"You cannot enter the world of spirits while remaining silent."
- mestizo shaman
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Plant Spirits and Songs
of the Amazon
The Diet
"If you have dieted with the plant and have not learned its icaro then you know nothing." mestizo healer Francisco Montes Shuna
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The key to obtaining a relationship with plants is through restricted diets. La dieta is crucial for an apprentice, the diet is how they first learn about plants. By ingesting the plant and paying attention to its effects, they await the arrival of the plants spirit who will, if they accept the apprentice, teach them their song. In this way, the apprenticeship through the intense dieta can be seen as a right of passage for icaros singers, as some groups involve fasting, body modification, or ingestion of ceremonial foods or substances. Not only do the initiates have to participate in la dieta to learn knowledge from the plant, they also have to be regarded as strong, faithful, and worthy of trust in order to receive its song. While the initial apprenticeship will reveal if a persons diet and character was worthy enough to receive plant knowledge and songs, some continue to conduct ongoing diets periodically throughout their lifetime in order to refresh their energy and gain new plant knowledge.
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Restrictions and Isolation
For most apprentices, they diet under the tutelage of their maestro ayahuasquero, although the diet can also be done in complete isolation in the jungle. An initiate may spend days, weeks, or months isolated in the jungle, with only contact from a maestro, or from someone who might bring them food or medicine. The diet prohibits eating food such as salt, sugar, spices, cold beverages, pork, peccary, chicken, eggs, and certain species of fish. A shaman recalls his apprenticeship, stating he could only eat plantains and little fish with no salt, lemon juice water with no sugar, and could not eat rice. After following the strict diet for a time, he went out into the jungle to drink ayahuasca for the first time. A body must be purged before learning from ayahuasca and other plant teachers, this is why some apprentices drink latex from the oje tree which causes violent vomiting.
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During la dieta, it is important that the apprentice sharpens their sensitivity and intuition, and especially the ability to listen. To the apprentice, the ayahuasca is the most important plant, acting as a mediator who facilitates communication with other plants. For more information on plant teachers, click on the 'Blog' link. While the apprenticeship through la dieta is structured as a rites of passage, exhibiting the three stages of separation, transition, and reincorporation into society as an icaro singer. Icaros are also involved in a high-text ayahuasca ritual. You will find information of this ritual on the, 'Ritual' page found on the 'Icaro' page. La dieta is a process of physical and spiritual purification, as well as rest and meditation. As Stephan Beyer explains it,
“The goal of the diet is to maintain an ongoing connection and dialogue with the plant; to allow the plant to interact with the body, often in subtle ways, and to wait for its spirit to appear, as the spirit wishes, to teach and give counsel. That is how the plants teach you – sitting quietly in the jungle, with no place to go, listening for their song."
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