Shamanic Diet
The Shamanic Diet
“The vision quest is nothing more than a circle drawn in the dust, a blank form to be filled with the perceptions and values of the Seeker… It is the mirror in which one can discover one’s own self.”
The shamanic diet is a spiritual exercise that works through the guidance and intelligence of one or various master plants. It is one of the most important rituals and elements within Amazonian shamanism.
The context of the diet is done in complete isolation and silence; allowing one to fully open up to stillness, contemplation and communion with the natural world, the cosmos and one’s innate wisdom. In essence, a shamanic diet offers a process of death and rebirth. It is a process of restoration; restoring the natural balance between the body, mind and spirit. The role of the shaman is to invoke the spirit of the plant, to protect and energetically clean the environment of the diet and to guide the participants towards their inner master.
The diet is a process founded on one’s own direct experience and capacity to surrender and heal without actively needing to manage and control the experience. It is experienced, lived, suffered and understood directly, through awakening without doubt to one’s inner truth or the voice of the heart. The beauty of the diet is found within the ability to authentically observe and witness the experience with humility, transparency, and purity of intention. The process blossoms through one’s own sincerity, willingness to listen and openness to learn. A shamanic diet often becomes a vital turning point in one’s existence; an opening of profound understanding and great spiritual growth.
A Spiritual Master in the form of a Plant
A shamanic diet is an opportunity to work with and learn directly from a master plant that is your teacher and “speaks” within you. A spiritual teacher that is contained in a brew or decoction of a master plant, such as the Chiric Sanango that belongs to the family of plants called Sanangos. The Chiric Sanango (healer who heals through cold) opens the heart, teaches us love and trust. Also as an example we have the Uchu Sanango (healer who burns, who cleans our limitations with fire or heat), the beautiful plant Bobinzana, healer whose archetype is the mermaid, teaches service, feminine wisdom, adaptability. Likewise we have other teachers such as Ajo Sacha, Tobacco, etc. In the diet the guide, healer or shaman acts as a mediator between the dieter or participant and the spirit or entity of the plant.
During a period of 7 days or more, the voice of these plant masters guide the heart, to find solutions to complexes and deep-rooted suffering, emotional or physical pain. They open memories to cleanse the heart of reactions, healing deep scars to achieve healing through understanding, self-observation, and understanding. The diet is delicate work, because it demands discipline of silence and isolation. It is for many a definitive step in life towards change, to leaving afflictions that accompany our existence, and truly open the heart to life.
Plants act at the level of each being. They are not “magic” pills or chemicals that falsely offer healing by numbing the mind or disconnecting feelings. They work at the level of the soul accompanying and healing each affliction according to the personal universe. Their work is to cleanse, burn or purge wounds, and also to support the being to strengthen it, and above all to teach us to live our direct experience by alleviating us of the burdens we carry from our experience, sealing our scars.
Everything that happens to us is calling us to understanding, to comprehension. The experience of suffering is a call to meet the Dharma, but we need to light the way to not get lost in emotion or pain, to let go of what does not belong to us and focus on the reason for the experience – the understanding for the search of a spiritual path, for which we need to reconnect with ourselves, to be guided to our inner teacher. The diet plants are ancient and wise teachers that give us the opportunity to be guided to understand what life calls us to understand, in order to heal. The plant master accompanies you on your journey, strengthening you, opening what needs to be opened, burning and purifying what needs to be cleansed, and also healing you on a physical level.
It is an opportunity to understand life, existence and karma; an opportunity to build the resilience and strength necessary to rise beyond our suffering, and through understanding let go and free ourselves from the circumstances that bind us to suffering.
The diet is an opportunity to listen to yourself and your heart. Everything else is silenced, including the noise of food. During the diet we eat very simple and silent food (monothematic), and we isolate ourselves from the world for a few days. It is a search for silence, so we may listen to ourselves and open our hearts. To open the heart, we must first find it and feel its voice. The master plant guides us to listen to that voice, to hear ourselves, to perceive the rhythm of the universe through nature and its essence in ourselves. To feel the wind, the sunrise and sunset, to begin to understand the meaning of existence and our real being.
The diet is a practice to return to the essential, to silence. Therefore, we stay in tents in nature, returning to the primordial in our being. Through the diet, we begin to return to our true nature by leaving our comfort zone, leaving behind the beliefs of a culture based on sumptuary and excessive comfort. We begin to realize our body and its functions, andwe can marvel at the experience of inner perception by understanding in solitude our immensity, which is the first thing that plants show us. It is the beginning of humanising ourselves by living fully the experience of being here and now.
The Plants are Medicine
The Shamanic Diet is an opportunity to go as deep as possible in healing with Master Plants, because they go to the heart of the being impregnating, impregnating it with their wisdom. We must remember that plants, and this spiritual work, are a medicine for the body, mind and spirit. This opportunity must be treated with the care and respect that comes with the sacred and ancestral knowledge that comes to us through millennia of knowledge stored in the Amazon since the beginning of time. Healing with Master Plants is not about doing many more Ayahuasca ceremonies, to receive more healing or knowledge, but above all to bring to the heart the teachings and understanding that we are able to receive, assimilate and understand. The Diet is also a work of integration of the ceremonies, to really bring to understanding our circumstances into our lives, to fully receive the fruits of this work.
The whole inner evolution of working with Master Plants is a deep holistic process that encompasses our whole being.
Each Ayahuasca ceremony is an invaluable opportunity if prepared and integrated correctly. Silence and nature open that inner space that allows us to settle and integrate what is opened and shown to us in the ceremonies. That is why the opportunity of the diet is incredible.
For us, a retreat with a shamanic diet in silence and isolation, is the most correct way to digest and work deeply with this medicine, that brings this immense opportunity for humanity that is Ayahuasca and other Master Plants.
Practical Details
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Where is Sinchi Runa located?Our retreats are held in a uniquely beautiful forest-garden in Andalucia, in the quiet countryside of Huelva. It is a majestic space immersed in the silence and aliveness of nature.
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Where will I stay?You will stay in a private, spacious and comfortable ‘glamping’ bell tent, complete with a bed, mattress and duvet. Each tent is immersed in the countryside’s natural beauty and view, with conditions conducive of reconnecting with oneself, with nature and with the spirit of the plants.
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What facilities do you have?It is an integral part of the work to be in stillness with nature, to be able to hear the birds, feel the wind, the sun, and to see the stars. Through that stillness to begin to hear ourselves, our hearts, and the wisdom of the plants. For the duration of the retreat, we put aside some of our accustomed comforts to bring us closer to what is essential inside us. Accommodations and facilities are purposefully rustic and non-luxurious to bring us closer to nature and the earth. Our facilities (kitchen, bathroom, shower) are outdoors, though for some winter retreats we may open indoor facilities depending on weather conditions.
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What will I eat?We will prepare you nutritious, natural, home-cooked meals that are in line with the plant-work every day of the retreat. During the shamanic diet you will undergo a special fast that allows you to open up and connect with the specific master plant you’re dieting with, the ‘dieta’ meal consists of plain, cooked whole grain rice and mung beans without oil, salt or other condiments.
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TransportationThe closest airports are Sevilla airport in Spain and Faro airport in Portugal, both are about an hour drive away with bus connections. More details on how to reach the retreat center will be given upon registration.
The Gift of the Plants
One of the best ways to get to know Maestro Sanango, and how we work with Ayahuasca and Master Plants at Sinchi Runa, is through our podcast & blog. We are honored to share recordings of Maestro Sanango’s wisdom, where he speaks about awakening through a path of Yoga with the Plants, and the immense gift and opportunity that the plants are for the healing of humanity and our hearts.
