Some things to keep in mind as you listen.

All things matter. Your posture, your cultivation, your exposure to different influences. Meditation practice is very helpful in this work.

While I sing I keep alignment in my body by sitting upright. I maintain a meditative relationship to the journey, staying centered and focused. I regularly go into nature to connect, pray, and to ground myself. I practice letting go, to tune in to the greater vibration of the cosmos and the earth. I concentrate on the direct transmission of the lineage and my teachers.

As I sing I invoke the Great Spirit, the light and love of the universe through my singing to reach you where you are in time and space. I intend to open your world of hearing, seeing and experiencing - to take you on a journey.

Hear the jungle, the wind, the plants, the mountains, the fire, the water. Hear the heartbeat - your own and that of the world. Keep your heart empty and full at the same time.

Listen in the dark. Imagine yourself in a ceremony receiving these songs as healing. Imagine the music traveling through your body, your organs, your mind, your spirit - clearing and cleansing your energy.

Listen in your car, with the windows down and the volume way up, rolling through the streets of Brooklyn. Connect with the people of the world.

Listen as you walk in nature, feeling the hues, colors, and vibrations of the Amazon, these places on the planet that you already know deep in your soul.

Listen…. Listen…..Listen to the sound of silence and the silence within the sound.

My Own Way

Intention: To Align, Finetune and Upgrade your Energy

The Shipibo people understand and perceive the universe as a multi-dimensional woven world of patterns. Each energy has a design that we call a canon. The world of the stars, the plants, the spirits, the animals, even we, as human beings have our unique design - everything in this life is intertwined as a fabric into one great weaving.

We are connected and interdependent with all things.

With this traditional medicine song, sung in the Shipibo language, I am weaving the repetitive patterns of the concepts or words to create a sense of depth and multiplicity of sound, the way that you would experience this in a plant medicine ceremony.

In this tradition of singing each reality or energy pattern corresponds to a world in itself that can be opened or invoked and placed into the person receiving the song. In “My Own Way” I call on the medicine people (medicina canon bo) that live in the realm of the spirit world to come forward into my field of awareness; my body, mind, and spirit, into the vibration of the tones, and in the effect of the medicine, to realign and strengthen my energy.

“My Own Way” has a double sentiment; combining the power of the weaving that is the art of Shipibo singing and the potency of the shamanic vocabulary to make my way a better way. And to make your way a better way too as you listen…

Lupuna Manta

Intention: For Spiritual Protection

This short Ikaro song, sung traditionally in the Quechua Lamista language, is about the Lupuna tree. The Lupuna is one of the most respected trees in the upper Amazonian jungle for its shamanic wisdom and power. Here I call on its energy and medicine, summoning the tree’s vibration to come to the place where I am or to guide the people I am singing to. In the journey a spirit tree shows up in the energy field and spreads its roots and long trunk, expanding its branches and leaves. It brings protection and strength for you, your family, your home place, and land.

This song was originally received from the plant spirits by Don Aquilino Chujandama, a master in the field of Vegetalismo. His grandson Orlando is my Quechua brother.

Vuela Vuela

Intention: To Create a Sense of Spiritual Freedom

This is a well-known medicine song that comes from the Chujandama family in Northeastern Peru. It is one of my favorites.

With this ikaro we invoke the flight of the birds, calling each one; their colors, their character, their songs. The bird spirits come as they are beckoned, spreading their wings about the space, moving and shaking the air. From the owl to the egret, the dove to the hummingbird, the toucan to the parrot. We build the world of the birds until finally, we call in the eagle, the Great Spirit above them all. The song ends with a prayer and acknowledgment that as the birds come, they come as one; one family, one vision, opening the horizon, the vibration of a new day, a new life, and a rebirth.

This song can powerfully clear the space or the energy field, to bring freedom and transformation.

Imagine, as you are listening, the space around you filling with the spirit, energy, and song of each one of these birds as they are called.

La Luna

Intention: To Let Go and Surrender

La Luna offers solace for the sorrow and grief that comes from a life of deep living. It presents an opening to let go and surrender to the mystery of the Great Unknown while placing with the singing that which is truly most valuable in life. Love, connection, positive energy.

This song is an illustration of the global intermingling of our present time. Rosa Giove, a Peruvian naturopathic doctor of Japanese descent was dieting plant medicines in the Amazon. During her isolation time in the jungle, she had the sense that these lyrics were being whispered to her by the spirits of nature. The direct transmission of this song is reinterpreted here with multiple layers of sounds and beats.

Urkututu

Intention: To Balance the Light and the Dark

“Urkututu little owls come to us, come to our rooftop, come to our shelter… even if you don’t want to come I am calling you, even with resistance I am telling you to come this way. As you come and see, you are now with the tip of your beak grabbing and throwing all that is negative, especially the dark arts and shadow related energies, and protecting us with your benevolence and wisdom…”

This ikaro, sung here in Quechua Lamista, is called an Arkana. It is used for protection in ceremony and the everyday. The incantation brings with it the supernatural power of the owl to protect a place or the person the song is addressing.

In any shamanic or animistic culture, both positive and negative energies compose the cosmovision and belief system. As you bring positive energy to heal you have to also ward off negative influences to recreate a balance of light and dark.

Amor Bo

Intention: To Call in Unconditional Love and Elevate the Spirit

Amor Bo is my own composition, combining the groove of the Ngombi Gabonese harp with the caxixi Brazilian rattle and hand drum of North America. Singing in the Shipibo language I call on the power of the medicine energies to open the world and vibration of love. The whistling used here is a very important element in the Vegetalismo healing arts practices.

Supai Mawah

Intention: To Ring out and Scatter Negative Energy

This mantric song uses repetitive patterns and the invocation of the bell to command negative energies to leave a person or space. The song says, “hey little devil, hey I am seeing you, hey the bell is ringing, hey it is calling you…”

As in all paths of power, shamanism can be used for negative and positive intentions. Human affairs also have their positive or negative implications. This song helps to release any print left by negative spiritual influences we may have been exposed to; in our lives, in our bloodline and/or as a result of our actions.

Mambo Mambo

Intention: To Call in the Medicine of the Plants

Killuwiki, Bachufa, Bobinzana, Camhe, Tamushillo, Pukarena, Yacu-sisa, Bouchiklla, Yacu-piripiri, Acero-huasca, Murku-huasca, are the plants mentioned in this ikaro sung in Quechua. I use a blues rhythm to bring forth each plant energy. As I mention their power or the animal spirit they are associated with, I ask them to come this way, to heal the body, take care of the heart, look after the home, to share their wisdom and to show the way.

Madre Ayahuasca

Intention: Take Me to the Sun

Ayahuasca is associated with grand-mother or mother energy. This mother energy takes you an internal and external exploration of the self, helping and opening you to visit all of yourself and beyond. The song calls on the ayahuasca to make the body both a vessel and a portal, to make it shine like the starlight, like the sun-colors, like the light of the moon, and with the strength of the earth. And then to connect the internal fires of your being to the external universal fire that is older than the sun.

This ikaro was originally received by Rosa Giove, (mentioned above in “La Luna”) and is sung here with the Hang drum.

Sunarai

Intention: A Mantra for the Plant Spirits

This ikaro invokes the master power of the plants. Plants and their energies are called in to ‘sound-around’, (sunarai), and ‘vibe-around’ the energy field of the ceremonial space. The repetitive pattern of this call and response mantra creates a field of plant vibrations where or to whom it is sung.

This is a well-known ikaro from Don Solon Tello from the Peruvian Amazon. A master healer of his time, he used a chacapa instrument (leaf rattle) that was made of rue (Ruta graveolens). He used the small branches of both the male and female plant to perform this song. The female and male here are represented by the two voices of Kapomo and Metsa.