Howard G. Charing - Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul

PLANT SPIRIT SHAMANISM

TRADITIONAL TECHNIQUES FOR HEALING THE SOUL

ROSS HEAVEN

AND

HOWARD G. CHARING

FOREWORD BY PABLO AMARINGO

Destiny Books

Rochester, Vermont

For my children: Ocean, Jodie, and Mili. And with thanks to Donna, Andy, Leticia, Ram, and Howard, the case for the sane. Outcome inevitable and now a trail of truth back to the ocean.

R. H.

For my daughters, Katie and Elizabeth. And with appreciation and thanks to Peter Cloudsley for his assistance and support in preparing this book. Also to my friend and colleague Leo Rutherford, for his encouragement.

H. C.

We also thank the maestros we have worked and studied with and who are mentioned in this book: Artidoro Aro Cardenas, Guillermo Arevalo, Javier Arevalo, Doris Rivera Lenz, Juan Navarro, Loulou Prince, and our jungle guides and interpreters: Gerlo in Peru, and Jacqui in Haiti. We appreciate your time and energy in sharing ceremonies with us and in putting up with our endless questions and interviews.

DISCLAIMER

The journeys, plants, diets, and recipes offered in this book are for interest purposes only.

The exercises we present have been tested in many workshops, client healings, and other real-life applications. No harm has ever arisen for any participant as a result, and most have benefited enormously. It is important, however, to act sensibly and responsibly when using any plant medicines and to double-check all formulas and recipes for legality and safety before using them internally or externally. We also advise a medical consultation before embarking on plant diets, to reassure yourself that there are no contraindications to the plants listed herein.

Any application of these exercises is at the readers own risk, and the authors and publishers disclaim any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use of this book, its exercises, or the plants and medicines it describes.

FOREWORD

THE PLANTS GAVE ME LIFE

I owe my life to plants, and they have informed everything I have done. From the time when I was very young, I liked to work with plants and knew that they gave me daily sustenance, not just as food for my body, but in my soul. I loved and admired them greatly. In my adolescence they became even more important to me. I was very unwell in my heart, but I healed myself with the sacred plant, ayahuasca, after years of sufferingsomething that medicines from the pharmacy were unable to do.

After years of healing myself in this way, I saw a curandera (female shaman) heal my younger sister, also using ayahuasca. My sister had been in mortal agony with hepatitis, but with this single healing from the plants, she was cured in just two hours. That motivated me to start learning the science of vegetalismo. and she taught me how to use plants for healing and how to understand their application through visions. Thats how I came to be a shaman, ordained by the spirits.

My visions helped me understand the value of human beings, animals, the plants themselves, and many other things. The plants taught me the function they play in life, and the holistic meaning of all life. We all should give special attention and deference to Mother Nature. She deserves our love. And we should also show a healthy respect for her power!

Plants are essential in many ways: they give life to all beings on Earth by producing oxygen, which we need to be active; they create the enormous greenhouse that gives board and lodging to diverse but interrelated guests; they are teachers who show us the holistic importance of conserving life in its due form and necessary conditions.

For me personally, though, they mean even more than this. Plantsin the great living book of naturehave shown me how to study life as an artist and shaman. They can help all of us to know the art of healing and to discover our own creativity, because the beauty of nature moves people to show reverence, fascination, and respect for the extent to which the forests give shelter to our souls.

The consciousness of plants is a constant source of information for medicine, alimentation, and art, and an example of the intelligence and creative imagination of nature. Much of my education I owe to the intelligence of these great teachers. Thus I consider myself to be the representative of plants, and for this reason I assert that if they cut down the trees and burn whats left of the rainforests, it is the same as burning a whole library of books without ever having read them.

People who are not so dedicated to the study and experience of plants may not think this knowledge is so important to their livesbut even they should be conscious of the nutritional, medicinal, and scientific value of the plants they rely on for life.

My most sublime desire, though, is that every human being should begin to put as much attention as he or she can into the knowledge of plants, because they are the greatest healers of all. And all human beings should also put effort into the preservation and conservation of the rainforest and care for it and the ecosystem, because damage to these not only prejudices the flora and fauna but humanity itself.

Even in the Amazon these days, many see plants as only a resource for building houses and to finance large families. People who have farms and raise animals also clear the forest to produce foodstuffs. Mestizos and native Indians log the largest trees to sell to industrial sawmills for subsistence. They have never heard of the word ecology!

I, Pablo, say to everybody who lives in the Amazon and the other forests of the world, that they must love the plants of their land, and everything that is there!

This expression of love must be a sincere and altruistic interest in the lasting well-being of others. We are not here simply to exist, but to enjoy life together with plants, animals, and loved ones, and to delight in contemplation of the beauty of nature. A shaman has in his mind and heart the attitude of conserving nature because he knows that life is for enjoying the company of this worlds countless delights.

Any painting or book or piece of art that spreads this message is to be respected, and every reader who picks up a book on this subject is to be honored.

I invite you to read on and to learn from the greatest teachers of allthe plants, our sacred brothers and sisters.

PABLO C. AMARINGO, OCTOBER 2005

(TRANSLATED BY PETER CLOUDSLEY)

Pablo Amaringo is one of the worlds greatest visionary artists. A member of the Shipibo tribe, he trained as a curandero (shaman) 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 his Usko-Ayar school. His book, Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, co-authored with Luis Eduardo Luna, was published in 1993 by North Atlantic Books. He has a Web site at www.pabloamaringo.com.

PREFACE

SINS, SOULS, AND SUN FLOWERS

DISCOVERING THE POWER OF THE PLANTS

By Ross Heaven

In the County of Hereford was an old Custom at Funerals, to hire poor people, who were to take upon them all the Sins of the party deceased...

The manner was that when a Corpse was brought out of the house and laid on the Bier; a Loaf of bread was brought out and delivered to the Sin-eater over the corpse, as also a Mazer-bowl full of beer, which he was to drink up, and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him all the Sins of the Defunct, and freed him (or her) from Walking after they were dead.