Ikaros, true names, and preparing for Peru

Only one measly month to go till another adventure, another exploration, this time in South America.
It was always the shamanic culture of it that called me, even though I have experienced that also in my native Estonia, which is still somewhat embedded with the same traditions. Same same but different as they say in Asia. :)

Anyway I very much intend to go to the core of it, all or nothing like always. These past couple of days have been spent in preparation for a part of the journey I am at once both most excited and also most nervous about. Research about the shamanic healing tradition with the plant mixture ayahuasca. If such a thing as research is possible.

One of the most enthralling and magical parts of the research has been the introduction to ikaros- plant spirit songs. It's simply such a beautiful idea that I have no trouble at all in trusting and that has an ancient wisdom behind it which I believe we all intuit through our collective unconscious. To basically believe that every single entity- plant, human or mineral, and even concepts such as peace and fear- have their own individual waving pattern of energy and sound. Similar to mantras in the East it also coincides with the concept and notion of a True Name. 

"A true name is a name of a thing or being that expresses, or is somehow identical with, its true nature. The notion that language, or some specific sacred language, refers to things by their true names has been central to philosophical and grammatical study as well as various traditions of magic, religious invocation and mysticism (mantras) since antiquity." See the page on true name in Wikipedia here

The notion of a true melody is to my mind an evolutionary step higher from a true name. How beautiful to envision that every single entity has its own melody, everything has its own song, and if we know this song, we commune with another truly, through the very essence!
Here is an example of ikaros- a clip from a beautiful documentary on ayahuasca "Other worlds" which you can watch online here



"One of the most striking features of Amazonian mestizo shamanism is the icaro, the magic song, whispered, whistled, and sung. The term icaro may come from the Quechua verb ikaray, blow smoke for healing, or perhaps from the Shipibo term ikarra, shaman song. The icaro is given to the shaman by the spirits of the plants and animals, and the shaman uses it to call the spirits for healing, protection, or attack, and for many other purposes as well — to control the visions of another person who has drunk ayahuasca, work love magic, call the spirits of dead shamans, control the weather, ward off snakes, visit distant planets, work sorcery. As one mestizo shaman puts it, you cannot enter the world of spirits while remaining silent.

Communication between the shaman and the plants through the icaro is two-way. Francisco Montes Shuña says that the icaro is the language of the plant. “If you have dieted with the plant and have not learned its icaro,” he says, “then you know nothing.” The icaro is the language by which the shaman communicates with the plant, and through the icaro the plant will reply.

In possessing these songs, the mestizo shaman is not different from shamans found among indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon, for whom songs are a key element of the healing ritual. Anthropologist Jean Matteson Langdon considers the South American shaman to be distinguished from the ordinary person in three ways that constitute the shaman’s power— the visionary experience, the acquisition of spirit allies, and the acquisition of songs. Among the Araweté, “the most frequent and important activity of a shaman is chanting.” Anthropologist Graham Townsley puts it this way: “What Yaminahua shamans do, above everything else, is sing.”

There are thousands of icaros, and shamans assert their prestige depending on how many they have in their repertoire; an experienced shaman will haves scores of icaros, perhaps more than a hundred. The uses of these songs are as varied as the needs of shamans. When the icaro arrives, one may know its use immediately, or its use may become clear as one continues to sing it. There are icaros for calling, for protection, for learning, for exchanging knowledge, for healing". Src

"One ayahuasca vision showed me how all levels of existence, including material and non-material levels as thoughts or feelings, have vibration, or sound underneath their surface manifestation. If one can reproduce the sound, vibration, or "song" of that which you are working with, you can enter into it and change it around! The shaman does just this using themselves as an instrument to effect the joining." Luis Eduardo Luna