Episode Transcript
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Welcome to the mushrooms, apprentice. My guest today is Jason Gretchenik. Early in his twenties, Jason began to develop a keen interest in plants as food, as nutrition, as life, and as medicine. He began learning holistic systems of medicine such as herbalism, traditional chinese medicine, ayurveda and nutrition. That curiosity eventually led him to the Amazon where he began to work with plants to learn traditional ways of healing. His experience combines many different modalities of working with plants. The plants of the Amazon and the ways in which the peoples of the Amazon work with them have had a revelatory effect on his life. Jason came to work at the Ayahuasca Healing center temple of the way of light in 2012, where he would stay for nearly a decade. After having worked with ayahuasca quite extensively, he began the process of dieting plants. He has dieted in the Shipibo tradition and began working with maestro Ernesto Garcia Torres in 2013, delving deep into the world of dieting through a prolonged apprenticeship and training involving prolonged isolation, fasting and dieting of plants, he was given the blessing to begin working plants. After working for some time as a tabaquero, he was eventually given the ability to administer diets, to share in the tradition from which he had learned and which has taught him so much. He has been living, learning and working in Peru for the last ten years. He currently runs diets in the sacred valley of Peru and abroad, Jason works through the medium of the master plant, tobacco and with tree medicines from the Amazon rainforest and increasingly with trees from North America and Europe. Jason created a podcast called the Universe within podcast, available on all major platforms. In the past decade he has helped guide over 1000 people in ceremonies. I highly recommend you listen to his podcast. You can find it on YouTube. It's the universe within podcast and you can also go to his website, nicotianarustica.org and I will have all the links in the details here.
Welcome Jason.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me Shona.
I realize I probably should have put a shorter bio on my website.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Oh no, no, no. I really, I love this kind of thing and I am always so fascinated when I talk to people about how they found their way to where they are today. And as I was saying to you earlier, you really, I mean, you interviewed me for your podcast and I was so struck by the depth and the thought behind the questions that you asked and just your presence as a man. And I just thought, this person's a very old soul. You have that sense about you and to be drawn to this in your twenties. Also, I think speaks volumes. And so tell me first about just your childhood and how you were raised, because, my goodness, how did you find your way to all of this? What were the foundational beginnings, as it were, for you?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: It was funny a couple months ago, I think, because I have this podcast, I have a social media presence now, which I didn't before.
And I think you mentioned when I was interviewing you kind of how toxic in a way, some of these platforms can be. And I was posting my podcast to one of these Facebook forums and I got this reply that said, your show seems great, but I can't take anyone seriously who gives themselves the middle name Sadhana. Like, what arrogance.
And I was thinking, well, that's interesting, but I actually didn't give myself that name. It's my legal name. It was given to me by my parents because interestingly, I was born in Sri Lanka and my parents, I think, were hippies. It was during the hippie days and they were traveling and I happened to be born there. And it was actually given to me by someone who studies the stars.
Interestingly, I guess, as life would have it, it became quite meaningful in a way. And I think very much probably helped to lead me on this path, which much like you were saying, perhaps is a type of Sadhana type of practice, a type of searching.
I think I had an interesting childhood in that my father was quite an interesting guy. My parents were divorced and I spent the summers with him, interestingly, in Virginia, where you're coming from, very close to you, which is also an interesting state, too. It's very close to Washington, DC, so it's very cosmopolitan in that way. And yet it's also very pure. Like it has a lot of really amazing nature, which I think growing up, I kind of grew up in the woods. And so I took it for granted. But the more I traveled around the world, I also realized how unique it is.
I spent a long time in the Amazon rainforest, and it was funny because often guests would come and theyre like, well, this is such a foreign environment and its jungle and theres all these animals and kind of dangers. And I used to think, I dont know, its really not that different from the woods I grew up in. I mean, its a little more dense, a little more foreign, I guess, in a way. But its woods, its forest. And I was always very familiar with the forest, but my father traveled around a lot, and so in the summers I used to travel around with him. And he had a real, I think, interest in kind of far off places and indigenous cultures, old peoples. And so I think from an early age, I was exposed to that. And there was something very fascinating to me, and I think something that also I realized, whether it was some innate calling or something in the stars. But I think there was always something I was really looking for.
I think, on the one hand, I'm very grateful to have been born in the United States. I think it's an amazing country.
And at the same time, I think there was something lacking there that I was searching for.
I think something, maybe for lack of better words, in the realm of spirit. And that's why I was also very interested. And I studied a lot about the north native american traditions because that was kind of the closest thing to where I was living. That somehow resonated with me.
And so, I guess, long story short, that really kind of led me across the world. I ended up traveling the world for two years, doing all sorts of different practices. And I've been very much drawn to esoteric practices, eastern philosophy, martial arts, yoga, you name it, I've probably tried it. But I think in all of those paths, there again was an element that I felt these paths were speaking of, but that somehow, maybe just for my own lack of, I don't know, ability, I felt like I wasn't tapping into something deeper that I was looking for. And I think shamanism was always something that really resonated with me, but it always seemed very foreign and very far away. And, like, how does one begin to do that?
And that led me around the world looking for that. And then eventually I wound up in the Amazon due to very strong calling and specifically to work with ayahuasca. And that was, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago now. And that really, that medicine particular and that way of being, that way of interacting with plants, I think, in the bio, as I said, had a very revelatory effect.
It was very enlightening. It really shed light on something that I was deeply looking for. And then that curiosity really led me to stay and kind of a year turned into five years, to ten years, to however long now 15 years. And I. And it really gave me a much deeper experiential understanding of plants, which is something that I was so fascinated by.
This relational aspect of plants, this ability for plants to teach us to.
As a teacher, as a being that has wisdom and can impart that wisdom and really live through us and become kind of a teacher of the highest order and really allow us to embody that wisdom. Which something I think for me, that was always very fascinating was seeing all of these commonalities of cultures all over the world, it seemed to me they were all speaking of the same thing, pointing to the same thing.
And this work of plants specifically in this way that I began working, really opened that door to me, and it was fascinating. And I never imagined I would be doing this work, or I had no plans to do it, but it just kind of unfolded. And still, it seems a bit strange at times, but it's just something that kind of naturally unfolded. People started coming to me and asking me and looking for things, and I just began sharing the little bit that I knew. But over time, it's become a path that somehow has become my path now.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Yeah, this is just fascinating. Also, the idea that you can speak with a plant, that a plant can teach you.
And I would like to know, when you were learning this, what were you taught as.
As the right approach to.
How would you call it? Like, gaining the trust of a plant, as it were, or cultivating relationship with a plant. How does that work?
[00:11:19] Speaker B: I mean, I would imagine to many people, it seems like quite a foreign concept that you can speak to a plant, but in the same way that I don't think it's a foreign concept that you can speak to a human being, we all accept that as a reality.
It's just, I think, as Aldous Huxley said, there's different doors of realities, and we see reality in a certain way that's very much based on who we are, which is very much based on our culture, our stories, our worldview, our cosmovision.
And a lot of the cultures we come from, almost all of the cultures we come from, whether you're in the west, the east, the north, the south, it really doesn't matter. Most cultures have lost that cosmovision, and yet in their root, they all had that cosmovision, that all of life had the ability to speak, and not even necessarily in the sense of words, but that they could speak and that could be intuited, that could be learned.
I think more and more, the more kind of western scientific research that's done on plants, there's, I think, more and more knowledge that's coming out that shows that plants are able to communicate, obviously not in the ways that humans communicate, because they're not humans. We communicate in a certain way. An animal communicates in a certain way. Plants communicate in certain ways.
But even something like when you drink chamomile tea at night, like, you may not think that you're communicating with chamomile, but there is a certain communication that's happening, that there's something that's within you, that's reaching out in that ritual of heating hot water, of whether you gather the flowers yourself or you bought them at whole foods, alchemically preparing that plant. And then you enter a relationship with it. You're drinking it, you're feeling some effect from it, which is why you're drinking it. If you didn't, you wouldn't be drinking it. You wouldn't go through that time. There's some physiological effect that you're having. There could be some effect from the ritualistic use of the preparation, the sitting down on the couch, the feeling, the warmth, the calming of your tummy, of your stomach, perhaps aiding you to sleep. All of those, I think, could be said, is a form of communication that you're entering with that plant.
In a lot of these more traditional cultures, they also had certain plants, which they may generically call something like a master plant, and a plant that really had the ability to open that doorway of perception in a much different way, in a much more visceral way, in a much stronger way. Plants like ayahuasca, plants like tobacco, plants like toei, plants like huachuma san Pedro, plants like, it's not really a plant, but something like psilocybin, that there were these plants or fungi that had the ability to really, really, in a very profound way, open the doors of perception in a much different way.
And so, for me, that really happened in a very profound way, that the first time I took ayahuasca, I mean, without going into too much detail, I mean, I was in other dimensions. I was in other planets, I was in other universes. I mean, things that I couldn't even write off as figments of my imagination, because my imagination had never been to these places. They weren't even things I could imagine. I mean, literally seeing things, seeing beings, seeing entities.
And so in that way, it really opened those doors of perception.
So in a traditional sense, it could be seen that all plants have a consciousness. All plants are a teacher, much like you go to a university and you have your social studies teacher, you have your mathematics teacher, you have your chemistry teacher. Every plant is its own teacher. It has its own library. It's like a university that you can learn from.
And so when you enter a relationship with that plant in a traditional sense of usually you're doing it in some sort of ritualistic sense to really be able to connect with that plant. And I guess to kind of answer your question, I would say a really common theme that's spoken of when you want to learn from a plant is this idea of reciprocity, that if you're wanting to receive from that plant, you have to be willing to give. It's kind of a law of nature that for every action, there's a reaction.
Nothing is free.
So what are you willing to give to receive that teaching?
Usually in a more traditional sense, that would involve different practices like fasting, isolation, deprivation, sensory deprivation, and often not only ingesting the plant that you want to learn from, but also ingesting one of these other master plans that really opens those doors to allow you to connect in a much deeper way. And very often, the way these plants would teach would be in the dream space, kind of the dream space and the shamanic space, I think, are. Are one in the same. They're symbiotic, which is interesting because it means we actually all have access to that space. We spend literally a third of our lives in that space. It's just usually we write it off as something that's not really important. It's just something we have to do in order to wake up. And yet, in these traditional cultures, they said there's a reason that we're dreaming every night. There's obviously a physiological effect, there's rest, there's recovery, but it's literally an altered state of consciousness where we're not in our body. We have the ability to shamanically travel, to go to different dimensions, to go to different realms, to receive wisdom of these plants. And so in that space, we have that ability also. I think the last time we talked, there was some construction going on. So if you hear banging in the background, it's still going on. So.
But, yeah, I guess a long answer to your question is usually there was some form of a ritual of a ceremony, usually through a prolonged period of time, of ingesting a certain plant in a certain structure, usually with a human teacher as well, guiding that. That would allow you to experientially learn from that plant, ultimately in order to embody its wisdom.
Yes, because if we don't embody the wisdom, it's just an ephemeral experience, and it's something of the mind. And I think that's something that, for a lot of western minded people, it's a bit tricky to break that barrier as well, because I think, and certainly I've been there myself, is I wanted to understand everything on the level of the mind, but ultimately that knowledge has to be embodied. And so I think there's a lot of people who can speak to these experiences also in the level of the mind, and there's a benefit to that. But the true benefit comes when it's embodied, when it lives through you, through your words, through your actions, through literally how you weave yourself into this world, much like a tree spreading its roots. That's where it's able to have the real effect.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
This is just fascinating.
I'm curious about the isolation piece with this because it makes me think of the training of the seer poets of old Ireland, and their training was done in darkness, away from the daily activities, so they could focus fully on the task at hand. And so I'm just curious to know, what did that isolation look like as part of this training?
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Well, traditionally you would do it in nature, whether that's in the Amazon jungle or the Andes mountains, but really removing yourself away from people nowadays, it can still be done in nature, but it can also be done in the confines of a space that's somewhat secluded from the outside world, but where there's still maybe comforts, a bed, a room, as opposed to getting eaten alive in the Amazon jungle, although there's a real experience to that as well, and a real learning that comes with that also.
But the idea is, just as you said, the diet is about.
That's what these are usually called, a dieter, to diet a plant.
It's really to enter that relationship with the plant, where it's really just you and the plant and nothing else, because anything else that's coming in, then that becomes part of your diet. Much like in life.
If I'm reading a book, that's what's on my mind, that's what I'm taking in. If I'm listening to music, that's influencing me. It's evoking certain emotions, it's evoking certain feelings, certain memories, perhaps thoughts of the future.
If I'm isolated and I have no contact other than what's around me, one I'm forced to be in the present, I'm also forced to go within myself. So I'm also, in that way forced to go into my past and my future.
So usually in these processes, there's a process of cleaning, of clearing of these plants, really going in and working on us, cleaning us in the physical level. Most of these plants are also medicine. All these plants are medicine.
Probably most people aren't familiar, but even our western allopathic medicine systems are, I think, something still like 70% plant derived, whether it's derived naturally from an alkaloid in a plant, or it's synthesized from something that's mimicking a plant. Traditionally, almost all medicine was plants. So plants have been medicine throughout time. So when we're ingesting a plant, it's literally healing us. It's cleaning us.
It also kind of archetypally represents this idea of going into the past. Because if we are sick, thats coming from something of the past. Certain patterns, certain ways that weve been.
Then theres also this aspect of presence where were really present, were really aware of whats around us, whats surrounding us. And so that idea of isolation really forces us into that present moment. Theres nothing to distract ourselves with.
I remember the first time I did a diet. It was in a little hut in the Amazon. And I was just pacing around this hut because I had nothing to do. And for most of us, that's very, very difficult.
Even just try doing nothing for one day. That can be very, very difficult. Imagine for a week, for a month, for six months, maybe.
And then there's also this aspect of future, which is this idea that what a lot of these plants are doing is, you could say, maybe on a more neurological level, on a more scientific level, it's neurogenesis. Neuroplasticity. It's literally opening new ways of being, new ways of seeing. New ways of seeing the world.
If you wanted to look at an astronomical way, it's literally opening new portholes. It's opening new worlds. It's allowing you to see the world in a different way. Not from that idea of Maya, from the old patterns, but from something new. In Christian's terminology, it's the apocalypse. The apocalypse has been very mistranslated, but it literally means it's not the end of time. It's the end of the world as we knew it. And it's the rebirth. It's the Christ being reborn to see the world in a new way. So it's not something to fear. It's something we're actually all looking for. And so that's a big aspect of those plants. So by being in isolation, the plan has the ability to work on us physically, to heal us. It has the ability to teach us. And in that space of stillness, we're really able to be much better in tune with those very subtle layers of the teaching. Because often the teaching, it's not bombastic. It's not something that's in your face, like telling you, like, this is this, or this is this. It's very subtle, much like a plant. They're much like the leaves of a plant or the flowers of a plant. They're very soft. They're very subtle. When you look at a plant swaying in the wind, there's something very gentle about it. It's not something in your face. It's not like a movie that's telling you this is this and this is this. But as you tune yourself to those more subtle layers, there can be a very, very profound teaching that comes and then also the dream space. So when you're in isolation, you're much more aware of your dream space. You're not being distracted, so you're very much aware of that space and the daydreaming space because again, when you don't have anything to do, the entire day becomes almost like a waking dream. You're laying down or you're laying in your hammock or your bed and you're in a daydream space. So you're much more perceptive, you're much more open. So I think that's where the isolation aspect is, is really vital because you're literally, it's just you and the plant and your consciousness, so there's nothing to take you out of that space.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. And in this modern culture, and this is worldwide, we are so overstimulated. And it's artificial stimulation, it's radio waves, it's Wi Fi, it's just constant programs and social media, all of this kind of thing. And so this is no small thing that you are speaking of. This is absolutely like an apocalypse to someone who has no experience other than kind of what we've all, most of us have been raised in. So I'm curious to hear about some of these plants that you've sat with and that have taught you. And so could you speak of a few? A few of them.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Initially I did my training in the Amazon. That's where I lived for quite a number of years. And I would say most, most, for lack of better words, teachers, people are doing this work. Quranderos, I think most of them would say that all plants are teachers.
But much like any herbalist or any doctor in a western sense, you have your arsenal, you have your tools. No doctor, if they were telling the truth, would say, I know all medicine. That's insane, that's impossible.
You know, the medicine that you know, you know, the medicine that you worked with.
In general, there tends to be certain plants, certain trees that are kind of universally seen as being very strong teachers, as very strong healers.
But really, all plants can be in the Amazon. A lot of the plants that they're working with to learn from tend to be trees.
Interestingly, I have a birch tree behind me. And even in our western traditions, in the celtic tradition, in a lot of northern european traditions, birch was seen as a teacher. It was seen as a plant of women, of fertility, of life, of birth. In some traditions, one of the first trees that God put on the planet, and it was also seen as having a soul, a spirit, physical medicine, spiritual medicine.
And so in a lot of these traditions, it was trees.
Symbolically. Trees are very interesting that they're very rooted into the earth, they're very rooted into the feminine, into the soil, into the darkness, into the womb.
They grow out of the ground. They're embodied in this world. And then also they begin to branch out, branching into the realm of heaven, into the realm of the masculine, to the realm of spirit.
And so they're seen as this bridge.
Most trees also can literally carry a lot of wisdom. I mean, you have trees that are thousands of years old. Usually trees can be much older than humans. So experientially, they've also experienced life in a frame of time in a way that even more so than humans have.
But it's seen that those trees are a teacher and that every one of those trees, kind of like, as I mentioned before, has its teaching, it has its spirit, it has its archetype. For certain people, those are anthropomorphized. They're embodied as a human. It could be a man, it could be a woman, it could be gendered. It usually embodies certain archetypes, maybe, again, speaking to more western traditions that people would be familiar with.
If you take a tree like the elder tree, for example, it's often in Scandinavia, it's called the Hildemord, the mother elder, or the grandmother. And it's often archetypally represented as a woman, as a grandmother, because it's seen that it embodies that feminine aspect. It's often associated with magic, it's associated with justice, with right and wrong, with good and bad.
And elder also has a tremendous amount of physical healing. I mean, most people are probably familiar with drinking elderberry syrup when you're sick or drinking elderflower teas to calm you down.
But that tree has a tremendous amount of medicine on the physical level and then on the spiritual level. That idea of a teacher, what can it teach?
And usually that wisdom is still there. It's still present in some of the cultures that we come from.
And so through that kind of ritualistic use of it, one can actually learn what those qualities are of that tree to then really begin to embody them. So in the Amazon, it's mainly trees. There are some plants that people died as well, plants that are seen as very strong plants. But in general, it's a relationship with trees.
You have all sorts of very, very big, very strong trees. A lot of caspi trees like rimo caspi, Renaco caspi, wairakaspi, Reinako caspi, Beijaco caspi.
You have trees like ayohuma, you have trees like chuchuasi. I mean, there's really a whole pharmacopoeia of trees that are seen as very strong teachers, and they all have their archetype, they all have their teaching, and they really help people to do this work.
People may not be familiar, but often if people have gone down to the Amazon, for example, to work with ayahuasca, and they're working with a traditional corndero, or healer, in general, those healers aren't getting their power, their knowledge, from a plant like ayahuasca, for example. They're getting them from trees. They themselves have dieted these different trees, and those are their allies, those are their doctors, those are their medicines that they're calling upon in the ayahuasca ceremony, via the medium of ayahuasca. Much like I was saying, it's opening their vision, it's allowing them to connect to these trees, to really come in and do the work. So when they're calling upon these medicos, these doctors, they're calling upon these trees that they've worked with, because it's seen that these trees have the ability to heal people on the physical level. They have an ability to heal people in the mental emotional level, which is probably the main reason why most people are coming to ayahuasca ceremonies is for mental, emotional healing, maybe in modern terms, trauma or depression, anxiety, things like that, and to heal in the realm of spirit, to really open that door and to begin to experience the archetype of that tree, which is usually more if someone is wanting to do this work or have a deeper relationship to these plants, that's when they would be connecting more in that realm of spirit. Not so much for physical or mental healing, but if they want to connect in order to learn from the tree, that's where that third phase would be more prominent.
I don't know if that made any sense. That was a long winded answer.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Oh, it absolutely did. And it's interesting because early on in my retreats, I had a man come in from Sri Lanka, and before he came, because it was such a long trip, he planned to go, I was on the west coast, he planned to go up to the Washington rainforest and I suggested he maybe rent a little cabin there and spend some time before he left, after he worked with me, I gave him some mushrooms to take with him. And so he was in his cabin and he did these mushrooms and it was a very, very strong mushroom. And he ended up crawling outside and ended up at the base of this beautiful tree, this magnificent tree. And he said the tree started speaking to him and it told him, I am the reason why you came.
You're here to speak with me. And he was forever changed from that. I mean he had a very long conversation with the spirit of, of that tree. Completely unexpected.
So what you're talking about is tapping into the mystery of nature.
And we're raised in this very commercialized culture that it's almost like nothing to see. Over here folks. Back to work everybody. Come on now. Be productive. Not that there's anything wrong with being productive, but not at the expense of what is an ancient, an ancient relationship with the nature around us is there.
[00:34:46] Speaker B: Everything is in balance.
I think we often, and I think from a good place we speak that the world is out of balance. From my experience, I dont see things that way. The world is always in balance.
It may not be the balance that we want or that we wish for, but its always imbalance and kind of like that idea of reciprocity. Nothing is free. Everything has a cost.
And theres a huge benefit to commercialism, towards capitalism, towards no other system has pulled people out of poverty in a way that that system has.
There's certainly nothing wrong with that. Quite the opposite. It's beautiful. It's amazing what it's done, but everything has a cost. And much like you said, we're surrounded by what we're doing right now is an amazing facet of that. That technology, that 5g wifi, it's everywhere.
It's allowing us to do this.
There's a cost to it.
You see it in, especially kids, you see it in adults too, is a very severe addiction to electronics. I mean, literally almost moving in a way where many people have spoken of this, where we're becoming inseparable, where literally the screen is here now. Soon it's going to be even more close to us and who knows where that goes.
But again, nothing is free. So everything has a cost. And with that, what you're kind of talking about that commercialization, which is amazing, there's a cost to that. And that cost, I think we're really seeing in people really feeling lost, really feeling depressed, feeling anxious, not feeling connected.
This may sound a little strange, but it was recounted to me by a very dear friend of mine who spent some time with this group of people called the kogi in the Sierra Nevada, Columbia.
Very fascinating people. And she was asking them about climate change, why there was climate change, and they said it was because people had forgotten their sexuality.
So, you know, there's probably a lot of ways of taking that, but the way I took it is there's something very true about that. We've forgotten who we are, we've forgotten nature, we've forgotten reality.
You can't get away from these binary dynamics that there is a man and there's a woman, there's good and bad. We talked about this in our podcast and all of these things that are taking us away from that. There is truth in that, but there's also not truth in that. And that's part of that idea of wisdom is understanding that difference. And when you don't understand the difference, you suffer.
And there's no way around that. Suffering is suffering. And if you are suffering, I think part of what these plants begin to teach us is its up to us to find a way out. And we can make all the excuses we want. We can blame our parents and our society and all of these things, and were probably justified in doing all of that and were still suffering.
So theyre asking us to find a way out.
And so very much, as you said, its a big struggle of our time. But interestingly, I always like to think of someone like the Buddha who allegedly was alive 2500 years ago or something, but what he was addressing then was the same thing that people are experiencing now. He was addressing human suffering. So probably not that much has changed. I mean, certainly a lot has changed, but the essence of that is the same that people were suffering. And its also very true with these plants. One of the, the guys who I studied with, who I have a lot of respect for, his name is Amika, and it's kind of his role, his title. And it's also a bit what those kogis were speaking about, which is a big part of our suffering. It comes because we've forgotten our roles, we've forgotten who we are. And what he would say is ultimately humans. And he's speaking about eons ago when these plants were given to humans, bye the gods.
Is it was because ultimately, even then, humans had forgotten who we are and where we come from.
And kind of tying that back to that idea of reciprocity is the more we go in that direction, the more we go consuming, reaching for things that are outside of us, not being in isolation, not being connected to nature, it's fine. And there's a cost to that, and that cost where I think a lot of people are really beginning to feel. And the only remedy to that is to begin to step back, to move back to the other direction, to see all of this wisdom that was always around us. It's not like it's been disappeared. It's always there. It's just we've moved away from it. And I think these plants, in a way, are really helping people to remember that, to be called back to it. It's not a new knowledge. It's a knowledge that's as old as humans. It's just calling us back. So these ideas of speaking to plants, that plants have spirit or consciousness, it's not new ideas. It's far, far older than these more modern ideas that everything is robotic or reductionist or can be put in separate boxes. That's a very new theory. And I think also, like this guy Amika says, theories are great, but have they stood the test of time? And that theory, I think it's not really standing the test of time, because it's not bringing people happiness. It's not bringing them harmony. And as we say, the proof is in the pudding. So at some point, we have to begin to look for what works and what resonates. And I think it's also, I think in most people, if they're honest with themselves, there's something in them that resonates with that, because there's something beautiful about that, that there is magic in the world, that we are connected to plants, to animals, that it's not just us. That there can be other beings. There can be other star systems. There can be other star beings. There can be fairies. There can be whatever the worldview that you want to look at is that magic does exist in the world. And I think when people get disconnected from that magic, they suffer. I think, in a way, people are being called back to that.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. The way I look at it is that nature is cyclical, and we're nature. And so sometimes there are storms, sometimes there is drought, and so, within ourselves, I think we're in a kind of psychic drought, if you will. And I was. Remember a mushroom journey I took a few years ago where I was in conversation with what I call the fairy queen? And I always go in there. I'm like, it's a mess. We need your help. You know, but I was saying to her, my goodness. Like, it's just. It's just awful what's going on in the suffering. The suffering. And she said so succinctly, the consequence when one forgets, to your point. Exactly. And so we've forgotten. And I just think of the Pied piper, essentially, our minds have been steered away over to something else, and.
And it's not working very well. And, but I see that as also, it's like, that's opportunity, and this is part of it that we get to screw up and then realize, huh, okay, we got to figure this out. We got to figure a way back to ourselves, as it were. And so I just love what you are saying now. Would you say is tobacco? Would that be like your master teacher now? Or how would you please speak about tobacco?
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Yeah, tobacco is a fascinating plant. I mean, one, I think everyone's heard of tobacco.
And there's a reason people have heard of tobacco, is because when the Europeans and the Africans came to the new world, or to them, the new world, it was such a commonly used medicine plant, a plant of medicine, of healing, of spirit, that they adopted it extremely quickly. Of all the plants, it was probably the most commonly used plant, and they found benefit of it.
It's fascinating if you go to a country like Brazil, which had a huge african influence into it. A lot of those kind of afro brazilian traditions adopted tobacco right away, even though they didn't have it in mainly West Africa, where they were coming from, they saw it as this master plant, this plant that allowed them to deepen their own spiritual practices.
Same thing with the Europeans. I mean, it was kind of, even by medical doctors, it was taken up right away as this amazing plant that could expel phlegm, for example, which was considered where the root of a lot of illness was laying dormant, like any plant, I think, over the years.
I mean, you could look, for example, like wheat. I mean, how many people have gluten sensitivities? Now, why is that? Is wheat a bad plant? No, I mean, that's crazy to look at a plant as bad.
There's a reason that God put these plants on the earth. It's because they have a spirit, they have a soul, they have medicine.
But, for example, something like weed. Over the decades, the centuries of hybridization first, and then eventually genetically modification, raising a plant that literally is so weak that it can barely live on its own without fertilizers, without pesticides, and then ingesting that plant, I think most people's bodies are rejecting it. They're saying this isn't serving me. So it's actually a deeper intelligence of your body that's saying, this isn't good for me.
And that's happened to so many amazing plants.
Something like cocaine. How many people use cocaine? I used to live in New York. The answer is a lot.
If you don't think that's true, you probably haven't been in big cities for long enough. It's extremely used. I mean, look at the war on drugs. That's mainly a war on cocaine. I mean, the amount of lives that's lost, the amount of money, the amount of destruction, it's insane.
But again, it's because we've labeled a plant as bad, and because we've kind of going back to this guy in Micah, it's because we've lost the stories of these plants. When you lose the story, you lose the knowledge, you lose the deeper meaning, you lose the ritual, you lose why you're using it on a much, much deeper level. Because, again, these plants are medicine. And like anything, you have to really understand it. You have to understand the story, because there's healing codes that are built into the stories. There's knowledge, there's wisdom that that's in those.
And so something like cocaine, it's derived from a coca plant, which is considered a master plant. A plant that's very, very sacred to many, many people where I've been living the last few years, in the sacred valley of Peru, to many people there, that's their main plant. I mean, they're not working with ayahuasca or these kind of very strong plants. They're working with coca, and that's all they need. That allows them to connect in a much deeper way to the realm of spirit. It's sacred, too them, but they're not.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: Lining lines on a mirror and snorting them. Right. Like, speak. Could you just speak about how exactly they are working with the coke? That's a little bit different than the New York.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: That's right. And that's because those stories have been forgotten. And the rituals, the rites, and then also the processing it much like with wheat, the way that you extract cocaine from the coca plant, it's an extremely toxic process. You need all sorts of very harsh chemicals. Kerosene and solvents, and all of those run off into the water. They pollute the land. I mean, it's an extremely harsh process.
But the only reason you would really do that, again is because you've lost the story. You've lost the wisdom. The coca has everything that's needed. That's why it's perfect, that's why it's beautiful. That's why it was given in the form that it's given.
But kind of in our madness and our dizziness, we've forgotten those stories. And so we think we can extract one thing from a plant, the good thing, and take that and multiply it and make it stronger, and we can get the same effects without any of the cost, but we can't. There is a cost.
And so it's kind of similar with tobacco, without going into too much detail, but it's been hybridized, it's been processed, it's been. The alchemy that it was traditionally processed in has been lost. And the story, the rites, the ritual, even something like smoking, it's not a super common way of working with tobacco.
You can make it into a paste, you can lick it, you can chew it, you can snort it as a powder, and ultimately you can drink it. Like any plant, drinking it is the most powerful way of ingesting it.
Please, and in all seriousness, if anyone is listening, do not drink it, because it's very strong and it can be deadly. So that's why I was saying, all of these plants, you need a human, a guide, who really knows how to prepare that plant. Because all of these plants, like all medicine, they also have a toxicity as Paracelsus, I think the 16th century swiss physician, said the difference between a medicine and a poison is in the dose.
Again, that's kind of a reductionist way of seeing it. It's very true also, I think, in the story, in the preparation and the alchemy of it as well. So if those things are nothing present, a plant can be toxic. And these stronger plants have more toxicity, even to the point of death. And that's true with any strong plant. And again, it's the same with any strong pharmaceutical. If you don't take it in the proper dose, if you take it with things that are counter indicated, you can die. And that's true with any strong plant.
But tobacco, I mean, in the Americas, it was the most widely used medicine plant, not only in terms of physical healing in order to connect to spirit.
And so, yes, I worked a lot with ayahuasca. Ive worked with a number of different plants. But for whatever reason, tobacco really called to me.
I think some the plant itself, it could be growing up in Virginia, the land of tobacco.
Theres probably a lot of different reasons, but there was something that called me very strongly when I began working with it. And again, something that even went, I think, beyond my rational mind. That really called me to go back to it and then to go back again and again and eventually apprentice with that plant. And then even after that, as I said, it was never my intention to work with it, but it just started happening. And tobacco has been a very great teacher and a very great doorway to, I think, the plant kingdom and to connecting to plants in a much deeper level.
In the same way, like you described with psilocybin and this guy who communicated with a tree, I mean, that probably happened. I mean, it could be a number of variables, but probably the primary variable was psilocybin. It opened those doorways for him to be able to communicate with it.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
What has tobacco taught you? What would be the main sort of teaching you would say youve received?
[00:51:52] Speaker B: I think its also part of that idea of remembering the story of these plants is also understanding the context in which they come from, the cultures that they come from, the way of living, the cosmovision that they come from.
In many of these traditional cultures, especially from the Amazon, it was said that tobacco was the first plant.
In some of these stories.
It was given directly by God to humans, like the witoto, the Borda. People would say that bwinima, their creator God, gave tobacco to humans so that humans could dream like God dreamt the universe into creation.
So for many people, it has that quality of the first plant and the plant that connects us to all other plants.
It's why people go. Maybe even people have been listening. People are listening to this, have been to an ayahuasca ceremony. And they saw maybe some of the people holding that ceremonial space, working with tobacco, working with their pipe.
It's seen that tobacco allows people to connect to their other plants, much like I was mentioning to the trees that they've worked with. It's a bridge that allows them to connect with that.
In a lot of these amazonian cultures, their cosmovision may be contrary to other cosmovisions.
It's also seen as a world of dark and light, that there are good forces in the world and there are evil forces in the world, there's bad forces in the world.
The world isn't just love and light and rainbows. And I think anyone, if they're really honest with themselves and they're not simply going by dogma or propaganda, and they really look with their own eyes, you can see that.
And again, there's always reasons behind those things. It's not just to label someone as bad. You can also understand why that's there to deeply understand that, so that you can actually stop that bad, so that you can transmute it, so that you can overcome it.
But unless you see it, unless you recognize it, theres nothing you can do with that. And ultimately you will be subjugated to that darkness.
The path of light is the path of going into the darkness. And so a lot of these traditional cultures realize that you have to go into the darkness, you have to go into your darkness, into your shadow, into the darkness of the world, so that you can truly stand in light, so that you can truly understand light. Because unless you understand darkness, you cant understand light.
So tobacco was also seen as a plant of a lot of light, but that it was also a plant of warring, that it took you into this kind of shamanic battling, it took you into the underworld, it took you into the darkness so that you could emerge strong.
It has a lot of qualities of being a warrior, energy of being a plant with light, of allowing you to see the world as it actually is, to see beyond the illusion, the delusion, I think a lot of integrity.
I think maybe we briefly mentioned about this, and these are all rabbit holes that would probably be separate podcasts, but we spoke a little bit, I think, about the kind of delusion, the illusion that happened during the COVID pandemic.
It was very interesting to me because I saw a lot of people who I knew who were working with ayahuasca who kind of went along with it hook, line, and sinker.
And I don't think that that's a coincidence. The medicine of ayahuasca, it's taking us into these ethereal realms, but it is very much other dimensionally, in that sense of you can very much get lost in other dimensions. You can get lost in delusion. You can get lost in delusion. You need something, whether it's a practice or a medicine or a teacher, to be able to bring you back. That's something that I didn't see, for example, with the people I know who are working with tobacco, for them, there was something quite clear that was happening.
It was quite simple to see. Something was off, something wasn't right. The words and the actions didn't match up.
And I think that's one of the powers of tobacco, is to actually see through things, to see in a deeper level prayer, like where you're coming from. A lot of the north, Native Americans use tobacco because they said it carried our prayer to spirit. So it was used in that way. It was used to strengthen the word, to give power to the word. This idea that you can't lie with tobacco because it will come back to bite you. So it forces you, in a way, to be true, to be honest, to be an integrity, strength, clarity, groundedness. I think these are all kind of archetypal qualities of tobacco. Again, within that there's the universe. All of these plants can give us access to whatever we need to, wherever we're at. But much like I was saying, that each plant is a teacher, they tend to embody certain archetypes that tend to come through.
All of these plants are going to work on all of us in a very personal way, in a way that that's specifically tailored to us, and yet they tend to embody certain archetypes. And I think a lot of those are the archetypes of tobacco.
[00:57:23] Speaker A: And so you teach this. Yes, you teach people how to diet tobacco, am I right?
[00:57:36] Speaker B: We work with tobacco and all sorts of plants. I mean, predominantly trees, but tobacco is, as I was saying, really the gateway to the trees. So usually when people come to work with us, people can come for all sorts of different reasons. They could be physically unwell, and so we're prescribing them a plant that's going to be good for whatever their physical sickness is. It could be they're mentally, emotionally unwell, they're depressed, they're anxious, they're lost.
They have a lot of trauma. They've been in a war.
And so there can be other plans for those things.
Tobacco is usually mixed with the plant because it allows them to connect in a much deeper way, not only in the physical realm, the mental, emotional realm, but also the spiritual realm, basically, meaning that they're able to receive the wisdom of the plant that they're working with. So that it's not just because it also goes back to this idea of reciprocity. It's not just the plant doing something to them. It's them also having to work with the plant, having to learn from the plant. And then the plant is also asking them, okay, this is what I've shown you. Now it's up to you. Do you want to put 1ft in front of the other? Do you want to embody this medicine? Because it's all contractual, it's all intentional, it's not going to do it for you. It's going to show you possibilities and then give you the option. You don't have to accept, it's up to you. But if you do accept, there's a benefit and there's a responsibility that comes with that. So it's also not free. You know, it's asking us things and that's going to be challenging as well. But ultimately they're there for our benefit. So tobacco is the main medium that we're working with, but predominantly we're working with trees, trees from the Amazon and more and more trees from North America and Europe.
I think for me it was, it was always very interesting because I think I find myself kind of in this role of a bridge keeper. Like, I'm not indigenous amazonian, and yet I found myself very called to those people to learn from them because I felt kind of like we were speaking about with isolation. They had been isolated from outside influence, so they were better able to preserve this knowledge that through outside influence, a lot of people had forgotten. And that knowledge isn't specific to the Amazon. Again, I think it's universal. But their way of working with it is very specific. Their cosmovision is very specific. And it was something that very much drew me into it.
And so I learned through these amazing amazonian teachers, not just human teachers, but plant teachers at the same time, I came from a different environment. And so at a certain point there was also this, I think, deeper calling. And I think some was interestingly encouraged by my main physical teacher to begin working with the plants where I came from, to reconnect to those, to reconnect to those with this technology that I had been, in a way, gifted, that I had learned to help people to connect to their own medicines, to their own trees, to plants and trees that are literally potentially in their backyard that they can develop a relationship with in a much different way than a plant that's halfway across the world. So again, maybe kind of a long answer, but yes, we're working with tobacco as the main medium to connect people much deeper to the plant kingdom.
And predominantly what we're working with are trees.
[01:01:35] Speaker A: Wow, that's wonderful. We are. At the end of the first hour, I want to hear much more about the work you do. So we'll visit that in the second hour. And what is the best way for people to find you?
[01:01:54] Speaker B: Probably the best way is my working website, which is nicotianarustica.org. it's the latin name for tobacco, specifically tobacco. We're working with nicotianarustica.org and also have a podcast called, which you were graciously on called the Universe within podcast. And you can find that on all the platforms, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, and then.
[01:02:19] Speaker A: You'Re on Facebook as well.
[01:02:22] Speaker B: I'm also on Facebook, Instagram. I have personal and podcast channel, page, whatever they're called on there as well. But probably my website is the best. Instagram, I guess, is also good. That's another good way as well.
[01:02:37] Speaker A: Okay, wonderful. Wonderful. All right, so I will invite listeners to come to themushroomsapprentice.com and subscribe and soak up more of this amazing man's wisdom. Hope you will join us.
