It’s been a rainy day today, so being browsing around on Google Earth, and have saved some satellite photos of our Retreat Center at Mishana.
Located in protected national reserve, our centre has a panoramic vista of two river bends of the Rio Nanay. A beautiful and tranquil venue to hold an Ayahuasca, Yoga, or Spiritual Retreat programme.
I’ve updated the photo gallery and video of our Retreat Centre at Mishana. Located in protected national reserve, our centre has a panoramic vista of two river bends of the Rio Nanay. A beautiful and tranquil venue to hold an Ayahuasca, Yoga, or Spiritual Retreat programme. If you are interested in hiring our Retreat Center, please contact me at;
eagleswing@shamanism.co.uk
Taking it nice and easy on the deck of Mishana Retreat Centre looking at some boats on Rio Nanay. Mishana is in a national reserve. Video from Eagle’s Wing Ayahuasca Retreat.
Visit our website for info on our Ayahuasca and Yoga Retreats in the Amazon
Ayahuasca Shipibo Shaman, Enrique Lopez talks with our group about Amazonian shamanism, medicinal, and the spiritual properties of plants. Video taken at Eagle’s Wing Ayahuasca Retreat at Mishana in Peru, March 2008. (part 2).
Click for Info on our Ayahuasca and Yoga Retreats in the Amazon Rain forest in Peru.
Ayahuasca Shipibo Shaman, Enrique Lopez talks with our group about Amazonian shamanism, medicinal, and the spiritual properties of plants. Video taken at Eagle’s Wing Ayahuasca Retreat at Mishana in Peru, March 2008
Click for details about our Ayahuasca and Yoga Retreats in Peru
Ayahuasca Retreat – Amazon Rainforest, Mishana, Peru. March 2008
A video collage of Eagle’s Wing Ayahuasca Retreat at our dedicated centre in Mishana.
Brewing Ayhuasca – November 2007, with Huitoto Shaman Lucho. Recorded at Mishana Ayahuasca & Plant Spirit Shamanism Retreat Centre, Amazon Rainforest, Peru.
Peru
Visit our website www.shamanism.co.uk for details on our Ayahuasca Yoga Retreats in the Amazon
Ayahuasca, is regarded as the ‘gateway’ to the Soul. The fifth and concluding part of this article explores this fascinating plant brew from the Amazon Rainforest. Ayahuasca is the jungle medicine of the upper Amazon. It is made from the ayahuasca vine ( Banisteriopsis Caapi) and the leaf of the Chacruna plant (Psychotria Viridis). The two make a potent medicine, which takes one into the visionary world. The vine is an inhibitor, which contains harmala and harmaline among other alkaloids, and the leaf contains vision-inducing alkaloids. As with all natural medicines, it is a mixture of many alkaloids that makes their unique properties.
In this context, the teacher plants can provide a doorway to great and meaningful insights in the adventure of personal growth and healing. The growth and healing has therefore to be also in the physical world, thereby offering the opportunity to reveal our emotions, traumatic and turbulent experiences hidden or otherwise and so these can be released and ourselves restored. This access to our soul companion (our greater selves) , this flowing omni-present force guiding our life which presents with what are often called euphemistically “growth opportunities” for us to overcome. The plant teachers can show us these, where we can transcend linear time itself, and we journey within this eternal now at the very place in time where we experienced such a difficult event or suffered a troubled pervasive period in our life. We can re-experience this albeit from a different perspective, learn what happened, the reasons why it occurred and the subsequent impact and consequences on our life, and then to release any pain and trauma locked within our being. This release within the Ayahuasca experience is called ‘la purga’ our purge, when we literally purge this pain from our being, it is not only the contents of our stomach which are being released but also the deeply stored bile and sourness in our bodies generated from these difficult events. The plants offer us the potential for deep soul healing so we can become stronger and more able to engage fully in the precious gift of life.
Developing a personal relationship with Ayahuasca is within a background of an ancient body of practices. The oldest know object related to the use of ayahuasca is a ceremonial cup, hewn out of stone, with engraved ornamentation, which was found in the Pastaza culture of the Ecuadorian Amazon from 500 B.C. to 50 A.D. It is deposited in the collection of the Ethnological Museum of the Central University (Quito, Ecuador). This indicates that ayahuasca potions were known and used at least 2,500 years ago.
For example, there is a dietary regimen, and prohibitions regarding libidinous thoughts and activity. These considerations need to be respected and can not be ignored if one embarks on a path of communion with the plant. On observation and study (also called trial and error), this regime helps us to become more ‘plant like’, therefore increasing our receptivity to the plant-spirit-mind.
Many of my visionary experiences with Ayahuasca have led to a deeper understanding of my life and the role that various people had played in it. Sometimes I became those people, lived their lives, and came to understand why they did what they did, what decisions they had to make in their lives. These revelatory experiences invariably led to some form of closure with that person, like completing an open chapter, or a profound healing of my relationship with that person.
Medicines like ayahuasca can help us along our path but we still have to do the work ourselves. My experience is that these kind of allies can help us open the doors of perception, but what we do when we get there is entirely our own challenge.
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Since the late 90’s Eagle’s Wing has conducted Ayahuasca and San Pedro Retreats in Peru. We have our 2008 programme available for viewing, downloading, or printing on this blog.
View or Download our 2008 San Pedro and Ayahuasca Yoga programme in Adobe PDF format
Visit our webpage for info on our Ayahuasca Retreats
Ayahuasca, is regarded as the ‘gateway’ to the Soul. The fourth part of this article continues to explore this fascinating plant brew from the Amazon Rainforest. Ayahuasca is the jungle medicine of the upper Amazon. It is made from the ayahuasca vine ( Banisteriopsis Caapi) and the leaf of the Chacruna plant (Psychotria Viridis). The two make a potent medicine, which takes one into the visionary world. The vine is an inhibitor, which contains harmala and harmaline among other alkaloids, and the leaf contains vision-inducing alkaloids. As with all natural medicines, it is a mixture of many alkaloids that makes their unique properties.
I discovered that Ayahuasca is a medicine, so unlike the Western understanding, a medicine which works on every level, on the physical and non-physical beings, our consciousness, our emotions, and our spirit. It is as if you are drinking not just a liquid brew but imbibing an ‘other’ intelligence which knows exactly what is needed to help you. This is a communion in the true sense of the word, an intense experience of euphoria and ecstasy. A journey of deep and profoundly meaningful personal and trans-personal insights , a searchlight on the hidden thoughts and feelings in the sub-conscious mind, an erasing of the ego boundaries and a merging with the greater field of consciousness of creation.
The was more and more to experience, dieting some of the teacher plants such as Ajo Sacha and Guyasa, I felt my senses being altered , expanded in some ineffable way, and becoming aware of the song, the very rhythm of the rainforest. There was sound, smells, and sights around me, which I had not been aware of in my normal everyday waking state. I could zoom in on smells, and sound, I realised that the rainforest was one entity with the insects, birds, and animals being a part of the totality of the rainforest. I am in paradise when lying in my hammock; it is like floating within a living three-dimensional sensorial experience of sound, colour, smell, movement, and vibration all in harmony and great beauty.
The work with the visionary plants not only provides a philosophical frame of reference for my life so to speak, but is also a path for deep soul healing, and generates a desire to engage fully and with enthusiasm the world around me. Celestial visions are always very nice and pleasing but they must never cloud, disguise, or distract our real purpose to live in the full embodiment of being a human on this beautiful planet and striving to enrich that special and unique experience, our ‘earth walk’. I recall some years ago when I led a group to the Amazon Rainforest, our initial gathering with our shaman Javier Arevalo so we could all introduce ourselves. Javier was very curious about Westerners, and was interested in knowing what we were searching for with the visionary plants. One participant stood up and said she wanted a clear and definitive understanding of the male and female principles of the universe, the cosmic “ying and yang” as she put it. Well Javier was totally mystified by this question, as when I have attended his sessions with local people who visit him for a consultation or session they ask about everyday problems and concerns such as “is my boyfriend / husband / girlfriend cheating on me?”, or “why am I unlucky in finding a job?”, “I need help to overcome this disease”. Well we worked with our participant to explore what the real question was behind her initial enquiry, finally she said that she was really looking for love in her life, and of course, Javier could understand this deep desire completely, and was subsequently able to help her discover and reconcile the inner obstacles, which had been preventing this.
Visit our website for details on our Ayahuasca and Yoga Retreats in the Amazon
Shamanism & Visionary Art 
