The Cure List

Written by Sam Slovick (from LA Yoga Magazine June 2010)

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 Chujandama Huazanga is calling the spirits to The New Rising Sun, a humble compound in a small village called Llucayanacu on banks of the Huallaga River where he was born.

Orlando left home in the high Peruvian Amazon to peruse a formal education in Terapoto after the death of his grandfather and teacher, Don Aquilino Chujandama, one of the most respected masters in the field of Vegetalismo of this region.

A curandero, or traditional indigenous healer, Orlando cures physical and spiritual illnesses by means of Vegetalismo; the Amazonian tradition of spiritual herbalism practiced in South America. Vegetalismo is the elegant and refined sacred science that uses master plants with sentient spirits. He carries the knowledge of a powerful family linage using the flora and fauna from the jungle; his practice includes psychoactive Ayahuasca and Tobacco.

As part of his training in Vegetalismo, he has engaged in long periods of isolation in the jungle under the guidance of master plant spirits and his grandfather. Though no longer in the flesh, the tutelage of his grandfather continues in dreamtime.

I sat down with Orlando in the jungle outside his maloka (ceremony space) to ask him some questions. This interview was translated in real time from Spanish by Vegetalista, Metsa Niwue.

SS: What’s your name? What do you do?

OC: My name is Orlando Chujandama and I work with Amazonic plants. What I do actually is I use medicinal plants to heal people. I have patients that come and see me and I take care of them. I do this job because it comes from my grandfather. It’s a linage that comes from my people.

SS: What is that linage?

OC: I am an indigenous person coming from the Quechua people. The knowledge I have came from my grandfather. I use leaves and roots and barks and different types of medicine that grow in the jungle and apply them for the pathology of the patients.

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Written by Sam Slovick (from LA Yoga Magazine)

Vegetalismo is the indigenous Amazonian tradition of spiritual herbalism practiced in the Peruvian Amazon.  It’s an elegant and refind sacred science.  This LA Yoga Magazine story, “Welcome to the Jungle” and accompanying video was shot at a center called Espiritu De Anaconda near Iquitos, Peru.  The compound was founded by Shipibo shaman, Guillermo Arévalo (aka Kesenbetsa), whose objective is the protection, organization and diffusion of traditional Amazonian medicine.  The center offers traditional cures at the healing center site as well as training with traditional shamanic preparation in the isolated jungle.

Arévalo’s medicine name, ‘Echo of the Universe’ is a decidedly prophetic moniker.  His global vision of the ancient practice is rooted in the jungle and developed by his people, the Shipibo-Conibo, and has woven it’s way into the Western world and beyond.

Guillermo is recognized worldwide in the field of Amazonian indigenous medicine, from both western academic and indigenous organizations, and especially by his own people. Vegetalismo is conceivably the most evolved and sophisticated tradition of Amazonian Master Plant healing.

Arévalo is the subject of a documentary film (Other Worlds) by French film director Jan Kounen.

Ayahuasca, Shamanism And The Diets Of Healing

I’ll open your thoughts. By doing so I’ll fill you with joy. By doing so I’ll straighten your thoughts. By doing so I’ll straighten your body. now I’ll heal you to the depths of your heart. By doing so I’ll fill you with immense joy. By doing so I’ll return life to your body and to your thoughts. I’ll heal your being, your body, with the powerful essence of the tree and the universe. so you are joyous, remember my words. so you remember them, I will chant them. Though I’m small, I made your thoughts shine. The universe is in harmony.The word is and ever will be.

–– Shamanic Chants of Kestenbetsa (Echo of the Universe) From Jan Kounen’s Documentary About Ayahuasca, Other Worlds.

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like  Peruvian painter Pablo Amaringo,  Ayahuascero, JARAH TREE is an artist inspired by sentient plant spirits.  Here’s an example of his work, called Pacha Mama.

Pablo Amaringo is a  Peruvian painter inspired by sentient spirits of master plants.

THE AYAHUASCA VISIONS OF PABLO AMARINGO

July 25^th – August 5^th 2009

A Visionary Art workshop and Ayahuasca Retreat in the Amazon Rainforest

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.