Out of Your Mind and Off Your Head

Conscious awareness, as we understand it, is seen as the crowning jewel of animal evolution. It developed in the human species as our brains generated the kind of complexity needed to support such a capacity. As men devised elaborate hunting strategies and women taught themselves how to find and cultivate plants for food, tens of thousands of years ago, people first created art on walls and deep inside caves. At the same time, a curious trick was also discovered – the ability to switch off the conscious state in favour of an altered state.

Despacho Ceremony with Q’ero Elders

Despacho is a beautiful, old tradition in the Q’ero lineage of Peru that has been used for centuries for a variety of occasions and celebrations. It can be said that it is generally used to celebrate all sides of humane experiences – births, deaths, expressions of gratitude – but a profound observer may soon realise that the despacho ceremony has multiple layers and may also be used for a deeper physical and emotional healing in order to restore harmony and balance in one’s life.

It also serves as a direct prayer and offering to Mother Earth (Pachamama) and many spirits from the Q’ero pantheon.

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.

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.

Samá – The Soul Diet

Samá in Shipibo language or ‘dieta’ is a therapeutic and spiritual practice of isolation and working and integrating with plant medicine. A huge part of this deep traditional experience is to create a direct interaction with plant spirits and their energy and ignite a deep, conscious and complex healing process. It can be seen as a traditional support foundation upon which the structure of deeper and extended, time-wise, work with plant medicine is built.

Noya Rao – The Path of Truth

Noya Rao is almost a mythical tree that grows in the Amazonian forest. Little to no information is to be found on this majestic tree, and it’s all for a very valid reason, that needs to be underlined in the first paragraph – to protect it. Within the Shipibo-Conibo tribe’s traditions, who are widely considered to have the most symbiotic and very conscious approach to plant-based medicine, Noya Rao is generally seen as the great-great-grand Mother of all the other plants. Little information is to be found about this sacred plant online, so here is what I have learnt from the local communities, my Maestra and from my own research, narrowing it down to only what is allowed to be shared by its guardians.

I Am The One Who Knocks

– Knock, knock. – Who’s there? – You. – Me? – Yes, You.

Do you ever feel like there is a force inside of you that can’t be described, yet it is felt so real, it is almost a physical sensation? A sensation of belonging that reflects onto your reality, creating cognitive dissonance or even deep psychological confusion? Why are you here and what is your purpose? Do you experience a feeling of not being fully expressed or intellectually blocked or simply disempowered to bring meaningful actions to your life? A strong physical, psychological and/or emotional sensation of a barrier that prevents you from fully experiencing your nature, environment and people around you?

If anything from above mentioned symptoms applies, please keep reading.

NewEarth Festival : The bridge between the Ancient and the Future

My Tour de Force around Gaia brought me to mesmerising island of Bali, a truly magical land of both tranquility and high vibrational madness. Everything happens for a reason, they say, and the reason for me to walk on this land was found quite organically. I am a knowledge addict, wisdom hunter and worshiper of the intellect. I strongly believe we are in the moment of global transition into a New Earth Nation where the will to coexist, learn from each other, progress in peace and evolve consciously, will propel us beyond the broken facades of politically constructed frames right into a new land of Pangea Ultima.