The Maestras
In these changing times,
who will be the grandmothers
that pass us the knowledge for future generations?
Arkana Collective
Center for the conservation of indigenous wisdom
The Laboratory
At Arkana Collective, we see the gardens, the library, the medicine workshop, and the laboratory itself as all one. This interwoven tapestry of nature & science, for us, is 1 living organism. Here we discuss this organism from which we work with plants.
The Classroom of Learning
Our center in Tarapoto is designed to host groups for education immersions regarding shamanic plants, medicines preparations & usage, plant identification & harvesting tactics, as well as the important aspect of mythology, cosmovision & indigenous approach to these medicines & plants. The laboratory serves as our experimental studio, as the place where living plants undergo the alchemical process of medicine making. Here, we observe, experiment, prepare medicines & health tonics, and bridge the world of plants in nature with the world of the human cultivator.
The Laboratory
Our laboratory is comprised of 2 types of essential oil distillery machines, dehydration equipment, tincturing & extraction equipment, as well as product packaging equipment.
We approach medicine making from an infusion of techniques, incorporating the old ways (wooden & clay processing equipment), and global methods that have not yet been applied to amazonian plants (for example spagyrics method, which is from hermetic alchemy).
Therefore, our laboratory is an infusion of traditional ways to the Amazon and also an experimentation facility for applying other ways of making medicines.
In our laboratory, students witness, participate, and learn in the art of medicine crafting. Our classroom themes in this part are essential oil artistry, tincturing methods, perfume construction, and how to administer & take plants in the form of teas, compresses, plasters, and tinctures.
The groups collectively prepare the plant materials & go through the steps of the medicine making process, while learning from the instructors all elements of the plant medicine itself.
The Classroom & Workshop
Our laboratory also serves as a classroom & workshop space. Our inventory of plants in our laboratory (ranging from dried, to tincutured, to essential oils, etc.) is extensive. These plant preparations serve as the basis of learning, and provide the materials to craft medicine (along with our gardens).
During our classes of crafting medicines & hands on preparations, our students are being taught by our medicine team the fundamentals of medicine crafting. They learn the functions, the uses, and hear the mythologies and stories of the plants and how they heal.
Our students learn the variety of ways in which to work with the plants. From plant identification, to harvesting techniques, to the properties of the plants, and the variety of ways in which they can be prepared.
And finally, how the different preparations methods apply to different uses for treating disease & illness, as well as for different shamanic therapies.
The Gardens & Forest
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Our wild Amazonian forest of 20 hectares, and our cultivated garden spaces, provide our outdoor classroom. Serving as a living library of plants, harvesting grounds, and medicine provision, our outdoor gardens and forests provide the space for connecting and becoming familiar with the plants.
The students are taken on a ¨tour¨ of the grounds with our medicine team, who introduce the students to the plants (their names, uses, identification markers, mythologies and stories, and how they are used in medicine). Finally, our gardens are complete with labels that provide both the local names & the scientific names of the plants (for self-guided further research).
