL_7LYYWRfBSyDn_QNKNYfhPblKm3FMS0BS6t8jPKxdZjTM8cQUuGeeFQklMrNB5Dw0yzECcMFnOxciMbXp9wmkhQflVg0iHbsY1JZx6rrlB4VRId4dVNAhpF8RWEQsec8/s1600/Jacques.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqcLYfOgf39YL_7LYYWRfBSyDn_QNKNYfhPblKm3FMS0BS6t8jPKxdZjTM8cQUuGeeFQklMrNB5Dw0yzECcMFnOxciMbXp9wmkhQflVg0iHbsY1JZx6rrlB4VRId4dVNAhpF8RWEQsec8/s320/Jacques.jpg" height="177" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr Jaques Mabit</td></tr>
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El documental sigue la historia del <a href="http://drgabormate.com/" target="_blank">Dr Gabor Maté</a>, un autor y experto en adicciones el cual, frustrado con la <b>bajísima tasa de éxito de los tratamientos convencionales</b>, oye hablar de un centro en Perú donde han estado tratando toxicomanía usando una combinación de medicina tradicional amazónica, y psicoterapia occidental. Después de una visita a <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/" target="_blank">Takiwasi</a> el Dr. Maté decide comenzar un programa experimental en Canada, para tratar adictos usando la ayahuasca como soporte. La película sigue el proceso del Dr. Maté y sis pacientes, así como el Dr. Mabit, fundador de Takiwasi, y sus pacientes, así como un equipo de investigadores in Barcelona estudiando los efectos de la ayahuasca, y un grupo de chamanes indígenas, que se reúnen para defender su medicina y tradiciones.<br />
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Así que mientras la <b>unidad A</b> seguía en grueso de la historia del Dr. Maté en Canadá, yo me ocupé de toda la parte Latinoamericana del rodaje. Pasé 5 meses junto a cinematografía <a href="http://www.grisjordana.com/" target="_blank">Gris Jordana</a>, grabando <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/esp/ttetapas.php" target="_blank">el proceso de los pacientes en Takiwasi</a>. El centro nos abrió sus puertas, y los pacientes nos dieron permiso para granar sus vidas. Capturamos <b>cada parte del proceso de los pacientes en Takiwasi.</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj9GCxJ4efdgpILotw0pjjkWa6ESISv4yte5_V3FIvd9ceO1rkWsuHAvP5lJlywiYIn8kxzgMcDMj0BAMZP8Y53RzYZJ9qPNcNNVazvHPWoH-6lB1pvzogrSZidyqpSHOhMoS100uuGQA/s1600/IMG_0973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj9GCxJ4efdgpILotw0pjjkWa6ESISv4yte5_V3FIvd9ceO1rkWsuHAvP5lJlywiYIn8kxzgMcDMj0BAMZP8Y53RzYZJ9qPNcNNVazvHPWoH-6lB1pvzogrSZidyqpSHOhMoS100uuGQA/s320/IMG_0973.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gris grabando la dieta</td></tr>
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Atendimos llegadas, abandonos, rituales de ayahuasca, sesiones de psicoterapia, comidas, trabajos, peleas, reconciliaciones… Me siento afortunado de poder haber sido t<b>estigo de privilegio del trabajo de Takiwasi</b>. Aunque el foco del centro son las adicciones <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/esp/ve02.php" target="_blank">los principios básicos de su programa de plantas</a> se pueden aplicar al cualquier persona que tenga asuntos vitales pendientes. Una de las condiciones para permitirnos acercarnos a los pacientes fue que <b>participáramos del proceso terapéutico de Takiwasi</b>. No se puede hacer una película sobre algo que no se entiende, así que se nos asigno un psicólogo a cada uno, y se nos puso en el <b>programa de plantas</b>, incluyendo las famosas purgas, sesiones de ayahuasca, y una dieta de una semana de duración. Compartimos el proceso con los pacientes, y en gran medida, <b>nos convertimos en dos pacientes más</b>. Pronto haré un post más largo relatando mis experiencias, solo decir que ha sido uno de los periodos más maravillosos, duros, y transformadores de mi vida. Creo todo el mundo espera poder trabajar en algo que no sólo le de para vivir, sino que tambien le enriquezca como persona. Tanto para mi como para Gris este fue <b>un trabajo distinto a cualquier otro</b>. Aprendí tanto de mi mismo, de la ayahuasca, y de la vida, en este proceso, así como grabando el proceso de otros, que es difícil para mi recordar cómo era antes de esta experiencia. Quedo eternamente agradecido a J. Mabit, y a todos en Takiwasi, por todo lo que me han ayudado, profesionalmente, pero sobre todo como persona. Sobretodo les agradezco <b>a mi mujer e hija</b> la paciencia de haberme acompañado hasta la selva, y aguantado durante todo este proceso!<br />
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A los 5 meses en Takiwasi siguieron dos viajes a Colombia para grabar con la legendaria <a href="http://www.actcolombia.org/amazon/medicina-tradicional.html" target="_blank">UMIYAC</a> (<b>Unión de Médicos Indígenas Yageceros de la Amazonía Colombiana</b>) lo cual va a merecer su propio post, una unión de chamanes de 9 tribus! más de treinta ayahuasqueros <b>de primer orden juntos en una maloca</b>. No existe nada igual en el mundo.<br />
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Cuando terminó la grabación pasamos casi un año y medio más repartido entre varios viajes, editando en Canadá...<br />
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...continuará pero por ahora <b>aquí está el trailer</b><br />
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<i>¿Quieres ver el resto?</i> Por favor <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2011/12/como-terminar-un-documental-sobre-la.html" target="_blank">ayudamos a terminar la película</a>!<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/sets/72157626122020146/">The Jungle Prescription</a> - un álbum de fotos del rodaje en Flickr.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5471222767/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="jungle river"><img alt="jungle river" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5135/5471222767_bc7c95c51b_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5606547973/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="upper amazon"><img alt="upper amazon" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5148/5606547973_ef329787b4_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5471222823/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="boiling pot"><img alt="boiling pot" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5051/5471222823_6ac1d09f8d_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5471817030/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="jacques over pot"><img alt="jacques over pot" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5011/5471817030_f845979247_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5607137242/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="Putumayo"><img alt="Putumayo" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5025/5607137242_072420552b_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5471222993/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="jacques with pipe"><img alt="jacques with pipe" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5097/5471222993_c562ebd5e7_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5607133572/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="Putumayo"><img alt="Putumayo" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5142/5607133572_0b5239d0cc_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5471223119/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="jacques w pipe v2"><img alt="jacques w pipe v2" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5056/5471223119_eb498938ec_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5471223239/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="democracy now"><img alt="democracy now" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5295/5471223239_6c91b9bd2d_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5474173374/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="needle"><img alt="needle" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5214/5474173374_a5ba207652_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5607136004/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="Putumayo"><img alt="Putumayo" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5101/5607136004_d1b190dd37_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/59869744@N03/5471223305/in/set-72157626122020146/" style="display: block; float: left; height: 75px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" title="Gabor @ Onsite w Breanna"><img alt="Gabor @ Onsite w Breanna" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5018/5471223305_d4d18018b1_s.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; height: 75px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 75px;" /></a><br />
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Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-89363253153448150122011-12-04T23:42:00.001+01:002012-03-14T13:53:34.396+01:00Cómo terminar un documental sobre la ayahuasca después de 10 años de trabajo<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Myriad Pro', 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">NOTA: L</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Myriad Pro', 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">a traducción al español de nuestra campaña de recaudación de fondos se ha movido </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Myriad Pro', 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/p/support-es.html" target="_blank">aqui</a></span>Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-1864621365561392052011-12-04T23:05:00.001+01:002017-08-07T23:39:54.154+02:00We´re back 1: Kogi - Estamos de vuelta 1: Kogi<b>ENGLISH TEXT</b> - (Texto en español abajo)<br />
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It´s been more than 2 years since I posted anything on this blog. My apologies, the reason is that my life took quite a crazy turn since...<br />
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<a href="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4033/4651508726_39a7128c5c_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4033/4651508726_39a7128c5c_b.jpg" height="640" width="360"></a>When 3 years ago <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2008/11/kogis.html" target="_blank">I wrote a post about the Kogi</a> -possibly the last functioning pre colombian civilization in South America- I never dreamed that I would end up <i>meeting them. </i><br />
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In <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2008/11/kogis.html" target="_blank">my post</a> I talked about a documentary called <b>From the Heart Of The World: The Elder Brother´s Warning</b> wich told of how the Kogi had broken a 500 year long silence to send a message to the world. It was broadcast by BBC 20 years ago, caused quite a stir, and had since become rather difficult to find. After much searching a I found that a <a href="http://tairona.myzen.co.uk/index.php/about/support_the_trust/" target="_blank">copy of the DVD</a> could be had by making a donation to <a href="http://www.taironatrust.org/" target="_blank">The Tairona Heritage Trust</a>, the NGO that Alan Ereira, the film´s director, founded in order to help the Kogi regain their land.<br />
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One year after receiving a copy of the doc a newsletter from the NGO arrived in my mailbox. It said that the NGO <a href="http://tairona.myzen.co.uk/index.php/about/news/april_2009_the_mamas_new_message/" target="_blank">had recently provided funds to buy back a large piece of Kogi land that had been taken up by coca farmers</a>. Ereira had been invited to a meeting of Kogi Mamas where he was told that the first film didn´t have the desired effect (to get us to stop destryoing the earth) It was time to make a second film.<br />
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Ereira had began preproduction of a film that would, in fact, <b>be conceived by the Kogi an co-created with them</b>. They were looking for a person to prepare the ground in Colombia, and act as liason between the production company in London, and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Organizaci%C3%B3n-Gonawind%C3%BAa-Tayrona/31791326173?sk=info" target="_blank">Gonvindua Tayrona</a>, the organization that represents all indigenous groups in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. I felt I´d been waiting for a job like this my whole life! I spent weeks writing the presentation letter. One month later <b>I had the job</b>, and we took a huge leap; me and my wife quit our jobs, we closed the house, and we moved, with our one year old daughter, to Colombia, to work on a project that was a dream in itself. <br />
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That film is called <i><b>Aluna</b></i>, and will be finished soon. Please look <a href="http://alunathemovie.com/" target="_blank">at their official site</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/AlunaMovie" target="_blank">facebook page</a>.<br />
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I will soon write a proper post about that experience which affected both me and wife quite deeply. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is probably <i>the most amazing</i> place I have ever visited.<br />
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<span id="goog_1243203234"></span><span id="goog_1243203235"></span>We had to cut our experience in Colombia short. After 10 years pushing -together with my filmmaker partners Mark Ellam and Robin McKenna- <b>our ayahuasca documentary was finally funded</b>. <br />
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With a lot of sadness, but also with a lot of anticipation, we left Santa Marta, and <b>moved the whole family again</b>, to Tarapoto, in the Peruvian Amazon....<br />
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(...to be continued in next post)<br />
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<b>TEXTO EN ESPAÑOL</b><br />
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Hace más de dos años que no escribo en este blog, pido disculpas, la razón a sido que han pasado muchísimas cosas desde entonces...<br />
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Cuando hace 3 años <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2008/11/kogis.html" target="_blank">escribí un post sobre los Kogi</a> nunca imaginé que acabaría <i>conociéndolos</i>. En <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2008/11/kogis.html" target="_blank">mi post</a> hablaba de <b>From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brother´s Warning</b>, un documental que había emitido la BBC hace 20 años, y del que era muy difícil obtener copias. La película era sobre los Kogi, posiblemente <b>la última gran civilización precolombina</b> que sobrevive hasta nuestro días. En aquellos días la única forma de obtener <a href="http://tairona.myzen.co.uk/index.php/about/support_the_trust/" target="_blank">copias del documental</a> era haciendo una donación al <a href="http://www.taironatrust.org/" target="_blank">Tairona Heritage Trust</a>, una ONG regentada por Alan Ereira, director del documental. <br />
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Así que hice la donación, y recibí el DVD de la película, que me dejó muy impactado. Algún tiempo después me llegó por email un newsletter de la ONG. Decía que la organización había proveído recientemente una serie de fondos para que los Kogi pudieran volver <a href="http://tairona.myzen.co.uk/index.php/about/news/april_2009_the_mamas_new_message/" target="_blank">a comprar tierras que les habían sido usurpadas</a>. Ereira había sido invitado a una reunión de Mamas Kogi donde le<b> habían pedido que hiciera una nueva película.</b> <br />
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Esta segunda película sería concebida y co-creada con los propios Kogis. Había comenzado la preproducción y estaban buscando una persona que -desde Colombia- prepara el terreno para el rodaje, actuando de coordinador de la comunicación entre la productora en Londres, y<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Organizaci%C3%B3n-Gonawind%C3%BAa-Tayrona/31791326173?sk=info" target="_blank"> Gonavindua Tairona</a>, la organización que representa a todos los grupos indígenas de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Fue como si llevara toda la vida esperando este trabajo. Pasé semanas enteras escribiendo la carta de presentación. Un mes después el trabajo era mío, y dimos un gran salto, mi mujer y yo<b> dejamos todo</b> en Madrid, trabajo y casa, y nos mudamos, con nuestra hija de un año, a vivir a Colombia, para trabajar en un proyecto que era <b>un sueño en si mismo</b>, y que pronto estará acabado, ver <a href="http://www.alunathemovie.com/es/inicio-2" target="_blank">la página oficial</a> y <a href="http://www.facebook.com/AlunaMovie" target="_blank">el grupo de facbeoook</a>. <br />
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Más adelante escribiré un post sobre aquella experiencia, que nos dejó <b>una marca muy honda</b> tanto en mi como en mi mujer.<br />
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Tuvimos que cortar nuestra estancia corta porque después de 10 años empujando mi gran proyecto personal (junto a Mark Ellam y Robin McKenna) -un documental sobre la ayahuasca- recibió por fin financiación y <b>se iba a convertir a realidad</b>. Con mucha pena pero también mucha anticipación dejamos Santa Marta y me mudé con toda la familia a Tarapoto, en la Amazonía Peruana<br />
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(...continuará en el próximo post)<br />
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<br />Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-33862092936434339702009-08-23T19:49:00.022+02:002009-12-09T06:50:43.902+01:00New books!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL9WkbXqTLe-VFXMJnJqqV4ZYnEeaWpbVVUMr2snAaBtL3XZSykB3Oi2IsMIltDWAtSfWhVRViWftnA-VLthUOAIO0X3POv0xlwiZGjyN913n5y_hG6YnAbM4Np3iU2y9QA8ra8LlhNWo/s1600-h/IMG_0543.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL9WkbXqTLe-VFXMJnJqqV4ZYnEeaWpbVVUMr2snAaBtL3XZSykB3Oi2IsMIltDWAtSfWhVRViWftnA-VLthUOAIO0X3POv0xlwiZGjyN913n5y_hG6YnAbM4Np3iU2y9QA8ra8LlhNWo/s400/IMG_0543.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373221863326743362" /></a>I recently got back from Perú where I attended the <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/congreso2009/">Congreso Internacional de Medicinas Tradiconales, Interculturalidad, y Salud Mental</a>. I put a couple of days away during the trip to visit the library of the <a href="http://www.caaap.org.pe/">CAAAP - Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicación Práctica</a> in Lima. I was looking for some hard to find books that I knew were there. Unfortunately the first day the Xerox machine was out of order, and the second day the Xerox was fixed, but the librarian was out of order (sick at home). <br /><br />So I bought a bunch of their publications instead. Here's a partial list:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Buscando Nuestras Raices – Cosmovisión Chayahuita</span>. This is a *very* special book. In anthropology you usually get books written by people who spent a few months -a few years at most- living with a certain group, and then incorporate what they observed inside some sort of theoretical fame. This book is different in every way: It was collected by a <span style="font-style:italic;">María Dolores García Tomás</span>, a nun who has spent most of her life with the Chayahuitas. It represents an encyclopedic compilation of Chayahuita songs, legends, myths and history. A true work of love, the materials are left to speak for themselves, there is no theoretical interpretations. The oral traditions were recorded and transcribed, first in Chayahuita language, then there is a direct word by word translation (which will make you appreciate what a strange grammar it has) finally there is a liberal translation into Spanish. The transcripts are accompanied by drawings made by Chayahuita youths. It was thanks to this book that I discovered that Icaros are not restricted to ayahuasca. There’s icaros for everything! For a girl’s first menstruation, for the newlyweds first day, for cleaning out the chacra. Everything is contained within the songs; they are a moral code, pedagogy, a history. I was truly moved by some of these transcriptions, reading them was like watching a culture open up before me. Unfortunately I only have 2 of the 7 volumes, and the series is long out of print.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">El aprendizaje de las plantas</span> - <span style="font-style:italic;">Germán Zulaga</span>. We recorded a fantastic interview with Dr. Zuluaga during the conference. His curriculum is too long to list here; I'll just say that he’s been building bridges between western and indigenous medicines for more than 20 years, while keeping some of the highest ethical standards I’ve ever encountered in this field. That man is the anti-appropriator, I became an instant fan. He´s president of <a href="http://www.cemi.org.co/index.html">CEMI</a>, they do a lot of good work. I will write more about him soon.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuXGXJHn4-uneU2ezWj1H43mlr4ELs5gvZrK8ru0gVp1-H5PlDEsnaRE6BUcinQrQdP_NMY4xaKIIsJ1OXpEyCqB-HmSgdXE_Ne2ibNUi3zNbHsQuWrCA64j8YgiLKte7LjlM38DU1OcU/s1600-h/IMG_0545.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuXGXJHn4-uneU2ezWj1H43mlr4ELs5gvZrK8ru0gVp1-H5PlDEsnaRE6BUcinQrQdP_NMY4xaKIIsJ1OXpEyCqB-HmSgdXE_Ne2ibNUi3zNbHsQuWrCA64j8YgiLKte7LjlM38DU1OcU/s400/IMG_0545.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373262031907847730" /></a><span style="font-weight:bold;">Duik Muun</span> – A bilingual compilation of Aguaruna myths and legends, with drawings and some exercises. Published 30 years ago, it looks like it was conceived as a textbook for Aguaruna youths.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">El poder del amor, poder, conocimiento y moralidad entre los Amuesha de la selva central del Perú</span>. <span style="font-style:italic;">Fernando Santos Granero</span>. A study about one of the few Amazonian societies who have priesthood, who in turn choose the military leaders. With that structure in place what’s remarkable is the fact that they didn’t develop the kind of centralist and authoritarian character of the Andes societies. The reason for this is in the form in which power is exercised, hence the name of the book: the power of love. I’ve read a bit here and there, looks very interesting.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Tanteo puntun chaykuna valen. Las cosas valen cuando están en su punto de equilibrio</span> – <span style="font-style:italic;">Ciprian Phuturi Suni</span>. A bilingual transcription of the life story of the oldest man in Willoq, a community in Ollantaytambo (Cusco). Again, I’ve only skimmed it, but so far it is a really beautiful text (and I don’t say this lightly), the language is simply astounding.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Sueños Amazónicos. Un programa de salud indígena en la selva peruana. </span> The book (which can be bought in English <a href="http://www.iwgia.org/sw22287.asp">here</a>) describes an ongoing project to establish an community health system based on traditional medicine. Organized by AIDESEP (whose leaders are now infamously in exile) and the Danish NGO Noreco, the book is a choral work that collects the testimonies of organizers, curanderos, nurses, and doctors. All I can say is that I learned a lot, A LOT, from this book. Well worth it. IMHO every westerner dreaming of going deep in the jungle to find a maestro shaman should be forced to read this book first, at least they´d get an idea what those communities are really like, and the kind of day to day problems a real indigenous curandero faces. <br />The project is now in its 15th year. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/Webmaster779">Here</a> is a documentary about the first graduated class of indigenous intercultural health promoters.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ver, Saber, Poder</span> – <span style="font-style:italic;">Jean Pierre Chaumeil</span>. I’d been after this book for a number years, as it is often cited in the bibliographies of other books. All I know is that it’s about Yagua shamanism.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Los Dueños de los Astros Ajenos</span> – <span style="font-style:italic;">Percy Vilchez Vela</span>. I don´t quite know what to make of this book, seems ambitious, a part-essay part-novel review of the last 400 years of Amazonian colonization<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Pensar en el Otro, entre los Huni Kuin de la Amazonía Peruana</span> - <span style="font-style:italic;">Patrick Deshayes</span>. I was familiar with Deshayes because he directed a documentary about the Barquinha ayahuasca church in Rio Branco (The doc can be seen in its entirety <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX7WVLitQnA&feature=PlayList&p=7FE5E3656DC14559">here</a>) The book is about the Huni Kuin, of whom I´ve posted <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2009/01/huni-kuin-ayahuasca-santo-daime.html">before</a>, and will post again as soon as I finish it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-3qRZudhZD5goljlt52fHZp6RL0p1TxZXVA3Tpex4cFGlZeumejZABLSEl8UK-iKK4qwoBWka28mzzG8vMcvSD8yRCzikoUnZxnCM5u_8V_IowvHLUSCTCMk5Ya0_Wo6nWC5bFHYVVg8/s1600-h/IMG_0547.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-3qRZudhZD5goljlt52fHZp6RL0p1TxZXVA3Tpex4cFGlZeumejZABLSEl8UK-iKK4qwoBWka28mzzG8vMcvSD8yRCzikoUnZxnCM5u_8V_IowvHLUSCTCMk5Ya0_Wo6nWC5bFHYVVg8/s400/IMG_0547.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373262279907693170" /></a> <span style="font-weight:bold;">Yachag Sami Yachchina</span> – <span style="font-style:italic;">Alfonso chango</span>. Illustrated shamanic lore. Here´s an example -><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Schiwiar, identidad étinca y cambio en el río Corrientes</span> <span style="font-style:italic;">– Charlotte Seymour Smith</span>. The Schiwar are a jibaroan group living near the Ecuador border. That is all I have read do far.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">¡Zamba, pégale tres golpes a la piedra! Testimonio personal en una mesa curandera</span> - <span style="font-style:italic;">Mabel Sarco</span>. As the title says, a personal testimony of Andean curanderismo.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Cocaina, fiebre del oro blanco en Perú</span> – <span style="font-style:italic;">Eduardo Morales</span>. A scholarly, but readable, first-hand description of the process of coca production, one of those books that really make you understand.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">El tigre y la anaconda</span>. Another bilingual collection (this time Shuar) of oral traditions for the purpose of teaching the young. You know with a name like it has to touch on shamanism, and indeed it does. Published by the <a href="http://www.abyayala.org/index.php">Abya Yala</a> powerhouse, (although my view of their output has changed somewhat after reading <a href="http://www.coronetbooks.com/books/i/iamt6464.htm">I am Tsunki</a> I’ll have to post about that one day.)<br /><br />Additionally I there´s a book about <span style="font-weight:bold;">cuy curanderismo</span>, another book about <span style="font-weight:bold;">Chayahuitas</span> that I can´t find right now, a new compilation by <a href="http://www.bialabate.net/">Bia Labate</a>, a short history of pre-Columbian Ecuador, and <span style="font-weight:bold;">El primer Mestizaje</span>, which apparently holds "the key to understanding the Mesoamerican past"... i don´t want to doubt, but that is a <span style="font-style:italic;">bold </span>statement.<br /><br />Looks like my reading is set 'till the winter!<br /><br />For those interested in visiting the CAAP library it opens <br />mon-fri 9.00 a.m. - 1.00 p.m. and 2: 00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. <br />Av. Gonzales Prada 626, <br />Magdalena del Mar<br />Telf.: 461 5223, 460 0763- Anexo. 205, 209<br /><br />The other great library in Lima is at the <a href="http://www.ifeanet.org/">Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos</a> they have amazing stuff, such as <a href="http://www.ifeanet.org/biblioteca/fiche.php?codigo=HUM00020840">this</a> (notice the year!)<br />mon-fri 9.00 a.m. - 1.00 p.m. and 2: 00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. <br />Avenida Arequipa 4595 2º Piso<br />Teléfono 511 243-6090Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-36202347660533558422009-04-12T00:31:00.006+02:002012-02-23T11:46:40.186+01:00Writers and Ayahuasca 1: William BurroughsIn the last post <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2009/03/first-ayahuasca-documentary-redux.html">I wrote</a> about what might have been the first Ayahuasca documentary of all times. A recently unearthed rarity, narrated by none other than William Burroughs. Searching for more info on the elusive film led me by Google serendipity to Peruvian author Carlos Calderón Fajardo, who <a href="http://www.perubookstore.com/cgi-bin/perubookstore/store.cgi?action=link&sub=LI&sku=LP510">wrote a book</a> about Borroughs second visit to Perú in 1993. Burroughs first visit, in 1953, was looking for ayahuasca, and turned into the famous Yaje Letters (newly edited and much expanded <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Yage-Letters-Redux-William-Burroughs/dp/0872864480">here</a>). Burroughs had launched into his search for Yage ("the ultimate fix") after a hasty escape from Mexico where he had been sentenced for the bizarre shooting of his wife. <br />
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The Yage Letters is probably <span style="font-weight: bold;">the all-time best-known literary account of Ayahuasca</span>. The South America Burroughs describes is a corrupt, violent place, full of poverty and misery, and although all of those things were true (and some are still true to this date) one feels Burroughs' tastes for the seedy underground of drug and juvenile delinquents kept him from ever seeing a broader picture. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiltuP-Cl9K_oYR0OH3gWk8DQL4xXuW8sSfBC50HZvLyHb_wEp0Ix7FFZDiVfsvF2bk_H7oYTvehuMSvPF5KVwz3mN51cI9GZSU9Sc_jggvUHhOTo7Y6tEY0OBe0AU2lAGhDcYSyNpktwU/s1600-h/burroughs+guayaquil2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323763933269239490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiltuP-Cl9K_oYR0OH3gWk8DQL4xXuW8sSfBC50HZvLyHb_wEp0Ix7FFZDiVfsvF2bk_H7oYTvehuMSvPF5KVwz3mN51cI9GZSU9Sc_jggvUHhOTo7Y6tEY0OBe0AU2lAGhDcYSyNpktwU/s400/burroughs+guayaquil2.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 303px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 288px;" /></a><br />
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Re-reading The Yage Letters I felt as if Burroughs never really <span style="font-weight: bold;">met anybody</span> beyond the foreigners (he despised) and his casual sexual encounters with young men (that kept on robbing him) It struck me that he never seemed to experience what is wonderful not just about Yaje, but also about South America.<br />
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<blockquote>
"When I started looking for Yage I was thinking along the line the medicine men have secrets the whites don´t know about. Most of these secrets turn out to be a con the Brujo puts down on the public so he can preserve a semblance of monopoly and everybody won't start brewing up the same mess in his own pot. Every Indian and most whites in the Amazon region from Colombia to Bolivia and on out to the Atlantic knows the Yage vine. The Brujos say they are the only ones competent to prepare it, two other secret plants must be cooked in the mixture, the Brujo has to croon over it and spit in it and shake a whisk broom over, otherwise the Yage is nowhere. And if a woman catches even a glimpse of these proceedings the Yage curdles on the spot and turns poison[ous]<br />
The fact is Yage is Yage and anyone can prepare it in an hour or he has enough of the Yage vine. [...] The final result is 2 ounces more or less of black oily liquid. That is a dangerously strong dose — half the lethal dose — but it is standard in that area and it would not occur to them to take less or to take amount slowly. Indians are like that. They have a set way of doing things which they consider of its nature immutable."</blockquote>
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It doesn´t occur the Burroughs that many people, knowing how to prepare ayahuasca, could choose not to do it by themselves, but do it instead under the care of a professional... <br />
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The first time Burroughs drinks he has a horrible time, distressed, he runs out of the maloca to throw up, he refuses the help of the curandero when it´s offered, and instead, he gulps down 5 <a href="http://www.medhelp.org/drugs/Nembutal/show/479">Nenbutals</a> to come down (these were the famous sleeping pills that Marylin Monroe used to kill herself.) After that Burroughs splits up from Schultes expedition, cooks his own batch of Ayahuasca and continues to drink by himself, as by now he believes that "the most inveterate drunk, liar and loafer of the village is invariably the medicine man" <br />
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Re-reading the Yage Letters I was constantly struck by the idea that Burroughs just didn´t get it, didn´t get South America, didn´t get Yage, didn´t get curanderismo. It´s as if he missed an entire set of experiences that will be familiar to most people who have spent some time in the Amazon drinking ayahuasca. I´m talking about simple things, such as experiencing the hospitality of strangers that turn into friends, and spending lazy evenings with them and their families... Nothing fancy or exotic, just basic human relations, which -in my own experience- can be one of the most rewarding things about traveling trough South America. <br />
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What Burroughs got out of Yage, many agree, was the basis of the "composite city" and the nightmarish worlds he'd later describe in the Naked Lunch.<br />
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<a href="http://www.lacoctelera.com/myfiles/sinreceta/burroughs%20ginsberg.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.lacoctelera.com/myfiles/sinreceta/burroughs%20ginsberg.bmp" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: center; height: 320px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 411px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">Burroughs and Gisnberg</span><br />
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7 years later poet Allen Ginsberg followed Burroughs footsteps in search of Yage. He traveled to Pucallpa, where he describes an experience that seems <span style="font-weight: bold;">much more familiar</span> to modern Ayahuasca drinkers. He drinks in group, where -in spite of having a hard time- he feels well taken care of. <br />
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<blockquote>
"Realization (over again) that the world is so illusory that what can be communicated, said, writ, in terms of human consciousness bears no relation to the Great Being who is complete in Itself and so perfect that no complaint need be made [.....] God cannot favor us over the mosquitoes without murdering & starving mosquitoes - So he lets us fight it out outside himself in chaos of Illusion, always retaining the Final Great Black Hole of Love to which we can return when we have been defeated or become tired of being separate individuals in creations [....]<br />
Had laid out for long time [....] & Ramon had got up & told me to wrap myself in his mantle to protect form mosquitoes. A very kind gesture, I felt he realized I too had climbed up thu the Nose of God into Being the Same as Ramon - that we were all one, and this was a kindly gesture (wrought from afar by god) to protect me in my as yet delicate individuality - Later I went in the house, where they were (4 of them having drunk) sensing a great feeling of communal fraternity & sharing of realization of Infinite Intimacy - one old fellow on a bench, an albañil, moved over & motioned me welcome to to join him next to him to sit down. I saw that in Pucallpa they had their own secret transcendental nosy society, underneath very humane, in huts"</blockquote>
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City Lights published The Yage Letters In 1963 (as well as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Miserable-Miracle-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590170016">Miserable Miracle</a>, -what a title!- about Heri Michaux Peyote experiences.) That same year (1963) the Merry Pranksters embarked of the famous bus tour. Up to that point the main book about entheogens had been <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Doors-Perception-Heaven-Perennial-Classics/dp/0060595183/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239532442&sr=1-1">The Doors of Peception</a> by Aldous Huxley about his mescaline experiences. <br />
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And whereas <a href="http://www.imaginaria.org/wasson/life.htm">Wasson 1957 Life article about magic mushrooms</a> sent seekers by the hundreds to the Oaxaca mountains, and Castaneda's 1972 books sent waves of hippies to the Yaqui and then (disappointed at the lack of entheogens) to the Huicholes. It seems like the number of anglo seekers who decided to search for Yage during the 60's/70's is so small as to be negligible (either that or they left almost no literature). My theory is that Burroughs' less-than-appealing tale overshadowed Ginsberg´s perhaps more "standard" account. Many people in the 60´s had heard of Ayahuasca (or Yage) but thanks to Burroughs they never felt like seeking it out. <br />
<br />
And who knows, seeing how things played out in Huatla for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Sabina">María Sabina</a> and her family, maybe it was better that way?<br />
<br />
<br />
UPDATE: here is the poem Ayahuasca by Ginsberg (1960) via <a href="http://www.earthrites.org/turfing/?p=8262">turfing</a><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
AYAHUASCA<br />
by Allen Ginsberg<br />
in my hotel room overlooking Desamparados’ Clanging Clock,<br />
with the french balcony doors closed, and luminescent fixture out<br />
“my room took on a near eastern aspect” that is I was reminded of Burroughs<br />
with heart beating—and the blue wall of Polynesian Whorehouse, and<br />
mirror framed in black as if in Black Bamboo-and wooden slated floor<br />
and I in my bed, waiting, and slowly drifting away<br />
but still thinking in my body till my body turned to passive wood<br />
and my soul rocked back & forth preparing to slide out on eternal journey<br />
backwards from my head in the dark<br />
An hour, realizing the possible change in consciousness<br />
that the Soul is independent of the body and its death<br />
and that the Soul is not Me, it is the wholly other “whisper of consciousness”<br />
from Above, Beyond, Afuera—<br />
till I realize it existed in all its splendor in the Ideal or Imaginary<br />
Toward which the me will travel when the body goes to the sands of Chancay<br />
And at last, lying in bed covered my body with a splendid robe of<br />
indian manycolors wool,<br />
I gazed up at the grey gate of Heaven with a foreign eye<br />
and yelled in my mind “Open up, for I am the Prince of eternity<br />
come back to myself after a long journey in chaos,<br />
open the Door of Heaven, My Soul, for I have come back to claim<br />
my Ancient House<br />
Let the Servants come forth to Welcome me and let Silent Harp make music<br />
and bring my apparel of Rainbow and Star show me my shoes of Light and<br />
my Pants of the Universe<br />
Spread forth my meal of myriad lives, My Soul, and Show up thy<br />
Face of Welcome<br />
For I am the one who has dwelled in the secret Temple before,<br />
and I have been man too long<br />
And now I want to Hear Music of Joy beyond Death,<br />
and now I am be who has waited to Welcome myself back Home<br />
The great stranger is Home in his House of Joy.”<br />
or words or thoughts or sensations & images to that effect.<br />
Thus for an instant the Sensation of this Eternal House passed thru my hair<br />
tho I couldn’t liberate my body from the bed to float away—<br />
tho did glimpse the foot of the thought of the gate of Heaven—<br />
Then opened my eyes and Saw the blast of light of the real universe<br />
when I opened the window and looked at the clock on the R R Station<br />
with its halfnaked man & woman with clubs, creators of time and chaos,<br />
and down on the street where pastry venders sold their poor sugar<br />
symbolic of Eternity, to Passerby-and great fat clanking beast of Trolley<br />
with its dumb animal look and croaking screech on the tracks<br />
Powered by electric life,, turned a corner of the Presidential Palace<br />
where Bolivar 200 years ago in time planted a secret everlasting Fig-tree<br />
and a fog from another life crept thru its own dimension<br />
Past the cornice of the hotel and travelled downward in the street<br />
To seek the river-had a bridge with little humans crossing, faraway<br />
—and up in the hills the silver gleam of sunlight on the horizon thru thick fog<br />
—and the Cerro San Christobal—with a cross atop and Casbah of poor<br />
consciousness ratted on its hip—<br />
and overall the vast blue flash & blast of open space<br />
the Sky of Time, empty as a big blue dream<br />
and as everlasting as the many eyes that lived to see it<br />
Time is the God, is the Face of the God,<br />
As in the monstrous image of the Ramondi Chavin Sculptured Stone Monument<br />
A cat head many eyed sharp toothed god face long as Time,<br />
with different eyes some upside down and 16 sets of faces<br />
all have fangs—the structure of one consciousness<br />
that waits upstairs to Devour man and all his universes<br />
—turn the picture upside down—the top eyes see more than the human bottom rows<br />
Indifferent, dopey, smiling, horrible, with Snakes & fangs—<br />
The huge gentle creature of the Cosmic joke<br />
that takes whatever form it can to Signify that it is the one that has come to its Home<br />
where all are invited to Enter in Secret eternally<br />
After they have been killed by the illusion of Impossible Death.<br />
Lima, Peru<br />
May 1960<br />
<br />
UPDATE 2: A great summary of Burroughs in Perú (in Spanish) <a href="http://reflexionesdelcono.lamula.pe/2012/01/27/un-viejo-yonqui-en-lima-william-burroughs-y-su-travesia-por-el-peru-en-busca-de-ayahuasca/fanodemar" target="_blank">here</a>Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-43426980414773633672009-03-22T17:02:00.004+01:002009-05-01T20:33:24.300+02:00The first ayahuasca documentary, narrated by Willam Burroughs?[Texto en español debajo del video]<br /><br />Drifting in YouTube I found this jewel below, a documentary about ayahuasca narrated by none other than William Burroughs. I had no idea this film existed, nor could I find any info about on the net. It's not mentioned by the all-knowing <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0123221/">imdb</a> or any of the numerous and extensive Burroughs bibliographies arround. <br /><br />Asking the Burroughs experts at <a href="http://realitystudio.org/">RealityStudio</a> I found out that the documentary was most likely directed by Rodrigo Salomon, director of the <a href="http://salomonarts.com/">Salomon Arts gallery</a>. I emailed to both Salomon Arts and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/catgroove">the person who posted the video in YouTube</a>, but got no answer. <br /><br /><a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2007/03/first-ayahuasca-documentary.html">I´ve written before</a> about Nora de Izcue, in 1971 she directed what I suspected was the first Ayahuasca documentary ever. When a friend of her who read the post contacted me I got to meet Nora. On my next trip to Perú, I interviewed her in her house in Lima. She was a delightful host and a most interesting woman. It was one of those times I was really glad to write a blog. <br /><br />I suspect, however, that this documentary might be older, making it <span style="font-weight:bold;">the first Ayahausca documentary</span> (!) Many questions remain unanswered: What year it was filmed? By whom? Where in Colombia? How did it came to be? Was it ever released? etc. There seem to be no records of it. It´s as if the film just materialized after sitting in a can for the past 40 years, so I suspect there must be an interesting story behind it. I will keep you posted if I find anything else.<br /> <br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZQvNDQ6jSPU&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZQvNDQ6jSPU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Navegando a la deriva en YouTube encontré esta joya, un documental sobre ayahuasca narrado nada menos que por William Burroughs. No tenía ni idea de que esta película existiera, tampoco fui capaz de encontrar referencia alguna en Internet. IMDB, que lo sabe todo, no la menciona, ni tampoco las numerosas, y completísimas, bibliografías de Burroughs que hay. <br /><br />Preguntando a los expertos en <a href="http://realitystudio.org/">RealityStudio</a> supe que, probablemente, el documental fue dirigido por Rodrigo Salomon, director de la Galería <a href="http://salomonarts.com/">Salomon Arts</a> en Nueva York. Escribí emails a Salomon Arts, así como a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/catgroove">la persona que subió el vídeo a YoutTube</a>. Ninguno respondió.<br /><br /><a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2007/03/first-ayahuasca-documentary.html">Hace algún tiempo escribí</a> sobre Nora de Izcue. En 1971 dirigió lo que yo supuse era el primer documental sobre ayahuasca de la historia. Una amiga suya leyó el post y me contactó. Meses después pude conocer a Nora en persona y grabar una entrevista en su casa en Lima. Fue una tarde muy agradable con una persona fascinante, y una de esas veces que uno se alegra de molestarse en escribir un blog. <br /><br />Sin embargo sospecho que este documental puede ser más antiguo, quizás <span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">el primer documental sobre ayahuasca de la historia</span></span>. Quedan aún muchas preguntas por responder. ¿Qué año se grabó? ¿Por qué? ¿En qué zona de Colombia? ¿Por qué no existen registros de su existencia? Es como si el documental hubiera estado oculto en un cajón durante 40 años, así que sospecho que detrás debe haber una historia interesante...Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-38005501690446443842009-01-25T18:07:00.006+01:002009-05-01T20:37:34.017+02:00Huni Kuin, Ayahuasca & Santo Daime(texto en español debajo del video)<br /><br />In my very <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2007/03/new-book-on-ayahuasca.html">first post</a> in this blog I talked about the great distance that separates Brazilian drinkers from the vegetalista and curandero traditions at the origin their of ayahuasca use. Generally speaking vegetalistas in Perú, Ecuador, Colombia, etc know nothing about the ayahuasca churches, and vice versa. This seems to be slowly changing, starting in the very area where the two traditions began to separate, in Acre, where the Santo Daime was founded. <br /><br />Here´s the information I've picked here and there:<br /><br />1 - A quote from a recent discussion in a mailing list I suscribe to (<a href="http://br.groups.yahoo.com/group/pesquisadores_da_ayahuasca/">pesquisadores da ayahuasca</a>)<br /><blockquote>For your information, today there is, al least, one village where pajé Ninawá --in addition to his traditional shamanic practice (pajelanças)--- leads travalhos in a salon (Daime works) with farda (Daime uniform) and guitar, singuing hymms in portuguese and in his language. This village is in Rio Jordao (Huni Kuin reserve)</blockquote><br /><br />2 - This <a href="http://txanauri.blogspot.com/">blog</a>, tells of the visits of a Huni Kuin (the tribe is also known as Kaxinawa, but for them this is a derrogatory term) Pajé to several Santo Daime centers, including Alto Santo, as well as the UDV. Courtesy of <a href="http://karipuna.blogspot.com/">Eduardo Bayer</a>. <br /><br />3 - Here´s <a href="http://www.bialabate.net/news/lancado-livro-sobre-escola-bilingue-kaxinawa">a book about a bilingual school among the Huni Kuin</a> in the <a href="http://maps.google.es/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=es&geocode=&q=Rio+Humait%C3%A1,+acre,+brazil&sll=-22.953248,-43.201348&sspn=0.02952,0.038624&g=Rio+Humait%C3%A1&ie=UTF8&ll=-8.529417,-72.504272&spn=2.028908,2.471924&t=h&z=9">river Humaitá</a>. In the introduction Bia Labate says <blockquote>"[the book] also talks about the entrance of the Santo Daime in the village, in a "re-indigenised" version (BTW as many might know, its been some years since the Huni Kuin began to leave their villages to promote ayahuasca sessions in large urban centers such as Jio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo -- This expansion is altering a bit the simbolic cartography of the brazilian ayahuasca field as well as its notions of "authenticity" and "tradition" since the Huni Kuin reivindicate the ancestral origin of their ayahuasca use to those urban audiences" </blockquote><br /><br />4 - <a href="http://www.renarg.org/kaxinawa/default.asp">Here's the blog</a> of another Huni Kuin pajé, living in Sao Paulo, on the sidebar you cand find recordings of quite interesting Huni Kuin ayahuasca songs. <br /><br />5 - Here´s a part of a documentary about Huni Kuin ayahuasca songs (Fantastics stuff! Shot by the NGO <a href="http://www.videonasaldeias.org.br/2009/index.php?">Video nas Aldeias</a>. You can see the the whole documentary or download a high quality copy <a href="http://www.kinooikos.com/acervo/videos/112/">here</a>). On this clip they are gathering "monkey ayahuasca" "first it brings a yellow light" <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1ATQlwzK3-I&hl=es&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1ATQlwzK3-I&hl=es&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />6 - In this school they are relearning the tradions that they had to forget as seringueiros. The teacher says "you´ve learned to read, now you must learn to dance"<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QsnSohQ9_3o&hl=es&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QsnSohQ9_3o&hl=es&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />(texto español)<br /><br />El primer vídeo es parte de un documental sobre las canciones de ayahuasca de los Huni Kuin (se puede ver entero, o descargar, <a href="http://www.kinooikos.com/acervo/videos/112/">aqui</a>). El segundo vídeo es de un escuela Huni Kuin donde enseñan "lo que tuvieron que olvidar al trabajar como seringueiros." El profesor dice "ya has aprendido a leer, ahora debes aprender a bailar" <br /><br />En el <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/2007/03/new-book-on-ayahuasca.html">mi primer post</a> en este blog (en inglés) hablaba de la distancia que separa los bebedores de ayahuasca Brasileños de las tradiciones vegetalista y curanderil en el origen de uso de la ayahuasca. En general los vegetalistas en Perú, Ecuador, Colombia, etc. no saben nada de las iglesias de la ayahuasca, y vice versa. Parece esto va cambiando poco a poco, y está comenzado en el estado de Acre (brazil), el mismo lugar donde las dos tradiciones comenzaron a separarse.<br /><br />Un resumen de la información que he ido encontrando:<br /> <br />1 - Una cita de una lista de correo (<a href="http://br.groups.yahoo.com/group/pesquisadores_da_ayahuasca/">pesquisadores da ayahuasca</a>) en la que participo<br /><blockquote>"Para tu información, hoy existe por lo menos una aldea donde un pajé dirige -además de sus practicas shamanicas tradicionales- trabajos dentro de una sala (estilo Santo Daime), con farda (uniforme del Daime) y guitarra, cantando himnos en portugués y en su lengua. Esta aldea se encuentra en Rio Jordao" (reserva natural Kaxianawa)</blockquote><br /><br />2 - Este <a href="http://txanauri.blogspot.com/">blog</a>, describe las visitas de un pajé (chamán) Huni Kuin (el termino Kaxinawa se considera derrogatorio) a varios centros del Santo Daime, incluido Alto Santo, así com al UDV. Via <a href="http://karipuna.blogspot.com/">Eduardo Bayer</a>. <br /><br />3 - Aquí <a href="http://www.bialabate.net/news/lancado-livro-sobre-escola-bilingue-kaxinawa">un libro sobre los Huni Kuin</a> del <a href="http://maps.google.es/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=es&geocode=&q=Rio+Humait%C3%A1,+acre,+brazil&sll=-22.953248,-43.201348&sspn=0.02952,0.038624&g=Rio+Humait%C3%A1&ie=UTF8&ll=-8.529417,-72.504272&spn=2.028908,2.471924&t=h&z=9">rio Humaitá</a>. En la introducción Bia Labate dice:<br /><blockquote>"[el libro] también habla del tema de la ayahuasca, narrando un poco la entrada del Santo Daime, en un a versión "reindigenizada" (Por cierto, hace algunos años que los indios Huin Kuin comenzaron a salir de sus aldeas para promover sesiones de ayahuasca en grandes centros urbano como Rio de Janeiro y Sao Paulo -- esta expansión está alterando un poco la cartografía simbólica del campo ayahuasquero brasileño, y sus nociones de "autenticidad" y "tradición", ya que los Huni Kuin reivindican junto a este público urbano la ancestralidad de su consumo de ayahuasca.)"</blockquote><br /><br />4 - <a href="http://www.renarg.org/kaxinawa/default.asp">Aquí está el blog</a> de otro pajé Huni Kuin, que vive en Sao Paulo. En el lateral de la página hay algunas grabaciones muy interesantes de cantos de ayahuasca Huni Kuin.Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-7841657664092531582009-01-06T19:04:00.006+01:002009-01-25T19:44:51.533+01:00Somos bilingues - Now in 2 languages(second paragraph in English) <br /><br />Durante un tiempo pensé en hacer un <a href="http://ayadocu.blogspot.com/">blog separado en español</a>, pero nunca empiezo, así que he decidido juntarlo todo, al estilo de mi admirado <a href="http://www.bialabate.net/">Alto das Estrelas</a>. Aquí los <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/search/label/inenglish">post en inglés</a>, <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/search/label/enespanol">aquí en español</a><br /><br />For a while I though of having a <a href="http://ayadocu.blogspot.com/">separate blog</a> for all the stuff I was too lazy to translate, but I decided against it. It will all be together. Here are the post <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/search/label/inenglish">in English</a>, <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/search/label/enespanol">here in Spansih</a>Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-20866152672258966912009-01-02T22:03:00.005+01:002009-01-06T19:16:56.984+01:00El descubrimiento de la Ayahuasca por occidenteLos occidentales obviamente no "descubrimos" la Ayahuasca. Todo lo contrario ;-). En <a href="http://www.lablaa.org/bibliotecavirtual.htm">biblioteca virtual Luis Ángel Arango en Colombia</a> hay un excelente resumen de la historia de cómo nos enteramos de su existencia. Sirva de primer post en español para el blog.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">"MALPIGHIÁCEAS</span><br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">196 -- |Banisteriopsis spp..</span><br /><br /> |Yajé, yojé y variantes, en las partes media y alta de los afluentes del Amazonas, del Caquetá, al Marañón.<br /><br /> |Cabí, capí o |caapi, en el Amazonas brasileño (Duche, 1946, 5, 6). La última forma sería puramente literaria, y no usada por la gente de la región que nunca duplica la a (Ducke, 1958, 4-5). |Kapij pertenecería al dialecto tariana (Barbosa Rodrigues, 1893, 54).<br /><br /> |Natema, en jíbaro (véase adelante).<br /><br /> |Ayahuasca; ayawáskha; hayahuasca; hayaguasca; hayacwaska, del quechua. En los cuatro primeros casos equivaldría a |bejuco de muerto; en el último, a |bejuco amargo, que parece ser lo más acertado (Tessmann, 1930, 242; Espinosa Pérez, 1935, 186; -----, 1955, I, 453; Lira, 1945, 75; 237-238).<br /><br /> |Nepi, nepe, en campaz o colorado (costa ecuatoriana) (Jijón y Caamaño, 1941, II, 156, 254). Quizá de aquí se ha derivado |dapa, nombre que le dan a dicho bejuco los cholos del |Saija, en la costa colombiana.<br /><br /> |Pildé, pindé, en la costa del Pacífico de Colombia y en parte de la del Ecuador (véase adelante).<br /><br /> Otros nombres indígenas abajo.<br /><br />El misionero franciscano Laureano Montesdeoca de la Cruz, en el relato (1647) de un viaje suyo a 1 a comarca que habitaban los indios encabellados, o sea en el Napo abajo de la confluen cia del Aguarico, viaje realizado en 1637, anota: "Aunque beben de sus vinos y de unas aguas que cuecen de unas raíces, no se embriagan, ni tal cosa vimos en el tiempo que allí estuvimos" (Compte, 1885, I, 159; Montesdeoca, 1942, 14).<br /><br />El jesuíta Juan Lorenzo Lucero, en una carta en que relata sus aventuras y observaciones durante una entrada hecha al país de los jíbaros en 1682, se extiende sobre la manera como actuaban los brujos o piaches, elementos que más enemistad y oposición despertaban entre los misioneros. Señala que tenían chozas apartadas donde, para el ejercicio de su actividad, usaban varias prácticas, una de las cuales consistía en "beber el zumo de varias yerbas, cuyo natural efecto es embriagar al hombre con tanto vahído de cabeza, que está del todo y tan por los suelos, que bien se le hace la humildad de la ermita en que vive, adora y consulta al que tiene por trono, en pena de su soberbia, la yerta calavera de un embaidor" (J. de la Espada, 1889, Mar., 626). Enrevesada noticia que --si bien puede aplicarse a |Datura (véase) --no excluye a |Banisteriopsis. El cofrade de Lucero, Juan Magnin, en 1740, sí menciona taxativamente la AYAHUASSA (así) entre los remedios usados por los maynas, sin concederle particular atención (Magnin: RI, 1940, I, 164).<br /><br />Pero su contemporáneo y cofrade Pablo Maroni, quien escribía en 1737, hablando también de los piaches o brujos, es más concreto: "Para adivinar, usan beber el zumo [del borrachero, nu meral 209J...; otros de un bejuco que se llama vulgarmente AYAHUASCA, ambos muy eficaces para privar de los sentidos, y aun de la vida, cargando la mano (Deste usan también a veces para curarse de enfermedades habituales, principalmente los dolores de cabeza). Bébele, pues, el que quiere adivinar, con ciertas ceremonias, y estando privado de los sentidos boca abajo, para que no lo ahogue la fuerza de la hierba, se está así muchas horas y a veces aun los dos y tres días, hasta que haga su curso y se acabe la embriaguez". En seguida describe los resultados obtenidos (J. de la Espada, 1889, Mar., 125-126). Como se ve, Maroni mezcla los síntomas de la embriaguez producida por las dos plantas de que ha hablado, el |Datura y el ayahuasca.<br /><br />No siempre los datos de la época colonial son tan concretos. El jesuíta Manuel de Uriarte, en una carta escrita el 4 de noviembre de 1754 a su hermana María Francisca, de la orden de Santo Domingo, a Vitoria, España, le dice a propósito de los indígenas que vivían en Tururí, río Coca, tres días abajo de la confluencia con el Napo: "nunca se emborrachan del todo [con sus bebidas fermentadas de yuca y plátano], aunque beben tanto, sino con una raíz o corteza que llaman Yoco, que toman cuando quieren matar a alguno" (Jesuítas, 1942, Bog., 66). Es evidente que este dato debe atribuirse al YAGÉ y no al Yoco (véase numeral 199), que es estimulante y no narcótico. Nótese de paso la similitud de la observación con la del franciscano Montesdeoca de la Cruz citada en primer término, más de un siglo anterior. En otra obra del mismo Uriarte, en una referencia correspondiente a 1753, se habla del "cocó, una raíz motora de borracheras" (Uriarte, 1952, I, 89). Un cofrade contemporáneo menciona también el uso del HAYAC HUASCA por las tribus del Marañón (Veigl: Murr, 1785, 189; -----, 1789, 11 (XVII), 55-56; 138).<br /><br />Esto no es extraño, pues en tiempos más recientes, la palabra YAGÉ ha sido confundida con otras similares, bien por diferencias dialectales de acuerdo con el lugar en que se hizo la observación, bien por la distinta notación fonética de los autores, o ya por errores de transcripción o de imprenta. Muchas veces viajeros apresurados --especialmente del grupo de los sensacionalistas --anotan informes suministrados a la ligera, sin tener oportunidad de observar por sí mismos las costumbres.<br /><br />Bajo el nombre de YOJÉ menciona el cura José María Albis, quien en 1854 hizo un viaje por los ríos Mecaya, Senseya y Caneaya, afluentes del Caquetá, donde moraban los macaguajes, un bejuco con el cual los brujos o piaches hacían una infusión para tomar por costumbre, cuyos efectos eran similares a los de la tonga o borrachero: "i a favor del alucinamiento producido por este magnetismo vegetal, creen ver cosas desconocidas i adivinan el porvenir". Pero con este bejuco considerado venenoso, tomado en infusión en pequeñas cantidades, se curaban los dolores de huesos (Albis: POPAYAN, 1936, 31; 32).<br /><br />Más lamentable, por la época, es la confusión en que incurrió Rafael Reyes. En el relato de su primera exploración de Pasto al Amazonas (1901?) consigna que en Putumayo los pagés o brujos indígenas se embriagaban con el jugo de una planta narcótica llamada Yoco (Reyes, 1920, 455; Castellví: CILEAC, 1946-1950, IV, 24-27).<br /><br />Las noticias de los misioneros franciscanos y jesuítas, así como el informe de Albis, tuvieron poca difusión. No aparecen detalles en esta época, anterior a la mitad del siglo XIX, sobre el procedimiento seguido por los indígenas para preparar la bebida alucinatoria. El carácter ritual o supersticioso del uso, confinado a ciertas circunstancias de la vida o a ciertos elementos del conglomerado social (los brujos en primer término); la misma índole semimdgica de las alucinaciones o visiones producidas, todo conspiraba para que la costumbre no pudiera ser cabalmente sabida y entendida por los blancos, sacerdotes o laicos. Qué mucho, si todavía ahora no se conocen exactamente ni la identidad botánica de algunas de las plantas que se han solido denominar con el nombre de yagé, ni se sabe si se le mezclan a la preparación otras sustancias.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8NjUAhlC2cJB3wMPjMuJyQJTsjRBxZ0De6vcV32Z88PkxARX7ec0TkZMNUYyZKt5cdY1NVqJ9xdQ9g30q9yxD340V2jUHCJx-Rrvdyj7fEUhgpjtsCEdxmxjX2d4-Q23VJYhMQWo54kM/s1600-h/323_g.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8NjUAhlC2cJB3wMPjMuJyQJTsjRBxZ0De6vcV32Z88PkxARX7ec0TkZMNUYyZKt5cdY1NVqJ9xdQ9g30q9yxD340V2jUHCJx-Rrvdyj7fEUhgpjtsCEdxmxjX2d4-Q23VJYhMQWo54kM/s400/323_g.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288241867676610258" /></a><br /><br />Casi simultáneamente, varios viajeros en el área amazónica al promediar el siglo XIX, dieron informes sobre el uso de esta planta alucinatoria. Uno fue el mencionado cura José María Albis (véase atrás). En la cuenca del río Negro, y concretamente en- el Vaupés, lo observaron con. diferencia de pocos meses en 1851-1852 dos científicos ingleses (Wallace, 1939, 381-382; 620-621; Spruce, 1908, 1, 325, 332; 11, 414-425).<br /><br />El geógrafo Villavicencio y el mismo Spruce observaron la costumbre en el orienie ecuatoriano, el primero entre los záparos, santa-marías, mazares y anguteros (Villavicencio, 1858, 371-373), y el segundo en el área entre el Ucayali y el Marañón por el flanco cordillerano.<br /><br />Hasta donde puede saberse por los escasos datos seguros que hay sobre la materia, el uso del yajé obedeció a variaciones locales, según las tribus. Parece que en la mayoría de ellas sólo les era permitido a los pioches y a los adultos en ciertas circunstancias, vedándose a las mueres y a los niños (Villavicencio, op. cit., 373). Los cocamos que hasta hace pocos años tomaban JAÚMA, pues así le llaman, lo hacían antes como preparativo de expediciones guerreras, con participación en la bebida de todos los varones, "aun los jóvenes y muchachos de alguna edad" (Espinosa, 1935, 136-137). Este mismo autor dice haber observado la costumbre entre los piojés del Napo en forma colectiva, "con el aparato y misterio de un acto social de culto" (Ibid., 148).<br /><br />Los estudios más completos sobre el uso del yagé, por testigos presenciales de la preparación y de los efectos, durante un tiempo suficientemente prolongado para que sus observaciones tengan cierta garantía de certeza, son los de Reinburg (1921) y de Rafael Karsten (1912-1918; 1935). Como el primero hace énfasis en los efectos producidos, se discutirá adelante.<br /><br />Para los jíbaros del Ecuador el NATEMA es planta mágica, así como la bebida que con ella se prepara (Karsten, 1935, 115; 381); lo mismo que para los canelos (Ibid., 391). Como tal, sólo los hombres la preparan, así como otras bebidas en que entran sustancias narcóticas (véase numeral 209) (Ibid., 115). En ocasiones especiales, la parafernalia se matiza con otras prácticas concomitantes, como tocar cierta clase de instrumentos musicales (lbid., 111, 437-438), o asociar la bebida con la pintura facial a base de achiote, que refuerza la protección (Ibid., 437) (véase capítulo XVI). A veces una estaca de yuca colocada en las vasijas en que se hierven el natema y el Datura, obra como talismán estimulante de la virtud de ambas bebidas y del tabaco (Ibid., 344). Las interdicciones y restricciones que se imponen los hombres para plantar el natema, pues a fuer de vegetal masculino sólo a ellos compete la siembra, forman parte del ambiente mágico que rodea ala planta; una de tales restricciones es la del comercio sexual (Ibid., 142, 217).<br /><br />Participan en la bebida ambos sexos, pero en diferentes circunstancias de tiempo y Iugar Entre los hombres, el curandero toma yapé para prepararse cuando necesita conocer la enfermedad que aqueja a alguno y los medios de combatirla (Ibid., 436); cuando quiere conocer cómo debe defenderse de sus rivales de oficio o de sus enemigos; a simplemente para hechizar a alguno (Ibid., 437-438, 406-407). Asimismo, cuando el curandero se inicia en el oficio, en las ceremonias de investimiento, que duran varios días, bebe tabaco y natema cotidianamente (Ibid., 400, 404).<br /><br />Los varones de la tribu, especialmente los guerreros, ingieren natema antes de expediciones de guerra o represalia, para saber qué suerte han de correr en ellas (Ibid., 260). Otra ocasión es la de la fiesta de la victoria.<br /><br />Las mujeres la toman especialmente durante las ceremonias agrarias, supuesto que ellas son las sembradoras de plantas hembras, como la yuca, el maní y otras (Ibid., 125, 128; 435-436).<br /><br />En el segundo día de la fiesta de la victoria, que por eso se llama natemá-umartinyu = bebezón de natema, todos los asistentes toman la bebida (Ibid., 343-346).<br /><br />En la fiesta que dedican a los perros, les hacen tomar el yapé incluso a estos animales (Ibid., 170).<br /><br />También varía la manera de preparar la bebida, de acuerda con el f in específico con que va a ser usada. Para la mencionada fiesta de la bebezón, sólo se hierven los componentes durante una hora. Todos, aún los muchachos, beben, esta vez en vasijas ornamentadas, hasta medio litro; vomitan, pues al principio obra como emétfco, y vuelven a tomar y vomitar por tres veces (Ibid., 345, 435-436, 438). Luego salen a soñar en ranchos separados de la casa (Ibid., 345-346).<br /><br />Para ejercer su f unción de curandero, el piache toma yapé que ha hervido un día entero (Ibid., 413, 436), a fuego lento. Primero bebe, de noche, un poco de tabaco, invocando al espíritu de esta planta, y luego, el natema de un tirón (Ibid., 413-414); repite éste hasta cuatro veces, pues el objetivo es intoxicarse, provocando un estado de excitación durante el cual danza, y en el sueño que sigue puede conocer la causa de la enfermedad que debe curar (Ibid., 417, 418).<br /><br />Asimismo, parece que hay diferencia si la parte utilizada es simplemente eI tallo o sólo la porción basal de éste; cercana a las raíces (Ibid., 343, 344; 433). Esto aclara algunas de las informaciones de misioneros, que se refieren a la "raíz".<br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Medicina.</span><br /><br />La mayor parte de los que han escrito sobre yapé, se refieren solamente a las propiedades narcóticas y alucinantes de la bebida. Como siempre, las cos lumbres indígenas son mucho más complejas de lo que se suele suponer. El yagé se usa también como medicina, principalmente como vomitivo (Karsten, 1935, 345; 433; 436; 508), pero también contra las fiebres, en este caso mezclado con tabaco (Ibid., 507). Ya se dijo que los macaguajes a mediados del siglo XIX lo usaban para curar "dolores de huesos" (Albis, 1936, 32). Era la principal medicina al pie de los Andes (Spruce, 1908, II, 438). A un viajero le informaron en Umbría, Putumayo, que el yagé sólo, se usaba para malaria con resultados seguros (Morton, 1931, 488). Otros informes sobre este aspecto se dieron atrás (Maroni: J. de la Espada, 1889, Mar., 125-126).<br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Composición</span>.<br /><br />Fueron investigadores colombianos los que primero estudiaron la composición química del yagé, desde principios del presente siglo. Los nombres de Zerda Bayón, Barriga Villalba y Fisher Cár denas están vinculados a esta empresa. Posteriormente, científicos de otros países han ensanchado el conocimiento sobre este alucinógeno. Se ha llegado a saber que la yageína es la misma harmina que se halla en otras plantas del Viejo Mundo, especialmente la |Peganum harmala L., de las Zigofiláceas, llamada ALHARMA en España (Font Quer, 1962, 423-424).<br /><br />La dificultad de obtener material botánico completo y suficiente cantidad de tallos, hojas y raíces para análisis, ha demorado la identificación del completo de plantas que se conocen bajo el nombre general de yapé, y el estudio de sus componentes. Pero se va definiendo ahora que hay por Io menos dos principios diferentes, de acuerdo con la clase de planta usada. El yagé común y corriente, cultivado, que puede ser |Baniseriopsís inebríans Morton (Cuatrecasas, 1958, 511-512), o aun |B. caapí (Spruce) Morton (Ibid., 506-511), contendría harmina I y huellas de otro alcaloide que podría ser harmalina o methoxy-6-N-dimetyltryptamina; mientras que |B. rusbyana (Niedz.) Morton (Cuatrecasas, op. cit., 494), colectado como YAGEÚCO ú OCOYAGÉ (véase adelante), contendría una sola base, identificada como N-dimetyltryptamina II, señalada previamente en granas de varias especies de |Anadenanthera, que son también narcóticas (Poisson, 1965, 242; Friedberg, 1965, 421). Los efectos de estos distintos alcaloides son asimismo diferentes (Friedberg, op. cit., 432). Al mencionado en último lugar se le ha atribuido que produce lá visión azul (Morton, 1931, 487).<br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Cultivo.</span><br /><br />El yagé es otro ejemplo de planta que mantiene en la misma área de origen la condición de silvestre y de cultivada. En repetidas ocasiones a lo largo de esta obra, con otras especies ame ricanas, se há llamado la atención sobre tal circunstancia y se ha tratado de explicarla.<br /><br />En 1852, el botánico Spruce halló matas cultivadas aquí y allá, en las cercanías de la casa que habitaba el cacique tarianá Calixto, de Yavareté, en el Río Negro, donde es ahora lá frontera de Colombia-Venezuela y Brasil (Spruce, 1908, I, 325).<br /><br />En 1920 los záparos de San Antonio de Curaray mantenían plantas de yagé sembradas cerca de sus viviendas (Reinburg: JSAP, 1921, XIII, 31; Pardal, 1937? 314).<br /><br />Por esta misma época se conocía yagé sembrado en el río Cajambre y quizá en el Naya, costa del Pacífico del Valle del Cauca, de donde se llevaron matas para propagar en Cali (Rojas BEV, 1925, 95 y sigtes.). En la región del Naya se distinguen por la gente dos clases: "pildé negro", que sería el más efectivo, y "pildé blanco" (Información de Miguel Santos Mosquera). También del Caqueté se llevaron por esa época estacas y plantas a Cali (Rojas, op. cit., 103); luego lo había plantado allá, como se demuestra por otras fuentes (USNH: Pérez Arbeláez, 639, 1930, "yajé", Florencia; Hammerman: RBA, 1930, X, 602: Getucha).<br /><br />Quizá como un relicto de las introducciones hechas a Cali, se colectó en 1942 en lá hacienda "Valparaíso", de Tuluá, por Cuatrecasas y Dryander, la muestra 14372: "bejuco cultivado, procedente del Caquetá" (USNH). De este material se llevó al bajo Calima en 1946 (Patiño, 1947, 22).<br /><br />Hay que advertir también que del material llevado a Cali por 1923-1930, unas veces obtenido en la costa del Pacífico, otras en el Caquetá y otras en el Putumayo vía Nariño (Rojas, op. cit.), se envió parte a Francia y a Bélgica para estudios científicos. Una de estas muestras está mencionada en la literatura (Gagnepain RBA, 1930, X, 293), _Y en reciente publicación ha sido dada equivocadamente como del Cauca, Ecuador (Friedberg, 1965, 418).<br /><br />El botánico Ducke cuenta que en 1929 obtuvo estacas de capí en una casa indígena donde lo tenían plantado, en el río Caricuriarí, afluente del Río Negro; primero las plantó en el Campo Experimental de Cachoeira Grande, suburbios de Mancos, y de allí llevó material al Jardín Botánico de Río de Janeiro en 1930 (Ducke, 1958, 1-2; USNH: Ducke, 153, 1936, "caapí", Manaos). En 1931, consiguió otras estacas de "ayahuasca" en Loreto, Perú, que también fueron llevadas posteriormente a Rio (Ibid., 1958, 2). Se cultiva cerca de Mancos, y más raramente en Belem del Pará (Ibid., 4).<br /><br />Hay informes de un tipo de yapé cultivado en la parte limítrofe de Colombia y Perú en el Putumayo (Morton, 1931, 487; USNH: E. P. Killip y A. C. Smith 29486, 1929, "ayahuasca", San Antonio, río Itaya, Loreto; -----, 29825, 1929, "ayahuasca", Iquitos).<br /><br />Entre 1914-1918 se conocían plantas de natema cultivadas por los jíbaros del oriente ecuatoriano (Karsten, 1935, 437). Queda dicho cómo, siendo una planta mágica considerada masculina, la siembran sólo los hombres, sometiéndose a un ritual complicado (Ibid., 124, 142; 217).<br /><br />Con antecedencia se ha señalado el cultivo entre los colorados y cayapas de la costa ecuatoriana (Karsten, op. cit., 433). La botánica Inés Mejía colectó en 1934 la muestra 6636, de "nepe, ayahuasca", en la hacienda Santa María, del cantón Vinces, provincia de Los Ríos, Ecuador (USNH). Debió ser de esta zona donde los andariegos indígenas chocoes introdujeron un tipo de DAPA o PILDÉ a Ios ríos Sana y Naya y al Chocó, donde las referencias lo han señalado de tiempo en tiempo.<br /><br />Los cofanes han cultivado yapé en el Putumayo y en su afluente el Sucumbíos, que constituye frontera entre Colombia y el Ecuador (USNH: Cuatrecasas 10599, 1940, "yapé", Puerto Porvenir, arriba de Puerto Ospina hacia La Loma; -----, 11061, 1940, río San Miguel, entre afluentes Bermeja y Conejo", "yajé").<br /><br />Hernando García Barriga colectó la muestra 1441 S en 1952, con estos datos: "cají-idirekai" (makuna); "yapé", "kapi" (yukuna), en el río Apaporis, sitio Jino-Gojé, entre los ríos Piraparaná y Popeyacá (Amazonia-Vaupés ((USNH: Schultes, 1960, 173).<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/historia/pad/images/33f_pad.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 285px; height: 400px;" src="http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/historia/pad/images/33f_pad.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/exhibiciones/america_exotica/obras/monte_virgen.htm">imagen original</a><br /><br /><br />FIG. 33. |Banisteriopsis caapi (Spruce) Morton. Una de las plantas de "yagé". a), ramas con flor y fruto (x1/2); b), flor desprovista de periamo (x5); e.), gineceo (x5); d), detalle del ápice del estilo (x20). Reproducido de Cuatrecasas, 1958, pp. 508-509.<br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Varios.</span><br /><br />En un principio se ha creído que el yapé se obtenía de una sola especie de planta, más bien vaga e indeterminada. A medida que se ha avanzado en el conocimiento del escenario geográfico y de las costumbres indígenas, se ha ido haciendo evidente que varias plantas se utilizan en el área amazónica para preparar una bebida narcótica, con la característica de suscitar clarividencia o anticipación de acontecimientos. Todavía ni la identidad botánica de algunas es conocida; pero ya se ha hablado de efectos diferentes o complementarios, según la especie utilizada o las plantas con que se haga mezcla.<br /><br />De estas, es un poco mejor conocida -aunque no del todola clasificada como |Banisteriopsis rusbyana, que ya se sospechó fuera la que produce el color azul en las visiones, y se denomina en cierta área del Putumayo como OCO-YAGÉ O CHAGRO-PANGA (Morton, 1931, 487; USNH: C. Klug, 1971, 1931, Umbría, Putumayo). Con el nombre de YAGEúCO la colectó Cuatrecasas (N° 10597) en 1940, cultivada por los cofanes en Puerto Porvenir, arriba de Puerto Ospina, hacia La Loma, también en el Putumayo (USNH). Las hojas se adicionan al yagé para preparar la bebida. Nótese de paso la semejanza de los nombres OCO-YAGÉ y YAGEúCO, pues sólo hay unn trasposición de prefijos.<br /><br />Quizá no otra cosa es el IAHI que le mezclaban los jíbaros al natema, cuando de hacer una curación se trataba (Karsten, 1935, 413). Pero del mismo yagé los canelos distinguen tres clases puma-ayahuasca, ahuiringri ayahuasca y tunchi ayahuasca; esta última es la especialmente usada por los brujos (Ibid., nota 432). Por desgracia, estas informaciones no fueron acompañadas con las colecciones botánicas pertinentes, y así, no se conoce su identidad.<br /><br />También usan mezcla los sibundoyes, que obtienen el material necesario para hacerla, en las partes cálidas adyacentes, y llaman BIAJÚ o BIAJA a la bebida (Bristol: BML, 1966, 21, N° 5 113-140; 120, 129).<br /><br />Pocas noticias fidedignas hay sobre el PILDÉ que habrían usado los chocoes de la costa colombiana del Pacífico (Wassén, 1935, 101-102). Cuando el autor llevó tallos del yagé cultivado en el Valle del Cauca, a la Estación Agroforestal del Calima, Buenaventura, en 1945-46 (Pestiño, 1947, 22), se le informó que esa planta era conocida por los "cholos" con los nombres de PILDÉ O PINDÉ. Mientras se revisaban los originales de este volumen, el autor tuvo oportunidad de entrar en contacto con indígenas choco es del río Saija, entre los cuales la planta es cultivada y parcialmente usada, bajo el nombre de DADA. Esos informes condujeron al hallazgo, con carácter espontáneo, de un |Banisteriopsis sp. en la cuenca del río Daqua, Valle del Cauca, que a veces se usa como narcótico."<br /></blockquote><br /> <br />copiado de <a href="http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/historia/pad/pad3c.htm">aqui</a><br /><br />Para los que estén insteresados en los nombres por los que las distintas culturas amazónicas llamaba a la ayahuasca, Doctorcito hizo un magnifico (y docto) resumen <a href="http://doctorcito-ayahuasca.blogspot.com/">aquí</a>Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-24352490147166347892008-12-06T22:26:00.014+01:002011-12-19T04:43:48.716+01:00Ayahuasca and Cumbia Amazónica<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3CJ184y2ZmWnSP7arFXsH5D454MUHn8VW0diQeojf8aSeUh3-vSEwR1EOLXQwcbQ3pUF6qtP47D32W2tZ879pRR9dPgAzbJXSf9yS_sCcG1eXlV4Qvj-QmHN8BfpyJ8cK-l2fL7wIbCpg/s320/Juaneco+I.png"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3CJ184y2ZmWnSP7arFXsH5D454MUHn8VW0diQeojf8aSeUh3-vSEwR1EOLXQwcbQ3pUF6qtP47D32W2tZ879pRR9dPgAzbJXSf9yS_sCcG1eXlV4Qvj-QmHN8BfpyJ8cK-l2fL7wIbCpg/s320/Juaneco+I.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 241px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a>Perhaps one of the most peculiar <span style="font-weight: bold;">Ayahuasca songs</span> is <span style="font-style: italic;">Vacilando con Ayahuasca</span>, by Peruvian Cumbia pioneers Juaneco y su Combo. The Peruvian cumbia sound sprung as a distinct style in the early 60´s, when Henry (<a href="http://grandesdelacumbiaperuana.blogspot.com/2008/02/los-destellos.html">Los Destellos</a>) Delgado took the accordion -which was the staple sound of the original Colombian Cumbia- and substituted it with the electric guitar, creating a sound that, by our standards, is reminiscing of surf music. <br />
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Soon there were regional variations of the Peruvian sound. Juaneco y Combo, together with the fantastic <a href="http://www.losmirlos.com/">Los Mirlos</a> were the major originators of the Cumbia Amazónica, also known as Cumbia de Oriente or Poder Verde, a style which appeared in the 70´s together with the first oil boom of the Peruvian Amazon. It was characterized by the incorporation of traditional dresses, as well as mythical characters and figures of amazonian lore.<br />
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Juaneco y su Combo was founded in Pucallpa in the 60s by Juan Wong Paredes. Their first LP <span style="font-weight: bold;">El Gran Cacique</span> (1970), contains the classic <span style="font-style: italic;">Vacilando con ayahuasca</span>. A very groovy tune that would not be out of place in a Tarantino movie.... though to this day I fail to see what the <span style="font-weight: bold;">sensual female moaning</span> has to do with Ayahuasca.<br />
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<embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F15776881&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=037c5d" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <a href="http://soundcloud.com/infopesa/juaneco-y-su-combo-vacilando-1">juaneco y su combo - vacilando con ayahuasca</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/infopesa">INFOPESA</a>
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Now for something <span style="font-weight: bold;">truly bizarre</span> here´s a recent video of the song. Although the original was recorded in the 70s, the band is still going strong even after 40 years and the death of some of its original members. Check out the Shipibo shirts. That´s some amazonian funkiness right there.<br />
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Yikes! I just never thought I'd see <span style="font-weight: bold;">curanderos and go-go dancers in the same shot!</span><br />
Via <a href="http://grandesdelacumbiaperuana.blogspot.com/">Grandes de la cumbia peruana</a> <br />
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If you'd like to hear more of that Peruvian cumbia sound <a href="http://www.barbesrecords.com/">Barbes Records</a> out of Brooklyn is putting out compilations re-issuing the classics.Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-42564890469623535452008-11-15T22:10:00.027+01:002009-11-03T03:41:05.860+01:00Kogis, documentaries, and voluntary isolationEarly this year, while going through a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Metzner">Ralph Metzner</a> Interview we recorded in 2003 my curiosity was piqued by his mention of the documentary: "From the heart of world." In Google I found the documentary, about <span style="font-weight:bold;">Colombia's <a href="http://www.picsearch.es/imagenes/sociedad%20y%20cultura/comunidades%20ind%C3%ADgenas/kogis.html">Kogi Indians</a></span>, had been shot in 1991, broadcast by the BBC, gone on to video(released in the US by the fantastic <a href="http://www.mysticfire.com/index.html?cart=12267854037549">Mystic Fire Video</a>) and gone on to become somewhat of a lost cult classic. Never reissued, the VHS used to fetch quite outrageous prices (used to be more than $100, lately <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Heart-World-Elder-Brothers-Warning/dp/B00000F89F"> around $39) </a> <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_e0Roe2J8iHKDEYzyd0rbDPkxykLzXbrtQmKlj6MrQqJ11THz8wms4sLZa925Qf9dexFSzlPmeLq7Dli7s6EDAXAkr2i0jgS3TznLAeJlrnEZHdVaz1705R3TY3VKlBgP49cmAz3g3Hg/s1600-h/kogi.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 278px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_e0Roe2J8iHKDEYzyd0rbDPkxykLzXbrtQmKlj6MrQqJ11THz8wms4sLZa925Qf9dexFSzlPmeLq7Dli7s6EDAXAkr2i0jgS3TznLAeJlrnEZHdVaz1705R3TY3VKlBgP49cmAz3g3Hg/s400/kogi.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373216613660016658" /></a>Since the doc seemed out of my reach. I bought the book instead (reviews <a href="http://www.amazon.com/ELDER-BROTHERS-Alan-Ereira/dp/0679743367/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226784309&sr=8-2">here</a>, but buy it <a href="http://tairona.myzen.co.uk/index.php/media/book/">here</a> and give back to the Kogi)<br /><br />I cannot recommend the book enough. Much is amazing about the Kogi: The fact that they have managed to keep their culture alive by a practical form of <span style="font-weight:bold;">voluntary isolation</span>... while living <a href="http://www.eremite.demon.co.uk/Tairona/1pages/seca/a5spanexpeds.html">right next one of the first places where Europeans disembarked into the Americas</a>. The role that the "Mamas" (priest/leader/healer) play in their culture, not to mention the <span style="font-weight:bold;">extreme training</span> to become one, which includes keeping future Mamas living inside a cave, in perpetual darkness, throughout much of their childhood. During their training years <span style="font-weight:bold;">they´ll never see the light of the day</span>, while being taught every night, "concentration". Can you imagine what the world must look like after 10 years of darkness. Nothing short astounding, and that is precisely what they are being taught. <br /><br /><blockquote>"...told me that Mamas are educated from infancy in the dark, and only allowed into the light when their education is complete, after two periods of nine years. Nine is the number required for completeness, as a foetus spends nine lunar months in the womb, and there are nine worlds. There are also characters called moros, he said, whose education continues for two more periods of nine years. These I would never meet; they live high in the Sierra, and speak only with Mamas. These are the oracles who determine ultimate policy. These creatures are the ones who have seen the approach of the end of the world. I later discovered that moro is the word for any pupil studying to be a Mama. It does seem quite possible that some students are not released into the light until they are over thirty. . . . The Kogi are profoundly ascetic, and prepare themselves for important moments by fasting, meditation and sexual abstinence; contact with anyone who is still locked into the gross physical world can, they believe, render this preparation useless. Javier's moros would be in this heightened state all their lives, and it would therefore be impossible for me ever to set eyes on them, but he suggested that they would have their eyes on me" -- pp. 77-8<br /></blockquote><br /><br />The book tells the story of how the Kogi decided to break their silence to issue <span style="font-weight:bold;">one last warning to "the younger brother"</span> (that's us) how <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Ereira">Alan Ereira</a> was chosen to deliver that message to the world. The message itself, one of upcoming <span style="font-weight:bold;">ecological apocalypse</span> brought by the warming of the earth is all the more spooky when taking in consideration no one had told the Kogis about global warming, they observed it. I was completely fascinated by the book, and so was my gf who got it after me. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5L0YSOQpPAVTsaMQsj_clGa3d0lOVEteFIJeZTEpdQp7yNrhNKK7MyTfCPpj5rmIlFUYIs7YbuWoWOXFZFsuIBTpW2rPFCBjFHySKbH86eIS5l44YMEFx8zr9gzwZWGhepddL9NE92U/s1600-h/IMG_0551.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX5L0YSOQpPAVTsaMQsj_clGa3d0lOVEteFIJeZTEpdQp7yNrhNKK7MyTfCPpj5rmIlFUYIs7YbuWoWOXFZFsuIBTpW2rPFCBjFHySKbH86eIS5l44YMEFx8zr9gzwZWGhepddL9NE92U/s400/IMG_0551.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376260515747931058" /></a> this point I went on a quest to to find more about the Kogi. First I looked for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerardo_Reichel-Dolmatoff">Reichel-Dolmatoffs</a> pioneer study on the Kogi. Now *that* was a difficult book to track, by pure chance I found out it had been republished by a small-print literary magazine in Spain a decade ago. I ended up finding a copy in an appointment-only second-hand store in Madrid. The book added a <span style="font-weight:bold;">whole new layer to my understanding of the Kogi</span>, and also put a lot of things in perspective, there are many tribes who feel they live literally, at the center of creation, and see themselves holders of the world order (that old ethnocentrism), also the whole warming up and drying of the earth message that the Kogi delivered 20 years ago, and that seems so prophetic nowadays, can be as related to local weather changes caused by erosion in the Sierra de Santa Marta (already at work in the 60s) as to global circumstances. None of this makes the Kogi less extraordinary.<br /><br />Then I found out a copy of the documentary could be had by donating more than $50 to <a href="http://tairona.myzen.co.uk/index.php/#/">The Tairona Heritage Trust</a>, an NGO set up by the film director, Aran Ereira. I donated, and that´s how I got to see the film, which is well worth it.... and so is the cause the it supports.<br /> <br />Last week I received a letter form the foundation describing their purchase of large tracks of land to create an "<span style="font-weight:bold;">environmental and cultural cordon"</span> of <span style="font-weight:bold;">"border towns"</span> to literally manage the encounter between the outside world and the restricted zone they hope to have declared as Kasankwa (sacred territory) by the UNESCO. <br /><a href="http://tairona.myzen.co.uk/index.php/about/support_the_trust/"><br />Do donate</a>.<br /><br />Meanwhile, in a recent talk at TED, anthropologist superstar Wade Davis tells of his encounter with the Elder Borthers, and -guess what- he claims the Mama's do not spend childhoold in the dark, but isolated, working in Aluna. However, Davis wasn´t with teh Kogs but with teh Arhuacos. Here´s <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/wade_davis_on_the_worldwide_web_of_belief_and_ritual.html">the video</a> starts at 10:30. He also spoke about the Kogis in 2003 <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html">here</a> starts at around minute 8 but the whole talk really is must.<br /><br /><br />In the last year, the wonderful <a href="http://free-university-in-internet.blogspot.com/">Free University in the Internet</a> has posted a full copy of the doc (along with many other wonderful things)<br /><br /><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-521537373096312859&hl=nl&fs=true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed><br /><br />And the blog socially responsible films.. has followed <a href="http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3951426/From_the_heart_of_the_world">suit</a> which doesn´t mean you shouldn´t <a href="http://tairona.myzen.co.uk/index.php/about/support_the_trust/">contribute to the cause</a> if you can (and you can).<br /><br />In spite for the <span style="font-weight:bold;">obvious call to being left alone</span> that the Kogis made at the end of the doc the story has continued, "<a href="http://www.myspace.com/lcondor">L. Condor</a>" a former <a href="http://globaltvlive.wordpress.com/2006/11/10/nakuk/">Ford employee</a> is putting together a documentary with a *second* <a href="http://www.tribalink.org/kogi/execSummary.html">older brother´s message</a>, <a href="http://es.youtube.com/user/Lcondorkogi">the prophecy of the eagle and the condor</a>, and apparently <a href="http://www.tribalink.org/kogi/Washington.htm">some mamas made it to Georgetown University</a> (!) Here's an <a href="http://www.theelderbrother.com/mystory/index.cfm">Australian homeopath's strange story</a> .. and a healer named Sequoya Trueblood claims to have been <a href="http://www.seizethemagic.com/lol/05worldinfo/05kogi.html">telepathically contacted by the Kogi</a><br /><br />(sight) <br /><br />In a more serious and worthwhile note, the French geographer Eric Julien has shot <a href="http://www.tchendukua.com/spip.php?rubrique7">2 more documentaries and written two books</a> about the Kogi, has also started an NGO with the purpose of purchasing land for the Kogi<br /><br /><div><object width="480" height="405"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/k1osHXDkPFhs9RPkIw&related=1&canvas=medium"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/k1osHXDkPFhs9RPkIw&related=1&canvas=medium" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="405" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object><br /><b><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7a83k_kogis-le-messages-des-derniers-homm_news">Kogis, le messages des derniers hommes (Leur histoire)</a></b><br /><i>Cargado por <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/inrees">inrees</a></i></div><br /><br />Indeed, in spite of that the first documentary might have implied the Kogi are not completely isolated, they regularly engage in commerce and interchange, have missionaries and nuns living with them etc. In Colombia they seem to be well known. Here's a TV news clip form a recent ceremony by Kogi Mamas to <span style="font-weight:bold;">cleanse the mountains of the toxicity left by FARC guerilla land mines</span>. It was attended by <span style="font-weight:bold;">Colombia´s vice-president</span>, and Carlos Vives on of the country´s <span style="font-weight:bold;">biggest pop stars</span>. The news anchor even uses the term "younger brothers" without feeling the need to explain its meaning. Indeed "La muralla" a Kogi settlement for the benefit of tourism is in the process of being built (<a href="http://www.elespectador.com/impreso/cultura/goce/articuloimpreso-santa-marta-recoge-sus-raices?page=0,2">newsclip in Spanish</a>). Seems like the older bother´s message has penetrated the collective unconscious (or pop culture) <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8j1SpcwyevA&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8j1SpcwyevA&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />It couln´t be any other way. Everything about the Kogis, from their ecological message, their poetic rejection of industrial culture, their matriarchal mythology (a goddess of creation, at last!) their voluntary isolation, etc. position them like no others to become, quite against their will, the <span style="font-weight:bold;">poster tribe of all things New Age</span>. They don't even posses all those other qualities (like penchant of warfare) that make other indigenous cultures so unconformable to westerners. They are an indigenous culture like we would like all indigenous cultures to be, pacific, spiritual, and ecological. <br /><br />My recomendation? <a href="http://tairona.myzen.co.uk/index.php/media/book/">Read Ereira's book</a>.Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-34750576855896963742008-10-26T17:18:00.010+01:002009-01-02T21:59:16.634+01:00Ayahuasca: Shapeshifting or egotripping?I posted a new video from a recent conference in Madrid organized by <a href="http://elcornezuelo.blogspot.com/">Asociación Eleusis</a> of which I am member.<br /><br />The speaker is <a href="http://www.muscaria.com/fericgla.htm">Josep María Fericgla</a>, a Catalonian author, anthropologist and (almost) psychologist. His work falls in the area between those two fields, he calls it <span style="font-weight:bold;">ethnopsychology</span> or <span style="font-weight:bold;">cognitive anthropology</span>. Though less known in the English speaking world Fericgla is quite an institution in Spain. He did fieldwork with Shuar shamans in Ecuador, and wrote "<a href="http://www.muscaria.com/jibaros.htm">The dream hunters</a>" as well as "<a href="http://www.liebremarzo.com/cogniciones/5/1.htm">Al trasluz de la Ayahuasca</a>" a multidisciplinary study on Ayahuasca. On his return to Spain he began to work on finding ways to adapt what he had learned about modified states of conscious into a western context. He founded the <a href="http://www.etnopsico.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=35">Society of Applied Ethnopsychology</a> where he runs a number of seminars and workshops, as well as 2 to 4 year course as a "<span style="font-weight:bold;">Director-Guía de Experiencias Estructurantes Activadoras</span>" something like: director-guide of structural activating experiences.. hard to translate. As can be seen by the language Fericgla´s tries to stay as much as possible on the scientific, non-fluffy, non new-age, approach to entheogens and the therapeutic use of altered states of consciousness. <br /><br />I interviewed him in 2003, and recently bough his book "<a href="http://www.muscaria.com/revision.htm">Los chamanismos a revisión</a>" (shamanisms under revision) where he systematically disassembles most of the romantic western ideals around shamanisms (in plural, he says there is no such thing as shamanism, <span style="font-weight:bold;">there are only shamanisms</span>) Unfortunately the book hasn´t been translated to English, but I plan to post a long review of it soon, as it brings up some very interesting ideas.<br /><br />Anyway, during his talk he mentioned forms of regressive and narcissistic tendencies among entheogen consumers. I was curious about this. I think his answer is very interesting. <br /><br />His view on shapeshifting is, to say the least, <span style="font-weight:bold;">quite unique</span>. But he should know what he´s talking about, at this point he has more than a decade of continuous experience on the therapeutic use of altered states of consciousness.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/i4PisQgOHeA&hl=es&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/i4PisQgOHeA&hl=es&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />There´s a hand-me-down idea often repeated among what McKenna called "psychedelic people" (i'd be one of them) the idea says something like: "<span style="font-weight:bold;">entheogens are ego dissolvers</span>." Though that can be sometimes true, the ego is <span style="font-style:italic;">strong</span>, and soon finds ways around it. Hence "many people take ayahuasca and are still full of shit." -As Evgenia succinctly said in the YouTube comments.<br /><br /><br />PD I have been wondering lately how come I only seem to post negative stuff: ego tripping this, appropriation of indigenous knowledge that, fake shamans etc. Don´t I have anything <span style="font-weight:bold;">positive</span> to say about Ayahuasca? <br /><br />I certainly do. <br /><br />There is just so much of that already online (and in my tapes) that I figured it'd be a better contribution to bring <span style="font-weight:bold;">new ideas</span> to the debate, rather than to rehash the same old ones...<br /><br />Update: A video of the whole conference (in Spanish) can be found <a href="http://www.viddler.com/explore/eleusis/videos/1/">here</a>Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-51322848336334913612008-10-26T17:10:00.005+01:002009-01-02T21:59:16.635+01:00The chacra diaries 6: war of the beastsPosted part 6 of the chacra diaries. Read it <a href="http://forums.ayahuasca.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=149451#149451">here</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIx94xqujOMvVaON3IbSRl_3IhY1Dx1Ub86L3R0dgR5TtSz7SAFvtYYpBicXihJIwdzVkWEcwxRn0c21jxlErND1W8zii1Etwl1L1FaPmutBhSTfgjPbENUbOpk2HLCntmjwh4i6_mUt0/s1600-h/5+view+from+the+bench.jpg"><img style="float:center; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIx94xqujOMvVaON3IbSRl_3IhY1Dx1Ub86L3R0dgR5TtSz7SAFvtYYpBicXihJIwdzVkWEcwxRn0c21jxlErND1W8zii1Etwl1L1FaPmutBhSTfgjPbENUbOpk2HLCntmjwh4i6_mUt0/s400/5+view+from+the+bench.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261496659764984338" /></a><br /><br />View form the bench<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiot436GFY7ey0K54SbVHIDVKf8UoFJg3n2dVcQyMsRinwnYSb63pv3NwEshXxJWiwnKxyRtsV8Xmxy3vfXROXTmnvpFXzKKILYOKoIL7wRcuBtEhsFnNw4i0mo_AUCF4jP0CXmJ5baPqk/s1600-h/6+frozen+kurt.jpg"><img style="float:center; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 164px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiot436GFY7ey0K54SbVHIDVKf8UoFJg3n2dVcQyMsRinwnYSb63pv3NwEshXxJWiwnKxyRtsV8Xmxy3vfXROXTmnvpFXzKKILYOKoIL7wRcuBtEhsFnNw4i0mo_AUCF4jP0CXmJ5baPqk/s400/6+frozen+kurt.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261497056727297474" /></a><br /><br />Kurt the rat, frozen on the beamJeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-67501788971941028282008-09-01T23:59:00.010+02:002009-01-04T16:18:23.117+01:00Jaguars consume ayahuascaMost fascinating video of a jaguar eating and then reacting to caapi leaves. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OqGDv0KCJl8&hl=es&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OqGDv0KCJl8&hl=es&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Nature documentaries are notoriously staged affairs pulled together form many sources recorded at different times. Obviously part of the shot is staged, the vine itself is too perfectly placed before the camera, with the leaves just at the right height... But I´d really like to find out if this behavior has really been observed in the wild. Taking in consideration the relationship between ayahuasca and jaguars in many native Amazonian cultures the fact that jaguars would purge on Caapi vine would be -I´d say- a most significant discovery. <br /><br />Any zoologists reading this who could scan the literature and confirm?<br /><br />UPDATE 4/1/09: We´ve gotten confirmation that <span style="font-style:italic;">somewhere</span> it was published that it was observed that jaguars like to <span style="font-style:italic;">sniff</span> ayahuasca leaves.... any additional info will be much appreciatedJeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-63063036943273119332008-09-01T23:38:00.005+02:002009-01-02T21:59:16.635+01:00Ayahuasca is declared cultural patrimony of Perú<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/133/371307112_1d6c771bab.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/133/371307112_1d6c771bab.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>This is old news by now, but very important news. The Peruvian government has declared Traditional Ayahuasca use as <span style="font-weight:bold;">part of the national cultural heritage</span>. <br />It really is a cause to celebrate, for it is an <span style="font-weight:bold;">official recognition of the highest degree</span>. From now on any legal discussion about Ayahuasca use that takes place in other countries will have to take this into account. It no longer is a matter of the activities of a few groups of individuals more or less underground. Ayahuasca now has official recognition at the national level. <br /><br />I am including a translation of the entire official text but those with short attention span can jump directly to the paragraphs in bold.<br /><br /><blockquote> DESIGNATION AS CULTURAL PATRIMONY OF THE NATION EXTENDED TO THE KNOWLEDGE AND TRADITIONAL USES OF AYAHUASCA AS PRACTICED BY NATIVE AMAZON COMMUNITIES.<br /><br /><br />National directorial resolution<br /><br />Number 836/INC<br /><br /><br />Lima, June 24 2008-07-14<br /><br /><br />Having read Report No. 056-2008-DRECP/INC dated May 29, 2008, prepared by the Directorate of Registration and Study of Contemporary Culture in Peru:<br /><br /><br />CONSIDERING:<br /><br /><br />That Article 21 of the Political Constitution of Peru indicates that it is the function of the State to protect the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation.<br /><br /><br />That part 1, Article 2 of the Convention for the Preservation of Non-material Cultural Patrimony of the UNESCO, establishes that “it is understood that ‘Cultural Patrimony is defined as the uses, representations, expressions, knowledge and techniques—together with instruments, objects, artifacts, and cultural spaces that are inherent to them---that the communities, groups, and in some cases individuals, recognize as an integral part of their cultural patrimony’. This non-material cultural patrimony, which is transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly re-created by communities and groups, by means of their location, their interaction with nature and their history, inducing a feeling of identity and continuity and therefore contributing to promote respect toward cultural diversity and human creativity”.<br /><br /><br />That Article VII of the Preliminary Title to Law NO. 28296<br /><br /><br />- General Law on Cultural Patrimony of the Nation disposes that the National Institute of Culture is charged to register, declare and protect the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation within the confines of its responsibility;<br /><br /><br />- That part 2) of Article 1 of Title 1 of the above mentioned Law establishes that part of the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation consists of the creations of a cultural community, based upon traditions, to be expressed by individuals unilaterally or in groups, and that consensually respond to community expectations, as an expression of cultural and social identity, in addition to the values transmitted orally, such as autochthonous languages, tongues and dialects, traditional knowledge and wisdom, be it artistic, gastronomic, medicinal, technologic, folkloric or religious, the collective knowledge of peoples, and other expressions or cultural manifestations, which jointly comprise our cultural diversity;<br /><br /><br />- That National Directorial Resolution No. 1207/INC dated November 10, 2004, approved Directive No. 002-2004-INC “Recognition and declarations of active cultural manifestations as Cultural Patrimony of the Nation”;<br /><br /><br />- That it behooves the National Institute of Culture, in order to carry out its function as assigned by law, with the active participation of the community, to conduct a permanent identification of such traditional manifestations of the country that should be declared as Cultural Patrimony of the Nation;<br /><br /><br />- That by means of the proper document, the Directorate of Study and Registration of Culture in Contemporary Peru requests a declaration as Cultural Patrimony of the Nation the knowledge and traditional uses associated with Ayahuasca, and practiced by native Amazon communities, according to the Report prepared by Dona Rosa A. Giove Nakazawa, of the Takiwasi Center-Tarapoto and submitted by the Regional Office of Economic Development of the Regional Government of San Martin to the Regional Directorate of Culture of San Martin;<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">- That the Ayahuasca plant—Banisteriopsis caapi—is a vegetable species which garners an extraordinary cultural history, by virtue of its psychotropic properties, used in a beverage associated with a plant known as Chacruna-Psychotria viridis;<br /><br />- That such plant is known by the indigenous Amazon world as a wisdom plant or plant teacher, showings initiates the very fundaments of the world and its components. Consumption of it constitutes the gateway to the spiritual world and its secrets, which is why traditional Amazon medicine has been structured around the Ayahuasca ritual at some point in their lives, indispensable to those who assume the function of privileged carriers of these cultures, be they those charged with communication with the spiritual world, or those who express it artistically.<br /><br />- That the effects produced by ayahuasca, extensively studied because of their complexity, are different from those produced by hallucinogens. A part of this difference consists in the ritual that accompanies its consumption, leading to diverse effects, but always within the confines of a culturally determined boundary, with religious, therapeutic and culturally affirmative purposes.<br /><br /><br />- That available information sustains the fact that the practice of ritual ayahuasca sessions constitutes one of the basic pillars of the identity of the Amazon peoples, and that the ancestral use in traditional rituals, warranting cultural continuity, is closely connected with the therapeutic attributes of the plant;<br /><br />- That what is sought is the protection of traditional use and sacred character of the ayahuasca ritual, differentiating it from Western uses out of context, consumerist, and with commercial objectives;</span><br /><br />- That the Manager, the Director of Registration and Study of Culture in Contemporary Peru, and the Director of the Office of Legal Affairs, being cognizant of the above information;<br /><br />- In conformity with the dispositions of Law No. 28296, “General Law of the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation” and Supreme Decree No. 017-2003-ED, which approves the By-Laws of the Organization and Operation of the National Institute of Culture.<br /><br />ITS IS RESOLVED:<br /><br />Sole Article.<br /><br /><br />To declare as CULTURAL PATRIMONY OF THE NATION, the knowledge and traditional uses of Ayahuasca practiced by the native Amazon communities, as a warranty of cultural continuity.<br /><br />Be it registered, communicated, and published.<br /><br />JAVIER UGAZ VILLACORTA<br /><br />Manager of the National Directorate<br /><br />National Institute of Culture<br /></blockquote>Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-82711138121498878312008-09-01T18:52:00.001+02:002009-01-02T21:59:16.636+01:00The Devil's Doctor<blockquote>"The superstitious and sometimes harmful credulity of religious tradition can certainly be considered a poison. But for many of us moderns, hurtling towards a chilly posthumanism, a draught of the poetic and cosmic imagination that feeds religious credulity can wipe away the pain. And even, potentially, heal it. For though skepticism and empirical reason have cleared away many cobwebs of theological error, we are all swimming in the toxic sludge these cultural solvents have left in their wake. The alchemist can envision the gold growing in the sludge; the realist only marvels at the mess we've made, and turns up the collar of his coat."</blockquote><br />Erik Davis <a href="http://www.techgnosis.com/chunks.php?cat=reading&sec=journal&file=chunkfrom-2007-08-25-0118-0.txt">here</a> talking about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Doctor-Paracelsus-Renaissance-Science/dp/0374229791">this book</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/mandrakes/images/paracelsus.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/mandrakes/images/paracelsus.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Why this post?</span> It has everything to do with everythingJeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-41013505898409914182008-01-07T01:55:00.000+01:002009-01-02T21:59:16.636+01:00The Chacra Diaries Pt 5Posted part 5 of the chacra diaries, read it <a href="http://forums.ayahuasca.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=16574">here</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKmHU1OfFiZ4j2W1-a0tVBXlPQkdaoAou7gngo7YRMzRxGCowF9pWMapPybKSejoXoFXigiqgUBEhDC2k3g6feD7kYOK3G32_a0Eq6J645LBHWfZ0CsY2NQKUdB0QXBURxyG-g4HLTbG8/s1600-h/5+my+toilet.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKmHU1OfFiZ4j2W1-a0tVBXlPQkdaoAou7gngo7YRMzRxGCowF9pWMapPybKSejoXoFXigiqgUBEhDC2k3g6feD7kYOK3G32_a0Eq6J645LBHWfZ0CsY2NQKUdB0QXBURxyG-g4HLTbG8/s400/5+my+toilet.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152533161388588386" /></a><br />That was my toilet<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXrgAPR7fNGS6xqKwk5YCnR3PvfrWIkwfSpOnBnbdW_cy9OzD1uMuGjoLb2odurxMzwBTx7yaniZ4DZxW4n_NrSKiyw2qdEVpSOIh0F5nH20sGHjUtLtHpNCdR2d_aEjBy40Q1V3PhvYw/s1600-h/5+palos+toes+and+notes.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXrgAPR7fNGS6xqKwk5YCnR3PvfrWIkwfSpOnBnbdW_cy9OzD1uMuGjoLb2odurxMzwBTx7yaniZ4DZxW4n_NrSKiyw2qdEVpSOIh0F5nH20sGHjUtLtHpNCdR2d_aEjBy40Q1V3PhvYw/s400/5+palos+toes+and+notes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152533371841985906" /></a><br /><br />Palos and toésJeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-60344218106258206022008-01-06T19:22:00.005+01:002009-01-02T21:59:16.636+01:00Ayahuasca tourism vs. traditional uses, and an online collaborative documentaryWhen I was invited last year to give a talk a the 3rd <a href="http://www.soga-del-alma.org/ConferenceSite/">Amazonian Shamanism Conference</a> I had no idea what I'd talk about. I had been invited because <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/9588160855?tag=httpayadocblo-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=9588160855&adid=13ZNTK5GAZ1KR7T6PRW0&">Jimmy Weiskopf</a> recommened me to Alan Shoemaker, and he had liked some of <a href="http://ayadoc.blogspot.com/search/label/dieta">the chacra diaries</a> so I figured I'd talk a bit about amazonian dietas, a bit about the documentary project, and I'd use the chance to see if I could find people who'd like to help in a collaborative online documentary we've been thinking about for some time. Kind of like <a href="http://www.echochamberproject.com/node">Echo chamber project</a>, but different.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The project</span><br /><br />The problem we have is that: 1- We have picked a huge topic (which keeps on growing! entheogens, traditional medicine, the link between health and spirituality, the colonization of the Americas and the new cultures that resulted form it, etc etc) and 2- The idea of trying to compress all that material into a standard-size 45-minute documentary, full of soundbite-size statements runs a real danger of over-simplification. You can't explain uses/misuses/abuses of ayahuasca, mention the churches, delve a bit into traditional medicine, what is happening to curanderos and what that says about western culture (and the failings of scientific medicine!) biopiracy, cultural appropriation... and of course reflect a bit on the part of us that actually gets touched by ayahuasca, and what that says about what it means to be human. <br /><br />See? It doesn't fit in 1 hour, not without making a joke of everything.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTbHUDm0QEnTjqxfCwVW2eP8Yg53GOYxRs-lnKI2HdNPacpPq20XjZ_tqWOijH4DXQUiCAxkmb3u_CRtJsiYMoCoTWMhcl7ildOx6eG0lkv__F49vs8D4ToUWgcF-OVJgk5vyvrojx5Dw/s1600-h/Picture-6.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTbHUDm0QEnTjqxfCwVW2eP8Yg53GOYxRs-lnKI2HdNPacpPq20XjZ_tqWOijH4DXQUiCAxkmb3u_CRtJsiYMoCoTWMhcl7ildOx6eG0lkv__F49vs8D4ToUWgcF-OVJgk5vyvrojx5Dw/s320/Picture-6.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152466864273407250" /></a>So we started playing with a different idea, a sort of gigantic online video archive where we would dump all the tapes, and people could consult at their own pace, without middle men. <br /><br />But how would people navigate around hours of video? <br /><br />We needed: an indexing system, a tagging system, and a navigational interface.<br /><br />Basically all the interviews would be transcribed (word by word), and all videos indexed/tagged (by topic). It would be just like the index at the back of a book, where you can find where certain topics are mentioned and jump to that page. I imagined an interactive index of all the videos, so that people interested on a certain topic could find all the interviews/parts where that topic was mentioned and go there. The interface could even queue the video segments for viewing one after another.<br /><br />Once you have that built, you have a system to generate movies automatically. You are doing what an editor does with the raw video material (well, almost), but dynamically, on-the-fly. Any path can be transversed though the set of raw materials. So why not predefine a few? We could make a couple of documentaries (the one hour version, the five hour version, etc) and leave them as preset "paths" through the archive, also as starting points. Did you like what someone said during the doc? Would you like to hear the rest? You could jump out of the path, see as much as you wanted of the original interview, and then return. Would you like to see who else talked about that topic just mentioned? You could, etc. <br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXd4mWET4A0PM8fqxjR0Ih2lABEnQlj33U7ZQ5UGJZtIrd9_sao9HuB32XMUT-dEFP-E4S_R8fAeDJcsDLpiHPSMOAcJP2FATlE7MOxXE7Ioe6h6al9txyo6Eh_yZDKEnB2ltMuJ14yII/s1600-h/Picture-9.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXd4mWET4A0PM8fqxjR0Ih2lABEnQlj33U7ZQ5UGJZtIrd9_sao9HuB32XMUT-dEFP-E4S_R8fAeDJcsDLpiHPSMOAcJP2FATlE7MOxXE7Ioe6h6al9txyo6Eh_yZDKEnB2ltMuJ14yII/s320/Picture-9.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152467611597716770" /></a>That is more or less the new plan, it's a long project, but I am in no hurry. I see this pretty much as a life-long project. And I believe someone will program a platform that does exactly this sooner or later. It doesn't seem too complicated, basically it's a database that has tape numbers, and uses timecodes to mark in and out for transcribed text (word by word, very good for subtitles later) and in and out time codes for topic and/or tags. It should be fairly easy to give those time codes to a player (quicktime etc) and it would queue them for you. If no one gets around to do it I guess we will. <br /><br />Sounds interesting? I am looking for volunteer programmers, designers, and very importantly transcribers. I need people to help me put into writing the dozens of hours of interviews I have with some of the most interesting people in the ayahuasca world. Including <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Antipodes-Mind-Phenomenology-Ayahuasca-Experience/dp/0199252939">Benny Shanon</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ott">Johnatan Ott</a>, <a href="http://www.csp.org/nicholas/A33.html">Jacques Mabit</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Eduardo_Luna">Luis Eduardo Luna</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Metzner">Ralph Metzner</a>, <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmesq/is_199709/ai_kepm180307">Richard Yensen</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Antonio%20Escohotado&page=1">Antonio Escohotado</a>, <a href="http://www.etnopsico.org/textos/alu_medit_english.htm">Josep Maria Fericgla</a>, dozens of curanderos, mestres and members of the 3 main Brazilian Ayahuasca churches, psychologists who use the brew to get people off drugs, former drug addicts, and a host of people from all walks of life whose lives have been touched by their encounter ayahuasca, plus rituals, masses, preparations, healing sessions, seminars, detox centers... the list goes on and on. <br /><br />If you are interested in ayahuasca and you can type fast and you will probably enjoy the work, the interviews are really well worth it. <br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Back to the talk</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAoz3Tmr9LKF4HRD6SnMBqjg7l00str2Bd8PXLGK9JV7TLqLbgDV9BrcgrkI0R9pA_UoQ5xNbX1fc8_X3UsGOTTHY0hDG3429myC6eyuMI6Ji0OfZkk3z1By68UdaB-M46gxX3JEPjGkM/s1600-h/p1000985.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAoz3Tmr9LKF4HRD6SnMBqjg7l00str2Bd8PXLGK9JV7TLqLbgDV9BrcgrkI0R9pA_UoQ5xNbX1fc8_X3UsGOTTHY0hDG3429myC6eyuMI6Ji0OfZkk3z1By68UdaB-M46gxX3JEPjGkM/s320/p1000985.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152458592166395138" /></a>That was more on less on my mind for the talk. At the Conference I met some very <a href="http://colonos.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/interview-with-a-yachak/">good people</a>, but in Iquitos there is also a side of Ayahuasca that I actively try to avoid: Cunning locals looking for a quick buck (chamán + charlatán = charlamán) and/or sincere but (in my opinion) misguided westerners of new age-ish leanings. <br /><br />Now, if you are interested entheogens chances are you too have what others would describe as new age-ish leanings, I certainly do, but some people are just more new age than others, I guess, and some people are just too new age for me. Which is normal, everybody knows somebody who they think "goes too far" into whatever. In life you'll always meet people you click with and people you can´t get along with. Attitudes you approve and attitudes you disapprove. It is perfectly normal (actually it is <span style="font-weight:bold;">unavoidable</span>) it happens in any field of human activity. There is no way out of it. <br /><br />...And certainly in this world everybody should be able to pursue their own individual bliss as they see fit. <br /><br />But that week in Iquitos I saw people that in my opinion were not properly prepared, make a farce, a theater play, out of something I respect and love very much, the work and practices of Amazonian curanderismo. All in order to feel better about themselves in front of people who didn't know any better (and get some of their money.) It wasn't necessarily in the conference, there was plenty of worthwhile people there, but some of it was around it, and that mix of the good and the bad is certainly an integral part of Iquitos ayahuasca scene. <br /><br />So when the time came for my talk I though I'd try to clarify a few misconceptions that seemed rampant in the western-ayahuasca-seekers world (of which I am undeniably part of) Not to tell people what to think, but just communicate a few facts I found useful when facing "amazonian shamanism". Basically I wanted to:<br /><br />1-Talk about how our western interest (read money) in shamanism is changing it from what it was, to what we would like to be. <br /><br />2-Put shamans/curanderos first in their proper context: <br /> a) As traditional doctors who practice a form of *medicine*, neither saints (they can be very flawed) nor proper gurus or spiritual guides (that is a different job, from a different culture) and <br /> b) as *professionals* of their field, the result of years of training, not a few weeks or month long "courses" (This weekend-course format is perhaps the most defining factor of all things new age: they all seem to take place in the form of "courses") <br /><br />3-Ask for some help with the doc project. <br /><br />Below is a short reduction of the talk<br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0T5jHEmGJa8&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0T5jHEmGJa8&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />the full talk can be seen <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1471567783918794440">here</a>.<br /><br />You be the judge as to how well I managed to get points 1 and 2 across. As to point 3 I was almost a complete failure. Only <a href="http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Safarimex">Susan</a> offered help (thanks Susan!) She's helped me quite a bit already and I don't like to bother volunteers in excess. So, if you'd like to help with the project write to<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDCNEVIF2UrgeTkvcnLbpHd5ElCOeq0C-rUNRr0ihf-sJbZmqUUnrHF9WkTRsvVPl-fj8eTeqSz3BK71zmcs1dOAb-5gLdEVbldCfYLicT7ELCHjB9EA_xzQHylqjefeiJOvA6oSFJEWo/s1600-h/myemail.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDCNEVIF2UrgeTkvcnLbpHd5ElCOeq0C-rUNRr0ihf-sJbZmqUUnrHF9WkTRsvVPl-fj8eTeqSz3BK71zmcs1dOAb-5gLdEVbldCfYLicT7ELCHjB9EA_xzQHylqjefeiJOvA6oSFJEWo/s320/myemail.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152469071886597426" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />If you wouldn't like to help but are interested on the topic of the appropriation of indigenous knowledge I recommend<br /><br /><a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/american_indian_quarterly/v024/24.3aldred.html">Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.bluecorncomics.com/newage.htm">Selling Native Spirituality</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/awakening101/not_shamans.html">We do not have shamans</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.aics.org/war.html">Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?board=4.0">Newagefrauds</a> has some updated forums full of denunciations, they take a very hard line and their positions are controversial even among some Native Americans. Indeed the whole topic is full of heated arguments <a href="http://users.pandora.be/gohiyuhi/index.htm">Here</a> used to be another popular forum, but the person who was running got tired of all the threats she received and decided to shut it down. Some of her parting words were: <br /><br /><blockquote>"Let me make my position clear - I am not against non-Indians participating in ceremony. I know that puts me at odds with a probably rather large portion of the Native community. But if you are going to participate - do it in a safe and respectful manner. Please - wait until you've been invited by a member from a legitimate community. Don't pay, and look out for a few simple things that will let you know if you supposed Medicine Man/Woman is genuine or not. Do they speak the language of the people they claim to be from? Do they do these ceremonies back home for the people they claim to be from? Do they ask for money upfront - either as a "love offering" or any other "suggested donation."</blockquote><br /><br />I guess she meant something like <a href="http://www.thenativehealer.com/index.php?option=com_acctexp&task=register">this crap</a> $90 down and $5 a month will get you adopted as a "Native American Medicine Man or Woman"<br /><br />Utterly shameless (or <a href="http://shameons.bravepages.com/">shameon</a>)Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622237738709286021.post-939247857229050832007-12-03T12:50:00.001+01:002009-01-02T21:59:16.637+01:00Ceu do Mapiá: Medicina da floresta, Casa de Cura, and Benki AshaninkaWhen we visited the Daime community (almost the Vatican of the Daime) in Ceu de Mapia in 2004 we were taken to Medicina Da Floresta, a botanical garden and plant laboratory where <a href="http://nativevillage.org/International%20Council%20of%20the%20Thirteen%20Indigenous%20Grandmothers/Each%20Grandmothers%20Home%20Pages/Maria%20Alice%20Campos%20Freire/Marie%20Alice%20Campos%20Freire%20Homepage.htm">Maria Alice Campos Freire</a> grew and prepared all of the medicinal plants used by the community. It was beautiful place, with a mandala-shaped multi-level garden, and a small lab for extractions <br /><br />When she saw the camera she said "I don't like those machines" <br />They'd just had a bad experience with Brazilian journalist (from Penthouse, I believe) who essentially staged pictures to make them look bad.<br /><br />We turned off the camera and she sat down to talk to us. She was a very interesting person, with a very no-nonsense practical outlook, among other things she'd developed a natural method to fasten the reforestation of the jungle (a painfully slow process otherwise) She'd been disappointed many times trying to start big projects "I am now a barefoot worker" she said.<br /><br />Just today I found some videos of her in YouTube, they even have <a href="http://www.forumwhore.com/proxy/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi/000000A/http/es.youtube.com/groups_videos?name=cmf">a YouTube group</a> <br /><br />I am glad to see she's still keeping strong.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iNQUx8IcaMw"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iNQUx8IcaMw" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><br />She says: I don't have much to say. For me it's few words, a good amount of feeling, and a LOT of action ... all of the old traditions teach the same: to preserve.. the creation, through ACTION, not talk so much, but to do.. <br /><br />The kid in the next video says "We are here to learn. To learn to care for the forest, to learn to make remedies to treat illnesses. To learn to help" He is twelve. It always struck me about children in Mapiá, children who have grown up into an Ayahuasca since birth how secure and mature for their age they seem.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZJd1P9cTlkA"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZJd1P9cTlkA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><br />The other half of Ceu de Mapia's health care system is the Casa de Cura, the hospital, ran by <a href="http://nativevillage.org/International%20Council%20of%20the%20Thirteen%20Indigenous%20Grandmothers/Each%20Grandmothers%20Home%20Pages/Clara%20Shinobu%20Iura/Clara%20Shinobu%20Iura.htm">Clara Shinobu Iura</a>, were most of the medicines get applied. Here's a very nice mini doc, in English about it.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2z3GGaQiaGU&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2z3GGaQiaGU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Our guide back then lamented Maria Alice´s daughter wasn't there when we visited. He said she was very beautiful and had a friend who was an indigenous shaman. This could be them (but I could be wrong)<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/URH1FozcDWg"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/URH1FozcDWg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><br />He is Benki Ashaninka, a very interesting man, who received a human rights awards in 2004 for his continuing labor to protect the rights and land of his people. He keeps a <a href="http://apiwtxa.blogspot.com/">blog</a> discussing, among other things recent <a href="http://apiwtxa.blogspot.com/2007/07/fotos-da-invaso.html">invasions by Peruvian loggers</a> who illegally cross the border into Brazil to extract wood. There are some very interesting aerial pictures of illegal logging in action. These illegal loggers are probably coming into contact with <a href="http://apiwtxa.blogspot.com/2007/09/eles-existem.html">recently discovered uncontacted indigenous groups</a>. The blog also talks about the kinds of problems that arise when one indigenous community signs an agreement with a logging company while their neighbors don't, and other very real issues that Amazonian indigenous communities face daily.Jeronimo M.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/12508209403497731194noreply@blogger.com0