Running Dry - Alberta's Shrinking Rivers

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I know, I’ve been saying it for many years. Every time someone asks or suggests or ponders the possibility of, the answer has been the same.

I will never do video.

That was the firm stance I stood in up until the start of 2021 when my Dad ran the idea of ‘Running Dry’ past me. Fast forward eight or nine months and ‘Running Dry: Alberta’s Shrinking Rivers’ is now live, premiering this past Wednesday, October 20th. We had almost 300 people in attendance to the digital launch, and a number of the interviewees from the film collaborated to form a panel and answer some of the audience’s most pressing questions.

Creating this film was quite an experience. It’s been over six years now since the last project my Dad and I collaborated on; our book ‘Heart Waters: The Sources of the Bow River’. It was certainly about time for another collaboration, although I wouldn’t have guessed that our second project would be a video, something that is quite foreign to both of us.

Video is at least a little less foreign to my Dad, a lifelong author. About two years ago, he created a video with the assistance of filmmaker Yvan Lebel; ‘Finding Water: Healthy Land, Healthy Streams’. The film launched right around the time that the coronavirus shut down the world, and the film didn’t gain the traction that it deserved. Together, Dad and Yvan were able to create a beautiful visual story of how our watersheds work in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains, some of the same landscapes, issues, and science that we talked about in Heart Waters. If you didn’t get a chance to see the film, I highly recommend checking it out below.

While ‘Finding Water’ took the approach of an educational style video, with ‘Running Dry’ my Dad had the idea of piecing together a series of interviews of Albertans local to the Eastern Slopes region in the form of a documentary style video. Livingstone Landowners Group, a collective of landowners and supporters concerned with the conservation of the unique land and water resources of the Livingstone-Porcupine region in southern Alberta, commissioned the project following a grant from the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

The Oldman River flowing beneath the snowy ridgelines of the Livingstone Range in southern Alberta. via instagram @brianvantighem

Despite more than a decade of photographing professionally under my belt, video was a relatively new undertaking for me, so Dad and I teamed up once again with Yvan Lebel. It was such a pleasure to work with and learn from Yvan. He has a youthful energy and vigor that would suit someone half a century his junior, and his curiosity and passion for his craft bubble over into everything he does. Seeing his excitement and appreciation for the simplest of things in life, like a bird singing, a deer watching from the tall grass, or the light and wind moving across the landscape really demonstrated the heart of why he is so good at what he does; because he lives from a place of passion and presence.

There were some very basic things that I learned from him that were invaluable; like to film absolutely everything (you never know when you're going to need it), or how to edit video in Premiere Pro. But I think what served to be even more important than these practical lessons was his general outlook and philosophy.

When editing together, Yvan would often emphasize that ‘anything is possible, only your imagination is the limit’. And he is quite right! After these past few months I have a solid grasp of the basic workings of video editing in Premiere Pro, and this foundation has allowed me to imagine so many more ways of getting creative in the future. I think the biggest gift I got working with Yvan, aside from the pleasure of getting to know him, was this imaginative approach. Working with Yvan pushed me towards the place where creativity and ability meet, and it is always at this juncture - where our creativity and imagination surpasses our ability - that we can grow as artists and creators by learning and pushing our ability to catch up with our imagination. I’m very grateful to Yvan, and I can safely say that I am a more able creator thanks to him.

Yvan and I both worked extensively on the editing of ‘Running Dry’, and it was pretty cool to collaborate in such a way. I also created two little teaser videos for the project which gave me a chance to practice using and expanding on the skills he was teaching me in Premiere Pro. Feel free to check out these first two attempts below.

We filmed Running Dry over the course of two seperate week long intervals this past summer. During that time we interviewed nine Albertans (my Dad included) ranging from ranchers to anglers, conservationists to scientists. I found it incredibly inspiring to meet all of these people, as well as some of their families, and to listen to them share their knowledge, wisdom, experience and passion, and to hear just how much each of them value these landscapes and watersheds that we call home. I would like to express my utmost gratitude to each person who contributed to this video in their own way, those who appear in the video as well as those who do not. I was blessed to receive the support, the respect, and the hospitality of so many caring and engaged Albertans. Thank you all so much.

Co-creating Running Dry was a truly special experience. From learning a new craft, to meeting so many inspiring people, to spending time in some of the most beautiful experiences in the world, there were countless blessings. But more than any of them, I think the biggest blessing was to once again collaborate with my Dad; Kevin Van Tighem. He has devoted a large part of his life to speaking for the land, water, and wildlife that we so often forget we are sharing this place with. He has inspired countless people to engage more fully in their democracy, to value their land and water more deeply, and he has affected so much positive change throughout his career with Parks Canada, his books, his collaborative work on boards and conservation groups and the crafting of the South Saskatchewan Regional Land Use Plan among others. He is a man who lives his devotion no matter how uncomfortable it may be at times, and no matter what it takes. The result of his passion and devotion, as well as his firm principles and values is that his voice has become a deeply valued part of the Alberta conversation. I feel so fortunate to be able to use my skills and abilities to further the spread of his message, and that of so many concerned Albertans like the Livingstone Landowners Group.

So thank you Yvan and Kevin. Thank you to all the folks who participated in this project. And thanks most of all to everyone who has and will view ‘Running Dry’. Please share it widely, it is a conversation that needs to be heard.

Links:

LLG Website: https://www.livingstonelandowners.net/

LLG on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm3BCo1cAxGg6sPPzQqTvog

Follow Kevin Van Tighem on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.vantighem

Brian on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNIX8ErH0i1EXSQkzK_R2Aw

Heart Waters: https://rmbooks.com/book/heart-waters/

Looking Closer

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Springtime has begun to open up over the last week in Jasper. In these times of uncertainty, fear, and doubt, I found it meditative and therapeutic to take and edit these macro photographs yesterday on the hills behind our house. When too much seems to be happening all at once, these glimpses at some of the smaller cycles of life are reassuring in their forms and geometries, and refreshing for the soul.

When looking closer into the world around us I am reminded that so many cycles and processes are unfolding constantly. Much of what we see, feel, and experience arises within us a desire to control and to understand. We wish to bring sense and order to that which seems chaotic or out of our control. Just as the earth lives and breathes with ease, unfolding its many manifestations of life around us, so to do we move through cycles and forces far bigger than us. Seeing the beauty and perfection in these smaller aspects of life, I am reminded to breathe and let go, and allow peace to flow through me with the reminder that some things are outside of our control; and to trust that it is better this way.

The earth created my mind, and so it is outside of my mental capacity to fully understand it. Yet my heart beats with the pulse of the earth itself, and in breathing with that pulse I can relax into the great mystery of being, and let go of control for another day.

A Shadow on my Doorstep

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There was a shadow across my doorstep this morning.

I couldn’t tell what cast it until I stepped into it. The warm sun couldn’t hide the quiet presence; one whom we all know somehow or from some time of our lives. Death was casting his shadow over my doorstep.

I’ve never met Death, so I only know him as you know someone who you pass on the street every once in awhile, but never stop to exchange words with. I’ve heard about Death my entire life, at least as far back as my memory reaches. I can remember seeing him a few times. I saw him as a young kid in a ditch, down where the prairie meets the mountains. I saw him again as a child in a dimly lit church in Calgary. Another time I stood by him on a road in Guatemala. I remember seeing his shadow at times over the years too, casting his thin veil over the eyes of friends and family who had lost loved ones, and with whom Death still lingered.

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It’s funny though, even after all those times I’d seen death and even stood next to him, I had never really met him. I was too nervous, I suppose, or intimidated to strike up a conversation. Each time I had stood quietly, with my hands clasped together and head hung low, not daring to look up into the shadowed face above.

Everyone has a story about Death. He is an inextricable player in the great cast of the human experience, and in itself leads us to define life in so many unique and personal ways. Some find that Death is an unwanted yet unshakeable companion throughout their lives. He clings closer to some people and places then others. Some are so fortunate that they need not even consider Death, until his slow, steady paces gradually catch up to theirs and they may depart together as friends.

Sometimes it takes a crisis for us to meet Death in person. Having had such luck as to be born in Canada, my home nation hasn’t been fraught with facing death’s darker moods. From 2011-2017, over 230,000 civilians were massacred in the conflicts in Syria. 13.5 million people’s lives were torn apart, as death rampaged their cities and spat in their faces. Over 5.5 million refugees spread out across the world, searching for a chance to heal with what remained of their lives and families. Much of the world turned their shoulders haughtily away from those tear-stricken faces. Those parts of the world don’t like to have to look Death in face. Perhaps part of it is that they don’t know life all that well either. Many in Canada as well would have loved for the Government to have denied access to those broken refugees seeking to cross their borders to safety.

The Zionist movement began in 1897, and since then no generation has known true peace in the lands we now call Israel and Palestine. My community has never known the conflict of violence and war at its walls. Some have known it for over a century.

I can hear it in my own voice sometimes, and in the voices of my friends, colleagues, and countrymen; there is the hollow ring of privilege, the almost youthful ignorance that comes of not knowing Death and suffering. Just as I am not familiar with the depth of devastation and loss that is the birthright of so many, and cringe unwittingly at the thought of living through such raw pain, my culture tries to safeguard itself against acknowledging those realities. Turning a blind eye to the suffering of others does nothing to truly comfort us. Surrounding ourselves with nice things and reassuring ourselves with self-centered beliefs do nothing to make us whole.

I write this from my home, where we are quarantined against the COVID-19 outbreak. The world is slamming the brakes, locking the doors, and shuttering the windows as Death peers over the horizon. Unless forced to pay attention, developed nations of the world tend to ignore him at every chance they get; shuffling along sidewalks quickly with their convictions clasped tight in hand. It is one of the luxuries of living in such a nation. Death is like the ugly kid at a beauty pageant. He offends those who wish to look only at pretty things.

Death should arrive slowly, quietly, and peacefully after a life long lived, preferably in the comfort of one’s home surrounded by loved ones and filled to the brim with all of life’s achievements. In some times and places in the world, such an idea is impossible to imagine. When Death arrives abruptly at your door, drunk, yelling, and violent, fear sets in deep. A primal reminder of what is most important arises; family, life, safety. When you have nothing else left, the only goal is to stay alive.

Hence why we are locked up in our houses around the world. Only a virus could cause all of these nations who so avidly avoid Death’s gaze to freeze in their tracks and experience the creeping tendrils of that deep fear - the imminent fear for safety and the safety of loved ones. Fear for the freedom and security of their future.

It is bitter medicine, that which causes us to look Death in the face while still praying that we can avoid a more intimate introduction. This medicine is a reminder of who we are and where we come from. It is a reminder that those refugees escaping Syria, the Palestinian kids shot down in the street, the Italian elderly refused treatment for COVID-19 due to lack of beds and ventilators - these stories are more than numbers. They will never be numbers. What they will always be is true, real, terrifying, and heartbreaking human experiences.

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Again we are being called to remember our shared humanity. To recognize suffering in others as the same as suffering in ourselves. To see that we are stronger when we help each other. Death keeps writing divisive opinion pieces in our news media, playing games with fear and uncertainty. As his shadow infuses all that we read of viral outbreaks, violence in the middle east, water shortages, shifting climates and aggressive natural phenomena, his shadow weighs heavier on our shoulders. And still we try not to meet his gaze.

When we wilfully forget Death, or when we refuse to lift our nervously bowed heads to look into his gaze truly, we forget what it means to be human. Death is a reminder of what it means to live. Death asks us to be present and compassionate with the world around us. We are all walking the same path towards our inevitable meeting.

Perhaps this virus, which has managed to stop us for a moment to bear witness to the kind of suffering from which we have averted our eyes countless times, is really a call for us to pay attention to that shadow on our doorstep. Maybe it’s our time, as a culture who suppresses our emotions, to sit with death and get to know him a little bit. Maybe we can learn from him, and in doing so be more compassionate to the hardships of the world, gentler on the struggles of the less fortunate, open to shifting our ways to lessen the suffering of others, and to come to know life on a deeper level.

So when we emerge from our doorsteps around the world, when this particular threat has passed for now, it would do us well to emerge with greater compassion for each other, whether we look, think, or believe differently than each other. We would do well to expect that compassion from our leaders as well, whether in the political, religious or business spheres.

Hardships and suffering come to each of us. This is a something that we all share as humans, and that commonality is an opportunity to see ourselves in each other. When we extend a hand to others, it can be easier to pass through those shadows together.

Singing with the Plants - Part 3/3

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This is the third part of a three part introduction to the plant medicine traditions of the Shipibo, working with Ayahuasca, Noya Rao, and other master plants, and apprenticing in the study of Curanderismo. They touch on some of the themes that are explored in further depth in my upcoming book: Water and Light

Find part one here, and part two here.

There is a hole in the floor of our cultural halls. We hurry to build walls of definition through reductionism, solidify security through greed and patch holes with justification and dogma, forgetting the foundations beneath our feet. We are a species who for many thousands of years strode carefully and curiously through the forests of myth, only to emerge suddenly, strutting into the wide grasslands, full of self importance, not even recognizing the amnesia that came with open horizons.

Myth is a part of who we are. It is a part of the human soul, perhaps the same place from where language once blossomed, and its essence gives rise to expressions of art, music, philosophy, and spirituality. The shunning of arts and culture in right-wing western politics, as well as a general lack of empathy, compassion, and inclusion amidst the entire far-right political movement, is a sign that we are disconnecting from that essential piece of the human experience. A return to a mythic understanding of the human journey could be one missing piece in the psychological puzzle for many who currently suffer from despair, hopelessness, or depression as they struggle to find meaning in the current plight of humanity and the earth.

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Of course, believing in myths isn’t something that can be imposed on anyone, and really, myths are not something that are necessarily meant to be believed anyways. Myths are something that are experienced in the soul of the human journey, and emerge into human consciousness as expressions of various archetypes in times of individual or cultural need. As James Hillman described; ‘A myth never happened, yet is always happening’. This is a piece of that puzzle which can be accessed through the humble practice of dieta. By communing intimately with the natural world through this tradition, we are granted the possibility of experiencing a mythical nature, and reshaping our perception of the human and earthly experience in order to find a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.

The power of storytelling has woven its way through the history of humanity. In fact, it is one of the primary modes of communication through which we live our social lives. We are all familiar with stories that are at the heart of our being, whether they be from childhood, family, books, movies, or fairytales. We can probably also think of stories we have that we don’t like, whether they are something we have heard or something that we have experienced. Storytelling affects us on a deep level, and this points to why our own personal stories - the beliefs we have about ourselves and the world around us - deeply affect our state of health and being. When the story that we see of ourselves, the earth, or anything else seems to be a story with no purpose or happy ending, then we lose a sense of meaning around our existence.

That’s when we need a new story.

So here is a story I was once told. It is not a story for you to believe or disbelieve. Ultimately it doesn’t even matter what we believe. What matters is how those beliefs affect us, our communities, and the earth we stand on. This is a story simply to read and feel.

In the beginning of time there was a mother. Without her there was nothing. She came before life and death, being and not being, and was of something far higher than that, and so it was she who created life and death. As she was a being of pure love, the source of creation, it was not so black and white as living and dying, but rather those two were intertwined in a very unique journey, a journey from pure consciousness, through to the dimensions of physical matter, and back to metaphysical being. Life, being itself not so simple, took many forms. It was fuelled by the elements of creativity, curiosity, and of course survival, for life as a concept is something of a trickster. It is an experience so unique that whomever comes across it wishes very deeply to hold on to some part of it. And so this is how life continued. Life evolved; an act derived from a deep love for itself.

The mother watched as it unfolded, knowing that the experience of life she had seeded, though beautiful and seductive to those who lived it, was only a small thread of the great tapestry of being. It did not begin with life, nor did it end in death; for it was fused with consciousness, which itself has no boundaries in space and time. And there was yet another piece, even closer to the essence of the mother’s pure being and indeed a gift from her own; there was soul. It was soul who wove its way between all the cycles of life and death, the fear and anger, the pain and suffering, the beauty and fulfillment, and the love that lay at the heart of it all. It was soul who told the tales of life both within the physical realm and other realms far beyond. Together the stories of many souls joined into a great ocean, an ocean full of beautiful, incredible, and terrifying tales of life’s journey through matter and consciousness. In this ocean the mother bathed, washing herself with the stories of the soul which was her own. In the chorus of the soul’s song could be heard a great purpose, for the mother had planted the seed of her divinity inside of her experiment.

So life at first, attached as it was to itself (and to death; it’s mirror), did not remember where it came from. Yet in each whisper of experience there was an echo of the great journey. Each moment contained symbols of a love eternal, so vast that all things were contained within it. As life grew in it’s complexity and creativity, it began to discover itself more deeply. It began to follow the signs from the soul of the earth, which was itself the mother of existence on the physical plane. As life awoke, death’s softly spoken message became clearer. It was a voice of reassurance, and it said that death is but a shadow, for life never ends.

But even this softly spoken promise was hard to understand for those who lived life, and so time and again life thrust itself to the edge of it’s own percieved downfall, recoiling in it’s fear and distaste, not able to see that some loved life so much that they were too afraid to lose it. In their fear, they held on too tightly and brought all that they believed in to near destruction. It was then that the mother began again to remind life more clearly of it’s true essence, that of love eternal. Love, being the source of all creation, preceded fear, preceded pain and suffering, preceded life and death, and so contained all within it. Through the mirror of itself, life was able to reconcile with death. In the end, life came to recognize that it had never been only a physical experience, but a spiritual journey of coming to understand the truth of it’s being. Life was never more than a gift and an opportunity, a game to play should one choose it, a unique journey of soul in a physical dimension, creating and destroying, living and learning, and upon finally awaking; returning home to the mother.

In this story, the mother is not saving her creation, but rather teaching it what it means to have body and soul. It is about life coming to understand how incredible it is, and remembering that it comes from something yet even more incredible. Most of all, it suggested that life existed with a spiritual purpose of self-realization. As life realized it’s true self, it came to see that this ‘self’ was the love which contained all things.

Elements of this story probably sound very familiar to some. It may seem poetic, or even cheesy to others, hearing a story that suggests the great God-like mother is nurturing us on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. Yet the further we step back, outside of a human-centric line of vision, the more we can perceive of the power of such a mythic idea. Those same people who would call it poetic or cheesy are possibly failing to recognize that they are masking an essential piece of what it means to be human. These are things that pull hidden pieces of us, prompting us to question what it is to be, and so find myriad forms of spirituality and mediums of artistic expression.

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Art and spirituality both often encapsulate a search for meaning. In their purest sense, they are an authentic expression of, and engagement with, being. It is through curiosity and expression that we come closer to the heart of our nature and closer to the rhythms of the earth. For the Shipibo, the rhythms of the earth are many and varied.

Each plant has its own song, as do places and beings. Some have many. Receiving the songs and melodies from the teacher plants is part of the synchronization that occurs between plant and human through the practice of dieta. These plants are also said have designs, which the curandero can see while in the visionary state, and which feature prominently in Shipibo artwork. These designs represent an energetic lattice, arranged geometrically in the shape of the plants medicinal energetic blueprint. When patients from western countries come to sit with curanderos in Shipibo lineages, those curanderos use the vision of their dietas to see on each person a design that signifies the health of their body, mind, and spirit. They are viewing the body’s energetic architecture, which includes the physical, mental and emotional bodies. If a person is very ill, the design will appear disordered. By channeling the songs of the teacher plants to the patients, the curandero can align the energetic architecture of the patient with that of the plant spirit’s medicine.

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Shipibo icaros are a true communion with the songs of the earth itself. Melodies are given by and channeled from the plants, and words are sung spontaneously according to what the plant is telling the curandero to sing, or what they are seeing or doing in the moment. When the dietas of the curandero are strong enough, the plants will sing through them, and the voice will change in its dimensions and breadth. It is the vibrational medicine of the plants being carried on the voice through which the energy in an Ayahuasca ceremony is controlled or mediated.

For those who have worked with plant medicines enough to have seen an Ayahuasca ceremony go south, the importance of proper facilitation is clear. Not anyone can lead an Ayahuasca ceremony, despite the apparent assumption otherwise by many opportunists who jump on the train of Ayahuasca tourism and international demand. There is a reason why training in the Shipibo way is said to take at least 10 years, and keeping a handle on things in ceremony when the container begins to burst open is a piece of that. The icaros and the dietas are essential, but so are other more standard considerations, such as preparation, dosage, cleansing, clearing and integration. Wherever there is opportunity there is potential risk and reward to be found. There are plenty of opportunists and tricksters in the world of Ayahuasca, and it is important for people seeking it out to be cautious and make careful decisions.

Ayahuasca tourism in Peru is big business. There are incredible healers from many different tribes working and sharing their knowledge and medicines, but there are just as many impostors who know nothing about healing. Some people add additional plants to their Ayahuasca in order to make the visions stronger, thinking that this is what tourists pay big money for. This alone can put patients mental and physical health at serious risk depending on their conditions and which plants are added. Others cheat, manipulate, and abuse. For women especially it is important to be very diligent about researching not just the centres they plan to attend, but who the healers are who work there. If possible it is always safer to go with a friend. Sexual abuse in medicine communities, both inside and outside of the Amazon, is far more common than most would like to admit.

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In life, risks and opportunities abound. Shifting our personal beliefs and stories should not distract us from that fact. Rather, our own personal beliefs serve us best if they lead us to engage more deeply with ourselves and the world around us. A message that Noya Rao continually reminds me of is that our presence in life is most important. Plant medicines encourage us to return to a deeper level of awareness. Whether it be Ayahuasca or chamomile tea, plant medicines can bring presence, expanding awareness of our hearts and minds, our passions and our triggers, our fears and our love, and how they all play into the way the we experience and contribute to the world.



One of the many transformational elements of plant medicine is their ability to drastically shift the way we see ourselves and the world, and in doing so they allow us to bring more conscious presence and engagement into our relationships. Both human and non-human, our relationships are the winds that dictate the direction our lives set sail in. Presence is also a way in which we can raise our level of consciousness. By shining light into the corners of our minds and hearts, seeing what fears, cravings and impulses govern us, we can learn more about ourselves and the human experience. In doing so we are given the opportunity to fuse more gratitude, more love, and more presence into our lives, families, communities, and the world around us.

Plant medicines of all types are a gateway into a deeper earthly experience. Their capacity to help us to heal and grow is a reminder of our inextricable connection to the earth from which we came. We are all capable of healing and growing, and plants - having flourished through collaboration and creativity for longer than we can remember - can show us how to grow and heal together.

Ayahuasca and the mysterious world of Shipibo dietas are not for everyone, and they don’t need to be. There are many paths to healing, and each person’s journey is their own. Perhaps diving deeply into the clouded waters of myth and magic is undesirable for some, but we are all communing with the mystery of life in our own way. If we are truly healing though, then in a way we are all learning to sing with the plants. The way we live our lives is the song we sing back to the earth.

May we all make it a joyous one.

Growing the Garden - Part 2/3

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This is the second part of a three part introduction to the plant medicine traditions of the Shipibo, working with Ayahuasca, Noya Rao, and other master plants, and apprenticing in the study of Curanderismo. They touch on some of the themes that are explored in further depth in my upcoming book: Water and Light

Find part one here, and part three here.

In our modern world we operate at our own speeds. Most of our daily lives operate at the speed of globalized tech-connected society rather than the slow and steady pace of the earth. Things like ‘Earth overshoot day’ which estimates which day humanity’s consumption outpaces the Earths regenerative capacity for the year really illustrate that disconnect.

There is a general sense of ‘rush’ in our culture as we try to achieve more, do more, make more, and see more. The word ‘rush’ itself subtly denotes the general state of anxiety which is pervasive throughout western culture. As we become caught in the rush of our lives we step out of line with the speed of the earth we live on. In the practice of dieta, it is necessary to slow oneself back down to earthly speeds

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The foundation of the Shipibo healing tradition is a practice called ‘dieta’, which is essentially the process of building relationships with plants of power, known as teacher plants or master plants. It is the method for learning to listen to the plants. This practice enables one to tune themselves in to the energy and frequency of their teacher plant by tuning out everything else that would generally distract us from such subtle energetic connections. We’re all familiar with the feeling of having quite a number of different things pressing the buttons of our minds each day. Plants don’t have so many.

There are some very simple and basic aspects of the dieta that facilitate this process of slowing down and tuning in. Isolation is considered ideal, if not essential, as it enables the individual to focus more directly on the plant they are building a relationship with. In dieta we are in a process of removing sensory distractions so that we can heighten our sensitivity to subtle energies like those of plants. In order to do so, all stimulating foods and activities are considered contraindicative. Salt, sugar, spices, stimulants such as caffeine and tea all have strong energetic effects on our bodies and minds, as do activities like sex and masturbation. It is encouraged not only to maintain a very strict and simple diet, but also to eat sparingly. Digestion is one of our body’s major expenditures of energy, and abstaining from food allows the body to rest.

There is a significant mental component as well. The importance of maintaining a positive state of being is beneficial. Love and gratitude are a higher vibrational state of being than something like anger or guilt for example. This isn’t a matter of simple New Age-y ‘love and light’ or ‘good vibes only’, because simply denying or ignoring negative emotions to maintain a positive mentality isn’t enlightened; its bypassing. Instead, maintaining a positive state of being requires us to approach challenges, tests and negative emotions with gratitude for what they have the potential to teach us about ourselves and places we can grow. In this way we can infuse gratitude into the negative aspects, and create a sense of meaning and purpose around our ‘bad’ experiences. This is essential to transmuting those negatives into positives and learning to navigate our lives from a space of love, which brings us closer in line to the resonance of the plants.

Shipibo Onanyabo (curanderos, healers) recognize a wide range of different master plants they work with as teachers. Most plants are recognized to have both light and dark energies associated with them, and so these plants can provide the power either to heal or to harm. Not surprisingly, this is part of why the phenomena of plant-based shamanic sorcery is so prevalent in the Amazon. When working with plants that have darker energies, sometimes ‘harming’ isn’t even a matter of wishing ill on someone. Even our negative emotions are given power, and so our unconscious anger and bad wishes can be given the strength to curse. However, there are some plants that are known to be pure light. Noya Rao is one of those.

Noya Rao is one of the most sought after medicine trees of the Shipibo tradition. It was considered lost for a long time, and for the most part, so was it’s medicine. Maestro Don Enrique once told me that the tree disappeared because people stopped committing themselves to her path. They lost interest. Fortunately, a pipe made from the wood of Noya Rao (which can also be used to learn) was passed down through a single indigenous lineage, that of Don Benjamin Mahua. Eventually Don Benjamin - more widely referred to as Yoda due to some resemblance of both physical and metaphysical nature to the Star Wars character - discovered a Noya Rao tree on the property of his son-in-law Don Enrique, the maestro at the Ayahuasca Foundation’s school for Shipibo medicine Inkan Kena. Since that time, more trees have gradually been discovered in the area. Perhaps it is no coincidence that these discoveries continue at the same time that the interest and commitment of Noya Rao’s students have been sprouting new roots as well.

She is an enlightened celestial being who has come to earth in the form of a tree, say the Shipibo of Noya Rao, in order to give us the opportunity to learn from her. It is often said that she is the mother of all plants, sometimes she is even referred to as the mother of all things, who brought life to earth. When one chooses to work with Noya Rao they must eventually sacrifice or come into right relationship with all things that are not in line with love and truth. Her path is often referred to as el camino de la verdad; the way of truth. This truth is a deeper kind of truth than those battled over and argued about on social media platforms, it regards both universal and very personal truths.

If you previously read part one (here), then you can no doubt recognize how appealing such an introduction would have sounded to me, having grown up on a strict diet of Tolkien and the like. An enlightened spirit comes from ethereal realms to take the form of a tree on earth, offering the medicine of light and truth in an age where light becomes harder to see through the smog and truth becomes further distorted and manipulated by malicious voices. If I wasn’t already convinced of leaping down this rabbit hole before hearing that, I was most certainly convinced by the second day of my first dieta with her. I haven’t yet found the bottom of that rabbit hole, but I am, undoubtedly, still convinced it was the right kind of leap to take.

Dieta has the potential to be a transformational process. It certainly was for me. Growing in relationship with Noya Rao brought a new light of inspiration and presence to my life. She was instrumental in healing me from twelve years of depression that had haunted my ability to grow in the world. Not only did she heal me, but she taught me a deeper understanding of where that depression came from, what it was there to teach me, and what I would need it for. One of the incredible functions of plant medicine is that through the process of healing, the thing that was holding us back (be it disease, mental health, trauma, etc) becomes the very thing that teaches and empowers us to reach new levels in personal growth and embodiment of our truer selves.

My friend Emily meditates beneath a Noya Rao tree, whose bioluminescent leaves glow around her on the forest floor.

My friend Emily meditates beneath a Noya Rao tree, whose bioluminescent leaves glow around her on the forest floor.

Just as we as a culture operate at a different speed or resonance than that of the natural environment around us, our minds often operate through systems and programs that are different than that of our higher truth. In this sense I refer to ‘higher truth’ as being an operating mode that is closer to who we are authentically. Authenticity is what remains when we remove the influence of things that have altered our ability to see things truly. For example; a child who was abused by a male figure in their life may grow up having an unconscious mistrust of all men, and may have issues in relationships or careers as a result. The way this person interacts in the world is affected by an unconscious or semi-conscious bias, and so they react from the place of that program rather than from a place that is more authentic, like recognizing that not all men will repeat the abuse that was experienced in the past, and so sometimes it can be okay to trust.

Humans have the habit of interpreting the world in relation to our past experiences. Our neurology supports this habit. Our brains classify perceived stimuli and experiences using limbic attractors in order to fit things into familiar patterns. This is an evolutionary trait that allows us to react to situations quickly, and with the greatest likelihood of safety. If our perceptions are affected by past traumas, illnesses, and misperceptions, then our ability to appropriately discern threats from opportunities becomes clouded. Our epigenetic programming comes from our evolutionary survival mechanisms. These mechanisms are designed to give the person the best chance of survival, not necessarily the greatest chance of growing into their truest, most vigorously alive self.

As anyone who has participated in the world of traditional talk therapy knows, our ingrained mental programs can be very difficult to unravel. Plant medicines shift the scales. They enable an accelerated process of growing through sickness and trauma. In dieta, the teacher plants gently plant their seeds of wisdom inside for us to tend to in the gardens of our minds. They slowly weed out invasive and parasitic overgrowths of fear, anger, shame, and whatever other rotten roots remain clenched over our hearts from illness, fear, and trauma.

For these reasons among many others, dieta is a practice that can be beneficial for anyone in their healing and personal growth. For someone apprenticing in the Shipibo healing tradition the practice is essential, as it is the foundation of the training to become a healer. Dieta is how the healer builds relationships with plants of power so that they can carry their medicine through to their patients. There is a merger between plant and human, and the healer becomes a medium through which the power of the plant spirit can work. The more one engages in dieta, the more their connection to those spirits is strengthened, and the more healing capacity they can bring to their patients.

Traditionally it takes a student about 10-15 years to become a Maestro, or master healer. This is very generalized as there are many things to take into account, and in the Shipibo tradition the learning and the dietas never actually reach an end point. Much time and energy must be sacrificed in order to be gifted the power of the plants, which is one of the reasons why the Shipibo sometimes begin their apprenticeships at as young an age as 10 or 12 years. When people from outside of the culture come to learn, they may find different obstacles to learning, such as their ideological and cultural beliefs and previous mental programming. Doubt can be a serious challenge. After all, nothing that deals with heart and soul really works that well if you don’t believe in it.

There are many lessons to learn on the path to becoming a healer. Since each person comes to their training from a very different place physically, emotionally, and spiritually, each person’s journey is varied and unique to themselves. In addition, within such an intimate form of plant communication, each individual’s journey is tuned towards precisely the things that they need to grow, with guidance on how to move through the challenges they face. Each persons journey with plant spirit medicine is as unique and beautiful as their own soul, because it is a journey that takes place in the soul of what it means to be human and alive.

In order to truly carry the medicine of a particular plant or spirit, the lessons that are given need to be integrated into the carriers life. This is a process that takes time. Sometimes it will happen in big bursts of upheaval and sometimes slowly as subtle changes and adjustments are made. Through mastering the lessons the plants have given, the medicine of those dietas is brought forth into daily life.

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Within the Shipibo tradition, there are an array of medicines and treatments that form the core of their practice outside of dieta. These mostly come in the form of; medicines that are taken internally; poultices; purgatives; vapour baths; and plant baths. There are other treatments as well, but these are some of the most common. All of these treatments, at least nowadays, take place in conjunction with ceremonies of Ayahuasca.


Ayahuasca is rather an illustrious medicine herself, these days, and not without reason. Ayahuasca has been instrumental in the healing journey of many, and will continue to be. Yet the Shipibo consider Ayahuasca alone, without dieta, to have limited potential and greater chance of getting stuck or misled in ones healing journey. Shipibo healers, traditionally, were the only ones to drink Ayahuasca. The patients didn’t need to drink because it is the curandero who is connecting to their dieta plants and bringing that energy into the patient. Ayahuasca in ceremony facilitates a merger of the physical and spiritual dimensions. Traveling through this merge is the healing power of the plant dietas. This healing power is also the Curandero’s source of many diagnoses of patients, medicines and remedies, and knowledge of uses of many different plants.


So it becomes necessary as well for an apprentice to learn to navigate the worlds of Ayahuasca. Just like slowing down from every day life is the transition needed to come in to dieta, learning to navigate and control a ceremony with Ayahuasca in the way of the Shipibo requires a transition into a different world, paradigm, and belief system. There are many different leaves on the tree of learning within the Shipibo traditions. In ceremony, perhaps the most vital and important tool the Curandero has is their voice. It is through singing the songs of the plants and learning to let the plants sing through you that the energy of the ceremony is controlled.

In order to gain the fruits of dieta, one must learn to listen to the plants. In order to solidify those gains into changes in their inner and outer worlds they must tend to the garden within. But to heal others, one must learn to sing with the plants, and this requires a deeper step inside, to walk in a world that most would see as a world of myth. The world of Shipibo curanderismo is one that tends to the mythic roots of human consciousness. By tending to the growing garden of dietas inside, one slowly learns to navigate the world of myth and magic, and to hear and sing in the languages of the plants.



To read about Icaros and myth, check out part three.

Listening to the Plants - Part 1/3

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This is the first part of a three part introduction to the plant medicine traditions of the Shipibo, working with Ayahuasca, Noya Rao, and other master plants, and apprenticing in the study of Curanderismo. They touch on some of the themes that are explored in further depth in my upcoming book: Water and Light

Find part two here, and part three here.

I remember as a small kid thinking that the Amazon Rainforest was probably the most terrifying place on earth. The thought of the dark jungle, thick with vines, heavy with moisture, and brimming with snakes set my nerves on edge. Even the mere thought of snakes has always caused the skin and hair on my arms and the back of my neck to stand at attention like nervous army recruits. Alongside the uncomfortable feelings there was also a subtle quality of mysteriousness, as if it was curiosity who was actually hiding behind the veil of my fear.

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I had no concept then of what life in the Amazon was like, not knowing that it was caught in the crucible of an encroaching modern world and the ancient traditions and ways of life that still held on. I didn’t picture children swimming and laughing in crystal waters while parents sat in the shade beneath palm thatched huts, chatting and stretching out their arms in hopes of catching a faint cell signal.

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I didn’t picture bustling port cities with floating neighbourhoods, awash with filth and waste, nor kilometre wide rivers banded with the wakes of passing boats and cargo ships. Villages thumping with the rumble of speakers and growling with the grumble of generators were as far from my imaginings as the idea that tribal elders were struggling to pass on their cultures to the youthful generations being lured away from their ancestry by modern technology and the need for money to support their families. Traditional ways of life were becoming harder to sustain, but my fears didn’t leave room to imagine such things.

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In childhood my fears and ignorance painted a picture in my mind coloured with the tones of the wilderness - complex, dangerous and untamed. I imagined the people there as natural, clever, and wary; tribal in the crude, whitewashed western perception of what indigenous realities look like. I didn’t imagine them as the straightforward, genuine, versatile and resourceful people they were, living at relative ease amongst the dangers of the jungle. Those who still live with the jungle don’t live in fear of the myriad perils and risks surrounding them, for they know it better than most people know themselves. They are a part of their environment, and that environment is a part of them.

Back then I would never have guessed at the knowledge held by some of those jungle people. The knowledge of how to heal or to curse with plants of power. The knowledge of the spirit world, and the methods for interplay between these separate yet inseparable dimensions.

For the imaginative freedom of a child’s mind, the culture of western countries can be rather bland and diminishing, colourless and stale like the concrete that sets the stage. There is very little magic and mystery left to explore. Those things are found in games and stories, fantasy and science fiction, so it is in those directions one is led to satisfy their craving for magic and inspiration. We are taught to fear normal things, like drugs, strangers, angry dogs - hey, maybe even poisonous snakes. But we have no reason to worry about such fantastical ideas as sorcery and shapeshifting, trickster spirits and demons. Those things - in the western mind - exist only in stories.

Just as we are taught to fear normal things we are taught to believe in rational things; those that fit into convention and consensus. Things like the importance of getting a good job, a house and a car, the freedoms of democracy and a healthy free market; those are things to believe in. Only in my furthest daydreams could I have imagined a world of beliefs such as those of the Shipibo tribe in the upper Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon. My childhood mind would have overflowed with the magic of such possibilities like the rush of a dam bursting. In a paradigm where one can learn from the spirits of plants, communicate with Gods, angels, and aliens, and be given the power to heal others, there would not have been enough concrete logic in the rational western mind to hold back the pressure of this deluge of mystery.

Like many nature based societies, the beliefs and traditions of the Shipibo are formed from many generations of intimate communion with the natural world. Nature based societies have a different experience of their environments because they are not conceptually separated from their surroundings as many of us in the west are, rather they are interwoven in a complex and delicate balance. They are an intrinsic part of their environment, and so it is from nature itself that their traditions and knowledge emerge.

One of the fundamental means of gaining knowledge within the Shipibo tradition is the practice of building relationships with plants. Shipibo culture is shaped by plants. They say that their language was given to them by plants, and their encyclopedic knowledge of plant medicines and remedies are also the result of their evolving plant relationships.

The idea of ‘listening’ to a plant may come across to many as a rather foreign one. Yet when looking through the lens of an indigenous, nature based society it is easier to conceptualize. One can look at nature based societies and see how culture and tradition become so deeply ingrained. As a child in the western world, we have many influences. Our parents initially, then our friends and community, and then as we get older we are also subject to the influence of our society, religions, ideologies, popular culture, entertainment and media. These can all become significant influences in our lives, even while carrying radically different value and belief systems. When the major influences in your life contradict eachother, it can be a little confusing. The nature based society is in contrast to this range of influence as the entirety of their influences are in balance with their communal way of life and their surroundings, and so knowledge and traditions grow within the culture as they are consistently reinforced through an individual and collective experience. In this sense, there are less voices competing for attention and one is not confused in their beliefs due to having multiple and varied messages.

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Indigenous languages, due to their proximity of engagement with the natural world, often have the effect of strengthening ties to the earth. Words and concepts are structured around concepts mirrored in the earthly experience, and are symbolic of a shared experience. David Abram delves into this intimate relationship beautifully in his book; ‘The Spell of the Sensuous’. As Wade Davis says in his essay ‘Season of the Brown Hyena’: “A language is not merely a set of grammatical rules or a vocabulary. It is a flash of the human spirit, the vehicle by which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world. Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities”. The Shipibo language ties the people to eachother, their traditions, and the plants, animals, and elements of their world. For the Shipibo, plant communication is an essential component of their system of healing, and of their wider culture in general.

When I was first introduced to the Shipibo medicine traditions through the Ayahuasca Foundation in 2015 after reaching an impasse with my mental health struggles, I came with many different voices in my head. None of them were plants, and very few were even my own. Like many who come of age in a westernized society my mind was pulled in many different directions, and I was challenged in finding authenticity among the many competing and contradicting values and beliefs of my own culture. In order to learn to listen to the plants, all those competing voices needed to be tuned out.

As I delved into the Shipibo tradition and began tuning out the voices of the outside world, those voices began to be replaced by those that felt more authentic. Slowly I began to tune in to the voice of Noya Rao, the plant with whom I had begun to build a relationship. Through the medicine of that relationship, she led me to recognize my own voice; the one that spoke from my heart rather than amongst the cacophony of scattered questions, doubts, thoughts and opinions of the mind. She was at once leading me closer to the earth and to myself.

Immersing deeper into the traditions of the Shipibo led me to realize what powerful medicine it was for the western soul. The cracks of disconnection that I had seen running rampant in my own culture crystallized into a clearer picture of how and why we have become misled, and the opportunities that lie therein. Noya Rao revitalized that sense of childlike wonder, and lit the flame of intrigue and mystery that had been extinguished within me so long ago. Reconnecting to the earth through the practice of listening to plants rejuvenated a part of me that I didn’t realize I had lost, and reinvigorated the flow of inspiration, gratitude, and hope that we all need to flourish.

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Learning to listen to the wisdom of plants is not always an easy path, especially when doing so within the Shipibo paradigm with the intention of learning to carry their medicine traditions. ‘No es fascil ser un medico’, says Maestro Don Enrique Lopez. Telling his students that ‘It is not easy to be a doctor’ is one of Maestro’s favourite claims. But in life is it not through suffering that we realize new depths of joy, and through challenge that we uncover deeper layers of our own strength and fortitude?

There is a saying I often use with regards to Shipibo medicine that says ‘the only way out is through’. When it comes to our fears in life - like those fears I had as a child hearing of the wild Amazon rainforest - pushing through can lead us to places and things more beautiful than we could have imagined. Fear is the gateway that leads to deeper levels of love and fulfillment. If I’ve heard anything correctly while learning to listen to plants, they might just be suggesting that our active engagement with the mysteries of life - many of which lie behind our fears - is where we reconnect with the beauty of existence, the creative flow of life, and the gratitude that comes of recognizing more truly how unique our human experience is.

To hear more about Noya Rao and the Shipibo practice of dieta, read part two here: