Ayahuasca & Shamanic Apprenticeship Retreat Centre: Ashi Meraya
Maestra Doña Ercilia preparing a ritual flower bath in Ashi Meraya
Photo Courtesy: Isabel Grau
Ayahuasca: Healing, Visions and Apprenticeship
Ashi Meraya is first and foremost a Shipibo Ayahuasca Retreat Centre for the Diffusion and Dissemination of Amazonian Traditional Plant Medicine, where you will be directly exposed to ancestral indigenous shamanic practices, and experience intense healing rituals engaging the sacramental use of Ayahuasca, the visionary “Vine of the Soul” and a dreaming journey with the Plant Teacher Toe’ (Brugmansia suaveolens, a tropical variety of Datura).
Ayahuasca brewing in Ashi Meraya!
Photo Credit: Stephen Witte
You will have a direct exposure to the traditional cosmovision of the Shipibo shamans of the Amazon. This is not to be intended as a formal lecture of anthropological contents, but rather as combination of a series of regular talks conducted by the shaman, alternated to the performing of the long forgotten ancestral rituals of the Shipibo Bancos or Merayas. The Remo caspi, Chullachaki caspi, Chi and “Smoke Medicine” rituals – never performed before in a shamanic retreat centre of the Peruvian Amazon – are now integral part of the shamanic apprenticeship programme in Ashi Meraya.
Participation to a Shipibo-Ashaninka-Cashibo Amazonian Sweat Lodge – known as Yora Niscanti in Shipibo (again unique to our centre), ritual cleansing herbal and clay baths, followed by purification ceremonies alongside luck-changing floral baths and a final Shipibo ritual body painting session will complement your very intense Ayahuasca journey. (Read more on the Ayahuasca retreat)
Shaman’s apprentice blowing mapacho smoke over the Chullachaki tree
Photo Courtesy: Stephen Witte
In the Ashi Meraya School of Amazonian Shamanic Apprenticeship you will also have the opportunity to be one with Amazonian plants and nature, in a beautiful and timeless setting. You will gradually learn how to sing shamanic lyrics (icaros), how to use plant teachers (plantas maestras) for healing and vision, and be exposed to traditional indigenous knowledge in a radically different way than any workshop or formal lecture will ever deliver to you. This part of the training is technically called the shamanic “Plant Diet” (dieta) whilst the candidate apprentice shaman is called dietero.
Worlds and worlds may be revealed to you, plants may talk, forest spirits may appear in vision/dreaming, all may come alive, in the visible and invisible realms. The plant spirit world may ultimately appear for what it really is to the eyes and ears of the shaman – not a matter of intellectual anthropological/ethnobotanical research, nor a fictitious Amazonian folk-tale – if you develop the right connection and tune-up your senses. (Read more on the Shamanic Plant Diet Initiation).
Shipibo shaman and apprentice
Photo Courtesy: Stephen Witte
Shamanic, Visionary and Healing Programmes
Shamanic
• Partake to our unique Amazonian Sweat Lodge ritual at night.
• Participate to Ayahuasca and Toe’ ceremonies: for healing, learning, vision, power and purification.
• Icaros (shamanic melodies): learn how to sing and write these magical lyrics and their practical uses in ceremonies. (‘Dieteros‘ only)
• Take part to unique Ancient Meraya rituals, once secret and reserved only to the Merayas and their close circles of disciples (‘Dieteros‘ and Groups only)
• Purification and union with the plant spirit world, using perfumed essences (colonies infused with plant teachers), for personal protection and purification.
• Learn to clear other’s people energy field. (‘Dieteros‘ only)
Collecting the bark of the Chullachaki caspi tree
Photo Courtesy: Stephen Witte
• Diet with Amazonian plant teachers for knowledge and power.
Dieteros (candidates enrolling to the traditional shamanic diet) will learn how to conduct healing rituals themselves, in order to prepare for real life situations on how to use the wealth of knowledge and skills acquired during their apprenticeship. (‘Dieteros‘ only)
• Certificate programme: begins at the 3rd month.
Certified senior shamanic apprentices from Ashi Meraya may be able to conduct ceremonies, including Ayahuasca and spiritual purification rituals, give healing and prepare plant medicine. (‘Dieteros‘ only)
• Aromatic baths: cold water ritual baths especially prepared with herbs, flowers and aromatic essences.
Apprentice smoking Mapacho, black jungle tobacco
Photo Courtesy: Stephen Witte
• Healing through Mapacho smoke.
• Tattoos: Transferring Symbols of Power.
Shipibo ritual body painting session.
Therapeutic
• Clay therapy: use rainforest clay to purify the body from dead cells and toxins accumulated with the aging process.
Pounded Ayahuasca vine cuts
Photo Credit: Stephen Witte
Ethnobotanical
• Identify plant specimens in the ethnobotanical garden circuit.
Ayahuasca medicine brewing!
Photo Credit: Stephen Witte
• Watch and learn how the Ayahuasca medicine is being prepared. Actively participate in the making of the magical brew!!
Ethno-cultural
• Direct and experiential exposure to Amazonian shamanic cosmovision.
Exploring the Indigenous world: Shipibo culture, myths and customs.
• Amazon Plant Medicine: identification, uses and preparation of Amazonian medicinal plants. Learning the practice of natural medicine using roots, barks, resins, or plant leaves (‘Dieteros‘ only).
Traditional Shipibo Indigenous Shamanic Centre, Like No Others!
References
Nevill Drury, “The Shaman and the Magician: Journeys Between the Worlds”, Routledge & Kegan Paul 1982: 100
