The Holy Medicine of the Divine Mother Ayahuasca has been revered by communities in the Amazons and other places in the world through ages. The Holy Medicine is the ancestral gift for the new generation for healing and finding the purpose in one’s life, which allows to meet the Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca.
The Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca has taught shamans throughout the ages about other various Plants and their potentialities to help humankind. The Holy Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine is the gift to humankind which is in the Holy Medicine, helping humans to live in harmony and communicate with the Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca.
The Holy Medicine also generally has Leaves of the Psychotria Viridis (Chacruna), Diplopterys Cabrerana (Chaliponga), Psychotria Carthagenensis (Amyruca), which contain high amounts of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which are also naturally occurring in plants and animals, including human beings.
Traditional Use of the Holy Medicine
Traditionally, the Holy Medicine of the Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca has been recognized as the ‘Mother of all Medicines’ and considered as the Master Teacher’ since Ancient Times, providing those who consume the Holy Medicine direct access to the spiritual world and storehouses of Plant World’s Wisdom. Thus, it is common for shamans to claim that their knowledge of the healing power of the Plants given to them in visions or dreams from consuming the Holy Medicine.
The main, indigenous-rooted purpose of consuming the Holy Medicine has been diverse, from healing, sharpening the senses of the body in preparation for hunting, to recall and understand the patterns in the local ecological world—such as to know the potentialities of a specific Plant, or to know when fish are swimming upstream to offspring by seeing changes in the stars. Anthropologist Bernd Brabec de Mori explained, sometimes the Holy Medicine was taken during communal dance ceremonies to strengthen the community’s identity. In this sense, the Holy Medicine helps people unite as part of a shared cosmology to celebrate life.
The Role of the Holy Medicine
Gayle Highpine is a writer, editor, and linguist who is the author of the ‘Unraveling the Mystery of the Origin of Ayahuasca‘ who spent more than two years of her life documenting the culture and language of the Napo Rupa and Pastaza Runa tribes, who are closely related to the origin of the Holy Medicine.
According to her discovery, the Holy Medicine plays 3 important roles in these communities:
- Healing: The Holy Medicine is best known for healing powers through Sacred Ceremonies. It is believed that the Holy Medicine can connect participants in the Sacred Ceremonies with deep internal resonances, giving the participant direct access to the spiritual world by healing physical, emotional, and spiritual imbalances.
- Divination: This role of the Holy Medicine is very well known among the Amazonian tribes, especially it is known for enabling the ability of remote viewing. Historically in many incidents, it was mentioned that when family members at home were concerned about someone’s long absence, they would consume the Holy Medicine to find out what was happening with that specific person. Even in some literature, it is mentioned that some groups consume the Holy Medicine to locate hunting animals and know what enemies were doing.
- Mediator and translator between the plant world and human world: This role of the Holy Medicine is still not recognized by the outside world. According to the Napo Runa communities, one of the vital roles of the Holy Medicine is teaching humans about other plants. The Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca taught people of the Amazons how to combine the Holy Medicine with other plants to learn from Her about them. She also taught the Shamans about the practice of Sasina (Fasting and other bodily restrictions) so that they can communicate with other Plants.
Vera Froés is a Brazilian ethnobotanist, historian, and author of the book ‘Santo Daime: Amazonian Culture’. In response to a question in one of her talks at AYA2019, she explained the relationship that Shamans / healers have with the natural world. She explored that the healers, hrbeiros, and Shamans engage in dialogue with the plant world by exchanging feelings and energy. By connecting with the plant world, they learn from the Plants about how to combine and use their properties. This process includes the exchange of communication between different realms. According to her, Shamanism is an ancient art to connect with the Plant world that the indigenous people well understand.
Shamans treat nature as part of their family. They get in touch with the biomolecular dimensions and original essence to make a diagnosis and learn how to heal a disease, connecting both the physical and the spiritual worlds.
She also added that there’s a wonderful enigma associated with Holy Medicine, as it was described beautifully by Richard Evan Schultes, “one wonders how people in primitive societies, with no knowledge of chemistry or physiology, ever hit upon a solution to the activation of an alkaloid by a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. Pure experimentation? Perhaps not.“
This type of sensitivity and intuition paired with ancestral cultural knowledge are the gifts expressed in the genetic code of each Shaman. They communicate with the plant world.
What are the messages from the Holy Plants?
Within the indigenous communities of the Amazons, communication between the invisible and visible worlds have occurred through myths, songs, and chants. Over the years, Vera Froés, from her experiences, has received four key messages in various forms, from the plants:
- Accurate observation.
- Interdependence.
- Impermanence.
- Diversity.
Focused, accurate observation is essential for being present in the here and now. The planet is a living organism which is a huge network wherein all beings are interconnected, even if we are not aware of it. Impermanence exposes that everything is in constant transformation. And lastly, diversity demonstrates to us that difference is critical – biodiversity is preserved through coevolution.
According to Froés, the Holy Plants bring an important message to humanity, providing gifts which help to build a grid of cooperation for sustainable life on Earth, by the Blessings of the Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca.
Conclusion
The Holy and Divine Mother Ayahuasca has provided many secrets to humankind. The knowledge of the Holy Medicine has blessed Humankind to learn about plenty of Holy Plants for healing of all the communities globally, throughout history, in different times, through various ‘Means’, and ‘Ways’.
References
- Froés, Vera. (2020). Vera Fróes Fernandes | What the Plants Are Telling Us, Available at: https://youtu.be/leDESPxv6vQ [Accessed 24th May 2021]
- Highpine, Gayle. (2012). Unraveling the Mystery of the Origin of Ayahuasca. Center for Interdisciplinary Studies on Psychoactive, [online] Available at: http://www.neip.info/novo/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/highpine_origin-of-ayahuasca_neip_2012.pdf [Accessed 18th May 2021]
- MacRae, Edward. (1998). Santo Daime and Santa Maria – The licit ritual use of ayabuasca and the illicit use of cannabis in a Brazilian Amazonian religion. International Journal of Drug Policy, [online] Volume, 9(5), p. 325-338. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955395998000450 [Accessed 24th May 2021].
- Mori, B. (2011). Tracing Hallucinations: Contributing to a Critical Ethnohistory of Ayahuasca Usage in the Peruvian Amazon. The Internationalization of ayahuasca, [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/5327195/Tracing_Hallucinations_Contributing_to_a_Critical_Ethnohistory_of_Ayahuasca_Usage_in_the_Peruvian_Amazon_2011_ [Accessed 24th May 2021].
- Schultes, Richard Evans, Albert Hoffman and Christian Ratsch. 1992, Plants of the Gods, Vermont: Healing Arts Press
