Episode #55

Episode #55 Full Transcript: 

My name is Laura Dawn and you’re listening to episode #55 of the psychedelic leadership podcast featuring my conversation with a liberation anthropologist, and an activist for Indigenous human rights, Ricardo Vitale. He is a  fulltime adviser for UMIYAC Union of Indigenous Yagé Medics of the Colombian Amazon (UMIYAC) – which is an Indigenous-led organization featured on our newly launched platform Grow Medicine. 

Riccardo Vitale defines himself as a  ‘liberation anthropologist’. He is Italian, living in Colombia for many years. 

He earned his PhD from Cambridge University focusing his thesis on the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico. His expertise covers human rights, anthropology in armed conflict, social movements, indigenous politics, gender relations within social movements, sustainable development, resilience, climate change adaptations and indigenous practices of yagé medicine, spirituality and resistance. He has been an adviser to a plethora of international humanitarian and development bodies such as: Oxfam America, the UNHCR, the Norwegian Refugee Council, amongst others. 

Since 2016 Riccardo works as a fulltime adviser for the UMIYAC Union of Indigenous Yagé Medics of the Colombian Amazon (UMIYAC). – This is an Indigenous-led organization made up of spiritual authorities from 5 different ethnic nations in Colombia. 

And as Riccardo shares in this episode these 5 ethic nations, indigenous peoples that rely on yage / ayahuasca for spiritual resilience, they  face cultural and physical extermination and they are asking for our support. 

And as I mentioned, UMIYAC is an organization we are featuring on Grow Medicine. 

And as many of you know, we just launched Grow Medicine, which is a mobile friendly donation and education platform that makes it really easy for the Western psychedelic and medicine communities to contribute toward plant medicine conservation, indigenous sovereignty and biocultural diversity with the click of a button. 

And if you’re able to in this moment, I encourage to grab your phone and check out Grow Medicine.com – it’s really easy website to remember.

And you’ll see 5 keystone medicines pop up on the screen and if you click on the ayahuasca button you’ll be able to learn more about UMIYAC, make a donation to support their very important projects and initiatives which includes supporting the intergenerational sharing of traditional knowledge so their wisdom can be passed on to the next generation. 

UMIYAC is dedicated to strengthening indigenous community peacebuilding and the reconstruction of lacerated social fabrics in war-torn rural Colombia. 

Through traditional yage /ayahuasca medicine, UMIYAC helps communities transcend the trauma and suffering of war and loss, through practices that are local, ancestral, and resilient. As an interethnic rural, indigenous organization, they work incessantly to protect the Amazon rainforest vis-a-vis extractive practices, narco-trafficking and unsustainable, short-term oriented economic models.

UMIYAC revitalizes cultural identity and helps children and adolescents reconnect with spirituality and Mother Earth. It strengthens ancestral, botanical knowledge, along with women’s interethnic and autonomous community networks. The revitalization and strengthening of local knowledge, social dynamics and interethnic networks are key self-help and resistance strategies for communities that have been historical victims of the Colombian armed conflict.

Now, I’ve learned an enormous amount this past year, stewarding this project and the launch of Grow Medicine which is a project of the Indigenous Medicine Conservation fund, and if you haven’t tuned into the last episode, I interview Miriam Volat and Cody swift where they spoke more about the IMC fund. And you can also learn more about the fund by visiting imc.fund 

And I think it’s really important to emphasize that plant medicine conservation is so much bigger than the simply replanting what we consume. And that if we just think of it in that way, we’re actually perpetuating an extractive mindset. 

And although some may argue that Ayahuasca does not face a conservation threat, although I know in some areas in Peru for example, it is being overharvested due to increased but even beyond that we need to broaden our perspective and understand that supporting the conservation of ayahuasca is about supporting indigenous sovereignty and biocultural diversity, which are topics we explore in this conversation. 

And the way I think about it, is that When you choose to drink Ayahuasca, you become a part of a global Ayahuasca community.

And so many of us have received so many incredible benefits from this sacred medicine, it’s enriched so many of our lives. 

And Being a good steward of this medicine, and being a good community member means we show up to support other communities around the world, and especially, first and foremost the traditional knowledge holders of this medicine, where this medicine is still embedded in their way of life, it’s part of their cultural identity,  they rely on these medicines for spiritual resilience, and it’s heart breaking to hear about what these people have to endure on a daily basis – and these communities are asking for our help. 

And I feel very grateful to have just spent time with Ricardo and other team members from the Indigenous medicine conservation fund, in Davos Switerland where we announced the launch of the imc fund and grow medicine. 

And I feel honored to be in support of this initiative, and all that I’ve been learning along the way has been truly humbling to say the least. 

So, I hope you will join me in holding the vision and the prayer that grow medicine can become an integrated part of western psychedelic and medicine communities. So please help us spread the word. And my hope is that every time someone in the west engages with a sacred medicine they also choose to engage with grow medicine, by going to grow medicine.com and making a donation to an indigenous led initiative. 

And after you make a donation, you can scroll through the page and learn more about the risks and threats that medicine and that bioculture faces so we can become more informed about the impact of our choices to engage with sacred medicines in our personal lives. And all the medicines face very different challenges and complex conservation threats, so please learn more about the impact of your choices by going to grow medicine.com 

Please follow @supportgrowmedicine on instgram. 

I’m going to leave this episode off with a song by Ayla Shafer called Silent Voices, I love her music, it’s been such an inspiration for me in my life, and you can find her links and access to all the resources mentioned throughout this episode visiting lauradawn.co/55

I’m going to be taking a few weeks off after this episode for some much needed down time. This launch of Grow Medicine has been a huge lift and I need to recalibrate on a lot of different levels right now. So I’ll be heading to CR for some time but you can expect another episode the end of June / beginning of July – ish. Stay tuned. 

Ok friends, that’s all from me, without any further ado…here’s my episode featuring liberation anthropologist and advisor to UMIYAC – Riccardo vitale

Laura Dawn: Welcome 

Ricardo Vitale: Ricardo Vitale. 

Laura Dawn: It is such a joy and pleasure to have you on the show here today. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time. Yeah. Thank 

Ricardo Vitale: you so much, Laura, for having me, 

Laura Dawn: I would love to just dive right in. You are working with an incredible organization umiat and I’d love for you to share a little bit about the mission of the work that you’re doing and feel free to share a little bit about your background and how you came to be working with umiat.

Ricardo Vitale: No, it is. First of all, I think we should define it. It’s the, in an explain the name. It’s the union of indigenous yeah. Hair, healers doctors, medics of the Colombian hammers. Uh, it’s a, it’s a multicultural cultural organization in the sense that it includes. Our forties. And in this case, our spiritual authorities and that’s the language we use within the organization.

Yep. Spiritual authorities from five different ethnic nations, mostly living in Columbia, but not only because we do span a little bit over to Ecuador, I think it’s important. We should, we should name the peoples and nations. And so it’s this Yona, the Inga, the they come and they eat. Co-fund. The other five nations that make up may make up the organization was, was formalized.

Uh, about 20 years ago with the help of an ecological Institute and international corporation. He kept alive with ups and downs for, for almost 20 years. And in 2016, He went through a little bit of a revolution and what we can get into this a bit later, myself, I’m an anthropologist. I was born in Italy, Rome to be precise.

I lived in working Latin America for most of my adult life came from, came via the us and via Cambridge university where I studied anthropology. Both places did biology, anthropology, and then anthropology at Cambridge, focusing on trade agreements, bilateral and international trade agreements. And now those affect Latin American peasants.

And I was looking mainly that was my doctoral work at Cambridge. I was looking mainly, uh, Chapman’s indigenous communities within the context of the Southeast uprising. And that was my, my first encounter with, uh, indigenous movements. It was somewhat for Twitter. Uh, that wasn’t my intention. I, I was taking time off and I have to, I had to do some volunteer work for, for my CV in university.

And I was always inclined to human rights. I had an interest in human rights and almost by chance ended up in Mexico. And, uh, and then I started working in volunteer work with peasant communities, right? When they stop at this, the moment was our main, most vibrant moment. And, uh, in a way captured my attention.

Uh, I was supposed to do a doctorate on north Africa and immigration into Europe, but then when I went back to my post graduate Alma mater, I asked my supervisor, if I could switch to. Uh, by then I spent a year in Mexico, graduated from university and thought he was very, very interesting from the fascinating, at the moment I got, I was really young, so I get captured by the vibrancy and the excitement, but then I ended up working 10 years.

On that, on that subject. Yeah, I’m a serial intellectually. I mean, I’m a serial monogamist.

I had an interest. I had some interesting experiences within, within the, the framework of that, that, that work. I was kidnapped in Mexico for input, doing human rights, work with communities that were close to this up at the moment. And then I, I was expelled actually the first time I had to leave for my own security, uh, that the human rights movement and my embassy at the moment that wasn’t very cooperative.

But with the embassy at the moment said that I had to leave. I left, uh, spent some time somewhere else in another country near, and then. Later I’d actually went back to Mexico, worked for another year. I was already doing my doctorate. I wasn’t a student research visa actually. And then the second time, yeah, that was when I actually was, the technical term is kidnapped.

I was approached by an unidentified people on the street thrown to a beaten old car with a weird license plate in the stake in somewhere. And I was taken for a ride for a day or two, uh, because I guess they were trying to avoid the immigration lawyers and human rights or human rights lawyers from, from inter intervening with that was actually last time I, I was in Mexico, but then I continued working and following the situation for almost 10 years.

So I kept in touch and I wrote about, I spoke about. And I think that a little bit of a contribution from me was that I was one of the first to plant the seeds of WhatsApp. These monsters are Batiste movement and indigenous movement meant in the broader spectrum for the planet, for, for, for social movements elsewhere at Cambridge university.

That wasn’t, that wasn’t a thing actually before, before that was, you know, we did, we did a bit of work when I finished. I quite soon I did some human rights work on a few countries, but eventually joined a human rights organization in Colombia. I was with, with this agency for, for a year. Then I, I felt that, uh, didn’t feel very comfortable.

We didn’t w been with international organizations. I always liked civil society. Grassroots feel better. It goes with me with my personality and I started working for women organization in a, in a very interesting or oil production. In Magdalena may have you. That’s the Madalena river. That’s a biggest river in the middle of the country.

That was an incredibly formative experience. I got, I got acquainted to Columbian feminism, uh, activists. Uh, it was really rewarding. It was tough. It was tough because these women were doing some really incredible human rights work, right. Where paramilitarism was active and at its peak that we’re literally saving lives every week.

It was really, really motivating. And then after that, I, I started doing consulting for international agencies, development, human rights. And then in 2016, actually in 2014, I decided to take a break. I was a little bit mentally burned out spiritually, physically tired of, of, of, of many, many years of human rights work.

It’s it can be tough for some of us. I got acquainted and close to lots and lots of big things of war visited, lots of communities that suffered massive. I spoke to the families. And that was years of year after year after year, I decided to take a break and I did and did my own studying. I actually get closer again, since there’s more parenthesis, I don’t talk about this much, but I got closer to the psychedelic movement.

Something that I got acquainted with in my early years in university, I, I did my university in Santa Barbara, California, and I started doing research reading. And eventually it was actually through that. I decided to go to . I, I knew Columbia quite well for work. I traveled everywhere, especially conflict areas.

And, uh, and then through some serendipitous circumstances and through a friend, I ended up in Putumayo looked up communities that were. Working with because me, myself, I wanted to experience that. I tried it before, like 10 years earlier, uh, with friends with, uh, with a, with a traditional doctor who was also a politician, but it was a like one off experience in 20 14, 15.

I actually felt that it was something that I wanted to get to know and experience a little bit more profoundly. And that is where I actually started meeting with traditional healers in Putumayo. We became friends with the people, started talking. We realized that we are a lot of affinities, uh, in terms of worldview while we so alive political affinities as well.

And that those friendships eventually in 2016, turned into, uh, a permanent engagement because a very dear friend was proposed as president. And he’s he’s is, is from the Inga nation that said next door. When he was when he was actually named, I didn’t know that I was the, the naming, the naming ceremony, the appointing ceremony.

I was actually working in Bolivia. He asked me to go out to . We actually, we were lucky because my flight back into Columbia coincided with the, with the event I was invited to. And the event was actually, a nest was appointing as present as it happens often within indigenous organization, you are not a candidate.

You don’t propose yourself. It’s actually the collective that chooses you and often to cover an office like that. It’s a duty, it’s a little bit like jury duty in the state. It’s something you have to do because the collective disaster, it’s not necessarily something you seek. And that was a little bit the case with Ernesto.

He was known amongst the elders amongst traditional years in the area and the region. Because he’s a follower of your head and a great friend of people in the network. And so nothing that was that, that, that, that, that ceremony, a group of elders, some of me and asked me if I give him my experience working in human rights with international agencies, the fact that I spoke a couple of languages, as you know, Ricardo, we think that we want to restructure these organization.

We want to become more autonomous. We are now strictly dependent on one conservation organization, which we’re not going to name. We want to transcend this. Uh, we want to become more like the organizations. We are accustomed to what surrounds us. So we want to be stronger. We want financial independence and we need to do advocacy.

And most of all, we need to protect this medicine because we feel that it’s getting weaker and weaker every day. Uh, we have no help or on our own, and we’ll join this. And a bit of responsibility. I said, yeah, yes, count me in. It was just, it was a billet. I thought, my God, what have I done?

And at that moment, 2016, I was dividing my time between at that, at that time, I was with Oxfam dividing my time between Oxfam and medioc, it was literally 50, 50, like half a day and half a day when I was doing their sports, so to speak. But then I realized later that that wasn’t going to work and I took a risk many ways, and we decided that I was going to just do that.

And that’s, and here we are seven years down the line still. 

Laura Dawn: Wow. That’s amazing. Yeah. I’d love to know more about the work that is doing. And you just said that these elders came together and they feel that their medicine is getting weaker every day. What does that mean? Can you unpack that a little bit?

Ricardo Vitale: Sure. That’s very potent. Um, thank you, Laura. The, okay. I think it’s important to make a heavy didn’t explain for some people might not know that within the indigenous perspective, health culture, mother nature, food sovereignty, what you eat, your family life, your individual life, your community life.

Everything is connected. Okay. So the, I think the crash. If you want to call it something. Yeah. The cry from the elders was not only specific, but it was specific was not only specific to the medicine, to a tradition that an identity in a tradition that is getting lost every time that we lose bit of the Amazon rainforest, we lose species.

But we also know when we lose oxygen, we lose air and we also lose knowledge because historically, traditionally indigenous communities have been, we know we’ll repeat it, but nauseous all the time are the stewards of these environments. That’s been proved and calculated. If you take a map of Latin America and you look at indigenous nations, you will see that the level of deforestation are much, much, much lower than other areas.

Okay. And that’s not a coincidence that has to do that’s related to a way of life. So I think the cry and the need to strengthen an organization like have to do with the need to protect a way of life. Yeah. The medicine, which is a spiritual instrument that has been passed on through generations. It’s important also to save that.

And that’s what I noticed working alongside clarified. I’m not a healer. I will never be a healer. I know nothing about healing. I’m friends with healers. Like I’m friends with neuroscientists. One of my best friends in the world. She’s a neuroscientist. That’s the person I called when I needed to decide up a box.

I called her and then I call and I speak to the healers in Puma for other things. And, but I’m not in. I’m friends with experts, but I’m not an expert. So yeah. So go back to your question that I think the cry had to do with something that it’s broader. Okay. Broader than just the medicine. But of course, the medicine, the sacred medicine in the sacred tradition is that some people refer to it.

It’s definitely part of it. And then we will get back eventually to this indigenous organization. I realized throughout the years, working close to rural communities and indigenous communities, indigenous organizations are not just formal judicial entities. Okay. Like NGOs, so to speak. Okay. Yeah. Legally we are legally, we are NGOs, but, but what’s very, very important.

And I remember one elder saying this distinctly a while ago, every collective organization we give birth to. And then, and then we nourish is an expression of divine law. Yeah, it’s an expression of our becoming in existence. I thought was very, very interesting, profound as well, because in a way it shows an approach to life, you know, a higher responsibility towards your peers and yourself.

And that includes nature in the eyes of indigenous communities, more people as well, not only indigenous communities and that includes nature. So I think the cry was about, you know, are we going to protect this system, these life, these organism, you know, and, and that includes, and that includes sacred medicine, culture, language land, of course, the land we live in, the rivers, the mountains, the skies, and so on and so forth.

It’s important to underline that in Columbia, I think there are 102 indigenous nations, right? 34, which have been declared by the constitutional court at risk of cultural and physical extermination. Okay. That, that’s a very important sentence. We must not take it as something that’s been cascaded upon communities, quite the opposite communities, the indigenous movement and the human rights movement helped building the case.

Yeah. So that the piece of legislation like this could be used by us and by governments and by companies to help and transcend the status of cultural and physical extermination. Um, that is just one of many important pieces of transitional ju