Challenging #ParadigmX · Podcast · 2020
Beyond The Shaman (Part 1): A Deconstruction
Hauxita on the word shaman, Kambo medicine and the dieta
Why does someone who works with sacred medicines refuse to call herself a shaman? Hauxita, who went to the Peruvian jungle in 2013 to find a cure for her breast cancer and has lived and studied with indigenous people of the Amazon ever since, explains why she never heard the word among indigenous healers, and why it has become a commercial label in the West and in South America.
We go deep into Kambo, the secretion of the giant leaf frog: how it is applied, what it does to body and mind, why so many people resist it and why it can be dangerous. She describes the dieta, the strict diet and isolation that go with plant medicine work, explains what she means by spirits, and tells the story that brought her to the jungle. This is Part 1 of our conversation; Part 2 covers her life in the jungle, medicine tourism and the authentic path of medicine work.
In this episode
- 02:38Why she does not call herself a shaman
- 06:16What indigenous healers call themselves
- 07:06Shaman as a commercial label
- 10:22Who Hauxita is and what she does
- 15:18What Kambo is and how it works
- 22:47Resistance to Kambo
- 26:57Is Kambo dangerous?
- 32:15The dieta in sacred medicine work
- 46:49What spirits are
- 50:04Why she does what she does
- 51:39Going to the jungle to heal her breast cancer
About Hauxita
Hauxita (*1987) was born and raised in Germany. Her family's roots are in Central Asia. She lives in Peru and is preparing a community-based conservation project in the lowland jungle of Northern Peru. Hauxita holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film Theory and History of Art from Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2013 she lives and studies with a variety of indigenous people of the Amazon Rainforest in South America.
Hauxita loves to travel the world and in doing so, she is sharing the medicine knowledge of her indigenous friends. The motivation to her commitment is first and foremost educating by sharing information as well as helping people to connect to the indigenous wisdom and sacred medicines in the most sustainable way to eventually be able to empower their very own capacity of self-healing.
Disclaimer: In this episode, when we talk about "medicine" or "sacred medicine", we do not refer to western medicine but rather indigenous natural substances that are considered by indigenous people as sacred medicines. Furthermore, please do not look at this interview for conventional medical advice.
Bio and disclaimer as published with the episode in 2020.
Hauxita's work
Transcript
Edited for readability from the automatic transcript: filler words and false starts removed, names and titles corrected. Words in square brackets were added for clarity. The archived transcript had no timestamps, so the times shown are approximate.
Hi, here's Xerxes, and today I'm here with Hauxita. I've known you for some time, and we work together. What was always really striking to me is that most people who do the things that you do call themselves shamans, but you don't. So please tell me: why don't you call yourself a shaman, although you do a lot of things that people who call themselves shamans do?
Well, I believe that the word shaman, the term shaman as it is used nowadays, especially in the New Age approach to healing, is not used in its proper way. The word shaman has a true origin linguistically. As far as we know, and I can't prove this, but this is what some sources say, it goes back to an indigenous group using a specific language. They were using a specific word that refers to what we nowadays call a shaman, and that was in East Siberia 5,000 years ago. In their understanding, it's a person who knows, a person who's bridging between the spirit world and the world we're living in.
Here in South America, where I have been living and studying for the last seven years, no one with a true connection to that spirit world would call themselves a shaman. I never encountered that word, ever, in all my travels into the jungle. They might call themselves, translated, the healer of the village, or the chief and the elder of the village, who's also supporting the community to heal. But shaman as such, I never ran across it.
A lot of people who are working in that realm of connecting our world with the spirit world wouldn't even use a word to describe themselves. They just do what they do, and that's all it is. They don't have to call themselves something.
As a friend of mine says when he's closing his ceremonies: if someone asks you "Who are you?", and you answer with what you do, with one profession or one passion, you're going to describe and minimize yourself to a part of yourself that is just that. But you're much more than this.
So I'm just always disturbed by the use of that word "shaman", which is used quite a lot in that scene of healing work. It's an overused word, an overused term. And I never encountered it. That's why I don't call myself a shaman.
Okay. So what do the medicine men and women in the indigenous cultures call themselves?
It depends on where you go, which country or area in South America. But maybe they call themselves taita, which is the grandfather, or curandero, curandera, which is the healer. They call themselves pajé, which is the one that takes care of the healing of the village. Sometimes cacique. These are the terms that I have encountered throughout the years, next to the people who don't call themselves anything at all. They just have their personal name.
Okay. It's very interesting, because when we talk about shamanism in the West, the first people that we think of, at least this is my impression, are South American or North American indigenous people who are the healers of the tribe. And secondly, there are a lot of people here in the West who call themselves shamans because they have done one training or another of that sort.
So it's really interesting that you say you never encountered the word shaman in the indigenous cultures. But does it exist in Latin America and South America in another context? Because when people go to South America to do medicine work, they usually refer to visiting a shaman, or a shaman center, a shaman healing center or anything of that sort. Are there other people calling themselves shamans who are not the original healers of tribes?
Yes. One thing I just want to add before I answer this is that this use of the word, for example "shaman center", or "I'm going to visit my shaman in South America", is kind of a popular term to describe this whole realm. But is it a real term to do so?
And to your question: there are a lot of people here in South America calling themselves "I am a shaman" outside of indigenous religious contexts. Yes.
Okay. So what you're basically saying is that it's a popular use, or let's say a commercial use for Western tourists, or also Eastern tourists, to use the term shaman.
Yes, I would say so.
Okay. So in a way you could say: if someone in South America calls himself or herself a shaman, you can be quite assured that this person is not really a shaman and is quite likely doing this for commercial reasons.
Well, you always have to look at the specific case, who's saying that and what is behind it. But the phenomenon of the term shaman is a worldwide one. And often it is connected to a commercial approach and a label: "Hey, I'm a shaman, so you can trust me. I'm going to heal you." And that's not what it is.
Okay. All right. It's very interesting, because, as I said, I think most people associate it in a very different way than you refer to it. I also know people who are in the healing space, who have been to Latin America, and they always refer to shamans. So you're actually the first person who explains this whole thing to me in this way, and I find it very interesting.
You also mentioned another thing: that when someone asks you what you do, and you answer with one simple answer, like I am a carpenter, I'm a shaman, I'm a consultant, a counselor, whatever, you reduce yourself. So how would you describe who you are, what you do, what your life is like, however you like to describe it?
Yes, so the question: what do you do, what is your life like? It's a very interesting question, because it's so many things.
First of all, I suppose I'm a human being trying to live my life in a happy and healthy way, with a holistic approach. I have a strong and great passion for the jungle and for indigenous culture, tradition and history. And I share information about a specific medicine from the Amazon rainforest here, which is Kambo. Kambo is a frog. Indigenous people use it to treat a person for specific reasons.
I have a YouTube channel where I'm sharing some educational videos about Kambo medicine. I see that as a responsibility I have, because I believe in that medicine so much and I love it so much: just to share information. I'm also sharing the medicine with people in one-on-one treatments, one-on-one ceremonies.
Besides that, I study a lot about the indigenous cultures that I'm interested in, by living with them, and also when I'm not in the jungle living with them: studying their languages, their body art, their chants, their healing songs, which I recorded. A lot of that revolves, for me, around studying the mythology and the cosmology of the indigenous people, which fulfills me, because it's interwoven with everything I have experienced so far.
Another thing that I was about to start, and now we are in this new situation of a worldwide lockdown, is to look for land in the lowland jungle here in the north of Peru, and one day, in a community crowdfunding project, to buy land to preserve it, to conserve it, and to build a bigger project for the future. To be able to buy a big piece of land, maybe 10,000 hectares, and save that jungle from being destroyed. If I buy it, a company cannot buy it and destroy it. Ecuador has just sold a very big amount of Amazon rainforest. I think one third of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador is now sold to China. So the reason why I want to do this is to give back to the jungle, where I have received so much of my own life and so much healing and transformation. This is what I'm focusing on.
But I'm also practicing kickboxing, which is another way of moving energy, to move some things in life. And currently I just try to be present in this moment that we are all living in right now.
I would like to go a bit into Kambo medicine. I've experienced it. You initiated me, in a way, and I think it's a very potent medicine. Of all the medicines I've worked with, although it's not as fancy as others, it's the one I like most. I had my most important transformational processes with it.
And it's interesting: I know a lot of people who have been doing medicine work for many years, and they haven't done it and don't have any interest in doing it. But what I really want to ask you is: could you share with us what Kambo medicine is, and also give us a picture of what it is beyond just what it does to the body, what it is in a bigger picture?
Yes, sure. Kambo is a term for the giant leaf frog that inhabits the Amazon basin here in South America. The biological term is Phyllomedusa bicolor. It's a night-active frog that lives high up in the trees, and indigenous people have used its poison, its secretion, for a long time, either to prepare the men of the tribe to go on a hunt, or to heal something they call the dark, heavy spirit that inhabits the system, that has become an energetic matter and therefore needs to be treated.
To explain these things better: Kambo medicine, for the indigenous people, is warrior medicine, because it connects you more strongly to the spirits of the jungle, and you can hear better, you can smell better, you can see better. You're not that hungry, you're not that thirsty. So going on a hunt for a couple of days and nights is less of a problem. But it's also giving you this center of being focused, and specific warrior attitudes.
On the other hand, when we talk about healing a person, helping a person to get rid of a specific energy, that is a process to help the person release something that has accumulated in the system.
The way the medicine gets applied is by burning the first layer of the skin in small dots, in specific parts of the body that are connected to the lymphatic system and its entrance gateways, so to say. There the person receives a few dots of that poison. In nature, the Kambo frog releases that poison to fend off predators. If a snake tries to eat the frog, the poison gets released into the snake. It's a survival mechanism.
When it comes to the treatment, it's important to stick to a specific diet and also to fast before you receive the medicine, which you receive in the early morning in the jungle context. You have to drink a specific amount of water or caiçuma on an empty stomach. Caiçuma is a beverage indigenous people make out of yuca or manioc root, which is kind of the jungle potato. It's a very important staple for them.
So you drink this on an empty stomach and you receive the medicine. It's quite a quick and strong process. The medicine doesn't contain any psychoactive alkaloids. What it contains is peptides, a wide range of peptides that activate, refresh and heal your own peptide range in the body. It activates your lymphatic system, boosts your lymphatic system, cleans it out.
The way you react can look quite intimidating, or strong, or intense from the outside, because you have a very strong physical experience. First of all, you get hot, the heart beats faster. You might swell up in the face. You might look like a frog. You might even swell up from the inside. You feel a pressure in your upper body, pulsating behind your ears. You can have different sensations in that respect. You can also have some pains in the body. You can have some emotional process going on.
What usually happens after a few minutes is that you start vomiting. Kambo is a fire medicine, so with the liquid that we drink on an empty stomach, we help it to come out. Usually diarrhea is also a part of it. This is the initial process of purging, so to say.
It's not just, on a scientific level, boosting your system and regenerating your cells and helping you to heal specific ailments like chronic diseases. What it is also doing is taking out an energy that has become something chronic in your system: maybe a depression, maybe a sadness, maybe not knowing where to go in life. Personally, for me, the Kambo medicine gives you a direction for your life.
It's a very gentle and loving medicine, the spirit of the frog, even if the process might sound and look intense. The spirit of the Kambo becomes your friend and your guide, and will be there for you, to help you maneuver and navigate your specific intention for working with that medicine. This is how I perceive it personally.
And the process itself, of course, demands a specific kind of commitment from you: okay, this feels intense, but I'm not going to panic now. It's important to breathe and stay connected and go for it, to receive it as a blessing, to be strong in that moment and be aware of what is going on. Because it can be an intense experience, which can bring people to the edge of not knowing what to do with it, or panicking, or having some fear, or wanting it to be over fast.
But once you connect with it, your work with it will also change in the longer term, because you then know how you're going to react, and you will be able to perceive more of the energetic and spiritual benefits of that medicine.
Okay. Very interesting. Maybe I'd like to add from my personal experience with Kambo: I think my first session took maybe one hour, and there was a lot of resistance against what was going on in the process.
I have to say I was also in quite a special situation. I had just separated from the woman I had been in a relationship with for 11 years, eight years married, and we were just about to get divorced. And this medicine really helped me to process a lot. It was interesting how, the first few times, there was so much resistance to going into the process and to purging. And then, after a couple of times, the whole process took 10 minutes. And the one-hour process was, of course, much more intense, because it's an intense physical process.
That's also the reason why I feel, and I don't know what your experience is with the people you know, that because it's such an intense process and doesn't have any obvious psychoactive effects, a lot of people don't want to do it. Because, as I said before, I wouldn't call it fancy. But I can say from my personal experience: although it's so intense, it's one of the best medicines, or, to frame it right, I would say it's the most valuable medicine I have personally experienced in my life.
So what's your experience with people who don't have Kambo experience, or who have Kambo experience maybe in connection with other medicines? For example, I've heard they often do it after ayahuasca sessions. What's your experience with Kambo as a standalone medicine on the one hand? And on the other hand, when it comes to the resistance that people have against the medicine, against trying it in general? And like in my case, the first few times I really fought against the medicine, not allowing myself to purge. I guess I'm not the only one who has this experience in the first few sessions.
Yes. In general, what I perceive is that Kambo is an underestimated medicine when it comes to the sacred medicines. It is always seen as: "Yes, you can clean out toxins with this medicine, and it's good for your health." But that's not giving credit to the complexity and the capacity that the medicine is sharing with people.
Another thing is that a lot of people hear stories. They hear a lot of stories about people who have received the medicine, and a lot of traumatic experiences get shared, a lot of people having had bad experiences with this medicine. And there are a lot of people out there who have had experiences that are shocking to listen to. I believe it has something to do with the fact that maybe some people who share this medicine do not understand it entirely. Not all of them. But there are some risks to health when it comes to this medicine. There are contraindications when it comes to working with this medicine, because it is so strong for the system. You have to be careful with medical contraindications, pharmaceuticals, chronic diseases and all of that. So that is one part of it.
I'm sorry to interrupt you: it is actually a dangerous medicine if not applied properly, because it's a poison, isn't it? For the people who don't know it at all: the way you talk about it now, there can be problems, but in reality it's a poison, and if not applied properly, it can kill you, can't it?
Of course it is. It can lead to reactions in your body that can lead to a heart attack, or to not being able to breathe anymore, having an anaphylactic shock, and that, of course, leads to death. So it's a poison, but you need to know how much of that poison you have to use, the quantity, but also how you apply it. What's the pathway? What's the way to work with the medicine? So it's not that easy. It's not: I'm going to drink that, and then I'm going to purge, and it's all going to be good. It's not like that.
There are also contraindications for other sacred medicines. It's not that Kambo is the only one that has contraindications or can risk your life in specific moments. There are other medicines too. But before, so that you're not going to be put at risk, you have to talk to the person beforehand and go through a specific checklist of contraindications, really ask those specific questions and go into depth. It's not just something that you share.
When it comes to what you said about having resistance and blockage: often we come into a process where we want to heal something with Kambo coming from a specific consciousness about ourselves. For example, a very simple example that a lot of people will be able to connect to: I'm coming out of a relationship, I'm heartbroken, and I just feel terrible. So I want to feel better again, right?
But what is behind that relationship, and what is the relationship triggering in the process of separation? It's connected to things that are even older than that relationship. Maybe some experiences you had in your childhood or teenage years, even some experiences that you are not so aware of right now, or that have moved from consciousness to the subconscious.
So having a resistance in your system towards the process or the medicine is something very normal, because you have been functioning and feeling the way you have for a long time. And then something comes into your system that is shaking it a lot. Not in the way of having a vision of something beautiful, like with other entheogenic medicines and approaches. No, it's taking you and shaking you up, and it's really intense.
Your cellular intelligence, so to say, and the vibration in your body, which is used to a certain level of vibration, now gets shaken up. And what comes next is something else. But we are holding onto it emotionally, because we have never learned anything else and we are used to it. We are used to functioning in a specific way. And when you're used to something, it's a comfort zone, so it's hard to get out of it. It's hard to move out of it. It's a challenge to change your life and really face it.
So of course it's normal and natural, and there's no big deal about feeling a resistance. The resistance, the blockage, is showing up for the process.
What is important is that this medicine is also not for everybody. Not every sacred medicine is for everybody out there. You really have to feel the call. Even if you're aware: "Wow, it's a difficult process, and I have resistance", and "Wow, that was a crazy ride!", if you still feel like you want to continue working with it, if you have the call and you have the "Yes!", then you work with it. Because it's your free choice to work with this medicine. But if you feel like that's not for you: no one should be forced to work with this medicine or with any other medicine.
What I also wanted to ask you, with respect to any sacred medicine, and specifically now Kambo, because we've been talking about Kambo, is the role of the dieta. Perhaps also connected to the dangers of medicines.
To give you some more context on why I'm interested in that: what I sometimes see is people sending messages on Facebook or other platforms, email, whatever, saying: "Yes, we still have one spot, one person can still join this Kambo retreat that starts tomorrow, or in two days." And what I know from my personal work with you is that the dieta has a very important role. Is that a role that you give to the dieta, or is that the experience you have from the jungle? So I'd be interested in what the role of the dieta is, and how important it is, whether it's just optional or not, when it comes to preparing for medicine rituals, for taking sacred medicines. Please, could you give us some context?
Yes, sure. Let's talk about the concept of the dieta first, so people can understand a little bit about it, the diet, so to say.
When I started working with the sacred medicines in the Peruvian rainforest, I was following a specific tradition of healing. In that specific tradition, it was not just about drinking ayahuasca in nighttime ceremonies with the healer, but also about doing a specific dieta. This is how they call it here: the diet, with one specific plant. I did a lot of plant dietas throughout the years.
The framework is that you are deep in the jungle. You sit in your own wooden hut, alone. You have no electricity, no Wi-Fi, of course. In very strict dietas, you should not even read books or listen to music. What you do the whole day is: you are in the jungle, you are with yourself, you're meditating, and you drink, either daily or in a specific rhythm, the extract or the tea of a plant or a tree. It might be the leaf, the flower, the roots or the bark, whatever part of that plant is the medicine in their tradition. It will be prepared for you by the healer, the person who provides the healing and the medicine, and you start drinking this plant medicine.
The reason why you do that is that you usually have a specific intention. Either the person asks you what you want to work on or heal, or they don't even talk to you and they choose the plant for you, because they know what you need. They see where you have to start. Because in the Amazon rainforest, you can have plant dietas with, I believe, more than 500 plants. So it's a lot of options.
So you drink these medicines, and the spirit of the plant, which in the Peruvian tradition here is the teacher, becomes your teacher. It will come to you in dreams in the nighttime, will talk to you throughout the day, will show itself in specific teachings. So what you do is: you enter the spirit world and you start communicating with the plants. And the plant is going to share its heart and its teachings and its understanding with you.
But you have to keep some specific, big rules for that. There are dietas where you can only eat a specific fish that only eats specific things. If you eat another fish that doesn't go with the vibration of the plant, you break the dieta, and it's not going to work anymore.
The general rules, as I experienced them, are: I'm not allowed to talk to another person, apart from the person who makes my food, or the healer. Everyone else, I'm not allowed to talk to, or to come closer to than 20 meters. I'm not allowed to give hugs during that time. I'm not allowed to leave my hut in the jungle. I can only eat very specific foods. Usually without any spices or anything exciting to eat. It's very plain and basic. Some veggies. Of course no alcohol, no cakes, no artificial sugar. All of that stuff is cut out.
In that tradition, you can work with the sacred tobacco plant to accompany the plant dieta. This is how I did it, for example. But you are not allowed to work with other medicines during that time and after it. So the dieta starts before you receive the medicine, continues during the process while you are with this medicine. It's about what you put into your system, which energies and vibrations you put into your system. There are dietas where you're not allowed to masturbate, and of course not to have sex, so as not to mix your energy or lose your energy.
And then you have to keep a specific post-dieta. That differs from person to person you're going to work with: for 10 days, or for months after you have ingested that medicine. To maintain your alliance with that spirit, to show respect, and to be able to keep that medicine in your system in a healthy way.
There are also contraindications. The stronger the plant medicine dieta gets, the riskier a contraindication from breaking the diet can be. I heard a story where, by accident, someone ate something during the dieta that caused a toxic interaction with the plant the person was ingesting on the dieta, and the person nearly died. So this is how serious it can get.
And before that, it's about losing the support of the spirits. The alliance that you are entering, the friendship, the sharing that you enter with the spirit, you're going to lose that. So to be able to keep the teachings, and for the spirit to become your guide and your ally in your system beyond the time that you are drinking the medicine, the rules of those traditions are important. If you choose to work with one person, you have to respect their rules.
And so when it comes to Kambo, and I'm sorry, this is a bit of a long answer, but it's important to explain that: when it comes to Kambo, I believe the best thing you can do is observe how the indigenous people live. There are different ways of working with Kambo medicine in different indigenous tribes. Some tribes are very strict about the dieta. Some tribes are not. There are differences, and there are similarities.
What I have been doing is observing the context of what they are doing when they receive Kambo: what's the rotation here with food and energies and other medicines and so on. And from my own experience, doing plant dietas in isolation in the Peruvian jungle for nearly two years, I have created my own approach to working with Kambo. So if you want to receive Kambo from me, you should follow my dieta, my diet rules, because this is what I believe is the most effective way to prepare your system and maintain your system to receive that medicine.
Just a simple example: Kambo, like any other medicine, is a sacred medicine. There's no endless supply of it. It's a sacred medicine. There are not endless frogs living on the planet. We have to be very aware of what we're doing here when we receive this medicine.
So if you choose to work with Kambo, it's important to check in with yourself about which habits you have in your daily life that have not been serving you. For example, smoking a lot of cigarettes, drinking a lot of coffee. Do you really think that's healthy? With Kambo, we have a chance to break through it and see what's behind that addictive behavior, for example. If you work with a medicine that is cleaning your lymphatic system and boosting your immune system, why would you drink alcohol or have a sweet cake after that? It doesn't make any sense to me.
People might feel that I'm very strict on this. And yes, I am! Because I hear people saying: "Oh, Kambo doesn't work on me." But the question is: what's the environment that you're creating for this medicine to enter your system? If you receive a Kambo treatment and you have the chance to really meditate with yourself, into yourself, and then an hour later you go out to party when you're so open energetically, and then you're surprised why you feel a bit weird after that night. It's obvious, no? Because you mix the energy with other energies.
So we have to learn to sit back in silence and in meditation, and to allow something to enter our system without mixing our own energy with other energies, and keep to a specific way. Because it's not unhealthy to keep a healthy diet while doing Kambo and afterwards. What you want is to heal something for yourself, and for that reason you want to meet yourself in connection with the spirit of the frog, with as few disturbances as possible. That is why I'm so strict with the diet.
On the other hand, we are talking about peptides. These are protein strings. There are foods, like dairy products, that break the effects of specific peptides of the Kambo medicine in your system. So if you receive Kambo and an hour later you have specific dairy products, it's going to stop the process of peptide function in your system, due to that contraindication. You're not going to die, but you're going to lose what you were working on. You interrupt the process.
And for me, to make sure that I have the space to share that medicine, and that the medicine can unfold its full potential, its full power and full healing capacity, we have to create a space for that, and we have to keep that space, and not just for a day, because it's sacred work.
We usually come from the Western world wanting, wishing for healing. We come from our Western worlds, where we are not really in that flow of stepping back, but more in the flow of: "Yes, we are consuming and we are receiving, and we are not really questioning all of that." But working with a sacred medicine from an old, ancient tradition of indigenous people, we also have to take a moment and question our way of consuming energies and consuming food, because maybe the two don't go together.
So the way I understand it, after what you've explained now, is that with the dieta there's the level of the physical effect. But apart from that, there's also a level of committing to a certain type of medicine work, on the one hand. And on the other hand, you talked about respecting the spirits, so there's also this level when it comes to the dieta. Do I understand it correctly?
Yes, exactly.
Okay. And could you explain, because a lot of people don't have much of an idea about spirits: how do you understand spirits when you talk about plant medicine, sacred medicine, and also when you talk about, I would say, things that are going on in general? Because spirits are most likely something that many people don't associate with anything other than fantasy movies or whatever.
Yes, sure. To start simple, I would say: you, Xerxes, you have a spirit. You have a soul, you have a heart. You are your own essence. You are an energy, a vibration. You are a frequency, and you're radiating it. The way you appear is that you have a body in this three-dimensional world. But inside and around that body, there are so many more things: energy, vibration, aura, frequency, your soul, your heart and all of that. Things you can't touch with the hand or see with the eyes, but you can feel them. Even if you sit there in silence, I can feel you, because you're radiating something.
So for me, it's like that with the plants or the beings. Instead of "spirit", you can maybe also say an entity: a specific form of vibration and frequency that is not necessarily to be seen and analyzed in 3D, but it's around us. Because, as we know, there are different frequencies. When you look into music, into vibrations, all of this is quite obvious, no?
When we take a cup of water and say nice things to that cup of water, we can see the transformation of the molecules under the microscope. All of these things. If we talk badly to a plant for a week, the plant is going to feel sad, you know?
So everything has a spirit, even a stone. Here where I'm living, in the Andean mountains, the mountains are sacred to the indigenous people. They call them Apus, because they have a spirit. If you want to go on a hike, if you want to ask for support for your life, or just to show respect, you pray to the spirit of the mountain. You give an offering with coca leaves. This is the way you do it. People here believe in the sacredness of their land, as well as in the jungle, because spirits are everywhere and we have to respect them. So this is how I would describe that world.
I would like to go a little bit into your background. Could you please tell me why you do what you do?
Why do I do what I do? I love the jungle, and I believe in and trust the teachings of the jungle that I have received. And the same for the indigenous way and the indigenous knowledge. I have deep gratitude inside myself for everything I have experienced in the jungle. And I would like to give back to Pachamama, to Mother Earth, in a sustainable way, for what I have received, the healing I have received, and the way my life has changed.
There was one journey, I think it was three years ago. I was traveling through the rainforest, and I was praying to the jungle that I surrender to her teachings, and that wherever she's going to take me in life, I'm going to follow. So I committed to a specific flow, and I'm in a specific flow. The life I'm living now was never planned. I never made a schedule for this. There was an inner and outer revolution happening in my life, and I've been going with the flow. And I do love to share what I believe in.
Okay. You talked about the inner and outer revolution. I would like to ask you: is that what you would call a turning point in your life, and what is the background of this whole thing? Or, let's say it another way: what is the background that led to you going to the jungle, and what's the big picture of this situation, this inner and outer revolution?
In 2013, I went into the jungle for the first time, for a couple of months. And the reason was to find a cure for my breast cancer, to make it very short and simple.
I was diagnosed for the first time 10 years [ago], and I was going through some hospital treatments and a lot of hospital analyses and conversations with doctors in the field. And I was just not satisfied with their approach. On the other hand, my health got much worse during the time of hospital treatment. I just felt not fully seen, and I was very disturbed by the energy in the hospitals, by the treatments and the whole way.
At that time, I was in a relationship, and we had a dog together, and our dog got sick with breast cancer. The conventional doctor said: your dog is going to die within a week, she needs an operation and so on. But through some circumstances, we found out about a naturopathic veterinarian for our dog. She made a natural remedy out of very simple ingredients for our dog, and within a week, everything was fine again.
So I started connecting with this woman, who also had a background with breast cancer. That's why she changed her life. That put me on the path, at the time when I was still living in Berlin, of working with the alternative natural medicines that were available in Europe: different categories, changing my diet. Things didn't get better, but they didn't get worse either.
And then, through another circumstance, a dear friend of mine told me about plants in the Amazon rainforest that are cytotoxic, that can kill cancer cells. From there I was researching, and I was having dreams about meeting the healer that I later met in the jungle. I had dreams of that healer eight months before I went to the jungle. I had never been in the jungle. I had never met him. But when I eventually arrived there, eight months later, it was all like the images in the dreams that I had.
So being in the jungle for the first time, in 2013, coming from the context of living in a Western city, that was changing everything.