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The outside world was firstintroduced to the work of thePeruvian artist Pablo Amaringowith the 1991 publication of thebook; Ayahuasca Visions: TheReligious Iconography of aPeruvian Shaman, and since thenhe has been recognised as one ofthe worlds great visionary artists.

Pablo Amaringo was renownedfor his intricate, colourful paintingsinspired by his shamanic visions.He was a master communicator ofthe ayahuasca experience. He wasentirely self-taught, and able topaint with meticulous botanicalprecision the Amazonianlandscapes and the essentialmythic content of his visions. Hispaintings depict the visions that hereceived during his years of

practice as an ayahuasquero1, theycapture the spirits, sub-aquaticcities, celestial realms, extra-terrestrial beings of great wisdom,sorcerers in battle with shamans,all revealed to him by ayahuasca.

Pablos paintings are imbuedwith a supernatural quality, as heregarded them as physicallymanifested caros3. Pablo chantedcaros whilst he painted into themas though they were medicine.

He explained: I chant caroswhen I paint, so if ever a personwishes to receive teaching orhealing, they should cover thepainting with a cloth for two orthree months. On the day theyremove the cover, they shouldprepare themselves by bathing and

The AYAHUASCA VISIONS ofPABLO AMARINGO

Howard G. Charing and Peter Cloudsley

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Above: Pablo,Peter and

Howarddiscuss apainting

meditating. When it is uncoveredthey will receive the power andknowledge of the caros that weresung into it.

In 1988 Pablo founded theUsko Ayar Amazonian School ofArt in Pucallpa, dedicated todepicting and preserving the waysof life and indigenous knowledgeof the Amazon. The work of theschool has been tremendouslyinfluential and created what wenow call New Amazonian Art.The author and plant spiritshamanic practitioner Steve Beyerwrote of Pablos work, I think it isfair to say that the surge offoreigners seeking outayahuasqueros in the Amazon,beginning in the mid-1990s, wasdriven in large part by Pablosextraordinary paintings. Indeed, asdepictions of ayahuascaexperiences have grown normative,it may be that in addition to theexperience prescribing the art, theart is prescribing the experience.

The well-known visionary artistRobert Venosa says of Pabloswork, The high mission of art,through its illusions, is toforeshadow higher states of reality,and no one did this better in thedepiction of the ayahuascan worldsthan Pablo.

CREATING THE NEW BOOKThe inspiration for creating a new

book about the artists work beganin a moment of serendipity duringan ayahuasca ceremony in January2007 in the Peruvian Amazon.

Howard G Charingremembered the experience: Myvisions that night were filled withthe vivid colours and motifs ofPablos work, and then in what Ican only describe as a neon-coloured flash of electricity, themessage appeared to do a bookon Pablos work.

The following day I was stillfilled with this electricity from theayahuasca session, and then Iknew with certainty that this bookwould happen. I discussed the ideawith Peter [Cloudsley], as he and Ihad been working since the1990s organising ayahuasca andplant medicine retreats in theAmazon. We decided to visit Pabloin Pucallpa - as we had knownPablo and collected his work formany years - and discuss this withhim. When we spoke of it, Pablosface immediately lit up, and thenwith great enthusiasm weembarked on the book.

The book was a complexproject, which required cataloguingand having the paintingsprofessionally photographed. At alater stage we migrated to usingdigital scanning technology.

Pablo provided us withhundreds of pages of his personal

notes andjournals, and weheld manymeetings withPablo inPucallpa toexplore themulti faceted,allegorical, andmythic qualitiesof the paintings.

In thesemeetings withPablo we wereamazed at hisvast eclecticknowledge andwe also enjoyed his personalanecdotes, his spiritual wisdom andgentle humility.

This was also a joyfulexperience for Pablo, as he notesin his own introduction to the newbook: This book is very differentfrom my first book, because I havefelt much freer to express myselfin it. For the former bookeverything was written down fromthe beginning and we gave it anacademic appearance so that itwould be taken more seriously, orat least recognized as a piece ofanthropology.

Eighteen years ago, one didnot expect to get much credencefor subjective experiences, and myfears of being misinterpreted orcriticised for not being Catholic

ONDAS DE LA AYAHUASCAAt the top of the picture the sun radiates brilliantwaves. As the source of all life on earth, the sunrepresents the blessings of the divine celestialpattern, the ultimate source of all life in the

universe which we call God. We see that everythingis energy and all matter is formed of pulsatingwaves and vibrating particles of electromagneticenergy. For us on earth the sun is the source of this

energy and we perceive it as light. Oureyes can only see a limited spectrum ofchromatic light as in the rainbow. Otherfrequencies are invisible such as infra-red and ultraviolet. The ayahuasqueroand his assistants in the ayahuascaceremony here can perceive theiridescent rainbows emanating from thealternate dimension normally invisible tothe eye.

Ayahuasca is one of the mostremarkable gifts from the plant realm, asit contains chemicals identical to theneurotransmitters found in the humanbrain. When you drink ayahuasca thesensory neurons that transmit messagesinside the brain are enhanced so that aperson can discover extrasensoryperception and receive wisdom andknowledge.

Above: Pabloand Peter lookat a paintingtogether

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were greater.I have told my personal stories

behind the visions and myexperiences with Amazonianpeople and folklore. All of thisshould provide guidance to peoplefollowing the way of plantknowledge and ayahuasca - to livelife more creatively and take morecare of the earth.

WORKING WITH PABLOSometimes Pablos explanations ofthe meanings behind his paintingsplayed intriguingly with ambiguities,and hinted at the ineffable. Attimes we struggled with ourinterviews with him, and theychallenged us not to arbitrate too

much on what might bemeaningful or otherwise.

In his painting UnicornioDorado, for example, he contraststhe Western rational path to thewisdom of the indigenous way,which, he said, is faster. He hadtried both routes and believed thatultimately both were needed if ourspirituality was to evolve sufficientlyto lift humanity out of the crisis inwhich we find ourselves.

One of the most gratifying andimportant aspects of working withPablo on the book project was thatwe were documenting oralknowledge that otherwise wouldhave been lost.

In the book there is muchmaterial about plants; theirmedicinal and shamanic properties,and the traditional ways of theindigenous peoples of the Amazon.

Some of the stories that Pablotold about his grandfather and greatuncle, who were both formidablepaleros2, were fascinating. Thesestories challenge our notion ofreality as they traverse theboundary of the everyday and thesupernatural worlds.

For example in the paintingYacuruna Huasi Pablo related apersonal experience, When I was aboy I saw my grandfather, AmbrosioAmaringo Vazquez, rescue a personwho had been missing for months.

UNAI SHIPASH The muses of time can be seen in the upper sphereand the accompanying muses of space in the lowersphere. The two divinities in yellow are virtudes

(virtues); they represent elevated qualities of love,compassion and kindness.

The muses in the lower sphere watch over theentire biosphere from the ozone layer down tothe depths of the ocean. Time and spaceappears united to us, and we are a part ofthem, but an alternate time and space alsoexists beyond our everyday experience whichwe can perceive through the eye of ayahuasca.

The eyes are the windows through which theworld attracts us, through which we choosecolours, shapes, and sizes. It is possible for us tolose all this at any moment; if we go blind,there will be no use for our eyes. Space willcontinue to exist in our hearts and minds but nolonger in our vision. They say time is worth silveror gold but in fact it has no material equivalent.In spiritual terms, time is life and not to bewasted, so we should take what is offered andlearn what we can. Everything has a purpose.

Pablos paintings depict thevisions that he received duringhis years of practice as anayahuasquero, they capturethe spirits, sub-aquatic cities ,celestial realms, extra-terrestrial beings of greatwisdom, sorcerers in battlewith shamans, all revealedto him by ayahuasca

He was brought into the houselooking half dead followed byseveral yacuruna4.

I was not allowed to look, but Iwas curious, so I climbed up to theroof of the house and lifted thepalm leaves to look into the room.There I saw the yacurunas with theirfaces hidden under their sunhatssurrounding the rescued man.

The padre on the verandaafterwards said it was too late;the man was already transformedinto a different shape. He saidnothing could be done, the manwould have to go back to live withthe yacuruna.

On two occasions in 2008Pablo suffered acute dengue fever,which severely debilitated him.After this, he never fully regainedhis strength and vigour. In 2009he became visibly frail and weknew deep down that he might notmake it through to the bookspublication.

We felt that he knew this too,because in March of that year hesaid, I fear that I will go before Ipaint all that I have seen. But thisis no problem... I will finishpainting them the next time when Icome back.

On November 16, 2009, after abrief illness, Pablo Csar Amaringodied at his home in Peru,surrounded by his friends and family.

Pablo said of his work that itrequires the viewer to be curious,because its meaning will not beunderstood from a superficiallooking. Of the book we producedtogether he told us; It requiresreaders to ask why and what thebook is trying to teach them, and itis my hope that this book will bepublished in order that people mightbenefit from what I have learned,and I have faith in its success.

For more information about the book,photo galleries, and opportunities topurchase fine art reproductions of thepaintings featured therein, visitwww.ayahuascavisions.com

Howard G Charing has organisedspecialist retreats since the 1990s to theAmazon rain forest. He co-authored PlantSpirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniquesfor Healing the Soul, published by DestinyBooks (2006).Peter Cloudsley is a musicologist andwriter who, since 1980, has created anarchive of traditional music and interviewsin Peru and collected for the BritishMuseum. He published A Survey of Musicin Peru in 1993, and two CDs: FiestaMusic from Peru (2000) and Shamans ofPeru (2002). He established the AmazonRetreat Centre in Mishana in 2004.

AYARI HUARMIThe picture reveals the eternalmystery of the feminine. When awoman works with the spirit ofayahuasca and other plants, herradiant spiritual purity appears inthe vision embellished andgarlanded with beautiful flowers.Just as lakes and rivers haveluxuriant foliage and blossomadorning their banks, so a womanexpresses the splendour of theentire natural world.

Women embody heavenly beauty,tenderness and grace, while men

should develop wisdom to be ofservice to beauty in their lives.When a woman learns to sing icaros,they resemble tuneful bird song,flowing water or the sound of windblowing through the trees.

Her caros evoke the joy you feelwhen you visit a park brimming withbrilliant flowers and majestic trees.Therefore, when a woman developsher innate esoteric knowledge she ismuch wiser and more capable than aman is.

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BARCO FANTASMAManuel Huaya was a greatayahuasquero who travelled about inhis boat healing people everywhereusing ayahuasca and medicinalplants. He inhabited a world ofgreat masters from Atlantis andChina, and lived with the fairies,sylphs and muses who guarded theforests, rivers and plants.

Manuel Huaya transformed a hugeanaconda into the phantom boat yousee here with two huge eyes and asteel horn on its forehead - like arhino - for defending itself fromdanger. It has several floors, eachrepresenting a level of lifesevolution, at the same time a levelof social hierarchy.

Peter Cloudsley remarked aboutthis painting; Here we can imagine

the indigenous peoples first sightingof the rubber barons in thenineteenth century.Peering through theundergrowth at the edge ofa river they see a hugesteamer hissing at themand seemingly returning theincredulous looks of theIndians through the eyes onits prow. The clatteringengines shatter theprimordial tranquillity ofthe river at night, and thesteamers electric lightscause the natives toperceive the steamer as anAmazonian spiritaccompanied by welcomingmermaids and sylphs.

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TERMS USED IN THE TEXT

1: Ayahuasquero is a specialist inayahuasca. The term shaman is arecent Western import into theAmazon in the past thirty years. Inthe Amazonian tradition there aremany specializations and categories.The traditional generic term wouldbe Vegetalista, which denotes theyhave received their power from theplant kingdom.

2: Palero is a specialist in the bark,roots, and resins of trees.

3: caros are magical chants thatare sung or whistled by shamansduring Ayahuasca ceremonies.There are several kinds of caros. Atthe beginning of a ceremony theirpurpose is to provoke the mareacinor visionary trance state, and torender the mind more susceptiblefor visions to penetrate. The shamanon his plant diet learns the carosdirectly from the plant spirits. caroshave great power and influence onthe visionary experience of peopledrinking ayahuasca in a ceremony.Pablo also regarded the caro as thesound of the universe - the planets,stars, comets, and supernovas.Everything is created by music, byvibration, by sound. caros are themusic of creation.

4: Yacuruna: in the mythologicalworld of the Amazon, the yacuruna(literally water people) are theprimordial hairy ancestors ofhumans. They inhabit thesubaquatic realm of rivers and lakes.They kidnap people to be theirconsorts.