An
Interview with Doris Rivera Lenz - Part 2
The
Spiritual Traditions of the Andes
by Howard G
Charing
Read Part One of this
interview
A look at the rich and
powerful spiritual legacy of the Andean civilization which is only
now being properly recognised after 500 years of obscurity. This
interview of Doris Rivera Lenz, was conducted by Howard G. Charing &
Peter Cloudsley. This interview appeared in Sacred Hoop Magazine
Issue 57, and the book Plant Spirit Shamanism (Destiny Books USA).
Are people who come to
you for coca divination often unwell?
If you ask me if people are
unwell, the majority are unwell, in their spirit or mind, there are
lots of problems today. They are particularly afflicted in the
stomach, the solar plexus, and the belly button. It's the place of
emotional pain, and also where we are joined to life. This is what
ayahuasca is, the rope that connects us to life.
What about people who
sense that their bad luck is caused by someone putting a hex on
them. What do you do? Can you send the hex back to its place of
origin?
The first thing is to
discover what is going on in the present. The wife had an accident,
the husband was unfaithful, they haven't got a job, the house is
falling down... Then I look to see their capacity to accept a
criticism, to listen to the mother leaf ticking them off saying: you
have done this, you are insecure, weak, a drunk, or a prostitute.
What is the story? Is it karmic or something that they are doing?
When there is jealousy in
the jungle the black brujo might send out virotes (poisoned darts in
the spirit world) while a good shaman blows mapacho tobacco smoke,
and cleanses you with his shacapa leaves, but this sounds like a
more psychological approach, you are seeing what people are doing
themselves. How do you make sense of the belief that the problem is
caused by sorcery?
You have to show the person
he is not the victim of sorcery and that he is creating the problem
in his mind. They need to go back over it; talking about it brings
it out and is the first part of becoming well again.
It is true that some people
will take vengeance through black magic when they feel prejudiced or
offended in some way, because they are sick. When people think they
have power and feel superior, the ego can become very negative. The
first thing I do is to wake up the consciousness of the person who
has been harmed and tell them that evil does not exist! 'You are
inventing it', I tell them. Black brujos do exist of course, but you
need to use a bit of psychology.
The power of black magic
does not exist?
Neither good nor bad exists,
it is a universe, and we create the good and the bad. But I
recognise that the person may feel attacked. When someone falls ill
it means they are weak and the curandero must speak positively and
encourage them to shine light on it. Then they can create positive
thoughts for themselves. If I agree and say they are bewitched its
makes them worse.
I see you are trying to
shift that person's reality around but do you recognise that it can
exist?
Of course, but the act
itself is not so powerful as white magic, it is the negative spirit
of the black brujo which creates the power of the spell. If you get
hold of a chicken and take off its feathers, put a toad inside, and
hang it in the doorway of a hated neighbour, you can give them a
nasty fright, but without a powerful negative spirit nothing will
happen. But if the intentions are very negative and the person is
weak they will pick it up quickly.
The most powerful brujos are
found in the jungle where there are powerful plants for healing just
as there are dangerous plants that can paralyse your body and so on.
But plants have much more wisdom than people. Do you think that if I
go to a floripondio and say I want help to do harm to so and so,
that it will be at my disposal? You have to make a pact with the
spirit.
Do people need to believe
that your ceremony has done something?
When people trust that you
are a white curandero they open up, you have special permission to
go into their soul, and work with suggestion. Lets say you give them
a bath in a herb with spines, and you ask permission from the spirit
of that plant to heal the person with fright or a bad spell - you
bathe them, you put them on a diet, you cleanse them and purify
them. You call their soul and give them strength and they get well.
You are a psychologist?
Its OK to say that.
A lot depends on the mind
and education of the person. Some curanderos hardly speak to their
clients, do they?
Yes, I talk a lot, but there
are times when I can't say anything.
Is there something
similar going on when you pass eggs over people?
There are several ways of
working with an egg. We know that an egg is the union of the
masculine and the feminine. We should recognise that this union is
supremely sacred. We are the product of an egg too. So the egg is
the total energy of the mother's and the father's cells. You take
the first egg of a hen, which is virgin, and ask the 'angelic',
elemental spirit to take away the illness of a person, you ask the
spirit for permission to do it. Then you pass it over their body,
its like an X-Ray. You can also do it with guinea-pigs or rabbits,
but I don't like doing it with animals.
Is it a mechanical
process or is there a link between you and the client?
There is a link, a
connection with the spirit of the egg, because I don't have X-Ray
eyes. When I break the egg into a glass of water, there is no set
interpretation that says that a bubble here always means this or
that. The moment the human mind comes into the passing of the egg or
a coca leaf reading, the process goes out of balance. If I want to
comfort you, and I say: you're not going to die, you'll be OK, its
spoiled.
The fact that there is a
long tradition behind these methods of divination helps you?
Of course, its an ancestral
thing.
What is different about
people from the West? What do they need?
Their heads cutting off! No,
its only a joke!
To be serious though, their
religion has failed them, the church authorities have kept vested
interests and institutions going. Eventually people have thrown the
baby out with the bath water. In Peru, the campesinos have never
really believed in the European religion, the Pope, sin, guilt etc.
which has only confused them.
When the Inca Atahualpa was
told by the Spanish he should be baptized, he replied: 'No, I won't
change my God, for a God which has died already. I believe in one
with never dies.' Mother Earth is the feminine aspect of God, and
father Sun is the masculine aspect, and we are a product of that. We
are Gods and we should believe in ourselves first. Its fine to have
Gods; the Oriental ones, an Inca, an extra-terrestrial, Buddha or
Crishna, but there will never be anything like Mother Earth and the
Sun, or the moon. Think what would happen if we lost them? That is
God!
All Gods come through
Nature. You can have as many Gods as you want, it doesn't close any
doors, no one is being judged, but what has become of Western
religion? Materialism, loss of identity, loss of customs. How can we
help people in the face of the avalanche of problems being created
today? Cut off their heads? Give them a heavy dose of positive
cosmic radiation?
There is so much struggle
today. Take the climatic changes, for example, it shouldn't be
raining at this time in Cusco, yet it is pouring down, so people are
no longer thinking about nature but money and the help they need.
People have become completely insecure. Imagine if we went to live
in nature again, surrounded by mountains, or in the rainforest, in
nature.
Yet the tendency today is
for everybody to want to move into the cities everywhere, to live
like America, build motorways.
Its sad. I've spent time
with people in the Andes. I have seen people leaving their
traditional clothes and customs for the Maranata religion. They are
a group that says why do you believe in the Earth, the Sun, the puma
and the condor? Again religion controlling the Andean campesino.
These people go to the city and see a TV and think, 'what a
beautiful TV!' They sell their llamas and buy one. I am sad to see
their children who are so pure, being contaminated.
They learn negative habits
and are hypnotized, and no longer want to work their land. It really
hurts in my soul to see a Q'ero curandero obsessing about dollars
meanwhile forgetting his power. This loss of values for material
things is happening so fast, its incredible! It's the Western
influence which has been working over 500 years.
They see on TV the huge
kinds of potatoes which can be produced using fertilizers, and they
think 'how beautiful, I want that', but they don't know how the
earth is ruined by fertilizers.
What do you see happening
in the future on a planetary level?
People will get a nasty
shock from seeing the increasing changes and natural disasters on
the earth and we will be shocked into changing.
The only way we can
change?
Unfortunately yes. To avoid
the fear we need to work daily to balance ourselves, so that the
collective fear will not infect us. Even if those around you are
overcome you must be a maestro and maintain your centre. We have
forgotten the power that an offering has, look how we are eating
this chocolate and we have forgotten to give a little to the Earth.
Every body worries about
their future, no? But there will come a time when no one will want
to consult about it any more, they will have finally woken up to the
realisation that there is no future in the way we are going. They
will be shocked into living in the present and this will create a
new human being. We will realise that individualism doesn't work and
this will unite us in a shared future.
The desperation will show
the necessity of love. Who will want to do harm or be aggressive
when money and material things have become useless? We will come
back to a new kind of community consciousness. We are beginning to
anticipate all this and becoming more conscious, but we are swerving
about. However, people who see only the material world, are blind to
it and live isolated from humanity. What happens to them when there
is an earthquake or tidal wave? This is what Pachacuti is about, an
awakening of a new consciousness, a return.
There is so much wisdom in
nature, she rears us like her children, teaches us to ask
permission, to care for her like ourselves.
About the
author: Howard G. Charing, has worked some
of the most respected and extraordinary shamans & healers in the
Andes,& the Amazon Rainforest. He organises specialist retreats to
the Amazon Rainforest
He is the author of Plant Spirit Shamanism (Destiny Books USA).Visit
the website for info about our Andean & Amazon Ayahuasca Retreats
Go to the Ayahusaca Shaman website -
Purchase ayahuasca vines and plants
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