Plant ceremonies and your safety in the midst of a global crisis

A person wrote on one of Facebook groups: “I was at an Ayahuasca retreat last weekend here in (country removed) and they were using the same two rapé pipes (that went up everybody’s nose) and between everyone in the room. They were using the same Ayahuasca glass between everyone and the same water drinking glass between everyone. There were people there from all over (country) and (another countries). There were 17 participants and more coming the following night. I made a presumption that they (hosts) would be taking some precautions and would at least have separate glasses. They didn’t. I decided to leave the retreat the next day. What are everyone’s thoughts on this?” Here are my thoughts.

The Therapeutic Use of Wild Tobacco in the Amazon Rainforest

Known by many names around the world, in the Peruvian jungle commonly called mapacho or sacred tobacco, bot. Nicotiana rustica is a very potent species of tobacco that holds a special place in the hearts of the Amazon people. Westerners may find the concept of tobacco being a medicine extremely difficult to grasp, but for the South American traditional healers called tabaqueros N.rustica is not only a valid and culturally approved natural remedy, but often the only plant they would agree to use in their medicinal practice. To understand their unbiased relationship with tobacco, we need to take a look at a much bigger picture – from indigenous, intimate and intentional use of tobacco to the catastrophic misuse of its energy that resulted in a mass addiction on a global scale. Let’s talk about the spirit of tobacco.

Plants Are Allies – Educational Infographic Leaflets on Various Entheogens – Part 2

Every plant presented in Pangean “Plants Are Allies” infographics series is an entheogen; a plant or a substance that contains psychoactive compound or a group of compounds that induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behaviour to engender spiritual or personal development in a sacred or therapeutic context.

Plants Are Allies – Educational Infographic Leaflets on Various Entheogens

The psychedelic, or should we rather say the Great Entheogenic Renaissance is certainly here, gathering momentum and attracting many who express a will, alongside basic human right, to try the ancient-old proved and available tools of personal and spiritual growth. We are on the edge of a gigantic shift – the allies of nature are out there everywhere, available and potent as they have always been and it is up to us now to fight for their rightful, legal and socially accepted place in order to contribute to our personal and collective evolution and a much brighter future.

Your consciousness is legal. Fight for your right to explore it

Your consciousness and how you access it is and should always be legal. A simple thought that begs to be highlighted in the time of a psychedelic renaissance.

Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend

No, I am not afraid to delve into the void. I accept the gnarled shapes and twisted forms of all my shadows. I truly appreciate my darkness. It has every right to exist. The most important lesson the realm of the medicine delivered to me was never to ignore the so-called “low-vibrational” field as it may create an emotional dissonance, making suppressed, unwanted and often misunderstood, yet extremely powerful emotions, like fear, sadness or grief, difficult or even impossible to tame. As a result, a division between the inner light and the inner shadow may intensify leading to possible imbalance and even mental and physical symptoms such as bipolarity, depression, psychosis or anhedonia, to name just a few.

The Motherland of The Mother

I am often being asked about the difference between experiencing medicine at the source in the jungle and doing samas with native tribes (dieta with plants) versus the experience of the medicine around the world, usually served in a quick weekend or week-long retreats. A complex question, but just take a look at that video, tap into it, and you might just sense the difference right away.

Kené – The Visual Language of Nature

Shipibo designs and art, known as Kené, express an energy matrix woven through all of creation. Inspired by nature and observation of the environment it not only is rooted in the shamanistic visions but, more importantly, in the profound connection with the ecosystem the Shipibo-Conibo tribes are settled in. As such, Kené is not just an art style but it does belong to the ecosystem and is present, in the first place, in plants and animals throughout the Amazon basin.

Plant-based Medicine Documentaries

From documentaries to full feature movies, here is Pangean’s selection of inspirational videos that touch the subject of plant-based medicinal work and can contribute to the understanding of the complex phenomena the jungle shamanism is.

Education as a solid foundation for plant-based medicinal work

As much as I progressed in the light of the plant-based medicinal work in the past couple of beautiful and very beneficial years, I think it would be an act of immature, if not perpetual ignorance to deny the dark side of the Ayahuasca boom and the growing dangers of the unregulated world of psychedelic tourism and, the role and impact of foreign visitors training themselves to be shamans, where the lack of understanding of the cultural frames and the substance we now gladly expose ourselves to is widely ignored or simply unstudied. Importantly, the danger a cultural theft, alongside many other not so “light-soaked” pieces of a larger image (sexual predatory), is often unmentioned.

Yachay and Mariri

Indigenous shamanism is full of intriguing beliefs and fascinating stories. Those of you who have had worked with indigenous healers can probably see them spitting, clearing their throats or coughing a lot throughout various ceremonies. As much as it may just look as just a simple physical reaction there is a deeper and more metaphysical meaning to this.

Just a Family Meeting

¿Que hora es? – asks our Maestra Juana, as the day slowly changes into the night.

– Son las ocho. – somebody replies and, as with the touch of a magic wand, the rainforest starts its cacophonic concert of buzzes, pings, and rustles of hundreds of insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals. The jungle never sleeps.

Nature opens its portal. Permission to enter is given.
The night is about to unfold.