Chioma Nwosu photographed by Jeff Skeirik/Rawtographer at Radha Yoga LA

Cannabis Liberation and the Spirit of Yoga, Meditation and Journeying

Cannabis is a sacred plant. In ethnobotany, the study of the relationship between plants and people, the plants and fungi we call sacred have psychoactive or psychedelic properties. Through altered states of consciousness, they can lead to personal transformation and healing. Around the world and throughout history, sacred plants have played a significant role in the development of civilization. They are considered invaluable treasures, so revered that many cultures simply refer to them as “the medicine.”

Humans have respected cannabis—also known in different times and places as marijuana, ganja, pot, and many other names—as a medicine and a spiritual ally for millennia. The plant is packed with natural pain relievers like the anti-inflammatory cannabinoid CBD (the non-psychoactive one getting all the attention right now). While its most famous cannabinoid, THC, offers psychoactive (sometimes even psychedelic) properties that can heal the soul.

When paired with yoga, cannabis provides a holistic mind-body-spirit journeying experience. This is not about “stoned yoga,” but about promoting a healthy “high” relationship with cannabis as a sacred plant spirit medicine—which starts with respect. This is a love story about the divine partnership between cannabis and yoga. Humans have coevolved with cannabis for a very long time.

Yoga practitioners are celebrating her liberation with the newly legal recreational status in many states (and all of Canada) by offering classes and workshops designed to take full advantage of cannabis, whether through vaping, consuming edibles, elixirs or drinks, or smoking. These teachers offer a virtual wealth of education about this much-misunderstood and maligned plant to everyone who takes their classes—and they consider that a great privilege.

For over a decade, I’ve been practicing yoga with my husband, who has been devoted to his own practice for forty plus years. These days, there’s almost always cannabis involved. Practicing with the plant helps me to drop into the wisdom and bliss of union with more depth and purpose.

Chioma Nwosu Photographed by Jeff Skeirik/Rawtographer at Radha Yoga LA.

Reconnecting and Learning to Listen with Cannabis

Nigerian-born, LA-based Chioma Nwosu’s vision for her yoga students is big. In her workshops, she works to bring them out of their egos and connect them with their spirit guides. She calls it “the space of inner peace that dwells within,” so they can grab this lifetime’s opportunities and run with them. To get her students to this place, so highly elusive in today’s wired world, Chioma Nwosu uses all the tools in her arsenal, including sacred ritual and plants.

Elevated CannaFlow is a workshop series and her most recent offering at Radha Yoga in the West Adams Historic District. Nwosu integrates cannabis into her energetic, breath-centered flows set to AfroBeat rhythms. “With the therapeutic support of this plant medicine,” she says, “individuals can go deeper within themselves, releasing negativity with ease; connect with the root of suffering; and explore a higher vibrational consciousness through cannabis-enhanced guided meditation.”

“We want people to come, learn, and study yoga. Not just the asana, but all aspects of it, including how cannabis fits into the mix,” says London-born, LA-based Minelli Eustacio-Costa, who owns Radha Yoga. “We talk about yoga philosophy and the origins of yoga and how cannabis yoga isn’t some new trend. We’re just going back to our roots and rediscovering what plants have been used for before people perverted them for their own desires and abuse. We’re interested in what plant medicine can be, what it has been all these years, and how we can combine the good benefits to help us with our mindfulness practice and to explore ourselves.”

Eustacio-Costa’s cannabis-enhanced empowerment classes, Yoga with Minelli, stress wellness, mindfulness, and yoga philosophy. Before she started smoking cannabis, Eustacio-Costa says, her yoga practice was “pure vanity,” a way of tricking herself into working out. The first time she combined yoga and cannabis, however, she immediately felt more connected and aware, and she continued to explore that relationship. “As I started to gain more knowledge about it, I learned there were historical and scientific connections,” Eustacio-Costa says.

Since ancient times, yogis have appreciated and even revered cannabis for its ability to bring them into the present, less judgmental state they practice to achieve. Cannabis’ elevated status has unfortunately been denounced in many circles during the tragic recent blip of global prohibition. But the tides are beginning to turn for this most misunderstood sacred plant. And progressive yogis who have felt the magic connection are leading the way. They’re coming out and speaking up about their own personal use and educating students as well as the public about how it can enhance mindfulness practice.

“Humans have coevolved with cannabis for a very long time,” says ethnobotanist and yogi Chris Kilham, author of The Five Tibetans (and the husband I practice with). “We’re very, very connected with this plant, and what we’re seeing now in the States and countries where cannabis is legal is a gathering of people who have been practicing with cannabis for years. We’re also seeing a rapidly expanding global movement embracing intentional work with plant spirit medicines. The intentional practice and being with others—these two things lead to enjoyment, as in joy.”

“Cannabis is for enjoyment and enlightenment,” agrees The Dank Duchess, an Oakland, Calif.-based master hashmaker who meditates daily. “It’s a guiding tool, and when used as such, it facilitates a deeper learning and expanded awareness of ourselves and the world around us.”

While certainly not a requirement for any of these practitioners, cannabis is being rediscovered for its unique ability to complement and enhance every aspect of a yoga practice, from stilling the mind for better focus to softening the corners of self-judgment.

More and more yogis are joining Taiwan-born, LA-based Jessy Chang of Local High Society, who says, “I don’t always practice yoga with cannabis. But when I do, it helps me deepen my breaths, move deeper into the pose, connect with myself, and just overall feel more.”

Cannabis educator, (non-practicing) yoga teacher and digital nomad Robyn Griggs Lawrence, who wrote Pot in Pans: A History of Eating Cannabis, says bringing the plant into her personal practice helped her let go of her natural Type A tendencies and feel the enjoyment Kilham speaks about. “Cannabis helps me with feeling yoga as opposed to thinking it,” Lawrence says. “There’s more of a fluid intuitiveness as opposed to regimented, you-must-be-in-Warrior-II-for-30-seconds kind of thing. It brings a nice balance.”

Montreal-based yoga teacher and musician Brian James of Medicine Path Yoga began to practice yoga more intentionally after leaving the advertising industry. There he experienced extreme stress, panic attacks, and sleeplessness. For James, incorporating a high-CBD cannabis oil into his practice brought a deeper intimacy and healing. “One of the first stepping stones to long-term healing is reconnection with the body and learning to listen to the intelligence of the body and to be guided by that in our decision making,” James says. “I think cannabis can really help with that.”

Chioma Nwosu Photographed by Jeff Skeirik/Rawtographer at Radha Yoga LA.

Good Intentions, Great Vibrations: Ceremonial Work

LA-based yoga teacher Dee Dussault, creator of Ganja Yoga, considers cannabis an ally. She believes the plant intends to help humans heal both physically and mentally; that it was sent to remind us that “there’s more to life than the constant producing and constant consumption we do.”

“I focus on feeling grounded, on slow flow, on breath, which is the whole point of yoga—to turn inward,” agrees Eustacio-Costa, who pairs her classes with specific cannabis strains, almost always chosen for their introspective qualities, so cannabis becomes intimately intertwined with asana. “Very much the way the sadhus did 2,000 years ago. We start off with the mindfulness of smoking and, okay, how does it feel?” she says. “How is my high showing up?”

Though cannabis has been legal for adult recreational use in California for less than two years, Eustacio-Costa has already noticed a deepening and maturing in her students who are incorporating cannabis into their practice. It is a far cry from the canna-curious who populated her “more underground” classes a few years ago. These days, she’s doing a lot less educating and a lot more community building—a natural part of the cannabis-yoga synergy.

“I love cannabis yogis,” says Hannah Mason of Lit Yoga in Venice, where guest teachers are invited in for events such as a recent workshop about toning the endocannabinoid system through nutrition, sleep, and exercise. “There are so many different people who are drawn to this, and I think that’s the beauty of it—that we have this eclectic array of different voices, and it’s not all just the same perspective.”

“Now that it’s legal, people are so hungry for knowledge,” Nwosu says. “There’s so much to cover about cannabis. I want people to walk away with more understanding of cannabis as a plant spirit medicine, more understanding of how to incorporate it into their yoga practice, and more understanding of the different rituals, as they show up and share with community, to keep the resonance of the medicine elevated.”

Consuming cannabis piques our awareness that we are connected to the universe, to something greater than ourselves, which naturally fosters a sense of acceptance, says Freeport, Maine-based Selma Holden, a board-certified family physician who recently finished Harvard Medical School’s Integrative Medicine post-doctoral research fellowship, where she focused on prenatal yoga classes.

“The idea is for the person to have a moment of stillness and reflection, and then from that point be able to say, ‘Okay, based on where I am here now, and where I’m coming from, where do I want to move forward to?’ And that is when we invite in the cannabis in,” Holden explains.

In her Cannabis-Enhanced Yoga for Mindful Embodiment classes, Holden promotes mental, emotional, and physical flexibility. “We can view ourselves from a different vantage point, a new perspective,” she says, “which may lead to people finding creative solutions.”

That is without a doubt the spirit behind Marin, California-based Bliss Nectar Experience, which features yoga, tantra, and plant spirit meditation with heirloom cacao and cannabis medicines in ceremonial journeys. At Bliss Nectar Experience, co-creator Elizabeth Bast, who wrote Heart Medicine: A True Love Story, about a healing experience with the African sacred plant medicine iboga, is honoring traditional ceremonial wisdom by cultivating new cannabis traditions at home.

“Our intention for holding the sacred space is to bring people into a very high vibrational circle,” explains Bliss Nectar Experience co-creator Scarlet Ravin, founder of White Fox Medicine. “I make high tinctures and medicine offerings, so I bring the medicine to the yoga party or the meditation workshop, and Elizabeth holds the sacred space and creates the workshop structure. People get to see and feel the medicine as a sacrament. Once that imprint is in their soul, it’s in their soul.”

Bast is adamant about respecting cannabis as medicine. “When people just consume cannabis without pausing to honor or listen to the plant spirit, that is disrespectful,” she says. “It’s like she is being looked at like a sex object, like a piece of flesh, like they’re just using her body rather than tuning into the soul of a being, of a lover. If someone is just using you for your body, how much of yourself are you going to give to them? How much of your wisdom and your pearls?”

Ganjasana founder Rachael Carlevale, who has been leading cannabis yoga ceremonies in Colorado and around the world since 2015, believes cannabis is always the star of the show, the teacher and the guru. “When I lead ceremonies, I am just a guide,” she says. “The plants have the wisdom, and I’m just setting up a safe and sacred space for people to feel comfortable exploring in their own creative ways.”

Celina Archambault, founder of Plant Tigress in Vancouver, BC, says practicing yoga poses grounds participants when she leads intimate ceremonial circles with cannabis. “Yoga and meditation are the same thing as love, and I think the more we all start to step into this wave of love, the better our collective consciousness will be,” she says. “We have been disconnected to that for so long.”

Cannabis is useful in spiritual practice because it temporarily amplifies energy, says Stephen Gray, creative director at Spirit Plant Medicine in Vancouver, BC, and author of Cannabis and Spirituality: An Explorer’s Guide to an Ancient Plant Spirit. “Any practice that in itself can engender spiritual healing and awakening can be enhanced by the skillful inclusion of cannabis,” he says.

Miami-based Kenyatta Bell, founder of Root of Recovery, leads CBD and Sound Experiences, a workshop that encourages people to investigate the root of their addiction for a deeper recovery with a combination of yoga, meditation, and sound therapy. Because he has an “exaggerated” personal history with cannabis, and because his clients have histories of addiction, Bell works primarily with the non-psychoactive cannabinoid CBD. “The idea is to pair yogic breath work and sound with CBD,” Bell says, “which has been great for clients suffering with pain and inflammation and depression and anxiety.”

Bell says people walk out feeling euphoric after experiencing a journey that helps them physically and emotionally. “Many of my clients have no exposure or frame of reference for yoga or meditation, and it’s very intimidating for them. Any tool that can help them cope with life, reduce anxiety and stress, and walk in a world of sobriety has immeasurably value. Dosing with CBD helps them to relax, and helps stop the monkey mind.”

Chioma Nwosu Photographed by Jeff Skeirik/Rawtographer at Radha Yoga LA.

Coming Out for the Medicine

World-renowned yoga teacher Nicki Doane, co-founder of Maya Yoga in Maui, Hawaii, has resisted talking openly about her personal cannabis use for decades. Finally, she says, “public opinion is really so positive. I feel it’s time.” Though understandably nervous about “coming out” about her occasional use of cannabis in her private yoga practice—preferably when she’s out in nature—Doane believes “it’s time to shift the conversation, and it’s my truth. I use it.”

Doane has no interest in bringing cannabis into her classes and workshops because she doesn’t see it as a helpful part of the teacher-student dynamic, but she does take opportunities to educate yogis about the deep history of cannabis and yoga in India when she can. “Shiva threw one of his dreadlocks to the ground, and the herb plant sprang up, and that’s why all the Shaiva sadhus smoke cannabis as their sacrament. It’s definitely part of their meditation,” she says. “I love that story.”

The ancient synergy between cannabis and yoga is certainly not lost on Shivani Amin, an LA-based physician and cannabis expert who practices yoga and meditation. Amin was born in India, but that doesn’t mean her family was thrilled when she began working with cannabis as part of her practice. They were, in fact, concerned she could lose her medical license.

After Amin described some of cannabis’s medical benefits, her grandmother asked Amin to bring her some. “I said to myself, this is God’s way of saying, ‘Yes, child. This is what you’re supposed to do.’” Shivani sees cannabis as an expression of her heritage. “I am named after Lord Shiva,” she says, “and Lord Shiva uses ganja.”

“I think it’s really important for Indians to reclaim this medicine,” agrees LA-based Sheetal Narsai (aka Dr. Seeta), an Indian-American Ayurvedic doctor who practices yoga and meditates every day. “It’s been used for so many thousands of years, and we need to reclaim the sacred wisdom.”

For baby boomers like Susan Sheldon, a Massachusetts-based landscape architect and plantswoman who grows her own cannabis, the freedom to be out in the open with her cultivation and use has been nothing short of liberating. She loves teaching people how to cultivate their own medicine without worrying about getting arrested and ruining her family’s life, and she hopes more people will learn how to grow.

“I like to be under the influence of cannabis whenever I move,” Sheldon says. “Whether it’s yoga, authentic movement, technique class, or my improv dance class. I’m an open person, so it wasn’t fun leading a double life.”

Cultivating Cannabis Energy

Cultivating plants to incorporate into a yoga practice naturally creates a more reverent, attentive approach, says Kilham, who also grows his own in western Massachusetts. Kilham spends hours nurturing the plants in his garden, talking to them and feeling their energy flow. He says he’s convinced his cannabis is superior to anything he could find on the marketplace, and he also realizes that may be because of this relationship. “The deeper and more intimate the relationship you have with anything—whether it’s your yoga, your plants, or a turkey sandwich,” Kilham says, “the more valuable the moment is.”

Who grew the cannabis and what kind of energy they put into the process is also extremely important. Narsai considers growers’ intentions and the conditions plants are grown in to be crucial, which is why she encourages patients to work with cannabis they grow themselves or have grown for them. Though not everyone wants to, has time to, or has legal access to grow cannabis, it pays to be selective and support only growers committed to growing righteously. Voting with your dollar is especially important at this stage of cannabis liberation.

“The amount of respect you bring your plant, the better the quality of the plant,” says Holden, who is also a practicing herbalist. “Any farmer knows that.” Carlevale grows a specific genetic cultivar using regenerative methods in no-till living soil for her ceremonies because she wants everyone to work with the same plant medicine. “We’re all tuned to the same wavelength,” she says. “That really drives the medicine.”

My husband Chris Kilham and musician John Sheldon (Susan’s husband) have teamed up to host cannabis-empowered yogic mediations and ceremonies, and some of Susan’s homegrown will certainly be part of the offerings.

“When you work intentionally with a sacred plant—cannabis is a sacred plant—something happens,” Kilham says. “These agents in some way or another crack open our consciousness. They expand our minds. They give us greater mental, emotional, spiritual options. And they enhance our sensory acuity and tend us toward inspiration. And that inspiration may be something that we identify as ‘divine’.”

“Cannabis is interactive,” John Sheldon says. “The spirit of this plant gives you what you ask for. Your intention is reflected back. The way I see it, we are interacting.”

Learn More

Chioma Nwosu is offering a Cannabis 101 Ecannaflow class on 4/20 at 4:20pm at Radha Yoga, 2525 W Washington Blvd, LA: radhayogala.com Photos of Chioma Nwosu (chiomanwosu.com) by Jeff Skeirik/Rawtographer (rawtographer.com) at Radha Yoga LA (radhayogala.com). Clothing by TK. Hair and makeup by Monica Alvarez (monicaalvarezmakeup.com)

Zoe Helene

ZOE HELENE is a cultural activist who is unyielding in her fight for the rights of women, wilderness, wildlife, and sacred plants. She is the founder of Cosmic Sister, an eco-feminist educational advocacy group championing women’s healing, self-liberation, and empowerment through legal work with nature’s most profound medicines, including cannabis, ayahuasca, peyote, and psilocybin. (@CosmicSister)

zoehelene.com

The post High Relationship: Connecting Cannabis and Yoga appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Universal Mother by Martina Hoffmann

Visionary artist Martina Hoffmann describes her paintings and sculptures as “subtle reflections on the nature of women in a realistic style that marries the fantastic to the sacred.” Her art creates a visual language that reflects universal consciousness. “My work is an attempt to portray consciousness and love as unifying forces beyond the confines of cultural and religious differences. As a visionary and artist, I hope to shine some light on the interdependency of all life on this planet and its interconnectedness with the universe at large,” Hoffmann states.

For 30 years, Hoffmann co-created with her husband, visionary artist and fantastic realist Robert Venosa, who died of cancer in 2011. When Venosa was diagnosed in 2003, doctors gave him three months to live. The couple enjoyed another eight-and-a-half years together through their dedication to holistic, integrated healing approaches. A year before Robert’s departure, Hoffmann lost her father. Her home and studio were partially destroyed during the devastating Colorado floods in 2013, and she lost another close family member a year later. In 2015, she lost her mother. To recover from the trauma and many years of caregiving and work through the integration of these profoundly life-changing events, she took solace in her studio.

An outstanding new series of work began to emerge, leading her through grief to beautiful new beginnings.

Transmutations by Martina Hoffmann and Robert Venosa

“Transmutations” is a selection of Hoffmann’s and Venosa’s works portraying ayahuasca visions. It opens April 21, 2018, at the Museum HR Giger in Gruyères, Switzerland. Transmutations an extensive journey through other worlds and the inner landscapes of Hoffmann and Venosa. The exhibit includes a large selection of Hoffman’s earlier work inspired by shamanic journeys with sacred plant medicine in the Amazonian rainforest. It also includes recent paintings reflecting her experience moving through the “shadow” of loss and grief and the closing of a dark chapter and the opening of a new one “where light awaits.” A separate gallery will showcase a selection of Venosa’s best-known works. Works that express the full spectrum of his path as an artist, “from luminous, crystalline astral planes through to mesmerizing other-worldly landscapes.”

This is the first comprehensive exhibition that features the couple’s art side by side since Venosa died. It contextualizes the co-inspiration that both artists enjoyed and the mutual spiritual understanding they shared during their 30 year relationship. “Transmutations” explores the mysterious and essential nature of consciousness, expressed as energy, that exists in all living things.

I met Martina and Robert in 2008 at Sita Sitaramaya‘s now legendary Visionary Convergence in the Peruvian Amazon. It was where I first experienced ayahuasca during a trip with my husband, ethnobotanist and Medicine Hunter Chris Kilham. A giclée of Hoffmann’s brilliant, otherworldly Tree of Knowledge holds a place of honor in my studio, curiously reminiscent of my own ayahuasca journey visions. I recently had a chance to catch up with Martina to talk about her life’s journey and her exciting upcoming exhibition.

Speaking with Artist Martina Hoffmann

Zoe Helene: You’ve been focused on your studio work lately.

Martina Hoffmann: Yes. It was something I needed after the years of worries and caretaking for my father, Robert, and then my mom. Losing everybody pumped me empty, and I really needed to catch up with my work. I still receive a lot of invitations to teach, talk at conferences, and paint at the festivals, all of which I’ve always enjoyed very much. But for the last years, I’ve stepped away from many of these activities, mostly from teaching, which Robert and I did for so many years. It takes tremendous energy to support your students’ creative process. I felt that I needed to regenerate first before teaching again. Also, it was time to focus my energy inward and on personal creative expression.

That’s wonderful—and what it takes—and it’s showing in your newer pieces.

This a period of my work where I’m trying to come back from something. I was definitely traumatized by everything that happened. You can feel spiritually prepared for these types of losses and experiences. But nothing will ever prepare you for the harsh reality of hospitals and everything you have to deal with around your loved ones’ serious health issues – especially when you’re seeking integrated wellness options beyond typical Western medical approaches, including the work with shamanic journeys. Imagine accompanying a loved one for almost nine years to every doctor’s visit, dealing with every allopathic wall thrown in your face, having them call you crazy for not wanting to opt for surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy, and then having test results that prove that your choice was the right path for you.

Robert was given three months to live at his diagnosis. This was when we traveled to the Amazon—where we were with you and Chris. We knew he had cancer, but we decided to do the spiritual work and fine-tune our already healthy lifestyle. We ate exclusively organic (a lot of it raw), plus exercise, meditation, journeying, travel, huge doses of love and gratitude, living each day to the fullest, and creating a great deal of art. Everything was really a success.

But cancer can be an up and down journey, and you have no choice but to deal with the doctors and people who do not agree with your choices and life views. On a daily basis, I became Robert’s greatest ally in his healing journey and became his shield. Some of the scariest moments would be our regular calling in for blood test results. Sometimes he would say, “Can you please just call for that test? I just don’t have the courage today to do it.” Sometimes it was a good result, and sometimes it wasn’t. And the years and years and years of dealing with a looming cloud over your life is very stressful.

This factored into your work after Robert passed?

It all factored into my work, yes. Over the last few years, I think my work has been about confronting and integrating all of these experiences. I went into a dark hole for a while and really pulled back from the world to live in that space, and I feel my work has become even more authentic because of it all. It’s been my mirror, the mirror of my feelings and my journey through these shadow worlds, and my way of pulling myself through what I now know was a good-sized depression.

Aligning to the Realm by Martina Hoffmann

It’s normal and healthy to grieve. Are there any pieces that specifically speak to that?

Yes. For example, the painting Aligning to The Realm. It’s a friendly piece, but there’s a sort of looming entity in the background. I never felt threatened or completely incapable of functioning, but I definitely sensed there was this grief and trauma, and all these film-like memory sequences in my mind’s eye replaying everything that happened. Sometimes I would get into spaces where I felt a tangible energy, like a darkness trying to close me in. Often, I couldn’t put my finger on it, and I would think, “What happened to my life? I used to be such a happy-go-lucky woman, and my life was beautiful, and now all of that has changed.” I noticed some sort of a PTSD that was triggering certain strong responses to any form of stress, something I’d never experienced before.

This particular painting is called Aligning to The Realm. I named it because we can’t run away from what happens in life. The best thing I could do was stand my ground, focus in—knowing the guardians are present—and sail through it. “Aligning to the realm,” has become my mantra.

What do you mean by “the realm?”

I mean everything that makes up our physical and energetic reality. Everything that is part of our life as well as our larger reality, really. Not just the material, but also our expanded reality, the energetics, the vibrations, the spiritual connections, the guardians, the nature spirits, or however we connect in our practice.

Who is the woman standing in the painting Aligning to the Realm? The horned goddess? Would you say that is a depiction of yourself?

I think all artists always paint self-portraits. Whether they are actual depictions of our features or not, a painting is mostly about us. So yes, she’s an expression of myself. She’s very pagan, a little horned one, and wears her deer antlers and energy with pride. She’s naked and stands alone, but she has her snakes watching over her. I always see the snakes as my guardians.

I was going to ask you about the snakes—because of course, they’re the ancient goddess. They do tend to show up, especially with ayahuasca for some reason. As a child, I was always looking for critters, which I always released. Catching a snake was a big deal. But other than that, I didn’t really have much relationship with snakes aside from being a symbol.

It’s the same for me. While I think snakes are very beautiful, I don’t have any particular physical connection to live snakes. But they entered my awareness very prominently in my visions, during my first experiences with ayahuasca. They made such an impression that I now consider them spiritual guardians and allies. They hold powerful symbolism of transformational energy.

I experience snakes during ayahuasca ceremonies, too. I find it fascinating that so many people do. What’s that about?

Many indigenous painters, such as the late Peruvian ayahuasca shaman and visionary artist Pablo Amaringo, paint snakes. And he described and depicted the entire range of snake spirits inherent in ayahuasca mythology in his work. This was published in detail in Luis Eduardo Luna’s book Ayahuasca Visions. Personally, the moment I’d see a snake appear during a shamanic session, I knew the journey and the healing had begun.

Pablo was a good man. And yes, from what I understand from the indigenous ayahuasca healers, the snakes are aspects of the medicine communicating with the pasajeros. And for you, the snakes are also a personal totem and a death-and-rebirth symbol.

Yes, I believe so. As a November baby, they are also my animal totem in the native American medicine wheel. And since my first spirit encounter with them, they’ve really stayed with me. I trust them.

Tree of Knowledge by Martina Hoffmann

My past work was very much focused around translating and showing the language of ayahuasca. But I’ve not worked with the medicine for several years now and have not felt called lately. However, once the doors of perception have been opened, they remain so. Sacred plant teachers are sacraments and very powerful tools. They have a way of dissecting you and letting you visit all aspects of your being down to the deepest level, your shadow side included, so you may understand what you truly are and help remove any blocks that prevent you from becoming whole before they reassemble you.

I’m like you in that I don’t crave journeying with psychedelics. It’s more about intention—definitely quality, not quantity. And I need time to integrate fully and put the lessons to use in my life and do my work in the world.

There are many paths to expanding and gaining consciousness…and journey work is definitely not for everyone. But I feel it’s most essential to be doing our individual work in loving awareness of the interconnectedness of all life things and the interdependency of all parts of our ecosystem, if we truly wish to help human progression. There’s so much need for this right now. The changes we’re going through on a planetary level—that’s what’s really important to me.

Universal Mother by Martina Hoffmann

On that note, I’d love to hear your thoughts about where we are as a species and how we’re caring for the planet.

Well, personally, I feel positive in that I see many people — surprisingly from all walks of life — waking up these days, being quite aware about what’s going on and expressing concern. When I talk to people at the store, the outdoor food market, anywhere really, they know. People understand that we’re being poisoned by the chemical agents in the air, water, and soil.

Let’s talk about Universal Mother. It’s a masterpiece.

I would say it’s one of my most important paintings right now. I created her after my mom died, so a part of the energy I was putting into this piece is about the transmutation she underwent. The two phoenixes, symbols of rebirth, are guarding her throne. In my memory, she’ll always be my physical mother, but now she’s also become my universal mother. This piece is all about the feminine principle – and by feminine, I mean aspects present in all sexes. We can only move toward wholeness if we become all-inclusive.

More change happens with love and moderation than with fighting energy or aggression, even if it comes from women. Everything is easier when it’s achieved through love, hope, and inspiration. Depicting and supporting this in my art is my way of supporting all aspects of the feminine, material as well as spiritual, and is my authentic power.

Crest by Martina Hoffmann

Tell me about the Crest image. Is it new?

Yes, that’s very new. I created it with tempera and crayons on paper. Crest represents a scarab and is reminiscent of my trip to Egypt in 2013 with Nicki Scully. We took a small group down the Nile in an authentic Egyptian sailboat and stopped at every temple along the way to do initiations and rituals we created by visioning the night before each temple visit. I was blown so open at that time. It was just a few months after my husband’s passing. I was alone as well as free to create something new, and what better place to start than in this magical country where so much of our culture originates.

All my life I’d been feeling a strong attraction to Egypt, but nothing prepared me for this journey. As soon as the plane descended onto Cairo and I saw the vast stretches of dusty desert below, I felt like I was coming home! This little Crest drawing encapsulates a small portion of my amazement. The scarab symbolizes the death and rebirth cycle of life, my reliving many past life memories, remembering information that I had no intellectual knowledge of prior to my trip, and my personal rebirth into a brand-new phase of my life.

Contact by Martina Hoffmann

Your work is about visiting other worlds, visitors from other worlds, and envisioning the future. I grew up on good science fiction and futurism, so I’m very open to the idea of aliens. The idea makes perfect sense to me from a probability perspective. It’s foolish and arrogant to think we are the only intelligent life form in the vast universe.

Yes, and there are three new pieces that I feel are really related to this way of thinking. When writers and filmmakers imagine spacecrafts—UFOs and alien ships—coming to visit Earth, they’re often portrayed as some sort of mechanical/metal or material machine. Well, maybe there are other kinds of ships and other life forms? Maybe what we imagine to be space vessels are also the entities themselves, and they may be gaseous, energetic, or perhaps purely vibrational—there are so many possibilities! Whatever they may actually look like—should they really exist—perhaps they’d be completely unrecognizable to our eyes and human senses.

Detail of Contact by Martina Hoffmann

So, for the past few years, these fluid, translucent forms have been emerging in my work. It makes me wonder whether there is some actual truth to them. Perhaps these entities and vehicles of transportation are not machines at all but biological, alive, and conscious.

There’s a movie I really love called First Contact because the spaceship or the craft is very simple looking and organic at first sight. But it is infinitely more complex and “other” than we can imagine. Well, as it turned out, I painted my piece called Contact just before the movie came out and without knowing the specific nature of this biomechanical vessel as portrayed in the film. So, are we beginning to collectively tune into some energy that is already here with us, or are these visions of alien life forms that might be coming to visit soon?

The Arrival by Martina Hoffmann

Why not? Who knows? At the very least, these visions are emerging in the collective consciousness. Another one of my favorite new pieces is The Arrival.

In my most recent paintings, more and more of these forms are coming through that are—for lack of a better word—channeled. My art is always channeled. I don’t plan or question what I do; I just do it and trust that what needs to be expressed and manifested is emerging naturally. I’ve just completed a large triptych for the HR Giger Museum exhibition called The Landing, which represents a form akin to my paintings Alien Life Form and The Arrival. It’s translucent. It’s energy.

If you look at the workings of the body and of nature, it’s quite extraordinary. If you look under a microscope, for example, it’s very alien looking.

Oh yes, yes, and so much in deep visions of altered states of consciousness are of a fractal nature, but so are all forms of life and everything in the universe, the basic building blocks. Our cells, our bodies, and all of nature grows in fractal patterns.

The Landing by Martina Hoffmann

We just saw the movie Annihilation. It’s an ambitious movie, and some parts worked better than others, but what did work was truly remarkable. When the alien finally shows itself in its true form at the very end, it’s pure movie magic.

I’ve only seen the Annihilation trailer, but my first reaction was that I was looking, for the first time, at visionary art that was expressly created for the screen. Many science fiction and futuristic movies are getting closer to what is portrayed in visionary art or fantastic realism.

The movie Avatar was also inspired by major visionary artists, but Annihilation seems even more transcendent and alien, less material—more about energy and more about, what could life forms or other worlds really be and look like? The moviemakers also made a great effort to portray otherworldly energy, which is complex and complicated. I mean—how do you portray other worlds that are made of elements we don’t even have here on Earth?

How do you express a multidimensional space, unlike ours? We live in three dimensions, but perhaps they live in multiple dimensions—who knows how many? This is also something we may see during shamanic journeys.

Alien Life Form by Martina Hoffmann

The word “alien” actually means “other,” so when we’re talking about extraterrestrial, we’re talking about something so different that we don’t yet have language to describe it –not necessarily alien as in from another galaxy, but more alien in the sense of difficult for us to fathom.

I’ve often asked myself during my past shamanic journeys—especially when things were very visual—whether this was me or “other” as the visions often seem extremely alien, yet very familiar at the same time. I like the shamanic analogy that says the spirit worlds and our consensus reality are interconnected and everything in this reality has a spiritual counterpart. Here the other worlds are the true nature of things and the real cause of events in this world.

How do you connect yourself with such worlds or how do these things come in?

What I paint oftentimes has no basis in this reality at all. It just arrives. I can never be quite sure how.

Your newer work, especially, appears to be a poetic or archetypal depiction of something universally human coming from somewhere inside you.

Yes, totally. I agree. And it’s positive! It’s loving. I don’t know how other people see my art, but when I paint, whatever I do—even if it’s unusual or alien-looking or strange—I never feel that it holds aggressive, negative, nor evil energy. While it is definitely in the range of “other,” it is positive in the sense of no harm and keeps a certain aesthetic of beauty. I’ve never had an attraction to the grotesque.

The nightmarish.

I don’t like portraying nightmares. I know people have them, and I’m no stranger to knowing that those realities are very real to some people. Some even live in them perpetually. It’s interesting that I’m going to be showing at the HR Giger Museum because his (Hans Ruedi Giger’s) work depicts such a particularly dark realm. Yet the way he painted it was absolutely beautiful.

There was artistry to it.

It’s a gorgeous aesthetic, but it’s dark. I saw Giger the last time in 2012, and he passed away two years ago. He shared with us that he was worried about the possibility that after he left his body he would have to live in the reality that he created in his paintings. It will be very interesting to show my work and Robert’s—which is so much more filled with light—in juxtaposition to Giger’s.

Astral Circus by Robert Venosa

Tell me about the exhibition.

This exhibition came by invitation of Carmen Giger, HR Giger’s widow and the museum director. She too loves the psychedelic realm and is passionate about expansion of consciousness. The show will primarily show my art with a smaller but very comprehensive selection of Robert’s best-known work. It’s also going to show the co- and cross-inspiration that we had during our 30-year relationship.

I chose the title “Transmutations” because it’s the process of transmuting a body, spirit, or substance from an inferior nature to a noble nature. It was Robert’s desire to bring people towards the light, and it’s my desire to offer viewers visual gateways so they can open their eyes, hearts, and minds to other possibilities—because that’s what we need most right now. We need to break out of our conventional thinking that Earth on some level is still the center of the universe. We’ve known for the longest time this is not true, but we still often act like it is….

Like Earth is the center of the universe and humans are the most important beings on Earth?

Yes, and we create our own reality at all times, have the choice of whether we identify more with the shadow or the light side of things. In any event, we are just a small, yet important, part in an infinite universe of possibilities.

You are representing the medicine with your work. That’s important.

If we really want to advance visionary art and the consciousness attached to it, we have to be absolutely impeccable, show the world the most inspirational work possible, and put our best intentions and level of artistry forward.

What is your advice for young artists?

The most important thing is that you stick to your vision. Then work, work, work. Dedication, discipline, learn your techniques, and stick to your palate and do it. Robert used to say, “No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist.” And trust in your expression. Young artists are often easily dissuaded by outside criticism. A great artist has her own world and her own reality and reigns over her own magical space, which is a universe in itself. There’s only one like yours.

I guess what I always look for in all artists is, how authentic are they? You can tell by the way people talk about what they love to do. It takes a lot of spirit and determination to be an artist. It is also tremendously important to have a fine technique, but this by itself won’t suffice. To become an exceptional artist, it takes personality, persistence, and strength, and this takes time.

You’re in a beautiful new relationship with French visionary artist Pascal Ferry. Can you talk about that?

Pascal Ferry is an amazing human being and very talented artist as well! He started out as a musician (guitarist), then he founded a publishing company called Sidh & Banshees and represented 35 international visionary artists for 14 years. He’s returned to painting and is catching up on all the years he gave his energy to promoting others, and now his energy stays home with him.

When we met, I was still grieving for Robert, but we felt a deep connection. When we saw each other a year later, we were ready to look into giving us a try, and it worked. We got so lucky! When I met Pascal, he told me he had “met” me 23 years before, via Robert’s book Noospheres and the portraits Robert had painted of me. Pascal felt that magical something immediately. But when he read the book and realized I was married to the artist and lived in the USA, he resigned to never meeting me in this life.

Well, fate obviously had other ideas. And we both feel we met through Robert’s wise and well-prepared introduction. Even more astounding is that Pascal amicably separated from his partner of 27 years the week Robert transitioned—destiny, angels, guides? Both of our previous relationships are well integrated and included in our relationship. There is no jealousy nor competition, just love. And true love remains eternal!

Transmutations at The Museum HR Giger

The Museum HR Giger is delighted to invite you to the exhibition
Martina Hoffmann & Robert Venosa
Transmutations
“Transmutation; the process of a body or spirit changing its substance from the Inferior to the ‘Superior’ through technical (alchemical) and/or spiritual (initiatory) means.”
Further information at: www.hrgigermuseum.com

Transmutations

“Transmutation is the process of a body or spirit changing its substance from an ‘inferior nature’ to a ‘noble nature’ through technical (alchemical) and/or spiritual (initiatory) means.”
This exhibition takes the viewer on an extensive journey through other worlds and Martina Hoffmann’s and Robert Venosa’s inner landscapes. It is distributed into three galleries: The first represents Hofmann’s earlier work which was inspired by shamanic practices with sacred plant medicines in the Amazonia Rainforest. These images are executed in a rather colored, symbolic style; they are her interpretations of powerful Ayahuasca visions, as experienced in indigenous, South American rituals.

The second gallery shows her more recent paintings which have been created in darker tones, reflecting the artist’s personal experience with the ‘shadow,’ namely, working through loss and grief and showing the light that remains present throughout it all.

Martina Hoffmann’s art is decidedly feminine. It places the human being and his/her confrontation with ‘the other’ in an intimate cosmos where the awareness of our connection to the Universal Matrix allows us to discover the tools for healing and transmutation. She transcribes her ecstatic experiences, as well as her subtle reflections on our place in the universe, in a symbolic, visionary style where the fantastic touches the sacred.

The third exhibition gallery features a selection of works by Martina Hoffmann’s late husband, the Fantastic Realist painter, Robert Venosa. Representing different periods of his artistic path, they span from his early work of luminous, crystalline astral planes, through other-worldly landscapes, to his mesmerizing Ayahuasca visions.

The exhibition, “Transmutations,” shows the co-inspiration that both artists enjoyed and the mutual spiritual understanding they shared during their 30-year relationship. It also explores the mysterious and essential nature of consciousness, expressed as energy, that exists in all living things.

Zoe Helene

ZOE HELENE is a cultural activist who is unyielding in her fight for the rights of women, wilderness, wildlife, and sacred plants. She is the founder of Cosmic Sister, an eco-feminist educational advocacy group championing women’s healing, self-liberation, and empowerment through legal work with nature’s most profound medicines, including cannabis, ayahuasca, peyote, and psilocybin. (@CosmicSister)

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The post Love, Loss, and Aliens: The Art of Martina Hoffmann appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

She now sees that she was too trusting and open with the shamans, and within the first three months of her visit to the Peruvian jungle, Soukalova had “some highly questionable and sexually inappropriate incidents” with one of them. She realized that “the shamans were not enlightened beings but normal men—some abusing their powers as healers.” This, of course, played perfectly into the very wounds Souklava was trying to heal.

Zuzanna Buchwald in the sweltering jungle heat by a secluded tambo (solo hut) at Nihue Rao. Photo by Tracey Eller.

Souklava was fortunate. She was able to leave the unethical shaman and find ethical female shamans who brought a warmer, more nurturing energy to ayahuasca ceremonies. She found profound healing and is now sharing her healing story with people from around the world at Temple of the Way of Light, a women-centered ayahuasca healing center in the Peruvian Amazon. She’s also speaking out about her experience with the predatory shaman in hopes of helping women distinguish between highly trained, experienced, ethical and loving shamans and poorly trained or imitation shamans, as well as how to recognize any shaman who wants power, money, control, fame, or sex. As ayahuasca becomes a global phenomenon, fame and fortune can corrupt even highly trained, experienced shamans.

Nihue Rao’s traditional ayahuasca is small-batch artisan-crafted on site. Photo by Tracey Eller.

Altered States + Consent

Ayahuasca is a powerful hallucinogenic blend of at least two plants native to the great Amazon, the ayahuasca or caapi vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and the leaf of chakruna (Psychotria viridis). Additional Amazonian medicinal plants are sometimes added but these two plants must be present for the medicine to work: the caapi vine, which contains a group of MAO-inhibiting (monoamine oxidase) compounds called beta carbonline alkaloids, and at least one DMT-containing companion plant such as chakruna. Drinking ayahuasca puts people into a vulnerable altered state where, in a safe set and setting, they can make powerful personal discoveries. As with other powerful “sacred plant” medicine traditions, the Vine of the Soul has emerged from its native Amazonia and is now practiced around the world.

Sex with a shaman while under this influence, or even within a certain time range of having partaken of that brew and ceremony, can never be consensual. Sitaramaya, a Los Angeles-based plantswoman and Shipibo-trained shamanic practitioner, agrees. “When you’re working with a shaman, there’s no consent because you’re under the influence of a psychoactive potion and the enchantment of the shaman,” she says.

There’s no shortage of authentic male Amazonian shamans with strong codes of ethics. Sadly, however, there are also far too many who are masters at seduction and coercion. The abuses they carry out range from fondling or groping people during ceremonies, to inappropriate romantic relationships, to rape. Women, men, and transgender people can all be dramatically affected by the experience.

Writer and speaker Lily Kay Ross, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, has spoken out about her experience at the hands of a prominent ayahuasca shaman in Ecuador because she wants people to know what could happen if they unwittingly put themselves into the hands of a sexual predator. Ross says she was drugged with a brew heavily dosed with toè (Brugmansia), a plant rich in psychoactive tropane alkaloids, and then sexually assaulted for several weeks. “Consent hinges on the ability to give consent,” she says. “There are a number of things that can impede that, though perhaps none so obviously as mind-altering substances.”

Toè is a dangerously powerful psychedelic that can dramatically increase suggestibility. “The tropane alkaloids in toé are very potent, fast-acting, extremely poisonous, and powerfully hypnotic,” says ethnobotanist and medicine hunter Chris Kilham, author of The Ayahuasca Test Pilots Handbook (and my husband). “They work directly on the central nervous system. Too much toe’ can kill you. As a date-rape drug, it would be like being in a nightmarish funhouse.”

Toè is a Master Plant that has been used in South American Andean and Amazonian shamanic practice for centuries and is part of the tradition. The term “Master Plant” refers to “teaching plants” with powerful healing properties. “Like many medicines, this plant shows great value,” Kilham says, “But it must be handled with extraordinary care.” A small amount of toè may be fine under the guidance of an ethical master shaman such as Don Alberto Torres Davila of Blue Morpho, who understands that a little toe goes a (very) long way. Considered to be one of the most powerful healers in the Ucayali River region, Alberto mindfully oversees the creation of each artisan batch of ayahuasca—with exquisite results. I cherish the healing visions that I experienced in his care.

Ayahuasca is an intense experience. Everything that happens while you are “in the medicine” takes on greater significance. Ross says being in a state of openness and receptivity to suggestion, stimulus, and sensation when she was sexually assaulted deepened the wound.

Cosmic Sister Plant Spirit Grant recipient Julia Moore at Nihue Rao’s Medicine House. Photo by Tracey Eller.

Setting Sex Aside

Since 1971, Kilham has taught yoga to thousands of people across the world, and he recognizes that people are vulnerable to spiritual advisors of all types. “Spirituality is our core essence,” he says. “The multi-layered aspects of vulnerability make that a circumstance in which you should not have any overlay of sexual engagement. In this situation, it’s fundamentally unwise and potentially injurious to engage sexually. To avoid any possibility of that, you just eliminate sex from the equation entirely. In doing so, you make the spiritual engagement safer.”

A key part of the experience at ayahuasca retreats is participating in la dieta, which calls for abstaining from ingesting alcohol, caffeine, and certain foods such as salt and sugar and from engaging in any sexual activity for a certain period before, during and after ceremony (including the full time at the retreat). In the medicine space, people often seek help with relationship and sexual issues, and engaging in sex can damage or distract from the healing process.

Avoiding sex during la dieta is purifying and prevents your energy from getting tangled up with someone else’s while you’re sorting through your own body, mind, spirit and heart during ceremony, says Dr. Joe Tafur, a medical doctor, shaman, and co-founder of Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual. He warns that having sex while taking ayahuasca affects the visions, interferes with the medicine, and could have lasting repercussions. “You might end up having to work through some other kind of healing process. So then, you just wasted a healing opportunity and created the need for another one.”

Some people experience ayahuasca as an aphrodisiac—and there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as they don’t act on it while at the retreat center. “Increased libido and more chi flow in your body is considered a sign of health,” Tafur says. “But like in many other spiritual traditions, the idea here is that you can let that energy flow through you and build and raise up your chakras—and then at the appropriate time it will be there for you.”

Abstaining from sex in this case is simply part of the ground rules and must be respected, Kilham says. “We have so many opportunities in life to engage in sexual activity. If the impulse is genuine I-have-met-my-soul-mate material, then it can wait.”

Ayahuasca maloka in the moonlight. Photo by Tracey Eller.

Shaman as Predator

Ayahuasca delivers transformative effects, and many people have found the experience profoundly healing. As is the case with many spiritual or transformational experiences, it’s all too easy to confuse the profound healing la medicina delivers with the shaman who helped deliver it. As a result, people may open up and trust someone who might not have their best interests at heart, leading to devastating feelings of betrayal and confusion, and even post-traumatic stress disorder.

Soukalova speaks of witnessing beautiful young women who gave away their power to men they wouldn’t have had the time of day for outside the retreat center. The sinister shamans convinced the vulnerable, susceptible young women that they were special, “the chosen one,” she says.

But predators don’t always look or feel like creepy guys in the movies. On the contrary—they’re often charming and charismatic. “Seduction in this context is part of a larger predatory repertoire, one of many tools along with manipulation, promises of spiritual, emotional, even physical healing, and the administration of substances known to elicit strong feelings of sexual desire,” says Ross. “It’s a weighty tool belt these shamans are carrying.”

When an unethical shaman recognizes behaviors that identify an individual as vulnerable, she or he becomes prey. “They use their energy—like vampires—then drop them when they are no longer useful,” says Los Angeles-based integrative psychiatrist Dr. Hyla Cass. “This was a real problem in the early years of gurus and yoga—it was all pandemonium with no boundaries, and women were being screwed left and right, literally. These guys would come over from India and get all this attention and had no idea what to do with it except to exploit it, and they left a lot of damage in their wake. There is no difference now with abusive shamans.”

This is still going on in the yoga community, with several notable rape and sexual harassments lawsuit stories currently in the news. In the United States we have laws in place to protect and defend victims of sexual harassment when it comes to doctors, teachers, bosses and so forth, but there are no comparable laws to discourage perpetrators in a mostly underground shamanic scene. What we’re looking at here is a rapidly-expanding community of truth-seekers being called to explore a profound mind-body-spirit wellness experience, converging with a motley menagerie of fools, woo-woo wannabes, or predators who have no business leading ceremonies seeking vulnerable prey.

Candlelight in the maloka (ayahuasca ceremonial space). Photo by Tracey Eller.

Boundaries Are Crucial

Attraction to charismatic leaders in positions of power is part of being human—it is not “wrong.” It’s far too easy, however, for vulnerable women with histories of sexual abuse to confuse this “strong energy connection” with love, says Cass. If a shaman attempts to seduce you, it doesn’t make you special. It makes you a target. Shamans who demand sex, additional money, agency or connections, Sitamaraya adds, “are not doing their job.”

A history of sexual abuse “often leads to blurred boundaries,” which makes people more vulnerable to predators, says Tafur. Sexual advances from a shaman can be especially confusing, which is why strict rules are in place about sex between licensed therapists and patients, teachers and students, bosses and employees, et cetera. It is why there are codes of ethics in the yoga community about sex in professional settings. “It comes with the territory,” Cass says. “It may look like consenting adults but on an unconscious level in those kinds of relationships, there is another script going on that’s exploitative. It is not love; it is not a relationship of equals.”

Seduction takes two. Kilham says people have an obligation to find another shaman if they suspect they’re being preyed upon. “Your own sense of your self-preservation should kick-in and lead you elsewhere,” he says. Ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna, author of Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss, agrees. “There’s a certain responsibility on both sides,” he says. “Trying to seduce the shaman is also inappropriate and unhealthy.”

DreamGlade’s Shaman Estella smokes mapacho, a potent Amazonian tobacco, considered to be a sacred plant and master teacher, and used in protective “soplars”. Photo by Tracey Eller

Women-Led Ceremonies

Souklava believes the women-led ceremonies at Temple of the Way of Light provide an extra layer of safety and comfort for women—particularly those who have sexual issues to heal. Annie Oak, co-founder of the Women’s Visionary Congress, concurs. “Participants of all genders tell us that they welcome working with a woman ceremonial leader,” she says. Carlos Tanner, founder of Ayahuasca Foundation, has found that as well. “Some people’s issues are deeply rooted in gender, and for those people, it seems like being in a place they feel safe is really important and really helpful,” he says.

Stacy Stephen Povey, founder of the Peruvian Amazon ayahuasca retreat center Dreamglade, has heard many reports of male shamans abusing female guests and spoken personally with several women about their traumatic experiences, leading him to hire Shipibo Maestra Estella Pangosa Sinacay, a female shaman. “I really like having a feminine energy in the ceremonies here, and I even designed the maloka (ceremonial hut) with that in mind. With Estella at the helm, our ceremonies have a warm maternal vibe.”

Cosmic Sister Plant Spirit Grant recipient Julia Moore, a recent sustainable food systems graduate and organic flower farmer, enjoying a refreshing ritual shamanic “flower bath” at Nihue Rao before ceremony. Photo by Tracey Eller

THE REWARDS ARE WORTH THE RISK

Ayahuasca can be an extraordinary, life-changing experience. If ayahuasca is right for you, you should have safe access to the adventure. My intention is to empower through information, advice and warnings so women can enter the ayahuasca space with a better understanding of sexual ethics and what is expected of them, the shaman, and other individuals in the surrounding community.

Understand cultural divides. Amazonian and Western cultures have different attitudes toward boundaries, sex and women. Soukalova describes Amazonian culture as “very macho, often chauvinist” and warns travelers to “take responsibility for the signals you send out. Be extremely cautious about offering friendly affection towards male healers (hugging or kissing).”

Do your homework. Research. Ask questions. Investigate. It’s a mistake to show up in Iquitos (or anywhere) and start looking for a shaman or the least expensive retreat available. Reputable ayahuasca healing centers carefully select highly trained, experienced, ethical healers and work hard to ensure a protected space. They book out months in advance. “Network to find out which are the good places and which are the bad ones,” McKenna advises. “You need to know what you’re getting into.”

Pay attention to the shaman. Walk away from shamans who claim to have special powers, thrive on authority and praise, or boast about their ancestry, lineage or power. “Authentic shamans tend to be very humble, quiet, and unassuming,” Soukalova says.

Pay attention to the brew. Always ask what ingredients are used to make the ayahuasca brew. Use extreme caution when drinking ayahuasca that has been made using toè (Brugmansia), a powerful psychedelic that can dramatically increase suggestibility. “Toé is not necessary for you to have a full and powerful ayahuasca experience,” Kilham says.

Focus on your intention. The medicine works better when you set an intention. Ayahuasca can be an intense, wild ride that can bring healing, inspiration, clarity, and revelation. Intentions help keep you safe, can help guide your journey, and serve as a centering mantra within the chaos. “It’s always about the intention,” Sitamaraya says.

Prepare yourself. Try not to take old, unhealthy patterns with you into ceremony. “Do your inner work about your sexual and intimacy issues, or they will pop up in in the Amazon, and acting them out there is not advised,” Cass says. If you feel that you are vulnerable to sexually based self-destructive behaviors, ask someone you trust for help.

Respect the agreement. The basic dieta includes abstaining from any form of sexual activity. That’s the agreement. Respect yourself and others by sticking to it. “First is to respect the diet and the healing process,” says Tafur. “Wait till your diet is closed.” When in doubt, wait until you are deep in the medicine and ask the ayahuasca, “What is this really about?” You will likely receive a jewel of wisdom.

Stick together. Find a buddy while you’re traveling and at the retreat center and keep an eye out for each other. Discuss in advance what one person should do if the other appears to be in danger of being targeted or is showing signs of self-destructive behavior. “Let each other know what types of issues should be red flags and promise each other to speak honestly and frankly about what you’re seeing if you think that something is off,” Sitaramaya advises.

Protect your space. While at the retreat, protect yourself and your personal space. Trust your intuition. If something doesn’t feel safe—walk away. If anyone encourages unhealthy choices (such as sex with the shaman), you are in a dangerous place. “Your best recourse is to remove yourself from the situation as soon as possible,” says Ross.

Allow time to integrate. Post-ayahuasca integration is a vital phase of the process. Turn down sexual or romantic advances from any person during your time at the retreat and preferably for at least a week afterward, if not longer. Allowing ample time to integrate your ayahuasca experience and the brew to be fully out of your system is the smart thing to do. “Take special care of your physical and mental state,” advises Oak.

Zoe Helene

ZOE HELENE is a cultural activist who is unyielding in her fight for the rights of women, wilderness, wildlife, and sacred plants. She is the founder of Cosmic Sister, an eco-feminist educational advocacy group championing women’s healing, self-liberation, and empowerment through legal work with nature’s most profound medicines, including cannabis, ayahuasca, peyote, and psilocybin. (@CosmicSister)

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Visionary Convergence in Los Angeles, September 25 – 27, 2015, at the Big Art Church in Hollywood, visit plantteachers.com or #VisionaryConvergence for more information. 

Sitaramaya by Tracey Eller

I first met plant teacher and shamanic practitioner Sitaramaya Sita at the now legendary Amazon Convergence she produced in the Peruvian Amazon, back in 2008. My ethnobotanist husband, Chris Kilham, was one of many experts invited to speak at the gathering. He recalls it as “a nine-day, take-no-hostages gathering that stands as one of the great psychedelic conferences of our lives.” I had my first ayahuasca experience there, lying with my sweetheart under the light of a full jungle moon, and I remember Sita coming over to my mat and whispering in my ear, “Take more Zoe time.” Spot on. Still working on that.

Sita has many gifts, and one is bringing gifted people together. This month she’s doing it again—at the Big Art Church in Hollywood. We won’t be drinking ayahuasca this time, but the Visionary Convergence Los Angeles promises to be another magical happening to remember. Sita is bringing visionaries, doctors, scientists, researchers, authors, spiritual teachers, healers, therapists, psychologists, filmmakers, visual artists and plant people together to celebrate a collective passion for the power of plants and to cultivate awareness in entheogenic, medicinal, and visionary plants such as ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, iboga, peyote, cannabis, San Pedro cactus, and other sacred medicines—a plant spirit tribal gathering, for sure.

Plant spirit—an element that Sita says is missing from synthetically produced medicines—will be a major topic of conversation at Convergence because Sita believes that connecting to and learning from plants is essential to health and wellness. “The spirits of the plants speak to the spirit inside ourselves, setting the stage for wholeness,” she says.

Ayahuasca Vine of the Soul by Tracey Eller

For Sita, producing Convergence is a calling. When she presented at The World Ayahuasca Conference in Spain a year ago, she looked around and saw people from all over the world coming together around ayahuasca, and it came like a flash. “I saw the vine weaving her way across the globe,” she says, “and I realized, here I am in Ibiza, and there’s Breaking Convention in London and Horizons in New York and MAPS in Oakland, but nothing is happening in Los Angeles—and I live in Los Angeles!” Years ago Sita got a message that she should be working in her own backyard, but she hadn’t understood what that meant until that moment. This gathering needs to happen in Los Angeles, she says, because “communities here tend to be fragmented.”

The conference is also an opportunity for Sita to address issues that have troubled her at other conferences: the heavy weight on academic research (complete with PowerPoint), presentations dominated by “middle-aged white guys,” and a lack of artists and practitioners who work with the plants. At Visionary Convergence L.A., more than half the presenters are women, and we’ll hear from serious academics and practitioners, plant people and field researchers who are working with sacred plants, and visionary artists who will share their work. This blend of the arts and sciences is all part of creating community and discovering common ground—with intelligent, informed, lively dialogue as the focus. “If we want to create a new paradigm, we need to create a new paradigm,” Sita says.

WOMEN OF THE PSYCHEDELIC RENAISSANCE

I can’t wait to meet some of the powerful women that Sita is bringing to Convergence and hear what they have to say. There are so many!

Ethnobotanist Kathleen “Kat” Harrison, the keynote speaker, is the first person Sita invited to present. Harrison has been working for more than 30 years with the Mazatec people and mushrooms and plants in Oaxaca, Mexico, and sees psychedelic plant and mushroom rituals as part of our relationship to nature. Love this. She also stewards an extraordinary Ethnobotanical Forest-Garden on the Big Island of Hawaii. “Kat Harrison is a treasure, and I want everyone to know that,” Sita says.

Leanna Standish, a physician and neuroscientist specializing in naturopathic oncology, teaches at the School of Naturopathic Medicine at Bastyr University, a science-based natural medicine university emphasizing mind/body/spirit integration and nature in wellness. She has spearheaded laboratory research to standardize ayahuasca preparations so she can seek FDA approval for clinical studies in the United States. In her talk, “Ayahuasca and Consciousness Science,” Leanna will ask questions like, “What is the nature of reality?” Sita says that Standish understands the value of ayahuasca—including the ceremonial aspect—which is pretty phenomenal for someone who’s coming from the viewpoint of neuroscience.

Annie Oak, founder of Women’s Visionary Congress and the Full Circle Tea House (@fullcircletea) in San Francisco, is an independent researcher and longtime supporter of women in the psychedelic movement. “She’s willing to address sexual misconduct—the dark side of the movement that people don’t want to talk about—head-on without censorship,” Sita says. Sex and shamanism is a sensitive and complex multi-cultural issue, but we must talk about it, even if the conversation isn’t popular. I’m grateful to Annie for being a sister who speaks out for others.

Peyote (Lophophora Williamsii) Photo by Kedsirin Jaidee

I’m also intrigued by German-Mexican psychotherapist Anja Loizaga-Velder, a clinical psychologist who has been studying and researching psychotherapy and the ceremonial use of psychedelic sacred plants for more than 20 years. She and her partner have an organization called Nierika in Mexico for the preservation of indigenous traditions and ceremonial use of sacred plants, and she works extensively with the Huichol people and peyote. She also works with ayahuasca in ceremony and will share her research on ayahuasca and eating disorders at Convergence. It’s great to see someone focusing on this.

Psychotherapist Susana Bustos, who teaches psychology and entheogenic shamanism at the California Institute of Integral Studies in Berkeley, is on the cutting edge of entheogenics use in psychotherapy. She’ll discuss her research and field work on the effects of song (icaros) and plant diets on healing processes. “Susana also understands how important it is to take care of people after the ayahuasca experience once they come home, so a lot of her focus is on integration,” Sita says.

Nihue Roa Moloka Day by Tracey Eller

Cvita Mamic, a visionary artist and medicine woman and co-founder of Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual, an ayahuasca healing center in Peru, will also present. I’ve only met Cvita once, but I was impressed by her feminine creativity, strength and wisdom. “Her artistic vision and deep understanding of non-linguistic expressions and work in the dreamtime has been a vital competent of Nihue Rao’s success and vital – literally, life giving—to the people who have been treated there,” Sita says.

MEDICINE MEN

And of course, Sita also invited impressive and progressive medicine men to present.

Integrative psychiatrist Dan Engle, a brilliant and caring man, will be there. Engle, the medical director at Temple of the Way of Light ayahuasca healing center in Peru, is driven to find ways to treat psychiatric patients without pharmaceuticals at a time when “psyche drug” abuse in the U.S. mental health industry is at an all-time high. I met him last year at Temple and look forward to reconnecting.

Our friend Joe Tafur, co-founder and medical director at Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual, will talk about the astounding work that he’s doing to bridge the U.S. medical system with spiritual healing through sacred plants and ceremony. He has experienced and researched ancestral healing practices in South America and Africa and trained extensively in the Shipibo system of medicine practice. “Joe has a foot in both worlds, both here and in Peru, and he walks those two dual paths with integrity,” Sita says. Joe is a welcome presence in the maloka when the brew is muy fuerte.

Anthropologist Jeremy Narby, author of The Cosmic Serpent, who was also at the first Convergence in the Amazon, will Skype in (he’s working on a new book), and my husband, Chris, whose book The Ayahuasca Test Pilot’s Handbook was released this year, will be there too. I could sing his praises, of course, but Sita did it for me. “Chris is a true visionary, pioneer and renegade—and we need those people,” she says. “He’s on the frontline, out there in the jungle and trying that plant and talking to the locals and seeing, feeling, tasting, touching, being with the plants and the people. And he doesn’t bat an eyelash in terms of using his visibility for what he believes in. Isn’t that what we all want to be doing?” (All that, and he makes a a wicked cup of Sativa Chai. I’m biased, but I think I got one of the good ones.)

Cannabis is a sacred plant. Photo by Chris Kilham

CANNABIS LIBERATION

Sita expects a lot of conversation about how cannabis has stewarded humans’ spiritual evolution throughout the ages and included a strong show of experts from the cannabis liberation front. Norton Arbeláez, an attorney who founded one of Colorado’s largest medical cannabis companies, RiverRock, will help us to understand new regulatory approaches to plant medicine, with a special focus on cannabinoid medicine. He also has a deep understanding of heritage strains. Robyn Griggs Lawrence, who advocates for cannabis from the “food as medicine” perspective, will talk about cannabis as a culinary herb and superfood. (My husband is a featured chef in her new cookbook, The Cannabis Kitchen Cookbook, a gourmet cannabis chefs’ collective.)

And then there’s ethnobotanist Kat Harrison. I’m especially looking forward to her talk, “Who Is Cannabis?” Harrison will talk about cannabis’s role and persona in personal and cultural experience and what she offers our times. Ethnobotany is the study of the relationship between plants and people, and human cultures throughout time have perceived powerful species, including plant species, as beings. “Sacred plants” fall into that category.

Sacred Plant Mandala. Visionary Art by Stuart Griggs

LANGUAGE OF THE SOUL

The presentations promise to be fascinating, but as Sita envisioned, there’s a lot more to Convergence than that.

In the world of sacred plants and psychedelics, ceremonial visions and messages often come to us in the universal language of the soul. Sita says that when she’s “really dialing into the energetic connection” in a work of art, “no words are necessary.” She thinks it opens up a part of our way of knowing that is often dormant.

More than 50 works will be on display at Convergence by visionary visual artists including Amanda Sage, Stuart Griggs, Dave Zaboski, Coe Kitten, and Anderson Debernardi, Luis Tamani and Mauro Reátegui Perez from the rainforests of Peru (ask Mauro to show you his paintings with a black light flashlight).

Los Angeles native and frame drum artist Miranda Rondeau (Facebook: MirandaRondeauMusic) will play and sing—which Sita says “is really channeling, phenomenal and totally inspired.” And TEDx poet Rachel Kann, a modern-day mystic, will perform. “She’s about bringing the poetry back to our lives,” Sita says. And, wow! Los Angeles-based Tony Moss and the LuvAmp Project will be the Saturday night concert. This artists’ collective is a love-fest that Sita describes as “medicine music” at the core. Moss takes a group of young people down to the Peruvian Amazon every year as part of his I.AM.LIFE youth empowerment project, and some of them will be serving tea made from Guayusa, a sacred plant from the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest, at Convergence.

I’m happy to report that Sita also paid conscious attention to the food we’ll be eating. As a vegetarian foodie, I’m thrilled that organic chef Sarah Brewer will provide deliciously nutritious vegan and non-vegan meals made from locally sourced and humanely raised ingredients. Brewer, who worked as a chef at an ayahuasca center in the Amazon, understands that food is artful medicine. “Her cooking is about consciousness, and her esthetic is exquisite,” Sita says.

Three days in L.A. Another great psychedelic conference not to be missed. And this time you can be there, too!

For more information on Visionary Convergence in LA September 25 – 27, at Big Art Church, 4975 West Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027, visit www.plantteachers.com. With interest in psychedelics and cannabis at an all-time high, remaining tickets will go quickly.

Artist and environmental activist Zoe Helene (@zoehelene) is passionate about promoting and connecting kindred-spirit trailblazers in mutually supportive ways. Through Cosmic Sister (@cosmicsister) advocacy projects, she helps communicate messages of love, liberty, and informed pro-activism. Zoe is a devoted wildlife advocate and woman of the Psychedelic Renaissance.

Zoe Helene

ZOE HELENE is a cultural activist who is unyielding in her fight for the rights of women, wilderness, wildlife, and sacred plants. She is the founder of Cosmic Sister, an eco-feminist educational advocacy group championing women’s healing, self-liberation, and empowerment through legal work with nature’s most profound medicines, including cannabis, ayahuasca, peyote, and psilocybin. (@CosmicSister)

zoehelene.com

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