Mariri

The Huni Kuin describe mariri as the life-giving force of the forest, which is very sacred to their people. Throughout the Amazon, the word mariri means different things for different peoples. Mariri can be the healing spirit of certain medicinal plants that are considered to be powerful, intelligent teachers. Mariri also refers to the magical songs sung by shamans during healing ceremonies; and the curative force carried by those songs. 

In the Amazon basin, for the many tribes who regard nature as sacred and omnipotent, mariri is a manifestation of the rainforest's infinite capacity to heal and sustain life. Dieta - self-denial of indulgence, food and sex - is a necessary precondition for creating a relationship with the plants; and, thus, with mariri. 

Mariri, within the shaman, is a cured and rarified phlegm which is raised from the chest into the throat; often with the accompaniment of loud burps and belches, becoming like air. It is this mariri that extracts the sickness and other evils in the patient’s body; while at the same time protecting the shamans from the sickness they extract.

This mariri is received from the master shaman and nourished, like planting a seed in the chest. Nurturing the mariri is like raising a plant until it is the proper size, and then maintaining it. Fearlessness is a constant theme in relation to mariri. When you have this protection, you need not have fear of anyone; the medicine of mariri grants a heart of steel. 

What the plants give in return, for this dedication, is their willingness to help; their icaro, their song. The rarefication, or curing, of mariri relates it to these shamanic songs. Abstraction from vocal meaning is a key feature of such music. The most powerful icaros, such as the protective arcanas, are refined into breathy and almost inaudible whistles. 

When learning icaros, its best to first hum the melody and only then to learn the words. Shamans teach apprentices not to be overly concerned with trying to memorize the words; singing the icaros from the heart with the correct resonance and vibration is more important. The more abstract the icaro; the more powerful it is. Both mariri and icaro ultimately converge in pure sound, which is the the immaterial and wordless language of the plants. 

Spiritism Versus Shamanism

Spiritism leads to damaging and malicious states like panic, terror and madness. The low-level practice of spiritism attracts negativity and sorrow. The way to identify these lower order levels in ceremonies, is when spirits try to offer you attractive things - do not accept. Attractive, and therefore desirous, objects become attachments; which trap you in these lower realms.

Conversely, celestial beings bless with their calm presence; and allow us to merge with only the highest universal spirits. Spirituality leads us to just and pure things. It invites us with the highest spiritual origin; with justice, rectitude and service. Justice, rectitude and service bring peace; and peace allows for the higher realms to manifest.

The problem is that, novice drinkers of medicine and uninitiated facilitators don’t recognize the point at which they become trapped by evil; not realizing that spiritism requires far less skill and personal discipline than shamanism. The master drinkers of medicine and their students clearly distinguish between the dualism of good and evil.

Thus, choosing to always follow the path of goodness, selfless service and virtue is at the root of the authentic and original form of shamanism. However, some practitioners and facilitators - often lacking appropriate training and a good ceremonial guide, and possibly having experienced many negative incidents in their lives due to hardship and despair - have deviated from the spiritual path and operate with a nebulous distinction between good and bad.

Lower order facilitators and practitioners only know the lower levels of the cosmos; they “only know the sky up to the house of the sun.” They have never seen the celestial immortals; instead they make contact with inferior beings, including the earth spirits. For their part, true healers don’t linger at low levels of knowledge, but drink medicine continuously. Not for the pleasure of it, as it’s a great sacrifice, but because they desire greater knowledge.

This is the fundamental challenge for modern urbanized people in following the medicine path. We are removed, either physically or spiritually, from the source of the medicine. We don’t live among the plants in the forest. The further away we are from the forest, the closer we are to a material and egocentric existence. Some practitioners and facilitators can avoid becoming trapped by this world, others can’t.

To give the benefit of a doubt to some of these wayward practitioners and facilitators, perhaps they consider helping someone to be an act of goodness; even though what they are colluding with may be evil. Some may simply be trying to make a living, clearly unable to see the harm they are causing. Others may be trying to satisfy egoic needs, such as inferiority complexes or narcissistic disorders.

It is up to the adored children of heaven to use their acute discrimination and discernment, to distinguish between the lower and higher realms; as well as the practitioners and facilitators that occupy each respectively. More importantly, to recognize that all human beings are such children; even though some have chosen apparently easier paths, which have actually turned out to be far more dangerous and difficult.

Sacred Convergence

Much has been written about the juncture where psychology and shamanism converge. Both are instances of the same primordial image or instinctual pattern known the world over. Both shamanism and psychology acknowledge the importance of the sacred in healing processes. Both recognize how the sacred is manifest in wild nature and areas where modern humans have fallen out of consistent connection with wholeness. Both observe how loss of contact with the sacred results in loss of soul, and understand that recovery requires initiation and successful integration of direct experience.

Shamanism defines health as being in balance with the sacred, and lack of health as violation of the will of the sacred. Psychology characterizes the sacred as an experience of something that evokes rapture, awe, exaltation or ecstasy; something that is even dreadful in its intensity and power. As opposed to the profane or ordinary, the sacred is often perceived in modern culture as something alien or other; while indigenous and earth-based cultures make no distinction between the sacred and the profane. In urban life, at least, the sacred is not something we experience in our busy everyday routines; unless we somehow slow ourselves to witness a sunset or feel into a sudden sense of longing or love.

Only then, in the spaciousness of attention, are we aware we have generally tuned out the sense of something powerful and unknown. Something sacred often invokes a feeling of mystery beyond the power of words to describe. The term numinous is a connotation for the sacred, describing it as something which provides an experience or alteration of consciousness independent of human will; arousing, affecting, bedazzling or blinding one to other realities. Both sacred and numinous are words connected to the idea of soul; the creative, sacred life force that imbues all things with energy and meaning.

The soul is not just an element, region or dimension; but rather a perspective of deepening, noticing, penetrating and insight. The soul can extended beyond humanity to the world at large, to forms and objects around us, whether natural or man-made. Each thing has a spark of soul at its core. Psychology is deeply tied to soul; so much that we can refer to psychologists as doctors of the soul. Similarly, the province of the shaman [as technician of the sacred] is disorders of the soul. We can call shamans masters of ecstasy, they are great specialists in the human soul; they see it, know its form and its destiny.

Modern culture has repressed the contents of the unconscious and summarily forgotten it entirely; disregarding the magic and mystery there. Conversely, shamans rely on the power that issues from the sacred to conduct their healing activities. Yet, the enormity of the split between urban lifestyles and the vast depth of the psyche looms over modern humans. Modern humans do not understand yet that, the discovery of the unconscious means an enormous spiritual task; which must be accomplished if they wish to preserve their civilization. The only way to address the deep loss of connection to soul, they experience as a species, is to reestablish their connection to the sacred.

In the physical or material world, the sacred manifests through wild nature as an infinite source of life and creativity; waxing and waning in eternal cycles of death and rebirth. Shamans read nature, regarding and interpreting the elements and events that communicate through soul at all times and places. Modern humans’ increasing analytic thinking and desire for progress through the manipulation of the natural world is devastating to their well-being. Their lives are dominated by reason, who is their greatest and most tragic illusion. By the aid of reason, they assure themselves, they have conquered nature.

As humans, of all cultures, our connection to nature is ancient and undeniable. At the most profound levels of the unconscious, everything becomes less and less differentiated until our ego no longer exists as a separate entity. The deeper layers of the psyche lose their individual uniqueness as they retreat farther and farther into the darkness. Here they become increasingly collective until they are universalized, merging with the body’s instinctual and biological functions; and eventually with nature itself. Hence, at bottom the psyche is simply world.

Since psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world, and moreover are in continuous contact with one another and ultimately rest on unnameable transcendental factors, psyche and matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing. Whatever the external landscape, the internal psychic landscape mirrors it; inhabits it, gives birth to it but also dies into it. The degree to which we are able to perceive the sacredness of what is manifesting around us in nature is the degree to which we are able to believe in the divine aspect of what we commonly know as our own human nature.

Anyone Who Dreams Partakes In Shamanism

Dreamers tend to interpret their dreams in accord with their own pre-existing beliefs or personal mythology. When meaning is attributed to dreams, an interpretation is made through the lens of one’s religious beliefs, secular desires and world views. A dream about falling from the sky can be interpreted as succumbing to sexual desire, failing in a business venture; or, more obviously, as a warning not to book an airplane ticket.

There is evidence that dreams may make a greater impact on behavior than waking thoughts because of their dramatic nature and their openness to a motivated interpretation. Over the years, we may notice how our own dreams often reflect doctrinal compliance, an eagerness to dream in imagery that conforms to our personal myths.

The dream world is an essential element of traditional life, because dreams allow First Nation Peoples to maintain contact with their ancestors. When Amazonian elders dream about the immortals, they share the dream with the entire village; which begins preparing a reenactment of the dream with the elders playing the roles of the ancestors. These dream ceremonies help to align the present with the past, providing cultural continuity. On other occasions, tribal members will sing and dance each other’s dreams thus developing a sense of trust among tribal members.

Upper-Amazonian tribes believe that they can travel to the heavens in their dreams, as well as to the underground world; with cosmos enclosed in the abdomen of a giant anaconda. The tribes in the southeast part of Brazil also have a venerable dream tradition. The tribal legends hold that in primordial times native people divided themselves into three groups, the People of the Sun, the People of the Moon and the People of Dreams.

Some communities hold dream circles, or morning dream-sharing sessions. Often, a dream is shared that begins to give direction to the daily life of the village and it is not necessarily the dream of a Pajé or shaman. Indeed, even a child can have a dream that indicates a new direction for a community.

Dreams are important because they are moments when humans are stripped of rational thought. Dreamers are in a spiritual state where the integral being can emerge, connecting them with a deeper reality. For example, some people can direct their dreams to someone who is several hundred miles distant; others can foretell both positive and negative events that will affect their community.

Dreams from the unconscious reflect memories of life experiences, especially those making the most profound impressions. Elements from past experiences can become symbols. Sometimes only the emotions associated with the event are recalled: happiness, embarrassment, wishes, aspiration, deception, pain. During this type of dream, pieces of memories may occur in random order, without logic. The dream entwines them all, turning them into a story.

Precognitive dreams have been reported for millennia. Just as telepathy and clairvoyance supposedly demonstrate the permeable nature of space, precognition is said to demonstrate the arbitrary nature of time. In some dreams, the dreamer claims to step through a door into the future. It is not uncommon for people to report precognitive dreams that issue warnings, describing a place they should not travel or a person they should avoid. Other dreams are said to predict positive events.

It is apparent that the Amazonian dream legacy is a complete model of dreaming and dreamworking, even when described in Western terms. However, unlike Westerners, the Amazonian tribes integrate their dreams into every major facet of their waking life. For them, there is no rigid division between dream life and waking life. The Pajé, or shaman, is the focal dreamworker; but it is acknowledged that everyone who dreams has a bit of shaman within them.

The shaman represents the attentiveness, and the introspection, needed to reconcile alienated men and women with what they have lost through family and social prohibitions. The inner shaman, that we all have, shows us that by relating receptively to our wounds, they will begin to heal. There is a sense of relief to our psychological defenses that accompanies the penetration of the wound. This is especially evident when we try to disown our shadow, or our wounded self. Our dreams will often prod us into embarking on a more rewarding relationship that we need to have with ourselves.