Ghost Dance, Talking Plants & ”Desheto” the Sacred Mushrooms of Oaxaca, Mexico | Michael Stuart Ani (2020)

Michael Stuart Ani joins us for Season 1 (2020) of Birdsong.

Michael has been a student of plant wisdom for fifty years. As a young man, the Lakota sage, John Fire Lame Deer, guided Michael through his first peyote ceremony and then sent him south to Mexico in search of the steps of the Ghost Dance.

These steps led Michael to the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca, famous for its sacred mushrooms. From the end of the 1960’s era through to the 1970’s, Ani lived in the most remote part of the region. He became the only outsider who was ever allowed to collect Desheto, the sacred mushroom species of the deep tropical cloud forest of Chicon Nindo.

He was instrumental in fighting the epidemics among the Yanomami people in the rainforests of Venezuela. He also helped to create a school to teach local indigenous people to be healthcare officers in the emerging Alto Orinoco Biosphere Reserve.

His work in Venezuela was subsequently featured in the 1994 documentary, Yanomami, Keepers of the Flame, which won the US Environmental Film Festival’s Best Documentary of the Year. Keepers of the Flame also became the feature film at the 1994 Brazilian Earth Summit.

In 2002, Ani focused his attention back on the Northern States of the Americas and worked to restore some of the very last genetically pure Bison to the Brule, Lakota tribes on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota. While on Rosebud, Ani responded to the requests of tribal elder Leonard Crow Dog and brought an eyeglass clinic to the reservation.

Because of his efforts in South America and Mexico, and his work to build a ceremony house for renowned healer Grandpa Roy Stone, the Amazonia Foundation was honored by being included as an organization under the umbrella of the National Congress of American Indians.

Michael has fulfilled his promise to Desheto by writing the book, “The Ghost Dance; an untold history of the Americas”. His catchprase “TALKING PLANTS” refers to a small group of fungi and plants that he believes have developed the ability to communicate with both humans and animals.

Michael feels that these plants are key to survival in an uncertain future. 

 

TIMESTAMPS:

[6:05] Epidemics in the Amazon and losing jungle knowledge

[7:55] Shamanic knowledge is received directly from the plants and spirit

[10:34] LSD is GOD in pill form - Tim Leary

[11:30] Honouring the sacred by learning the region and communing with the “talking plants”

[14:30] Trailing the Ghost Dance, the very first ritual of the Americas

[16:15] John Fire Lame Deer, Wounded-Knee and Ghost Dance

[21:30] Communing with nature and learning from “talking plants”

[27:20] It’s not just difficult for US to survive in the forest…

[29:05] Apprenticing to the immediate ecology to receive the secrets of the talking plants

[31:38] Plants are part of controlling whats going on in the world today and the beginning of the “psychedelic movement”

[35:25] Gaian intelligence & our Achilles heel as a species

[38:50] Shamans are falling out of the trees

[39:55] Tribal communal ceremonies vs deep medicine man ceremonies

[43:17] Western culture and mental fragmentations

[45:22] Michael’s role to keep one lineage in-tact

[47:29] Spiraling around to new beginnings by looking to plant medicine cultures of the past

[50:00] Learning from Amazonian epidemics and returning to nature for CV-19

[55:16] Using cannabis in it’s whole form as a medicine

[56:49] Tobacco doesn’t carry the same risk when using in its natural form

[58:06] Mom + Pop farming is the way forward

[59:01] There’s a spiritual war in the jungles and it’s going to affect us all…

[1:01:51] How do you get people to care about ecological disaster?

[1:07:46] We are still facing a global witch hunt

[1:11:02] What myths of the ancient Americas can help us today?

[1:12:23] The different types of animal totems… for people, plants and places

[1:18:35] What does the ceremonial ritualistic context for taking the sacred mushroom look like?

[1:23:00] The entire ritualistic process… (this is a real gift to listen to!)

[1:34:02] Sacred things must be kept hidden… until the exact moment they are needed

[1:37:25] What message does Michael have to pass on to those walking the shamanic path?