THE HUMMINGBIRD RETREAT CENTRE, SPAIN

When Spanish explorers first encountered hummingbirds in Peru, they called them joyas voladoras: "flying jewels." The hummingbird was revered as a sacred healer, a guardian of plants, the spirit, and those who needed healing or were training as healers themselves.

That is why the hummingbird is the symbol for The Hummingbird Retreat Centre. Located in one of the most peaceful and unspoiled parts of rural Spain, it offers a relaxing and invigorating space where you can escape from ‘normal’ life into a more magical one where time slows down and you have the space to breathe, dream, heal, explore and allow your spirit to flourish as you enjoy the breathtaking scenery of its beautifully tranquil mountain setting – and one of the sunniest and most welcoming climates in Europe.

The Centre offers a wide range of healing therapies and treatments, including massage, hot stone therapy, reiki, and crystals, and outstanding training in the arts of shamanism, soul retrieval, Thai herbal massage, Indian head massage, plant spirit shamanism, yoga, dance, creative writing - and many others - with courses taught by some of the world’s best-known and respected teachers.
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If you are looking for a pleasant escape from the rush of daily life, the Centre offers the perfect holiday, nestled among spectacular mountains in a landscape full of peace and quiet, where things move at a natural pace and the delights of nature surround you.

As well as beautiful scenery, a peaceful and private environment, and delicious home-cooked food, there is a pool for your use, a garden and a pool-side bar and, for those who wish to explore the local area, there are several unmissable sights close by which will give you a flavour of the real Spain.

The Hummingbird Retreat Centre is close to an unspoiled Natural Park in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada which is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and has many unique and rare species, as well as skies that are rated the cleanest in Europe. This area was once ruled by the Moors, who thought it the Paradise promised to them by Allah, and it is not difficult to see why.

It is surrounded by magnificent mountains and olive groves that have grown there for centuries, and ideally placed for those who love nature as you can literally walk out of the grounds and begin your discovery of the Andalucian countryside – or sit by the pool and let nature come to you in the form of the magnificent birds and other gentle and colourful creatures who find the tranquil surroundings irresistible.

The area is above sea level so the climate is warm all year round. During the winter, temperatures range from average highs of 54 degrees to lows of 36 degrees - which is warmer than London in spring. Then, when spring comes to Andalucia, temperatures climb to the mid-60s with lows in the upper-40s.

Summer brings sunny days and warm evenings where daily highs of 87 degrees are typical: a time for sunbathing, relaxing by the pool and taking things easy. Nights drop to a nice mid-60s and everything feels right with the world.

Like spring, autumn is a particularly lovely time to visit. The days are cooler (an average of 70 degrees) and nights are a perfect 50.

COURSES COMING UP AT THE HUMMINGBIRD RETREAT CENTRE

August 1-14
SHAMANIC PRACTITIONER AND HEALER TRAINING
A unique Diploma course which condenses a whole year of normal practitioner training into a two-week residency, saving you time and money. It is ideal for those who wish to learn shamanic skills so they can incorporate them into their lives and/or those who would like to act as guides and healers for others, helping them find their own soul pathways. No prior experience of shamanism or healing is necessary.

August 22-26
HEALING ARTS TRAINING
More information to come.

September 5-9
WRITE IN THE HEART OF SPAIN
Do you think you have a book in you? We’re sure you do. Everyone has a story to tell, a unique experience they would like to share, an entertaining or poignant memory, an extraordinary encounter, or a skill that should be passed on to others and which would make the world richer if it was. This relaxing, inspiring and creative workshop is packed with information and ideas to help you discover, develop, and take pleasure from your natural writing abilities and skills - and get your book into print.

September 12-16
SHAMANIC HEALING AND SOUL RETRIEVAL TRAINING
A training course for people who would like to deepen their understanding and practice of shamanism and bring healing to others. Participants are introduced to the issues of soul loss and the practice of soul retrieval from a shamanic perspective. They learn how soul loss occurs and how to find or track a soul and bring it back to a person who is suffering from its loss. As well as working with practices for soul retrieval, the course focuses on ‘soul anchoring’: providing a safe and powerful space for soul-energy to return to, using methods of energy rebalancing, spirit extraction and power retrieval, as well as ‘life after soul retrieval’: how to create healthier lives for ourselves and others after the healing has taken place.

September 19-22
THE RETURN OF THE SERPENT: PLANT SPIRIT SHAMANISM AND THE VINE OF SOULS
On this workshop we explore our connection to nature and the folkways, medicines and wisdom of our ancestors as we restore balance to our souls through the healing and visionary powers of ‘the vine of souls’, one of the world’s greatest teacher plants. Participants learn the fundamental practices of plant spirit shamanism, including methods for connecting to and working with our guides and allies in nature, how to recognise and prepare healing plants, give and receive blessings, and aspects of soul healing and retrieval using plants and flowers. Two teacher plant ceremonies are included, which we prepare for by following the shaman’s diet, just as it has been practiced for thousands of years by plant spirit shamans and healers of the Amazonian ayahuasca traditions.

September 26-30
REIKI TRAINING AND INITIATION
More information to come.

December 29-January 2 2010
NEW YEAR GATHERING, CELEBRATION AND HEALING RETREAT
Do something different this New Year: revitalise, energise, relax, cast off the old and find the new energy and focus to make the coming year the best you’ve ever had! Your stay includes delicious celebratory food, three therapies of your choice, entertainment and performances, gentle workshops and traditional Spanish rituals for blessing the year ahead. Most of all it’s about taking it easy!

HIRE THE HUMMINGBIRD FOR YOUR OWN COURSES
The Hummingbird Retreat Centre is also available to other healers and teachers and is an ideal venue for yoga, tai chi, meditation, dance, holistic therapies and other courses, as well as relaxation, celebration and renewal.

For more information on The Hummingbird Retreat Centre, its courses and healing therapies, or to hire the Centre yourself, email gina_holsgrove@hotmail.com

Ayahuasca and San Pedro retreats in Peru and Plant Spirit Shamanism workshops in Spain 2009

I'm pleased to announce new workshops and events with the world's most amazing teacher plants!

THE RETURN OF THE SERPENT: PLANT SPIRIT SHAMANISM AND THE VINE OF SOULS
SPAIN, SEPTEMBER 19-22
On this workshop we explore our connection to nature and the folkways, medicines and wisdom of our ancestors as we restore balance to our souls through the healing and visionary powers of ayahuasca, one of the world’s greatest teacher plants, which is said to be “born of a snake”.

Participants learn the fundamental practices of plant spirit shamanism, including methods for connecting to and working with our guides and allies in the shamanic otherworld, how to recognise and prepare healing plants, give and receive blessings from nature, and aspects of soul healing and retrieval using plants and flowers. Two ayahuasca ceremonies are also provided, which we prepare for by following the shaman’s diet, just as it has been practiced for thousands of years by plant spirit shamans and ayahuasceros.

We also purify ourselves with limpia: cleansing baths using flowers and herbs to refresh body and soul, change luck, confer spiritual blessings, and open ourselves to the healing that the vine of souls can bring.

Alongside the vine we also diet native plant mixtures for lucid dreaming, so we are better prepared for, and more receptive to, the spirit of the vine.

Shamanic practices, exercises, and attunements are used to deepen our connection to our enlightened ancestors and the natural world, and during our ceremonies, icaros - sacred chants of the Amazonian shamans - will guide our journeys and call the spirits of healing and vision.

Email ross@thefourgates.com for a free information pack.

AYAHUASCA JOURNEYS TO THE AMAZON RAINFOREST
PERU, OCTOBER 30 - NOVEMBER 12
The Magical Earth Amazon Adventure is a 14-day ayahuasca and plant spirit shamanism journey to the Amazon Rainforest which could – literally - change your life.

Focussed on healing and self-exploration, The Magical Earth Amazon Adventure offers a unique and transformative encounter with the magical powers of nature through the ancient rituals of the Amazonian plant shaman.

There are seven ayahuasca ceremonies, as well as jungle walks to meet the spirits of the plants, the opportunity to diet particular plants and absorb their curative powers, workshops on shamanism and plant magic, and the chance to work with expert shamans of the plant spirit tradition and receive one-to-one consultations and healings from them.

We provide transportation in Peru to our jungle retreat centre, accommodation, food, translation services, ceremonies, shamans, workshops, and medicines. All you really need do is be open to this magical event and the changes it might bring to your life!

Included in your programme are:

Traditional ayahuasca ceremonies for cleansing, release, healing, and spiritual realisation
Flower, herbal, and clay baths to restore balance to the soul, and for “flourishing”: good luck and success
Plant walks and explorations of the Rainforest with our shamans and guides and gain insight into the healing powers of nature
Introductions to healing and the wisdom of the plants and shamanic practices in workshops led by Ross Heaven, author of the best-selling book, Plant Spirit Shamanism, and seminars with Ross and the shamans
The opportunity to diet plants which can help your unique quest to understand life and your spiritual mission
A jungle-style sauna for purification
A visit to Pasaje Paquito, a treasure trove of medicinal remedies from all over the Amazon Rainforest
The chance to work with some of the greatest Amazonian shamans, who are experts on healing and masters of the plants, in authentic rituals and healings to help you on your journey – an experience of total power.

Visit www.thefourgates.com for more details or email Ross@thefourgates.com for a free Information Pack.

SAN PEDRO JOURNEY TO THE ANDES OF PERU
CUSCO, NOVEMBER 14-20
The Cactus of Vision journey to Peru is a magical experience of authentic Andean shamanism, using the methods, plants, and approaches that have been practiced in this region for thousands of years. Our accommodation is close to the heart of Cusco - the “centre of the world” - so you can enjoy Peru and its culture as well as its magic and medicine.

Your programme includes:

Authentic San Pedro ceremonies with the visionary cactus, led by Andean shamans.

Limpia: an Andean healing method for cleansing and rebalancing the spiritual body through the removal of unhelpful energies.

Pago: an offering to the spirits of the land and a blessing for those who take part..

Coca Divination: using the leaves of the sacred coca plant to produce a picture of a person’s life – and sometimes past lives. Each divination is unique and sometimes followed by a ‘correctional healing’ to change the future and produce an outcome more favourable to your needs or desires.

Seminars and circle meetings with the shamans and Ross Heaven, author of Plant Spirit Shamanism, are also included to discuss your San Pedro insights and provide you with background to Andean shamanism to enhance your understanding of this healing tradition.

Email ross@thefourgates.com for a free Information Pack or visit the website www.thefourgates.com and look under the Sacred Journeys section.

AN INTRODUCTION TO PLANT SPIRIT WISDOM AND PLANT SPIRIT SHAMANISM

AN INTRODUCTION TO PLANT SPIRIT WISDOM AND PLANT SPIRIT SHAMANISM
Based on a presentation by Ross Heaven to the Freedomseekers Shamanic Conference, Glastonbury, England, 2008

Archaeology shows that human beings have worked with plants for thousands of years, as medicines – foods, of course - and as consciousness-changing agents. Even today 75% of our planet’s people rely on medicines derived from plants – so do the other 25% actually but they just don’t know it because most of our pills and prescriptions - although packaged and artificially made - are still produced from extracts of plants.

Every plant we eat, bathe in, smell, or touch has a consciousness of its own – and changes our consciousness too, no matter how subtly. So we shouldn’t get hung up on just the psychedelic or entheogenic plants as a route to new understanding.

Terence McKenna, the great consciousness-explorer wrote, in fact, that all of “nature is alive and talking to us” – a message he hammered home by adding “this is not a metaphor”. If we simply open ourselves to nature, that is, we are on the road to self-discovery and healing – whether or not we work with those plants which we in the West call ‘hallucinogenic’.

HALLUCINOGENS
Some plants, though, have come to greater prominence because of their entheogenic status.

The word entheogen was coined in 1979 by a group of ethnobotanists including Gordon Wasson and Richard Evans Schultes. The word ‘hallucinogen’ sounded too much like ‘hallucination’ to them - as if the visions these plants revealed had no real ‘reality’ and could therefore be dismissed as the wild imaginings of an intoxicated mind.

As Terence McKenna says, however, there are also “true hallucinations”: visions which reveal profoundly useful information which can be applied to the world.

As an example, one of these ‘true hallucinations’ may well have led to the discovery of the structure of DNA and its famous double helix.

Francis Crick wrote that he was struggling to understand how DNA worked one day, and entered what he called a dreaming state while he had this on his mind; a state of dreaming possibly aided by a plant…

He dreamed of snakes writhing together and winding themselves like the serpents of the caduceus. It was “a not insignificant thought”, as he rather humbly puts it – and from that true hallucination we now know how DNA looks.

We’ll come back to DNA a little later.

Schultes and the others wanted to differentiate teacher plants and visionary allies from hallucinogenics so they were respected for the gifts they offer, so they arrived at the word entheogen instead.

“In a strict sense”, they said, “only those vision-producing drugs that can be shown to have figured in shamanic or religious rites would be designated entheogens”.

The key word is probably “rites” because there is always a ritual or ceremony that goes with the use of visionary plants – sometimes one that goes on for days before the plant is even taken. On our trips to the Amazon, for example, we prepare ourselves for three days before we take our first drink of ayahuasca and even then, the ingestion of the plants is within a strict ceremonial setting. Shamanic work with teacher plants is not just “drug-taking”.

The literal meaning of the word entheogen is "that which causes God to be within an individual". They reveal the divine within us through their ability to expand consciousness and reconnect us to All-That-Is.

A massive expansion in consciousness may, indeed, have resulted from the work of our ancestors with teacher plants – and we may all have entheogens to thank for our ability to think and reason as we do – even if we have never taken one ourselves. 40,000 years ago, for example, there was an unexplained but huge growth in the size of the brain – mainly in the parts responsible for abstract thought, reasoning, and what we might call “visioning” or “seeing the future”. It was a growth so big and so fast that it changed the structure of our skulls and gave us the rounded foreheads we have today compared with our ancestors.

No-one knows why this happened – but an expansion in consciousness would do it because we would need new grey matter to store the information downloaded from the universe via teacher plants.

McKenna suggests this: that our hunter-gather ancestors came across special mushrooms during their foraging and, eating them, were transported to the gods, bringing back Promethean gifts that changed the nature of our world and gave birth to civilisation – if you can call what we have today “civilisation”.

After that these mushrooms became sacred teachers used by shamans and medicine men to heal and enlighten their tribes, and by ordinary people to discover what was extraordinary within and around them.

THE MOON MAN
There is a similar but slightly different story from the Peruvian Amazon regarding ayahuasca, the vine of souls. It says that thousands of years ago, people lived in harmony with nature and were able to climb a rope to other worlds where they talked with the spirits of ancestors, animals, and plants. Everything was wonderful and we were at peace - until the Moon Man cut the rope and our connection to nature was lost.

Why would the Moon Man do such a thing?

In the Amazon, the moon is a masculine symbol and associated with rationality, analysis, and logic; the antithesis to intuition, connection, and blending – so what this story really says is that the growth of the rational mind erodes our connection to the real world – the spirit world which exists beyond forms. By using only our rational minds, we are cast adrift and lost.

To heal their people and bring them back to balance, the shamans visited the gods on their behalf and were given a new rope – the ayahuasca vine – by which to climb back to the spirit world, so all was well again.

AYAHUASCA
Mind-altering plants have their fashions like everything else and for Westerners ayahuasca seems to be the plant of the moment, so I’m going to devote some time to exploring this with you. But I also want to give you my prediction for the next teacher plant that will be the most important to our planet.

The ayahuasca brew is actually a blend of two plants. The ayahuasca vine – banisteriopsis caapi – and Psychotria viridis – the leaves of the chacruna plant. Mixed together, they form a potent visionary brew which is also called ayahuasca. The word is a compound of two from the Quechua language: aya meaning “spirit or dead person” and huasca meaning “vine” – hence “the vine of souls”.

The two plants are taken from the Rainforest in a sacred way and carefully measured together in a cauldron after the vines have been mashed. Water is added and the mixture is slowly boiled for up to 12 hours (sometimes more – I have drunk a 72-hour brew made by a student of Pablo Amaringo), watched over by a shaman who constantly talks to the plants and may also sing sacred songs to them, called icaros. Other plants are sometimes added to the mixture – like toe for spirit-flight, or mucura for balance and vision – but a simple brew would be ayahuasca and chacruna.

No-one quite knows how these two plants came to be added together. In the jungle they usually don’t grow near each other and they look dissimilar so it is not as if their appearance might have suggested combining them.

Some shamans say that long ago, in fact, the ayahuasca vine was prepared and drunk by itself (as the Achuar people still do) but the visions it produced led them to believe that it was pining for its soul mate – the chacruna.

The ayahuasca spirit told the shamans to go out into the jungle and find this soul mate. “Turn two corners”, it said, and they would find the plant to add.

The story makes no sense, of course, because there are no ‘corners’ in the jungle! But, then, ‘making sense’ is not necessarily a route to understanding anything because it delivers us into the hands of the Moon Man again and his fixation on logic.

Instead, the shaman’s explanation is best regarded as a metaphor for a more fundamental truth: that the spirits of the plants make their wishes clear and that shamans must act on what they are told. This is the true route to knowledge in the jungle and in life more widely. Listen to the spirits.

Interestingly, both the vine and the chacruna leaves are more or less inert and have limited effect by themselves in changing consciousness. When added together, though, a potent brew is produced. This in itself reveals an understanding of pharmacology by shamans which modern science is only just catching up with.

Basically, one of the plants in the ayahuasca mix activates the most ancient visionary centres in our brains: our routes to the unconscious, to the God within us, and to our connection to everything. It is from this that we may draw supernatural powers.

The problem is that there are mechanisms in our bodies which work to inhibit these effects.

The other plant in the brew, however, prevents these mechanisms from kicking in. The result of combining them, then, is to inhibit our body’s ‘veto-response’ so we are free to explore the universal mind.

The experience is also entirely natural and organic since it works with the visionary centres of our own brains. It can last for 4 hours or more as we spin into the universe and meet with the gods of healing.

The shamanic chemists of the rainforest have been mixing ayahuasca like this for literally thousands of years – and yet it was only about 50 years ago that science discovered how ayahuasca works: as I explained it – one plant an inhibitor, one a bringer of visions. If you ask the shamans how they knew, thousands of years ago, what our scientists are only just starting to understand, they will tell you: “Simple. The plants told us”.

This is the basis for most plant spirit medicine, in fact, not just work with ayahuasca: You trust the plants; you respect them; then you ask, listen and pay close attention, and the plants, aware of your needs, are delighted to give up their secrets.

Respect is an important part of plant spirit work as well and with ayahuasca, for example, there are many rituals which must be observed in its preparation. One of these is to blow your prayers and wishes into the brew before you drink it, so that the ayahuasca knows you. This process is called soplada and alerts the spirits to your needs so they can work for you during the ceremony.

[Slide] This is Mandy, one of the participants on our Magical Earth Adventure, doing exactly that on the morning when we made the first brew together. It’s daybreak in this photo and you can already see how light it is – the jungle is not always the dark impenetrable forest you see in films and documentaries!

The ayahuasca is cooking in a large pot over a wood fire and Mandy is using the smoke from a mapacho – a special cigarette made from pure jungle tobacco – to carry her prayers into the brew. The smoke also feeds the spirits and, as it is absorbed, the ayahuasca will come to understand her soul and the nature of the healing that Mandy especially requires.

Behind her is a sweatlodge, which is used in our purification rituals prior to ayahuasca ceremonies. I’ll talk more about this later.

The people around her are shamans and note that they are just wearing jeans and t-shirts like everyone else. Some people – notably journalists for some reason – seem to have the quaint notion that all shamans dress in loincloths and swing through the trees with blow-guns.

In fact - out of costume and out of the ritual or healing context – most shamans are just like you and me. It is only in ceremony that things change and they become Men of Power, in Castaneda’s words.

[Slide] The Shipibo are considered masters of ayahuasca and the patterns on their tunics – like this one here – suggest waveforms, ladders, serpents, and vines. You might also see some similarity to DNA…

In this picture, one of our Shipibo shamans is overseeing participants in Peru as they break up the ayahuasca vines prior to their brewing. You can see Mark and a few others here, breaking the vines into shreds so they can be boiled more easily.

This picture was taken at about 5am as well. Ayahuasca preparation is an all-day event and one of the reasons, incidentally, why this teacher plant is never likely to become a recreational drug: it’s just too much hard work for our instant-gratification society!

Happily for us, most of this work is done by our shamans, who never seem to sleep or stop working! Some of these shamans are in their 70s but have the vitality of young men, so something in the ayahuasca must obviously work!

The patterns on the shaman’s tunic also denote the energy grid that underlies all material things, and the complex relationships between the people of the community and the spirits around them.

The same designs often appear to participants during their ayahuasca visions as well, and become a sort of pathway or map to truth as they follow them and receive their deeper meaning.

AYAHUASCA CEREMONIES
Ayahuasca ceremonies always take place in darkness and, in the Amazon, in a simple, open-sided hut, which is the shaman’s temple for dreaming.

With the shaman’s permission it is possible to leave the temple and wander in the jungle to take in the sights, not just of the rainforest, but of the spiritual world opened up by ayahuasca. On our last journey to the Amazon, for example, many participants reported that they were able to see the spirits around them and the energies of the plants and jungle, as well as their own interior world, and many have amazing stories to tell.

In fact, the inner and outer worlds become so blended that what you see is in some ways what you are. This is another way in which ayahuasca reveals the truth.

The ceremonial space is always protected by the shamans through the use of perfumes and floral waters like agua florida (‘water for flourishing’) as well as tobacco smoke so no unwanted spirits can enter.

During the ceremony itself it is also normal for shamans to perform healings on participants using bundles of leaves called chacapa to ‘iron out’ the energy body. They also sing songs called icaros to direct the journey and bring well-being. Sometimes other methods are used too, such as massage or spiritual work.

[Slide] This is what ayahuasca looks like before it is drunk. The cup is made from a jungle seed. A lot of shamans call ayahuasca “chocolate” and you can see why – although the taste is not quite as pleasant as chocolate! It is rather bitter and ‘earthy’, in fact – like some Chinese medicines - although some shamans are better than others at giving it a sweet and more palatable taste. This is usually down to the shaman’s intention and his attention to the brewing process.

This is quite a large dose, incidentally, and not one I would recommend to a first-timer.

The effects take about 30 minutes to come on – though sometimes they are immediate – and usually begin with a feeling of warmth in the stomach, which spreads throughout the body. Then there is a feeling of skin elasticity, as if the atoms of the body are merging with those of the air. After that the visionary effects begin, but I’ll talk more about those in a moment.

PREPARATION
Before the ceremonies, however, it is necessary to purify the body and soul so we are more open to the ayahuasca spirit. This is accomplished through rituals including sweatlodges and jungle-style saunas where the participant is wrapped in blankets and stands over a steaming cauldron containing cleansing herbs and a little ayahuasca so that the participant and the spirit of the plants can meet each other before the ayahuasca is drunk.

Some of you have experienced sweatlodges before, no doubt, but in the jungle they are slightly different. We take two sweats. The first is led by the shamans and is an appeal to the jungle spirits and the soul of the plants, as well as a spiritual cleansing. Inside the lodge, the shaman burns plants such as pinon colorado – a defence against ‘evil sorcerers’ and a means for extracting virote – magical darts or poisonous blasts of energy – they may have infected us with.

Evil sorcerers are around us everywhere, by the way! Every time we sit down next to someone radiating negative energy we fall under their spell, and their vibrations can come to infect us so we feel grubby or angry as well - because their energies are now part of ours. Plants like pinon colorado bring us back to purity and remove these energies so we are ‘ourselves’ again and open to the healing of ayahuasca.

The second sweatlodge is led by me and is probably more familiar to Westerners. We use plants too and our prayers are to the widest community of spirits to bless us on our journeys ahead.

A special practice called the plant diet is also followed as a ritual preparation for ayahuasca. This restricts certain foods as well as behaviours such as sex. Participants eat fresh, healthy food, but it is mostly bland, and spices, oils, meats, salt, and so on are prohibited. These are all foods which do not react well with ayahuasca and which – like salt and lemons – will cut through magic if eaten.

The effect of the diet, like the sweatlodges and other practices, is to help us leave the outside world behind and let go of attachments – to routines, habits, addictions and dependences – so we become in a sense more plant-like ourselves and more pure in body and spirit.

Healing plants are also added to the diet - such as ajo sacha and chiric sanango. Ajo is the hunter’s plant and is taken to make the tribesman invisible to his prey so he blends in with the forest. It is the plant of stalking but, for our purposes, it also has an interesting psychological effect: of helping us to stalk our ‘inner issues’ so that emotional pains and negative energies can be released or dealt with during the ayahuasca ceremony. Chiric sanango is a plant often prescribed to warm up the body. Hence it may be given to arthritis sufferers or those in professions like fishing, where cold damp conditions are usual. But it also has a psychological effect: that of warming up a cold heart or cooling down a heart too enflamed by jealousy or rage. It is a rebalancer of energies, and opens us to love. Some shamans say it also provides the “boiling energy” necessary to see the spirits and meet our allies.

The jungle centre where we stay has so far catalogued about 1,500 plants that grow at the camp, as well as their uses, so ajo and chiric sanango are far from the only ones which might be added to a diet. All of them work together with ayahuasca, so it really depends on what you wish to accomplish, the nature of the questions you bring, or the healing you require.

[Slide] This image shows another aspect of plant ritual – soplada – a healing performed by the shaman where tobacco smoke carries prayers and intentions to release blockages from a participant’s energy system.

In this picture we are waiting to take floral baths by the river and Ben, who is being healed, was feeling a little unwell, so the shaman performed a healing for him. Within minutes he was dancing his way to the river!

Floral and other baths like these are also a part of ritual preparations. They rid the body of toxins by using special flowers and herbs.

[Slide] This image shows the “invisible people”! and illustrates one form of bathing – the clay bath or bano de barro – where participants are coated in clay from healing pools where the brightest animals in the jungle come to drink. Many of these animals are natural enemies but at the pools they drink together in peace. Not only are the minerals in the clay good for the skin, therefore, but the spiritual intention of the clay itself is to heal rifts and bring peace and co-operation into the participant’s life.

Other baths are also taken, where beautiful perfumes and flowers are poured over the participant. In this picture of Mike and Mark, the flowers of rosa sisa are used: marigolds. These are used for protection against envidia and the evil eye. Envidia is envy – a sort of jealous rage directed against a person by someone who is envious of what they have and wants to take it from them or see them suffer.

Marigolds are often planted near the doorways of houses in Peru to catch the negative energies of those who pass by. The flowers are said to turn black when vibrations like these are caught, but return to their bright colour once the energies are discharged to the earth.

ICAROS
Icaros – the shaman’s songs – are sung throughout most of the activities I’ve mentioned so far, and during ayahuasca ceremonies themselves. These songs are not invented by the shamans but are gifts from the forest and the plants. Michael Harner would probably call them ‘power songs’. They tell of nature’s ability to heal, and they evoke the powers of certain plants or places of strong spirit and intention.

The shaman, during his training and initiation, may spend months or years by himself in the jungle, dieting the plants to get to know them, drinking ayahuasca, and seeing no-one except the spirits. One of our shamans, Javier, for example, once undertook a diet alone by himself in the jungle for two solid years. Only three people have successfully completed this diet. But it’s by no means the longest. Other shamans we work with spent ten or even twenty years alone in the jungle dieting the plants.

By ingesting these plants and drinking ayahuasca, the shaman becomes familiar with them and learns what they can cure physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually – the four separate bodies that shamans say we have.

During his diet, he may be gifted an icaro - a song of power from his plant allies. This is like an audio snapshot of his feeling of healing, wisdom, or strength at that time and carries with it all that is happening within and without him at that moment.

It may refer to a nearby waterfall that has a soothing sound, for example, or the powerful call of a particular bird, or to a star shines on him and the mood this invokes in him of confidence and peace. It is these feelings and events – as well as the essence of the plants he is dieting - that the song captures. Using it as a carrier, the shaman is able to transfer these energies and qualities to other people when he sings this icaro in ceremony. So it becomes a gift of power for them too.

THE EFFECTS OF AYAHUASCA
I said earlier that I would talk about the effects of ayahuasca, but in fact it is difficult to say too much because the experience is quite personal and it’s hard to put enlightenment or healing into words. The experience of expanded consciousness is way beyond words.

Comments from a few participants on last year’s Magical Earth trip show the problem. This is from a businesswoman in the UK:

“People ask, ‘How was the trip?’ - and what do you answer? No words can do it justice. There are too many experiences to mention and none would give light on my true feelings… The stillness I feel and the lack of rush is incredible. What we experienced was something so special and life just keeps getting better.”

This is Annette, a riding school owner in the US:

“An experience that changed my life. It is hard to describe something so magical but I have no doubt that I will draw from this for the rest of my life”.

There are some things that can be said, however, and some things the experience of individuals may share in common. In fact, one of the early scientific names for ayahuasca was telepathine because it has the power sometimes to allow a group of people to share a common vision. Hence, you will read in some books of whole tribes drinking ayahuasca together when a decision had to be made that affected them all, such as moving camp or how best to face an enemy. From the visions they received, they were able to reach an informed conclusion.

It is also important to be clear, though, that when I use the word “vision” I do not just mean images. Sometimes the visionary information is given in words, sounds, emotions, or memories rather than pictures. Normally this information is also accompanied by a sense of the numinous: a closeness to God or to the divine energies of the universe, along with feelings of awe and well-being. A vision might therefore be more akin to a massive upload of understanding or information, and it is this, not the pictures, which is most significant.

Images are common, however, and they may also have a symbolic meaning, revealing new information about who we are, how we see the world and our place in it, or about the nature of our illness or dis-ease.

Visions of snakes and vines are also common, accompanied by a sense of fundamental wisdom revealed through their presence, and a feeling of affinity with them and all things: a sort of knowledge of God - or of being God.

The consistency of this snake imagery led one scientist – Jeremy Narby – to coin the term ‘Cosmic Serpent’ to describe the frequency of such images, and the feelings they evoke. Narby draws an analogy between the appearance of the vine (which is snake-like itself), the snake imagery that emerges, and the structure of DNA, just as Francis Crick saw it. He concludes that ayahuasca enables us to commune with the consciousness of DNA itself.

DNA is the fundamental building block of life, so what Narby is really saying is that, through ayahuasca, we can come to understand the nature of reality and the purpose of everything on Earth – including ourselves.

He also suggests that it is DNA - or the energy it contains – is what shamans are in contact with when they perform their healings. On some level, they and ayahuasca ‘restructure’ or repattern our DNA, leading us from ill-health to well-being.

It’s a bold claim, but I have seen many healings like this in the last 10 years, including cures for long-term physical problems, and it’s clear that something is going on – something that science has no explanation for.

Other sensations that typically arise for participants are a sense of being a part of – not apart from – nature, and the knowledge that all things are alive and we are all one. This, in itself, can be empowering.

[Slides] This image by the ayahuasca shaman and artist, Pablo Amaringo, gives an idea of this. We see a patient bathing in floral waters while three shamans sit next to him with ayahuasca. Around him the whole jungle comes to life as serpent-like figures wrap themselves around him and the trees.

This is another Amaringo, showing images of the angels of the plants and animals, along with UFOs and other celestial and planetary life arriving in the jungle to bring knowledge of other worlds.

Quite a few UFOs or otherworldly visitors have been seen in the jungles, by the way, and many shamans say that all human beings come from the stars. This is interesting again, because modern science is also starting to suggest that life on Earth was carried here from the stars in the frozen waters of comets. Apparently, the shamans knew this thousands of years ago, and without the help of scientific equipment or multi-million pound laboratories – because the plants told them!

In this picture, the participants sit at the bottom and in the centre there is a golden temple of healing, where they will be taken by ayahuasca so their lives will “flourish” and grow better. It shows the gods of the waters, the protectors of the village, and the cities in the sky. Perhaps it represents some deep memory of what I just said: that life is born – or reborn – from the sky and water.

The underwater world, in Western symbolism at least, is also a metaphor for the unconscious, so perhaps another message here is that there are powers within us that we can use to heal ourselves, and that ayahuasca is an aid to unlocking them.

These places – the healing temples, cities underwater or in the skies – are all ones that participants may also see or be taken to during ayahuasca ceremonies. The presence of angels, gods, and spirit-helpers and the knowledge that “nature is alive and talking to us” are also common experiences.

AYAHUASCA HEALING
The healing available from ayahuasca tends to take 5 forms – often all at once: what we might call mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and, finally, “miraculous” – something we have no real words for.

Mentally, it can bring feelings of well-being through our new understanding that we are not separate from creation but a part of it all and that the world is not fearful but founded on love.

A lack of love and a feeling of isolation are often the most fundamental problems for anyone facing illness, and the ones I see most often in the clients who visit me, not matter how their ill-health manifests. By drinking ayahuasca, we see beyond the illusions of fear and the mind can come back to peace.

If we include depression and addiction as ‘mental problems’ as well, then there is a lot of science to suggest that ayahuasca is profoundly able to cure these modern diseases – including at least one study which shows a 70% success rate in curing drug and alcohol addictions.

Emotionally, ayahuasca enables us to revisit – in a safe and contained way – the old hurts, wounds, and attachments we are still carrying with us and which can lead to recurring problems in our lives or to the onset of physical disease. In the Amazon this is known as saladera: a run of bad luck which arises from emotional causes.

Energy which has been around for a long time tends to congeal and become matter. Thus, for example, if you were told to shut up often enough times or with sufficient force when you were a child, you may find yourself blocked in your throat and this energy blockage can become physical, leading to problems not only of expression, but to throat cancers and other ailments. By releasing this energy, balance is restored and the physical problem also clears up.

That might sound remarkable, but let me tell you about one serious physical disease – a brain tumour – that I have also seen ayahuasca heal… This was back in 1998 when, on a jungle trip, a very brave young woman joined us who was in a wheelchair and partly paralysed as a result of her tumour. She had not been given long to live by her doctors and chemotherapy had added to her problems.

She took part in ayahuasca ceremonies and, on the first night, the shaman’s visions told him he could help her. That shaman had only intended to be with the group for one ceremony but after his visions he stayed for another four days and worked on his patient tirelessly.

By the end of the week she was out of her wheelchair and able to walk with sticks. She felt and looked much better. Even her hair was growing back. When she returned to England her doctors confirmed that her tumour had shrunk in size.

Sadly, she is no longer with us, but from a position of being given just a few weeks to live and to be wheelchair-bound, she lived for a further five years in defiance of her doctors, and enjoyed more independence and a much better quality of life.

Spiritually, a number of people report that during ayahuasca sessions they have ‘met with God’. They don’t mean this idly either. The encounter – whatever form it takes for them and however their God appears – leads to real life changes. People realise that they are not alone in the universe, that there is a higher power, and there is intention and purpose to everything. As a consequence, they clean up their acts, make new choices, and decide to follow better paths. Some have resigned from unfulfilling jobs and found freedom, some have left unhappy relationships, some have turned away from a life of crime and the exploitation of others and decided to work for good instead.

Whatever they see or feel as a result of their communion, it manifests as a sense that there is more to life than the one they are living and they understand that we were not sent here to be unhappy or trap ourselves in the trivial, but to play, adventure, and explore. And so they move on; they reclaim their souls and begin to live again.

The miraculous is harder to explain. It is as if ayahuasca has the power in itself to change the nature of physical reality. Two examples:

The first was a participant on our Amazon trip last year who wanted to set up a charity to help people in the developing nations and who was selling his flat to fund it. He needed £4,000 fairly immediately, which he hadn’t got. So he set his intention for it to flow effortlessly to him during one of our ayahuasca ceremonies.

I think he’d hoped that the vine would help him sell his flat quicker but, in fact, when we left the jungle he emailed his solicitor and found that it hadn’t sold. She did, however, mention that a few days earlier – the night of our ceremony, in fact – she’d discovered a mysterious amount of money in his account that neither of them knew was there. It was exactly £4,000; precisely the amount he needed.

The second example is from another participant on the same trip and I’ll let her tell it in her own words. She writes:

“I had beautiful sessions with ayahuasca and always felt nurtured and held. One vision that came through strongly involved my eldest daughter. She was diagnosed with polycystic ovaries when she was 15. Her ambition was always to be a mum but the problem with this condition is fertility: she may find it impossible to conceive.

“I asked ayahuasca if she would become a mum and had the clearest vision, like watching a film, of me and her boyfriend in a delivery room and her giving birth to my grandchild. I came from that vision crying with joy.

“On my return to England two weeks later I got a call from my daughter. She was in shock because she’d just found out she was pregnant - even though she was on the pill and apparently had fertility issues. Ayahuasca was too powerful for those small problems!

“My grandchild is due on the 7th of July – I had the vision before my daughter even knew about the pregnancy!”

I might add that these are far from the only supernatural or miraculous events I have seen during the time I have worked with ayahuasca.

How can a plant do this? Well, who knows what we or the universe are capable of when we free our minds from self-limitations and allow it to empower us? Nothing is impossible to God, after all!

Some of you may be inspired to try ayahuasca for yourself after hearing about it today and, if so, that is possible. We run frequent Amazon trips. Email me (ross@thefourgates.com) and I’ll be happy to send you details.

SAN PEDRO
I said earlier that teacher plants are subject to fashion and that each seems to have its time. Perhaps its spirit is called by the needs of the present moment.

For me, San Pedro will be next plant we hear more of. San Pedro is the sacred cactus of Peru, and one of the most ancient, legendary, and magical of teachers, even though it has been largely overlooked so far by the West. Its name refers to Saint Peter, who holds the keys to Heaven, and speaks of its ability to ‘open the gates’ for us into a world where we can heal, discover our divinity, and find our purpose on Earth.

Its use as a sacrament and in healing rituals is as old as history itself. The earliest archaeology so far is a stone carving at a sacred site in the Andes, which is almost 3,500 years old. Textiles from the same period how the cactus with jaguars and hummingbirds, two of its guardian spirits, and with stylised spirals representing the visionary experience it produces.

This experience can last for 12 hours or more once the juice of the cactus is drunk – in contrast to the four hours or so more typical with ayahuasca - and can catapult you into a world of magic with no limitations.

Some of the reasons that a cactus ceremony might be held are to cure illness, to know the future through the divinatory qualities of the plant, to overcome sorcery or saladera, to rekindle love and enthusiasm for life; and to experience the world as divine. According to La Gringa, an Andean healer we work with on our journeys to Peru:

“The plant is a master teacher. It helps us to heal, to grow, to learn and awaken, and assists us in reaching higher states of consciousness. I have been very blessed to have experienced many miracles: people being cured of all sorts of illnesses, just by drinking this sacred plant.

“We use it to reconnect to the Earth and to realize that there is no separation between you, me, the Earth, and the Sky. We are all one. It’s one thing to hear that, but to actually experience this oneness is the most beautiful gift we can receive.

“San Pedro teaches us to live in balance and harmony; it teaches us compassion and understanding; and it shows us how to love, respect, and honour all things. It shows us, too, that we are Children of Light - precious and special – and to see that light within us.

“The day you meet San Pedro is one you will never forget - a day filled with love, which can change your life forever… and always for the better”.

That is certainly my experience of the plant which, for me, is even more profound than ayahuasca in its healing abilities, though I also sense that an encounter with ayahuasca is probably necessary before San Pedro reveals the full extent of its power. In this way the two plants are complementary – one male and one female - and their impact accumulates.

One of our participants who had also taken ayahuasca last year wrote of her experience with San Pedro that:

“If everyone experienced it the world would be a very different place. It has become better for me already.

“I had the most powerful, profound experience of my life. I have intellectually understood about us coming from, and one day returning to, energy; I had even glimpsed this in the past, but on this occasion I became energy.

“I completely dissolved and breathed with the sky. I became the Breath of Life; infinite and eternal Love.

“I now dedicate my life to walking with honour and integrity in every action I take, and to accepting life’s path rather than trying to dictate it”.

What is interesting is that the experience lingers. Drinking a teacher plant like ayahuasca or San Pedro is not like taking a ‘drug’ to get high or escape from reality; it is the taking in of spirit and a whole other consciousness so it can inform our daily lives. The outcome, as you see, can be life-changing. That is why teacher plants will always be central among the shaman’s allies and a vital part of his education and initiation into the truths of the world.

Of course there will always be governments, lawyers, and others who want to take away our freedoms and make such plants illegal.

It may strike you as strange that a plant can become a criminal, but it’s possible in the minds of our governments. Making a plant illegal is like a politician (with all that symbolises) telling us that God (with all that symbolises) made a mistake, to quote the comedian Bill Hicks.

The real intent of politicians and their lapdog lawyers, of course, is to control minds and make people afraid of the natural world, so we remain compliant to the governments which claim to keep us safe.

The ways of the political world have never been of that much interest to shamans, however, because the laws they respond to are natural and universal, not man-made. Shamans seek freedom from compliance and find it in truth not legal arguments, so all the laws in the world will not prevent their continued work with these plants. For my part, I recommend them to you in your own search for freedom and truth.

For more information on plant spirit shamanism or to join our Amazon ayahuasca adventures, contact Ross Heaven at ross@thefourgates.com for a free information pack or visit www.thefourgates.com

SAN PEDRO, THE “MIRACLE HEALER” : AN INTERVIEW WITH AN ANDEAN HUACHUMERA (SAN PEDRO HEALER)

San Pedro (Trichocereus pachanoi), the sacred cactus and visionary teacher plant of the South Americas, is especially associated with the shamans and healers (curanderos) of the Peruvian Andes. It has other names among these healers as well; including “El Remedio”: The Remedy, which refers to its healing and visionary powers which, they say, can help us to let go of “the illusions of the world”.

Even its post-Hispanic name, San Pedro, embodies these qualities because Saint Peter is the holder of the keys to Heaven and the name of the cactus therefore speaks of its ability to ‘open the gates’ into another world where those who drink it can heal, discover their divinity, and find their purpose on Earth.

It is also known as huachuma and this is how it is most often referred to by the shamans who use it, who call themselves huachumeros (male) or huachumeras (female). Its use as a sacrament and in healing rituals is as old as history itself. The earliest archaeological evidence so far discovered is a stone carving of a huachumero found at the Jaguar Temple of Chavín de Huantar in northern Peru, which is almost 3,500 years old. Textiles from the same region and period of history depict the cactus with jaguars and hummingbirds, two of its guardian spirits, and with stylised spirals representing the visionary experience.

Another image, of an owl-faced woman holding a cactus, comes from a ceramic pot from the Chimú culture, dating to 1200 AD. According to native beliefs, the owl is a tutelary spirit and guardian of herbalists and shamans, so the woman depicted is most likely a curandera (healer) and huachumera.

Cactus ceremonies are held today for the same reasons as ever: to cure illnesses of a spiritual, emotional, mental, or physical nature; to know the future through the prophetic and divinatory qualities of the plant; to overcome sorcery or saladera (an inexplicable run of ‘bad luck’); to ensure success in one’s ventures; to rekindle love and enthusiasm for life; and to experience the world as divine.

The ethnobotanist, Richard Evans Schultes, wrote of San Pedro in the book Plants of the Gods that it is “always in tune with the powers of animals and beings that have supernatural powers… Participants [in ceremonies] are ‘set free from matter’ and engage in flight through cosmic regions… transported across time and distance in a rapid and safe fashion”. He quotes one Andean shaman who describes some of the effects of the plant: “First, a dreamy state… then great visions, a clearing of all the faculties… and then detachment, a type of visual force inclusive of the sixth sense, the telepathic state of transmitting oneself across time and matter, like a removal of thoughts to a distant dimension”.

Lesley Myburgh (known in the Andes as La Gringa: “the outsider woman”) is another of these shamans. She has led ceremonies with San Pedro for almost 20 years.

“It is a master teacher”, she says. “It helps us to heal, to grow, to learn and awaken, and assists us in reaching higher states of consciousness. I have been very blessed to have experienced many miracles: people being cured of all sorts of illnesses just by drinking this sacred plant. We use it to reconnect to the Earth and to realize that there is no separation between you, me, the Earth, and the Sky. We are all One. It’s one thing to read that, but to actually experience this oneness is the most beautiful gift we can receive.

“San Pedro teaches us to live in balance and harmony; it teaches us compassion and understanding; and it shows us how to love, respect, and honour all things. It shows us too that we are children of light - precious and special – and to see that light within us.

“Each person’s experience will be unique, as we are all unique, and drinking San Pedro is therefore a personal journey of discovery, of the self and the universe. There is one thing in common though: The day that you meet San Pedro is one you will never forget - a day filled with light and love, which can change your life forever… and always for the better”.

In 2008, during one of my visits to Peru to work with San Pedro, I interviewed La Gringa about her life and experiences with huachuma, the cactus of vision. Her answers show not only the healing potential of this plant but cast light on the traditions which surround it and their evolution in the modern world. For those who work as shamanic healers, what La Gringa has learned from huachuma is also of interest because it suggests where illness may come from and how, therefore, it may be cured, even by those who do not work with San Pedro themselves.

How did you come to be involved in shamanic practice?
I first drank San Pedro in the 1990s and that experience overturned everything I thought I knew about reality. During my visions, out in the mountains, I saw a stairway of light on a nearby hill and I called my shaman over to explain it.

“There is nothing to explain”, he shrugged. “It is a stairway of light”.

“You mean you see it too?” I asked.

“Of course”, he said. “Take a photograph if you don’t believe it is there”. I thought he was crazy. How could I photograph a vision: something that was just in my head? But I didn’t want to be disrespectful so I took the picture anyway.

Later I got it developed, and there it was: a stairway of light, just as I’d seen it, although I had never seen it there in the mountains before and you will probably not see it now. I called my shaman and he came over to look at the picture, although he didn’t seem that surprised by it, like I was.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” he said. “These things are not just in your mind. They exist. San Pedro opens your eyes to what is already there!”

San Pedro had shown me reality as it actually was, but it had also changed what I thought of as real. I now understood the vast power we humans have, and that we can manifest anything we choose; we just have to believe we can. San Pedro teaches us how to believe.

It teaches us that we are part of everything, that we are brothers and sisters, and that nature in its true form is beautiful. It wakes us up and shows us how to be conscious of the Earth. Before San Pedro I used to walk through the world and not notice it. Now I notice everything and I have a new respect for it.

That wasn’t the only ‘miracle’ I saw that day though. My shaman was a gentle man and I felt peaceful and protected as I lay in the sun. So, when I opened my eyes and saw two children looking down at me, they were so beautiful I thought they were angels. I was in awe of them and it took me some moments to realise they were real and were crying and asking for help.

They said their father was sick at home and they had no mother so they didn’t know what to do. They were frightened that he was dying.

I went to their house with my shaman and when I saw the man I thought he was dying too. But the shaman walked calmly over to him and started to blow on the top of his head through some coca leaves he had with him. He then used a feather, running it over the sick man’s head and body; then he said a prayer.

As soon as that was done the man sat bolt upright and started to vomit like he’d never stop. Immediately he looked better. The shaman said he’d be fine after that and when we left the house he was already out of bed and taking care of his children.

That was my first experience of a shamanic healing, and all the shaman had used was a feather and some leaves and, of course, the knowledge given him by San Pedro. After that I knew that I wanted to work more with this plant.

You trained with other shamans too. Tell us about your present teacher.
His name is Ruben. I met him ten years ago in a church in the Sacred Valley, quite by chance. I learned so much from him right from the start. He is a famous anthropologist who for many years ran the Machu Picchu sacred site, but he is also a shaman so he knows why and how things work from both a historical and a spiritual perspective.

His training was very hard. He was not like my first shamanic teachers, who were much gentler. He made me drink San Pedro twice a week for several years. Sometimes I would beg him not to have to drink it! I’d sob and say I was too sick to drink, because I just couldn’t face another session. But he would say, “Good! You’re sick! That - and the fact that you can’t face the healing you need - is exactly why you need to drink it! Get your coat and let’s go!”

At the time it was agony, but now I know he was right and drinking all that San Pedro was the best thing that happened to me. I saw all the bad things in my life in a new light and was able to let them go. I cleared whole lifetimes in those years, and I learned so much about San Pedro and healing too.

I still work with Ruben and I hope I always will. But he has softened a little now and no longer demands that I drink every week.

He is an ‘old school’ shaman, though, isn’t he, with lots of ritual as part of his ceremonies - the singado and contrachisa, etc. Did he teach you that too?
Oh yes. But I never felt comfortable with those rituals and Ruben agreed that I should work differently, especially as I was now healing many Westerners who didn’t really understand the rituals anyway. San Pedro guided me and said I should keep things simple. So now I say a prayer to open the ceremony and then as much as possible allow San Pedro to do its work without me getting in its way.

I do sometimes use tobacco in ceremonies though, but not the singado [tobacco leaf macerated in honey and alcohol which many shamans ask participants to snort into their nostrils to clear negative energies]; just tobacco smoke. It is good to blow the smoke over people if they are going through a tough time or have stuck energy somewhere within them. The smoke frees it up.

I also use agua florida [a plant-based perfume with healing properties] to balance people’s energies. Mostly I ask them to sniff it from the bottle or from their hands and it helps to ground them, but sometimes I spray it over them.

And of course I also use a mesa [a cloth altar laid out in a specific ritual way], although mine is much simpler than many others. In Peru, shamans work with many different layouts of mesa, but when you have your own you learn to use it in a way that suits you. It is a living thing so you develop a relationship with it. San Pedro teaches you how to use it too.

The objects at the centre of my mesa are shells and stones which have meaning and power for me. I arrange them in a straight line, like a spinal column with the stones as the vertebrae. This follows the notion in Peru that spiritual energy is held in the small of the back and as we advance on our paths and the plants guide us it begins to rise up the spine to the head, where it resides when we become fully conscious.

In the Andes we have three sacred animals: the serpent, puma, and condor, and you will sometimes see statues of all three, one on top of the other. The serpent represents the divine energy we hold in our backs; the puma is the body; and the condor is the awakened self: the mind that soars above the world. So these statues are also a representation of energy flowing through us and bringing us into new consciousness. The mesa I use is like that.

Some shamans use chonta [wooden staffs sometimes used to beat participants to move their spiritual energies around] and swords on their mesas as well; as protections and to change the energies of patients and heal them. I don’t, because I have always known that San Pedro protects me and my participants anyway, and that there is no greater protection or more powerful healer than the plant! So why would I need to hit participants with sticks - and interrupt their healings by doing so?

Ruben is a historian and regards my approach as form of evolution which gives people the healing they need through the correct ceremonies for our times. But it is also a de-evolution because so many rituals and objects have been artificially added to San Pedro mesas and ceremonies through the influence of the Spanish Catholics.

Before the Spanish came to Peru, Andeans believed in Inti, the god of the sun, and Pachamama, the Earth, so their rituals were simpler and needed fewer symbols, appeasements to God, or ways to keep evil at bay. The idea of guilt and a God who needed appeasing arrived with the Catholics and it was they who made our ancestors change their rituals or be killed. Before this, they were more natural and flowing.

So what I do may be an evolution, as Ruben calls it, but it is also a return to what was always done. It is as if we have evolved backwards rather than forwards in time!

Is your decision to hold ceremonies in the day instead of at night part of this ‘backwards evolution’ too?
Ruben holds his ceremonies at night and that is how he taught me, but as I grew in my understanding of San Pedro, night ceremonies – for practical as well as spiritual reasons - became another thing that did not really work for me.

Perhaps it is to do with the Spanish again and their Catholic notions of guilt and “suffering for our sins” that most San Pedro ceremonies are held at night! I always found it so cold and uncomfortable that I could never really relax enough to receive the healing of San Pedro. I mentioned this to Ruben and he understood exactly what I meant, so he began to hold ceremonies for me during the day. Then I really noticed the difference. In daylight is where all my breakthroughs have come.

For one thing, with San Pedro, you can look around you and see the beauty of the world and notice how connected you are to everything: that you are beautiful and part of a beautiful creation. You can’t do that in darkness.

What people need to understand is that San Pedro is not a hallucinogenic like ayahuasca, so they will never see images and pictures, and there is no point, therefore, in lying in the dark waiting for something to happen. San Pedro’s teaching is visionary instead, in the revelations it brings about the natural - not the spirit – world, and in daylight you can see that more clearly. That is why we hold our ceremonies in sunlight: because San Pedro wants it that way and that is how it was first done.

How do you prepare your San Pedro?
Most shamans peel and cut the cactus then boil it for between four and eight hours. They may also add alcohol and sometimes other plants or ingredients. I cook mine for twenty hours, however, so it is much stronger and also means that people are less likely to vomit when they drink it. Other San Pedro brews feel weak to me now and rarely give the same visions.

Some shamans say you don’t really need visions for a healing to take place with San Pedro. They have a point, but I still think they are important, because as well as the healing people need to know they have been healed. When the visions come they can feel it, then they understand it is real and pay attention to what they are shown... about how to protect themselves and stay well, or their place in the world and the beauty of their lives. Without the visions they can’t know this.

There are some other things to consider when preparing San Pedro. I only work with cactuses that have seven or nine spines because they produce the most gentle and beautiful brews. Those with six or eight spines are not so strong, while elevens and thirteens can be very intense but also sometimes dark. I never use either with patients.

Those with four spines are only ever used for exorcisms, and the patient and healer must both drink. You don’t ever want to try a San Pedro like this though. It is horrible and the visions take you straight to Hell.

While the cactus is cooking we often sing songs to it or offer our prayers that it will produce good healings. Every time we stir it we offer a new prayer, so maybe twenty prayers go into each bottle.

Sometimes the spirit of San Pedro shows up while we are cooking it too, in patterns on the surface of the water which tell us who will be coming to drink it and why. I have seen patterns in the form of ovaries, for example, complete in every detail; or hearts enclosed by circles. Then the next day a woman has arrived for help with a fertility problem and brought with her a man whose heart was closed to her dreams. In this way San Pedro can show us what people need before they even arrive.

What healings have you seen from San Pedro ceremonies?
One that meant a lot to me was for a woman who had always said she would never drink San Pedro, so her story shows in a way that you don’t even need to believe in the plant for it to heal you – although it is better if you do.

This woman’s husband had died a few years ago. He was a strong man but his disease meant he had wasted away to nothing. It took him a year to die while the woman nursed him. Then, just three months after that, her son was killed; murdered in South Africa, stoned to death and left to die. He was just 26.

The woman was shattered. She became like the walking dead. Soon afterwards she had a stroke which paralysed her arm and, from the shock of all she had been through, she got diabetes as well.

Finally, despite all her reservations before, she asked me if she could drink San Pedro. I gave her the tiniest amount but it was just perfect for her, as San Pedro always is, and then she lay in my arms and cried her heart out for five hours.

That is a good expression for what happened actually, because I had drunk San Pedro too and through its eyes I saw strands of energy coming from her heart and circling her chest and arm like a tourniquet. I began pulling them out of her and throwing them away.

The next morning was like a miracle. Her arm, which had been totally paralysed, had regained all of its movement. When she got home she saw a specialist who tested her diabetes too and that had gone as well. Now she has no problems at all.

I asked her about her San Pedro experience later and she said she had felt a lot of pain in her heart, which is where I had also seen the energy of grief that was binding her. So as well as curing her physical problems, San Pedro showed her why she had them: because of the emotional distress she had been unable to let go of before.

What I have learned from San Pedro is that illness is never a “thing” that is in us; it is not “diabetes” or “a stroke”. It is a belief that we carry: that we must mourn for the ones we have lost, for example, or for ourselves, through a pain or disability that makes our suffering visible and “real”. So illness is a thoughtform; a negative pattern we hold on to and reproduce. San Pedro not only heals us but shows us this thoughtform. Then, the next time it arises, we know it and can make a conscious choice to think and act differently.

The woman you described sounds like she had a “psychosomatic” problem, a term that has lost much of its power in the West today. Can you elaborate?
Every illness we have arises from our minds and souls. Another woman came to me after she was diagnosed with cancer and had been receiving chemotherapy. She looked so ill that I took her in and she spent the next seven days with me, vomiting constantly. At the end of it she realised that her doctors were not helping her and decided to work with the plants instead.

She phoned her doctor to cancel her appointments and he was extremely angry. He told her she couldn’t do that; that she was stupid and would die as a result of her decision – which, incidentally, is a curse.

Anyway, she stuck to her decision and now, through San Pedro, she is healed. The plant again showed her why she had cancer – which no Western medicine can do – and told her she had a choice: in blunt terms that she could die or change her mind and live the life she wanted. I know that sounds too easy but it really is as simple as that. She decided not to have cancer anymore because her realised that life was just too precious once she had seen it through San Pedro’s eyes.

I have also worked with women who have been sexually abused as young girls and are carrying the energy of that in their bodies, and usually a sense of guilt or shame as well, as if it was somehow their fault. This energy is also a thoughtform and it is making them ill and, sometimes, suicidal.

They need to drink San Pedro three times. The first is terrible, even for me to watch. They just lie in a foetal position and scream. The second time they are more relaxed but there is still a lot of crying. I usually drink San Pedro with them so I can connect to what they are going through and the plant can teach me what they need to heal.

The third time they drink everything changes and it is an experience of total joy. Afterwards they are so different that not even their friends recognise them! San Pedro shows them another way, a new belief about themselves, and helps them reconnect with love and the beauty of life which has been lacking for so long in their own.

That sounds like soul retrieval, but instead of the shaman performing it, the intelligence of the plant does it for them.
That’s right. It is soul retrieval or, rather, life retrieval. We hold our negative beliefs about ourselves as tensions in our bodies. If we don’t eventually release them, they become hardened and manifest as physical or emotional problems. At the same time, our good energies are blocked so that the fullness of our souls is not expressed and parts of us stay buried. San Pedro removes our negative beliefs so the positive ones shine through. So it is a form of soul retrieval; one where we return ourselves from ourselves.

Can you say more about how negative beliefs affect us?
In the Andes, shamans talk about “good” and “bad ideas” and these are, in a way, what I mean by thoughtforms. When someone says, for example, that you have “good ideas”, they don’t mean you are a creative genius! They mean you have good or spiritual thoughts or that you are at one with the truth and goodness of the world.

Sometimes they talk about a “good” or “bad wind” as well. These “winds” are an accumulation of thoughts or energies which are attracted to each other and share a common affinity. The good energies of many people having positive and uplifting thoughts can create a good wind but, by the same token, negative thoughts can band together to create a bad wind. In both cases, they are a sentient force which circulates in the world.

Thoughts like these have physical effects. I recently took a horse ride with a friend, for example, to visit the Q’ero of the high Andes and, some way into our journey, miles from anywhere and from medical help, my friend swooned and fell from her horse. She lay on the ground shaking and not of this world at all.

Luckily, we had a shaman with us who knew what had happened and, taking out his coca leaves, he placed them on her and blew through them into her crown. She stopped shaking straightaway and then began to come round.

When I asked him what had happened, he just shrugged and said “a bad wind”. She had been hit by a thoughtform which had, in a way, possessed her. He had blown a different energy into her to remove it and fill her with light.

But, imagine: if stray thoughts can do this much damage, how much stronger are our own ideas? Our beliefs about ourselves, our sicknesses and our powers or weaknesses are not random, after all; they are personal to us and may have been with us for years. So it is literally true that our thoughts can kill or cure us. We must be careful, then, about what we think. San Pedro helps and heals us by showing us how to do that.

Is there anyone you wouldn’t hold a ceremony for?
I once thought so. A few years ago some young people who were travelling South America asked for a ceremony. When I told them what it involved, they said not to worry, they’d taken a lot of drugs in the past and had heard about San Pedro and wanted to try “a new drug experience”. I must admit that I judged them in a bad light because they were trivialising San Pedro and saw it as “just another drug” – which it is not. It is a powerful spiritual medicine.

It was San Pedro that told me to relax. It reminded me that it can handle things for itself and make its own decisions about who can drink it, and to remember that I was the guide, not the healer! So after that I didn’t judge them and I gave them San Pedro.

Afterwards, they came to speak to me about their “drug experience” and told me their encounter with San Pedro had been the most humbling of their lives. San Pedro had told them straight, they said, that: “I am not LSD! I AM SAN PEDRO!” They learned from that and for some it changed their lives. They no longer take drugs at all.

So now I am humble too because I know that San Pedro will always give people what they need – even if it is not what they thought they would get. I like the expression you use: that with plant work you should have intentions but not expectations. That seems a good approach. But, in any case, I trust San Pedro and I know it will act with integrity towards everyone, so now I no longer discriminate.

There is a diet that goes with San Pedro, just as there is for ayahuasca. But with San Pedro it is easier. Can you say something about it?
All teacher plants require some ritual precautions prior to and during the ceremony. This is what we call the diet. It refers not just to restrictions around food and drink, as the name might suggest, but to other behaviours as well so we approach the plant with a pure intent. So when we talk about the “diet”, it is really more like the ancient Greek understanding of “dieta”: a change in lifestyle, not just in what we eat.

Ayahuasca demands preparation some days before, including food and behavioural taboos, sexual abstinence, fasting, and meditation, but San Pedro does not ask for such major changes. Nevertheless, for a day before it is drunk, food and drink should be as bland as possible and contain no alcohol, meat, oils or fats, spices, citrus fruits or juices, and there should be no sex.

For about twelve hours before the ceremony, there should be no food at all. This means a day of fasting if you are drinking San Pedro at night or no food from about 8pm on the night before if you are drinking it the next day. For a few hours before the ritual I also suggest a period of quiet reflection so you can think about what you would like to heal or learn about yourself.

That is really all the diet requires, although there are some specific conditions where a consultation with your shaman and medical doctor is recommended in advance of drinking San Pedro. These include problems with the colon, high blood pressure, heart conditions, diabetes, or mental illness. None of these will necessarily prevent you from drinking since the condition itself may be the very thing that you want San Pedro to cure, but your shaman and doctor must know.

A general rule with plant work is: the purer your body and spirit, the more powerful the medicine and its teachings. The diet helps with this.

I’ve heard it said that the ‘processes’ (set and setting) involved in ceremonies can contribute to the effects; that the shaman acts as a sort of hypnotherapist, for example, and offers healing suggestions to the patient, while the ritual contains practices like meditation which are relaxing and healing. What do you think of that?
I sometimes get asked things like that, mostly by scientists and academics. They want to know what the “make up” of San Pedro is, what its “active ingredients” are, and “how it works”. I tell them I don’t know and don’t care! For me, it is not San Pedro’s “mescaline content” or “properties” that are important; it is a healing spirit which produces miracles that I have seen with my own eyes. So I really don’t know or care how it works. I can’t explain a miracle any more than those who ask me about it can! But I know this: if you needed a miracle because your life was in that much pain, and if - by the grace of God and San Pedro - you got one, you wouldn’t care how it worked either!

Part of the disease, it seems to me, is to want to understand the world in terms of its “mechanisms” when its nuts-and-bolts really don’t matter at all. It is the beauty of the world that should attract, engage, and inspire us! When we drink San Pedro that is one of the first things we learn - and then our questions become irrelevant anyway. So the real answer, for those who want to know the hows and whys of San Pedro, is simple: drink it and then you will see!

The “what” of San Pedro is that it heals lives. Let us leave the sleepless nights of the whys and hows to the academics for whom such things seem to matter.


The Author
Ross Heaven is the author of more than 10 books on shamanism and shamanic healing, including Plant Spirit Shamanism, Plant Spirit Wisdom, and The Sin Eater’s Last Confessions. He runs workshops on these subjects too, as well as journeys to Peru to work with the shamans, healers, and plant spirit medicines (ayahuasca and San Pedro) of the Amazon and Andes. For more details of these events and a free Information Pack, visit www.thefourgates.com or email ross@thefourgates.com.

IQUITOS AND CUSCO

IQUITOS AND CUSCO
TWO VERY BEAUTIFUL BUT VERY DIFFERENT PERUVIAN CITIES

Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of around 400,000, and is generally regarded as the most populous city in the world that cannot be reached by road. The only way in is by aeroplane or river boat.

In the 19th the city century was the centre of the rubber industry, but by the early 20th century the trade had moved to the Far East, and the city had fallen into neglect and disrepair. It is now a place without an apparent purpose, still decked out in post-colonial-rubber-boom splendour, but literally in the middle of nowhere, a true frontier town.

When you stand on the Malecon at the edge of the city (and civilisation) you overlook thousands of miles of rainforest: a truly breathtaking and beautiful experience.

Iquitos is where participants meet for our plant spirit shamanism and ayahuasca experiences on the Magical Earth Amazon Adventure (see www.thefourgates.com – Sacred Journeys – for details).

Cusco, the historic capital of the Inca Empire, is a city in south east Peru, near the Sacred Valley of the Andes mountains. It has a population of about 300,000, living at an altitude of around 3,300m (10,800ft).

According to Inca legend, the city was built by Sapa Inca Pachacuti and planned to be shaped like a puma, a sacred animal of the region, although archaeological evidence points to slower, more organic growth beginning before Pachacuti. There was however a plan, and two rivers were diverted and channeled around the city.

The Spanish arrived there in 1533 and described it as a "very noble and great city". Buildings constructed after the conquest are of Spanish influence with a mix of Inca architecture. Often, Spanish buildings were built on top of the massive stone walls built by the Inca.

The original Inca city, said to have been founded in the 11th century, was sacked by Pizarro in 1535. There are still remains, however, of the Palace of the Incas, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Virgins of the Sun. Other nearby Inca sites of major historical interest and considerable beauty are Pachacuti's presumed winter home, Machu Picchu, which can be reached by foot along the Inca Trail, or by train, and the "fortresses" at Ollantaytambo and Sacsyhuaman.

Cusco is where participants meet for our plant spirit shamanism and san pedro experiences on the Cactus of Vision programme (see www.thefourgates.com – Sacred Journeys – for details).

Plant Spirit Shamanism: The Sin Eater's Last Confessions

A review of The Sin Eater's Last Confessions (Ross Heaven, Llewellyn, July 2008) by Lauren D'Silva of Bella Online (www.bellaonline.com/articles...080.asp):


The Sin Eater's Last Confessions by Ross Heaven

I found The Sin Eater's Last Confessions: Lost Traditions of Celtic Shamanism a fascinating book. In it Ross Heaven provides us with a window on Celtic healing techniques of the past. The old Celtic tradition of ‘sin eating’ has been lost now, but once it was customary here in Wales to invite the local sin eater to perform a ritual of eating food from the body of the corpse in order to cleanse the soul of sin and allow it free passage to the afterlife.

Ross Heaven was fortunate enough to meet one of the last Welsh sin eaters in the small Herefordshire village where he grew up. This is his account of a remarkable friendship between man and boy and of an informal apprenticeship that put Ross firmly on his path to become one of the UK’s foremost shamanic practitioners.

The setting is not far from my home in Mid Wales, just over the English border; there is always extra satisfaction in reading about familiar places and I could easily picture this sleepy village. Even now the pace of many Herefordshire villages feels several decades behind that of modern towns.

Adam Dilwyn Vaughan lived on the outskirts of the village, performing his healing services for the community, but somehow shunned by the villagers as if dirty. As he points out if the sin eater is ‘dirty’ it is only by virtue of consuming the sins of others. Despite many warnings to avoid Adam’s little ramshackle cottage it seems Ross and Adam were predestined to meet. Without ever saying so a series of remarkable teachings began which lasted until Ross become a young adult and left the countryside for university.

There is a great deal of wisdom in Adam’s methods of healing. He had a wonderful understanding of plant remedies and gardened weeds as others would cultivate flowers and vegetables. “A weed is simply a gift from nature that we don’t care to receive.”

Many of his teachings can be recognised as shamanic ways of understanding the world which are found to agree from culture to culture. For example Adam speaks of bad spirits gathering in the corners of the body, elbows, knees and other joints. This reminded me of the old wisdom of living in round spaces, such as tipis to avoid corners where dark spirits can gather.

I recognised some of Adam's techniques from my partner’s own instinctive healing methods. Like Adam he experiences dry retching after sucking out energetic debris from places of congestion in the body, a need to 'get it all out of his system'. It used to concern me but now I recognise that it is part and parcel of what he does. Adam teaches Ross that it is important the debris is cleared from the healer’s body, as to hold onto it would make the healer ill. Adam warns that there are some healers who choose to retain the dark energies within themselves as part of their power.

“It is a real possibility and an illness among healers that they can grow dependent on their patients for their own well-being, and then they do not serve God but steal from others and work with a darkened heart.”

I probably would have dismissed this as unlikely in the past, seeing those who choose healing as motivated to help their fellow humans, but I have had first hand experience of several established and experienced healers who are doing exactly this. It was a great relief to see the warning there in print and to know that others have detected this too. This abuse of power is shocking to think of, but the public should be aware that some healers can become distorted in their purpose, in the same way I suppose any other caring profession contains its 'rotten apples'. If you feel drained after visiting a healer and this sensation happens more often than not you would be well advised to go elsewhere.

Ross gives us wonderful insight into many of the lessons he learned from Adam. We join Ross as he writes his sins down in stream of consciousness to be transmuted by fire, follow him into Nature looking for omens and experience a vision quest with him. At the back of the book he provides a guide to some of the exercises Adam put him though, so that the book is partly a guide for those ready to explore the world and themselves in this way.

I found a huge amount of synchronicity happening around me as I read; the book seemed to have arrived at the perfect moment for me and confirmed so much of what I have been perceiving and thinking in recent months. For that I must say a big thank you to Ross for setting these experiences down on paper and send my gratitude to Adam Dilwyn Vaughan too, whether he has passed over or is still living.

I can heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in healing or Celtic traditions as an engrossing and entertaining read, a moving biography of a powerful, wise and humble man

PLANT SPIRIT SHAMANISM: THE RETURN OF THE SERPENT WITH ROSS HEAVEN AND GUILLERMO ARAVELO

PLANT SPIRIT SHAMANISM
The Return of the Serpent: The Vine of Souls

Two unique ceremonial workshops and introductions to ayahuasca, the legendary vine of souls and visionary teacher plant

I am delighted to announce a first-of-its-kind event where i will be joined on by Guillermo Aravelo, a Shipibo maestro (master shaman), ayahuascero, and vegetalista, for his first ever visit to England.

Guillermo is descended from many generations of healers and is a sought-after speaker and ceremonialist at major international conferences, a consultant to many authorities on Amazonian medicine, and the ‘star’ of several documentaries and feature films, including Jan Kounen's Renegade. Among other ayahuasceros, he is known as “the master’s master”.

Together with participants on these unique ceremonial events, Guillermo and I will explore the healing and visionary qualities of ayahuasca, the legendary “vine of souls” - one of nature’s greatest teacher plants, which is said to be born of a serpent.

Three ceremonies are held on each workshop, so if you choose to attend both events, you will be able to drink six times with Guillermo and myself.

Alongside these rituals, I will be offering workshops on plant spirit shamanism, healing, and connecting to nature and ourselves, opening the way for the deep healing that is possible from the vine.

We prepare for our ceremonies by following the shaman’s diet, just as it has been practiced for thousands of years by plant spirit shamans and ayahuasceros. Details of the diet will be sent to you on booking.

We purify ourselves with limpia - cleansing baths using special flowers and herbs to refresh body and soul, change luck, confer spiritual blessings, and open ourselves to the healing that ayahuasca can bring.

We also diet native plants for lucid dreaming which bring peace and balance so we are better prepared for, and more receptive to, the ayahuasca spirit.

Shamanic practices and attunements are also used to deepen your connection to the natural world and its healing powers, and during our ceremonies, icaros - sacred shamanic chants - will guide our journeys and call the spirits of healing and vision.

A few comments from previous Return of the Serpent participants
I learned so much! I am feeling much more love and openness for everyone and everything as well as having more clarity and strength. Exactly what I need! Ayahuasca is truly an amazing healer. Kirsty

The whole weekend was about love and its power and beauty. Ayahuasca works on - it still has that elusive call that draws me. Margaret

I got much more than I expected, and all the decisions I made at the weekend are sitting very comfortably with me. I am happy to have met so many fun, open-minded and open-hearted people. Kate

Workshop booking and details
Dates
There are two opportunities to join this event in October 2008 (you can also attend both if you wish):
October 22-25 and
October 25-28

Venue
Norfolk, England (residential)

Price
£475 per event. Includes accommodation, food, tuition, and ceremonies.

No prior experience of shamanism, teacher plants, or plant spirit knowledge is required for these workshops, and no special tools are needed – just an open mind and an adventurous heart!

Email ross@thefourgates.com for an Information Pack and booking form. For enquiries, telephone Ross on 07854 459708 or Matt on 01730 262693 or 07881 444770.

Plant Spirit Shamanism - San Pedro in the Andes: A magical journey to Peru to work with San Pedro, the legendary Cactus of Vision

I am delighted to offer you this opportunity to experience authentic Andean shamanism, using the methods, plants, and approaches that have been practiced in this region for thousands of years.

The programme includes authentic ceremonies with the legendary Cactus of Vision, plus:

Limpia: an Andean healing method where the shaman divines areas of unbalanced energy within a patient’s body. These are then rebalanced and any unhelpful energies are removed.

Pago: an offering to the spirits of the land and a blessing for those who take part.

Coca Divination: using the leaves of the sacred coca plant to produce a picture of a person’s life – and sometimes past lives. Each divination is unique and sometimes followed by a ‘correctional healing’ to change the future and produce an outcome more favourable to your needs or desires.

Seminars and circle meetings: are held with Ross, the author of Plant Spirit Shamanism, to discuss your San Pedro insights, and provide you with background to Andean shamanism to enhance your understanding of this healing tradition.

If you wish, you can also combine your visit to Cusco with a journey to the Amazon, where we work with ayahuasca, the legendary vine of souls.

Email ross@thefourgates.com for a free Information Pack on the San Pedro or Ayahuasca journeys (please specify which you are enquiring about).

Plant Spirit Shamanism: Ayahuasca Journey to the Amazon 2008

I’m pleased to announce a new, dedicated programme enabling you to experience authentic Plant Spirit Shamanism and Ayahuasca Ceremonies in the hauntingly beautiful Peruvian Rainforest.

This event is focussed on healing and self-exploration, and offers a transformative encounter with the magical powers of Nature through the ancient rituals of the Amazonian plant shaman.

There are seven Ayahuasca ceremonies, as well as jungle walks to meet the spirits of the plants, the opportunity to diet particular plants and absorb their curative powers, workshops on shamanism and plant magic, and the chance to work with shamans of the plant spirit tradition. One-to-one consultations and healings can also be arranged for you.

We provide transportation in Peru to the Retreat Centre, accommodation, food, translation services, ceremonies, shamans, workshops, and ‘medicines’. All you need do is be open to this magical event and the changes it might bring to your life.

Our programme gives you the opportunity to take part in:

Traditional Ayahuasca ceremonies for cleansing, release, healing, and spiritual realisation
Flower baths (limpia and florecimiento) to restore balance to the soul, and for “flourishing”: good luck and success
Explorations of the rainforest with our shamans and guides and gain insight into the healing powers of Nature
Learn more about plant spirit shamanism in workshops led by Ross, the author of the book, Plant Spirit Shamanism
Diet plants which can help your unique quest to understand life and your spiritual mission
Deepen your knowledge of the plants though a visit to Pasaje Paquito, a treasure trove of medicinal remedies from all over the Amazon Rainforest
Get to know the rainforest people and their spiritual universe through exhibitions of Shipibo arts and textiles
Work with some of the greatest Amazonian shamans, who are experts on healing and masters of the plants, in authentic rituals and healings to help you on your journey

We work with a team of expert shamans. Unlike ‘ayahuasca tours’, we have the services of several shamans (not one or two) who work together during ceremonies, singing icaros and conducting healings – an experience of total power.

Write to Ross@thefourgates.com for a free information pack on The Magical Earth Adventure, and if San Pedro, the Cactus of Vision, calls to you, also ask for our free information pack on our Andean extension programme.

AYAHUASCA IN THE AMAZON: MAGICAL EARTH IMAGES

i have posted a new slideshow of some of the beautiful images from our Magical Earth trip to the Amazon in October/November last year, which you can view at:

www.slide.com/r/LjWmHbME7...d5RjYGH4Woho

The next event takes place in August 2008 and is booking now. For more information on this email ross@thefourgates.com or visit the Sacred Journeys section of the website, www.thefourgates.com.

i hope you will be able to join us!