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Aya: a shamanic odyssey - Rak Razam |
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The vine has spread her tendrils across the world and a genuine archaic revival was underway. My bags were packed, South America beckoned and the ancient mysteries of the rainforest awaited. I wanted in on it…
When experiential journalist Rak Razam sets out to document the booming business of Amazonian shamanism in the 21st century, he quickly finds himself caught up in a culture clash between the old world and the new. Braving a gringo trail of the soul, he discovers a movement of seekers coming from the West to experience the multi-dimensional reality shamanism connects one to. Central to this is ayahuasca the vine of souls, a South American hallucinogenic plant that has been used by Amazonian people for millennia to heal, cleanse and purify the spirit, connecting it to the web of life.
As Razam trains with indigenous curanderos he lyrically documents his experiences and burgeoning relationship with the plant world. And the more he drinks this potent jungle medicine the deeper it leads him, from the wet jungles where the ayahuasca vine grows, to the middle of the Amazon and on into the raging heart of consciousness itself…
Razam has a hip, breakneck style of reporting delicately threaded with deep insights and understandings of the indigenous view of reality. His journalistic eye for detail captures a unique spiritual adventure that echoes the archetypal Western quest, propelling you on a cosmological travel memoir that is at turns beautiful, terrifying, mind-blowing and ultimately, cathartic.
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