Documentary featuring Pablo Amaringo called "Stories on a Stick" by Donal Ruane

Abstract:
Donal Ruane’s film takes us on an astonishing journey, from contracting polio as a child in Ireland, to a secret ‘invisible’ realm of magic and witchcraft in the Amazon jungle. An archaic world of rainforest dwellers, where shamans consume sacred hallucinogenic plants in order to communicate with ‘spirits’ to diagnose and heal illness. Profoundly alien and sometimes terrifying, this is an excursion into the very nature of consciousness itself. An experience which shattered many of Donal’s beliefs and changed his life forever.

A chance meeting with the renowned visionary painter and former shaman Pablo Amaringo was to lead Donald on an odyssey to the Peruvian Amazon as part of his own process of healing. During the time he has spent there he became apprenticed to Amaringo’s cousin Graciela Shuña, a practising healer herself and lived with her for six months in a remote jungle hamlet where he underwent the rigorous training that is required of an initiate. Over the years he has returned to learn more about these plants and continue his apprenticeship. Five years in the making this unique film, for the first time, takes an in depth look at ayahuasca shamanism from the inside out. Includes extensive interviews with Don Pablo Amaringo & other authentic shamans from the region. It is hoped that the film will be completed and released on DVD by the end of the year.
For more details please see www.headoverheels.org.uk

To get in touch with Donal: donalruane@yahoo.com