The Shaman’s Diet

by Howard G. Charing
Eagle's Wing Centre for Contemporary Shamanism

For a future shaman or person seeking wisdom, the plant diet is the first step in the journey of initiation; however, it can also be used to cure physical illness or as a means of achieving spiritual well being. During the diet a concoction made from your chosen teacher plant is usually brought to you each morning by the maestro and drunk on awakening. After you have got to know a plant spirit in this way, it becomes your ally and a shaman can then use it for healing his clients. A diet for a serious illness may last for several months and sometimes in the process, the person discovers his ability to heal, decides to apprentice himself, and goes on to diet many more plants. The apprentice’s diet is normally undertaken deep in the forest, and alone with the maestro, but in practice it can be very difficult to find ideal conditions of tranquility, support, the proper food and distance from temptation, yet with adequate conditions of comfort.

The most important things to avoid are pork, red meat, fat, salt, sugar, alcohol, drugs - including medicines - and sexual activity. This diet is begun in a more liberal form the week before starting to take the plant, and is continued for a while afterwards. Its purpose is to prepare the body and nervous system for the powerful knowledge and expansion of consciousness given by teacher plants. In everyday life, the mind creates the illusion that we are separate from reality, and thus protects us, like a veil, from experiencing the vastness of the universe. Access to the truth without preparation could be a radical shock to the system.

Teacher plants act as a bridge to a realm of knowledge which goes beyond individuals or plants, however they vary greatly, as each plant shows us its own world. Ajo sacho, for example, tunes you in to the reality of the rain forest, sharpening the senses and inhibiting body odour through its own garlic smell, so that you will not be detected by animals in the forest. It has been used to improve hunting skills for thousands of years. The magical world to which we are transported by plants is not accessible through the verbal rational mind but through dream language. Thus dreams act like doorways during a plant diet and connect us with the plant spirit.

Diets are not invented by maestros, they are given by the plant spirits themselves, but there is more to it than simply abstaining from certain foods and activities. It involves a state of purification, retreat, commitment, and respect for our connection with everything around us - above all the rain forest. When we listen to our dreams, they become more real, and equally important as everyday life. For this reason we do not encourage distracting or libidinous thoughts, dreams or fantasies.

To quote Guillermo Arevalo who worked with our group on the February 2003 Retreat “Whether the diet is to heal the body or the spirit or whether it is part of an apprenticeship, what makes it work is your good intention towards the diet. Also the good intention of the maestro who helps make the connection with the spirit of the plant. He must know how to get into the altered state to be in contact himself first. They are beings, which have their own forms or they can be like human beings with faces and bodies. When the spirit accepts the dieter, and the dieter has the will, the spirit grants them energy. The path to knowledge opens, the healing takes place, as the case may be.”

Some Plants

Mocura - taken orally or used in floral baths to raise energy, or take you out of a saladera (a run of bad luck, inertia, sense of not living to the full). This plant gives mental strength and you can feel its effects as also with ajosacha, both are varieties of garlic and have a penetrating aroma. Mental strength means it could be good to counter shyness, find one’s personal value or authority. Medicinal properties include asthma, bronchitis, reduction of fat and cholesterol. Another of its properties is that it burns off excess fat.

Piñon Colorado - this plant has short lived effect after drinking but helps dreaming later on when you go to sleep. Piñon Colorado can also be worked with as a planta maestra (teacher plant). Medicinal properties include dealing with Insect bites and stings, vaginal infections, and bronchitis. It is possible to take the resin which is much stronger but toxic if too much ingested. The resin can be applied directly to the skin.

Chirisanango - this plant is good for colds and arthritis and has the effect of heating up the body, so much so that the maestro advises a cold shower after each dose! This plant can be used in baths for good luck, and bring success to fishing, hunting etc. This planta maestra also makes possible for people to open up their heart to feel love for people and animals, and identify with other people as though brothers and sisters. It grows mainly in the Upper Amazon and only a few restingas (high ground which never floods) in the Lower Amazon. The shamans say that plants connect us with nature because they take their nourishment directly from the earth, as well as the sun’s rays, the air. They allow us to know and recognize ourselves. A shaman must know this and must love his people to heal them. The gift of Chirisanango is self esteem i.e the ability to recognise ourselves.

The shamans say that this plant opens up the shamanic path, assuming that we are prepared to live under the rules of shamanism, to do this we need courage and no fear of extremes or negative & challenging circumstances. We need to understand what role we will play in society and have the heart of a warrior.

Guayusa - It is good for excessive acidity and other problems in the stomach and bile. Also it is both energizing and relaxing at the same time and develops mental strength. This also has the most interesting effect of giving lucid dreams i.e when you are dreaming you are aware that you are dreaming. The plant is also known as the "watchman's plant", as even when sleeping you are aware of the outer physical surroundings. On another personal note, I found the experience with this plant also to be quite incredible. I found that the usual boundary between sleeping and being awake to be more fluid than I had anticipated. Even now, sometime after taking the plant my dreams are more colourful, richer, and lucid than before. For those interested in 'dreaming' this is certainly the plant to explore.

Ajo Sacha - An important planta maestra in the initiation of Amazonian shamans. Mental strength, acuity of mind, saladera (explained above), for ridding spells, self healing. Originally used to enhance hunting skills by covering up human smell with the garlic smell of Ajosacha. On another personal note, I found my senses being altered and enhanced with this plant. I could zoom in and focus on sounds emanating from the rainforest, my sense of smell became sharper, and in some ineffable way I could tune into the breathing or rhythm of the rainforest. The sound of insects and birds was no longer a random phenomenon, these sounds became a rhythmic breath, rising and falling. No wonder that it is used for hunting as one's sense are heightened in an incredible way.

Icoja - A bark used for malaria, fever, an astringent, disinfectant for healing septic wounds. Used against Uta - a kind of leprosy found in the Amazon. Wounds are washed directly with this plant, and it is also used for an infectious disease (Pilagra) in children.

Chanca piedra - Used for Kidney problems especially kidney stones (hence the name ‘stone crusher’), gall bladder, disinfectant. This is recognised as a gall bladder and liver tonic. It is also used for cleansing the urinary system and for dealing with intestinal parasites. This plant is only used for its many pharmaceutical properties, not a planta maestra per se.

Boahuasca - Used to heal Cancer of the stomach and intestines and prolapses. Also used against Uta, and cancerous, malignant wounds. The shaman's make an ointment from the ash and apply directly. The underlying truth that is revealed in working with the plant spirit or consciousness is that we are not separate from the natural world. We perceive ourselves to be separate beings with our minds firmly embedded within our being (typically our head). The plants can show you that this way of being is an illusion and that we are all connected, all of us and everything else is a discrete element in the great universal field of consciousness. This is an area where the ancient knowledge of the peoples of the rainforest and modern quantum physics point in the very same direction, “Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one’ Albert Einstein.

Another way of seeing the shaman’s diet is that like the platitude ‘all roads lead to Rome’, all plants lead through different paths of experiences to the same place, i.e a deep and expanded understanding of one’s place in the world around us and a recognition of self as an intrinsic element of this.

Howard Charing is a journey facilitator with Eagle's Wing Centre for Contemporary Shamanism. He says: "So much has happened since my 'entry' into the world of shamanism nearly twenty years ago following a serious accident (a lift crash) which resulted in severe injuries and a near-death experience. Shamanism has changed my life and without doubt the knowledge and wisdom of the ancients and indigenous peoples is the alchemical gold which people in modern Western society can draw into their everyday lives and transform them so they too can actively participate in the magic of being alive on this beautiful planet. As in all things the journey of transformation starts with you."


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