Meet the Teacher: Tatiana Aya Tupinambá

Transcript from YouTube's automatic English captions for the published episode. It has not been proofread against the audio. Misheard names (Nekawa, Tatiana Aya Tupinambá, ayahuasca, ibogaine, Charles Johnston, Paraty, Curandera, Johann Hari) have been corrected; all other wording is as captioned, so some phrases may be wrong. Paragraph breaks follow the caption track's speaker changes, and speaker names have not been guessed. Spoken opinions are the speakers' own and are not medical recommendations.

[00:05] Welcome to the Nekawa podcast. Today we're going to be doing our teacher series with one of our lead teachers, Tatiana Aya Tupinambá. You can look at the camera if you want. She's going to be working here on site teaching, serving ayahuasca and helping everyone understand how they can live a better life, how they can love themselves again, and how they can truly be who they want to be. So, thank you for joining us today, Tatiana.

[00:36] Thank you. It was a pleasure to be here and having this talk with you and finally start. We wanted to do something like this for such a long time to have a platform where we can discuss and talk about the important things to love ourselves, take care of ourselves and be better human being upon the earth. So I'm grateful for the opportunity.

[00:57] Yes, me too. I'll be your host today, Charles Johnston. And let's see, let's start with Nekawa. How this came to be. Tatiana and I started this program about a year and a half ago. It took over a year to come together and now finally about three months ago we began our project here in Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil up on a mountain side in the rainforest overlooking the ocean at this beautiful retreat center and we have begun. So I want to talk first about what is nature to you? What what is the importance of nature to you in relationship to healing, in relationship to inviting people into a program for wellness, for addressing mental health and substance abuse and all manner of issues and also just spiritual growth. But I really want to understand nature because we chose this place specifically which is a lot of nature. We have hundreds of acres of rainforest around us and there's all kinds of animals and a lot of isolation. But we did that for a very specific purpose and that really I think came from you and your experience. So why don't you tell us about nature and how that's important?

[02:22] Thank you for the question. It is a big question and it is one of the most one of the most important question for us to ask ourselves too. What is nature and what is our relationship with nature? Nature is the basis for life. Without nature surrounding surrounding us inside of us even in the level of conscious without nature there is no life there is no existence once at all. No, there is nothing. So nature for me to be healthy and have a a good source of of life of forest I will going to have to depend in nature know I have to depend on clean water the river that is running I have to depend on the trees they are growing natural and healthy so they can give fruits the food come from from them most vegetation I have to count on the sun the the cycles of the sun as well how is that impact in the things that are growing around me the things are growing around me. We think about nature that nature is out there. But nature out there grows. So nature inside of ourselves can also grow. Nature out here for this nature inside of me to actually flourish. I depends on the nature that is surrounding me. The rocks, the rain that falls, the leaves, every single thing, the animals that runs, the birds, even like the jungle far away that I cannot sometimes not even know that exist. I counter with that nature too. For me to be to have a healthy life, a healthy body and healthy mind as well. We as human have walked so far from nature so far in so many levels. And that's why we see the world the way that it is. The world is the world of humans. The human humanity, the collective humanity. If we look around us, we will see a lot of people that are suffering in pain and struggling in life. And we can we can ask the basic question what is this person or or this human being doing with themsel relating to their own nature to their inner nature and what is this person doing relating to the nature that is around them. And what we see is people that live inside of walls and people that lives inside of a a bunch of Wi-Fi wiring everywhere. What we see is people that drink water from tap that doesn't even know where their water is coming from. We see many of that that is the the normal that we see in life human beings life. So nature for me is very important. If I don't if I cannot feel the smell of the jungle if I cannot hear the noise of the animals you know like the birds is constant around me. I'm very blessed for that growing up in natural surrounding all the time. So if I don't have that for example when I am in in cities for a long period of the time my rhythms the rhythms of my mind the rhythms of my body change and I start to feel uh less of of I don't know relax feeling good enjoy enjoying the feeling inside of myself peace and quiet inside of my mind I have less of that I can assess less of that and and co-arising uh when I am in the jungle and spending long period of the time how so much the space I have inside of my my body. How much more relaxed and even trusting that I can do one step after the other I have assessing into that inside of myself when I am surrounding by nature. For for me is very clear without that surrounding nature and then my in the relationship with my inner nature I cannot be a steady a healthy human being walk upon the earth. I wanted to be as strong as steady walk upon my life as possible as I can do. So I know that my remedy know my remedy my medicine is being surrounded by nature and I see the impact of that in my life in my health in my relationships I see direct the impact of that. So when I see that and is giving fruits is fruitful I understand that human beings can benefit so much of that. I understand that we have as a as general collective human beings walk so far away from their inner nature. They cannot relate to the outside nature anymore. They are worried about the mosquito. They are worried about the cold outside. They worry about so many minimal things that is reflected directly the relationship that they lost with the nature uh uh that surround them and the nature ultimately that is inside of them as well and in that way we get sick. So my invitation first invitation is for all of us to relate to nature our in the nature uh the surrounding nature so we can do the first step in the direction to get well. Mhm. Yeah.

[07:18] So, I think that's

[07:20] as we developed this program or thought about doing this. It's been over a decade that we've been working on this and bringing this together. And we spent many months in the jungle in the Amazon. Before I met you, you had spent years in the Amazon spending long periods of isolation. And then as I started to experience that, I also recognized there's something very special about being in nature. and the contra ability that nature has to heal or to overcome things like addiction and substance dependency which many would call a disconnection. They would call addiction I think Johann Hari talks about it addiction is caused by disconnection. It's a lack of connection. So sometimes we can't connect to oursel. We can't connect at all. But if we get exposed to this this environment around us that is abundant and all around us all the time and constantly making noise and moving and living, it causes us to come alive too. And that's as we've started and seen our students come here and watching them go in the river every day after working out or watching them encounter the massive frogs or the mosquitoes or the spiders or the various things. And at first there's a lot of fear, there's a lot of uncertainty, but as they start to step into it, as they start to go for walks, as they start to be outside at night, even by themselves at times, they start to really grow and go, "Wow, there's this is this is me. This is part of me." So I think that's

[08:57] I think for us, for both of us, it's been the number one medicine is nature.

[09:03] Yes. is a a direct mirror that someone can look at to get straight. No, because we are with our energy with our mind all over the place and for us to come straight and straighten no our mind straighten our health straighten our very life we look into the mirror that around us that is informing all the time but we are not paying attention. So then is the more direct mirror that we can look at if we wanted to bring ourself into a straight line.

[09:35] Yeah. You just have to look at it.

[09:37] Yes. Exactly. Witness it. Witnessing it.

[09:40] Yeah. So great. Wonderful. So number one, nature.

[09:44] Nature. Yeah. I think the second thing that is very important to us and that is one of the backbones of our program is psychedelic medicine

[09:55] um plant medicine entheogenic medicine non-altered states of consciousness non-ordinary states of consciousness or altered states not non-altered states altered states of consciousness non-ordinary states there's all these terms for everything but you've been studying with ayahuasca for close to 15 years Now, I did ibogaine almost 15 years ago. We've both been on our journeys. We've both been exposed to many different things. I'm curious what your take is on ayahuasca or psychedelic medicine and its ability the the impact it has on people who have gone through substance use, have gone through addiction, have been altering their consciousness with other things like alcohol or opiates or cocaine or various other things versus these natural inwardlooking experiences. What would you say is your experience and your thoughts about psychedelics for addiction?

[10:58] Yes, I feel uh one of the greatest tools out there that we can assess and we have access even like a miracle that we can have this amount of access into this all these medicines and all these option for us to actually get well and heal ourselves. That is is fascinating and we are living a very special time in our life. I have gone through hell. I come out and thank goodness I found the psychedelic in my life to to help me to integrate into a healthy life. You as well you have your experience too. You went through to hell. It came out and also psychedelic was then and accelerate your process and to getting to know yourself. So it's a great tool and like a great tool you have to be used with a great responsibility as well. We do see a like this boom of use of psychedelic in the last 10 15 20 years how big it grew and there is like two two side of the the the coin right like of this boom of a psychedelic in in in essence for me and in my experience I think I will be dead if I did not account or if the medicine didn't came to my life I will definitely at this point be dead and not have opportunity to be life. So then I'm really also grateful for the opportunities and for this boom that happened early on and that I and end up getting to the wave of it and u learn took the experience and learning and became who I am today very inspiring to spread knowledge and education around psychedelic and alter alterate state of mind. I feel like any practice in our life, we can go to the gym, we can practice yoga, we can practice meditation with some of us like to climb a big big mountains any practice we're going to start in the basic and we continue and daily with this discipline practicing it we're going to get really good at it. So the practice of of taking psychedelic issues was like a kid that open a door. So we cannot confuse also key with the door or with what the content that is inside of the door neither. So with this key I going to open the the the door of myself the door of my own system the door of my own consciousness and because this key is a magical key you know without this key these doors will take like ages or maybe even never be open. I cannot look inside of my conscious. can look inside of my a shadow side of myself and because I am a straight spirit in it, I have a much greater uh chance to transform my life. Someone can can dedicate their life to yoga, meditation and even become a monk that will take a lifonging to get to their understanding to quiet and steal the mind. It will take let's say 10 years 20 years of the practice. So you can steal your mind. When we experience psychedelic, we will have a straight experience right then with ourself. We will have a straight experience right then with the highest and the lowest part of ourself. And we have it with the experience. When we are having the experience, we have the choice to change it right then. Right. It's almost feels like a a a like a trick for of a shortcut. Exactly. a shortcut for something that could be learned without it. Yes, we can learn. We see many many human beings are transformed the life without psychedelic but the psychedelic especially for the time in in the world that we are living today. How our mind and conscious are so spread into into so many pieces. How we gone into such a low level of conscious and so much ingenorous upon the earth. Psychedelic is very welcome right now. In a way the mind of a human beings is becoming thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker you know like like cement like concrete and then like more and more and then psychedelic come and then turn the key and boom the the wall is gone and suddenly you can straighten experience the essence of yourself. So is a very uh important experience I would say for someone for a human being to have off course. No, no, no one is no experience is for every single human being upon the earth. But for those the psychedelical call, I say very important to have it. Very important to be open-minded for experiences like that in your life. I will not not be here talking to you if it was not for experiences like that in my life and especially for addiction. I was in addiction most of my young adult life. I was in addiction. I was in addiction with alcohol and many drugs that because of the amount of pain that one a human being can carry with them. You know they're very easy early on or no matter where you are in your life to go down in a hole of the hole of pain and suffering. It's very easy. We are used as in general as as a collective to the low conscious of mind to the very low amount of conscious mind to the very low low uh uh accessibility to to to higher levels of self. So when we are in those state it's very easy to go to addiction very easy addiction feed the very pain to be inside of the hole. So then uh with psychedelic it feels like the savior we are like praying for a saver. The saver is ourself but it's the choice that we make it that we wanted to see more experience more of ourselves. So he also bring and wash away the ingenerance of a mind that is stuck in in addiction. It served it served me great greatly. Once for me I did one experience of my first experience with I was when I was like in the rock bottle of my addiction with alcohol and it took me one session to understand that that will not be my life. The mirror was so strong. what I witnessing inside of myself was so clear, was so strong that it just took that it just took one one visit that to understand and make the choice to myself that will not be my life and from then I start wanted to learn more learn more about everything else. But when you when you had that experience, you were in New York at the time and you you basically said, "This life is not working." And you you started fresh. You said, "I'm going to go to the jungle. I'm going to live in the jungle and start over." And I think that's an important piece. You talk about this a lot. You use the symbolism of psychedelics as a key. They open the door. They open up a new door or doors.

[17:56] Yes. to you to then choose and explore new possibilities for your life. And that's where I think it it really becomes important because you open the door. But then as you start as you move forward and choose what you're going to do next and really choose what your life is going to be, that's where everything changes.

[18:18] Yes. I I think these days a lot of people are experiencing psychedelics and expecting them to solve their problems.

[18:25] And unfortunately, most of their problems are the fact that they are attached to things that are unhealthy. And whether it's where they're living or how they're living or who they're living with, they have a whole range of unhealthy environmental and lifestyle practices. And the psychedelic kind of opens them up to that. But a lot of people now don't understand that they have to actually change most of that if not all of that.

[18:52] Yes.

[18:53] And something I tell people in addiction, I tell them, you better be ready to change everything about yourself. You think you know who you are. You think you know what you like. You think you know all your all your intricacies and all the way that you work, but you don't know anything. Obviously, if you knew anything, you wouldn't be in this situation that you're in. So I think it's very important that we understand that when you had these experiences that you recognize that you might have to change everything about your life. And I know that's what I did when I when I went through ibogaine suddenly I told myself oh wow I cannot be continuing on the career path that I planned for my whole life. I cannot live in the same way that I've been living. I cannot be around the same people I've been being around or doing the same things. And you made the same choice.

[19:39] Yes. But for one reason only because people are afraid of that when they think about going to psychedelic when they have no idea that oh my god my life is going to change and I'll be a different person. The very reason of that is because you can recognize what is actually through in essence what is good for you and what is not. It's very clear I like the day and the night you know the black and the white very clear what is good and what is not good for you. And that's why the transformation happens like that especially for someone like me and you that we were like in the bottle we couldn't do it anymore like or death or something else you know like ready for the transformation. So when medicine comes in and show the reality I know for a fact in my bones what is causing harm is no more ignorance and it's no more like my eyes are closed and I'm blind and I don't know I'm doing harm to myself and I don't have no idea because here I am is all that I know. No, now you know now you see you see all the patterns you see yourself you see all that you causing to to yourself all that is very clear in front of you. So how you will not make a choice and then making a choice for transformation then follow following up is the discipline of the practice itself because you are not going to be strong if you do not exercise

[20:57] right you are not going to be a good swimmer if you do not go to the class to swim to do swim swim every day you are not going to be a great painter if you don't sit and paint the same thing with medicine too we're going to visit those higher state of conscious We're going to choose to make the choices and the day of day and day after day is the when you put in practice while you learning

[21:22] why you are witnessing why you being informed what is inside of your very conscious that you didn't assess it before do the work and do the job is it's like going to the gym it's like pick up the brush and paint there is no other way and you cannot expect we cannot expect as human beings because there is a lot of that too but I call that lazy like drink medicine and I expected that medicine is going to do the job. Everything's going to be healed. I want to go back to my lovely family and no it's not like that high conscious then the high conscious comes in and we incarnate incarnate that high conscious and when we incarnate that high conscious guess what happened we start brooming and cleaning our houses we start cleaning ourselves we start like doing the job you know carry chopping wood and carrying water someone say that right

[22:11] yeah the Buddha yeah I don't know if it was the Buddha but it's in Buddhism

[22:15] Uhhuh. But

[22:16] before enlightenment, what you do?

[22:18] Chop wood, carry water.

[22:19] And after enlightenment,

[22:20] chop wood, carry water.

[22:22] So I I think that brings me to my the third thing I want to talk about today is that so as we're doing this program and we've built out this place for people to come to be in nature to experience psychedelic practice both in a medical environment with ibogaine, but also in a traditional way with ayahuasca. We're also inviting people to stay for long periods of time with us. And we're in really putting a lot of energy into providing people a a lifestyle, a curriculum, an education that they can learn how to chop wood and carry water. Because a lot of people don't actually know how to clean their house or how to clean the cobwebs out of their mind or how to clean the the stuff out of their body, out of their system, the emotional things. They don't have the awareness to do that because that actually is does it just doesn't come naturally. You have to study. You have to really put time in and study. And I know

[23:22] for me this was the case that after I had started having psychedelic experiences, I really had to put a lot of time into educating myself. I had to read a lot of books. I had to go to a lot of workshops, a lot of courses, a lot of classes. I had to expand my horizons dramatically in how I thought life was going to be lived to look at a lot of different perspectives both philosophical spiritual the gamut and I I know you went through this process as well in the beginning time and I think that is

[23:54] that is a big part of why we are doing what we're doing here because we want people to come here and we believe that this is a school

[24:01] right we call all the people that come here students us ourselves elves as well. We are teachers, but we're also students. But we invite people to come be students to learn. And we engage them in these same things that we learned early on. Some of the same books, the same talks, the same courses, the same activities, but we try to make it a little bit faster for them because we're there mentoring and guiding them through it. And I'd just like to hear your thoughts about that about the the long-term idea of education or the idea of coming to school for life

[24:35] or a school to what might it be.

[24:39] I love school for life. Absolutely. I feel this way for myself and I feel this way. Opening space also for other people to come and experience it what we create for them to experience it together. Uh life it is a school as it as it is. No all of us are aware that we are in the school and we have testes and we have like a homework and we have all of that going. You know some of us is a little bit ahead and the teacher showing us the the direction where to to walk and some of us just start the school. Some of us having no interesting in doing homework whatsoever. But it's fine doesn't matter where you are. Nobody is actually counting. The important thing is that we know that we are here to learn. There is no other other thing that we are doing here. We are learning. We are here on this earth to learn to be human beings and being good as we have lives to live and families to to to love and care for. We are here to learn to walk steady to be good to one another to relate in a collective and be good to one another. We are very behind. We are very behind comparing to the time that we started you know the beginning of human being how far we have walked we have still a lot to learn but for for now in this time that we are living in our life this generation of ours no and the immediate generation right after us we understand that there is a lot of possibility to grow in consciousness it's not more reserve that ability to expand your conscious not reserve just to the priest it's not reserve is to the one that is sitting in the top of the mountain. It's not reserved just to the special person that do a special treatment and just this silence treatments you know not not just reserved for that. Now spending conscious is for every single human being upon this earth and is a common knowledge or at least is becoming a common knowledge that is spending conscious is for every single human being and then when we understand that is already a big a big deal to understand that because if you compare for the the the generation of our parents was very different like my my family the family that I grew up they will reserve all of that for the church and Jesus Christ is going to come and save them and Jesus Christ is going to come and tell them how to live their life just everything no not themselves not me taking the responsibility I'm going to do my job the job and what it takes to spend my own conscious I am the one to have a straight connection to the divine I am the one that is going to knock the door of the heaven not the priest not anyone else so then is a common sense now that is actually good to be alive in this moment that we I live in that we all single human being can take a responsibility to be in a school. You don't have to go to school. You don't have to go to college per se. But you have to make your life as a school and learning all that you can possibly learn. I'm a very curious person and I feel that curiosity serve us very well. I am curious about the things that I don't know and I am curious to understand things that I never seen. So then I am always looking for information. is not different when I am in medicine and in my mind my inate state of mind consciousness that I am also doing that in those deeper level as well to understand and being curious about the shadows and what I don't understand inside of myself as well so then we invite people to this school right the school of the mind the school of the the the very physical body that you belong inside the the the school of life of rel relating to the world the school of treating yourself with a care and love so you can learn with yourself so you can actually share with your your family the people around you. So I absolutely love this concept of school because I feel like a student of life and I feel like I am have so much to learn more that I assess inside of myself. more that I assess as I I commune and I share with you and with our community more that we do that more that I I understand deeper more that I can see uh deeper as well and more that I can be a a greater human being you know like my heart feel fulfilled my mind as well like is really is really beautiful so we don't have to go to school we don't have to go to a program or or none of that as long as we understand that we are already in the school as long as we understand that this life is the course the automated course that we will ever take it and how is that we are doing it now we are being the one that avoid to do the homework we are one the one that are resilient doing the homework and learning what we have to do so when it comes to the time to do the test and the test is the difficulties that comes to life the challenges that comes into our life and imagining how much challenges and difficulty we we will encounter counter in our life and that is the test right that the life is giving you and how is that you are passing it are you kicking and scream passing through the challenge of life or you like mastering like I know how I'm going to do it you know like really thinking about it are you being a ninja you being a Jedi like I like to say you know how are you doing how you doing the testes of life how are you encountering yourself you know are you getting lost are you kicking and scream when life brings to you the bigger testes So that's why we we we do the the school uh the school process and the the school idea that we are student and then we like to have the students learning with us through this way to have a life in this way see life actually in this way.

[30:35] Yeah.

[30:37] Fantastic. Fantastic. So if anyone wants to come to school, if anyone wants to join us and learn as we are learning about this process we call life, if you're dealing with addiction, if you're dealing with mental health problems, if there's anything going on in your life where you want to come to a place to experience yourself in your fullest and be around others who are doing the same and be in the rainforest and have fun and witness joy and go through struggle and hardship. ship all in a place where you can feel supported and nurtured. We're here for you. So, thank you for joining us today, Tatiana. Uh we are so excited to have you here at Nekawa Ibogaine in Brazil to support your work as you share in the world and go out and work with many people. If you haven't seen Tatiana's film Curandera on YouTube, you want to learn more about her, you can watch that. You can also visit her website curandera.co to learn a little bit more about the retreats that she'll be hosting here on the campus as well because we're not just about one thing or another. We invite all people from all walks of life who are dealing with all manner of issues or curiosities to come and experience plant medicine and philosophy and spirituality in a beautiful place and really learn about who they are and who they're becoming.

[32:08] Yeah. So,

[32:09] thank you so much for having me. This is a dream come true. I feel almost like little kid dream coming true like oh my god this is really possible. We have been uh planning and dreaming about this scenario for such a long time you know in both individual in our path and now we we have this opportunity to do this experience and this experiment for me is everything and it came to the right time too. We used to go to the Amazon jungle so much, so much so much. And we decided to make intermediate experience, half away to the jungle is as great as the Amazon jungle because the the Atlantic forest is as rich and blessed as the Amazon jungle is. We have even jaguars. We have

[32:57] We have jaguars. Yes. [32:59] Jaguars and otter and all the

[33:02] I love that. So, it's a bless is a bless to be to be here. Is a bless also to have the space to invite the people to come is is a dream come true.

[33:12] Yeah. Well, let's keep living it. Invite other people into the dream. Experience their dreams. Fulfill their dreams. Fulfill your dreams. And we're here to help you understand how to do that and teach. So, if you want to continue to follow along, we're going to be providing more educational content. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out anytime. All right. Great job.

[33:36] Yes. [33:43]