DIETA WITH Don PEDRO
Find out what you can expect from a traditional plant dieta with Maestro Pedro.
Straight off the bat, if you want hot showers, room service and a swimming pool… look away now. But if you want to diet plants with a true Shipibo Master in the way of the ancient wisdom seekers, in an indigenous community and family setting way off the beaten track, here’s the deal.
What is dieta?
In the simplest terms, to diet (Samá in Shipibo) is to drink a liquid preparation of a Master Plant under the guidance of an experienced Onanya (also known as a curandero or healer) over a period of time ranging from days or weeks to months and years. Some diets may vary, for example, taking baths with the plant instead of drinking it; or both. The plant is ‘activated’ by the ikaros (sacred songs) of the Master and then taken daily or at regular intervals. The Master already has his/her relation to the plant being dieted plus access to a host of nature spirits and allies through their own long Samá training.
A dieta usually incorporates periodic Ayahuasca (Oni in Shipibo) ceremonies in which it is possible to connect in direct and often visceral ways with the spirit of the plant you have been taking. Outside of ceremony, dreams are the other main tool for making connection during the dieta – the plants come to teach us inside our dreams.
What we have just described is dieta as it is commonly understood by those of us who come from outside of the Shipibo world. But it is far from the whole picture. For more, see Samá and the Shipibo Way.
How do I diet well?
For these connections to be most effectively made, the dieter is encouraged to maintain focused concentration in isolation and observe strict rules around the consumption of food and their behaviour and interaction with others. You are advised not to read, listen to music, socialise with others or otherwise distract yourself from the task at hand. The plant spirits have their ground rules and curanderos are often heard to say that the plants are ‘celosa’ (jealous) – they demand our full attention!
Every master has his own diet and personal system for sharing his knowledge safely and effectively, but all Shipibo diets share the same basic principle of abstention from sex (including masturbation), spices, salt, alcohol, drugs or other stimulants (including prescription medications). Fasting is a central element of Don Pedro’s dietas.
Visitors to Don Pedro’s land at Rao Xobo are encouraged to follow these basic guidelines on how to diet well (PDF, 28KB).
How long is a dieta with Don Pedro?
This is up to you – how long you choose to diet will depend on your schedule, your budget and how deep you want to go. Anything from a couple of days to a couple of years! Nothing delights Don Pedro more than sharing his medicine with people who have a genuine motivation and can make good use of it. He loves it when people make a commitment of three months – a good amount of time to really establish oneself on the path. Nevertheless, a great deal of progress can be made in a stay of a few weeks or a month, which is more typical among visitors to Rao Xobo.
Why is fasting so important?
Fasting (ayuno in Spanish), like in many other spiritual traditions worldwide, is a central element of the Shipibo medicine path. Yet in catering (dare we say overcatering!) to perceived Western preferences, most other centres appear to have dispensed with it as a central tool, at best limiting food to two meals a day instead of three. Not so here at Rao Xobo. Fasts typically start at five days (sometimes less) and progress up to 15 days without food. As Don Pedro often says, “un dia de ayuno vale un año de ayahuasca”. Meaning that the insight you gain from just a day of fasting is equal to what a year of taking ayahuasca outside the context of a dieta with fasting will teach you.
How often will I drink ayahuasca?
However long you stay, Don Pedro will open your diet with an ayahuasca ceremony. You are unlikely to drink ayahuasca again before you have completed your period of fasting. When you have completed the whole dieta, there will be an ayahuasca ceremony for you to receive Arkana (Protection), in which Don Pedro will finally integrate and protect your subtle energy field (which is now wide open and very sensitive!) so that you can go back out into normal society safely and consciously.
If you are dieting a succession of plants, you will usually have one ceremony per diet after each period of fasting (and sometimes more depending on the circumstances).
How will I diet with Don Pedro?
Don Pedro offers two basic kinds of dieta, according to your needs: ‘para sanar’ (for cleaning) and ‘para aprender’ (for learning). If you wanted to break a serious addiction for example, you would follow a cleaning dieta. If your motivation is more focused on discovering more about yourself and your place in the Universe, you would more likely enter a learning dieta. There is significant overlap: cleaning yourself automatically involves learning, and vice-versa.
A ‘dieta para sanar’ involves more cleaning before entering your diet proper (perhaps a series of ‘vomitivos’ or purges), and thereafter shorter fasts. ‘Dieta para aprender’ tends to mean longer periods of isolation and fasting – anything up to 15 days without food, although everyone begins with much shorter fasts.
What and when will I eat?
A period of fasting is followed by a period of eating (usually of equal length) where you will take one moderate meal a day at noon. For example, after a five-day fast, you eat once a day for five days. The food is ‘sin gusto’ (without flavour) – i.e. no salt, sugar or oil. The dieta food par excellence is plantains (green bananas) roasted on an open fire (xoi), and certain fish specified by Don Pedro when available. Rice, pasta, quinoa and lentils are also compatible modern substitutes.
What will I be dieting?
The other fundamental difference between Don Pedro’s careful stewarding of traditional medicine and what is freely available in most diet centres is what you diet. Until very recently, Oni and other teacher plants were taken by the village curandero only, and very rarely by his patients. Similarly, only healers-in-training would diet plants. It was unthinkable to diet trees without first learning how to master the enormous power of these spirits. This was an often arduous and painstaking process and it took years just to get ready.
The arrival of Westerners has turned the old paradigm on its head. These days, it’s easy to find a curandero who will give a neophyte dieter anything they want – such as Shiwawako, one of the forest’s most gigantic trees – and let them experience all the power and psychospiritual fireworks available. Why? Presumably because it sells and keeps the customers coming back for more! But the curandero must also close (i.e. cut off) this dieta, since it would be simply too dangerous to send the dieter back out into the world ‘plugged in’ to the unbridled energy of this spirit.
In contrast, Don Pedro will not close your diet. He will help you forge an ongoing healing alliance with the plants you diet, that unfolds in step with your capacity to master your own medicine. This means you will be starting dieting little plants. But make no mistake – you will be amazed how huge the spirit of a plant just a few inches high can be! You will still need to bring your A-game!
If you have any questions that are not answered here, check out our FAQs and don’t hesitate to get in touch here.