In many Indigenous cultures, particularly those in the Amazon rainforest of South America, "dietas" hold a central place in their spiritual and healing practices. A dieta is a traditional ritual that involves the ingestion of specific medicinal plants over a prolonged period, often in isolation, and under the guidance of a trained healer or shaman. This practice is deeply rooted in the belief that plants possess healing properties that can not only cure physical ailments but also provide spiritual insights and balance to individuals.
Key Aspects of Dietas:
Plant Teacher Relationship: In Indigenous belief systems, plants are regarded as sentient beings with their own consciousness and teachings. The dieta is seen as an opportunity to establish a profound connection with a specific plant spirit or teacher.
Purification and Cleansing: Dietas are often undertaken to purify the body, mind, and spirit. Participants abstain from certain foods and worldly distractions during the dieta to enhance their receptivity to the plant's teachings and healing energy.
Physical and Spiritual Healing: While dietas may address physical ailments, they are equally focused on spiritual healing. Participants seek guidance, self-discovery, and emotional or psychological healing through their interactions with the plant spirit.
Respect for Nature: Indigenous cultures deeply respect the natural world and view plant healings as a way of harmonizing with the environment. This perspective emphasizes sustainability and the responsible use of plant resources.
Our Ceremonial-Collector Hauxita explains about the concept of Dieta from her perspective:
"I encountered the concept of "Dieta" for the first time working with Percy Garcia Lozano, curandero (healer) in the Peruvian jungle, carrying his heritage of the Cocama People.
In the Amazonian cosmovision each plant/tree has a spirit and this spirit can become our teacher. Each plant/tree has medicinal and other healing properties, not just due to their pharmacological benefits, but also due to their spiritual knowledge. A plant/tree can teach us their way, they can help us heal. In order to enter this type of very sacred relationship with your plant teacher, you as the student enter a commitment from your side, as the plant/tree enters a commitment to open their world to welcome you. This commitment in general follows a specific framework of entering a sacred space of creating a relationship with this specific plant spirit. Only one plant that is home to the Amazon Basin can cure many different physical ailments and at the same time heal emotional, energetic blockages and provide us with spiritual support. All of this variety in one single plant. And the Amazon Basin covers the richest biodiversity-spectrum worldwide that we can find in nature. Some Indigenous speak of around 500 plants and trees that are accessible for a Dieta.
First of all, the way you ingest the plant is by drinking a hot tea/extract in specific quantity prepared out of specific parts of the plant/tree, such as its bark, its roots, its leaves etc. You drink the plant preparation each day or once or in another rhythm, that differs from plant to plant and from curandera to curandero.
The way I have experienced my Dietas can be described generally like the following:
They were taking place in total isolation (meaning me living in solitude in a wooden hut in the jungle), I only spoke to my curandera/o (sometimes 1-4 times a week, sometimes i was in silence for more 1-2 weeks) and I was not allowed to have communication with anyone else other than her/him. Of course I was in constant exchange and conversation with the plant spirit and the forces of the jungle themselves, the moment of sleep in my dreams as well as in the waking state. I was not allowed to come close to any person other than a few meters, no physical contact, no masturbation. It was recommended not to read books or listen to music, other than creating my very own writing/art/music. I was only allowed to eat very specific foods with a very specific vibration - for example: no oils, no spices, no salt, no lemon, no meats, no fish (in some Dietas I was allowed to eat fish sometimes), mostly vegetables and lentils/rice, vegetable soups. During some Dietas I was allowed to drink water, in some not. During most of my Dietas I would regularly drink Ayahuasca in night- or day-time ceremonies mainly with, but also sometimes without my curandera/o.
The idea behind this type of pathway is to put you in the place to meet the spirit of your plant teacher in the most respectful, undisturbed way. The rules of a Dieta exist to eliminate frequencies, influences, vibrations that could interfere into your connection with the plant spirit. If you want to meet the essence and healing teachings of that spirit, you need to be in the most undisturbed environment as possible that would support the plant teachers' full unfolding into your holistic being.
A simple example: When you have sex you mix your energy with the energy of your partner at that moment. Your energetic body is not entirely only your energy anymore, therefore it can dilute the energetic intertwining with your plant teacher. Another example: Salt and spices arouse your taste buds and can be bringing an energy vibration of excitement into your system that can create a distraction in frequency that does not go well with staying in alignment with your plant teacher. Being in a Dieta is something like a sacred marriage in the spirit world. In order not to loose this sacred bond, or even risk your energetic or physical health by breaking the rules and framework of a Dieta, it is important to keep the Dieta, which starts days or weeks before and includes a Post-Dieta of a week up to many months. The underlying idea of entering this space is about the practice of respect.
Dieta exists to create bonds with the spirit world of the jungle, the plants are your teachers and become your allies accompanying traditionally the healer to bridge between the 3-D and the plant world so a healing can take place. During an Ayahuasca ceremony, the healer receives support through his/her plant teachers. In the Amazonian Cosmovision, plant spirits work together. As ancient stories tell, Amazonian healers would do Dietas for many many years in a row in order to learn from the spirit world and be able to transmute and channel the healing properties of the jungle medicines more efficiently for their people seeking healing from them.
Breaking it down to the contemporary setting, a plant can become your teacher, your guide, friend and ally for life, sharing with you not just their way and healing and perception, but also protection and their ancient characteristics to navigate the different dimensions of existence and support you in sharing your proper medicine.
Later on, after 17 months of dieting plants and trees in the Peruvian jungle, I would meet that concept of Dieta again, but now in the jungles of Brazil: There some tribes still practice the initiation with the medicine of Kambo in form of a Dieta. Similarly to my experience with the plants, the framework is the same: Isolation in the jungle, living in solitude, only specific foods, and receiving the medicine of Kambo multiple times from the healer of the tribe. Meeting the spirit of the frog in the silence of the jungle... everything around and within you transforms - such as time, perception, body feeling, spirit. An heart-opening experience, being in a conversation with the spirit of the frog (or with a plant, or a tree) and learning so much about yourself by learning from them, understanding how connected we actually all are. It is a very humbling, unifying experience. And of course, this outline is a very short description of the essence of Amazonian Dieta.
I have been deeply influenced and changed through all my Dietas.
It has become very much my fundament of who I am now and of how I got introduced to the Amazonian Cosmovision. The idea of Dieta has become an integrative part in and of me. I truly have touched base with a sacred pathway to approach meeting the spirits of the jungle in a respectful way. And not just meeting them, but first and foremost meeting myself in a very unexpected, profound way. Coming from a western context with paradigms so strongly detached from the world of spirits, the idea and practice of Dieta is challenging what we have learnt so far: The experience can be challenging, frightening, intense, unexpected, groundbreaking, life-changing, irritating, empowering, breathtaking, grounding, unpredictable, perception-bending and after all, rewarding. A death and re-birth of yourself and your surroundings all in once."