Mark Plotkin – Roaming the Mind

April 26, 2021April 26, 2021

What the Psychedelic Renaissance Could Learn from Amazonian Shamans

When ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin showed up on the UC Berkeley campus for this interview, he was accompanied by a shaman. And it was no blond guy with dreadlocks from Brooklyn who presided over weekend ayahuasca ceremonies, either.

Don Fernando was a member of the Ingano tribe, a soft-spoken middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap who Plotkin had brought to the United States as part of a campaign to help him protect his people from the violent incursions into their region by timber and oil companies. Unlike most anthropologists, who may work to document dying cultures before they are snuffed out, Plotkin’s organization, the Amazon Conservation Team, or ACT (www.amazonteam.org), has been remarkably effective in doing something to protect the rainforest, its peoples, and its shamans.

Cultural and ecological survival is high-stakes work, however. Before arriving, Plotkin said, “You can photograph me if you want, but no photos of the shaman. If his image got back to Colombia, it could be very dangerous.”

As one of the few remaining swashbuckling ethnobotanists trained by the legendary Amazonian explorer Richard Evans Schultes, Plotkin also has a deep, abiding love of the healing and visionary plants of the rainforest. He is the author of several books: Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice, Medicine Quest, and his newly released The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know.

While he claims that as a scientist the “technology of the spirit” practiced by shamans is beyond his understanding, it is likely that the two men who settled into their seats in the campus coffee shop knew more about shamanism than could be found on the shelves of the nearby UC Berkeley library.

Continue reading “What the Psychedelic Renaissance Could Learn from Amazonian Shamans”

June 25, 2015June 25, 2015

Three Must-View Ted Talks on the Bio and Ethnosphere

Dr. Mark Plotkin, ethnobotanist, molecular biologist, disciple of the great Richard Evans Schultes, and founder of Amazon Conservation Team, gives an eloquent, deeply informed, and passionate apologia for the rights and incalculable worth of the uncontacted peoples of the Amazon rainforest.

To understand how bio and cultural diversity are intimately entangled as living, vital forces that shape our lives, we must understand the culture of Humanity in all its extraordinary diversity and imperiled circumstances: the “ethnosphere,” as anthropologist and National Geographic Explorer as Wade Davis calls it.

Janine Benyus’ concept of biomimicry has galvanized scientists, architects, designers and engineers into exploring new ways in which nature’s successes can inspire humanity.

July 23, 2010September 1, 2010

Shamanism is the Technology of the Spirit — an Interview with Dr. Mark Plotkin

A little known fact is one of the greatest breakthroughs in 20th century medical science came from a preparation used to shoot monkeys down from the tops of trees. Naked “primitives” running around the jungle with blowguns turned out to be master chemists whose curare, a paralyzing muscle relaxant, revolutionized the practice of anaesthesiology, making possible the open heart, organ transplant and hundreds of other surgeries now performed daily in hospitals around the world.

Many experts claim the teeming life of the rainforests continues to promise cures – to AIDS, cancer, diabetes, auto-immune disorders. Yet where are these miracle drugs? Have we exhausted Nature’s cornucopia? Or are we wearing blinders that prevent us from seeing them?

We decided to pose this question to Dr. Mark Plotkin. One of the generation of swashbuckling ethnobotanists trained by the legendary Amazonian explorer Richard Evans Schultes at Harvard, Plotkin is as intimate with the shamans of the jungle and their healing practices as any Westerner now alive – and he claims the cures are there. He’s seen them. Continue reading “Shamanism is the Technology of the Spirit — an Interview with Dr. Mark Plotkin”

About Robert and Susana and Our Books!

Roaming the Mind is the online home for the writing and work of Robert Tindall and Susana E. Bustos.

Sacred Soil: Biochar and the Regeneration of the Earth details the remarkable potential of terra preta, the recently rediscovered sacred soil of the pre-Columbian peoples of the Amazon rainforest, to help reverse the catastrophic damage that has been visited upon our Earth. The authors, Robert Tindall, Frederique Apffel-Marglin, and David Shearer, lay out a fascinating description of how utilizing the biochar embedded in this highly fertile, living soil offers a way to free ourselves from dependency on petrochemicals, restore the health of our soils, and remove carbon from our overheating atmosphere by fixing it back where it belongs--in the earth. The book also shows that the rediscovery of terra preta is an opportunity to move beyond the West's tradition of plunder and genocide of the native civilizations of the Americas by embracing the deeper mystery of indigenous methods of inquiry and to participate in an animate cosmos that gave rise to such a powerful technology as terra preta in the first place.

Please order your copy here.

The Shamanic Odyssey: Homer, Tolkien, and the Visionary Experience is an exploration of the indigenous roots of Western literature, of the native mind lying in plain sight not only in the ancient epics of Homer, but also in the fantasy works of J.R.R. Tolkien. As such, the Odyssey as well as The Lord of the Rings can be seen as awakening and healing songs to return our disconnected souls back into harmony with the living cosmos.

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The Jaguar that Roams the Mind is a journey into the vanishing world of Amazonian shamanism. Robert Tindall travels through the churches of ayahuasca, with the Kaxinawa Indians in Brazil; to a Peruvian center for the treatment of addiction, Takiwasi; and reveals his studies with an Ashaninca shaman in the rainforest jungle. Moving beyond the scientific approach of reducing medicinal plants to their chemical constituents, Tindall illustrates the shamans' intimate relationships with plant spirits. He explores the three pillars of Amazonian shamanism: purging (drawing disease out of the body), psychoactive plants (including the use of ayahuasca), and diet (communing with teacher plants).

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Psycho-Spiritual Integration and Holotropic Breathwork

Integration sessions are necessary for many people who have experiences in non-ordinary states of consciousness. The access to these experiences may be spontaneous or induced by practices such as plant medicine work, Holotropic Breathwork, meditation, or spirit quests, among others. They tend to impact the whole organism at the physical, emotional, mental, and existential levels, requiring a safe container to be processed and metabolized in daily life, particularly when people feel open, incomplete, or still dwelling in the state after the most intense experience is over.

The techniques used for integration vary depending upon the needs of the person, including sharing, framing of the experience, bodywork, the expressive arts, and dietary advice, among others.

A session lasts about one hour and a half. Phone consultations and skype sessions are available to people outside of Peru.

Holotropic Breathwork is a powerful method for healing and self-discovery that relies upon the inherent drive for wholeness within each individual. It was developed by Dr. Stanislav Grof, M.D., one of the founders of transpersonal psychology, and his wife Christina, based on insights drawn from modern consciousness research, transpersonal psychology, anthropology, Eastern spiritual practices and mystical traditions from around the world.

This method combines hyperventilation, evocative music, and focused energy release work to experientially access the deeper dynamics of the psyche that are ready to emerge for an individual, according to his or her particular circumstances. These dynamics may correspond to biographical, perinatal, or transpersonal realms of consciousness.

Holotropic Breathwork has proven to benefit people with a broad range of conditions, such as psychosomatic disorders, addiction, stress, anxiety, and depression. It is an excellent complement to psychotherapy and self-inquiry methods and practices.

For more information, please contact Susana at tutibu@gmail.com or call (510) 689 7597.