An evocative journey into the Amazonian jungle, where shamans treat visitors with a potent vision-inducing potion, the plant-based hallucinogen called ayahuasca.
A feature article published in 2011, with an accompanying podcast and video, embedded below.
Diana’s family provided many middle-class comforts: private schooling, a university education, travel, healthy food, and spacious housing. Nearing 40-years-old, she gave up some of this security to take a journey to a hut in Peru’s upper Amazon, her launching pad away from ordinary reality altogether.
Illustration by Emily Nisbet
Tribal songs, called icaros, are central to the long ceremonies and seem to strike resonant chords with the internal riot of energy sparked by ayahuasca.
“The medicine responds to the songs,” says Diana. “Your whole being is permeated by the sound, and the songs make the ayahuasca inside you respond.”
The characteristic quene or kené designs that Shipibo-Konibo artists and healthcare culture bearers put on just about everything are said to be inspired by nature and the hidden realities revealed during ayahuasca ceremonies. A deep dive on the indigenous design-song-medicine technology and practice along the Ucayali River.
Shipibo-Konibo embroidery, sold in the tourist market. 📸 by Keith Rozendal
