Pablo Amaringo – Visionary Art & Ayahuasca Workshop

A Visionary Art workshop and Ayahuasca Retreat in the Amazon Rainforest

THE AYAHUASCA VISIONS OF PABLO AMARINGO

July 25^th - August 5^th 2009

PABLO AMARINGO

Pablo Amaringo is one of the world’s great visionary artists. He is renowned for his highly complex, colourful and intricate paintings inspired by his visions from when he was an Ayahuasca shaman. He trained as a curandero or healer in the Amazon, healing himself and others from the age of ten, but gave this up in 1977 to become a full-time painter and art teacher at the Usko-Ayar school of Amazonian art which he founded. His book, Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, co-authored with Luis Eduardo Luna, brought his work and the rich mythology of the Amazon to a wide public in the West.

We are delighted to offer a rare opportunity to join Pablo Amaringo in a visionary art workshop with night time Ayahuasca Ceremonies

This special event consists of a ten day workshop and Ayahuasca retreat with Pablo Amaringo in the beautiful heart of the Amazon Rainforest at a dedicated Retreat Center in the Allpahuayo Mishana Nature reserve.

Each day, Pablo will hold a hands-on Art workshop; participants will enjoy the unique experience of learning the art of visionary and nature painting with Pablo. This workshop is suitable for beginners as well as experienced and proficient artists.

Each night we offer traditional Ayahuasca ceremonies with Shipibo Shamans, Enrique Lopez, and an elder maestro – Benjamín Ochavano or Leoncio Garcia (depending on the number of participants). Also we will have available shamanic plants, plantas maestras, which enhance dream intensity and visionary and sensory perception, such as Guayusa and Ajo Sacha.

This workshop-retreat is also a journey of self-exploration through the medium of Art and Ayahuasca, with guidance from Pablo Amaringo and our Maestro Shamans.

Click to view Pablo’s Video Invitation to this workshop.

PABLO ‘S WORDS ON THIS WORKSHOP – (transcribed from Video)

“Its a good idea because people would see something of Mishana as well as what lies ahead in their lives. In fact through drawing they can learn so much more from drinking the ayahuasca. It will help them to understand their environment and value it more, wherever they live”.

To learn to care for and respect plants, to look after the rivers, the water ….. as well as their homes and family. … we should value animals too. For me as an artist, my concentration in the Amazon is of great value because the truth is, without plants and animals, we couldn’t live”.

Question: “so its an invitation to anyone?”

So the invitation is for everyone who wants to appreciate more and know… in this case to learn how to learn.

Question: “how could the workshop help people in their creative process”?

“Ayahuasca teaches when people start to see colours and forms…… the motifs and composition of a plant, an animal or a person ….. or elements like the clouds…… they can learn to see the molecules of ayahuasca which themselves are based on colours”.

“When I do this work myself, I realise that every plant has leaves but they’re all different…. each one a style of its own, they can never be the same, nature is full of wisdom! Its divine, the roots too are all different, branches, flowers. That’s how I learned to paint – from nature – I never learned from books or teachers…. nature gives the structure”.

Pablo’s paintings represent a reliable testimony to how the indigenous people of the Amazon live in constant awareness of spiritual realms.

The Shipibo for example, have a strong presence in the region where Pablo lives and are one of the largest indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon having their own language, traditions and culture. Today they number about 20,000 and live in communities along the Ucayali River and around Yarinacocha, an oxbow lake near Pucullpa.

The Shipibo world is under laid by intricate geometric patterns of great complexity and is displayed in their art. This concept of an all pervading magical reality challenges the Western linguistic heritage and rational mind. The patterns are an expression of the oneness of creation, the inter-changeability of light and sound, the union or fusion of perceived opposites. It is an ongoing dialogue or communion with the spiritual world and powers of the Rainforest. The visionary art of the Shipibo brings this paradigm into a physical form.

Pablo’s painting classes are a creative form of entertainment. Like story telling, they bring Amazonian legends and fairy tales to life. These consider cosmic questions such as the origins of human consciousness and the power of the imagination. Many legends speak of a ‘time of the ancestors’ when humans regularly communicated with the spirits, and sensed and moved like animals and birds with whom they could converse. This era occurred before the rational mind separated us from the mysteries of the cosmos, a loss sorely lamented to this day but which – thanks to Ayahuasca – can be reversed. These are some of the themes of Pablo’s Amazonian School of Painting.

Mishana Private Retreat Centre

This programme will take place in the Mishana Private Retreat Centre. We have 57 Hectares (140 acres) of land with a lodge in the Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve in the department of Loreto, Peru. Our lodge is located directly on the river, which is part of the 58,070 hectare nature reserve.

Due to a combination of geological factors and diverse soil types, the reserve supports a unique community of plant and animal species. It is the ‘jewel’ in the crown for bird watchers and contains dozens of species, which are unique to this area. The Reserve contains one of the highest biodiversities known in the Amazon basin. Our Lodge is located directly on the Rio Nanay, a tributary of the Amazon River. The mild acidity of its black waters are not popular with mosquito larvae and this means there are virtually no mosquitoes.

The journey to our lodge from Iquitos takes two hours in our power boat. We are situated in-between two bends of the river giving an amazing panoramic view. The boat is always available so trips can be made to some interesting, and extraordinarily beautiful places along the river.

We work with maestro Shipibo shamans Benjamin Ochavano, Enrique Lopez, and Leoncio Garcia. We will work with two of the shamans listed above on this programme.

Included in the program are individual personal healing or consultative sessions with our shamans, based upon your personal needs. The maestros will also provide teachings about the fascinating medicinal and psycho-spiritual properties of the local plants.

For full details and a 22 page downloadable PDF programme, visit our website;

http://www.shamanism.co.uk

The Visionary Art Workshop with Pablo Amaringo is a post event workshop of the 5th International Amazonian Shamanism Conference: July 11th – 18th 2009.

Cl.ick to Visit the Conference website:

Ayahuasca – Shipibo Shaman Video

Shipibo Shaman Enrique Lopez blesses and invokes Ayahuasca after brewing. Video taken at Eagle’s Wing Ayahuasca Retreat March 2008.

 

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Ayahuasca Retreat – Video Montage

 

A video montage of our Ayahuasca and Yoga Retreat held at Mishana, Peru March 2008.

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The 4th International Amazonian Shamanism Conference: Magic, Myths, and Miracles

The 4th International Amazonian Shamanism Conference: Magic, Myths, and MiraclesIquitos, Peru; July 19th – 27th

This 4th Amazonian Shamanism Conference will be opened by the illustrious visionary scientist, Dr.Dennis Mckenna. Other Presenters (with more confirming soon are – That master of sound healing- Dr. Richard Grossman, the brilliant entheo-scientist and lecturer, Ananda, the Indiana Jones of Amazon Shamanism and noted journalist – Peter Gorman, the most excellent scientfic researcher on brain states while taking ayahuasca- Dr. Frank Echenhofer, the Amazon’s most famous visionary painter- Pablo Amaringo, the filmmaker and director Jan Kounen who brought us the documentary Other Worlds about ayahuasca and the Shipibo tribes and Renegade (Blueberry), specialist in Entheo-Religion and compiler of the book: Entheogens and the Future of Religion – Robert Forte, the intrepid Victoria Alexander speaking on her research of Medieval Mysticism and Its Empirical Kinship to Ayahuasca, the very profound Melvin Morse (invited but not yet confirmed) and his research into childrens near death experiences as well as his research on Myths, the renowned Dr. John Alexander (invited but not yet confirmed) and his years of training and research on Remote Viewing, one of the Director’s of Eagle’s Wing and author Howard G Charing, Conference Organizer Alan Shoemaker speaking on 15 years in shamanism, the visionary artists Robert Venosa and Martina Hoffman two curanderas specializing in Huachuma (San Pedro) Wendy Luckey and Mary Ann Endowes Presenting as well as holding ceremonies, Elisa Vargas Fernandez, the Shipibo curandera who works magic with her incredible icaros, and many more to be confirmed.The list of shamans (curanderos) is coming next and they are the most powerful we can find. There will be approximately 15 different curanderos/shamans giving presentations (all are translated into English).During the Conference Presentations you will have ample opportunities to hear the many shamans speaking alone as well as in panel discussions. It is during this time that you will get a sense of which healer you would like to be in Ceremony with, especially during the question and answer times.

There are three evenings set aside for you to be in Ceremony with the shaman – curandero or your choice. All Ceremonies are held outside of Iquitos, either up or downriver or way out on the Iquitos to Nauta highway and then a short 15 minute walk into the various Compounds. Transport is provided both to the location and returning to Iquitos the following morning.

For those that have never been in Ceremony before, a workshop will be held by Dr. Richard Grossman and Alan Shoemaker so that all of your questions can be adequately answered. The Ceremonies offered are completely voluntary and not in any way a prerequisite of attending the Conference.

Pre-Conference Tune-Up. Those wishing a program for a week before the Conference can come to the Pre-Conference Tune-Up. This is for more experienced Ceremonial persons. It begins one week before the Conference and will be held at the Soga Del Alma compound just outside of Iquitos. You will be able to make your own medicina and hold your own Ceremony without a curandero being present. Total price: $200 USDs This includes everything from the time you arrive at the maloca/compound.

Please contact us for more details.Visit the Conference website:

Shipibo – Conibo Art Exhibition, Lima Peru 2002 – ‘Una Ventana hacia el Infinito’

In 2002 the ICPNA held an exhibition called;

‘Una Ventana hacia el Infinito’ (A window into the infinite). This was a display of Shipibo – Conibo art in Lima.

This is a video collage of photos I took at the exhibition.

Soundtrack, Shipibo shaman Enrique Lopez chanting an Ayahuasca Icaro.

 click for info on our Ayahuasca and Yoga Retreats working with the Shipibo

 

Ayahuasca Shipibo Shaman Leoncio Garcia

The Shipibo are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Peruvian Amazon. These ethnic groups each have their own languages, traditions and culture. The Shipibo which currently number about 20,000 are spread out in communities through the Pucallpa / Ucayali river region. They are highly regarded in the Amazon as being masters of Ayahuasca, and many aspiring shamans and Ayahuasqueros from the region study with the Shipibo to learn their language, chants, and plant medicine knowledge.

Interviewed at Mishana Private Retreat Centre, Amazon Rainforest with Peter Cloudsley and Howard G Charing August 2005.

We interviewed Shipibo maestro Leoncio Garcia, a man in his mid seventies but with the appearance of a man twenty years younger. Again a testimonial to the youth giving qualities of Ayahuasca and the plant medicines of the Amazon Rainforest.

Leoncio Garcia
I didn’t become a shaman until I was 50, I am now 74. I was always so busy working in the chacra, or cutting wood, it was only when I began to get a bit older. Until then I had taken Ayahuasca for all the usual reasons of health, but that was all. After deciding to do the diet I drank Ayahuasca seriously but I didn’t see anything and didn’t think I would learn anything but still I kept on drinking every night and didn’t sleep. With just one day to go before completing three months’ diet, I had a tremendous vision and I began to chant and continued all night until dawn. I saw under the earth, under the water, and into the skies, everything. Probably I was learning from the sprits during the diet but I didn’t understand. After that I could see what the matter was with people. I dieted pinon Colorado and tobacco first and then tried all the other plants.

This was in San Francisco, a Shipibo community on Yarinacocha, Pucullpa where I was born. After this I went to Huancayo for six months to try my medicine. Then I went to Ayacucho and then a Senor took me to Lima to heal his wife. After two months I was taken to Trujillo and then Arequipa, Cusco, Juliaca, Puno. Everything worked out well and I worked with a doctor once who was not very successful and soon there were people queuing outside her consultancy. Eventually I came to Iquitos in 2000 and I haven’t had time to return to my family since then, I just send them money.

When I go round to people blowing tobacco smoke it is to give them arcanas, to protect them so that when things happen around them it doesn’t hurt them or make them ill.

Leoncio tells a Shipibo (cautionary) myth. There was once a wise man called Oni who knew what each and every healing plant could be used for. He knew all their names and one day he saw a liana and recognized it as Ayahuasca and he learned to mix it with Chacruna. One night he tried it and learned so many things that he carried on drinking it. But because he went on drinking so long and often he stopped eating and drinking, and just chanted day and night. Now he had two sons and they said ‘come and have breakfast Papa’, but he carried on drinking Ayahuasca and when they tried to pick him up, he was stuck to the ground and couldn’t be moved. So they left him chanting to all the plants everyday and night and they noticed that Ayahuasca was growing out from his fingers. So the sons went back to their chacras and after a month came back again, to see their father. Everywhere Ayahuasca ropes had tangled around him and still he continued chanting day after day and the forest carried on growing around him. After a few more months, he had merged with the forest itself and that is why its called Ayahuasca, rope of the dead and in Shipibo Oni.

visit our website www.shamanism.co.uk  for details  on our Ayahuasca Retreats in the Amazon

The Pusanga – Plant Spirit Shamanism of the Amazon Video www.shamanism.co.uk

The Western rational mind can only struggle, to take as an example the famed ‘love potion’ of the Amazon known as the Pusanga. In rational terms it makes no sense whatsoever, how can a concoction of leaves, roots, and seeds attract a lover, or good luck to you?

Soundtrack of Ayahuasca Mestizo Shaman Artidoro chanting a beautiful Icaro.

Visit our website www.shamanism.co.uk for info on our Ayahuasca and Yoga Retreats in the Amazon 

Ayahuasca and Plant Spirit Shamanism Retreat – February 2003 www.shamanism.co.uk

Images from Eagle’s Wing Ayahuasca Retreat February 2003. On the soundtrack are maestros Artidoro and Shipibo Guillermo Arevalo chanting Icaros. Both Artidoro and Guillermo were at the Retreat.

For details about our Andean and Amazonian Ayahuasca Yoga Retreats, visit our website

Shipibo Ayahuasca Shaman, Benjamin Ochavano Interviewed in the Amazon Rainforest in Peru.

Conversation with Benjamín Ochavano, Peru 2002

Howard G Charing & Peter Cloudsley interviewed Shipibo Ayahuasca Shaman Benjamin Ochavano in the Amazon Rainforest of Peru, who is in his mid seventies to discuss how Ayahuasca can help those Westerners who are seeking personal growth and who have embarked on the great journey of self discovery and exploration.

The uses of powerful hallucinogenic plants such as Ayahuasca have been developed by indigenous peoples and early civilizations over thousands of years, and their effects are highly dependent upon the context of the ceremony, the chants and the essential personality of the shaman, all of which can vary with surprising results.

Diverse urban uses have emerged recently and a few of these are spreading, while some traditional shamans travel the world, thus Ayahuasca is gaining recognition in Western civilization. But what really is the potential of these ancestral plants, and how can we get the most out of them?
I first started taking ayahuasca at the age of 10, with my father, who was also a shaman. When I was 15, he took me into the selva to do plant diets, nobody would see us for a whole year, we had no contact with women, nothing. We lived in a simple tambo sleeping on leaves with just a sheet over us. We dieted plants: ayauma, puchatekicaspi, pucarobona, huairacaspi, verenaquu.

I would take each plant for 2 months before moving on to the next, a whole year without women! The only fish allowed is boquichico – a vegetarian fish and mushed plantains made into a thick drink called pururuco in Shipibo, or chapo without sugar.

Then I had about a year’s rest before going again with my uncle, Jose Sánchez, for another year and 7 months of dieting on the little Rio Pisqui. He taught me alot and gave me chonta, cascabel, hergon, nacanaca, cayucayu. He was a chontero, a kind of shaman who works with darts (in the spiritual world) – so called because real darts and arrows for hunting are made from the black splintery bamboo called chonta. A chontero can send darts with positive effects like knowledge and power too, and he knows how to suck and remove poisoned darts which have caused illness or evil spells.

To finish off he gave me chullachaqui caspi. Then I began living with my wife and working as a curandero in Juancito on the Ucayali. Later I went to Pucallpa where I still live some of the time when I’m not in my community of Paoyhan, where my Ani Sheati project is.

The most important planta maestra is Ayauma chullachaqui. Then Pucalo puno (Quechua) the bark of a tree which grows to 40 or 50 meters. This is one of a number of plants that is consumed together with tobacco and is so strong, you only need to take it two times. It requires a diet of 6 month. You drink it in the morning, then lie down, you are in an altered state for a whole day afterwards.

Another plant is Catahua whose resin is cooked with tabacco. You must be sure that no one sees you while you take it. It puts you into a sleep of powerful dreams.

Ajosquiro is from a tree which grows to 20m, with a penetrating aroma like garlic. It gives you mental strength, it is very healing and makes you strong. It takes away lazy feelings, gives you courage and self esteem, but can be used to explore the negative side as well as the positive. You can be alone in the wilderness yet feel in the company of many. It puts you into the psycho-magical world which we have inherited from our ancestors, the great morayos (=shamans in Shipibo) so you can gain knowledge of how to heal with plants.

The word ‘shaman’ is recent in the Amazon, (coming from Asia via the Western world in the last 10-20 years). My father was known as a moraya or banco, or in Spanish curandero. A curandero could specialize in being a good chontero or a shitanero who does harm to people.

Virjilio Salvan, who is dead now, dead now introduced me to a plant which he said was better than any other plant – Palo Borrador, maestro de todos los palos (master of all plants). You smoke it in a pipe for 8 days, blowing the smoke over your body. On the eighth day a man appears, as real as we are, a Shipibo. He was a chaycuni – an enchanted being in traditional dress… cushma, or woven tunic, chaquira necklace, and so on, and he said to me ‘Benjamin, why have you smoked my tree?’
‘Because I want to learn’ I said. ‘Ever since I was little I wanted to be a Moraya’

‘You must diet and smoke my tree for 3 months, no more’ he said. ‘And you can eat whatever fish you like…it won’t matter’ … and he listed all the fish I could eat. ‘But you must not sleep with any woman other than your wife’ he said. And I’ve followed this advice until today.

Three nights later, sounds could be heard from under the ground and big holes opened up and the wind blew. Then everyone, all the family began to fly. And from that day I was a moraya. Today I still fast on Sundays .

What do you think about Westerners coming to take plants in the Amazon?

It is a good thing for them to come and learn, for us to share and for there to be an interchange. This is what I would like to do in my community of Paoyhan. But the Ecuadorians stole our outboard motor.

How could the plants of the Amazon help people of the West?

It can open up the mind so we can find ways to help each other. It can help them find more self-realization in life. If a person is very shy for example it can help warm their hearts, give them strength and courage.

You have a different system in your countries, when we travel there we feel underrated just as when you come here you have to get accustomed to being here. When we get to know each other and become like brothers, solutions emerge. To get rid of vices and drug addictions, for example, there are plants which can easily heal people.

Pene de mono is a thick tree, which I have used to cure two foreign women of AIDS. The name means ‘monkey’s penis’. I saw in my ayahuasca vision that they were ill and diagnosed them as having AIDS. I boiled the bark of the tree and made 6 bottles which they took each day until it was finished. They had to go on a diet as well. No fish with teeth, salt, fruit or butter. The fish with teeth eat the plant so it cannot penetrate into the body. After this you get so hot that steam comes off the body. In the selva there is no AIDS, only some cases in the city of Pucullpa.

 Click to visit our website for details on our Amazon Ayahuasca Retreats www.shamanism.co.uk

Pablo Amaringo’s Foreword to the book Plant Spirit Shamanism

Pablo Amaringo is one of the world’s greatest visionary artists, and is renowned for his highly complex, colourful and intricate paintings of his visions from drinking the Ayahuasca brew. Pablo is a true visionary, and wrote this inspirational foreword to the book Plant Spirit Shamanism (Destiny Books USA).

My visions helped me understand the value of human beings, animals, the plants themselves, and many other things. The plants taught me the function they play in life, and the holistic meaning of all life. We all should give special attention and deference to Mother Nature. She deserves our love. And we should also show a healthy respect for her power!

Plants are essential in many ways: they give life to all beings on Earth by producing oxygen, which we need to be active; they create the enormous greenhouse that gives board and lodging to diverse but interrelated guests; they are teachers who show us the holistic importance of conserving life in its due form and necessary conditions.

For me personally, though, they mean even more than this. Plants—in the great living book of nature—have shown me how to study life as an artist and shaman. They can help all of us to know the art of healing and to discover our own creativity, because the beauty of nature moves people to show reverence, fascination, and respect for the extent to which the forests give shelter to our souls.

The consciousness of plants is a constant source of information for medicine, alimentation, and art, and an example of the intelligence and creative imagination of nature. Much of my education I owe to the intelligence of these great teachers. Thus I consider myself to be the “representative” of plants, and for this reason I assert that if they cut down the trees and burn what’s left of the rainforests, it is the same as burning a whole library of books without ever having read them.

People who are not so dedicated to the study and experience of plants may not think this knowledge is so important to their lives—but even they should be conscious of the nutritional, medicinal, and scientific value of the plants they rely on for life.

My most sublime desire, though, is that every human being should begin to put as much attention as he or she can into the knowledge of plants, because they are the greatest healers of all. And all human beings should also put effort into the preservation and conservation of the rainforest, and care for it and the ecosystem, because damage to these not only prejudices the flora and fauna but humanity itself.

Even in the Amazon these days, many see plants as only a resource for building houses and to finance large families. People who have farms and raise animals also clear the forest to produce foodstuffs. Mestizos and native Indians log the largest trees to sell to industrial sawmills for subsistence. They have never heard of the word ecology!

I, Pablo, say to everybody who lives in the Amazon and the other forests of the world, that they must love the plants of their land, and everything that is there!

This expression of love must be a sincere and altruistic interest in the lasting well-being of others. We are not here simply to exist, but to enjoy life together with plants, animals, and loved ones, and to delight in contemplation of the beauty of nature. A shaman has in his mind and heart the attitude of conserving nature because he knows that life is for enjoying the company of this world’s countless delights.

Any painting, or book, or piece of art that spreads this message is to be respected, and every reader who picks up a book on this subject is to be honored.

I invite you to read on, and to learn from the greatest teachers of all—the plants, our sacred brothers and sisters.

Pablo Amaringo

Photo: Pablo Amaringo with Howard G Charing presenting the book. Pucallpa, Peru 2007.

 Click to view the interview with Pablo Amaringo by Howard G Charing and Peter Cloudsley (first published in Sacred Hoop Magazine)