I'd like to share with you an excerpt of a quary asked by a lady from St. Petersburg:

-I’d like to know if you could help me out. I have a sick little daughter. She was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. She had received the unofficial treatment and, although initially there was an improvement, cancer has returned with possible metastasis. Right now the doctors propose to perform a fairly aggressive procedure, but my daughter is in terrible shape, physically and mentally. I think she doesn’t feel like living anymore, and she's giving in. I really don’t think that I can help her to improve her situation, I don’t know what will happen to her after a new exposure to medication. Would it be possible to use a natural procedure with herbs, or even Shamanism and ayahuasca to treat her disease?

- My dear, you come a little late to request my help and my ancestror's knowledge. The symptoms that you've described to me, so in detail, indicate a severe deterioration of her vital energy. It is not the same to address this disease from the very beginning, when the patient is strong and full of sacred touch. Now she can barely breathe. I want to clarify that Shamanism is culture, religion and medicine, all at once, but within a particular context. The natives of the jungle never experienced such severe wear of their vital energy; On the other hand, cancer was, for them, as unknown a matter as other diseases. What shamanism can offer us, in these cases, hasn’t been well studied or proven, except for some experiences in which shamans have put themselves at risk by trying to help their fellows out of pure compassion. If the responsibility is assumed and in common agreement with all family members, a treatment could be attempted, under cautious medical supervision, but now it’s no time to do so, due to the patient’s state of deterioration and her previous exposure to aggressive treatments.

The person must recover the sacred touch if he or she still can, then they must initiate, little by little, the practice of shamanism. In this case, doctors must follow the path they have already started. With baited breath I say that I regret to  say that to you; I’m not leaving anyone in pain, but age is the experience that makes a man wiser in all branches of knowledge and action.

Thus, I understand that you want to leave, because this would be the main reason of your meeting here.

- No, why do you say that? I want to stay with you and be at the ceremony. My daughter needs me full of light to be by her side through whatever it’s supposed to happen. I need to be well for my other two children and my whole family. They need me and I want to feel the blessing of the Spirit so that I can be the heart and support of them all. I need peace today more than ever. And I will find it.

Fuck, I thought to myself: I've been a fussy baby lastly, mourning the last sad surrounding circumstances where I've been involved. We believe we're very important even at the moment of suffering, destroyingtoday us the "I" with a very good justification. From the blackness of pain only deep darkness can happen, and so it will continue like any other trend. I thanked her so much for the lesson and for her truthful strength. Today I want to share something that was meaningful to me, with all the feeling that we -my translator, the mother and I- experienced in that room.