43. Animism, Ayahuasca and Healthy Context: Skye Cielita Flor on Sacred Herbalism

Stephanie Hazel interviews Folk Herbalist, Deep Ecologist and traditionally trained Shipibo Curandera Skye Cielita Flor. In this episode, we explore questions such as: What does it mean to take a plant out of context? What do we leave behind when we extract a single active chemical from a medicinal plant? What do we lose when we take a single aspect of Shipibo culture, like ayahuasca ceremonies, but leave all of the cultural nest of animistic relationships with plants and land behind? Skye is a South African woman currently living in Warrandyte in Melbourne, and is one of the few people I know who has completed a 4 year immersive apprenticeship in the Peruvian Amazon, where she studied with Shipibo curanderos to become a healer, an apprenticeship that involved extensive training in ritual and healing use of ayahuasca, and deep dietas with other powerful medicinal plants. Four years of full time training in the amazon! This actually makes her the most qualified person I know to comment on the rising wave of ayahuasca use in the west. She also completed 3 years of full time Chinese Medicine apprenticeship, and worked as a wilderness guide in South Africa. When she came to Australia, she was confronted with the deep grief of having lost the beautiful animism of Shipibo culture and of finding herself bereft of the plants who had become her friends. Beyond this, she felt afresh the aching wounds of Western disconnection from the living world around us. She had found herself entirely out of context! Her pathway to grounding into the place she is now was deep ecology., which she believes is the missing framework that any animistic or psychedelic experience needs to be nestled into for any western person to actually receive the healing they need. Her work now primarily consists of facilitating experiential deep ecology workshops and retreats, under the guidance of John Seed, who was previously interviewed on this podcast. You can check out an upcoming webinar with Skye and John in September if you are inspired to learn from this heart-felt, intellectually sophisticated and wildly experienced woman and plant collaborator. Show Notes: Skye's upcoming webinar with John Seed - Honouring Our Pain For The World https://workthatreconnects.org/event/honoring-our-pain-for-the-world-a-webinar-with-john-seed-and-skye-mandozay/?fbclid=IwAR1otXUV2Wp6y55eks-GjXODBDrIQ-8FYS4S9Vw-3yK5uXotcN5DAVjZdrw Follow Skye on Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/Cicadia.DepthPerception https://www.instagram.com/deep.earth.dreaming/ Get your own taste of relationships with plants in my upcoming 6-week course: Finding Your Plant Allies. Use the code ElderTreeListens for 10% off :-) www.stephaniehazel.com.au/courses/find-your-plant-allies/ To find out more about The Elder Tree visit the website at www.theeldertree.org and donate to the crowdfunding campaign here. You can also follow The Elder Tree on Facebook and Instagram and sign up to the newsletter. Find out more about this podcast and the presenters here. Get in touch with The Elder Tree at:  [email protected] The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.  You can find Chad's music here and here.