Ayahuasca – Curandero

Orlando Chujandama Huazanga is a curandero, a traditional indigenous healer or shaman, who provides physical and spiritual healing by means of vegetalismo, an alternative therapy readily practiced in South America.

Vegetalismo is a refined and elegant sacred science that uses master plants with sentient spirits. Orlando carries the knowledge of a powerful family linage; his practice includes the psychoactive ayahuasca and tobacco.

Ayahuasca – Icaros

Far below the cloud forests of the Peruvian Andes, downriver from the place where the Ucayali and Marañón converge to form the headwaters of the Amazon, Orlando operates a healing center called The New Rising Sun.  A humble compound in a small village called Llucayanacu on banks of the Huallaga River where he was born, Orlando uses medicinal plants (including ayahuasca) to help heal people.  Employing leaves and roots and barks and different types of medicine that grow in the jungle, he applies them to his patient’s pathology.

Paramount to this alternative therapy practice are the songs, which are called icaros.  According to Orlando, they help people connect with nature. During evening ceremonies, Orlando uses these songs to call not only on the spirit of the plant, but also on the spirit of the Earth, of Mother Nature, and all the elements needed for the patient’s well-being.

Ayahuasca for diagnosis and treatment

According to Orlando, ayahuasca, the primary plant used in vegetalismo is used for both diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, in most Western cultures, people consider ayahuasca a drug.  As such, use of it is considered substance abuse.  For those in the Amazon, however, ayahuasca, is a sacred medicine, a spiritual medicine deeply ingrained into the culture.

Far from abuse, Orlando uses his knowledge to help people with their medicinal problems.  He and many others hold that ayahuasca and the other master plants represent and alternative therapy practice that can help with many different kinds of diseases.

For more information on the alternative therapy practice of vegetalismo and on Orlando Chujandama Huazanga visit thenewrisingsun.wordpress.com.  Also checkout the LA Yoga Magazine interview with Orlando by journalist Sam Slovick, New Rising Son: A Perseverance Of Lineage and The Cure Stream video above for a more in-depth look at ayahuasca.