This is a follow-up on the original post to Dietas of Teacher Plants & Trees FB Group submitted as an SOS call asking for help and advice regarding breaking protocols of ingesting plants, some of the consequences including low energy state, weakened immune system, surfacing injuries and closed medicine space. I got away fairly light in retrospect, having overdosed of Chiric Sanango and having self-admistered kambo applications while drinking tree barks which can react adversely and severely to such things, while other dieteros aren't always that lucky. A young fellow passed away in the Mayantuyacu center a short walking distance from our jungle hangout less than two months ago, I heard, his heart unable to accommodate dissonance of vibrations from combination of strong medicines in his bloodstream. This is a cautionary tale that some will find useful, I hope, or at very least entertaining and rightly belongs to the Price of Medicine blog. Here's the report in full...
Dear friends, the problems of crossed dietas I’ve posted questions about previously were largely due to having to endure oppressive environment of Pucallpa pretty much straight after stopping taking the plants. There were reasons for me to go to town, urgent at the time, but the repercussions left me gathering my pieces very similar to Humpty Dumpty’s predicament, in retrospect. I’m busting with joy to report that I’ve just cruised through another dieta taking fresh preparations of Renakilla, Sapote Renaco, Chuchuwashi and Suelda con Suelda reclining in the hammock most of the day reading Dune saga aloud to my beloved accomplice in this no-less epic journey into the world of plant medicines. I can tell some will sneer at this point, ‘cruising through dieta’, yet please do allow me to borrow two cents worth of your time and I will endeavour to explain what I mean. Let’s make it five cents, actually.
For starters, I and Rachel bumped into Felix Paredes while visiting Dimas’s painting fortress, pure cement walls and huge oil canvases breathing with lush jungle, naked sirenas fishtailing in the dark pools. Felix had one look at me and said that I was debilitated, my medicines were crossed, my only energy coming from taking purga and that I was going to get nowhere without maestro who knows. He then proceeded to vehemently debunk shaman’s feathers and cushma getups, saying it was a crap theatre to get money out of gringos. I took the unspoken reference on the chin, as Felix’s diagnosis of my state was spot on accurate yet the vibrations of Don Enrique’s chapaca as he stands over in his long cushma fanning you while singing his icaro are super powerful and utmost cleansing. So Felix bent my arm and we came on Monday night to his place. He drove his motorbike into the ceremony space, a concrete bunker with one iron-barred window sealed with thick industrial plastic. A wild-west cowboy, complete with jeans, rings on the fingers and a pack of filtered cigarettes he smoked in preference to mapacho. Luckily, his medicine was weak and we walked away unscathed at the first light, ‘healed’ by Felix’s incanto stones he impressed on top of our heads. He did want to help, quite genuinely, but thoroughly tired me out with his insistent propositions that I finance building his centre and diet there. In spite of my plain denial of being in possession of money he needed, of course. Conversations going one way are not uncommon, yet one has to shop around for anything as blunt and unapologetic as you encounter in Peru.
We fled to our sanctuary of Cachiyacu the very next day, arriving in shambles and taking time to decompress. Doubts regarding cross dietas, low energy state we were in and lack of proper guidance surfaced up, obscuring our vision of the medicine path: were we in the right place, having fallen in love with beautiful hot springs, our simple yet elegant bungalow erected at the junction of forest streams, virgin jungle all around? Are we just bidding our time, taking it easy?
On the morning of full moon eclipse, it all erupted in painfully recurring argument over breakfast table, Rachel demanding to know if I loved her. I looked her in the eyes for a long moment, and said that if she can’t feel it, my love that is, what does it matter what I say? Words don’t cut it. I was avoiding answering, she said. Well, Universe ain’t static. Everything is in a flux, changing from moment to moment, I probed my feelings. Rachel pressed me to find the core dedication same as she had found in herself, an enduring rock that is not a subject to surface fluctuation of the water pool raked by winds. She loved me deeply from the start; did I love her in return this way? If I didn’t, she’d be gone just like that.
It doesn’t get closer to an ultimatum, amigos. But the feeling was cold, sobering cold. I looked her squarely in the eye once again and replied that I cannot love something which is artificial, such as personality. Persona is but a mask. It drained me to be confronted in this way. Rachel stormed out and I found her packing her belongings two minutes later inside the house. I stood in the doorway, perfectly aware just how wrong the whole scene is. She tried to gift me my birthday presents she’s been secretly making under a veil of a mosquito net on her loft, still half-finished, with tears brimming in her eyes. I wouldn’t accept. I wouldn’t accept her leaving like that, either. It was going to set back both of us energetically for god knows how long, trying to recover our hearts. Rachel had no money, either, as I was sponsoring her most of the way, having paid her airfare in the first place after a total of four days of knowing each other back in New Zealand – she was ultimately dependant on me. Leaving was a gesture of pure desperation on her part, same as me trying to send her back whenever I was confronted by her personality before. Could she see herself actually leaving at this moment of time, I asked. She couldn’t. We embraced and faced the obvious: we were on the path of medicine, utterly dedicated to arriving into the Light and very much in love with each other. The spark was reignited there and then, spreading welcoming warmth all over my chest to the extremities of fingertips and toes. We were going to drink the medicine between two of us and it was going to be just fine.
Huge thanks to all those who reiterated YOU ARE THE MEDICINE sutra and in particular to Benjamin Verdure whose advice resonated to the very core of my being, confirming what was already there and inspiring to go forward. Many thanks to dedication of Maria Artemyeva who took time to come and see us while she was fasting. I have realised since then that the reason I cannot find maestro to teach me what I need the most is because I’ve been looking outside of myself instead of looking inside.
At one point during the ceremony, after an epic cleanse, I was embracing my head in the recovery position, warm rivulets of tears gently trickling down my cheeks, relaxed in deep trance, feeling I was being reborn as a maestro. The connection with higher realms was undeniably there, I could audibly hear clicking sounds of pneumatic suction caps as in Nebuchadnezzar’s docking to the mother ship. The eclipse ceremony we held was absolutely epic. We drank this amazing medicine cooked almost a year ago when our ashaninka helper laid nearly dead having fallen of a tree, being resuscitated back to life by mama Dina, pure medicine woman, the resulting medicine had huge healing power. The mareacion was hugely amplified by the celestial alignment that caused the eclipse, as one would expect – but you pour full cup anyway. Apart from several songs that came through in gratitude of the doctor trees whose bark I was drinking and the invocation chant for sumiruna water spirit, I belted out Rainbow song transmitted by a dear friend with indigenous Maori blood: tall trees, warm fire… cold wind, deep water… do you know the one? I can feel it in my bones, I can feel it in my soul… repeating over and over again till Rachel joined in – all the while sitting in the hot pools of Cachiyacu, taking our voices to the great crescendo of uninhibited heart, illuminated by self-realisation of spirit – and the spring loved it!
We were literally bathing in revelations that night, tepid mineral vapours caressing our torsos and everything... at one point, trying to get out (it took quite a few tries) my fingers were jolted by electrical charge when I touched a root of a tree underwater. We spent next twenty minutes receiving vibrational treatment from the magic root that pulsated under our fingertips and sending rippling effects through the rest of the body. It was incredible, beyond belief.
I’ve been correcting mistakes made in dietas and deviations from protocol simply by praying to the plant spirits who are ultimately forgiving as long as intention invested in taking plant preparations was pure-hearted. I had learned the hard way.
Back in early May I got myself crushed by a soaking-wet trunk that obstructed the waterfall while axing it in half. The log was rotten in the middle and I had no time to jump out of the way, standing on slippery rock face. I lost all my senses for a long moment, drifting in the darkness, with no idea what was damaged. Sensations emerged with flaming agony around my right knee and I could feel a spear of flaming pain entering from the back just under the shoulder blade and exiting from the chest, piercing my heart on the way that responded with erratic beating.
I half-hobbled half-crawled to the pool of water and submerged myself, this is how Rachel found me: naked and twisted and trying to calm down instead of going into panic-induced shock. My mind raced, future vision collapsing: I was having that proverbial ‘wake-up call’, a complete immersion in the Now. Cordillera Blanca went out of the window in a flash, together with all the mountain-climbing aspirations reserved for the next several months. I remember saying to Rachel, unequivocally, that I feared I may not be able ever to walk again.
I know what severe accidents feel like from having fallen of rocks, trees and motorbikes, seeing everything move around me in slo-mo, unable to stop the inertia in the wake of losing control, and waking up on the asphalt from complete blackout… you get the gut feeling about inexorable change affecting your entire life that starts in this nexus of simultaneous contraction and expansion when the world shrinks into singularity and unfurls into magnified perception of senses once again. One is anxious to regain the body and the threads of narrative, some of which are fairly loose and others no longer attached altogether (I lost vision in one eye some fifteen years ago, and could no longer play sport games – those threads were cut. Going to a 3-D screening of the latest James Cameron flick was no longer a possibility to enjoy either, but gave me a great incentive to start rubbing my third eye to tap into tantric vision in retrospect). In short, knew I was in a bad way.
Upon closer examination of the surface damage, I could see my right knee already went black from bruising, which normally happens overnight as damaged blood cells accumulate under the skin. Yet, a strangest thing occurred: half an hour later the bruising was gone. Completely, as if it was never there. My knee never swelled up. I spent two days in bed, meditating and praying to the spirits of renako trees to do their healing magic… and on the third day I walked, like Lazarus raised from the dead, all the way to Santuario and took ayahuaska with Don Enrique who runs this truly incredible medicine centre, having taken us under his wing (his shakapa treatment during the ceremony is indeed like being fanned by a mighty bird). And surprise-surprise, ayahuaska did me a world of good! It dissolved the residue of heavy emotions that descended on me with equally heavy log that crushed me – it weighed no less than quarter of a ton, being thoroughly waterlogged - and provided me with many valuable insights, such as that I’ve been gifted the privilege to rise up to the challenge and learn a most precious lesson, namely how to pray to the plants.
Friends in need are friends indeed, as the saying goes. I felt deep gratitude to the log, paradoxically as it sounds, yet beyond denial. It gave me a chance to experience a healing miracle of plant-medicine first-hand in a situation of extremis. Two weeks after the accident, thanks to magic hands of Rachel massaging the pains away, I was fully mobile and swinging an axe once more.
To cap it off, just last night we both worked on this really talented but body-tense Frenchman, Max, in the ceremony with Egner, Enrique’s brother. Just four of us in the huge beautiful maloka, and Max is wailing during and between the icaros like a dying cat. At one point I started singing melodic overlays on top and underneath Egner’s rhythmic cadence, and he is not a Shipibo to be used to singing overlaying and intertwining stuff but we harmonized beautifully, enhancing and feeding off each other. It kept Max silent for only a few moments after the icaro finished, however, and me and Rachel ended up giving Max a massage that fixed him good and were able to accomplish much work in the remaining time.
What is interesting, Max asked me about the flower I put into his hands when he sat up to meditate after receiving massage. He described its petals, the shapes and gentle pink colours he saw and felt. I tried to deny playing a joke on him, but he insisted the flower was real. I asked him if he still had the flower, he didn’t. It was gone into thin air, as mysteriously as it appeared. That’s real magic right there, if you ask me.
In the wake of administering kambo applications, admittedly while dieting palos, still their spirits came into my dreams. I dreamt of human-size frogs dancing merrily in front of me, self-absorbed in acrobatic contortions; other times I was visited by owls and black pumas that came in pairs and embodied powers to reckon with. Those must have been spirits of suelda-con-suelda as these dreams coincided with the times I’ve been drinking it. The medicines took me deep into the healing crisis, I realised, and both the doubts and desperation surfaced when I posted my question to the group regarding crossed plant dietas.
Solution lay in addressing the spirits of the plants and healing waters which were eager to help and were awaiting invocation. It was good to receive the feedback, including remarks reprimanding me for arrogance and disrespect as these made me question my integrity of intention and it stood the test remarkably well. I found my centre, all it took was a good hammering. I am most grateful to those who encouraged me, however, as this is where spirit takes its strength and nourishment – affinity and affection of those who travelled the thorny way and came out shining on the other side.
I’ve just celebrated my 45thbirthday in the loving embrace of my sole companion, Rachel, who has gifted me a precious painting, handmade tobacco pouch and an icaro voucher! (it’s been redeemed at the same day ceremony while sitting on the rock in the middle of the boiling river Pachitea without further do, he he he... i'm turning impatient as a kid when it comes to magic!)
In recent months we came together through many tribulations in a new capacity to love and play, which also coincided (surprise-surprise) with above mentioned healing crisis, making us acutely aware how our internal state affects everything around. We literally generate our circumstance and life situations, manifesting our fears, our pains, as well as our joys and inspiration.
I am glad to report, all is well on the jungle front. Much blessings to all walking the medicine path, it’s a continuous learning and a pilgrimage into mystery. I also would like to encourage everyone to visit Santuario Huishtin run by Santiago Enrrique Paredes in this unique and powerful spot with a fair amount of geothermal activity going on to keep the whole river consistently heated to high enough temperature one can boil an egg in.
For wild folks like myself, there’s no alternatives that I know of, really, because of the energetics of this pristine environment allows me to hit the depth and look into underlying causes of the issues I’ve been dealing with that stem back to early childhood, infancy and past lives. Enrique’s concise advice, regarding just about anything, is ‘tranquillo’… which I am now taking to heart and wishing you the same, i.e. peace and tranquillity.
Regarding protocols of plant dietas, I’ve realized that rules are guidelines only that serve to a certain point where diatero finds his own feet and starts receiving higher guidance – which is the case of tuning in, as with everything else in life. Hence, ‘in-tuition’. Mind, however, clings to the systems because it operates on guesswork decisions and tumbles in the dark of ignorance, unable to navigate by the guiding resonance alone. In Buddhist doctrine, which can be looked upon as a life-long dieta, there are three thousand principal rules and twice as many provisional ones. It’s incomprehensible to think of memorising them all! So many rules exist for the simple reason that life creates new situations all the time. Circumstance change. Exceptions must be made. Yet the awareness remains paramount over any protocol or rigid mind structure.
A story of three Buddhist monks that came upon a woman waiting at the fast river crossing illustrates this beautifully. The woman pleaded to be helped to the other side, and one of the monks picked her up and carried across, breaking one of principal Buddhist precepts prohibiting monks to be touching a woman. At the camping fire later in the evening two others confronted their fellow adept and he replied that he put down the woman on the other side of the river while they still carried her. Mind must be watched: thoughts clog up the space and energy goes down, instead of up. One wants to cultivate the energy, not to dissipate it.
A friend told me that dieta’s meaning is ‘silence’. It is ironic that it is in silence that the thoughts erupt, coming to the foreground louder than ever. And I find it most difficult thing, to be still and silent, which is a necessary requirement for absorbing energy and undergoing deep healing on a cellular level as cells need energy, first and foremost, to restore and regenerate. Only in deep relaxation does the body generate enough energy needed, which happens either in deep sleep or deep trance. I prefer the later, of course, because it gives me a chance to have a taste of conscious death and channel some of the peacefulness into my days. Many blessings and much respect to all walking the medicine path, it sure ain’t for the faint-hearted. Cleansing never seems to end, neither do the surprises.
I’d like to quote Benjamin Verdure in conclusion, who responded thus to my original post: “This state that you got used to, will create resilience and strength in your path… Be patient and pray deep everyday and leave the non Healthy environment to step up for your Heart and spirit. You will shape yourself with Love, wisdom and Strength and eventually what you truly seek will seek you in Return.”
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