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Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo – the great visionary artist interview

Paul Amaringo is one of the greatest visionary artists of the world, and is known for its high complexity, colorful and intricate paintings of his visions from drinking the Ayahuasca brew.

Amaringo Paul trained as a healer in the Amazon, healing himself and others since the age of ten, but gave this in 1977 to become a full-time painter and art teacher in his Usko-Ayar school. His book, visions Ayahuasca: the religious iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, co-authored with Luis Eduardo Luna, brought his work and a rich mythology of the Amazon to a wide audience West.

Amaringo Paul was born in Puerto Libertad, in the Peruvian Amazon. He was ten when he first took ayahuasca tea, with vision of future used in shamanism, to help overcome a serious heart disease. The magical cure of this illness through the healing plants led Paul to the life of a plant where he worked for many years.

Howard and Peter met with Pablo at the school he founded (Usko-Ayar school of painting) in Pucullpa where he lives and paints, and interviewed Pablo about his life as a shaman and artist.

What led you to become a shaman?

Era a spiritual issue for me. I had thought that shamans deceived and lied to people, so do not believe in them. I healed the ayahuasca people because it was the medicine, I did not believe in magic and spirits. No! Then in 1967 I saw a miracle healer heal my sister who had been in agony deadly hepatitis, and could neither eat nor speak, but with this healing from the plants, which was cured in just two hours. That motivated me to start learning the science of vegan

Ayahuasca was given?

No, the lady used the knowledge of Ayahuasca and chanted. That was during the day. That same night I drank and received powers, but I did not know what he was getting. I saw many things. I sat and watched like a king! After that I dieted for five days, stay at home, without seeing many people.

After a month I started to feel what others felt was a very strange thing! And I discovered I could sing without even learning the songs. They went very well and I wondered how I knew them. I realized that he had powers in me and I became a healer when he cured a young man with a terrible headache, I felt it first and then he was better.

Is it an important part of healing, to feel the feelings of the patient?

That is how the powers given to me, but others say that taking ayahuasca, they can see what is wrong with his patient. Or even have to drink, I was exactly where their pain, their emotions, everything.

What did you plant in your diet?

Only Ayahuasca, but then I took while other plants, ayahuasca, to learn more.

Then worked as a healer in Pucullpa?

Yes, and for many years I went to Madre de Dios, Cusco, Lima, Huánuco, Tingo María and El Alto Ucayali. Wherever I went people I was cured.

Then Pucullpa was much smaller.

Yes, the houses were mostly wooden, with the culture behind them, there were no high buildings. None of the streets were asphalt were of red clay, with the exception of a central plaza. The road to Lima was terrible and it took a month or more to get there.

The way to do contact with the spirits of the plants after you to get you?

When you take any other plant of ayahuasca, which is connected through your dreams. Ajo sacha, Chric Sanango, etc Bobinsana learn while you sleep. But with the ayahuasca no, you're aware and awake. That's why the master plan – the eye through which you see the world, the universe. It is miraculous and sacred and what you can learn from your studies with Ayahuasca much more than other plants, but you must obey the rules "of this plant, ie the rules. If you obey, no knowledge is withheld from you.

My visions helped me understand the value of human beings, animals, the plants themselves, and many other things. The plants taught me the role in life, and the overall meaning of life. Everyone must pay special attention and deference to Mother Nature. She deserves our love. And one must also show respect for his power!

How he discovered his gift of painting?

I used to do portraits and landscapes when I was 20 years old, but mostly with charcoal. But this does not earn any money for me I turned to other things, agriculture, animal husbandry and hairdressing, all kinds of things. I worked as secretary to the chief of customs at the port here Pucullpa. One day my boss told me to paint two armchairs, and as I had never painted, slapped me in the paint in any way, and it looked horrible with lumps everywhere. But the boss did not reprimand me; he said how come you are good at everything except painting? I was a little hurt because he was always so impressed by everything I did. This made me think that if I were learn to paint, I have to learn to do well.

After three years working there I had a heart problem and returned to doing portraits in pencil beginning with my own portrait.

How did you begin painting visions?

Years passed and I said to my mother when I grow up I'm going to paint several photos of myself after my dead know you have been a painter in the family! One day I was asked to accompany a foreign gentleman because he spoke a bit English, but I did not know he was the biologist Denis McKenna. After some years he recommended me for a job in Sepagua but was not able to take until my mother fell ill. So when he returned in 1985, I asked if I wanted to show my photos in an exhibition that was organized in Switzerland. They were images small, but later returned with Luis Eduardo Luna, who said that paint is good for Paul. I can promote your work, you want to be world-class painter?

I said no, I do not want any of those things. I do not know what a "world-class painter 'is. I just want to help me sell my photos to make a little money. I was portraying the daily lives of the people in the Amazon, how to plant and harvest, how to fish and celebrate their festivals and so on. Luna said how have not known so far? Every year I have been coming for the past eight years, traveling up the Amazon through Brazil and Peru to Panama!

I asked him why he had come. What were you looking for? We are interested in the magical plants of Peru from the coast, mountain and forest. I know what you're after, I said. I used to be a few years ago shaman ten, what a pity that I knew before, but now I have put everything behind me. I could have said much about what I saw, I said. Then I started thinking that I could paint for him all the things he had seen in my visions, and all the things I said. But I had to do it in secret because even when people saw pictures of what I painted, I said she had gone mad, he was harassed and painting the things of the devil!

I am concerned with these observations. I could never have had an exhibition here in Pucullpa. So Luna said the paint me then! And I made two pictures of the visions of his next visit, and when he saw the pictures – one of which is at the Museum of Washington DC and the other at the University Stockholm – took hundreds of photos of them. But said I could take them. And that's what they did, wrapped in a huge box. They were sold and sent me the money. After they said they did not want any more landscapes, only visions!

They studied them and said they found the language and biology in the pictures so Then I started giving them explanations. But he was never able to show people here. This is how it all began.

Do people still suffer in this list?

Yes, many yet. Once some religious people came and said that if the name of Jesus was spoken of the painting was going to explode. And they asked me to say Jesus. I told him I can not say that word, why? They said one to another, he has the devil in him, if he says Jesus is going to explode!

You have many amazing paintings here in your studio, can you tell us something about it?

The images are a means by which people can cross spiritual boundaries. Some people say you can only believe what they see, but there are things that exist that can not see. The pictures are to remind people what we are, and where we come and where we go. They are for people of any culture in the world, although there is much that is taken from indigenous Amazonian culture.

Would you like add something more about the importance of plants?

For me personally, however, means much more than that. Rooted in the book of great life of nature, have taught me to study life as an artist and shaman. They can help us all learn the art of healing and discover our own creativity, because beauty of nature moves people to show reverence, fascination and respect for the extent to which the forests give shelter to our souls.

The awareness of plants is a constant source of information for medicine, food, and art, and an example of intelligence and creative imagination of nature. Much of my education I owe to the intelligence of these great masters. So I consider to be the "representative" of plants, and for this reason I say that if they cut down trees and burn what's left of tropical forests is the same as burning a whole library of books without having read them.

People are not as dedicated to study and experience of the plants can not that this knowledge is as important to their lives, but even they should be aware of the nutritional value, medicinal, and scientific plants that depend for their life.

My most sublime desire, though, is that every human being should begin to pay as much attention as he or she can in the knowledge plants, because they are the greatest healers of all. And all human beings must also put effort into the preservation and conservation of the rainforest, and care for it and the ecosystem, because damage to these not only prejudices the flora and fauna but humanity itself.

Even in the Amazon these days, many plants considered only as a resource for housing and to finance large families. People who have farms and animal husbandry also clear the forest to produce food. Mestizos and native Indians log the largest trees to sell to industrial sawmills for subsistence. They have never heard mention the word ecology!

For the full interview with some of the paintings of Paul and their descriptions, visit the website listed below.

About the Author

Howard G. Charing, is an accomplished international workshop leader on shamanism. He has worked some of the most respected and extraordinary shamans & healers in the Andes, the Amazon Rainforest, and the Philippines. He organises specialist retreats to the Amazon Rainforest He is co-author of the best selling book, Plant Spirit Shamanism (Destiny Books USA), and has published numerous articles about plant medicines. Website http://www.shamanism.co.uk

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