enjoy the episode thanks for tuning in to jin and tantra you have daniel with you uh eric is off today so i'll be driving the ship with our good friend remy de lune remy how do you say your last name dulon the long okay so with remy remy gallon remy is a very good friend of mine who i've known for a number of years and uh does a lot of work with indigenous plant medicine so we're going to uh dive into the story of remy today and um you know kind of bring everybody up to speed as to how his life is unfolded and why he's chosen what he's chosen and then uh get into a little bit of his work now with his wife ashley and they're centered down just a couple hours outside of tulum called kumankaya which i will leave links to in the description of this podcast so that people can get more information on remy's and ashley's work and maybe even visit them um but uh yeah let's begin so remy first of all thank you so much for joining me today um we just thank you so much for inviting me it's always a pleasure to be with you my friend of course of course we just we had a you know full disclosure uh remy and myself and and my fiancee and remy's wife we had a we led a little retreat uh this past weekend so we're we're very acquainted with each other at this point so it's nice to be able to continue our our work and our conversation here um today so remy um let me ask just you know i know you but no one else here does so um tell me a little bit about like where you grew up kind of your influences and and um yeah we'll start we'll start there so i was i was born in south south east of france in french alps and well my story began when i entered monastery very young you know i entered into an orthodox monastery i was seeking for some answers that i think was important for me to find before anything else and so i entered into the monastery when i was 17 years old and 20 years later i encountered the plant medicine and that's yeah we will talk a bit more about that but that's when my life takes a turn i would say yeah but so i grew up in very uh countryside area of france where lavender olive trees are growing and so i've been looking back now i can say that it was very privileged childhood you know not in a material way but i was surrounded by people who was really loving me respecting me as human being and so it was very was privileged in this way yeah and the landscape we say landscape make men you know so the landscape have shaped me and they're beautiful so let me ask you remy because you know deciding to go into the monastery is not exactly like a normal decision right i don't think regardless of where you are in the world so you were you were 17 when you decided that but had you been thinking about that was your family religious like how did this even enter into your kind of awareness yes of course of my my family was a part of my family was religious but my own family is seeking for something for sure so most of them they don't really know what they're seeking but yeah they have a part who has been raised in a very religious and so for me was kind of natural though my not my my entire family accepted it when i entered into the monastery yeah for about 10 years after that i didn't see my mother because she was against my choice so it was a big choice though yeah and i was 17 years old you're a very young man you know and i say 20 years so my life has really started at 37 years old when i get out of tribal street that's when i discover what was happening really in the world and so make me more so conscious about my work and my service to the people you know yeah and you know we don't have to go too deep into it but the life of of of being a monk essentially is is not something that i think that is very well known in in life right in any culture it doesn't matter western eastern there's not many monks there are some obviously but not too many what were you know now that your you know your work is obviously different what were some of the things that you take away that you share with people when they say well how was it how 20 years is a long time but you know what did you learn what are some things that you share with people well for i always think for myself that living in a monastery is already a form of prayer so to to say that as after 20 years you don't necessarily of course we pray a lot we have those services certain hours but you cultivate the state of prayer more than an action of prayer you understand and that's what i really when i understood that it was already in me state of failure i thought i could bring that outside you know 12 more people i mean so yeah but it's hard to explain because the life in monastery is very different it's complete silence we have so very we wake up very early it's basically you pray and you work and that's it and so because i entered very young the abort of the monastery was very very very wise men old men um advised me to keep studying homeschooling if you like or monastery schooling from the monastery and i was going outside to do my exams so i did the seven years of philosophy like that so i'm a doctor in philosophy i did five years of theology so i have a master in theology and three years of musicology so it was also very um lots of studies 15 years of studies upon 20 20 years at monastery that's a lot do you yeah i guess i guess my you know kind of like my deepest question is you know at 17 we're very impressionable you know and the world is a big place we're influenced by all kinds of different things like why why did you choose that you know what was that what was the you know what was that what was the attraction for you so for me was very clear i mean experiences lead me to the door of the monastery earlier than the unusual yes for sure some really uh i had an experience of an avalanche where near best experience few months earlier so everything really prepared me earlier than usual but uh for me i was having this question in my life the main one was if there is a god out there i gotta meet the man first thing first and after i can go go with my life he was i cannot live my life if i don't answer this question first that was as obsessive i would say at this time plus after that if you speak about living in monastery you speak about also of calling so it's not just what you decide it's something he's waiting there for you that's what happened to me yeah 17 years old i went one day it's hard to explain but my life was where i'm supposed to be at the right time i'm supposed to be and so it was almost like my life was ending at the monastery the feeling was like so i did i myself i don't question that okay the feeling is like that i do and i say because i'm very stubborn [Laughter] so you so you're you're like one of your main crux or one of your main cruxes was to before you can move on with your life you said i have to i have to encounter god this is important i have to do the experience of the presence of god in a conscious world only then i can go with my life and do you feel like that that happened do you feel do you feel that yes yeah yes but not as i was expecting it okay yeah and so it's not necessarily an experience at any moment but it's over the years over the years something is really uh revealing itself and it's uh as the the the monster the the the the sick of god is not something that you find like an object is in the pursuit of the presence of god do you understand in the movement towards him that you find him [Music] and and so you were there so you have this experience of moving towards god right day by day prayer by prayer movement by movement studying not always god you know philosophy and and music i mean of course they're divinely inspired perhaps but you're not studying the bible or scriptures or something like this no no no no and then so you're here and you're feeling like you're moving towards this state or moving towards this existence 20 years goes by i mean because who knows how long that feeling is going to take right i mean maybe it takes 50 years but at some point you decided or how did it come about that you said okay my time here is is no longer needed i have i have accomplished my goal what what brought you to that well well i'm myself the way i function is that if my heart is into something i'm gonna give 150 percent of myself to this if my in my heart is not anymore into this thing i cannot do it anymore right and at some point it wasn't a matter of faith it was more a matter of how i'm going to leave my family and the community life was amongst the monks and i wanted to discover more and i wanted to share more of my of well to be able to be at the service more of the people because of the monastery we are the service of the human kind but in a very um remote way we pray for the world we pray for the people but i needed to get into the mud with the people you know you know my podcast partner who's not here currently obviously we talk about the the monasteries and the deeper spiritual practices the the sufis the christian mystics the jesuits uh the kabbalists the tibetan buddhists you know that these sections of religion are kind of like the spiritual batteries for the rest of the practice you know and so i i like this idea that you said like we're we're servicing the rest of the world but from afar but you wanted to kind of like get in and be of a different kind of service i want you to feel it that i'm helpful it's very selfish i want you to feel that i could be of her health even if it's just a little you know because in the monastery you don't measure that you cannot measure that giving your life to god is already helping the humankind well it's in a very immaterial way you understand and so i need you to feel and suffer with yes you you tell your the head abbott or the head monk guy that you're ready to leave and and how does he how does that conversation go because you've been there for 20 years it was a little bit more complicated than that in fact i entered at 17 years old around 27 years old i wanted to go further into the monastic life and become an army so i was in an hermitage for several months and the about in charge of the monastery from which i was defending as an army resignated he he he wasn't about anymore and so the man did an election and elected of the monastery oh wow so one day i have a little little bomb that came to my door look at my door and say hey you don't know about you have to come back at the monastery and my first reaction was i refuse i say no no and so it took me a few days and after i say okay there is the election it's not my will it's not about what i want it's about what the will you know the will with the big w the the will of the world and the will of god so i went there and accepted i served ten years as the boss of the monastery and that has also contributed to um lost my track a little bit because it was too much responsibilities and almost sometimes a little bit church politics i was about to i was asked to do to obey the bishop and everything and that was complicated for me because i was doing stuff that i don't believe not bad stuff but decisions of just you know so sure i was so yeah yeah and so then you so now now you're in charge so now you actually you're not just leaving the monastery you have to step down as the head of the monastery yep so it was very complicated i had to form my successor say goodbye to everybody he took he took i struggled with that for about three years my last three years of my monastic life was really should i or should i not so it was a it was a fight and it wasn't for me was not choosing about two things one negative and one positive no it was do i stay in monastery where i feel perfectly fine or do i go to serve the people well also i feel perfectly fine so it was a kind of a dilemma do you understand you had a desire you had a desire to help but it wasn't yes it's not so clear i'm very curious you know yeah and i think curiosity is the nerve of life you know yes i trust my curious yeah we we uh we coined this term a couple weeks ago uh curiosity is the uh passion for experience exactly yeah yeah it can relate to that so okay so you now you step down as monk you or you sorry you step down as abbott as the head of the monastery and you're leaving where where do you go what's the first thing you do like i mean this is interesting the first thing i did is to put an ocean between me and the monastery i went straight into the amazonian jungle so i went from the high mountains in the french house where the monastery was to the deep amazonian forest i needed a break and a complete change of of mine change of landscape and everything change of language too and he did a big change so that's what i did and also that's where i've really deepened my relationship to the master plan you know the one i'm sorry you brought me up to the what to the master plans oh master plants so before we before we go there let me just ask like why did you choose the jungles of the amazon i mean it is the opposite of a monastery in france i agree with you but like you know you could have also chosen like you know i don't know like ohio you know or canada well it's because when i when i wanted to step away from the monastery i decided to go to the jungle for for a few weeks only just to change my mind and to drink some ayahuasca from plenty medicine and maybe do some kind of cleansing a little bit and to start fresh again but when i went down down in the amazon that's not the way it happened i i stay in fact two years straight and so i i found my maestro over there all of that wasn't expected at all and that's where my path with the medicine has really i started to be serious so let me so just to give people a little clarification so you went to the jungle and had you had you tried ayahuasca previously yes yes i was i was an original about you know and so as an abort you had a little bit more freedom than other months and we also have a few weeks a year to go to visit our families i wasn't going visiting my family i was doing ayahuasca seminaries or or periodically at the beginning when i started to plant it was with peyote so i wanted to experiment those alternate state of mind state of consciousness you know your introduction to this there's so i have two questions your introduction to these to this altered state of mind we'll start there then i'll get to the second one when was your introduction to this because obviously it was a strong introduction if it carried itself with you throughout your entire monastery career so my my introduction was the very eating too much as a very young teenager i was experimenting as a teenager sure and so that's one of the two experiments that brought me to the monastery the first one was the other line and the second one was i ended up eating ten times obviously at once and being having a full shamanity science i mean a full like existential experience that changed my paradigm forever so yes but i wasn't into the drugs when i was young it's just i was into the experimenting the limit of reality sure the the borders of reality you know so very easily i was doing snowboards all those kind of like adrenaline sports like that as a young man and also who drives was to push it more inside within the limit that's our end us doing way too much lsd for 17 years old young man and that's why that's why i'm here today yeah i'm very grateful for that it was more than just a teenage experience you know it was a an encounter for sure yeah and and so then you carried this this desire for conscious experimentation for you know internal internal work with you throughout your monastery career how do you feel like i could say let me say that the implementation of psychedelics the implementation of plant medicine affected your spirituality right your your sense of connection to god and then and then maybe we'll even go one more and say how have you seen it affect other people's sense of connection to god or their sense of spirituality well i have seen more conversion to god in my i was i was a practice than during 20 years at the monastery because if you if you like for me the the psychedelist it's like experimenting what's possible so we experiment certain states we know it's possible after we have to go back there by our own work the substances the plants we're using are not doing the whole world they show you you can see what's possible and after you've got to do it by your your own work i don't wanna stream for example for me when you you you live in a monastery it's like a long diet it's a diet of prayers so you do the same thing than the people in the jungle five five thousand years ago or you know what i mean it's the same thing it's the same practice is to develop a spiritual practice that connects you with the energies how does this then how does the use of psychedelics continue your practice you know continue your connect your movement because i'm assuming then that that this desire or a longing if i'll even say for connection with with god connection with spirit whatever you want to call the name is still something that's strong within you how does how does the plant medicine help you on this path now and you know moving forward so yes first i want to say that the practice of the plant medicine in general in ayahuasca is not a religion it's really a technique a medical thing okay with our western medicine is that it's also sometimes touches are some spiritual layers of existence which our western medicine doesn't and so that's the first after that how they helped me for me it's as easy as that that god is light of everything of the soul of the mind of the body and so the plants are seeking the light i'm just following them right right speaking the same life i like this yeah so you left the monastery you went to the jungle because you had tried you had tried ayahuasca before and you wanted to go experience it in the jungle yep yeah yeah and then and then you you so you thought you were going to go just for a couple weeks but it was much longer than a couple weeks you ended up staying for two years when we i went until then there and i met my everything changed i understand that's the first thing i learned is like everything you think you know after your seven years of philosophy five years of theology years of musicology everything you know just forget it stay open now you're gonna really hurt yeah and so to be honest also i was having um because of my philosophical background this whole concept of spirit of a plan you know what i mean digital consciousness was a little bit kind of a joke for me a joke i was like yeah a joke yeah tell me about it tell me about it i went there also to prove them wrong in a way and i stayed so and you stayed yes you proved yourself wrong and just for for our audience um when when remy refers to his maestro this is this is your this is your teacher kind of like your he's a person his name is is ricardo amaringo he runs um yeah essential spiritual in just outside of iquitos in in peru and so when you if you say the word maestro i just want people because there's a you know i know what this means you know what this means but generally people don't know what this means so this is his his plant medicine teacher his his kind of like head shaman person who has instructed him my teacher and so so you then so you stayed at the retreat center at this ayahuasca retreat center for two years i did what we care what we call the apprenticeship diet of two years okay so you were in isolation in the forest which wasn't very different for me from the monastery so that was okay for me but you also have a very diet and you're taking that your care is giving to learn from events so the whole concept of learning from a plan for me was kind of weird but also what was very interesting about this hmm so you're so whatever whatever the protocol is day by day week by week month by month you're you're taking different plants and and letting them be and they're not psychedelic they're just regular you know local plant life trees and some so much psychology stomach psychoactive some not okay but all of them make you they're psychoactive in a way that when you take them you don't necessarily have any effects but at night you're gonna have your dream which start to be like really different and your dreams start to teach you and so that's where i say that yeah that's highly psychoactive but not necessarily psychedelics i think that's a really nice distinction actually because when you hear cycle when i hear psychoactive i think visions blurry you know kind of like whoa right like being high but then you're making a distinction between psychoactive and psychedelic psychedelic probably more what i'm referencing psychoactive you're referencing changing of the consciousness at some level whether it be dreams meditation whatever and everybody has already experienced that the forest in itself no matter if it's a subtropical forest or our forest in the states or in europe they are all are cycles just being in the forest so that's a really great distinction and i actually i agree because you know we study i practice chinese medicine we use herbs you know yeah and the ur it's the same same thing plants herbs they have personalities to them the plants have personalities i know maybe for for those of us who study chinese medicine who listen to this podcast then they'll understand but for those who don't and don't study plants even if you garden maybe right you can notice that there's certain plants have they're sensitive to different things even though it's the same environment some are more sensitive than others and so i think there's this you're building if i could say you were building an intimate relationship with with the subtle plant energies exactly and those are phenomenal energies as you said yes so you're so now you're at that you're at new way rao with studying under ricardo using using ayahuasca plant medicines very strict kind of lifestyle you spend a lot of time on your own but you're kind of living in a little small little hut in the jungle um and and then you know now at this point you're what 39 years old almost 40 i'd imagine at this time yeah i was 37 when i left the monastery yeah so at this point now you're like you're into your life i mean you're you're a grown man at this point yes well i'm still learning it i'm still learning a lot and so so then then what happens who then then you ended up meeting your wife yes so first thing first i was doing all those diet with my teacher more to find myself back after this long time at the monastery you know and uh after this time my my teacher aspart to ask me to help people to start singing for people first he asked me to sing for himself which was the scariest thing i've done in the jungle suddenly after a few years you're sitting in front of your maestro and you you're going to give him the healing so yeah and so i wasn't expecting that at all that wasn't at all in my friend i never planned to be a practitioner i was just pursuing this my personal uh my personal draw and my goal at this time was to find myself back after this long time ago and in fact that's absolutely not what happened i went straight into learning the medicine the traditional indigenous words in the language the different techniques they use i've learned through the plans all the different techniques of singing that we're using to help people during ceremonies and suddenly i'm sitting in front of my master and need to sing for himself for him so after that he asked me to start serving the people as a pulandero he said okay your he gave me the validation if you like but i didn't want i fight him for a couple of years yeah i was like no no way man and and so and for for people remy um there's some words we want to make sure we're clear on so furandero is a how would you train a healer and a but but a kudandero and in this specific context is not just a healer it's one who serves generally some some indigenous plant medicine and uses that plant medicine to heal would you yeah yeah so so you had resistance that's the first level and that's the first level in the in the shamanic tradition of the amazonians is the very first level it's called info the one who knows and so that's the very first step of the learning and you have many different other parts what would be some further steps up the run you don't have to do all of them but just to give people little no but you are for example the one who are able to control the elements they still believe in that stuff in the amazonian forest so you are different after that abilities are more able to see the dead people what we would call in our society psychics you have the one who are specializing plan for love just for love own love affair problem your wife has left you on your back and so all those plans are related to to love a lot of problems so you have many different specializations that's why i think it's very important to insist on the fact that it's not a religion we can find religion into an iowa's experience but first thing first it's medicine and it's very advanced technology very advanced technologies that's that's nice you know i think a lot of our listeners are are medical people people in the healing world you know and so i think it's it's important to hear the the specificity right in this because you know fortunately or unfortunately i'm not sure how i feel about this to be honest and and we have no problem [...] on western culture here so you know feel free you know but my my hesitation it's not a sadness it's fine but like ayahuasca has actually become very popular you know they talk about it it's popular but yes but it's not the same right the different traditions that people hold the different practitioners that are out there are not are not the same and people don't hold they think oh whatever i'm gonna go by this person and drink this stuff and we're gonna hang out and like it's not it's it's a med it's a medical technology like you said and there's people who like yourself who spend years studying years studying this yes and there's a difference between someone who just does it once in a while and then someone who whose life is dedicated to this and one of the reasons why i wanted to have you on is to kind of like highlight in my mind what someone who is authentic looks like now granted you didn't grow up in south america you're you know like and and that that's something that could not be replaced you i could never no matter how much i studied plants no matter how much you use the medicine we cannot we cannot take away the fact that we weren't raised in the on the ground where these plants grew you know to have this kind of deep energetic connection however you've dedicated a long portion of your life now at this point and i've dedicated well many hours of study not not years you know but years and hours to learn and build connection in order foster the relationship between the plants and the people and and help this connection to happen and it it's not the same as someone who reads an article online right you you you live it yeah and so what what was i think it's important because um what is an indigenous person an genus person is someone for me who hasn't lost fully the connection with each other and the law of the universe you understand yeah and so we have our endogenous heat see what's going on one more time remy we have lost our energy generosity or indigenousness you understand what i want to do yes yes yes yes so we all ended jesus but we lost christ yeah we are just lost the connection with nature and what divine of ayahuasca with the the chakra leaves that we add to the blue what they do is to show you how to go back to the connection feeling connected to yourself to yourself which is in connection with the world and with other people in the community i think we've we think we have like made some progress i think we have lost some stuff on the on our way there yeah there's a joke in french they say oh yeah they made it but you see how they when they arrive they look good you know so we made it but we don't really lose good in a certain way you know what i mean right yeah and so inside us we have this connection natural connection which is still possible we have to find a way back yeah yeah i like that i like i like this indigenous connection but i'm not an i'm not a i mean i think also for me to to be able to explain it for me the future the future will be a mix of digital and technology when the two will meet that will be the our future yeah i hope not exclude each other i also say to give you an example that some it's it's a joke but it's not a joke among them over there in peru they say that they some have some spaceship that they don't build they grow them ah so i think something funny like that to say that the future lies into the reconnection of everything you know the nature and the technology when they will meet again to exchange that will be when we will reach some kind of climate yeah well i mean and things are stronger when they're connected right strong community that's more that's more well integrated is is is more beneficial for everybody who's involved and so simultaneously if we're going to speak on a larger scale our relationship with the earth with the indigenous land itself right wherever you're from is better both ways when we are in communion with it you know when we're when we're using it in a way not just simply extracting one way because that's the relationship now it's extraction extract extracted but you cannot nobody can give infinitely even you person love to give you still have to sleep you have to eat you have to recover you know the same thing goes with the same thing goes for everything so i i you know from as they say you know from your mouth to god's ears i hope that uh you know i hope that's uh possible you know moving moving forward yeah um all right so i feel pretty you know i feel like we have a pretty good idea on on how you got to where you got to you know um and then at the center in in peru you you met your lovely wife yes yes after twenty monastery i made a meter which which is also the first woman i live with i have to say it because it's after 20 years of ministry i had experience young but no i discovered a lot of true love unconditional love with my wife for sure and so that's we're trying to we met at the at the center where i was to study the plan she came for personal healing and that's how we met that's how we discover each other and yeah we met on the full moon of the summer salt in southeast so that was gorgeous and also that has added something to my personal journey you know because when you live in those very abstract tensions i would say you know towards god when you live in a monastery like that you forget that you're still a human body and human needs and also emotions feelings so i had to rediscover that with my wife and i'm still learning a lot and so i moved after that i moved to a place where we lived a couple of years next to chicago next to springfield exactly in illinois and after we decided after a few years living here in the midwest we decided because we were doing ayahuasca ceremonies on the weekend only kind of underground i have to say a little bit because of the law of the country here yeah legality of it yeah yeah the legality of it which i highly respect also but i was torn between respecting the legality of it because it's also a way to respect the plant themselves you know and at the same time answering the need of the people for the plants so we were organizing on on weekends like that some retreats of fireworks and at some point we needed to feel legit about it to be able to speak uh openly about it that's when we start to decide to find a place elsewhere and move from the states also to be honest a little bit of the politics at the time with the president of the time has helped us to move from the city we wanted to yeah to get out of here yes yeah yeah i hear that and so where did you guys end up we found a land for we sold everything our house everything we bought a camper chevy camper and we just hit the road towards mexico exactly the peninsula of yucatan we found a land over there where we were still go to check this out this land and when we arrived we decided okay that's that's where the place is supposed to be and so we build our little place very modest very humble place it's few few bengals like that it's a beautiful malachi in the jungle with the main house and that's where we now we live now and survive the people over there yeah and what's the name of it and how did you how did you how did you come to this name it's a [...] people peruvian legend of a flying flying village a flying village yeah there's this sacred tree in the middle of a village we have the abilities by his fruit to levitate uh objects like that and so that's a legend young man of the village sprayed the juice of the fruits all around the village and village started flying and they were thinking they were about to go to the to god but in fact they get stuck in between worlds that's the whole story and now they act as the protectors of the church so they say according to the legend that they can come from their village to here to help the people and they can run manifest they say the legends say and also they are living in this intermediary state between god and earth which is what we would call almost angels like almost if men can become angels that's what happened to those persons so that's the whole legend and then because our place is built on this little hills everywhere he was giving you the feeling of everything is floating in the air so we decided to call it i like that plus this tree that is called the no yarao which is a very important tree in the shipibo cosmology and also medicine with the iii my wife has died so it's perhaps an important tree for us so that's why you also do that and so now you guys have this center in the on the yucatan peninsula in in mexico and you've been working you know i mean for more than just that time but you've been working as a as a shaman as a kudandera or healer using indigenous indigenous plant medicines i guess what are um you know what are some what are some things that you've experienced you know some some stories you might want to share for you know people listening well i have a bunch of them sure yeah it's all good i mean this is this is story time this is the this is the fun part you know so yeah what what you want story about how we created it or stories since we're working now since you're since you've been there since since you're working since you're you know work working in this but you know working in this space because listen you got 20 years in the monastery then you got then then leaving the monastery going to a jungle monastery right basically working under working under your teacher and then now you guys have created a a retreat center you know based on all of on on all of this together so it's many many many many years in the making it's not just oh we're gonna move to mexico like no it's you know no no no no it has been uh it has been taught a lot we struggle a lot we fight it a lot also because it's kind of um responsibility to accept also you understand and so it was for me it has always been service it has never been something and i think it's very important for the quran zeros that his own personal egos issue must have been treated first if you're looking to be a coroner to find your own personality and to find your own strengths no you gotta find it first you understand yeah and so that's once we were okay on this level more or less as much as can be that's why we decided okay our service can be done in the right way and that's we decided to move well we had lots of stories we were supposed to move to hawaii where we find a place that's where it was supposed to be first and the volcano destroys completely just one week maybe before we buy the place so we find another place in northern california next to a town called paradise and we found a property and the fire destroyed it one week before we buy the place and so after that we found mexico and we really felt that we've been in a way guided to who we are now so much stuff happened so much um synchronicities you will call that to lead us there yes yeah there was something that you shared with one of the retreat participants the other day remy that i quite liked and and you'll have to say it again if you can remember something about like that the issues that we that we have our wounds that we have end up becoming our our strengths are you know our modes of healing well what i've discovered is that lots of people come to us the deep determination of healing their wounds and they eat this wall he's still there he's still there he's still there and so for many years i was like why this is happening they have the intention they have the will they really try their best to heal their wounds and they're eating this wall nothing deep or nothing serious or nothing stable is happening it's a little bit better and after all they come back when it has this program the medicine showed me that the problem is not to come to children is to come to be healed by your wounds you're not you're not going to where you start to feel your wounds you're going there to listen to your words to be healed by them that makes you more connected more sensitive more open less judgmental and this this to me is a deep it's a deep knowledge you know because so so much of our existence is spent on on quieting our wounds quieting our pain right numbing it turning it off moving there's a guy that i have studied with um he he's in um he's in peru also uh but up a little bit more in the mountains or so he's more he's more he's more uh west and he's yeah in the andes yes yes yes and he like he said something that is kind of similar to this but it shows the thought process and someone's like well i've tried to i have this issue you know and he's like okay well what have you tried you're like well i've tried this and i've tried this and i tried this and i've tried this he goes um have you tried nothing have you tried doing nothing this this ideology to me is the same as this we want to turn off our pain turn off our discomfort turn everything off but then we don't we don't get a chance to have an experience with anything other than discomfort because we we put discomfort with our wounds one in one you know yes we think our wounds discomfort our wounds is comfort no one wants to be no one wants to suffer right you are in service to people i am in service people to help ease the suffering but maybe the hope is that there's some opportunity to learn opportunity to grow and and i i really i this is what you said the other day you know be healed by your wounds and i i quite actually and i also do believe that the true winner is the one was i like to say myself that you can heal what you have cried for you understand and the more you have pride for in your life so the more pain in the way you've been through our sorrows and you the more you're able to have a true healing energy towards someone someone else that that experience that resonance lives within you and it becomes um it becomes a uh not a scar but some some learning some something that you can take with you moving forward it's like a sensitive chord yes you know you vibrate oh wow i feel that it can vibrate super strong it can vibrate lowerly more low like that so it's just to find the way to vibrate in harmony with someone else no matter if he's the pain he's bringing you there no matter if he's a joy no matter if it's an accident no matter if it's some shamanic practice but when you find a sensitive string inside you that can vibrate with someone else yeah you find you find the right part and so make sense yeah yeah so when someone when someone sends you guys an email or they give you a call however they get a how do they how do people get a hold of you they send you emails so first thing first i'm not in charge of all the i know i know this is programming this is marketing remy i'm just i'm marketing you so how do people yes yes you have to contact my wife ashley which is super good at that but by email or by instagram i think and facebook but the easiest way is email for sure okay and you think you you said you're gonna give the email right oh yeah for sure yeah yeah that's part of it um but so so so someone reaches out okay and they say you know i have this issue i have this issue i want to you know experience enlightenment i want to you know heal for my broken heart i want to fix my irritable bowel syndrome whatever okay how can you help how can your center help how can what you guys do help what what is your response to something like an average response to something like this so myself now when people present themselves i prefer to see them at during a ceremony i drink water and i watch them because a lot of people are not aware of their own energies plural so they can give you a whole picture of their life whole picture of their own problems and they have complete different energies inside them that we have to deal with so i prefer to see them during an ayahuasca ceremony they don't necessarily need to dream but i need to drink to see them so i can know them on an energetical level and so i know what to do with that for them because most of the time like we all have done that at some point we want something precise but in fact we need something slightly different you understand so people come with their ideas their wishes their goals we which which we try to help them fulfill but most of the time is the discovery of what they really need though you know like there's something to be said because i think when we when we see at least in chinese medicine right being an acupuncturist we are taught to observe but we spend more time with people you're sitting in you know and for those who've never done this before um what what happens is there's a there's a ceremony people dress in light-colored white clothing and they're they're seated together for four to five hours something like this and you know people drink the medicine however i want to make a point here you can still go to their center and not drink the medicine you don't have you don't have to it's a healing ceremony and traditionally i think most of the time people didn't drink the medicine only the shamans exactly back in the days only the practitioner and his assistant were consuming the medicine and and the people were coming from the village no they were just coming receive a stone sometimes a slight prescription of herbs to to prepare for themselves and they were leaving and so the the thing is that the apprenticeship we are going through is to be able to develop this ability to see the energy the unbalances to see all the all the soul loss to see all those energies inside the people that's what we learn so the medicine when you drink it makes you sister but we as practitioners have developed the the the ability of releasing what we want to see the energy of the people what they're going through energetically so everybody can see the energy but we as practitioners have developed the ability of okay that's what we do that's also what why we need steel i think at some point you will stop maybe after after a few years but we still need to drink the medicine to be able to see because the medicine is the ability to give you the ability to see yeah people come to this healing ceremony right and most people are drinking the medicine not everybody but most people there yourself included and then as the as the evening wears on you guys are singing these healing songs right or healing prayers if you will and and you know they're it's like mantra it's like prayer it's uh it's a healing vibration healing intention healing words in a different in a different language and and people are are transformed you know i can say i can say for my own self you know being somebody who drinks being somebody who doesn't being a person who healing being a person who is being who is doing the healing you know both both sides that people are often times transformed it's you said it earlier it doesn't it shows it doesn't do it for you you still have to do your work but it kind of opens that opens the window and says there you know this is one of the opportunities for you to go and for you to grow and so you got you and your wife as the as the curanderos as the as the singing shamans you know um people come up and and they receive uh these ikidos these healing songs and and so when when somebody comes up and they are receiving a healing from you what you know like what what's happening in on your perspective you know because i i mean we i've asked this question but i doubt that anybody here listening to this podcast has ever gotten a real kind of like you know i don't know bird's eye view or something like this you know on the inside yes i understand so for me he works in many different ways most of the time is that um when i drink and i have someone sitting in front of me as i'm start to sing for the person i have this kind of screen in between me and the person and i start to see stuff on the screen like these are money it can be very different it can be so that's the first layer i would say the basic energetical readjustment cleansing and reharmonizing after that you can also sometimes see more than just the medicinal screen as i would i would call it you can see spirits you can see people who have like the spirit of the dead attached to them so it gives you also the opportunity to see what's in the in the other world the spiritual world you know not just energy so you have the first player is basic energy is the liver is right the liver seems to be like this harmonious something you're not right or the stomach you can see the energies of the body like through a screen i give you already and every curandero develops his own system of interpreting decisions that work for him that's also what i realized is there's no system one word for me doesn't work necessarily for my wife and the contrary so you develop your own way of understanding you have this first layer of the energies after that you have the more spiritual when there is some yes some people who have lost some dear ones they're still around i mean there's some more psychic stuff i would say and after that you have also the level of emotions sometimes i don't see anything but i'm going to be absorbed in a few seconds in one very intense emotion i'll give you an example okay i have this person a man that comes here in front of me my wife is telling me what i'm supposed to sing for him giving me the intention of this person and as i'm sitting like that i'm overwhelmed with this like a rage rage or feeling afraid in few seconds the weirdest for me is when it's sadness because in few seconds you like at the edge of killing yourself your entire world within change and you're depressed to the point you that you would hang yourself you know infuse it on so that's those emotional balances like that movement that's that's what's more complicated for me but it happens also so it's not necessarily visionary it's also very emotional yeah you feel what the person is feeling you're in the same same boat yeah they call this like a resonance energetic resonance yes exactly yeah and so you have a vision you have a resonance emotional resonance like that and you have also intuitions that you do stuff when you're under the guidance of the medicine you do or you say stuff that you are not really aware then it's pure intuition pure and that's what the people need yeah that's the way it works for me the three different levels i think that they would call that that intuitional experience the flow state they call it right you're just sort of you're in you're in you're in the flow you're just you're doing as is yeah and you're witnessing it as you as you're doing it you're witnessing it yes that's a very part of some state that i really like yeah i i agree with you completely there there's you know like we experienced you know very recently you're you're doing something and you're also a part of it at the same time like it's you know you become the doer and the witnesser simultaneously you can toggle back and forth and you have the experience of both at the same time this is a this is such a profound state you know i'm glad i'm glad that we're having that this came up in this discussion you know because this to me is like uh riding the line between the the the physical and the spiritual you know because it to the logical mind how can i witness myself right unless i have a mirror i cannot yeah but as the experiencer who as someone who's experienced this as you have uh or in my own way i guess i could say there is no doubt about it that what i am doing for someone else is also being done on me through me it's happening same same yep yeah it's really beautiful so what's interesting is that when the healing is happening in the form of a channel process like that well you know like that you witness this flow that goes through you it's also doing something to you yeah because it's extremely intelligent it's a super high intelligence design that do something to someone else but the same time do something to you when he goes through you and if i could say you know i don't have one one percent of the experience you have in this world um but for somebody who has you know dabbled in in the the role of of courandero for just moments just brief times here and there that i am so humbled by people's strength in in these moments to face these really difficult things and i'm fortunate you know i don't have as much or i have different life experience than other people have some people have really difficult things that they have to go through and you know i'm trying to help them you're trying to help them in our own ways but to see people like fake you know come face to face with it and and look at it like straight up be in that space is so humbling you know like i don't like that people suffer but i'm also very humbled by the fact that like they're here working on their things they're presenting it to someone else they're being very vulnerable they're asking for assistance which you know i have sometimes i have a hard time doing maybe because i'm a man or you know western brain you know who knows but i i to me it's just like uh it's a very different kind of mentality a very sort of open space and not one that that i i take lightly no absolutely and the reward of it is when you see the smile on the face of the people you know it's not money the reward is when you see the people leaving they have this like large smile on their face and you feel the energies like bright and light that's when you get your rewards and that does something to your heart you know yeah that's also very that's the reason why we do that you know yes yeah i don't know why i'm doing that exactly but i'm doing it and i really enjoy it and i enjoy the people i'm meeting on my past really well like you said the process you said in the beginning remy that whatever you put your mind on whatever you put your heart into that's the decision that's you're in it 150 and you've chosen to put yourself in this place and so you're in it 150 as long as i can as long as you can because i start to have some white hair now and then one day i will not be able to do it again as long as i can i'm going to do it there for sure yeah and as long as long as you're working i'm i'm happy to help i'm happy to be of service and i'm and i'm very happy to recommend people to uh to to come see you guys oh thank you so much i enjoy you do i enjoy working with you it's always great always learning something and the flow you know the flow is there yes for sure yeah absolutely well um i think this is a good a good place for our for our conversation is there um for people who are listening maybe who are who might be interested in in coming to visit you guys down down in mexico or thinking about maybe even using the medicine like is there you know even if it's not with you but maybe somewhere else because the medicine is all over fortunately you know it's good from that perspective but you know let's say someone doesn't know anything that they're very first-time people or maybe they've done it once what would you look for in in a shaman in the healer in a curandero and someone who's serving any kind of plant medicine being on the other side what would you look for in in the opera if the opportunity comes up for somebody what were some questions that you would ask what would you do it being at being a rookie again i would be rocky again i would really um tap into my curiosity and trust it that's one of our best instinct our curiosity and so if you're curious about something there's something there for you if you're curious about you're not curious about yourself don't do it you understand so i would say just trust the medicine trust yourself first and just experience it yeah come and drink yeah yes i agree i agree with that awesome well remy i i feel i feel uh very grateful that you uh you've made some time for us today you know i've been wanting to do to have this conversation for such a long time you know but now that it works out when it works out you know like it's um it just happens when it does you know well you are an extraordinary host my friend because i was super scared to do this interview and you really helped me thank you so much of course i told you i wouldn't leave you in the void man you know don't worry yes don't leave me in the void i said i i will not i've been there myself and if i could be a guide there then man i've done my work in this lifetime you know thank you very much for everything for having me and i really enjoyed you bridgette and the weekend we spent together and yes yeah i want to say welcome to everybody who's listening yes yes yes exactly welcome to everybody who's listening so i just wanted to say thank you to everybody thank you for you know remy for taking the time and chatting with me thank you my friend thank you yes of course uh thank you for everybody who's listening uh i will leave the the link to you know remy and ashley's contact and their their their website for their information their information in the description of this podcast but for those who are just listening they're they're places called kumankaya uh it's it's in mexico and you know wonderful wonderful people i i cannot recommend their place enough no one's paying me to say anything this is just my own experience you know my own my own work with them my own love for them it's it runs very deep uh and i i send people there all the time and i you know hopefully this will be another avenue for for people to meet you um you know if you found today's conversation useful please share it with your friends if you're listening to us on apple podcast leave us a review it definitely helps out the show uh yeah you know you know how we do it remy thank you very much for eric this is daniel thank you so much my friends of course i love you my friend love you too brother we'll talk soon