If you want to do serious work with ayahuasca, the Shamanic Dieta is recommended. The Dieta allows the medicine to go deeper. That said while the Dieta is recommended, it is not absolutely necessary.
The dieta is essentially removing the influence of toxins and energies that can cause blockages in the physical and energetic body. This opens up your entire body to receive. This is making your body a hospitable place for plants and tree spirits to live. While you are doing your part to make your body a nice place for plants and tree spirits to live, the plant and tree spirits are also cleaning out there new house in preparation to settle in. This means the dieta is much more cleansing than just drinking ayahuasca alone.
Our maestros are curanderos and paleros, so the dietas use cortezas de palos or tree barks made into a tea that you will drink in addition to ayahuasca ceremonies. Our standard ayahuasca Dieta consists of the following:
- 7-8 days in length
- The first 4 days you will drink medicinal tree bark tea in the evenings.
- 4-6 ayahuasca ceremonies within the 7-8 days depending on your stay option.
- No salt, sugar, spices, pork or oil are allowed in cooking.
- Only the following foods are allowed: chicken, bocachico fish, fresh water sardine fish, rice, yucca, plantains, cucumber, and coconut.
- No use of toiletries like soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, etc.. You can brush your teeth with a clean (no toothpaste residue) toothbrush and you can floss with a non-flavored floss.
- No physical contact with other people during the Dieta.
- No mingling with the general public during the Dieta. This means you are not allowed to leave the camp for excursions while you are on the Dieta.
The restrictions after the dieta is finished are as follows:
- No refined sugar for 3 or more days.
- No acid fruits like lime, lemon, oranges, pineapple, etc… for 3 or more days.
- No alcohol or street drugs for 30 days.
- No sex or masturbation for 30 days. No exchange of bodily fluids (this includes french kissing) for 30 days.
- No pork or duck 6 months. Preferably for the rest of your life.
It is important to know that the Dieta is a significant commitment. If you think that you can not stick to the Dieta and the restrictions afterwards, do not do the Dieta. Breaking the Dieta means you will be crossing energies in a significant way and you will need to return to straighten out those energies.
The Training Dieta
As you can see the food variety is quite limited, especially when it comes to vegetables. Well I have been asking Maestro Gumercindo many questions about the food since I started to work with him. The above dieta is for those who want to follow the shamanic path. We have come up with a new dieta, “The Training Dieta”. This new dieta is for those who want to do deep, serious work but are not interested in becoming a shaman. The difference between the two dietas is that “The Training Dieta” allows for a wide variety of vegetables and grains. So if you have wanted to do the dieta, but were afraid that the food would just be too bland or limited, this may be an option for you to check out.
Note: The Shamanic and Training Dietas are only available at our Jungle Retreat. This is because both of these dietas are exceptionally difficult to do at altitude. For the Mountain retreats we do a modified dieta that is more appropriate for the altitude. We have found that the modified dieta is still quite effective for doing serious cleaning and spiritual work.
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