[My web pal Peter Gorman has asked me to run a quite lengthy series he has been working on that covers a quarter century of adventure in the Peruvian Amazon. For those of you who don't know of Peter, he is a journalist, explorer and an adventurer. He's the man Penthouse magazine called the "Real Life Indiana Jones" and once you read about his adventures I'm sure you'll agree. His writing has appeared in over 100 well known magazines and newspapers, he's collected artifacts for the American Museum of Natural History and worked on consulting assignments for National Geographic Explorer and BBC's Natural World. This series will be run in at least five parts, and its length and subject matter may be a delight to some and a challenge to others. No matter what you believe or where you come from though, Gorman's writing is incredibly entertaining and this work is the telling of an adventure, the equal of which few are able to utter. I am proud to bring you this tale of Peter Gorman's 25 years of shamanism in the jungles of Peru. Visit his website at pgorman.com and read his blog here. -NP]
[Part 2 of the series is here.
Couple of months ago John S from Non-Prophet ran a piece of mine dealing with shamanism in Peru, from my experience. I think it was a good piece and I'm happy he put it up. Right now I'm in the middle of a series called--maybe lamely--25 Years of Shamanism--which was the name of a talk I was to give in July in Iquitos, Peru at the 3rd Annual Shaman Conference there. Unfortunatly, I fell pretty ill the day I was to speak and after an emergency and life-saving operation, couldn't. So I've begun writing a series on what I meant to speak about. John S has graciously agreed to run it on his Non-Prophet site, which gets a lot more hits than my 80 hits per day on my site. And us writers like to be read. So read this thing. It may not answer all the questions you have about South American Ayahuasca curanderos or ayahuasca as a medicine, but it might answer a few. And I'm thrilled that someone thinks it's worth picking up.
25 Years of Shamanism (Part 1)
By Peter Gorman
I was asked to speak at the 2007 3rd Annual Conference on Shamanism in Iquitos Peru, as I’ve been asked the previous two years. This year, unfortunately, I had emergency surgery in the very hotel where the conference was being held just two hours before I was to make my presentation. As a result, I was weak, in pain, on painkillers and simply unable to speak.
Had I been able to give my talk, these are some of the points I would have liked to make concerning my very long—25-year—apprenticeship to the very kind and wonderful curandero Julio Jerena (spelled Llerena in Spanish).
Apprenticeship might be an exaggeration: I was introduced to Julio in 1985, the year after I drank my first cup of Ayahuasca with a curandero named Alphonso, and over the course of the next two decades drank with him sometimes once a year, sometimes 10 times a year. We had no structure—I’d never heard of an ayahuasca dieta until probably three or four years ago—and Julio never suggested I come and stay with him to drink regularly. I’d simply show up, and if he was available, he’d make me ayahuasca the following day, after which I’d generally return to Iquitos or head further up the Auchyacu, the little river he lived on some 212 kilometers upriver from Iquitos. But whatever I was doing, wherever I was exploring in Peru’s Amazonia, I always made a point of visiting Julio, generally at the start of a trip, but sometimes at the end as well. And during those three years when I lived in Iquitos, 1998 through 2000, I sometimes went to visit him once a month or more.
So it wasn’t a formal apprenticeship at all. I wasn’t trying to become a curandero: I didn’t want to live on the Auchyacu and fish for my dinner out of a dugout canoe like he did, while ministering the 20 or so families who lived on the river. They’d come to him with all manner of ailments: some brought their babies who were unable to stop vomiting; others came with bushmaster snake bites; still others brought their parents or spouses who’d lost their souls and with them the will to live.And Julio treated them all to hours of work with very little reward: a chicken here or there, some fish, a shirt, a baby piglet and other similar things. It was a wonderful life for Julio—made even richer by having several of his children and a sister live nearby on the river—but not something I ever considered.
Still, over the years it became something of an informal apprenticeship. We each looked forward to the other’s company and loved doing ceremony together, him running it, me being taught some of the endless lessons ayahuasca has to teach.
Now I’ve been asked to talk about the highlights of 25 or so years of shamanic work. That’s not easy. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of highlights. How do you pick one over another when so many helped me at crucial points in my life? I’m not sure.
Given that codicil, I’ll try to touch on several moments that standout, knowing that I’m omitting a lot of others that could just as easily be included here.
[A young mother wears the facial tattoo and jaguar whiskers of the Matses tribe]
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