In Search of Jungle Medicine

Two weeks off-grid in the Peruvian Amazon

The Ucalayi river snakes its way through the Peruvian Amazon, starting in the high Andes mountains, it serves as a major artery that runs deep into the lowland jungle. Along its banks reside an indigenous group known as the Shipibo-Conibo. Despite the challenges they have endured from creeping colonisation and western capitalism, the Shipibo have maintained a powerful set of practices and ancestral knowledge, passed down through their native language and cultural traditions. Most notable is their profound relationship with Amazonian plant medicines.

Shipibo curanderos, Temple of the Way of Light, Paul Winner, 2021

The Shipibo are masters in the art and science of healing, particularly when it comes to ailments beyond the physical body. They have a reputation for addressing long-held emotional trauma and addiction. They work as skilled surgeons in tandem with the plants they prescribe to identify and eliminate the very source of the illness. This is done primarily and extraordinarily through a combination of singing — ancient native songs known as ‘icaros’, which they develop through years of dieting ‘master’ plants and a potent psychoactive brew known as ayahuasca, which is usually taken by both the patient and the healer in ceremony. The way in which they work as healers is so fundamentally different from both Western and Eastern medicine traditions that it really needs to be experienced to be believed.

This is initially what piqued my interest when I first travelled to Peru in 2019 in search of a remedy for my depression, having decided not to take the Western approach of pharmaceutical antidepressants. What I found during my first trip was exactly what I was looking for. A powerful natural remedy that put me on a path to recovery. Not a magic silver bullet, but a holistic approach to addressing the underlying cause of my illness. A sort of energetic reset that left me feeling more alive than I knew was possible and more connected to Nature than I had ever been before. The experience was so profound that I went back in 2021 to continue the work and deepen my understanding of this medicine and the people who protect it.

Two weeks ago, I arrived in Peru for the third time to go a step further. While ayahuasca is now commonly known around the world for its healing properties and used by a range of different indigenous groups throughout the Amazon basin, the Shipibo specialise in what is known as ‘the dieta’. Essentially, an extended period of time where someone diets on one of a series of different ‘master’ plants in order to develop a deep spiritual connection and receive their teachings. These plants are not psychoactive in the way ayahuasca is, but they have been identified as ‘teachers’ who can provide wisdom and insight when they are consumed over a sustained period of time, in the right conditions.

Years ago, someone pointed me towards Shipibo Rao, as the place to do a traditional ‘dieta’. This centre, which is owned and operated by the Shipibo themselves, requires a minimum stay of two weeks. It includes working directly with a ‘master’ plant and undertaking a series of ayahuasca ceremonies under the guidance of at least three very skilled Shipibo healers. These are often generational practitioners, their skills are honed from a lifetime of practice and under the tuition of their parents and grandparents. Cuaranderos (healers) can start their training as young as six years old.

It has taken me until now to carve out the time in my life to undertake this journey. It is no small feat. The centre is located deep in the Peruvian Amazon, two hours north of a jungle town called Pucallpa and requires a full commitment of time and energy. Those who undertake the dieta do so in strict conditions. You spend 95% of your time alone, in silence in a small cabin with little more than a bed and a hammock. There is no electricity, no running water and no cell service. You fast for 23 hours of the day, breaking only at midday to eat a plate of simple food. Each morning and evening, you drink your master plant.

When I explained that I was undertaking this journey to close friends and family, many stared at me in total bewilderment. To some, it seemed extreme, but I felt a deep call to be here. Like an invisible thread that was tugging at my subconscious… so I booked off time with work, packed my bags and off I went.

What struck me at first was that this would be the longest period of time I could remember where I would be without my phone or a connection to the internet. The idea of being disconnected from everyone I love gave me a decent level of anxiety. But more than that, I found when you strip away all the modern conveniences that make up our day-to-day lives, you realise how many stimulants we surround ourselves with.

I’ll speak for myself, but as someone who certainly has undiagnosed ADHD, I fill my normal day with as many adrenaline-surging, dopamine-triggering, serotonin-boosting activities as I can. Coffee, social media, work, alcohol, sugar, sex, and exercise. Anything to numb myself or get a good kick. Not consciously or in extreme excess, but we live in a chaotic, fast-moving world. That’s the way I’ve found of navigating a constant sense of overwhelm. Growing up in an increasingly digital, attention-grabbing economy hasn’t helped either.

So, as I settled into my first couple of days, I felt a growing unease at the challenge that I knew lay ahead. I had already spent two weeks at home weaning myself off stimulants like coffee, sex and processed foods - this is strictly required before arriving. However, as I lay in my hammock, staring at the vast canopy of trees that stood guard around the cabin, my mind began to wander. Since there was no distraction to be had, there was no way of avoiding the uncomfortable thoughts that inevitably made their way to the surface. I had little choice but to acknowledge them.

My hand would instinctively reach for my phone, but with no connection to the internet, it had little recourse to offer. I did bring a small collection of books. Nothing serious - the kind of books that had sat gathering dust on my bedside table, general reading, recommendations from friends. In the first three days, I had powered through three of them cover to cover. They didn’t give me the quick hit of stimulation that came from scrolling Instagram, but at least they kept me occupied.

After the third day, my brain - starved of its usual routine, started slowly and reluctantly to surrender. My shoulders dropped, my breathing slowed, and I started to notice details around me around me — The dappled light as it changed throughout the day, casting the shadow of great trees on the ground. — The gurgling sound of water from a small river that passed behind the cabin and the almost constant chorus of an impossible number of insects, frogs and birds - humming, buzzing and singing - reminding me that I was surrounded on all sides by one of the most biodiverse habitats on the planet.

What makes this experience particularly unique is that on arrival you discover which plant you will be dieting, then you go out into the forest to harvest it. First, making a blessing to the tree and then carefully removing a section of it without doing harm. In my case, I was prescribed Renaquilla. A huge Amazonian vine, that looked more like an ancient tree, twisting its way up into the canopy above. It is then cooked and bottled for you to drink at twice a day for the first week. Never in my life have I been prescribed a medication that I can then go and harvest by hand and consume while observing the native ecosystem it came from.

Beyond the experience of drinking the master plant and the five ayahuasca ceremonies that followed, one of the powerful processes you go through on a dieta is to simply observe yourself deeply. Both your body and your mind are stripped of all of the usual creature comforts that become so habitual. I’m not going to romanticise it, sitting for the entire day in a small cabin with no distractions is hard. The boredom is mind-numbing. I found myself rotating through reading, writing, thinking and meditating. But even then, moments of frustration would burst to the surface. Why am I doing this? I could think of a million other things I could be doing back home, each providing me with a range of different pleasures and thrills. This frustration was only exacerbated by the fact that every time I left my cabin, I was judiciously attacked by mosquitoes from all sides.

However, as the old cliché goes, doing the work is never easy. In fact, when it’s hard, that’s when the growth tends to happen. In the end, I would fall back on acknowledging that no one was forcing me to be there. In fact, on the contrary, I had actively gone quite far out of my way to place myself there, following a deep instinct that this was something that would serve me well in the long run. As I went deeper into my two-week stay, the ceremonies intensified and my reason for being there became clear in ways that are deeply personal to my own journey. I realised that the process of slowing down the body and the mind before working with the plants is a catalyst for connection. If we’re moving too fast, we don’t hear the message.

During my stay I received profound whispers of wisdom, reminders from source and nudges of truth that are weaving themselves into a tapestry of actions that will shape my life moving forward. Like any good diet or retreat, I feel I’ve had the chance to hit the reset button. Cleaning myself of the buildup of toxins that accumulated over time. I’ve been reminded of the importance of indigenous culture, those who hold ancient systems of knowledge that are fast being lost to globalisation and those who steward and protect some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on earth. We have so much to learn from these traditions. In a world of increasing chaos, complexity, fast-paced change and ecological destruction, coming here, to such a powerful and nature-rich temple to reflect on what it means to be truly human, is a gift that I’m deeply grateful to have been able to experience.

Finn

If you want to learn more about Shipibo Rao or support their work you can do so here. Thanks for following along. Stay tuned for the next one.