Shipibo
I learned and completed my master plant diets within the Shipibo tradition.
Before arriving at a Shipibo family ceremony, I attended one ayahuasca ceremony in the Netherlands.
When the maestra and maestro — the mother and father of the ceremony — started singing, it felt as if they created a ladder, something that allowed everything to move up and down.
A firm spine holding the ceremony field together. I felt an enormous relief and trust. Something inside me could finally rest. I could lie down, knowing there was a structure, and that they knew what they were doing. That brought me to parts of myself that felt like an inner child, parts that apparently needed a completely different kind of upbringing.
Simple things: organizing my mattress, making myself comfortable, learning to find words for what I experienced, and learning to express my needs.
I protested and explained: “I know all this. I need to understand the dissonance I felt between myself and the world ……” But through realizing how difficult these simple tasks actually were for me, I had to accept that this was exactly where I needed to begin.