Shamanism

Shamanism: the path of the Uwishin (Shaman)

Everything is Arutam (Great Spirit), a great perfection that is eternal and contains everything in His delight. He merely lives in delightful eternity, endless He only is. He is born in everything because in perfection one only is Him. He never flinches but he resides in grace without feeling the pass of time. Perfection can only express admirable art and beauty, thus our mind rests and caresses all existence, singing in the passion of life. He is the truth, and He shows it in an endless world filled with a variety of miracles, tendencies of which only His mysterious Union in the depths of the Spirit could be understood. To live awake in everything, feeling the entire world and being moved by the Spirit, is the only thing we are born ready for. There is nothing to add, nothing can substitute the great wealth of being Everything. Shamanism did not always exist as it is now understood, preserved, or applied. Life was lived in natural art, all beings were what they had to be, have always been and will always be.

Shamanism emerged later, from the needs of pain. Beings abandoned the Union in Arutam and started to agonise and be delirious. Life abandoned them and the disease, established in the predatory dark forces, took the place of the happiness of the sacred touch. Men united in life tried to remember the forgotten memory. Profound enchantments and music came to be that make one roam the darken conscience towards the return to Life. The art of returning to the Spirit is the art of Shamanism and it is also specific in the magical relationship of Master, moment, place and patient or apprentice. Life must return, the sacred touch will make the body remember the lost harmony of the world and will commence the healing. An endless mind, alive, will find peace in everything, finally. Only thus, at the end, one can understand in a world which feels like our own skin, the love.

The path of the Uwishin is one of the branches of the ancient sacred art of Shamanism: a place, a time, an experience, an inheritance, art, plants, instruments… It is the elegance of the ancient men from the waterfall town and their white arts that cared for and honoured life. Ancient ones would go to the waterfalls to listen to Arutam’s supreme voice, they also received His advice to walk their lives in the best possible way. The young ones would thus commence their initiation rites, remind themselves if they had forgotten, or learn the arts of their culture to honour the power. Long stories and surprising mastery comprised the sacred art of the great leaf of all time and mysteries: Tobacco. Time, man, and Floripondio, deep visions turning the future of a life into blood, whispering the forces of this land in every corner. Natem (Ayahuasca), means to transmit power by the Uwishin, whom in their sacred ability, art, and intense presence of the sacred touch, intensifies the presence of life in their equals. In their art they guide to soften the resistance and guide towards the final Union. Thus, remembering and bringing Arutam’s plenitude heals and elevates accomplished men. Long are the descriptions of endless stories, lives of elders whom, as pillars, my own life has helped to uphold so much, unswerving and lived examples of what it is and always will be. Mysterious indescribable arts, only understood in Arutam: the mastery of the Uwishin.

My grandfathers looked at herbs – and by that I mean plants, flowers, and trees – and they watched the seasons in which they were born and how they related to the world in different moments and places. By doing this, they learned the reasons behind their existence and peculiarities. They examined closely their taste, texture, temperature, different parts, odours, and colours. Great spirits full of meaning in a world full of sense. Great personalities, white of light and delight, a feeling they won’t abandon, delights them in the passing of the ages. Man, darkened, stumbling at each step in his frailty, absent of the sacred touch, breaks fortuitously. Time hurts him, and the elements of the world torture him in a sick relationship. Our beloved plants in their teas conserve the memory of their perfect lives. Herbs bring a small portion of the sacred touch to our blood and educate us. Although the sacred touch is unique, sometimes it can be remembered like this. Mastery is to understand the patient and bring the memory of the herbs-world closer to the decadent man. Years of observation and meditation in the depths of feeling this world show us these mysteries of our nature.

The Art of the Uwishin

By singing, power is expressed and transmitted, flowing from the Master’s harmony with the Universe. When Arutam (Great Spirit) sings, every corner and every being sings in the Great Emanation; then the Master sings, joy comes for those who forgot and need healing. Powerful Masters, dedicated apprentices, and simple healers can sing or play together creating a singular spontaneous vibration without preparation. This sound recalls the sudden singing of animals in the magical musical mystique of the jungle, helping to awaken the sacred touch.

The Uwishin (Shaman) in his Union celebrates and honours every manifestation of Arutam, as he himself is one of them. He describes how each of them relates to the Great Spirit and reveals their magical peculiarities, creating a poem among melodies which is a call to the recollection of the sleeping memory. He knows well what he is talking about, because he feels alive in everything.

Thus, he only sings and transmits what he is in order to guide those who sit with him. He intensifies the presence of the sacred touch so much that it becomes irresistible. It becomes foolish to get confused and wander about somewhere else. Arutam is in everything: wind, mountains, lakes… and this is transmitted through song into magical sensitivity and the intense vibration of thunder.

The expression (transmission) of Arutam comes from the Master’s deep Union, it flows from there through the vital echoes, roaring in the bones, twisting the aerated entrails in gestures of perfection with the caress of the breath. The purification tunes us like instruments of Arutam, tuning that is not studied as a musical technique. The being absorbed in Everything sings in ecstatic delight. Power overflows and plays, awakes the forgotten sensitivity, the diminishing memory which sustains us. Thus, the transmission of song is done; a pure crystal which breaks down Arutam’s light like a rainbow in its endless expressions… and His creation sounds, everything sounds because He is alive.

Tumank

Tumank is the traditional instrument most used in Ayahuasca ceremonies. It is the sound of wind in the lake inside the deep mountain. Ayahuasca dances its dance of anaconda and all things take their true colour, which feeds us. This instrument’s guide rescues a person from any cyclic pit chosen as home and prison. It inspires to speed up the mind without effort, enjoying the mere fact of meditating in the amplitude of the consciousness. There is guidance that helps one recognise the clarity of the world with the consciousness alerted, like the keys of the tumank played by Arutam in the Uwishin.

The tumank has no set limits on its keys. There is therefore freedom in the music itself. These are the type of instruments which allow the better expression of mystic teachings. Is it possible to see exactly the place where the sky joins the sea, where the day joins the night, or where the frozen cold comes back as light? All this music comes from Life’s sacred echo, the art of shamanism relies on instruments in harmony with their mystic aims. Ancient instruments, such as the tumank, were made in times of freedom and union with nature; it is natural that they have this design.

Arutam Ruymán tocando el “tumank”, dibujo de CoraArutam Ruymán palying “tumank”, by Cora

Kaer is the name of a Shuar violin, a beautiful two-stringed instrument which accompanies man in his chants. It supports him and makes everything more beautiful with tender harmony and deep emotion. Its strength is very intense and its use is controlled by the Uwishin. It is impressive how intensely it wakes the medicine, it is truly the dance of the anaconda. It tears any resistance to allow the illumination of the consciousness. Its deep rhythm moves the spirit of the anaconda and wraps us with its mystic sound in all space from the vast powerful void. Its delicate and smooth high notes are the protagonists of its occasional solitary song, which returns as luminosity and inspired vision, bringing us relentless joy.

Kaer – two string violin

Kaer