"The hayo or coca are hummingbird spirit, the ambil or
tobacco also contains the spirit of the hummingbird, an archetype that allows
us to overcome normal perception, common understanding and penetrate the deep
mystery.
These two master plants (coca and tobacco) help to make more
intense the inner disposition for the task that we do at night next to the fire
to catch thought. To catch thought, we have to catch silence, this means, that
the basic connection is to establish a state of stillness, of inner silence
that allows a connection, a higher mental state for clarity, vision and wisdom
for the profound reasons of action.
Ambil: Tobacco honey to establish the collective purpose
The ambil is acquired through the processing of tobacco
leaves, through a ritual (orderly action) that serves as a social methodology
to reach agreements.
Its chemical physical process is accompanied and linked to
an exercise of collective and individual order:
1. We begin with an act of collective communication, to
establish the general vision of what we are going to do. By clarifying the vision, we establish a
united-shared-purpose.
2. Next, collectively, we establishes a review of the
drawbacks, problems and relational difficulties that exist in the community
group, this means, that we highlight the
situations that affect collective health.
3. We establishes and clarify the purposes, objectives, and
concepts for the development and guidance of the action to be performed.
4. After this process, it comes the last stage which is the
most profound moment. The action of consecration takes place, by a mental act
through which the intelligence and the great creative mystery is called, for
all these forces to stay condensed in the tobacco.
The process lasts a day and a night; And from now on, every
time we gather in community, the tobacco honey will be consumed to remember the
meaning and the purposes that we established together.
As a hardrive, the ambil keeps the memory of what was agreed
during the ceremony and allows the community to return to this memory every
time we sit in to share the medicine.
During the preparation of the medicine, we prepare ourselves
to catch thought, we enter in the sacred house where we find the fire of the
spirit. Fire helps us to catch the thought, to get ready to have coca and
tobacco, and the spirit and the energy of the plants enhance the inner capacity
of concentration and connection.
On some occasions, the ritual web of the night begins with a
song, a prayer or a mental invocation. The order is to start evoking,
connecting with the great thought and like this we take care of what appears
during the night. What is spoken is not strictly given as a personal decision,
it is an experience of connection with a great system of thought that we are
prepared to unfold.
With the web of the night next to the fire, we do not think
or plan what is going to be said, we surrender to spontaneously arise the
thought with the confidence and security that the disposition is correct, that
thought is expressed in the word of the spirit, that word is an elder web,
taking care of the web and being alert in the moments of distraction or
inattention. The fire takes care of the web, the fire extens the thought, to be
able to listen we must be silent; To listen to the word we must catch silence,
by trapping silence the thought appears.
Thought first feels and then thinks. The word is first felt
and then is thought, in this way a web is made spontaneously where each one of
us expres to continue weaveing the bag of thought, of advice of knowledge. The
mind must be in such an opening that it must allow those threads of thought to
spin, be able to perform complex readings that surpass the obvious"
