ISA MEA
Erika Oblak is an environmentalist who publishes in English under the pseudonym Isa Mea. In 2006, she traveled through Peru, where she accidentally came across ayahuasca, a plant preparation from the Amazon that enables the transition to altered states of consciousness. Since then, he has been researching the teachings of the plant world of the tropical rainforest. She still regularly visits Peru, where she spent several years in these forests, completed a few dozen fasts with teacher plants and participated in hundreds of ayahuasca ceremonies. He advocates the transition to a circular economy, global justice in the distribution of natural resources and the related challenges of indigenous communities.
It cooperates with the Zajčja Luknja Institute in activities to support an open, public and inclusive dialogue about ayahuasca, the purpose of which is to inform about good practices of safe rituals, legislative issues and reducing risks to public health.
He currently lives in Slovenia, where he organizes and conducts shamanic workshops with Ikara rituals.

THE TIME IS NOW

Chapter extract You have a voice, don't you?

I still regularly visited the yana caspi tree and sat in the temple under its canopy where there was no undergrowth. This reached only to the edge of the circle of the crown, and among the leaves, branches and lianas I suddenly sensed movement. At first I thought of the wind, but then it wasn't there. There was a rustling now here, now there, and the feeling was not pleasant. By then I was used to the rainforest and its voices, but this time something was different and I could feel anxiety creeping up on me. I sat very still and focused on the rustling in the undergrowth. And I could have sworn I heard very soft laughter and whispers that got louder as I managed to calm down. I tried to detect where it was coming from with my eyes, but I couldn't see anything. At least not in the true sense of the word. I could only make out the faint outlines of the energy of the tiny creatures of the primeval forest playing in the undergrowth right at the edge of the circle. They felt friendly, and the anxiety in me was replaced by a playful feeling emanating from them.
Then they asked me to sing for them. I was already full of their infectious playfulness, and last but not least, we were there alone. I thought, why not? And began to sing Icarus. First more quietly and with an uncertain voice, then more decisively. The rustling died down as if the tiny creatures were listening. When I finished, there was a small laugh from the undergrowth, as only very small creatures can laugh. Since then, I have always sung to the tiny virgin forest fairies under the canopy of the yan caspia. Still not at the ceremony.
I finished the month of fasting with yana caspi, who was accompanied towards the end by warmi caspi, and continued the fast only with her. During the rituals, I met virgin forest fairies and slowly got to know them well. Both trees and primeval fairies get along well, and I later learned that they both called them to help me. Warmi caspi is a stocky old Indian woman with black hair braided into two buns and a wide-skirted green skirt. Her humor is quite outrageous, she is always dancing - sometimes calm, sometimes very wild, which somehow does not match her age, as she is considered one of the oldest creatures of the rainforest. The combination of her age and her movements is sometimes so outrageous that it pulls one out of the darkest of journeys in an instant and reminds one that life is not so serious that it cannot be spiced up with a good dose of laughter.