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Willkamayu Spirit Header Additional Treatments

Additional Treatments

There are some additional treatments that we recommend to those with specific requirements, and those wanting to have a deeper connection while here at our ceremony house. The following are offered by maestros/maestras in our local community, whose healing treatments we have first hand experience of and can recommend for their commitment to the authentic and respectful practices that we uphold.

Each of these treatments can be added to your program here at Willkamayu and may be performed at our residence or on site with the practitioners. We can discuss this upon your initial contact depending on your personal requirements.

Below we outline each of the treatments, duration and cost. If you have any queries we ask that you begin a dialogue with us using the contact form below.

Willkamayu Spirit Merav

Tobacco Ceremony

With Merav Artzi

Offering ceremonies and diets with Tobacco and other Master Plants for healing and learning In Urubamba, The Sacred Valley of the Inca.

A Tobacco ceremony is a powerful physical and energetic cleanse. Participants in a Tobacco ceremony drink an infusion made from the plant’s leaves (it is not obligatory to smoke). This type of Tobacco is called Nicotiana Rustica, and it grows in the jungle. It is not the same Tobacco that is used in commercial cigarettes – It’s rather wild and potent, with no chemicals or additives.

What happens during the ceremony?

During a Tobacco ceremony participants often experience a sense of presence in their body. This plant works to bring us back to our body, and connect us to our heart, intuition and higher self. It is a grounding plant. Tobacco is not a psychedelic and does not promote visions. It does work in the dream world, inducing lucid dreaming. These dreams are different from everyday dreams – They may illustrate teachings, and the way that the plant is currently working in our bodies.

Tobacco juice is a strong purgative. It works to collect and clear toxins from our physical, emotional and mental bodies. The process can be challenging at times, as the body is releasing held tension, blocked emotion and material toxins. It often involves vomiting, defecating, sweating, alternating between feeling hot and cold. Afterwards our body feels clean, light and energized, and our mind relaxed and clear.

How can I prepare for a deep process?

The best way to be in a ceremony is to surrender to the medicine and let it do it’s work. The more we trust in the medicine and in the process and just allow things to be, the deeper the healing and connection we will experience. When we give up control, life happens. It’s the same when we come to ceremony. Surrender allows us to listen deeper to our hearts, get a better understanding of our needs, be kinder to ourselves, and give comfort and care to parts of us that are hurt and afraid. From this place healing occurs. Behavioral patterns can be released, answers to questions become clear, wounds clear, if we just allow.

Who is this work suitable for?

  • Those who want to embody the values that Tobacco promotes and to incorporate them into their initiation process with other Master plants such as San Pedro and Ayahuasca
  • Individuals who need grounding or help with integration of other types of spiritual practices
  • People feeling a call to create a positive change in their lives and connect with their needs through Shamanic work
  • Students of plant medicine who wants to learn, heal and connect with Master plants

About Tobacco / Nicotiana Rustica

Tobacco is a central plant in the Shamanic healing traditions of the Americas and the Amazon jungle. It’s considered a teacher and a guide
to cosmic knowledge and the spirit world, a plant that brings blessing and protection. Tobacco is called with affection ‘The grandfather of all plants’, from which all plants sprang.

In the Amazon, Tobacco is considered a universal medicine by most indigenous groups and is used by the
Shaman or traditional healer. According to the indigenous world view, every life form has a spirit, including plants. The plant spirits teach people how to live in peace and harmony with themselves and their environment.

Master plants help us to recognize the truth of who we are, and therefore better understand our relations with the world that we live in. Indigenous medicine men use Tobacco to induce a strong physical and energetic cleanse, promote prophetic dreams and to protect and regulate the energetic body.

How Tobacco Works in our Bodies

At the…

Physical level, Tobacco cleans the blood, intestines, stomach and sinuses. It cleans mucus, toxins and parasites.

Emotional level, Tobacco supports clearing held emotions, behavioral patterns and believes that no longer serve us.

Energetic level, Tobacco helps to open energetic blockages, so that our energy may flow freely in the body.

What is a Plant Diet?

The Dieta

What is called ‘plant dieta’ in Peru is the way that the Shaman, or traditional healer, creates a bond with the plant spirits and learn from
them. These plants are big trees, shrubs, and herbs with medicinal qualities that are known to the indigenous people as ‘Doctors’ and ‘Teachers’. They are also called ‘Master Plants’.

The Healing

Each master plant has different healing properties and knowledge. They all have the ability to help us embody the unique qualities and values that they promote. All master plants connect us to the field of healing and cosmic knowledge. Plants teach what they have mastered in millions of years of evolution – how to live in harmony, peace and balance with ourselves and our environment.

The healing brought by the plant spirits has a central role in the work of the traditional healer. It is usually the healer that administers plant medicine, determines which plant will be beneficial to diet, and finally the duration of time that is needed. Most of the master plants are served with Tobacco. Tobacco activates the other plants that are mixed in it, and helps to ground their teachings, and integrate them into the body.

Usually the first plant that we diet would be Tobacco. It is considered the pillar of the shamanic house for it’s cleansing and grounding qualities. It helps us to manifest ourselves in the material world. Tobacco provides the stability and grounding needed in order to work with other plant teachers that open a window to travel in other dimensions. Before we travel, Tobacco teaches us to walk the Earth. Every night during a plant diet, plant medicine is served in a ceremonial manner to each participant in their private space.

The Ceremony

During daytime participants rest and eat light food, consisting of fruit and vegetables. To make the best out of the experience, it is best to avoid company and to stay in oneself’s energy. It is also recommended to abstain from any sexual stimulation. These recommendations are meant to allow the participants to undergo a deep process of detoxification on all levels – physical, emotional and mental. That is to help slow and calm their mind’s activity, so to open spiritual channels.

The Role of the Healer

The healer’s role is to hold a safe and loving space where healing can occur, to guide the participants in their process, to be a bridge between
the western world view and the plant spirits world. The healer meets every participant before the beginning of their diet for a diagnosis.
Based on the diagnosis, the healer determines which plant should be drank and for what duration. During the ceremonies and diets the healer directs the medicine and supports the process of the participants.

About Merav

Merav Artzi, A healer working with medicinal plants from the Amazon jungle, specializing in Tobacco.

At an early age I left my home country of Israel in order to study Fine arts in Europe. For 15 years I have lived in Amsterdam. During those years I finished my Masters in Fine Arts and lived in a squat with a community of artists and political activists. In 2009, while traveling in South america, I heard about Shamanism and Ayahuasca, and decided to go to the Amazon. The work with Ayahuasca was a gate to the magical world of medicinal plants. The Amazon is truly the pharmacy of planet Earth.

I have been working for eight years as a healer trained with Amazonia plants, specializing in Tobacco. Beforehand, I apprenticed with Maestro Ernesto Garcia Torres in Iquitos. As a healer, I work with patients suffering from hormonal imbalance, anxiety, depression, addictions, trauma and more. In addition, I give Master Plant diets and teach students who are interested in learning how to heal with Tobacco.

Tobacco is the medicine of my heart and I am here to share this medicine with the world. I invite you, with lots of love, to ask any questions, and to take part in upcoming events. 

Contact Merav

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Willkamayu Spirit Amy

Yoga & Massage

With Amy Grist

Offering one-to-one personal style yoga and massage for ceremony preparation.

Complementary Preparation for Ceremonies

A relaxed composure and comfortable posture are of great importance during the ceremony process and connection to the master plants. Amy, our in-house energy worker has carefully devised a 30-40 minute gentle yoga routine to support you into your ceremony process. With a breathwork and energy-tuning warm-up to aid your receptivity, Amy will work on opening and relaxing. Combining yoga, tai-chi and controlled breathing, she can help you to find your comfortable sense-of-self and feel relaxed and ready for what lies ahead.

Personal Yoga

If your stay at Willkamayu includes rest days and you would like a personal one-to-one session with Amy, please let us know and we can arrange a suitable time. Through studying many styles of yoga, Amy provides personal yoga sessions which explore the relationship with the body and work with the union of breath and movement to support one’s introspective or spiritual journey.

After an initial consultation, considering areas of tension or restriction in the body, as well as prior experience and expectation, together we form our yoga session, especially for you.

My approach to yoga is gentle, explorative and we guide through supportive encouragement and empowerment. Our aim is to enable each student to form a relationship with body and mind, on their terms, in the comfort of their own personal space in which they can navigate their own development to enable a continual practice for life. This integral daily activity incorporates yoga, meditation, breathwork, energy management and elements of ceremony preparation. This style of work can be described as spiritual attunement.

Massage

Amy also offers a gentle one hour, full body, Swedish style massage or a 40 minute back, neck and shoulder massage, to loosen you up and provide relaxation, either before or after your ceremony. You can choose from a selection of local herbal essential oils such as Muña, Arrayán, Palo Santo, Cacao or Hierba Luisa (Lemon Verbena), or more traditional massage oils such as Lavenda and Organic Orange. Please let us know on your arrival and we will discuss the best time for us to schedule the session.

About Amy

Specialising in Energy and Bodywork, incorporating yoga, tai chi, breathwork and meditation, Amy encapsulates the need for expressive intuition and provides gentle guidance for people to return to their authentic energy space and connect to their natural rhythm. Preferring a one-to-one approach, most importantly to achieve a highly inter-personal routine.

Amy is also able to give small group sessions where she works patiently and sensitively to ensure all participants are individually considered.

For Willkumayu Spirit, Amy has developed a complementary pre-ceremony session, most importantly to ready participants for improved composure and receptivity with their process working with the Master Plants. Please mention this during your application if you have an interest.

Contact Amy

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