Program Notes
Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com
https://www.patreon.com/lorenzohagerty
Guest speaker: Jonathon Miller Weisberger
https://www.amazon.com/Rainforest-Medicine-Preserving-Indigenous-Biodiversity/dp/158394608XDate this lecture was recorded: October 28, 2019.
Today’s podcast features a conversation that a few of my friends and I had with Jonathon Miller Weisberger, who is the founder of the Ocean Forest Ecolodge Retreat in Costa Rica. Jonathan is also the author of Rainforest Medicine: Preserving Indigenous Science and Biodiversity in the Upper Amazon. For almost 19 years he has also been facilitating plant medicine council gatherings in Costa Rica and Ecuador. Jonathon was born in Berkeley, raised in Ecuador, and began his training in the Amazon with Maestro Don Cesareo in the early 90s.
Rainforest Medicine: Preserving Indigenous Science and Biodiversity in the Upper Amazon
Ocean Forest Ecolodge Retreat, Costa Rica
Rainforest Medicine Gatherings
The Difference between Ayahuasca and Yagé
Download free copies of Lorenzo’s latest books
Previous Episode
631 - Tim Scully and Orange Sunshine
Next Episode
633 - The Man Who Invented Bicycle Day
Similar Episodes
- 673 - Ayahuasca & Tobacco Secrets – Jeremy Narby - score: 0.72853
- 638 - Replanting Ayahuasca - score: 0.72252
- 080 - Adventures of an Urban Shaman - score: 0.71547
- 277 - Peter Gorman Interviews Dennis McKenna Part 2 - score: 0.71514
- 649 - Shamans of the Global Village Episode 2 - score: 0.70981
- 542 - Shamans of the Global Village - score: 0.70645
- 273 - Indigenous Plant Wisdom - score: 0.70434
- 031 - The Sacred Cactus - score: 0.70331
- 404 - A Survey of Shamanic Options - score: 0.69040
- 655 - Datura Tips from a Psychedelic Sailor - score: 0.68716
Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from cyberdelic space.
00:00:19 ►
This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.
00:00:24 ►
As you already know, at least if you’ve been with me here in the Salon for a while,
00:00:28 ►
one of the things that I’m trying to do with these podcasts,
00:00:32 ►
in addition to helping to pass along information about psychedelic medicines
00:00:36 ►
and the altered states of consciousness that they provoke,
00:00:39 ►
well, in addition to that, I also like to collect some of the stories
00:00:43 ►
about how these explorers of realms
00:00:46 ►
yet unknown have found their paths, their destiny, if you will. And today we’re going to be treated
00:00:52 ►
to a conversation with a man who has spent his adult life living and working in the jungle with
00:00:58 ►
healers and their medicines. What is so unusual about Jonathan Miller Weisberger’s story is that he didn’t just stay in one location for a few months to study rainforest medicine.
00:01:09 ►
He spent many years living with each of several different indigenous rainforest cultures, learning their ways and getting to know them on a personal level.
00:01:18 ►
About 19 years ago, Jonathan began the development of what today is the Ocean Forest Eco Lodge in Costa Rica.
00:01:26 ►
And he’s here to tell us about the life journey that’s carried him through some fascinating times.
00:01:32 ►
And he will bring us up to date about the work he’s doing with various projects among indigenous people,
00:01:38 ►
as well as about the retreats that he hosts at the Eco Lodge.
00:01:42 ►
Now, here’s a recording of a live salon that took place three weeks ago.
00:01:47 ►
Jonathan, welcome. And do I call you Jonathan or Sparrow? Well, either works really.
00:01:59 ►
Sparrow’s an old name, but Sparrow’s my official name and Jonathan’s my spiritual name.
00:02:06 ►
Oh, okay. The reason I ask is that, am I correct in saying that your mother’s first name was
00:02:13 ►
Delilah?
00:02:14 ►
Dahlia.
00:02:15 ►
Dahlia. Okay. I was close. So my wife and I met your mother in 1999 at the Ayahuasca conference in San Francisco uh-huh and it was
00:02:29 ►
really the reason it’s memorable for a lot of reasons of course we enjoyed uh you know meeting
00:02:35 ►
your mother and she was uh so enthusiastic about the center that you all were building down there
00:02:41 ►
uh I believe in Costa Rica right and she she she kept telling us
00:02:46 ►
she said oh i wish my son was here so he could meet all of you and and you know all of these
00:02:51 ►
years i thought well you know there is an opportunity missed but here we’re meeting
00:02:55 ►
online anyhow so uh welcome jonathan oh thank you so much lorenzo i really appreciate you
00:03:01 ►
recalling that memoir with my mother that’s’s awesome. Yeah, she’s an amazing woman.
00:03:06 ►
Yeah.
00:03:08 ►
So let me do this.
00:03:11 ►
Let’s start out, and I’m going to put up on the screen for the people who are here,
00:03:16 ►
and you might be able to see this on your computer too.
00:03:21 ►
I’m going to put up on the screen the website, your website for Ocean Forest.
00:03:29 ►
And is that where you were working when we first met your mother at the conference?
00:03:38 ►
Yes, correct. That’s the place. We’ve been there 20 years now, and it’s quite amazing.
00:03:43 ►
It says, where the majesty of the rainforest meets the sparkling Pacific Ocean.
00:03:49 ►
There we are on that beautiful beach.
00:03:51 ►
It’s a mile-long paradise beach.
00:03:56 ►
It’s the Pacific Ocean there.
00:03:58 ►
This is South Pacific Costa Rica.
00:04:00 ►
Our ethnobotanical gardens are growing in quite robust. Now, that’s the flower of the Yahé or the ayahuasca vine.
00:04:07 ►
It flowers marvelously there during this onset of the dry season in December and January and into February as well.
00:04:17 ►
There’s our lodge there in the ocean.
00:04:19 ►
That ridge up behind is all pure, beautiful gallery rainforest, huge trees, abundant wildlife.
00:04:26 ►
It’s a remarkable place.
00:04:28 ►
So tell us about, you know, eventually here tonight I’d like to talk about some of your retreats and your book, of course.
00:04:37 ►
But let’s start out.
00:04:41 ►
How did this all come about?
00:04:43 ►
I mean, this is a really substantial thing that’s been going on for a long time.
00:04:49 ►
And, you know, I’ve known about it for 20 years now. How did you all get this thing going?
00:04:55 ►
What was the inspiration and what’s your background, actually?
00:04:59 ►
I appreciate that. Well, I was raised in Ecuador, the country of Ecuador.
00:05:03 ►
Well, I was raised in Ecuador, in the country of Ecuador.
00:05:10 ►
And in 1985, I moved to the United States, graduated from Berkeley High School, went on to study at Humboldt State University.
00:05:21 ►
And at Humboldt State, it wasn’t long later, a series of coincidental happenings occurred that I turned out to meet a cousin of mine. We didn’t know we were cousins until we started working together and he was
00:05:25 ►
very devoted to the
00:05:27 ►
cause of spreading awareness on
00:05:29 ►
campus about what was happening
00:05:31 ►
in the rainforest and he had these petitions
00:05:34 ►
going and he recruited me quickly to
00:05:35 ►
sign petitions and then one
00:05:38 ►
thing led to another. We got involved in the
00:05:39 ►
situations
00:05:41 ►
happening locally with the ancient redwood forest
00:05:44 ►
and I ended up becoming a guide locally with the ancient redwood forest.
00:05:49 ►
And I ended up becoming a guide out to the headwaters forest before redwood summer.
00:05:52 ►
And this was the late, basically late 80s.
00:05:56 ►
And then in 1990, through a professor at Humboldt State,
00:05:59 ►
there was a student prior to me that studied environmental journalism
00:06:03 ►
with his professor.
00:06:05 ►
And he had gone to Ecuador to start this biological reserve down there.
00:06:09 ►
And I got really interested because I was raised in Ecuador.
00:06:11 ►
I’d been to the rainforest a few times in my youth, but I was raised in the mountains.
00:06:15 ►
And it was fascinating to me.
00:06:16 ►
And so we got in touch, and one thing led to another.
00:06:18 ►
I took a year leave of absence.
00:06:20 ►
That turned into 10 years.
00:06:22 ►
It was just so fascinating down in the Amazon.
00:06:25 ►
And, you know, I got involved in all these projects.
00:06:29 ►
I ended up working on the, that’s basically the content of my book,
00:06:32 ►
Rainforest Medicine, Preserving Indigenous Science
00:06:36 ►
and Biological Diversity in the Upper Amazon.
00:06:40 ►
In that 10-year period, I was able to work on quite a number
00:06:43 ►
of really important historical projects,
00:06:46 ►
including the physical demarcation of the Waurani Indian Territory.
00:06:51 ►
And in brief, they basically received one-third of their ancestral homelands legalized.
00:06:58 ►
And there was an oil penetration coming down from the town of Coca,
00:07:06 ►
Francisco de Orellana, going south.
00:07:09 ►
And their territory had a canyon of colonization
00:07:12 ►
along both sides of this oil road
00:07:15 ►
and all kinds of colonization,
00:07:17 ►
huge global problems.
00:07:19 ►
And so our work was,
00:07:21 ►
and it was masterminded by an Australian man,
00:07:22 ►
Douglas Ferguson,
00:07:24 ►
who had formed an organization from Australia.
00:07:27 ►
It’s a whole other story how he got there,
00:07:28 ►
but he masterminded the project.
00:07:30 ►
I was a volunteer on that.
00:07:32 ►
And it was a fascinating, I mean, absolutely eye-opening,
00:07:35 ►
illusion-shattering, you know, reality-shattering
00:07:39 ►
and reconstructing experience, those four years working with Duarani.
00:07:44 ►
And what years were these?
00:07:47 ►
That was 1990 to 1994, quite a ways ago now.
00:07:50 ►
But those are indelible experiences.
00:07:52 ►
I wrote about them in my book.
00:07:54 ►
At the same time, other situations opened up,
00:07:57 ►
and I began working on the demarcation of the Napo Galeras.
00:08:00 ►
And I was influential in assisting, facilitating this sacred mountain called Napo Galeras that has amazing legends.
00:08:08 ►
The whole book kind of leads up to Chapter 8, which is about the protection of the Napo Galeras isolated limestone massif that’s considered to be a sacred mountain by three regional indigenous groups.
00:08:20 ►
And we were influential in allowing that area to be included
00:08:25 ►
into a new national park that was being created.
00:08:27 ►
I just finished a podcast with a gentleman named Anka
00:08:30 ►
from Southern California.
00:08:33 ►
He has a blog called Hybrid Culture.
00:08:37 ►
He specifically had read my book,
00:08:39 ►
very interested about that project in Galeras,
00:08:41 ►
and we spoke quite at length.
00:08:43 ►
That should be coming out pretty soon.
00:08:46 ►
I was teeter-tottering after those two projects concluded,
00:08:49 ►
going back to school, but then a whole new project opened up
00:08:51 ►
with a friend of mine, and I was shuffled off to the Sequoia territory in 1995,
00:08:56 ►
which went into a whole other five years.
00:08:59 ►
And that was a really fantastic experience,
00:09:01 ►
because I became the student of an accomplished master of the realities
00:09:06 ►
of the Yahé, of the sacred plant medicine science of Yahé. And I was there working with the Sequoias
00:09:12 ►
primarily to be a facilitator of cultural revalidation. And I ended up publishing several
00:09:20 ►
books for the Sequoia schools. One was called Health and Life about a Sequoia ethnobotany.
00:09:25 ►
Another with a Sequoia school teacher about the cultural migrations of the Sequoia people.
00:09:31 ►
And then another cosmology wall calendar.
00:09:33 ►
We would organize gatherings amongst the elders and youth.
00:09:36 ►
And that led to these Exodus-style voyages to help assist them in recuperating their
00:09:41 ►
ancestral territory on the Peruvian-Equatorian border.
00:09:44 ►
So those five years were just fantastic.
00:09:46 ►
And then on top of that, intermixed with all many ceremonies with the sacred plant medicine
00:09:51 ►
of Yahé, with Don Cesario, Pia Guaje, and many other Sequoia elders that would come
00:09:56 ►
along.
00:09:58 ►
So basically in the year 2000, a war came to a closure, and a strange kind of fluke of incidents has occurred,
00:10:10 ►
and life’s opportunities brought me to Costa Rica.
00:10:15 ►
In particular, Ecuador was undergoing a very challenging time.
00:10:21 ►
It still is in some regards.
00:10:22 ►
It’s stabilized itself, but the country was being dollarized. There was massive
00:10:25 ►
inflation. I was
00:10:27 ►
working at a Chinese
00:10:29 ►
doctor’s academy. The town I was living
00:10:32 ►
with, Banos, the volcano started
00:10:33 ►
erupting. The town was evacuated, so I left
00:10:35 ►
back to Quito. I was working with
00:10:37 ►
this Chinese doctor who I met in the park.
00:10:40 ►
My friend said, that other guy teaching
00:10:41 ►
Tai Chi in the park.
00:10:43 ►
It wasn’t long before he had me as a student. teaching tai chi in the park we started soon he wasn’t long before
00:10:45 ►
you know he had me as a student and all those years in the amazon um you know not be with
00:10:51 ►
indigenous elders that you know don’t necessarily don’t speak any spanish whatsoever the you know
00:10:56 ►
society the sequoia somewhat but not much um so you learn to communicate on an energy level and
00:11:02 ►
with uh dr huang huang chang jing it wasn’t it he caught on quick that i could you know we we got to communicate on an energy level. And with Dr. Huang, Huang Chengjing,
00:11:05 ►
he caught on quick that we got along pretty well.
00:11:09 ►
That led to a year and a half of studying Tai Chi, Kung Fu,
00:11:13 ►
traditional Chinese medicine.
00:11:15 ►
It was fascinating.
00:11:16 ►
But at that time,
00:11:17 ►
Ecuador was undergoing a really drastic transition economically,
00:11:21 ►
similar to maybe what the United States went through
00:11:23 ►
during the Great Depression.
00:11:24 ►
Many of the banks just closed, outright closed.
00:11:27 ►
And it was really intense to see, like, all the kinds of patients that would come to his clinic 30, 40 a day.
00:11:33 ►
They would start complaining about, you know, like, elder people with no, like, their retirements just vanished before their eyes.
00:11:39 ►
And, you know, people, the banks simply closed and no one could get their money.
00:11:42 ►
And he would come out and scream at everybody, here you don’t come to complain.
00:11:46 ►
Here you come to receive the energy.
00:11:48 ►
And he’d bust out his two-string erhu, this violin,
00:11:51 ►
and just wail on the violin, the most soulful music.
00:11:54 ►
And you’d have all these folks of different ages,
00:11:57 ►
a lot of elder people open their hands and receive the energy.
00:11:59 ►
It was a really powerful experience.
00:12:01 ►
But in that, my great-uncle died, who was my, we could say, cultural hero.
00:12:05 ►
He brought my family, my grandparents from Poland right before the Second World War to Panama.
00:12:10 ►
And some of my family came in the 1940s to Ecuador as well.
00:12:14 ►
They founded a clinic, a hospital there.
00:12:15 ►
My great-uncle was a doctor.
00:12:18 ►
And basically, he passed away, so we went to Panama.
00:12:22 ►
And for that, he was a great age amazing human being
00:12:26 ►
Isaac Koresh he was a renowned
00:12:28 ►
boxing manager in Panama
00:12:29 ►
he trained five world champions and lightweight champion
00:12:32 ►
boxers of the world
00:12:33 ►
hardcore boxing manager
00:12:35 ►
he was very generous too
00:12:38 ►
he helped a lot of people he really installed in me the culture
00:12:40 ►
of service and I’d always go
00:12:42 ►
visit him from a young age but when I was in Panama
00:12:44 ►
a friend of mine from Ecuador was studying in university in Costa Rica,
00:12:47 ►
just out of free coincidence had her vacation time, and I still had some time on my ticket.
00:12:52 ►
And I’d always wanted to visit the Osa Peninsula, mainly as a botanist.
00:12:56 ►
You know, it always fascinated me with the rain.
00:12:58 ►
And I love the ocean as well, where the rainforest meets the ocean.
00:13:01 ►
And sure enough, she wanted to do this 10-day trek across the
00:13:05 ►
osa peninsula and it just aligned perfectly for me to meet her so i went up into panama
00:13:10 ►
we met in southern costa rica hiked 10 days through the through the coca-cola national park
00:13:16 ►
up the coast camping along the way and had amazing encounters with wildlife and when we got to this
00:13:23 ►
beach just out of the park i couldn’t believe this area was not part of the park
00:13:27 ►
because in many regards, the park is very wild.
00:13:30 ►
But this place, our beach felt so like people-friendly,
00:13:33 ►
kind of a people-friendly wilderness.
00:13:35 ►
And she had to get back to her classes.
00:13:38 ►
I still had some time on my ticket.
00:13:39 ►
And I met this beautiful elder named Don Victorio.
00:13:42 ►
I have to give him all the honors.
00:13:46 ►
His name in translation to English says victory from the real village, real village.
00:13:51 ►
So Patricia, my friend, left back to her studies.
00:13:53 ►
I was kind of sad, wondering what to do.
00:13:54 ►
There was this happy old old timer.
00:13:57 ►
And we started talking.
00:13:58 ►
One thing led to another.
00:13:58 ►
He invited me to his house.
00:14:00 ►
Turns out he’s a neurologist.
00:14:02 ►
So we shared a lot of wisdom with the plants together.
00:14:04 ►
And I chopped him
00:14:05 ►
a big pile of
00:14:06 ►
firewood
00:14:06 ►
and he asked me
00:14:07 ►
he said you’re not
00:14:07 ►
interested in
00:14:08 ►
purchasing some
00:14:09 ►
land here
00:14:09 ►
in this area
00:14:10 ►
and I said you know
00:14:12 ►
if it was worthy
00:14:14 ►
you gotta watch
00:14:14 ►
what you say for
00:14:15 ►
if I must bow down
00:14:16 ►
somewhere
00:14:16 ►
that beach down there
00:14:18 ►
was pretty remarkable
00:14:18 ►
I was like oh I
00:14:19 ►
happen to know
00:14:19 ►
a family that
00:14:20 ►
has a little piece
00:14:21 ►
of property down there
00:14:22 ►
he brought me down
00:14:24 ►
and they were waiting
00:14:24 ►
on some woman from California that was like committed to them six months ago family that has a little piece of property down there he brought me down and they were waiting on
00:14:25 ►
some woman from california that was like committed to them six months ago never came back and so at
00:14:31 ►
first they said no you know it’s we already committed to someone but i camped there because
00:14:35 ►
it’s such a beautiful location this is where your your site is now it’s where you where the spot is
00:14:40 ►
yeah the saga of how we got there uh worthy of uh you know sharing that adventure
00:14:45 ►
and anyway so basically the family came to know we were thinking about this year and you know we
00:14:50 ►
really like you and um these women that we had committed to it’s been six months as they were
00:14:55 ►
supposed to come six months ago it’s like so you know figured if you’re interested and then
00:14:59 ►
suddenly it was like oh my god it was like if i’m interested at first it was kind of like a relief
00:15:04 ►
there’s like no it’s already committed so i’ll just camp out for five days go back to ecuador oh my God. I was like, if I’m interested at first, it was kind of like a relief. There was like, no,
00:15:05 ►
it’s 30 minutes.
00:15:05 ►
I’ll just camp out for five days,
00:15:06 ►
go back to Ecuador.
00:15:08 ►
And then,
00:15:08 ►
so when they said that to me,
00:15:09 ►
I just like,
00:15:10 ►
like a,
00:15:11 ►
like an explosion of ideas,
00:15:12 ►
just like,
00:15:13 ►
because I love Ecuador,
00:15:14 ►
but also like,
00:15:16 ►
you know,
00:15:16 ►
basically 10 years in the Amazon
00:15:17 ►
and like,
00:15:18 ►
you know,
00:15:18 ►
most of the time background level
00:15:19 ►
and drinking crazy amounts
00:15:21 ►
of very stiff Yahe brews
00:15:23 ►
with my old master
00:15:23 ►
was like,
00:15:24 ►
and seeing, you know, the advancements of colonialism.
00:15:27 ►
And it was,
00:15:27 ►
it’s for someone who’s sensitive,
00:15:28 ►
it’s difficult to witness all that.
00:15:30 ►
And somehow I managed to,
00:15:31 ►
you know,
00:15:32 ►
like forge through it all,
00:15:33 ►
not like lose my mind.
00:15:34 ►
But then to come to a place like Costa Rica,
00:15:36 ►
where everything,
00:15:38 ►
you know,
00:15:38 ►
it was a whole different story.
00:15:39 ►
There’s no mining.
00:15:39 ►
And it’s like,
00:15:40 ►
everyone’s like,
00:15:41 ►
you know,
00:15:41 ►
like a natural sense of like conservation ethics amongst the locals, tons of animals everywhere. It just seemed like there’s like a natural sense of conservation ethics amongst the locals.
00:15:45 ►
Tons of animals everywhere.
00:15:46 ►
It just seemed like there’s the golden next level opportunity.
00:15:49 ►
I had a lodge that I’d worked with the sequoias.
00:15:52 ►
But that whole area in the northern Amazon became declared a red zone for tourism because of the planned Columbia.
00:16:00 ►
The USA aid to Columbia to combat the narco movement.
00:16:05 ►
That northern Amazon province became very dangerous.
00:16:08 ►
And I had been in meetings.
00:16:10 ►
Throughout those years working in conservation in Ecuador,
00:16:12 ►
I had seen a lot of things.
00:16:14 ►
You know, the book is about that.
00:16:15 ►
It doesn’t even talk about Costa Rica.
00:16:16 ►
At the end of the book, it says, you know, we have our lodge there.
00:16:19 ►
But one of the things that I remember clearly being in was a meeting
00:16:22 ►
with many different indigenous representatives,
00:16:24 ►
some generals from the Ecuadorian
00:16:25 ►
army too. They admitted that the biggest
00:16:27 ►
mistake they’d made, one of them, was
00:16:29 ►
opening the roads up from Colombia down into
00:16:31 ►
Ecuador. And it’s just been really
00:16:33 ►
used mainly by the subversive
00:16:36 ►
movements. They’re very aggressive, very
00:16:37 ►
violent. And those towns in the northern
00:16:40 ►
Ecuadorian Amazon until recently
00:16:42 ►
in the past five to ten years, they’ve been cleaned up a lot.
00:16:47 ►
But the times that I visited they were like, you know,
00:16:50 ►
as like dirty and slimy as like a town can get.
00:16:53 ►
And like Cordea, one of the things he did is had the oil companies,
00:16:56 ►
you know, reinvest a lot of the 30 years of back taxes
00:16:59 ►
that they never paid.
00:17:00 ►
He got it off of them, threatened to nationalize the companies,
00:17:02 ►
you know, oil if they didn’t do that.
00:17:04 ►
And reinvested all this money into these like remote, He got it off of them, threatened to nationalize the companies, the oil, if they didn’t do that,
00:17:09 ►
and reinvested all this money into these remote oil frontier towns and made them into quite nice towns.
00:17:10 ►
And one of the things they did was clean up this gang warfare
00:17:13 ►
that was happening there that had to do a lot.
00:17:15 ►
Mainly people who knew too much were involved with the subversive movement.
00:17:19 ►
But literally, I saw an article in the paper,
00:17:22 ►
it cost $20 to hire an assassin in Chuchu Fili.
00:17:26 ►
That’s what a life is worth.
00:17:27 ►
The last tour I did out there, someone was shot at the hotel an hour after we left.
00:17:32 ►
It just seemed too intense, all that.
00:17:36 ►
This opportunity, Costa Rica opened up, and I just needed a sign.
00:17:41 ►
I feel like the best sign is a calm and simple light,
00:17:44 ►
but I had to ask the Great Spirit for a sign. I feel like, you know, the best sign is like a calm and simple light. But I was like,
00:17:45 ►
I had to ask the Great Spirit for a sign on this one.
00:17:48 ►
So I had like a few days left.
00:17:50 ►
I had to leave back to Ecuador with my ticket.
00:17:53 ►
So I went up to the top of the hill
00:17:54 ►
with the rainforest behind
00:17:55 ►
and the beautiful sparkling ocean in front.
00:17:58 ►
I meditated and asked the Great Spirit for a sign.
00:18:02 ►
In that moment,
00:18:02 ►
I heard like the squawking of macaws.
00:18:04 ►
And I looked up and right above a sign. In that moment, I heard like the squawking of macaws. And I looked up.
00:18:05 ►
And right above me were eight scarlet macaws in a perfect plus sign in four pairs.
00:18:12 ►
And that was enough of a sign, like a plus of macaws.
00:18:15 ►
And then it still wasn’t enough of a sign, actually, because as I was leaving the family,
00:18:19 ►
I said, I don’t know.
00:18:20 ►
We’re going to come up with the money.
00:18:21 ►
And basically, I just said, like, you know, I don’t think I can do this but as I was leaving as I was walking out of there I started to cry
00:18:28 ►
and I was like I was like oh I blew it I should just told him I’ll just do it when am I coming
00:18:33 ►
back probably never when I got to Palo Alto I got on the bus to go back to Panama this guy asked me
00:18:38 ►
you’re not going to mention this hotel down the beach he thought I was going to this hotel like
00:18:42 ►
no no I’m actually leaving but the hotel owners i made friends with him while i was there and i was like you don’t know
00:18:47 ►
so and so he’s like oh yeah i know i was like you won’t have to hand this note for me he’s like of
00:18:52 ►
course so i scribbled a note for my friend pincho to pass on to the to the neighbor family that was
00:18:57 ►
you know offering me this property and sure enough they got the note had no communication
00:19:02 ►
with them on cell phone or anything.
00:19:09 ►
And six months later, I returned to see if indeed it was still available.
00:19:11 ►
And sure enough, they had got the note and they waited for me.
00:19:14 ►
Oh, wow.
00:19:16 ►
Yeah.
00:19:19 ►
And there we are today, thanks to my great uncle. And a lot of hard work.
00:19:22 ►
And we got the property and started building it up.
00:19:24 ►
And one thing of hard work. And we got the property and started building it up. And one thing led to another.
00:19:25 ►
And, yeah, we channeled all that energy from, you know,
00:19:29 ►
accumulated over 10 years in the Amazon into that project.
00:19:31 ►
And we have a gorgeous, beautiful center now.
00:19:34 ►
It’s an ethnobotanical gardens that are filling in quite remarkably.
00:19:38 ►
We have hundreds of species of ethnobotanical plants
00:19:40 ►
and a permaculture project.
00:19:43 ►
Now, you’ve been working on this one site here for like 20 years now?
00:19:48 ►
Yes, I’ve been focused, living about nine months a year there.
00:19:51 ►
Still sustaining projects in Ecuador, though, as well.
00:19:55 ►
Now, how did you finally get a stake in the ground and get started to where now you actually have retreats that you’re organizing, things like that.
00:20:05 ►
How did that progress over the years?
00:20:08 ►
Well, the first thing we did was build the bean lodge there.
00:20:13 ►
And it’s quite a remarkable feat.
00:20:15 ►
It’s a three-story pagoda.
00:20:17 ►
I don’t even know how we did it.
00:20:19 ►
But we had this dream, this vision.
00:20:23 ►
Like, you know, halfway through, I was like, oh, my God, I blew it. I’m going to be one more dumb gringo
00:20:26 ►
even though I can speak fluent
00:20:28 ►
Spanish basically. You know, that like,
00:20:30 ►
there’s a lot of failed projects in Costa Rica. People come
00:20:32 ►
with illusions of grandeur. You see them
00:20:34 ►
scattered up the coast, you know, big
00:20:36 ►
projects half done, just being covered
00:20:38 ►
or eaten over by the jungle.
00:20:41 ►
But I think thanks to the spirit,
00:20:42 ►
you know, to two things,
00:20:44 ►
the medicine of Yahé, things the medicine of Yahweh
00:20:45 ►
the sacred medicine of Yahweh
00:20:47 ►
and also thanks to the I Ching
00:20:49 ►
Dr. Huang
00:20:52 ►
to my interest in Taoism
00:20:54 ►
I’ve always
00:20:55 ►
I got on young to the Tao Te Ching
00:20:57 ►
and to the study of the I Ching
00:21:00 ►
the I Ching
00:21:01 ►
the book of changes and the unchanging truth
00:21:04 ►
which is one of the oldest divination texts.
00:21:06 ►
The I Ching always came out favorable
00:21:07 ►
and helped guide me through a lot of circumstances.
00:21:12 ►
But also through the medicine too
00:21:15 ►
and the people you meet
00:21:16 ►
and holding the ways that we learned
00:21:18 ►
from my good-hearted master,
00:21:20 ►
known as Cesario.
00:21:21 ►
We had the first groups camped out there.
00:21:25 ►
There’s been a lot of miracles.
00:21:27 ►
You know, one that I have to mention is Don Pablo Amarigo,
00:21:29 ►
the great visionary artist.
00:21:30 ►
Right.
00:21:31 ►
He was, I became personal friends with him.
00:21:34 ►
I definitely at the time didn’t realize how fortunate I was.
00:21:37 ►
I mean, I definitely, you know, honored and recognized and, you know,
00:21:41 ►
soaked up as much as I could.
00:21:43 ►
And on my first early tours to the Sequoia Territory,
00:21:46 ►
he joined us on six of those trips.
00:21:48 ►
Wow.
00:21:49 ►
I only met him one time,
00:21:51 ►
but he was so gracious.
00:21:53 ►
I didn’t speak Spanish,
00:21:55 ►
and so he was kind,
00:21:56 ►
and we had an interpreter.
00:21:58 ►
Just spent a lot of time.
00:21:59 ►
Just a kind man, I found.
00:22:01 ►
The true sage of the Amazon.
00:22:03 ►
One of the most humble,
00:22:05 ►
selfless,
00:22:08 ►
I lived in his home for a month to see how he just devoted himself
00:22:10 ►
to service. His whole house was a school
00:22:12 ►
for teaching art
00:22:14 ►
and giving advice. He was the father to many, many
00:22:16 ►
people. He had a way of transmitting
00:22:18 ►
and inspiring people
00:22:20 ►
to see the value of the tradition of their
00:22:22 ►
heritage and culture and lift it up
00:22:24 ►
through his way that he knew,
00:22:27 ►
which was through art. And in my book, I talk about Don Pablo.
00:22:30 ►
There was one moment where, where we were like, you know, slim,
00:22:33 ►
slim pickings, you know, and the, you know,
00:22:35 ►
had to get through the rainy season. And I had, I had sold that for a while.
00:22:40 ►
I was one of his,
00:22:41 ►
he actually have a letter of permission from him to represent him.
00:22:45 ►
And I would sell his art. We sold them cheap
00:22:48 ►
in those days, in the early days. I regret not
00:22:49 ►
having bought a bunch myself but
00:22:51 ►
like $1,500, now they go for like
00:22:53 ►
40 or even more, $80.
00:22:56 ►
Who knows? People, I guess, can ask
00:22:57 ►
if they want now that he’s
00:22:59 ►
deceased but I’ve seen him on the internet for like $60,000.
00:23:03 ►
I don’t
00:23:03 ►
know if you can see the screen but I’ve put about the internet for like 60,000. I don’t know if you can see the screen,
00:23:05 ►
but I’ve put your website up here that has some photos of your lodge.
00:23:12 ►
Here’s the beach.
00:23:14 ►
This must be a scene from above.
00:23:17 ►
Here is a patio with a table.
00:23:20 ►
This is spectacularly beautiful, Jonathan.
00:23:24 ►
You guys, wow, what a bunch of, that’s a lot of work went into this.
00:23:29 ►
I am very impressed with what you’ve done, and it can’t have been easy to do all that.
00:23:37 ►
So let me ask you, and we’ll talk a little bit about your book here.
00:23:50 ►
But you brought something up that I only have a vague understanding of this,
00:23:54 ►
is the difference between Yahweh and ayahuasca.
00:23:56 ►
Can you tell us more about that?
00:23:59 ►
Much pleasure, Lorenzo.
00:24:04 ►
On my website, I have another website for the book.
00:24:06 ►
It’s called ReinforcedMedicine.net.
00:24:09 ►
There’s a part that says the tradition.
00:24:15 ►
And I put together a homespun kind of funky video documentary about the differences between ayahuasca and yajen
00:24:18 ►
that I encourage people to look at.
00:24:20 ►
But there are several differences.
00:24:22 ►
And also in the book, I say,
00:24:24 ►
and I came to understand,
00:24:26 ►
that basically each indigenous culture,
00:24:27 ►
their use of the sacred plant medicine of ayahuasca is an indigenous science.
00:24:33 ►
Yeah, there he goes.
00:24:34 ►
You can see there where it says the tradition up at the top.
00:24:36 ►
And that’s Pablo’s painting on the cover, I see.
00:24:39 ►
Correct.
00:24:42 ►
That vision is called circulating the globe
00:24:45 ►
and so each indigenous group
00:24:48 ►
and the way they use these sacred plant medicine
00:24:50 ►
is a science in and of itself
00:24:52 ►
so we can deduce that there’s the indigenous science of ayahuasca
00:24:55 ►
then there’s the indigenous science
00:24:58 ►
of Yahé
00:24:58 ►
and as used amongst the Tukanoan
00:25:02 ►
speakers
00:25:03 ►
the indigenous science of ayahuasca stems originally from the Inca,
00:25:07 ►
from certain esoteric
00:25:08 ►
groups, lines of the Inca, the
00:25:10 ►
Shinis, that
00:25:11 ►
taught the ayahuasca to the
00:25:14 ►
Amazonian tribes.
00:25:16 ►
And then we have the indigenous science of
00:25:18 ►
Nii, amongst the Waurani.
00:25:21 ►
And each group,
00:25:22 ►
the indigenous science of Natem,
00:25:24 ►
the indigenous science of Kapem, the indigenous science of
00:25:26 ►
Kapi, the indigenous
00:25:28 ►
science of Pinde. Each indigenous
00:25:29 ►
group that uses it has its own
00:25:31 ►
indigenous science. I can
00:25:34 ►
share with you some of the differences between the
00:25:35 ►
science of Ayahuasca and the science
00:25:38 ►
of Yahé. And in broad
00:25:40 ►
strokes, basically, it has to do with a few things.
00:25:43 ►
One of them
00:25:43 ►
is in the preparation method
00:25:46 ►
and in the admixture plants used
00:25:47 ►
also I might note that the
00:25:49 ►
Yahé and also Ayahuasca
00:25:51 ►
are unique ancestral
00:25:53 ►
cultigens of the plant itself
00:25:55 ►
because the Ayahuasca vine is believed to be
00:25:58 ►
a house and inside this house
00:26:00 ►
lives a spirit or pinta
00:26:01 ►
different spiritual energies
00:26:03 ►
depending on the lineage
00:26:06 ►
and the degree and the caliber
00:26:07 ►
of the healer or the maestro,
00:26:10 ►
they have different spirits
00:26:11 ►
that inhabit these houses,
00:26:13 ►
different pintas that are
00:26:14 ►
from different realms of existence.
00:26:18 ►
And so the ayahuasca is,
00:26:23 ►
for the most part,
00:26:23 ►
the admixture is a plant called chacruda
00:26:25 ►
which is the psychotree of arides
00:26:27 ►
it’s rubiesi in the coffee family
00:26:30 ►
and in the
00:26:31 ►
traditions of Yahé
00:26:33 ►
the admixture that they use
00:26:35 ►
would be
00:26:36 ►
diploporous cabrarana
00:26:38 ►
what they call Yahé Oko, the Yahé water
00:26:41 ►
and this is another vine
00:26:43 ►
in the same family as the ayahuasca Melfingisi.
00:26:46 ►
Ayahuasca, my dad, is
00:26:47 ►
many syrups. It’s capi. Most of us know that now.
00:26:51 ►
basically
00:26:52 ►
so
00:26:54 ►
these plants, the admixtures,
00:26:57 ►
have different alkaloids in them.
00:27:00 ►
And while some
00:27:01 ►
of the Ayahuasca knows about
00:27:03 ►
they call it Chagrupanga in Peru and Chalipanga
00:27:06 ►
they usually just add in a little bit of leaves
00:27:08 ►
not that much
00:27:09 ►
and the Sequoia add in quite a bit more
00:27:11 ►
and only the young leaves that are reaching to the sun
00:27:13 ►
also the Yahé
00:27:15 ►
all the bark is pounded off
00:27:17 ►
and there’s a reason for that
00:27:19 ►
because the bark is rich in tannins
00:27:22 ►
and the tannins are aromatic
00:27:24 ►
they make one vomit
00:27:24 ►
and they’re more of a purgative because the bark is rich in tannins, and the tannins are nomadic. They make one vomit.
00:27:27 ►
They’re more of a purgative.
00:27:34 ►
The Yahya tradition has a part that’s prior to the ceremony of the Yahya.
00:27:38 ►
The people, they do a sunrise renewal ceremony.
00:27:40 ►
And this takes place at three in the morning. And this is prepared in a large pot.
00:27:43 ►
And it’s just the leaves of the Yahe vine
00:27:46 ►
and the leaves of the Yahe Oko
00:27:47 ►
vine, the admixture vine
00:27:49 ►
with some stems as well
00:27:51 ►
of the woody stems of the
00:27:53 ►
Ayahuasca Yahe vine
00:27:54 ►
and they boil it for only two hours
00:27:57 ►
and they wake up at three in the morning
00:27:59 ►
and the elder maestro blows on it
00:28:02 ►
and prepares it energetically and then all the students
00:28:03 ►
drink copious gourds like half gallon-gallon-sized gourds.
00:28:07 ►
One, two.
00:28:09 ►
By the third, you’re vomiting.
00:28:10 ►
And then you drink another.
00:28:11 ►
And you vomit even more.
00:28:13 ►
And people, you know, can drink up to five or six and vomit really good.
00:28:17 ►
And then it passes through the intestines.
00:28:19 ►
And it’s a thorough cleanse.
00:28:21 ►
You pee at your butt.
00:28:21 ►
Basically, it sprays out.
00:28:24 ►
And you get high off of that.
00:28:26 ►
Forget it.
00:28:27 ►
I’ve been nothing but a disembodied set of eyes
00:28:30 ►
bouncing across the room at one time.
00:28:32 ►
We’re all just crying.
00:28:33 ►
Who knows why we’re even crying?
00:28:37 ►
Even the
00:28:37 ►
master was crying that time.
00:28:40 ►
So that cleans you out
00:28:42 ►
thoroughly and prepares
00:28:43 ►
the body for this experience of the Yahé.
00:28:45 ►
Then with the Yahé, the objective is to drink
00:28:48 ►
but not to vomit, to hold it in.
00:28:50 ►
Because the objective of the tradition of the ceremony of Yahé,
00:28:55 ►
the purpose is to meet and to merge
00:28:57 ►
with the energy of the Winya Pai,
00:29:02 ►
the divine immortals.
00:29:04 ►
In order to meet the divine immortals
00:29:05 ►
you have to drink very stiff
00:29:06 ►
and you have to have a strong body too
00:29:09 ►
it goes along with a strong work ethic too as well
00:29:11 ►
the tradition of
00:29:12 ►
basic everyday life of the Sequoias
00:29:15 ►
takes a lot of work
00:29:17 ►
like the gardening
00:29:18 ►
doing agriculture, making canoes, building houses
00:29:21 ►
so you have to get really strong physically
00:29:23 ►
to be able to hold it a lot and not
00:29:25 ►
go screaming, you know, basically
00:29:27 ►
or you have to get tied up.
00:29:30 ►
And then so then
00:29:32 ►
you can see the
00:29:33 ►
heaven people that way, different realms of
00:29:35 ►
legions of the divine immortals.
00:29:38 ►
Whereas the traditions of ayahuasca in the
00:29:39 ►
past, they were different
00:29:42 ►
in that the ayahuasqueros
00:29:43 ►
would go into the wilderness and do diets, dietas, for several weeks or months at lakes or sacred spots and rivers or mountainsides and locations that were energetic locations.
00:29:55 ►
Like I say, lakes or maybe cliff hillsides where there’s special spots in the wilderness.
00:30:01 ►
And they’d do these diets, sometimes not with other plants, primarily usually with different
00:30:06 ►
plants. And then they would
00:30:08 ►
drink the ayahuasca only after two months or so
00:30:10 ►
or a month to
00:30:12 ►
prove, to see if their diet was successful.
00:30:15 ►
And if
00:30:16 ►
not, so the ayahuasca is more as a tool,
00:30:18 ►
used as a tool to calibrate to see
00:30:20 ►
if their diet was successful.
00:30:23 ►
And then
00:30:23 ►
when they became healers
00:30:26 ►
and they did enough graduations and diets,
00:30:29 ►
they would use ayahuasca to heal.
00:30:31 ►
Many occasions the sick people
00:30:33 ►
wouldn’t even drink the ayahuasca.
00:30:34 ►
They would just get healed by the maestro
00:30:35 ►
who had the contact with different spirits.
00:30:39 ►
Now the ayahuasca traditions have changed
00:30:41 ►
quite a bit to basically meet
00:30:43 ►
a modern setting with people going down to the Amazon a lot on like,
00:30:48 ►
you know,
00:30:48 ►
like 10 day retreats or week long retreats or overnights at people’s houses
00:30:51 ►
all over the place, you know, the cities, the world over.
00:30:55 ►
And so,
00:30:56 ►
and so the ayahuasca tradition usually also the ceremony of Yahweh for the
00:31:02 ►
most part starts at sunset and goes to like midnight or one in the morning, and then it’s over.
00:31:08 ►
Ayahuasca, at least traditionally in Peru,
00:31:10 ►
they’ll drink one time, maybe two at the most,
00:31:12 ►
and then Westerners that want to push it usually try to get more in
00:31:16 ►
and sometimes go all night,
00:31:17 ►
but the most traditional Ayahuasca ceremony is at midnight.
00:31:21 ►
Whereas the ceremony of Yahé,
00:31:23 ►
that’s another difference in how the ceremony is conducted.
00:31:26 ►
It has to do with the energy clock.
00:31:29 ►
From sunset to midnight come out the elemental energies,
00:31:33 ►
the primal energies of the spirits.
00:31:36 ►
But from midnight and more close to 2, 3 in the morning
00:31:38 ►
till sunrise descend the celestial spirits.
00:31:42 ►
So the Sequoia ceremony of Yehef, oftentimes
00:31:45 ►
will be, you know, people will start
00:31:47 ►
drinking right after sunset, but there’ll be a long
00:31:49 ►
period of silence, almost all the way,
00:31:51 ►
sometimes, and you drink two or three times, so you’re
00:31:53 ►
really high, but it’s, and then
00:31:55 ►
at two or three in the morning, the songs begin,
00:31:57 ►
and it’s amazing, because after all that
00:31:59 ►
silence, and you’re on the medicine,
00:32:01 ►
they start singing the elders, and just
00:32:03 ►
the rain, the sky opens up
00:32:05 ►
and the celestial people descend
00:32:07 ►
and the realities can be witnessed
00:32:09 ►
experienced
00:32:11 ►
through the trance of the Yahé
00:32:12 ►
and so
00:32:14 ►
basically
00:32:16 ►
the
00:32:19 ►
accomplished ayahuasqueros, they use
00:32:21 ►
the spirits to heal because the
00:32:23 ►
spirits are closer by, they can be summoned they can be spirits to heal because the spirits are closer by. They can be summoned and they can be used to heal,
00:32:26 ►
but the spirits have a dualistic side to them,
00:32:29 ►
and so they can heal under the command of a well-trained ayahuasquero
00:32:34 ►
who’s firmly established their relationship with the celestial spirits,
00:32:38 ►
the divine immortals, which means they’ve consecrated their virtue.
00:32:42 ►
But a lot of these spirits in the
00:32:45 ►
when employed by people whose virtue isn’t you know basically consecrated they can tempt the
00:32:52 ►
healer to do harm and in a way it’s their way of like making people focus through that you know
00:32:59 ►
people learn and then they see that that’s not going to get them anywhere but unfortunately
00:33:02 ►
damage can occur and people get harmed and that happens all the
00:33:06 ►
time
00:33:06 ►
so that’s some
00:33:10 ►
of the differences between the traditions
00:33:11 ►
in the Sequoia tradition they have a much more
00:33:13 ►
immaculate understanding of the spiritual realms
00:33:15 ►
and the heavenly realms and the Ayahuasquitos did
00:33:17 ►
as well but a lot of the old school Ayahuasquitos
00:33:19 ►
have passed and the way it’s being
00:33:21 ►
passed along now is diluted from how
00:33:23 ►
it originally was
00:33:24 ►
in the original days the Ayahuasquitos were much more strict than they are now have passed, and the way it’s being passed along now is diluted from how it originally was. In the
00:33:25 ►
original days, the Ayahuasca traditions were much more
00:33:27 ►
strict than they are now.
00:33:30 ►
Those are some of the differences.
00:33:32 ►
Also, the Icaros and the
00:33:33 ►
difference between the songs, too.
00:33:36 ►
The melodies or the
00:33:37 ►
Icaros of the Ayahuasca are kind of more
00:33:39 ►
melancholic. They almost
00:33:41 ►
invoke a sense of invoking
00:33:43 ►
the spirits of the earth
00:33:45 ►
whereas the sequoia and the western tucanoan you know songs of the hand yeah they’re called
00:33:50 ►
the weenia calle of the the chanting is much more high pitched and elongated it goes sometimes all
00:33:56 ►
night for hours and it’s a lot there’s a call and response it’s a much different frequency
00:34:01 ►
as well well that’s really fascinating you know i’ve know, I’ve only kind of just in my reading, you know,
00:34:08 ►
touched on the two subjects from time to time of being compared.
00:34:12 ►
And that’s actually the most in-depth comparison I’ve heard.
00:34:15 ►
I appreciate that, Jonathan.
00:34:17 ►
With much pleasure.
00:34:18 ►
Those things you can’t learn unless you spend many years with indigenous communities.
00:34:22 ►
Yeah.
00:34:22 ►
And, you know, not many of us have what it takes like you did
00:34:27 ►
to spend so many years doing that, and so we have to rely on stories from you to get inspired,
00:34:34 ►
and hopefully there’ll be young people that hear this get inspired to follow in your wake.
00:34:39 ►
While we’re here right now, does anybody have any questions, anything they’d like to interject?
00:34:45 ►
Here, go ahead, Stanley.
00:34:47 ►
How’s living in Ecuador nowadays?
00:34:50 ►
Do things change with how the government and everything is?
00:34:57 ►
Ecuador is a beautiful country.
00:34:58 ►
It’s the heartland.
00:35:00 ►
I’ve heard that basically it’s the heartland.
00:35:04 ►
It’s a beautiful country.
00:35:06 ►
There was a recent basically national strike,
00:35:10 ►
but that hasn’t occurred for about 10 years.
00:35:13 ►
Between 1995 and 2005, there was quite a bit of presidents overthrown.
00:35:22 ►
And it’s really amazing what happened now.
00:35:24 ►
A lot of these countries in Latin America are at this,
00:35:27 ►
like, basically crossroads where the people are, you know,
00:35:31 ►
basically not contented with the way these imposed,
00:35:36 ►
huge mega decision-making processes that affect everybody in very drastic ways.
00:35:41 ►
And, but the people, you know, mob energy sometimes brings, you know,
00:35:45 ►
Riley situations, of course, but it’s remarkable.
00:35:47 ►
Like, you know,
00:35:48 ►
they’re very devoted to nonviolent civil disobedience when they absolutely
00:35:51 ►
have to, when they feel so pressured,
00:35:53 ►
like what happened now with the gas prices is raised 120% overnight.
00:35:57 ►
When people like maybe make a dollar 50 a day or three,
00:36:00 ►
$400 a month at most, that’s a huge, when the gas doubles and everything,
00:36:04 ►
you know, the cost of living is based on gas but the people in ecuador especially in the mountain
00:36:08 ►
region are are people that are very calm and very uh uh deeply deeply good people and you know those
00:36:17 ►
countries stay together not necessarily because what the government does but because the natural
00:36:21 ►
integral social order that’s just part of the people themselves.
00:36:27 ►
You know, those are beautiful places to live.
00:36:30 ►
I live in Ecuador part of the year, and I always go back there.
00:36:35 ►
My partner, she’s from Ecuador too.
00:36:40 ►
I was raised there.
00:36:41 ►
I love Ecuador very much.
00:36:42 ►
I live in Costa Rica.
00:36:43 ►
Costa Rica is a whole different phenomenon than Ecuador.
00:36:47 ►
In what way?
00:36:49 ►
Well, for one, there’s no mining in the entire country,
00:36:52 ►
which is an absolutely insanely amazing phenomenon.
00:36:54 ►
There’s a country on Earth that has no mining at all anywhere in the country.
00:36:59 ►
They have a really powerful way of working.
00:37:01 ►
There was a national consensus many years ago, close to the year 2002.
00:37:06 ►
This oil company from the United States was negotiating a concession.
00:37:11 ►
Basically, they brought it up to national vote.
00:37:15 ►
The entire country had a concession.
00:37:18 ►
Every sector of society was consulted.
00:37:20 ►
It was such a landslide opposition that the government never went that way.
00:37:24 ►
such a landslide opposition that the government never went that way.
00:37:28 ►
And then I think the oil company was suing the government for like,
00:37:28 ►
you know,
00:37:28 ►
wait,
00:37:28 ►
you know, like slacking on like it’s time,
00:37:30 ►
like that,
00:37:31 ►
like money wasted,
00:37:32 ►
like waiting around or something.
00:37:33 ►
It was like,
00:37:34 ►
it came out of the president’s time.
00:37:35 ►
Bill Pacheco said,
00:37:36 ►
you know,
00:37:36 ►
even if we lose this lawsuit,
00:37:38 ►
it won’t be nearly the price of losing the environment.
00:37:41 ►
Then this new president came through and he tried to savvy this gold mine called Crucitas
00:37:46 ►
and it was brought to the attention.
00:37:48 ►
A lot of people rebelled against that
00:37:50 ►
and it got to the Supreme Court,
00:37:51 ►
but then somehow he used his clout
00:37:53 ►
to get it passed again.
00:37:54 ►
But then more people lifted up
00:37:57 ►
and got it again brought up to the Supreme Court
00:37:58 ►
and he declared it national priority.
00:38:02 ►
And then the second time it was analyzed
00:38:04 ►
by the Supreme Court,
00:38:05 ►
then it met none of the national priority standards.
00:38:07 ►
And the mine was never given the green light.
00:38:09 ►
And they never did that gold mine.
00:38:11 ►
They’ve shut down attempts to do these mining operations there.
00:38:15 ►
So I think it’s fascinating.
00:38:16 ►
There’s a country, 24% of its territory is in conservation.
00:38:22 ►
And there’s a very, you know, it’s still planet Earth.
00:38:26 ►
There’s problems there, you know.
00:38:28 ►
But in our area, it’s remarkable.
00:38:30 ►
There’s just an innate sense of conservation ethic
00:38:34 ►
that the local people have,
00:38:35 ►
which is rare for remote areas in the tropics.
00:38:39 ►
Most regions of the tropics that are remote,
00:38:42 ►
there’s a lot of, like, you know,
00:38:44 ►
the people might be the nicest people. Like in Ecuador, you know, the people might be the nicest people,
00:38:45 ►
like in Ecuador and the Amazon,
00:38:46 ►
the natives are amazing, beautiful people,
00:38:48 ►
but they live off the hunting.
00:38:50 ►
There’s a lot of hunting going on.
00:38:52 ►
A lot of that’s indiscriminate in some regards,
00:38:55 ►
you know, like you have some witnessed,
00:38:56 ►
you know, incredible, like insanely,
00:38:59 ►
you know, like hunting sessions,
00:39:01 ►
like where I’ve seen over 30 monkeys get hunted out.
00:39:07 ►
And so like, they’re just people believe that, you know, they don sessions, like where I’ve seen over 30 monkeys get hunted out. And so like, they’re just people believe that,
00:39:08 ►
you know, they don’t believe in extinction.
00:39:10 ►
They believe that, you know, animals that there’s mythic beings inside the earth
00:39:12 ►
that can open and close the doors
00:39:13 ►
to these alternate dimensions
00:39:15 ►
that they bring the animals in and they bring them out.
00:39:17 ►
And yeah, that was also maneuvering of the shamans.
00:39:19 ►
I talk about that in my book, the Yahya drinkers.
00:39:21 ►
But now there’s, you know,
00:39:22 ►
no Yahya drinkers that can have those contact
00:39:24 ►
with the owners of the animals that can have them release animals out or
00:39:29 ►
bring them back in.
00:39:30 ►
And so it’s refreshing to see a remote area like the Smat Kostinik with the local people.
00:39:38 ►
They’re happy with the rice and beans and they grow chickens and raise pigs.
00:39:41 ►
And there’s a lot of respect for nature and for wildlife.
00:39:45 ►
And to see animals,
00:39:48 ►
happy monkeys everywhere, swinging from the trees is just like… It’s really
00:39:50 ►
amazing. I had these Taoist masters come.
00:39:52 ►
They came and stayed at our lodge.
00:39:54 ►
They shared with us profound information
00:39:55 ►
about the spiritual quality of that land
00:39:58 ►
and that it really is like a heaven.
00:40:02 ►
There’s still a lot of work needed to protect
00:40:04 ►
that area. We have a marine turtle conservation project that we’ve been doing 13 years in a row now.
00:40:08 ►
As I’m here speaking with you, we have a team of three biologists that we’ve contracted.
00:40:12 ►
We have an agreement with a local foundation called the Corcovallo Foundation,
00:40:17 ►
and we give them the space.
00:40:19 ►
The foundation hires the biologists, and we have volunteers.
00:40:22 ►
There’s a whole group of volunteers.
00:40:23 ►
We have about 100 nests protected in the hatchery.
00:40:26 ►
We have an environmental education program with our local school going on as well now too as well.
00:40:31 ►
And just to continue with that same direction, because there’s been some recent developments.
00:40:37 ►
Like the first 15 years I was out there, we had only solar system.
00:40:41 ►
There was no road.
00:40:42 ►
But the road finally came down three years ago, and we have electricity on our beach now.
00:40:46 ►
And so it’s a really important time to focus, you know,
00:40:48 ►
basically sustainability measures, environmental education,
00:40:52 ►
do what we can, you know, add our drop of water to that movement
00:40:55 ►
of helping keep the planet, you know, wild and beautiful.
00:41:00 ►
Well, what you’re telling us, of course, Jonathan,
00:41:03 ►
is that it really is possible for us
00:41:05 ►
humans to live in in cooperation and harmony with nature if we really want to you know pay the price
00:41:11 ►
and put our minds to it in that regards Costa Rica is even unique yeah I’ve you know I’ve had
00:41:17 ►
number of friends that have visited Costa Rica and my wife and I have our good friends with a family who moved there maybe 15 years ago
00:41:27 ►
now and they moved up into central Costa Rica started an organic farm and then have helped pay
00:41:34 ►
for all of the all of their neighbors are organic all around them now and they’re they’re helping to
00:41:39 ►
build a school and sustain they became part of the community, not just tourists. But I have also talked to, you know, I guess surfer tourists, you’d call them,
00:41:48 ►
who spent five, six months at a time there.
00:41:51 ►
And from what I hear, it’s one of the most pristine, beautiful places,
00:41:57 ►
full of beautiful, wonderful people that you can find around here.
00:42:01 ►
Yeah, for sure.
00:42:02 ►
Just last week, the Cocos Island National Park, which is part of Costa Rica,
00:42:06 ►
they got a new nomination as a
00:42:07 ►
blue park. And I
00:42:09 ►
can’t remember, there’s a group of scientists that
00:42:12 ►
give those certifications
00:42:13 ►
to countries that are really protecting,
00:42:16 ►
like legitimately protecting their areas.
00:42:18 ►
So that was cool. Cocos Island
00:42:19 ►
is part of Costa Rica too. Ecuador
00:42:21 ►
and Costa Rica are neighbors
00:42:23 ►
from the interoceanic waters between the Cocos Island and the Galapagos Island. And Ecuador, you know, Costa Rica too. Ecuador and Costa Rica are neighbors from the interoceanic waters
00:42:25 ►
between the Cocos Island and the Galapagos Island.
00:42:28 ►
And Ecuador, you know, Costa Rica is a really important model,
00:42:31 ►
role model for Ecuador
00:42:32 ►
because it’s a country based on non-extractivist model.
00:42:35 ►
And one of the projects that I’ve been involved with too,
00:42:37 ►
that’s where we go nurturing
00:42:39 ►
is this brotherhood between Ecuador and Costa Rica.
00:42:42 ►
And I’m close friends with a high level official
00:42:44 ►
in the national park system there, Don Miguel Madrigal.
00:42:47 ►
He’s a beautiful man who really loves Ecuador,
00:42:49 ►
really loves the biodiversity.
00:42:50 ►
And we’ve brought many park rangers to Ecuador,
00:42:53 ►
and we’ve brought many people from Ecuador to Costa Rica.
00:42:56 ►
Over the past 20 years, we’ve been doing a lot of,
00:42:58 ►
every year, a few trips for intercultural exchange.
00:43:02 ►
We’re trying to bring different officials from Ecuador
00:43:04 ►
to see the Costa Rican model, too, as only like you know the way they protect national parks but just
00:43:10 ►
a lot of other aspects of their you know development model that is uh much more well thought through
00:43:16 ►
Costa Rica had the advantage a lot of people like you know got educations there and went on to study
00:43:21 ►
there’s a lot of national love for their country they were just like dude this is the only it’s
00:43:24 ►
like an organization called Costa Rica paraica para siempre costa rica forever
00:43:28 ►
people really want to keep their country the way they know it to be which is how they love it
00:43:32 ►
you know something i’ve noticed about uh people from costa rica who i’ve run into and talked with
00:43:38 ►
is uh you were just talking about love of country and and while they have that it seems to me that
00:43:44 ►
the first thing they talk about of course is the land and to them their country and and while they have that it seems to me that the first thing
00:43:45 ►
they talk about of course is the land and to them their country and the land are one in the same and
00:43:50 ►
that’s that’s uh not the way it is here in the states i don’t think we have to make that
00:43:55 ►
identification the country is just a barren piece of land to take advantage of we have to learn how
00:43:59 ►
to live with the earth and with all the species that are there. And that’s our responsibility for all human beings.
00:44:07 ►
You know, you mentioned how in some of the more remote indigenous areas,
00:44:13 ►
the old ways and beliefs, particularly about animals and sustainability
00:44:18 ►
and the environment, a lot of the older beliefs are in place.
00:44:23 ►
What is the situation with the young people in those areas?
00:44:28 ►
Do they have, like, cell phone connectivity,
00:44:30 ►
or are they learning more about the outside than their elders have?
00:44:35 ►
Well, actually, the really old ways were very, very wise
00:44:38 ►
in the way they knew how to manage and protect the forest.
00:44:41 ►
Then shotguns came around and dynamite from the oil companies,
00:44:44 ►
and people used dynamite to fish
00:44:45 ►
in the rivers. So the younger
00:44:47 ►
generation have kind of lost it. But there
00:44:49 ►
is a process of…
00:44:51 ►
A lot of indigenous communities in Ecuador and the
00:44:53 ►
remote Amazon regions, they think that
00:44:55 ►
they live marginalized, not that much hunting. They think
00:44:57 ►
the oil companies are going to bring
00:44:59 ►
them a better life.
00:45:01 ►
So a lot of them have sold out
00:45:03 ►
to the companies. They don’t know how to deal
00:45:05 ►
with the kind of pressure.
00:45:06 ►
It’s a challenging time,
00:45:07 ►
but there’s a growing
00:45:09 ►
cultural revalidation movement.
00:45:12 ►
And yeah, you know,
00:45:13 ►
like Facebook and social media
00:45:14 ►
has allowed for these,
00:45:15 ►
like social, you know,
00:45:17 ►
movements to occur.
00:45:18 ►
And there’s a very strong movement
00:45:19 ►
in cultural revalidation as well.
00:45:22 ►
And so it’s also,
00:45:23 ►
there’s a lot of inspiring time
00:45:25 ►
that’s moving through indigenous communities.
00:45:28 ►
They’re seeing now,
00:45:28 ►
they have enough experience
00:45:29 ►
with the outside world
00:45:30 ►
that they’re realizing
00:45:32 ►
that their culture is way more,
00:45:33 ►
you know, exciting,
00:45:35 ►
you know, like basically, you know,
00:45:36 ►
and gratifying too,
00:45:39 ►
to learn about and uphold.
00:45:40 ►
And they can see that they can do both.
00:45:42 ►
So there’s a merging, you know,
00:45:43 ►
like that’s like,
00:45:44 ►
that’s the hybrid culture, like, you know, and like helena norberg hodge is her beautiful book about ladak
00:45:49 ►
ancient futures you know that we see that happening now like in that regards like all
00:45:54 ►
in the world like you know there’s a recollecting of the best of the ancient right gather with the
00:45:58 ►
best of the futuristic too to bring it into something that’s going to allow us to live in harmony, to allow us to achieve sustainability.
00:46:07 ►
And with some of the immersive virtual reality technology that’s around,
00:46:13 ►
the young people in the Amazon can actually create environments that we here up north can enter
00:46:22 ►
and see their issues, their problems problems and maybe contribute in some way
00:46:26 ►
to help them restore their culture, et cetera.
00:46:31 ►
So I think that while the technology of guns and dynamite was not beneficial, perhaps we
00:46:39 ►
can make up for it some with the technology of communication and education this way.
00:46:45 ►
For sure.
00:46:48 ►
How about anybody else?
00:46:49 ►
Any other questions here?
00:46:52 ►
Well, I have a question.
00:46:52 ►
Go ahead, Matthew.
00:47:01 ►
So how do you respond to the idea that countries like Costa Rica are able to live in a more green or harmonious with the earth kind of lifestyle because of countries like,
00:47:07 ►
let’s say China or places like West Virginia that are very industrial and that, you know,
00:47:14 ►
there’s like a demand, I guess, for organic farming in the United States or organic plants that
00:47:20 ►
Costa Rica can ship out, but Costa Rica still has to, or, or, you know,
00:47:26 ►
these more organic places in the world still have to like,
00:47:31 ►
there’s still the backbone of industry that supports them.
00:47:34 ►
It’s just someplace else, like a, not in my backyard sort of idea, I guess.
00:47:39 ►
Well, you know, you know, Costa Rica has a lot of problems too.
00:47:42 ►
It has a lot of chemical use in the agriculture.
00:47:48 ►
There are people that are, you know, there is a growing organic movement.
00:47:50 ►
And it’s a challenging time.
00:47:54 ►
Yeah, you know, basically all the world, like the new education has had to be more moderate.
00:47:58 ►
We have to like reduce, you know, like reduce our consumption.
00:48:00 ►
Every country is different.
00:48:05 ►
And Costa Rica, I think they get their gas from Venezuela mainly,
00:48:06 ►
but it’s extremely expensive.
00:48:08 ►
Gasoline is $6 a gallon there.
00:48:09 ►
People struggle.
00:48:09 ►
There’s a lot of poverty.
00:48:12 ►
Minimum wage is like 700 a month there.
00:48:15 ►
But, you know, gas, there’s a lot of problems or strikes too.
00:48:18 ►
All of Latin America is undergoing, you know,
00:48:21 ►
basically we’re testing the system right now, and it’s, you know, to its maximum limit,
00:48:23 ►
and it’s breaking in different spots. limit and it’s gonna it’s breaking in
00:48:25 ►
different spots and and you know that’s you know a lot of people at regional levels are trying to
00:48:29 ►
see it is becoming more apparent that governments are going to solve the problems it’s more on a
00:48:32 ►
regional level and we’re you know like we’re facing extremely complicated and at the same
00:48:37 ►
time extremely dynamic you know the global socio-political ecological penundrum is it’s uh
00:48:43 ►
and every country on earth even Costa Rica has a lot of
00:48:46 ►
powers that be that
00:48:47 ►
it’s a kind of checkmate, there’s like a lot of
00:48:50 ►
amazing things that have been set up there like that protect
00:48:52 ►
wilderness areas
00:48:54 ►
and strong environmental ethics but there’s a lot of
00:48:56 ►
other problems as well too
00:48:57 ►
Any other questions sir?
00:49:00 ►
I got a question really fast
00:49:01 ►
kind of a question comment
00:49:03 ►
but I’m part of a group that’s going to be in Costa Rica in June of this coming year.
00:49:11 ►
And I know that we’re very interested in finding somebody locally to speak to our group about conservation
00:49:19 ►
and maybe some philanthropic work that we could do and give back while we’re in country.
00:49:26 ►
I didn’t know if maybe there’s a way that I could get in contact with you
00:49:29 ►
personally, maybe open up some communication education around that.
00:49:34 ►
Yeah. With much pleasure. We have, you know,
00:49:36 ►
we have a permaculture project too. We receive volunteers.
00:49:39 ►
There’s all kinds of stuff going on in our area.
00:49:41 ►
If you want to visit our area or if you’re interested in other areas,
00:49:44 ►
I could try to give some suggestions too as well yeah absolutely that’s all right i think i got
00:49:50 ►
it so oceanforest.org is that is that what it was oceanforest.org and there’s a contact link at the
00:49:57 ►
top there okay great that’s enough for me perfect i appreciate it thank Thank you. Yeah. In fact, what I did have up there was your next retreat.
00:50:08 ►
Let me put that back up, and you can talk about that a little bit maybe.
00:50:14 ►
Thank you.
00:50:16 ►
I don’t know if you can see the screen, but there it is.
00:50:18 ►
And this is set for December 8th through the 18th, correct?
00:50:23 ►
Correct.
00:50:24 ►
There we go.
00:50:24 ►
Yeah, this will be a phenomenal ethnobotanical immersion. December 8th through the 18th, correct? Correct. There we go.
00:50:27 ►
This will be a phenomenal ethnobotanical immersion.
00:50:32 ►
So tell us a little bit about what’s going to take place here.
00:50:34 ►
Well, it’s a 10-day retreat,
00:50:39 ►
and we have yoga, daily yoga classes happening with a yoga teacher.
00:50:42 ►
We explore the forest, too,
00:50:46 ►
and we go deep into the heart of ethnobotany on this retreat.
00:50:50 ►
And we experience healing and renewal ceremonies with sacred ancestral plant medicines.
00:51:00 ►
And we talk a lot about the content of the book, but also just, you know, hike through the forest, visit the old growth primary rainforest, explore the ocean.
00:51:02 ►
All activities are optional.
00:51:05 ►
People have really beautiful rooms right in our ethnobotanical setting, garden setting. And it’s a remarkable trip if you want to escape the ocean. All activities are optional. People have really beautiful rooms right in our ethnobotanical setting,
00:51:06 ►
garden setting.
00:51:09 ►
And it’s a remarkable trip if you want to escape the cold.
00:51:13 ►
And it’s within your budget.
00:51:16 ►
Now, how do people get there?
00:51:20 ►
How close are you to an airport type?
00:51:29 ►
From San Jose, the international uh destination you can fly on a 45 minute flight to drake bay but for this retreat we have everyone go to the adventure in its hotel
00:51:33 ►
and then we take a microbus a little minivan down the coast it’s like four hour and a half hour drive
00:51:39 ►
down the countryside and then an hour boat ride. Oh, wow. The Sierra Perera, beautiful mangrove.
00:51:45 ►
We’re out to the ocean.
00:51:46 ►
It’s just amazingly gorgeous.
00:51:48 ►
After an hour boat ride, we arrive on our beach.
00:51:51 ►
That sounds like a phenomenal experience.
00:51:54 ►
I hope that afterwards some of the people who take it will let us know.
00:51:58 ►
And, Kevin, I hope you guys can hook up while you’re down there as well.
00:52:01 ►
So, Jonathan, also we’re kind of running out of time here a little bit,
00:52:06 ►
but tell us a little bit about your book,
00:52:09 ►
Brain Forest Medicine.
00:52:10 ►
I see that it’s been out for a few years
00:52:14 ►
and you’ve spent your lifetime
00:52:16 ►
putting this information together.
00:52:19 ►
Tell us a little bit more about it.
00:52:21 ►
Yeah, the book was written
00:52:22 ►
mainly just from three in the morning until sunrise
00:52:24 ►
because it was the only time
00:52:25 ►
I had to really,
00:52:26 ►
I was able to concentrate on the book.
00:52:27 ►
It took about three years
00:52:28 ►
to put together.
00:52:29 ►
And it’s mainly about those 10 years
00:52:31 ►
in the Ecuador and Amazon
00:52:32 ►
between 1990 and the year 2000.
00:52:34 ►
But then it was written in 2013.
00:52:37 ►
So basically,
00:52:38 ►
I’d done a lot of trips back
00:52:39 ►
to lift up some of the experiences
00:52:42 ►
and harder, you know,
00:52:43 ►
revalidate a lot of the information.
00:52:46 ►
And it was published by North Atlantic Books.
00:52:49 ►
And it’s, you know,
00:52:51 ►
it goes in depth into the sacred plant science of viaje.
00:52:55 ►
And it talks about the Napo Galeras,
00:52:57 ►
the biodiversity,
00:52:58 ►
the legends related to this mountain.
00:53:00 ►
And then there’s also a chapter on Maestro’s Deep Forest in Urban,
00:53:06 ►
about a glimpse into the life of the elders,
00:53:09 ►
the torchbearers of these plant medicine traditions.
00:53:12 ►
So it isn’t exclusively about plants.
00:53:15 ►
It’s also about the people who use the plants and how they use them?
00:53:20 ►
Correct.
00:53:21 ►
It’s like a woven tapestry of some of my personal experiences,
00:53:26 ►
a bioregional phenomenon amongst three indigenous
00:53:27 ►
groups, or four actually
00:53:29 ►
with the Waurani,
00:53:32 ►
the Sequoia, the
00:53:33 ►
Kichwa, and the Mestizo
00:53:35 ►
people from Peru.
00:53:37 ►
It’s about the
00:53:39 ►
sacred mountain of Napo Galeras
00:53:41 ►
and the apocalyptic connotations, the
00:53:43 ►
myths related to this mountain,
00:53:45 ►
and then about the life of the elders as well. Yeah, and what I think probably makes your book
00:53:51 ►
so unique is that it’s looking at the rainforest medicine from the perspective of not just a single
00:53:58 ►
cultural perspective, but from a number of different uh indigenous people and and uh to me that makes it
00:54:06 ►
even uh more valuable as uh not just as a scholarly book but as something that’s just fascinating to
00:54:12 ►
read right right it’s a bioregional perspective don casimiro one of the elders that we speak
00:54:17 ►
about the book my mentor from napo galeras he had his grandfather’s song, and one of the lines of the song was,
00:54:25 ►
through every town I have walked.
00:54:27 ►
And so essentially part of the indigenous heritage
00:54:30 ►
was always visiting other indigenous groups as well too
00:54:33 ►
to broaden one’s perspective.
00:54:35 ►
So if the plant medicine is intended to broaden our perspective,
00:54:39 ►
that’s also implied in that it’s a bioregional perspective
00:54:42 ►
so we can have a much broader perspective and more wholesome understanding of what this is.
00:54:49 ►
And, you know, that sounds so much more powerful,
00:54:52 ►
the towns I have walked rather than the towns I have visited.
00:54:56 ►
Because, you know, we’ve all done this as tourists even.
00:55:00 ►
You know, we’ve walked through towns, and you really do get to know more about a town than just flying into the airport and having a coffee at Starbucks or something.
00:55:11 ►
Right.
00:55:12 ►
I figured I would just jump in real quick and point out a synchronicity, which, you know, this show, this live experience tends to dig those up.
00:55:21 ►
experience tends to dig those up.
00:55:24 ►
My wife is from Costa Rica and her brother actually
00:55:25 ►
he runs Hungla del Jaguar
00:55:28 ►
which is just like
00:55:29 ►
it’s maybe a mile
00:55:32 ►
south of you guys on the peninsula.
00:55:33 ►
I know those guys are my homies.
00:55:36 ►
I’ve been going there for
00:55:38 ►
10 years. Oh cool, yeah well let’s just
00:55:40 ►
ride down the beach.
00:55:40 ►
We can see
00:55:44 ►
each other from across the…
00:55:45 ►
Come by and visit. I’ll have to, yeah.
00:55:48 ►
Yeah, that’s awesome.
00:55:50 ►
And Andrew, when you do, you’ll definitely
00:55:52 ►
have to… We’ll have to set it up here for
00:55:53 ►
a Monday night. Andrew’s come to us
00:55:56 ►
from Kathmandu and from an
00:55:57 ►
airplane.
00:56:00 ►
We’ll continue our travelogue
00:56:02 ►
with you, Andrew, when you get down to Costa Rica
00:56:03 ►
next time. Yeah, I don’t know if you can see
00:56:06 ►
here but this is a picture of
00:56:07 ►
this photograph is
00:56:10 ►
beautiful from
00:56:11 ►
the
00:56:14 ►
El Sur there right
00:56:15 ►
nice white face
00:56:17 ►
white face monkey yeah
00:56:20 ►
yeah it’s an absolutely
00:56:22 ►
magical place
00:56:23 ►
and it doesn’t surprise me one bit that you went there and that that place grabbed you.
00:56:30 ►
So do you have any final comments you’d like to make?
00:56:33 ►
Yeah, you know, the facility is just a gorgeous center.
00:56:36 ►
In particular, we can reach out to yoga teachers.
00:56:39 ►
We have an Ocean Forest retreat kit that outlines all the aspects of running a yoga retreat down there.
00:56:45 ►
If you would like to come and rent the facility or check out our programs or join one of the
00:56:50 ►
retreats that are happening. In particular, this retreat from the 8th to the 18th,
00:56:56 ►
it’s a Rainforest Medicine Council Gathering. It’s going to be a remarkable experience. It’s
00:57:00 ►
one of the most beautiful times of the year. I would love to see any one of you down there.
00:57:05 ►
If you have a friend that might be interested,
00:57:07 ►
appreciate it very much to share the word about that.
00:57:11 ►
The date’s coming up.
00:57:12 ►
I can use a few more people to sign up.
00:57:14 ►
And there we are.
00:57:15 ►
I really didn’t know what to expect with this psychedelic salon.
00:57:20 ►
It’s really nice to see that you have such a motley crew,
00:57:23 ►
camaraderie all gathered together here.
00:57:26 ►
It’s quite a pleasant experience.
00:57:28 ►
I really appreciate this time, Lorenzo.
00:57:30 ►
To everyone else, to me over this medium, thank you.
00:57:32 ►
To the listeners, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this time.
00:57:36 ►
I’ve certainly learned some things I didn’t know about Costa Rica and particularly about Yahé.
00:57:43 ►
I look forward to doing this again sometime, Jonathan.
00:57:46 ►
And maybe we’ll join you when Andrew comes down next time
00:57:51 ►
and get the two of you online.
00:57:53 ►
So thanks again, everybody, for being here.
00:57:56 ►
And until next Monday night, keep the old faith and stay high.
00:58:03 ►
You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon, where people are changing their lives one thought at a
00:58:08 ►
time well that was uh certainly an interesting synchronicity at the end there when it turned
00:58:15 ►
out that one of our fellow salonners had a connection to jonathan’s friend and neighbor
00:58:20 ►
you know it’s a really a much smaller world than we sometimes realize.
00:58:32 ►
In the live salon tonight, our guest will be Dr. Thomas Roberts, who is a co-founder of MAPS and of the Council on Spiritual Practices. Tom is also a professor emeritus at Northern Illinois
00:58:38 ►
University, and in 1981, he began teaching the world’s first university catalogued psychedelic course.
00:58:46 ►
And among other things, we’re going to be talking about his soon-to-be-released book,
00:58:51 ►
Mind Apps, Multistate Theory and Tools for Mind Design.
00:58:55 ►
Maybe I’ll see you there.
00:58:56 ►
And if all goes well, I’ll podcast that conversation here in the salon in a week or so.
00:59:01 ►
But for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.
00:59:05 ►
Be well, my friends. you