Personal Experience in Relation to Sacred Plants.

The picture above was taken during my first Yage (an Amazonian beverage prepared with Ayahuasca) ceremony in Peguche, Ecuador on June 27th of 2015 (I am the person in the foreground wearing a black poncho). This experience boosted my interest on Indigenous’ knowledge acquired through sacred plant beverages such as Yage. I became curious about its intrinsec cultural and ancestral meanings, and its survival despite all the cultural assimilation suffered by Indigenous peoples, specifically in South America. The Taita (medicine man wearing the feather crown in the background) is an incredible and wise person who led that night-long ceremony teaching and sharing many of what he calls “misteries.” Those misteries are meaninful and symbolic stories handed down from older Taitas which can be retold according the the ceremony leader’s discretion.

Previously, I heard stories among my relatives that there are many psychedelic sacred plants that serve to different purposes such as healing, visualization, and shamanism. But I did not know that these plants have degrees of wisdom, according to the Taita, that, depending on the cunsumer’s levels of consciousness or understanding, can teach most things about the universe  and ourselves. Certain scientists atribute the power of Yage to its different levels of concentration of LSD, DMT, or another alkaloid. In real science, the ceremonial aspect constitute a source of confunding variable, placebo effect, or bias. But after the experience I had that night, I cannot just turn back and dismiss the ceremonial power and the sacred medicine. However, I know it is not easy to go around and talking about the magic of sacred plants or the power of the medicine men, especially in an academic environment. When I took an introductory course to psychology during my first year at UBC, I realized that the orthodox scientific academic environment is not a great space to think out of the box. I think they reason too much and for me that seems to be a limitating box. Well, of course there are other scientific areas too, but at the end the dominant thinking of science is the Western one. I cannot dismiss all the “progress” created by Western science, but I cannot ignore all the destruction it has created either. So far, the balance is not neutral since progress does not overweight destruction.

These are the reasons why I have decided to explore deeper the potential of sacred plants. Since Indigenous peoples have a long history of interactions with these plants, I think it is important to know what the role of sacred plants is in relation to the contemporary process of healing and resurgerce of those peoples.

Notes:

Yage is the name of a beverage prepared from Ayahuasca and other sacred plants. This word is most used among some Indigenous groups from the Amazon in Ecuador and Colombia. I am using the this word because it was used in the context of my first experience. I will use the word Ayahuasca in other writings since is the most known name for the beverage.