Engage in Guided Workshops and Ceremonial Practice

Throughout the dieta, you will have the opportunity to participate in guided workshops designed to deepen your connection with the master plants, support your healing process, and introduce you to key aspects of the Shipibo healing tradition. These workshops provide an interactive and experiential way to integrate the teachings of the dieta.

Workshops include:

• Meditation with the Plants – Develop a practice of deep listening and inner stillness to strengthen your relationship with the plant spirit. Through guided meditations, you will learn to attune to the subtle energies of the plant, allowing its wisdom to unfold within you.

• Icaro Lessons and Practice – The icaros (sacred songs of the Shipibo tradition) are a fundamental part of plant medicine work, serving as bridges between the physical and spiritual realms. You will have the opportunity to learn and practice icaros, understanding their vibrational power and how they interact with the energy of the dieta. You will also be invited to practice singing in ceremony, as well as on the land itself—offering your voice to the plants as a way of honoring them and strengthening your connection.

• Introduction to the Shipibo Language – Language carries the essence of culture and tradition. As part of your learning experience, you will be introduced to basic Shipibo words and phrases, including those used in ceremonial contexts. This will help you better understand the meaning behind the icaros and deepen your appreciation for the Shipibo way of communicating with the spirit world.

• Working with Sacred Tobacco (Mapacho) – Learn the traditional use of mapacho as a tool for cleansing, protection, and prayer. This workshop will explore different ways to work with sacred tobacco, including how to use it for energetic clearing and strengthening your connection with the plants. As part of this teaching, you will receive a handmade pipe crafted from the very plant you are dieting, deepening your bond with its spirit and allowing you to continue working with its medicine.

• Creative Expression & Connecting with Shipibo Traditions – Explore different forms of creative expression, such as drawing, writing, or movement, as a way to process and integrate your dieta experience. Learn about the symbolism and meaning behind traditional Shipibo designs, songs, and practices, deepening your appreciation for this ancestral lineage.

Fasting as a Gateway to the Dieta

Fasting is an essential part of the dieta process, creating an internal environment that allows for a deeper connection with the plants. To begin your dieta, there is a mandatory 24-hour fast, which serves as a reset—clearing physical and energetic space so you can receive the plant’s teachings more fully.

While the initial 24-hour fast is required, you are encouraged to extend your fasting periods if you feel called. Longer fasting can:

• Deepen your sensitivity to the plant’s presence by quieting the body’s habitual cravings and distractions.

• Enhance purification by allowing the body to detoxify and reset.

• Strengthen focus and clarity by shifting awareness inward and creating more space for subtle insights.

Additional fasting days can be incorporated throughout the dieta at your own discretion. Whether for a few extra hours or a full day, fasting offers a profound way to attune to the plant’s guidance, enter a more receptive state, and heighten the transformational potential of your dieta experience.

Nourishing Meals for the Dieta Process

Meals during the dieta are intentionally prepared to support your connection with the master plants, providing the nourishment your body needs while maintaining the energetic sensitivity required for deep work. The dieta diet is simple, clean, and free from salt, sugar, oils, spices, and other strong flavors that could interfere with the plants’ teachings.

Each meal is designed to:

• Sustain your energy levels – Providing essential nutrients while keeping the body light and receptive.

• Support cleansing and purification – Helping clear the system of toxins and external influences.

• Maintain alignment with the dieta – Following the traditional guidelines that allow for a deep and undisturbed connection with the plant spirit.

While the dieta diet is minimal, it is nourishing and carefully balanced to ensure your well-being throughout the process. Eating in this way fosters a heightened sensitivity, allowing you to perceive the subtle effects of the plants and receive their wisdom more clearly.

Sacred Plant Baths: Cleansing, Purification, and Strengthening Your Connection

Throughout the dieta, you will alternate between dieta plant baths and vapor baths, each serving a specific purpose in cleansing, purifying, and deepening your connection with your chosen plant. These traditional Shipibo practices help clear stagnant energies, open your sensory awareness, and reinforce your bond with the master plant spirit.

Dieta Plant Baths

These are gentle yet powerful immersions in a specially prepared infusion of your dieta plant. The bath allows the plant’s essence to enter your energetic field, cleansing blockages and aligning you with its teachings. Plant baths can help:

• Strengthen your energetic connection to the plant spirit.

• Clear emotional or energetic heaviness that may arise during the dieta.

• Enhance dreams, visions, and receptivity to the plant’s wisdom.

Vapor Baths

Vapor baths use the heat of steam infused with medicinal plants to penetrate deeply into the body, cleansing both physically and energetically. These baths assist in:

• Detoxifying the body, releasing toxins through the skin and breath.

• Opening the pores and allowing the medicinal properties of the plants to be absorbed.

• Strengthening the connection with your dieta plant by reinforcing its presence in your system.

By alternating between these two bathing rituals, you engage in a cyclical process of purification and renewal, allowing the plant’s medicine to work on deeper levels. These practices help you stay energetically aligned, open, and receptive to the teachings of the dieta.

Preparing the Body to Receive the Plants

Vomitivos are an essential part of the dieta, serving as a powerful cleansing practice to purify the digestive system and prepare the body for deeper absorption of the master plants. By clearing out stagnant food, toxins, and energetic heaviness, vomitivos create a clean internal space, allowing the plant spirit to integrate more effectively.

This practice involves drinking a specific plant infusion designed to induce purging, which helps:

• Clear the digestive tract, ensuring the dieta plant can be absorbed without obstruction.

• Detoxify the system, removing accumulated waste and resetting the gut.

• Open energetic pathways, making you more receptive to the plant’s teachings.

Vomitivos are traditionally taken at the beginning of the dieta and may be used again if needed during the process. Though challenging, this purification is an important step in aligning with the dieta, creating the best conditions for the plant to work within you.

Deepening Your Connection with the Master Plant

You will be taught how to open your connection with the plant spirit through the drinking of a tea made from your chosen master plant, sourced directly from my Shipibo teachers in the Amazon jungle. This infusion serves as a bridge between you and the plant’s wisdom, guiding your journey throughout the dieta. You will drink this sacred tea in the morning or evening, depending on what is needed for your process.

These teas have a very subtle effect at first, but as the connection deepens, their presence can become extremely powerful. Each day, this practice strengthens your relationship with Noya Rao or Bobinsana, enhancing your receptivity to the plant’s teachings and supporting your healing, clarity, and alignment throughout the dieta.

Embodied Connection: Yoga and Movement with the Plants

Led by Sylvia, these light yoga sessions are designed to help you connect with the plants through your body and movement. By cultivating physical relaxation and energetic flow, these practices create a deeper sense of presence and receptivity, allowing you to attune more fully to the subtle energies of the dieta.

Through gentle, intentional movement, you will:

• Release tension and open the body, creating space for the plant’s energy to move more freely.

• Cultivate breath awareness to support inner stillness and deep listening.

• Activate and balance your energetic field, enhancing your connection with the plant spirit.

• Use movement as a form of prayer and offering, strengthening your relationship with the land and the medicine.

These sessions are not about physical performance but about deepening your awareness of your own body as a vessel for healing. By integrating movement into your dieta, you allow the teachings of the plants to land more fully, supporting both your physical and energetic alignment.

Silence, Reflection, and Journaling for Integration

Throughout the dieta, intentional time in silence provides the space for deep introspection and self-reflection. Stepping away from external distractions allows you to listen more clearly to the subtle guidance of the plants, your own inner voice, and the wisdom that arises from stillness.

Journaling is encouraged as a powerful tool for integration, offering a way to deepen your connection with the dieta process and track your personal journey. Writing can help you:

• Reflect on your experiences – Capturing shifts in your awareness, emotions, and physical sensations throughout the dieta.

• Strengthen your relationship with the plants – Recording insights, visions, and dreams that arise from your connection with Noya Rao or Bobinsana.

• Process emotions and realizations – Giving space for thoughts and feelings to unfold, allowing you to move through challenges with greater clarity.

• Anchor your intentions – Documenting lessons, messages, and commitments you wish to carry forward beyond the dieta.

Whether through writing, quiet contemplation, or simply sitting in stillness, these moments of reflection offer a space for integration, allowing the wisdom of the plants to take root and continue unfolding within you.

Sacred Ceremony: The Heart of the Dieta

Ceremony is the foundation of the dieta, serving as the sacred container where healing, learning, and transformation take place. Rooted in the ancestral traditions of the Shipibo people, these ceremonies create a direct bridge between you, the plant spirit, and the unseen realms, allowing for deep energetic work and guidance.

In the ceremonial space, the curanderos and facilitators work with icaros, sacred healing songs, to channel the wisdom of the plants and support your process. These songs serve as energetic tools—clearing blockages, aligning your spirit, and strengthening your connection to the dieta.

Why Ceremony is Essential

• Healing & Purification – Ceremonies create a protected space for deep energetic clearing, helping to release old patterns, emotional burdens, and stagnant energies.

• Receiving Guidance from the Plants – In this altered state of awareness, the master plants communicate their teachings, offering insights, clarity, and visions.

• Strengthening the Connection to Your Dieta – Each ceremony reinforces your relationship with the plant spirit, deepening its presence within you.

• Integration & Support – The ceremonial setting provides a structured space where the facilitators can track and guide your process, offering personalized healing as needed.

Attending Ceremony: Honoring Your Process

While participation in every ceremony is encouraged, it is not mandatory. If you feel called to remain in solitude or are deeply in your process, you are free to sit out of ceremonies as needed. However, the opening ceremony and the final closing “Arkana” ceremony are essential, as they establish and seal your dieta with strong energetic protection. These two ceremonies create the spiritual framework that safeguards your journey, ensuring that you enter and exit the dieta in a good way.

Throughout the dieta, each ceremony serves a unique purpose—setting intentions, deepening the dieta, and integrating its lessons. These sacred gatherings provide a powerful space to surrender to the intelligence of the plants and the healing they offer.