Medicine in the music

Medicine in the music

Having left The Garden Of Peace in December to spend a few months with my family overseas, it has astonished me how strongly I still feel la madre ayahuasca in my being, especially when I listen to or create music.

Icaro’s, (medicine songs) are such an integral part of our ceremonies and practice. The Curandero’s (healers/shaman) acquire and learn their icaros, usually through dedicated periods of dieta. Dieta involves retreat, isolation, focus and cleaning of the body through restricted diet while drinking different plants, all to foster a deep connection with these powerful plant spirits, including but not just ayahuasca. You can read more about the dieta here.

In ayahusaca ceremonies these icaro’s move through the healers, giving a voice to the medicine. The plants literally speak through these soundwaves sharing a vibrational language that dances with the cosmos, infiltrates every cell and guides the ceremony to deeper and deeper realms of connection, healing and intensity. Personally, I have found a renewed connection with music through my own dietas, starting to write some music and occasionally sing in ceremony.

Everything in this universe is vibrating energy at various frequencies, western science tells us this as spiritual wisdom has done for thousands of years. It make sense then that sound has such a profound connection with unseen realms, that which exists beyond matter. From devotional chanting, to lullabies, to those happy morning songs we sometimes put on to get us out of bed, music is magic and sound does heal. Our bodies naturally respond to the sounds around us and even here far from the jungle, I can sit out on the lawn at my parents house, close my eyes and start to sing. It doesn’t take long to feel la madre quietly vibrating deep inside my body, she can be called on in this way. What a gift.

I heard one fabulous medicine song when I was in deita at another centre near pucallpa. Sung by a young Canadian guy who was into his third month of study there. He learned this from another friend and sung it in his own beautiful way. Have a listen below, close your eyes and relax into the sound…maybe it will call you to the jungle. haha, it does for me.  Note: she starts singing beautifully about half way through, be patient!

Nada Brahma – The universe is sound.