Part 1
1 h 10 min·Watch on YouTube
- 00:00
Remembering what lives inside us
The medicine is not the liquid in the cup, she says. The cup is a key to something we already carry.
- 01:48
Indigenous voices at the World Ayahuasca Forum
At the conference in Spain the Indigenous speakers outnumbered the scientists, and said plainly that the malpractice has to stop.
- 05:38
Nobody graduates
Her elders are a hundred years old and still call themselves children in front of the medicine.
- 07:45
How to choose a facilitator
Look at the person's life: how they treat people, how they sleep, whether they have love to share. That takes time, and it's worth it.
- 09:09
It is not a party
Healing happens in the dark and is not pleasant. Celebration comes at the end.
- 12:59
Coming home to Brazil
After her maestro died she felt the pull back to her own land. Since June she and Charlie have been receiving people in the Atlantic Forest on the Costa Verde.
- 17:48
What does it take to be a curandera?
Listen to your own heart, look after the animals and plants around you, and don't just sit and cry at suffering.
- 21:53
Tending the inner garden
Pray on the good thoughts and pull the dark ones out like weeds. Nobody else can do that for you.
- 26:12
Training in the forest
Isolation in stages, from fifteen days up to months. Her longest was nine. On her first she asked her teacher to call the car.
- 32:33
Dietas at the new center
The Asháninka way she learned, but with a bed and cooked food so your attention can go inward. She calls it the grandmother's house.
- 36:00
Questions and dates
A Yawanawá teacher visits in early December and the first group retreat is at New Year's. Dates go out by email.
- 37:44
The plants and the elders
Nothing is written down; the elders are the encyclopedias. She names camerenaco, tamamuri, camalonga, bobinsana and chuchuhuasi.
- 45:50
Do the plants teach you songs?
Yes, once you're past about fifteen days. Tobacco opens the throat, jurema is for dreaming, mucura for strength.
- 50:52
The plants around you
The plant in your house is listening. Talk to her.
- 52:19
Rapé
Made to quiet the mind before prayer, not to be taken every hour.
- 57:14
Women's cycles
Bleeding is a portal. The taboos came from men who feared it.
- 1:01:18
What she means by Jedi training
Putting the rise of your own consciousness before everything else.
- 1:05:04
Closing ícaro
A short ícaro for tobacco, for protection.
“The liquid that we drink is sort of like a key that unlocks what is locked inside of us. But I like to say even that we don’t even need to drink the medicine itself. We need to become aware that we have locked it.”
Part 2
52 min·Watch on YouTube
- 00:00
Back from the Ayahuasca Forum
The Indigenous voices in Spain were the loudest she has heard at any of these conferences, defending their knowledge and their land.
- 02:23
The right use of sacred medicine
Scientists there talked about patenting single molecules. Is sacred medicine for parties? She says each of us has to answer that, and the answer is already inside.
- 05:27
What happened to tobacco
A sacred plant was taken out of its context, labeled and sold, and became a poison. She asks what legalizing ayahuasca, iboga and psilocybin will do to them.
- 07:26
Where the medicine comes from
Somebody guards the forest it grows in, and the Indigenous people there are still fighting every day to stay alive on their land.
- 09:26
A new home in the Atlantic Forest
Buying land will take a while, so they rented a place on the Costa Verde, with the ocean in view and jaguar prints on the trails.
- 12:35
Dietas, isolation and fasting
She wants to teach the way she learned in the Amazon: a week, a month or longer with one plant, drinking ayahuasca alongside it.
- 15:53
Every plant is medicine
The elders say the forest holds plants for the illnesses of the past, the present and the future. The plants open doors in us we didn't know were there.
- 19:47
Inner conflict, outer war
The wars out there start inside each of us. Visit the parts of yourself you're scared of.
- 22:22
How someone becomes a curandera
You go through hell and come out in one piece. A healer is someone who has healed themselves.
- 23:51
Go bring this medicine to others
Medicine found her when she no longer wanted to live. Years later her teacher handed her ayahuasca and told her to take it to the city. She cried, thinking he wanted her gone.
- 27:08
Back to her roots
Her mother's family healed with tobacco. The relatives who raised her in the city wanted nothing to do with it, and it took years to find her way back.
- 29:27
Self-proclaimed shamans
A few trips to the jungle don't make anyone a shaman. Before you sit with someone, look at how they treat their family and their community.
- 32:51
Portuguese, the forest, couples
Yes, there will be retreats in Portuguese. Consuming less is one of the most direct ways to protect the forest. Couples starting out do better drinking separately.
- 37:07
What's coming in Brazil
Ceremonies and a dieta with a Yawanawá teacher in early December, a New Year's retreat, and stays of a week or longer. Groups are ten people at most.
- 40:05
Psilocybin before ayahuasca?
Not necessarily. Don't let other people's bad experiences decide yours. Good guidance and preparation matter more.
- 43:57
Letting go
People worry medicine will turn them into someone else. She says it makes you whole.
- 47:10
How the dieta windows will work
Open months when you can come on your own schedule, with group periods of ten to fifteen days in between.
- 48:10
Ícaro for mucura
A song for the plant of life force which, in the jungle, also makes you invisible to eyes you don't want on you.
A note on care
Tatiana speaks from her own experience and her tradition. None of it is medical advice. Please do not stop a prescribed treatment, or try to treat an illness with plants, because of a video. Our medical disclaimer says more.