Kamarampi (Ayahuasca) is a sacred medicine for the Ashaninka, traditionally consumed only in association with diets or atonement to attain conscience. More than just a sacred ritual, the ayahuasca ceremony is a path toward spirituality. It acts through the divestiture of the self, whose breakdown reveals to us the reality of our deep connections with our environment, natural and social, and with the cosmos.        

Benki Piyãko is an Ashaninka shaman and spiritual leader initiated to one of the ancient shamanic traditions of the Amazon. In this talk, he will share with us the teachings which led him to this sacred path. Ayahuasca is being used in the US and all over the world, as an effective treatment for many illnesses, and is becoming more and more a part of an alternative culture heading towards a future rooted in ancient wisdom. It is important to listen to the experience and guidance of the great indigenous masters that have been working with this sacred teacher plant for time immemorial.

Benki lives in one of the most preserved parts of the forest; preserved, largely thanks to his people’s activism. Through the Yorenka Ãtame project (the Wisdom of the Forest), the Ashaninka have replanted over 2.3 million trees in the last 30 years in invaded, degraded areas in the Upper Juruá Valley, a region that holds some of the yet untouched watersheds of the Amazon basin. More recently, Benki has created Yorenka Tasorentsi (the Wisdom of the Great Spirit), a healing center, reforestation institute, and educational space to teach humanity about the science of nature, how to live in harmony with ourselves and our surroundings, how to take care of the forest, and all its inhabitants, so that we can leave a more beautiful world for generations to come.