"The plant comes and talks to you, it teaches you to sing."
- Don Solón Tello Lozano
We take select individuals on retreats to Peru. These retreats are initiations into jungle shamanism and the healing medicine of the Ayahuasca plant. We have been studying this medicine since 1988, from the people who have passed down its secrets for thousands of years.
- About Us - Our Retreats -
THE VINE
All of reality is a manifestation of spirit. Ayahuasca, the Queen of the Jungle, chooses to interact with people now more than ever ...when the very survival of life on the planet is at stake. She has spread her influence far and wide. She, along with other plant teachers, is attempting to civilize us, to open our hearts and minds, and to demonstrate to us that we are all an integral part of a biological continuum. If she, and the jungle where she comes from, die...we all die. On the other hand, if we learn her lessons of unconditional love, if we integrate the healing that she provides...then we all may have a chance.
OUR HISTORY
I started working with Ayahuasca in the Peruvian Amazon before the advent of Ayahuasca tourism. For 15 years I ran ceremonies exclusively for and with the native Peruvian population; both tribal and acculturated. My first teachers were Doctor Jorge Gonzalez Ramirez and Don Solón Tello Lozano. By the time I started working with the Shipibo shamans; Pancho, Benjamin, Manuel, and Mario of the great Mahua family, I was a shaman in my own right and accepted as such. For many years The Mahua family and I worked together on local Peruvians night after night...then the tourists began trickling in.
Now unfortunately because of the high demand there has been a proliferation of "sacha" shamans; people without proper training are running ceremonies and are in it strictly for the money. The shamans that I take people to in Peru are some of the few remaining old timers with extraordinary skills, unbroken lineages of knowledge, and impeccable integrity.
- Maestro Chononita
THE VILLAGE
Paohyan is a Shipibo village twelve hours by riverboat down the Ucayali from Pucallpa - a truly magical place, it is located between the mighty river and its oxbow lake (the "cocha"). The people are shy and friendly- it is the home of the Mahua clan. I have been going to this village for decades, and they gave me the name Chononita.
THE TRIP
Maestro Chononita and Doctora Churi guide select individuals to Peru to sit ceremonies with Amazonian Shamans- whom they have worked side by side with in ceremonies regularly since 1988. You may contact us to request a trip any time of the year-even if you do not see a trip posted on this site for the month you wish to go to Peru. The trips are custom created to meet the needs of the group.
You will be led by Maestro Chononita and Doctor Churi on an initiation into Amazonian Jungle Shamanism. You will spend more or less 10 days in Peru and experience a minimum of three Ayahuasca ceremonies. There will be plenty of rest in between. Floral baths, optional Sapo/Kambo frog sweat treatments and jungle excursions are all part of the trip. - Learn More -
