Kambo
Kambo is a highly intelligent Amazonian medicine that comes from the secretion of Giant Green Monkey Tree Frog. With purgative, immune-boosting benefits, it’s referred to as the Vaccine of the Forest. Indigenous tribes in the Amazon have used this medicine throughout history as a medicine, for Malaria, fever, infections, and snake bites, to cleanse and energize for hunting. Traditionally, the medicine has been used to clear dark or negative energy known as Panema, which the indigenous believed was the source of all physical and spiritual maladies. Today, the frog has spread to people all over the world for healing, spiritual growth, and research.
Elemental Connection
Reconnect your spirit to the elements
The Process
During the process, the secretion is mixed with water and formed into small dots, or “points.” A small, superficial burn is made on the top layer of skin to allow the Kambo to travel into the lymphatic system. Each experience is different, though it usually begins with a pleasant heat as the medicine scans the body and travels to specific areas, disseminating into the tissues. As the bio-peptides activate in the body, heart rate increases and the face may also swell, differing based on the receiver's level of toxicity. Next, the effect varies greatly – the cleanse can take on the form of purging, diarrhea, crying, sweating, yawning, or a feeling of electricity as the mind, body, and spirit release both physical and energetic blockages. Afterwards, you may feel lighter, freer, and more in-tune with the higher self. Days to months later, people usually feel incredibly relaxed with clarity, pain reduction, and ease in life. Rapé and Sananga are often also facilitated in the ceremony.
The Science
Kambo has been studied in the Western science scene for decades and is contributing to ground-breaking research on many of the most widespread, "incurable" diseases.
Research on the chemical makeup of Kambo has been conducted since the 1960s and has found the medicine’s healing capacities in short chains of amino acids, known as peptides. These bioactive peptides impact the gastrointestinal muscles and blood circulation, as well as stimulate the adrenal cortex and pituitary gland in the brain. The known peptides in Kambo have been replicated by pharmaceutical companies, which have over 70 patents in America alone that make up many popular drugs in the market today.
A healer does not heal you. A healer is someone who holds space for you while you awaken your inner healer, so that you may heal yourself.
Maryam Hasnaa
Bioactive Peptides
The bioactive peptides in Kambo have known effects on the following conditions:
• Depression
• Migraines
• Blood circulation problems
• Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease
• Strokes
• Seizures
• Vascular insufficiency
• Organ diseases
• Cancer
• Fertility problems
• Deeply rooted toxins
• Chronic pain
• Addiction to opiate or painkillers
• Fever and infections
• AIDS
• Hepatitis
• Lyme Disease
• Autoimmune diseases
• Negative energies (traditionally known as Panema)
Sananga
For traditional Amazonian tribespeople, sananga is a powerful eye medicine used to sharpen night vision. For modern seekers of spiritual healing, however, sananga does more than help with hunting. Often used as a precursor to ayahuasca ceremonies by the Kaxinawa and Matsés tribes of Brazil, these powerful eye drops have a healing power that’s more energetic than physical, and that has the capacity to increase spiritual insight in the minds of those who use it.
Sananga is still used by many tribes in the heart of the Amazon, but its benefits are reaching the rest of the world as these tribes open up ceremonies to outsiders and train those who are interested in the administration of the eye drops. Used either in conjunction with ayahuasca or as a stand-alone treatment, sananga shows powerful potential to treat a spectrum of physical and psychospiritual illnesses:
• Treats and prevents ocular diseases such as glaucoma, cataracts, farsightedness, nearsightedness, astigmatism, and blindness
• Detoxifies the body
• Increases visual perception and enhances colors
• Clears long-standing inner anger
• Used in conjunction, helps with mental disorders such as addiction, depression, and anxiety
• Resets energetic field
• Treats spiritual diseases (“panema”) caused by negative energies in the body. These spiritual diseases can accumulate in a person’s energetic body and make a person depressed and anxious.
The human eye is a particularly sensitive organ, which means a sananga ceremony can be painful. These sacred, shamanic eye drops cause an intense burning that usually lasts a few minutes, but experienced practitioners say this pain is an important part of the healing process. Shamans advise you to breathe deeply into the intensity to gain the most from its benefits—it is by leaning into the pain that you can cleanse not only your eyes but your mind and spirit as well. Once the pain leaves and the sananga is no longer in your body, you’re left with a feeling of immense relaxation. Because of its cleansing properties, sanaga is often used in preparation for an ayahuasca ceremony
Smudging
Smudging is a sacred, ancient practice that has been used by cultures throughout the world for thousands of years. It has roots in almost every indigenious tradition. Shamans burn herbs and other plants in order to cleanse those of negativity, promote wisdom, healing, and spiritual longevity. Smudging is a cleansing ritual that promotes physical, emotional, and mental well-being by getting rid of negative energy. Smudging is especially prominent in Native American cultures of North America. Native Tribes use dried sage to cleanse people and release old stagnant energy to make room for new growth and spiritual inspiration.
We use sage during Kambo ceremonies to cleanse the space and the energy of the participant before they sit with the medicine. It helps clear the energy that they might have brought with them and bring protection and guidance to them during the ceremony. Sage helps release blockages and as it helps bring upon the purgative effects of the Kambo medicine.
Rapé
Rapé also known as Hapé is the preparation of powdered medicinal herbs, often with a tobacco base. Hapé is typically made with mapacho - Hapé elicits a feeling of alertness and elevation that surpasses most other natural plant-based effects.
The effects of hapé are experienced rapidly and intensely because the powdered snuff is administered through the nose. The practice of consuming powdered plant medicines through the nose is much more ancient than we realized (dating from the pre-Columbian days) and was first observed among the Brazilian indigenous tribes.
In Europe, herbal snuff was introduced by the doctor and botanist Francisco Hernández de Boncalo in 1577 - and the elites of that time often took snuff as a headache treatment. During the XVIII century, inhaling snuff became fashionable among the European aristocracy.
Today, indigenous tribes in the Amazon basin continue to use hapé in all aspects of life, from formal ritual use in rites of puberty, initiation, cashiri drinkings festivals, social gatherings and healing ceremonies, to simply tuning into Nature and the healing power of sacred plant medicines alone or with friends.
There are several tribes that traditionally used hapé - which include but are not limited to the Katukina, Yawanawa, Kaxinawa, Nukini, Kuntanawa, Apurinã, Ashaninka, and Matses - often produce their own specific kinds of Hapé blend and have different ways of preparing the herbal snuff, from techniques to songs that are sung during the rapé rituals.
From the indigenous point of view, hapé is a sacred shamanic snuff medicine with profound healing effects. Hapé is made from different medicinal plants for different purposes – to induce visions, to have energy, and to enhance the senses with the aromatic fragrance of the plants used in the blend. Given that there are myriad medicinal plants you can blend into hapé, there are many various hapé recipes in existence - and these recipes are often closely guarded by the tribes as secrets.
Sharing hapé – is traditionally a ritualistic practice among Amazonian tribes that may include specific chants to activate the force of the hapé and to confer the healing power of the forest upon the hapé recipient.
The ritual use of hapé is also making its way around the world, introduced to the West through ayahuasca ceremonies by traveling shamans and by visitors who have spent time in the jungle with indigenous communities.