Lineages in Dialogue
The Shipibo, Cherokee, Lakota, and Maya lineages each carry their own medicine ways, shaped by their lands, languages, and stories.
Their practices differ in cosmologies, origin stories, and the specific plants they work with—differences born of the rivers, forests, prairies, and mountains they have called home. Yet in walking with these traditions, I have come to see that what matters most is not the differences, but the deep similarities that sing through them all, weaving a web of wisdom that points us back to the same truths.
The Shipibo Lineage
From the jungle of the Peruvian Amazon, the Shipibo are amongst the most recognized carriers of the Ayahuasca tradition. Their medicine songs—the icaros—are living maps that guide the ceremony, weaving sound into light and light into healing. Shipibo medicine emphasizes vision, vibration, and the deep relationship with the plants themselves, cultivated through years of dieta, solitude, and listening.
In dieta, I learned that relationship with plants is not only about what they do for us but how they shape us when we listen, and when we walk with willingness and reciprocity. The Shipibo remind me that plants are not passive resources but living teachers.
The Cherokee Lineage
The Cherokee way sees all creation as imbued with spirit. Plants, stones, waters, and winds are guides in maintaining balance and harmony. Healing is holistic, addressing not only the body but also emotional, spiritual, and relational dimensions. Rituals of water, fire, and prayer are central, restoring connection between people, nature, and Creator.
From my Cherokee roots, I inherit the truth that everything has spirit and we are thus connected to everything. Water ceremonies have shown me that, like plant medicines, this life-giving and sustaining element, when honored, can deeply guide, cleanse, restore, and transform us.
The Lakota Lineage
For the Lakota people, the sacred pipe, the sweat lodge, and the vision quest are among the central practices. Their ceremonies call on the four directions, the ancestors, and the star nations. Lakota medicine teaches courage, humility, and the power of prayer as a way to restore harmony within the hoop of life.
From my Lakota roots , I remember that prayer itself is medicine and healing is restoring right relations. Sitting in the sweat lodge, I’ve felt the same current as in the jungle with Ayahuasca: the sense that when we pray with sincerity, the spirits draw close and help realign us.
The Maya Lineage
The Maya traditions carry an ancient lineage of cosmology and ceremony, deeply interwoven with the cycles of time and the stars. Their plant medicines, rituals of fire and water, and connection to the calendar reveal a path of remembering our place in the great unfolding of creation. Healing here is inseparable from alignment with cosmic order and ancestral guidance.
From the Maya, I have learned to look up as well as down. From them I carry the knowing that healing is not only personal but cosmic, part of rebalancing creation itself.
Shared Essence
Though their outer forms differ, these traditions converge in animistic truth: all of nature has spirit and consciousness. Plants, animals, stones, waters—all alive, all aware. They teach that we are at our best only when connected deeply to the earth and to the more-than-human world. In every lineage I have walked with, plants are seen as healers, teachers, and guides. Ceremonies themselves are medicine, as are we—though we often forget it.
Knowledge in these ways is carried not by books but by breath: apprenticeship, dreams, visions, and song. Each lineage I have touched has emphasized reciprocity—taking only what is given, offering thanks, and remembering that healing is never one-sided. Gratitude is the bridge that keeps the exchange whole.
“Across all lineages runs a shared thread: the importance of non-ordinary states of consciousness, whether entered through plant medicine, fasting, vision quest, or purification. These altered states are not escape but entrance—doors into guidance, insight, and communion with spirit.”
Closing Reflection
Walking with these lineages has taught me that while the medicines may differ—Ayahuasca, cedar, tobacco, corn, cactus—the heart of the work is the same. Healing is about relationship: with the plants, with the spirits, with ourselves, and with the earth. Each tradition reminds me that we thrive only when we live in reciprocity, gratitude, and respect. The ceremonies, the songs, the plants—all point us back to the same truth: that we are not separate, and that balance is possible when we remember who we are and how deeply we belong.