Chiric Sanango Diet – Visions of Clarity

Chiric Sanango Diet – Visions of Clarity

Plant Spirit Shamanism in the Upper Amazon of Peru is not just about Ayahuasca. The Shaman and Healers of Peru have access to an entire pharmacy of natural resources and have learned to use them with the depth and potency that Mother Ayahuasca herself is so famous for. Among these “Plantas Maestras” or Master Plants there exists a particularly intense medicine called Chiric Sanango, latin name Brunfelsia Gransifloria. 

Chiric’s trademark purple flowers can be seen gracing sidewalks and domestic gardens all over the Jungle regions. Part of a family of Sanangos that also includes Uchu Sanango, a healer that specializes in working with these particularly powerful plants may be referred to as a “Sananguero”.

When used in the right way this pretty shrub becomes a mammoth force of spiritual healing and is not to be taken lightly.

Working with Chiric as it is commonly called, was for me a journey into brutal purification of the mind and heart, physical and mental challenges and great rewarding “visions of clarity” which came when I passed the spiritual tests this plant spirit presented me with.

I undertook an 8 day traditional dieta where I was isolated in a small hut in the forest, eating very simple starches only with no salt or oil and drinking rather large doses of the plant every other day. No Ayahuasca, no therapy, just me alone in forest going deep with “The Doctor”.

My intention behind this dieta was two fold. Firstly I had some issues with my ankle and knee joints including arthritis from an old injury. Chiric is famed for helping with joint pain. However, I also had been having visions of the plant “spirit” during my ayahuasca ceremonies, connecting deeply with its energy and various signatures. I felt that Chiric wanted to work with me and the impulse was quite strong. As I am in a shamanic apprenticeship it is necessarry to work my way through various plant medicines so as to commune with them and learn from them so I can support others when they are taking the plant themselves.

A shamanic diet like this offers healing, but also protection and unique wisdom which is invaluable for anyone working with Ayahuasca, it is a form of training.

Each time I drank the Chiric, I would enter into a state of cold sweats, become dizzy with weak legs and my vision would blur. I would spend hours meditating in a floating state between thought and sleep, shivering and sweating. No mental forms were allowed to remain for long as the plant instructed me to release, release and release them again.

How can a plant instruct you? Well, I was unable to focus on anything, when I checked in with my intuition an instant answer came clearly, the plant is working on your mind, so don’t get in the way! This is how I learn from the plants, by opening to the experience and allowing my intuition to take the lead.

This is really the point of isolation in a traditional dieta, we need that space to turn inwards and enter our own unique cosmology with the plant spirits, no one can tell you how to do that, only the conditions to go there. Every experience is different and each plant with teach each person different things.

By day 4  I was becoming restless, the medicine had a paradoxical effect of making me very tired then supremely energized, it was getting hard to sit still, to walk slowly or even to breathe steadily, I felt kind of jacked up. Dark thoughts began to emerge, very dark. I eventually felt a sense of hopeless rage, resentment, resistance with a dash of paranoia.

I was descending into the “test”.

As these master plants clean us, they go to the vibrational core of our being in order to reset and align that which is off balance and calling illness or preventing our full expression of power, and for me it seems nothing is ever released without being fully witnessed and felt.

My heart chakra literally ached and felt incredibly dense and black, like poision tar seeped from my very soul. I sat smoking Mapacho cigarettes, scowling into the forest. The emotional pain was becoming unbearable, I wanted to scream “make it stop” but I also knew in this moment the plant itself was doing peak work and I had willingly committed to this process. I had invited the plant in to me and now it was time to boldly surrender, if such a thing is possible.

I finally broke down, tears streaming uncontrollably down my face, screaming into my pillow, I could no longer contain myself… The tantrum as it was lasted a few hours. When the storm had passed I lay exhausted, drifting in and out of sleep to the sound of the buzzing jungle. Golden afternoon light streaming in my hut.

I picked up a pen and paper, and starting drawing, without thought, just marks of color on paper, each stroke an expression of the immense energies coursing through me. You can see that illustration here.

That night I fell into a deep but lucid sleep, awakening in the astral realm in a very comfortable bed, with a plump patchwork quilt. My Chihuahua who was sleeping with me in the “real world” was also there. I was inside a small cottage and could see through to the kitchen where a tall very distinguished man in his 50s was doing something at the sink. He turned to me, wearing elegant round spectacles and a white shirt he was the very archetype of an experienced psychologist. I saw off to another room the bone white arm of a women, the doctors wife but never got a good look at her. I knew 100% in that moment I was in the Doctors House and was face to face with the spirit of Chiric Sanango. The dream progressed through layers of telepathic communication and some important lessons too personal to share here. However, I will add that it culminated with me meeting a Crone, sitting in her rocker on the street side at dawn, she instructed me that I was not having a dream but a “vision of clarity” and proceeded to share some very important direction which I am still manifesting in my life today.

I awoke the next morning calm and blissful, so blessed to have received this visitation and insight. It was truly a date with the Doctor.

My first Ayahusaca ceremony after the diet, presented the Chiric Sanango in another form entirely, a tough nugget of a being, very pushy, strong, almost aggressive, a lot of power and energy, somewhat difficult to hold without getting really thrown around. I realized then these spirits have no definitive forms, they are archetypes of consciousness, shapeshifting across dimensions to share in our experience of the cosmic play. They can be engaged for healing or harm and must be absolutely respected for in the end I cut my Chiric Sanango Diet one day short, I couldn’t handle the second wave that was coming.

It seems for now, I was only up to taking the Doctors 101 class, but now we have been formally introduced I know we will meet again.

Chiric root ready to prepare

Chiric plant