Teachings of the Shipibo Tradition
The patterns of the Shipibo people — the Kene — carry a profound cultural and spiritual significance. They represent the worldview of our people, our connection with the natural and spiritual world, our identity, our medicine, our protection, and the world of love.
They are inspired by nature: rivers, plants, animals, the stars, the teachings of the ancestors, and the visions received through sacred plants such as ayahuasca and chacuruna.
The designs are an ongoing dialogue with the spirits of the plants and the powers of the rainforest — transmitting knowledge and wisdom from one world to another. Each design tells a story, a memory, and a vision of the future, connecting past and present.
The Maestro prepares the medicine
Ayahuasca is a traditional medicine — ancient, sacred, and very powerful. Honored and respected, it has been used for many years by the healers of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Ayahuasca and chacuruna are master medicinal plants: the ones that open your mind, guide you, protect you, and nourish you with knowledge.
They make you feel, smell, see, touch, and hear. When ayahuasca is combined with chacuruna, it becomes a true healing plant — medicine for body, mind, and spirit.
Some plants are divine. They possess a rank, a status, a power. They play an important role in diagnosis, healing, and the balanced functioning of society. The healer is the one who knows and recognizes the qualities, properties, functions, and needs of each of these sacred beings.
The Shipibo ayahuasca ceremony improves personal and collective well-being, and the long-term quality of life. Before the medicine is given, we offer speeches to the plants — asking for their permission, their authorization, and their medicinal power. Afterward, we offer a gift: mapacho (tobacco), coins, or a piece of cloth.
The ceremony is a space of meeting together, of feeling together, of finding the harmony of being together. It is a purification — where each person is cleansed for healing, connecting with society, with nature, and with the visions of the medicine.
- To heal the various illnesses a person may have.
- To cleanse negative energies from the physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual aspects of a person.
- To organize a person's thoughts and positive energy.
- To open a new path to the future.
- To open a new world filled with love, peace, tranquility, and happiness.
- To connect with the spiritual world of ayahuasca medicine and other medicinal plants.
- To diagnose and heal with the spirits of plants and other natural elements.
The process to become a healer consists of drinking the juice of medicinal plants — their leaves, bark, and seeds — and fasting for three or four days. Afterward, one must faithfully follow the post-diet prescribed by the master, whether for three months, six months, or a full year.
During this training with medicinal plants, we sharpen our senses to the point of perceiving sounds, seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling things that other people cannot. The plants themselves become teachers.
The icaros, with their magical and medicinal songs, embody the powers of plant spirits. These songs accompany the ceremony, channeling the energy of the medicine into the participant's body. Through song, we invoke the plants that heal.
These are not just any songs. They are obtained through a retreat where the plants themselves — prepared with their essence — grant the power of song to heal. Through this magical chanting, the healer works with several kinds of songs during ceremony:
- Songs for cleansing and protecting the ceremonial space.
- Energetic cleansing songs.
- Songs for invoking healing plants.
- Healing songs — songs of light for the body, mind, psyche, and spirit.
- The closing song of the ceremony, to channel and protect the energy body of each participant.