Support the Peruvian Amazon

In 2017, I met Don Antonion Montero Pisco during a trip to Puerto Maldonado, Peru where I was studying plant medicines with the Ese Eja tribe. Three months later, I returned to the Amazon Jungle in Iquitos, Don Antonio’s home city, where he and I sat in Ayahuasca ceremonies for 3 weeks. He became my shaman, my guide, and my teacher. During my time with Don Antonio, I witnessed his ministry to the Yagua and Boras tribes, which were scattered throughout the jungle. He tended to people with dementia, illness, injuries, as well as those with spiritual issues in between our ceremonies. I watched him harvest and administer natural plant medicine treatments to those people he was treating.

Since 2017, I have returned to the jungle 1-2 times per year for 2-3 weeks at a time to learn from the land, the medicine, and the wisdom of Don Antonio.

To say that Ayahuasca changed my life would be an understatement. As my relationship of listening grew with Ayahuasca, I literally saw my relationships change for the better. The anger, fear, and hatred in my heart towards the people who caused me pain had melted away during the months of integration. I also saw my relationship to my body change, and as it did, the extra weight started melting away too.

Every time I returned to the Amazon, I would have full-spectrum journeys that were some of the most beautiful, yet painful experiences of my life. I would purge the density I have collected and then I would receive energy, wisdom, and messages from my own inner knowing that would inform me on who I am and how I show up in the world. Every journey has given me innumerable gifts.

Journeys to the Jungle

From these ceremonies, my Sacred Peru Medicine container was born. This is an annual journey where I bring small groups to Peru where each person can develop a personal relationship with the medicine of the jungle.

A process was born where each person has the opportunity to sit in the ceremony, with or without drinking AND each person would be guided to feel their own inner voice outside of the internal or external pressure to partake.

I return each year with a new group of people who come to the jungle for their own reasons and leave with a deeper understanding of the magic AND medicine of the Amazon.

We stay in traditional lodges, take boat trips to explore various parts of the jungle, go on nature walks to learn about the medicinal plants, and receive care from the people who are there to connect us with the wisdom of their culture.

When people go to Iquitos without guides, they find that many locals are willing to bring you into the jungle and create a ceremony for you. I generally get offered about 8-10 times per day just by walking down the street. a small percentage of whom dont have good intentions in bringing you into the medicine.

A Google search will reveal stories of people who have been robbed, assaulted, or even killed during Ayahuasca ceremonies. In the Netflix documentary The Last Shaman, you see some of these dangers. To pretend it doesn’t exist is naive, but it also isn’t the baseline of all the people in the Amazon. It is for this reason that Westerners generally opt for one of the Western-run Ayahuasca centers, which provide more support, but can pose their own set of issues.

Additionally, there are many healing centers all over Peru, some are independently owned by Peruvians, some by Europeans, and some by Western LLCs.

These centers generate millions of dollars per year for their owners, but in this setup, the medicine holders become employees of the center and are paid the standard living wage within the jungle. This is one of the grossest exploitations of a people who are committed to sharing the magic of their medicine/lineage. When Western interests involve themselves in the economy of the medicine, they actually detract from the healing potential of it.

These centers provide massages, psychotherapy, and rich environments that are not 100% aligned with the culture. The medicine of the jungle is intended to help you renegotiate the imbalances in your body, psyche, patterns, and ways of being. This is accomplished by introducing you to remedies that require you to be in relationship with your body first, and then the medicine. There is so much wisdom in the meaning-making that we do within these relationships, and when this process is subverted to “give you a good experience,” it only anchors in the wrong-relationship those people came in with.

These medicines invite you into right-relationship with natural law, and provides healing when viewed from this lens… the shamanic lens.

It is so important that any healing centers that are opened remain 100% under the direction and ownership of the indigenous.

We will be the ones

Unless someone is willing to come in and provide this support without taking ownership of the time, method, or stewardship of the medicine-holders in the name of dividends, then the extractive exploitation of these cultures will continue and the real medicine culture will be lost.

I have been offered a percentage share in this vision by Gilmer and Antonio for years. I have had people willing to invest in this center. I will never accept these invitations because the integrity of right-relationship demands that someone say no to capitalistic appropriation and protects the stewards of this medicine.

I am calling anyone who has felt a pull to protect the land, wisdom, medicine, or culture of the Amazon Rainforest to open their pocketbooks and donate (not invest) whatever feels right or resonant in your heart. Every dollar will contribute to protecting the magic of the Amazon by empowering the Montero family to cultivate, educate, and steward the medicine in a way that will last for generations.

The Dream of Don Antonio

Don Antonio worked with several lodges and healing centers around Iquitos that wanted to offer Ayahuasca ceremonies to people. He was committed to helping people of every culture to develop a relationship with the healing plants of the jungle with the integrity of deep listening to the medicine.

He also worked with the Peruvian government as well as several private organizations, Peruvian and Western, to advance the knowledge of the deep jungle.

His dream was to have a healing center where he and his family could plant, cultivate, and steward the many plant medicines of the jungle to treat the heart, mind, body, and spirit of the people who came for his wisdom. This would also serve as a center where he could receive visitors and treat them with plant dietas (a daily conscious engagement with a specific plant for a prescribed period of time) as well as a place to create Ayahuasca ceremonies, where people can learn about and develop a relationship to this master plant.

He instilled this open-hearted love and stewardship into his sons, who have committed to carrying on his legacy since his passing in 2020.

We are raising $37,000 USD to bring Don Antonio’s dream into reality through his sons Don Gilmer Molano Montero Francisco, and Antonio Montero Vilchez.

$8,500 - purchase 20+ acres of land +1 house with river-front AND road access

$2,300 - purchase a motocar for transportation to/from the center

$3,500 - purchase a 15-passenger covered speedboat for jungle excursions/tours

$11,000 - construct a 25+ person Maloca with an Ironwood frame and Irapay roof

$4,200 - construct 2 treatment bungalows @ $2,100/ea

$2,000 - construct 2 bathrooms @ $1,000/ea

$1,500 - purchase 15 hammocks @ $100/ea

$2,250 - purchase 15 sleeping mats @ $150/ea

$1,000 - purchase a generator

$750 - purchase a water pump

The ideal set and setting is to have a large Maloca that can fit 25+ people. A Maloca is a circular structure with an irapay leaf roof that is historically a place where the tribe would live, cook, sleep, and hold ceremony together. We will also build 2 bathrooms near the Maloca, in addition to 3 seperate dwelling spaces. One for Don Gilmer to live in, and 2 others for individuals who are doing longer-form healing containers including various dietas.

100% of this raise will go directly to Don Gilmer Molano Montero Francisco and Antonio Montero Vilchez for the protection, preservation, and stewardship of the lineage of Don Antonio and his family.

It currently costs $3500 to provide this container for each participant.

Construction of this healing center will remove 1/2 the cost of bringing groups to Peru, making it more afforadable for future participants to come experience the authentic magic and medicine of the jungle.

If you feel inspired to donate, whether it is $20 or $37,000, please click the DONATE button and pledge your support to protect the indigenous stewardship of the Peruvian Amazon for generations to come.

Please forward any questions to intention@russellpappas.com or schedule a 15-minute consult below to discuss your interest in supporting Peru