Professor
and author, Stephan Beyer, brings us a beautiful
guide to mestizo shamanism in the Upper Amazon
and the use of the sacred, plant medicine
ayahuasca in his new book Singing
to the Plants. Stephan holds doctorates
in both religious studies and psychology,
was a lawyer and a litigator as well as a
wilderness guide, peacemaker, community builder.
He has worked with ayahuasca and other sacred
plants in the Amazon, peyote in ceremonies
of the Native American Church, and huachuma
in Peruvian mesa rituals; undertaken numerous
four-day and four-night solo vision fasts
in Death Valley, the Pecos Wilderness, and
the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico; and lived
in a Tibetan monastery. From these experiences
have come books on Buddhism, Tibetan language
and religion, and now, mestizo shamanism.
Stephan has long had an interest in wilderness
survival in a variety of terrains, especially
jungle survival. He explains that “as
I learned more and more about the ways in
which indigenous people survive — indeed,
flourish — in the wilderness, it became
increasingly clear to me that wilderness survival
included a significant spiritual component
— the maintenance of right relationships
both with human persons and with the other-than-human
persons who fill the indigenous world. Thus
I began to explore wilderness spirituality,
to learn ways to live in harmony with the
natural world, striving, like indigenous people,
to be in right relationship with the plant
and animal spirits of the wilderness.”
In addition to studying how indigenous peoples
of North and South America survive and thrive,
Stephen studies sacred plant medicine with
traditional herbalists in North America and
curanderos in the Upper Amazon, where Stephan
has received coronación by banco ayahuasquero
don Roberto Acho Jurama.
