The truth about sacred plant dietas and how they heal - Jason Grechanik
Episode 555, released 1st July 2026.
Lian and Jason Grechanik, a master tabaquero with nearly a decade of Amazonian immersion and over a thousand people guided through plant ceremony, explore what a plant dieta actually is, why the Shipibo healers he trained with said the dieta is what heals, and what happens in the body, mind, and dream space when someone enters that extended relationship with a single plant.
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Jason Grechanik trained in the Mamankunawa tradition under curandero Don Ernesto Garcia Torres. He spent many years working at the renowned Shipibo healing center Temple of the Way of Light in Peru. He is the host of The Universe Within Podcast (180+ episodes, 20,000+ monthly listeners) and co-founder of the Nicotiana Rustica Project, a living practice that bridges Amazonian sacred tobacco traditions with Celtic tree wisdom. His background spans Ashtanga yoga, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, and herbalism.
In this episode, Lian and Jason explore what a plant dieta actually is and what it does, how weeks or months of isolation, fasting, silence, and direct relationship with a single plant can take us to places that a single ceremony cannot reach, and why the Shipibo healers Jason trained with were so insistent that without the dieta, the plant never really heals.
They look at how Jason came to the Amazon through a spiritual crisis in New York, physically healthy by every measure and yet feeling, as he describes it, like he was dying, and what that particular kind of suffering could be pointing toward.
From there the conversation moves into how the plants teach, not through instruction or commandment but through potentiality, through dream and experience and showing rather than telling, and into the Tubu prophecy Jason carries from his teacher, the time of the Children of the New Dawn, and what it says about why humans have always suffered and what the plants have offered in response.
Listen if you've spent years working with plant medicine and still feel like you're circling the outside of something or if you sense that the medicine traditions of your own land are calling you but you don't know how to find them.
We’d love to know what YOU think about this week’s show. Let’s carry on the conversation… please leave a comment below.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
What the Shipibo healers Jason trained with meant when they said the dieta is what heals, and how that changes the way you understand plant medicine entirely
How the plants teach, not through instruction or commandment, but through potentiality, through showing rather than telling
What the Tubu origin myth says about why humans suffer and why the plants were brought here in the first place
Resources and stuff that we spoke about:
Join UNIO, The Community for Wild Sovereign Souls: This is for the old souls in this new world… Discover your kin & unite with your soul’s calling to truly live your myth.
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Thank you!
Lian & Jonathan
Episode Transcript:
Please note: We are a small team and not able to check through the transcript our software provides. So you may find some words are out of place and a few sentences don’t make complete sense. If you do see something utterly ridiculous we’d love you to let us know so we can correct it. Please email any howlers with the time stamp to team@bemythical.com.
Lian Brook-Tyler (00:00)
Could the dieta be the vital part of working with plant medicines that the modern world has largely, almost completely forgotten? Hello, my beautiful soul seekers. This week I'm joined by Jason Grechanik. Jason is a master tabaquero with nearly a decade of Amazonian immersion and over a thousand people guided through plant ceremony.
He explains what a plant dieta actually is, why the Shipibo healers he trained with said that the dieta heals. Where the plant alone, taken otherwise, cannot, and how that same technology is now being brought to the trees of the Celtic and Northern European tradition. Together we explore what a plant dieta actually is and what it can do, how weeks or months of isolation, fasting, silence, and direct relationship with a plant can take us to places that perhaps a single ceremony cannot reach. And why the Shepibo healers that Jason trained with were so insistent that without the dieta, the plant never really heals.
From there we move into how the plants teach, not through instruction or commandment, but through potentiality, through dream and experience and showing rather than telling. So listen if you've spent years perhaps working with plant medicine and still feel like there's something missing, you're circling around the outside of something, or if you sense that the medicine traditions or the plants of your own land are calling you, but don't quite know how to find them.
But first, if you've just arrived here, welcome. If you come back, welcome home. And if you keep finding yourself here without subscribing, your soul clearly knows what it's doing. So honour that call and go ahead and subscribe. It's challenging to live in this crazy modern world. Wild sovereign soul is what we know will help.
And so if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path and your heart longs for guidance, kinship, and support, come join us in Unio the community for soul seekers. UNIO is the living home for the Wild Sovereign Soul Path, where together we reclaim our wildness, actualise our sovereignty, and awaken our souls. You can discover more and walk with us by hopping over to wildsovereignsoul.com/unio or click the link in the description.
And now back to this week's episode. Let's dive in.
Lian Brook-Tyler (02:33)
Hello, Jason. Well, welcome. Welcome to the show.
Jason (02:39)
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Lian Brook-Tyler (02:41)
Really so looking forward to this conversation. I mean, just personally, I could talk about oak trees all day long. And I think at some point we are going to get to talk about oak trees. So it's really is my pleasure to have this conversation with you. Before we go there though, I love to know how someone's origin story began. And I've seen over and over again that for I'd say probably all of us that are doing this kind of work that's off the beaten track, we can look back and see the breadcrumbs way back in childhood. We can look back and go, yes, right back then this was foretold and talking about oak trees, it's kind of like the Acorn was there all along this idea of this kind of tail losses, you know, just taking us on our path. So what was that for you? What was that acorn that you can see back in childhood?
Jason (03:45)
Yeah, it's a good question. it's a question I've been asked a few times, and I hadn't thought about it actually too much. I think part of my constitution is maybe looking more towards the future than the past. but it has been interesting, as you said, maybe trying to retrace those steps. There are a few things that come to mind. One is I had a very interesting childhood in that I
Lian Brook-Tyler (04:02)
Hmm.
Jason (04:15)
I traveled quite a lot with my father. And my father was very interested in indigenous cultures, very remote places. And so even as a as a young boy, I found myself in various parts of the world, often with what would be considered traditional or indigenous cultures, societies. And I so I think something about that was just very normal for me.
There was an aspect of really being fascinated by different people's and it's a word I use a lot, but their cosmovisions, their worldviews, how they see the world. at the same time really just realizing that people are people wherever you go. You know, there there's obviously things that that really separate us, but at our essence we're we're we're all human beings.
Lian Brook-Tyler (04:59)
Hmm.
Jason (05:06)
I think another seed was growing up. I was a Boy Scout and I was very fascinated by Native American culture. I'm American and and so growing up in the US I think also our environment shapes us a lot and being in that land which is still a great expanse, there's still a lot of nature there. There there's a vastness to it. And I think that really affected the Native American populations there and and and and the immigrant populations that came too. So there was something about the wildness. There was something about I'd spend a lot of time in nature and in the woods and also learning about Native American philosophies, this real reverence for nature. Interestingly, what affected my work too was this idea of tobacco, which was kind of paradoxical because for a lot of the Native American groups, they had a real reverence for that plant, which was quite outside of how most of us are familiar with tobacco. I think also my dreams were
Lian Brook-Tyler (06:07)
Hmm.
Jason (06:14)
were very much a part of my path. And that wasn't something I kind of connected the dots until much later. But I mean, the earliest dreams I would remember were actually me as a baby or a small child in the depths of the ocean, somewhere very, very dark, very, very primal. And I would just see this gigantic eye kind of slowly coming by. And and I realised it was part of a
almost like this serpent body. And the only reference I had at that time was I would go to the Natural History Museum because I grew up outside of Washington, DC, the Capitol, and I would be fascinated by these dinosaurs. And the only kind of thing that I could imagine that that was was I don't even know the the name now, but it it was this kind of like the Loch Ness monster, these these giant long-necked beasts with this these big bodies and But interestingly, kind of as I got more into this work, I I really saw that as as a a very archetypal symbol of the the primordial anaconda or the the Yakumama as they they speak in in the Amazon. And so you know, there could have been a lot of different threads. I think also I was never quite sure what I wanted to do as a child. I think a lot of people had a very clear idea of what they wanted.
But ever since a fairly young age, I was very drawn to spirituality. And I couldn't have named it that way, but there was something that I was longing for, looking for. And eventually I became very interested in plants and plants as medicine and things like European herbalism and you know traditional practices, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine. And I was always very fascinated by these universal aspects, the things that linked everything together. And eventually I found myself in the Peruvian Amazon because I had a very strong calling, interestingly, to work with one particular plant, which was ayahuasca, which these days is more in the kind of common vernacular of people. But at that time, there was almost no information about it, which was also quite strange that it was coming to me i in this dream space and this liminal space through intuition, through messages and
Lian Brook-Tyler (08:29)
Mmm.
Jason (08:32)
You know, I would imagine to your audience that's maybe not such a strange thing to speak about. But that really led me to the Amazon because I I think one of the things that I was really longing for was even in these practices that that I was practicing, like herbalism, where I was still working with plants, but still more in a maybe a western, more allopathic way of treating a symptom with a with a plant, was was this more experiential connection, something deeper, something in very loose terms could maybe be described as a more shamanic worldview. And when I found myself in the Peruvian Amazon and experiencing ayahuasca, it was very, very revelatory for me. And it very much began to answer these questions that I was longing for, to see the world in a different way, to have a connection with something that I knew was possible, but at least for me I hadn't found a way to directly connect in that way. And that really began to open a whole path.
Which I'm sure we'll talk more about about how that kind of progressed or or went into as you were talking about these trees like oak and and more European maybe based systems. But that's maybe a little, you know, the question could probably go in so many different directions, but that's maybe a little bit of a backstory of some of I think looking back, some of the key pieces that I could maybe trace that thread that that eventually led me to to the work I'm doing.
Lian Brook-Tyler (09:54)
Mmm.
Yeah, lovely. And so it may have been just for kind of brevity, you missed this out, or it could be that it was missed out of your story. For, for most people, there's a time where they, even if they've had an unusual upbringing, mine was too. And yet I had a period where I kind of renounced that way of living that was kind of wilder and truer perhaps and spent a period where I was much more trying to understand how to live in this kind of mainstream modern world until kind of life had its way with me and like, you know, dragged me back onto my soul path. If that was the case for you, you didn't mention that. Did you have a period in this modern world? Or was it more just degrees of being kind of fully in that more kind of animistic worldview, rather than a kind of abrupt like, hang on, there is something else, something truer that's here for me.
Jason (11:14)
Yeah, it's a good question. And it's actually very, very astute, and yeah, something that is probably a big part of the story that I left out. And you know, I I think one of the interesting things about for me, people who who walk this path really well, and and and it's kind of archetypally and I use this word just because we don't really have a a word ourselves, but but this idea of like a a shaman or a wisdom keeper, a a plant medicine carrier.
Someone who bridges these worlds is there often is this idea of having a foot in both worlds. And that's kind of a foreign concept because usually in our worldview, our cosmovision, there's only this world. That's the sum total of reality. And I think from my childhood, because I was exposed to these other cosmovisions, I did have this deeper intuition that there was other worldviews. There were other ways of speaking about experiencing the world.
Part part of my journey, even when I was in university, I ended up going to Europe, going to Paris and and studying. And that was really kind of this very coming out, coming out of my comfort zone and just you know, I really went wild in a way. I almost didn't go to school. I was just fully immersed in the culture and parties and exploring. And finally when I graduated university, I ended up moving to New York because I I was very interested in the world and and just people and culture and really living life to its fullest. And so I I was in New York for I think almost eleven years, although two of those years I ended up traveling significantly throughout the world. But I say that because at a certain point in New York, I did you could call it maybe a a spiritual crisis, which I I think is another kind of common theme that that maybe you're alluding to that many people have where
Lian Brook-Tyler (13:09)
Hmm.
Jason (13:13)
You know, I remember for some reason I went to the doctor for a checkup. I think I had to for I can't remember what, but I was incredibly healthy. I mean, all of my my vitals were were were stellar. But there was something inside that that felt like I was dying, almost a claustrophobia, panic and anxiety. It felt like the walls of the city were were closing in on me and just everything began to become extreme, almost unbearable, like this this real sense of that I was dying, which
didn't make any sense because physiologically I was quite healthy. And it really got to the point where I felt I had to leave the city. I had to change my life. I had to do something. And that was also the catalyst of when ayahuasca began to to call me was at that very particular time. And and then that's eventually what led me to the Amazon and to other things. So yes, to answer your question,
Lian Brook-Tyler (14:01)
you
Jason (14:11)
I think there was for me a a period of of of of a very big catalyst of of a sense that that my life could no longer continue that way because I would die, which again didn't make any sense because everything seemed fine, but spiritually my soul, the my mind was suffering in a very deep way.
Lian Brook-Tyler (14:25)
Hmmmm
Yeah, there's something so persistent about the way that these, these shifts, these callings come in the cloak of death, but in so many different guises, it can be that kind of experiential sense of death like you had for me, it came in the form of my father's literal death and what that woke me up to. For some people it can be a health crisis, which kind of has them question their mortality. It's so interesting to me how it's, I'd say it's kind of more unusual that death doesn't get a say in these particular segues in our path. I see this over and over again in the conversations I have with people. I'm just going somewhere slightly left field for a moment. From what I understand, you've obviously got this, as we were talking about before we started recording, you've got… a sort of complex heritage, let's say, where you've got blood from lots of different places in the world. And yet the time that you spent in that tradition, working with Ayahuasca, of course, isn't, as far as I understand, like native to you by ancestry or birth. And… that brings a lot of complexity. There's of course the experience of the people who are indigenous to that land and that tradition and the impact on them. There's also the fact that for you, there's clearly a reason you were called there. And yeah, I am imagining there must have been, I guess, feelings of like, maybe conflict or kind of how do I reckon with this? Or what's this asking me to look out within myself. I'd love to hear you say a bit about that, what has that, what was that like for you to be in a land, in a people, in a tradition that by the usual measures wasn't for you?
Jason (16:44)
It's a good question. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lian Brook-Tyler (16:44)
And don't just to be clear, I'm not saying that's not meant in a critical way at all. It's a genuinely curious way.
Jason (16:52)
It's a good question. I think at the time there there was really no conflict in the sense that that I I had this very specific calling. And it was hard, I would say, even for me to come to terms with that, because at that time it seemed like something very strange. I mean, it was very difficult for me to even trust that, which is why I kind of delayed it for a length of time. Yeah.
Lian Brook-Tyler (17:07)
Hmm.
You're preaching to the converted there. I've often thought the things that we know are like most for us are the things that we resist longer and harder. My own experience has been so that but yes, please carry on.
Jason (17:30)
I think part was also maybe, as you said, I maybe part is that American mentality of we are in a way, we have roots, but they're very new. They're very fresh. even my ancestry, it's a mix of so many different things. Growing up, I was very curious. I was just always trying new things and experimenting with new things. And that's what I was saying. I was always very interested in kind of the commonality of things, trying to find the things that connected everything together.
And that was a big part of my for lack of better words, spiritual pursuit. Even in New York, that was one of the things that really fascinated me. Was it this and this may sound strange to some people, like how do you experience spirituality in New York? But for me it was the most amazing place in the world because every tradition was there, every school had a studio there or a teacher there. And so yeah, I I would just devour like everything I could of knowledge and I would go to bookshops and read about every tradition I could. And so even for me, I think that calling to ayahuasca, it didn't feel foreign in the sense that I was going off to somewhere foreign or it was a very foreign idea. I mean, it felt very foreign in that it was very far away and it was something that was quite different. But again, maybe because of my childhood of of being around different cultures, it didn't feel much at all.
Obviously having lived for a long time with different cultures, with learning different systems, as you said, it is incredibly complex. And you know, we could probably spend five hours talking about some of the complexity and not even really begin cover it. there's a lot there.
You know, certainly it's not it, it wasn't my tradition. and yet at the same time that plant was very specific or that combination of plants that brew is very specific to a very particular time, a place, a culture. And for me that's where I wanted to go to its origin, to its roots, to really immerse myself in that. And even when I went there, it actually wasn't to to learn or to study, it was just simply to experience that, but because of this calling and
Lian Brook-Tyler (19:43)
Hmm.
Jason (19:51)
And when I did go there, I had this desire, this deeper calling to find out more, to actually live with these people, to understand more their worldview. And even with that, there was never an intention to begin working. That was something I think that just began to happen organically. But it was really a self-pursuit of healing, of knowledge.
And as you said, it's it's very complex. everything from from the language to the culture to the difference in cosmovision. And it's even one of the the issues that that I think as these plants go out to the world at large is like anything, it it can be very difficult to extract a plant or anything, any form of knowledge.
From the wholeness of it. I mean, that's kind of what we do in Western medicine, right? Is we isolate one alkaloid, but we forget about not only the plant in its entirety, but the origin stories, the songs, the dances, the culture, the myth, the lore. And all of that has a vital, vital role. I mean, we kind of look at that as if it's something primitive or not important, but all of those things play an essential role. And so
Lian Brook-Tyler (20:47)
Mm.
Jason (21:11)
That's also what interested me and maybe even not at the beginning. I think those things always interested me, but I think it took me a while to learn the importance of all of those other things too. And so I only say that because all of those things do play a vital role. And, you know, even if you were to take something like ayahuasca out of its context or any plant, you can begin to lose so much. And as you said, there are so many factors and it is a very very complicated subject.
No, even when I came to my main teacher, it was very interesting because I would imagine he never expected that he would be teaching kind of foreigners this path. But I I think a big part for him was also a calling. He had things that he saw in his visionary space, in his dream space. And and also I I think the the sad reality that that in those cultures, there weren't new apprentices. There weren't people who wanted to continue those traditions. And it's also interesting because another teacher of mine, whose name, his name and title is Amika. He comes from a group of people called the Tubu and the Colombian Amazon. And it's very interesting because that culture actually, in their, in their legends, in their stories, they actually foretold their own demise, their displacement, the kind of huge shift that their culture would experience, which they did end up experiencing. I mean, eventually they were basically removed from the Amazon. The few people who remained ended up in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. But they actually speak of this time that we're entering, which they would say is the time of the Diro Amasa, the children of the New Dawn, and it's the people who have different skin colors, different hair colors, different eye colors, and the people that can take the medicine of the four directions and bridge that medicine to create a new maloka, to create a new earth. And I do think that's very much the time we're in. And I think there's something important in that story too, which is this idea of recognizing the medicine of all of the directions. And it's this idea that for anything to be in balance, we have to equally weigh that every direction has medicine. And You know, I think for a long time in the Western world we very much delegitimized other directions or other forms of medicine. and potentially we're even entering a time where in the West we are now delegitimizing our own medicine, our own cultures, our own traditions. And you know, both of those are the same thing. and that's why I I kind of alluded to this idea in the beginning that ultimately people are people and
Lian Brook-Tyler (24:01)
Hmm.
Jason (24:12)
You know, ultimately every direction has its medicine, every culture has its medicine. And it you know, for me and and from some of these origin stories as well or these prophecies, that it's very important that we understand the medicine of of all of the directions and that we take that and we're able to to work with that and to create something that's new that can serve everyone. Because I think that's also part of the time that we live in.
And having said all of that, again, kind of coming back to your original point, you know we have to do that very, very carefully, very mindfully. maybe also what you're alluding to is it can be very easy to extract cultures or or medicines and and not to to honor them. And that's certainly something that's happening a lot. And you know, when I I think from a more traditional point of view, when we lose the origin stories, when we lose the songs, when we lose the dances.
we lose a huge part of the medicine and and that's why, you know, ultimately I don't think there's there's nothing bad about, for example, using psilocybin or nicotine or cocaine or you know, any alkaloid of a plant, but you lose a tremendous amount. And it's very important, I think, to always honor those systems and to do it in a holistic way and to always pay reverence to that, to remember. I think that remembering is a huge, huge aspect of these medicines. And you know, it's the same I do martial arts and the main martial art I do right now is Interestingly, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which I find an interesting parallel because jiu-jitsu is was actually originally Japanese, but it came to Brazil and then it morphed into Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Although now people are calling it American Jiu Jitsu because it's morphed again. But even probably before Japan, it probably came from China. Some people even say before China it came from India. But I think it's a similar parallel. Like each of these cultures ends up building upon it and and and adding on.
Lian Brook-Tyler (26:21)
Mmm.
Jason (26:24)
But at the same time really honoring the origin of where it came from. And it's one of the beautiful things that that's even I think being lost some now is even when I started training, when when you went into the dojo or the studio, there was always on the wall you would see all of the photos of all of the the teacher, the teacher's teacher, his teacher, his or her teacher, all the way back to where in Brazilian jujitsu they they they they consider the origin, the the the first person.
And even though that's a small detail, I think there's something very, very important about that because it's really honoring the origin of that. And you know, there's a beautiful quote that's attributed to Isaac Newton, which he says, "If I've seen further than others, it's only because I've stood on the shoulders of giants. " And I think in this work it's always very, very vital that we always remember that and always stay humble in that aspect. because if not We and this work we're doing via the medium of plants can become very corrupted and and and that's something that that we see a lot and and and is a very real part of this work as well.
Lian Brook-Tyler (27:32)
Gosh, there's so much there that I'd love to dive into. So I'm going to name some things that kind of, I don't know if we've got time to dive into all three, so I think it's three. And then I'd love to start to explore specifically the kind of nature of the work that you began kind of, I guess, focusing on and then how that applies to the work that you're now expanding into.
So what you just shared there about martial arts, I've got a long martial art background myself and I've done a number of different martial arts. Some are kind of much more of that bit similar to a saying, you're like pulled out by the roots, know, kickboxing with no history. And then I've done others like Kung Fu that are kind of deeply steeped in history and lineage of teacher. And I quite agree. that I think that wasn't, you know, at all random that you said that I think there is that's such a great, it's not just a metaphor, because it is the same thing. But I think it is such a great metaphor, the way that when we try and take these things out from their roots, they can go from being medicine to actually something that's harmful. The example you gave with what we could call drugs.
in this modern world is like in a different context, their medicine in this world, often they end up being harmful. And there's just, there's so much there. And I also loved what you said about we, for a very long time, delegitimize, dismissed, demonized even. the medicine of other places, perhaps now we're doing the same to the medicine of our place, particularly, say, for example, here in the West or here in Europe. And
My own path has been kind of, I think, interesting, because think instinctively I had a sense of that. So my very first, I guess, opening to a more kind of shamanic worldview was directly with a relationship with an oak. That came before anything that I kind of then formally learned. I've worked with Indigenous teachers. but it all came from that relationship with an oak tree on my land. And it showed me the way, it opened me, it taught me things. And so because that was my formative teacher really, it was everything else I've learned as kind of like it had those roots to grow on first. And… I think you're completely right, there is a way in which we've missed that. We've missed that connection with our own land, our own plants, our own culture. We've forgotten, you know, hey, we've forgotten the stories. But I do see that if we pay enough attention, our land and the beings of the land can help us remember them.
which I think we'll kind of come back to later in the conversation. But before we go there, I would love to hear a bit about the way that from what I can understand, you kind of went and that maybe though, this wasn't so much like a kind of step one, step two, as I'm about to say it, but you kind of like started to immerse yourself in the ceremony and then moving more into the, the working from a more of like a Dieter perspective. I'd love to hear kind of like that trajectory and what you saw in that and why that latter part has been what I find understand like the part that's really captured your attention captured your soul.
Jason (31:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, so I as I mentioned, I ended up in the the Peruvian Amazon and working with ayahuasca. I worked specifically with a group of people called the Shipibo, Shipibo Kanibo people. I was very fortunate in the place that I went to to work, they needed someone to come and to help them to work.
And so they offered me a job and I ended up coming back for a year. Just again, it was more for my own personal curiosity to it was this beautiful experience of just being able to live with these people, to you know, slowly begin to speak to them, to learn from them, to to work side by side with them. And in that process, I began the this what traditionally could be called in in kind of ubiquitous terms, a dieta, which is where you began to experientially learn directly from one plant, usually via the medium of what could be considered a master plan, like ayahuasca or tobacco, or there's others as well. eventually through a series of serendipitous events, I came
Lian Brook-Tyler (32:45)
Oh, sorry, would you mind for anyone that isn't familiar, would you mind just giving a bit of a 101 on that just before we move on, just to kind of like the what's and the whys before you continue.
Jason (32:58)
Yeah. So usually if you, you know, for example, I'm because I had many conversations with a lot of different Shipibo healers, doctors, plant medicine practitioners. i in general, if you would ask them a question like, what heals, you know, you know, usually what we would think the response would be would be like, you know, someone would come, for example, like, I have a hernia, what plant cures that?
And usually the response was something more along the lines loosely of dieta. Like it wasn't the plant itself, it was more the process, which I think was very strange for a lot of people. because again, we we look at things more in this allopathic, you know, purely reductionist way. But they would say, you know, obviously every plant has its healing abilities, its physiological functions. So for sure you would work with a specific plant to treat a specific condition, but they would say without the dieta, the the plant.
Lian Brook-Tyler (33:41)
Yeah.
Jason (33:56)
is never going to really heal. It's never really going to get to the root of the issue. And so a dieta would loosely be described as a I think a very focused, intentioned period of working directly with one plant, under the guidance of someone who has a connection to that plant.
Lian Brook-Tyler (33:59)
Hmm.
Jason (34:23)
So usually that would entail a period of isolation. That could be you know, especially if you're working on something more serious, that would entail a longer period of time. But on the short end, something like seven days to a month to even six months to a year potentially of isolation of fasting, whether that's you know, pure fasting or obviously the longer you go, you can't do pure fasting, but for shorter amounts of time you can.
So there's a depletion of the body, a weakening of the body. And they would say as the body weakens, the spirit begins to fully open. I think we can all relate to that somehow. I mean, if people have fasted before, even if they've been sick and their body doesn't want food, usually there's a process of healing that's beginning to happen or an opening. We often feel very sensitive, like you. You can't even go outside because the noise and the smells and the sunshine, it's too much.
In the dieta, there there's no outside stimuli. So you're not ingesting anything. You're not ingesting any books or music or conversations. Because again, the idea is the only thing you're ingesting is this plant, this medicine. Because anything else that we take from the outside, that begins to affect our consciousness. So if I'm listening to music, then that's where my mind goes. That's where my body somatically goes.
But if all I'm doing is ingesting this one plant, then it's seen that whatever begins to arise in my waking space and especially in my dream space is direct messages from the plant. And so through this weakening, this kind of cutting out of all of the things that could also be potentially aggravating this condition on the physical level and the mental emotional level and the spiritual level by going to this act of simplicity.
By really opening our body up, by ingesting this medicine, by having usually through the amplification through a master plant like ayahuasca tobacco, which allows us to connect more to the realm of spirit. not only is the plant maximizing its healing effects on the physical level, ⁓ we have a prolonged time where the mind and the emotions are really being worked on.
And also the plant begins to teach us. And again, that's usually predominantly coming through the dream space, through the language of dreams. And that's very important because it's not this kind of more maybe Judeo Christian worldview of like thou shalt do this or thou shalt not do this. This is good or this is bad. The way that I find the plants teach is more through potentiality, through experience, through showing us, through taking us on journeys and showing us, okay, this is what happens when you've done this, or this is what ha this is what has happened in my life when I've done this, or this is this is the reaction. This is how this person feels when I say this, or this is how I felt as a child when this person said that. So it begins to take us into that and then it leaves us with that wisdom. And from that place of deeper wisdom, then we have the power to change our lives, which is true power, true knowledge. It's not something that's
That's given to us. It's a sense of remembering, of rekindling that within us. And then we have that ability and also that responsibility to effect change, to become creators of our own lives. And so that's that's loosely a dieta, which is both the healing and the learning of a specific plant.
And so then in my own story, I I began those processes. also through these serendipitous events, I met the man who eventually became my main teacher, who loosely could be described as a as a tabaquero, someone who specialises in the medicine of tobacco, which may sound strange to some of your your listeners, but in all of these kind of Amerindian or indigenous American traditions, tobacco is probably the most widely used and most sacred of all of the plants, which is why it spread so quickly. It's why we're all familiar with tobacco, is because it was so widely used. But again, I think you could argue, and again, this is probably a whole nother podcast, but because of that forgetting of the origin, the stories, the use, the ritual, the ceremony, like any plant, it can become corrupted. And
Lian Brook-Tyler (38:34)
Mmm.
Jason (38:55)
And again, it's not the plant itself that's ever corrupted or bad. It's the relationship that people have developed with it, the way we've altered it, the way we've forgotten how to properly use it. and so I ended up going on a long apprentice with him. I ended up going back to this ayahuasca healing center, which I think was a very important part of my journey, which which is something I I Couldn't even fully explain at the time, but in retrospect, kind of like you said in the beginning, tracing the acorn back, that was a really big component for me because I was very fortunate in that it was a very difficult place to work. And that we were, you know, it was very often like teams of of two Shipibo healers, and then myself or another what we would call facilitator, someone who acted as the bridge between the guests who came, which were mainly for the Western world and the Shipibo.
And we would sit in ceremonies, seven nights out of ten nights, very intense ceremonies, working with something like twenty two people. And every twelve days we would have a changeover, we'd have a two day break, and then a new came, and that went on for years and years and years. And so for me it was a very important part of really working with people, really being in that space, really beginning to understand not only these medicines, but the human being.
Lian Brook-Tyler (40:11)
Gosh.
Jason (40:22)
Which is an integral part of this work because that's ultimately who we're working with. eventually and again, even through that whole process, I never had this idea that I would work. It just seemed there was no reason for that. I mean, I was working with very good people. It but specifically through that medicine of tobacco, because there was very few people practicing that, during my apprenticeship, I had this very clear vision and we always have to be a little careful with with visions that we have. But it seemed very clear to me that somehow I needed to spread those seeds, to spread that wisdom. And from my mind at the time I was thinking, well maybe I should write a book or a documentary or something along those lines, but I never ended up doing that. And slowly people just organically began coming to me and asking, like, Hey, can you can you give me this medicine? Can you give me this medicine? Can you help me with this? And Slowly I started doing that and eventually I went to my teacher because people wanted to start also doing this this process of dieta and I asked for permission and he granted and and slowly that that became my work and you know also one of the things that I really that interestingly drew me to the ayahuasca originally was because the place I went to worked with female healers.
And that's something that's very rare in the Amazon. it does tend to be a very male-dominated way, but there was something and I'm still maybe not sure exactly why, but that really called me to work with female healers. Interestingly, at that place, they had both. They had both male and female healers. And and after a while I really saw the benefit of that, of of those archetypal energies, of what we can bring, of of how healing just that can be, of of having an ability to have a direct
Lian Brook-Tyler (42:18)
Hmm.
Jason (42:20)
relation with a man and a woman in that ceremonial space. Obviously there can be all sorts of issues with that as well, but when it's done well, I think it's very, very beneficial. So I ended up working with a another colleague of mine who was a woman. And we worked for a while in the Amazon. We ended up moving to the Sacred Valley of Peru and we ended up working there.
And that was a bit of the catalyst because even though it's very close, it's in Peru, it's a completely different microclimate. so all of the trees, because that was those were the main medicines that we trained with were Amazonian trees through the medium of tobacco as this amplifiers, this connector. Those trees, most of them, some of them we could find in this new environment we were living, but most we couldn't. They weren't that far away. They were only maybe I don't know, a hundred kilometers away, but you'd have to cross the Andes and go down into the Amazonian basin. So it wasn't so easy to come across those trees. So we began kind of having this idea of exploring the local trees there, which also had their legends and their medicinal use. And slowly we began doing that. And then at the beginning of COVID, kind of everything shut down, and it was very difficult for people to come.
And slowly over the course of time we began being invited to different lands. And the first one was to the US, to New York, where I grew up in Virginia, so it's a very similar climate. I spent a long time in New York and and we were giving dieta there, working with with Amazonian trees and tobacco. And I remember one day I was sitting on the porch and I was just looking at this beautiful forest that we were in.
And seeing the trees like oak and black walnut and the poplars and the elder and the hawthorn and all of these trees that I was very familiar with, I was very intimate with, but again, more from my previous life of how I used to work with plants in this more herbal way. And I was just overcome with this very strong sensation of almost sadness that all of these trees that had so much wisdom and so much medicine were just waiting patiently.
Lian Brook-Tyler (44:21)
Hmm.
Jason (44:34)
to come and to really have their medicine shared. And that that may sound like a strange idea, but, you know, I I think if if anyone has medicine, I mean, even to put it in a different context, if someone is an artist and they don't share their art, th that's a that's a detriment to them and and also to society. You know, there's something beautiful in that creative aspect and that sharing aspect.
And I think it's the same for their trees. Like they have a medicine for a reason. And ultimately they want to share that medicine. They want to propagate. That's why a tree produces so much fruit and so many flowers and leaves and seeds, you know, is to propagate that knowledge, that wisdom, that healing. And so we slowly started taking this technology that we had learned.
That may seem like a strange word, but for us it's very much a technology, it's a way, it's a tradition, a very, a very beautiful, a very profound way of connecting. And beginning to bridge that with the trees of also most of the people who we work with who are American or European or you know, predominantly European origin, could be Australia or different countries, but beginning to to reconnect them to.
their own indigenous medicines. And we were also very inspired when we were also invited to Ireland and becoming more familiar with that Celtic system. And you know, it's a little controversial, but many people would even argue that language, the Ogum language, that every letter of that alphabet corresponds directly to a tree. So like you were mentioning D, it's the or sorry, you were mentioning oak, which is the letter D, Der or Dur.
Which is where the English word door comes from, which is the entrance to the entrance to the house. Was traditionally made of oak. And that's very much the medicine of oak, it's a portal, it's a gateway spiritual dimension. And some people would even argue, like the Druids duard again, that the Dru, that that that etymological root is of the oak, which ultimately means knowledge, truth, which is so fascinating because again, the these are these universal themes, like
Lian Brook-Tyler (46:34)
Mmm.
Jason (46:51)
speaking of the Shipbo, the Shipibo who work with ayahuasca, their name for ayahuasca is Uni, and someone who works with Uni is an Unaya, and that's a truth carrier. It's the same word as Druid, just in their language. and so, you know, part of that was a process of us of also beginning to remember, to remember these origin stories, to rediscover them, not to discover them, but to to rediscover them because they're already there and There's still living traces of them. There we still have those collective memories. We still have people who have pieces of that knowledge and books and traditions and, you know, even things in the landscapes of offerings and wells that are built, you know, sacred wells that have a hawthorn tree growing next to them. There's still that ancestral knowledge that's built into the land, that's built into the people. And I think there's something very vital about remembering that and reclaiming that.
Also part of what we both alluded to is There's a real, I think, suffering that's happening loosely in the West and that's really spreading to most of the world, because most of the world is essentially a Western cosmovision now. And this man who I mentioned, Amika, the Tubu people who have these beautiful prophecies, they also have another one, which is their origin myth. And they say that eons ago humans were suffering.
And I think that's very important because we often think in our day and age that we're suffering in some special way. But they would say, even eons ago, humans were suffering. And interestingly, very specifically, these star beings from the star system Sirius, they would say, descended the 12 dimensions of time and space on this primordial Anaconda canoe. And on this canoe, they brought with them all of these master plants or teacher plants. And they would say that.
Essentially the reason that humans are suffering is because we've forgotten who we are and where we come from. And the power, the medicine of these plants is they help us to remember. And I think loosely, or even very non loosely, very specifically, that origin story very much describes the state that a lot of us are in. We've forgotten our origin stories, we've forgotten who we are, where we come from.
And and to the degree that we forget that is to a degree the amount we suffer from. And part of that is reclaiming our origin stories. And it's very fascinating. I mean, even in my case, that I went to the Amazon and not just to the Amazon. I mean, my story was also traveling around the world and and looking for these these different practices and origin stories, but very specifically the Amazon had a very big impact on my my own evolution and Because I think that is one of the places in the world that was least touched, that was least affected by outside influence and managed to maintain a certain degree of this ancestral wisdom. And, you know, by the grace of the people who came before me and who shared that with me and gave me the opportunity to explore that on my own as well, then now we're beginning to bridge that technology, that wisdom.
Lian Brook-Tyler (49:53)
Mm.
Jason (50:18)
with the technology and wisdom of where we come from to hopefully as as Amika says, to to create a new Maloka, to begin to do something new while honoring all of these medicines.
Lian Brook-Tyler (50:31)
Well, what I've just realised, as you've been talking is, I think we need to come back and do a part two that's all about the trees of this land, because we're kind of up on time and I've loved, I almost feel like we've set a beautiful foundation that if you're up for it, we can then kind of really dive into.
Jason (50:40)
Yes, yes,
Lian Brook-Tyler (50:56)
what you've learned, what you've seen working with the trees that again, are more familiar to me in this land, I feel as though that kind of needs a whole episode on its own. How do you feel about that?
Jason (51:10)
I'd be happy to, yeah.
Lian Brook-Tyler (51:12)
Yeah, because I think otherwise we're going to be squishing it into five minutes and it's more than five minutes.
Jason (51:15)
Mm-hmm.
Sometimes it's a little difficult for me to put these things into a shorter way because I think they do deserve some amount of context to yeah.
Lian Brook-Tyler (51:30)
Completely, completely. Yeah, this was not a criticism at all. I think everywhere we've been was exactly where we needed to go and is a beautiful conversation, its own right. And just speaking personally, I want to have that conversation too. And so I think that's what we need to do. So for the moment, in closing of this conversation, is there anything that you feel would be a helpful?
Jason (51:45)
Yeah.
Lian Brook-Tyler (51:58)
Again, it's a kind of like bookend that we will then kind of, yeah, again, we'll come back and continue the conversation. But for now, is there anything that you feel is important to say in closing?
Jason (52:12)
You know, I I think these plants are a specific path. And you know, I think there's a lot of kind of evangelicalism, if that's a word, about these medicines. And it's a very particular path. It's a very beautiful path. It's a time-honoured path that again we see in cultures all over the world. But there are many paths as well. And you know, all of those paths have their power.
If these paths resonate with you, if there's something that that sparks you, then there's probably something there that's calling you in the same way that they called me. These are very difficult paths to kind of map out or to rationalise with our mind, because usually ultimately these paths are bypassing the rational mind. They're bypassing the mind that knows and compartmentalize and makes sense of things. But if there's a deeper intuition in you. there's probably something there. And if there's not, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that too, because there's many, many paths and each person has their own path.
Lian Brook-Tyler (53:19)
Hmm, beautifully said, yes, quite agree. And if listeners are feeling some kind of resonance to what you've shared, where can they find out more about you and the wonderful work you do?
Jason (53:34)
Yeah, probably the easiest I'm for my personal work would be I have a website which is called Nicotiano Rustica dot org. it's the the Latin name of of the tobacco we work with. I'm fairly active on Instagram. that's just my name at Jason Grechanik. And then probably the third one, I also have a podcast. So if people are maybe interested in maybe more of this type of conversations, it's called the universe within. And you can find that on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, all of the big ones. Mm.
Lian Brook-Tyler (54:08)
Great name for your podcast. Thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure. And again, I know that we've got a part two in us. So I'm very much looking forward to that.
Thank you so much.
Jason (54:18)
Yeah, I'll I'll be happy. whenever whenever I'm back on, I'd love to go into that. It's an interesting topic.
Lian Brook-Tyler (54:26)
Wonderful.
Lian Brook-Tyler (54:29)
What a rich and fascinating conversation. Here's three things that stayed with me. What the healers that Jason trained with meant when they said that dieta is what heals is not that the plant is irrelevant or incidental. Clearly, that's not the case.
But the extended relationship, the isolation, the fasting, the dream space is what allows the plant to reach the core of things, to take us places. That ceremony alone can't take us.
The plants teach through potentiality, through showing rather than telling, through taking us into our own experience, our own relationship with the plant, and leaving us with the wisdom to then journey with.
That's a very different kind of knowledge to anything that the rational mind, the logical mind, can receive or hold. The Tubo origin myth says that humans have always suffered and that the reason is the same now as it was before. We have forgotten who we are and where we come from. The plants were brought here for exactly that, not to fix us, but to help us remember who we are.
If you'd like to hop on over to show notes for the links, they're at wildsovereignsoul.com/podcast/555 And as you heard me say earlier, if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world and you long for guidance, kinship and support, come join us in Unio, the community for soul seekers. You can discover more and join us by hopping over to wildsovereignsoul.com/unio now. Let's walk the path home
together. And you don't want to miss out on next week's episode, head on over to your podcasting app or platform of choice, including YouTube, and hit that subscribe or follow button.
That way you'll get each episode delivered straight to your device automagically as soon as it comes out. Thank you so much for listening. You've been wonderful. I'll catch you again next week. And until then, you have all of my love and blessings as you walk your wild sovereign soul path.