In Ecuador I stayed at an immensely charming place north of Quito where big old bookcases were tucked away in the corners of two comfortable sitting rooms. Both rooms had beautiful, tall wrought iron candlestands holding long, thick candles. A Buddha statue, one with a laughing face, stood in a corner of one of the rooms. The bookcases, the candlestands, the Buddha statue and big pots of plants all contributed to the place’s serenity. Many of the books in the old bookcases were left by travelers. I picked up one; it was about the ayahuasca plant. I never heard of the plant, so I brought the book to a comfortable leather chair, sat back and began reading. Do you know of the ayahuasca plant? It’s called “the vine of the soul” and “the mother of the jungle” and “the teacher of teachers” and grows in the Amazon jungle. The book was old and reading it was not easy. However, I managed to grasp enough information to know that I wanted to learn more.
A week after returning to the States I saw the words, “Mystical Healing in the Amazon” calling to me from the magazine racks at Barnes & Noble www.bn.com . Yes! the December 2004 issue of Spirituality&Health magazine www.spiritualityhealth.com had a thoroughly-researched article about the ayahuasca vine written by Louise Danielle Palmer. She wrote that in Washington, DC she had attended a conference in indigenous healing traditions. It was there that she met Dr. Jacques Mabit, who left France in 1980 and worked for Doctors without Borders www.doctorswithoutborders.org in a small Peruvian village in the Andes. And it was there that he became acquainted with a very different way of healing people using ayahuasca and other plants, and eventually opened a rehabilitation center in the town of Tarapoto in Peru for the treatment of drug and alcohol addiction.
It was easy to grasp the significance of the ayahuasca plant as an amazing healing plant as the writer traveled to Peru, spoke at length with Dr. Mabit, and took part in the ceremony at his center, Takiwasi www.takiwasi.com . She said, “Ayahuasca is most often mixed with the leaf of the chacruna plant and the tea is ingested only during ceremonies led by an ayahuasquero.” Those who have studied and used it have a deep reverence for its power to heal body and mind and connect one to the divine. Ms. Palmer said that for millennia the plant was used by tribes in the Amazon basin from Colombia, and Brazil to Peru and Suriname. So, I ask how is it that in the west it seems to be viewed as just another drug like LSD? Regardless of this view, ayahuasca and other healing plants are used by those who see things differently. When I want to feel the magic of life’s offerings, I read Louise Danielle Palmer’s wonderful article on ayahuasca, and perhaps one day I’ll understand it from first-hand experience, too.