Links and books worth checking out

The Shaman and Ayahuasca; Don Jose Campos Don Jose Campos is himself an ayahuascero. His book is compiled of interviews, as well as reports from some of his friends. And its quite well-put together.  If the idea that Ayahuasca is a “plant spirit” is still one you’re wrapping your head around, what you read here will probably help. Curanderos have “personal relationships” with the plants; that is to say, they relate to them as persons. So it may be more useful to hear what such a relationship is like, than just to abstractly consider the notion that there is such a thing. In simple, direct language, Campos describes how he works with the plants, and how they themselves work. reading this small volume, you are taken along on an adventure. Stopping from time to time to hear a good story, meeting others, such as the visionary artist Pablo Amaringo, and, of course, sitting in ceremony -- well, sitting with those who were in ceremony “last night”, and hearing their experiences. (One criticism is that the experiences recounted seem to be selected for their color and appeal; the hard work that’s also part of this path gets a mention but not much illustration.)Significant, simple insights on the role of the ayahuascero: “...the shaman has the power to invoke these energies. One can clearly see the power of protection.... One can obrain this force, and the transfer of this force is shamanic.”  And why use plant medicines? Are they “necessary”?  Campos says, “Of course, there are other ways to gain the access and wisdom one gains from Ayahuasca.  But it might take years to attain what one can gain from one ceremony. That’s why I like the plants. They are very fast.”

It’s worth pointing out, that this doesn’t mean you escape doing your personal work. If anything, that work may be more intense and more challenging. But bringing all your power to bear, with the focus and leverage the plants contribute, will accelerate things enough that you’ll have some years to enjoy the fruits!

For those already working with the medicine, or anyone becoming acquainted with shamanic practices, there’s much to consider here. A chapter on the soplada, or clearing-protecting practice.  And don Jose’s comments on the icaros, the sacred songs whose effects are so vividly obvious in ceremony.  A chapter on mapacho; another on a few of the most-used plants for dieta.

And, even if you never give yourself the gift of this plant spirit, Campos offers some useful advice:  “Breathe... breathe … and let go, release. Breathe and let go. Release whatever it is that has you trapped or contracted.” 

“Masters of the Living Energy”,  Joan Parisi Wilcox aptly titles her book, honoring the Andean teachers -- several Q’ero elders, mestizo paqo Americo Yabar, anthropologist  Juan Nunez Del Prado, and young paqo Puma Quispe -- who are interviewed in this pioneering work, which brings elements of the indigenous cosmology of the region to those English speakers who are taking a serious interest in it.  The result is not a well-defined, clear-cut, organized system.  This is good.  The understandings and practices of the native peoples of the Andes do not constitute a body of doctrine.  There is no counsel to rule on what is approved and what is heretical.

 There is though an underlying ground of experience and shared awareness, which is revealed.  The book is a little bit raw.  I love that Wilcox has resisted the temptation to cook it too well.  As we read the accounts of a variety of elders, investigators, teachers, we’re let in on the messiness of coming into a culture not our own; our minds, being jostled about by the unfamiliar details, are left to ponder the real quarry: this field of  “living energy” (Kausay, in the Quechua language).  The indigenous “spirituality” (our concept) does not constitute a religion.  There isn’t a holy book, a clergy, or other means of authority.  There isn’t a bureaucratic structure between man and godhead, to grant favors or levy punishment, earthly or in the afterlife.  What we glimpse instead is an archaic, pre-“civil”-ized, before city, before stratification, form of awareness. Each individual in connection, balance, with the elements of nature, with others in the human family, and with and within the field of energy that constitutes itself into what we experience in this everyday world as well as in non-ordinary realms.

 As it turns out, although these realms, which the conventional mindset of our modern culture would classify as superstition, are not described in an objectively identical way across cultures, there do turn out to be interesting parallels among indigenous peoples around the globe.  And similarly, the diverging but overlapping prescriptions of elements of the Andean experience, as chronicled by Wilcox, leave us an impression, a feeling for the experiences that these teachers share. Opening a variety of doors, and peeking behind them … such investigation is suggestive of the methodology of awakening that indigenous shamans - journeyers, travelers, dreamers - undertake.  And while reading a book about such experiences is exactly ­not the same as having them, since mental investigation is the tool at hand for many of us, we’re invited to engage that tool and see if some of this speaks to a part of us we’ve been missing.

 For those readers already somewhat familiar with Andean teachings, there is much to ponder here, on topics like the mesa, Andean initiations, energetic healing practices, and ways to move the kausay using one’s own field.

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