Curanderos

León Fidel Andy Grefa

Fidel Andy was born in 1966 on the river island La Soga in the outskirts of Tena, Ecuador, where he still lives and practices.

Javier Arévalo

Javier Arevalo Shahuano, nací en la comunidad de Nuevo Progreso, Río Napo, en el departamento de Loreto – Perú;.

Elisa Vargas Fernandez

Bio coming

Aeli Ronin Yaka

Thirteen years ago, Thirteen years ago, Mary Ann Eddowes felt the urgent need to discover her true essence, wondering why she was here and what her mission in this life was…

Pedro Panduro Navarro

Pedro Panduro Navarro apprenticed in Lamas, Peru, a department of San Martin spending 2 years dieting "palos vegetales."

Wendy Luckey

Wendy Luckey was born in Minot, North Dakota into a family with mixed cultural diversity.

Marie Luisa Garcia

Marie Luisa Garcia de Armas was born in Caserio de Sucayo. She is a Huesero, a specialist in dislocations, i.e. bones that are out of socket.

Percy Garcia Lozano

My name is Percy Garcia Lozano; I was born on the 7th of September 1973, in the community of Aucayo.

Ron Wheelock

I came to Peru in March 07, 1996 with the intention to become a healer. My first trip here i drank ayahuasca two times in Tamshiyacu with Don Agustin Rivas Vasquez.

León Fidel Andy Grefa

Fidel Andy was born in 1966 on the river island La Soga in the outskirts of Tena, Ecuador, where he still lives and practices. He began his training with both his grandfathers at the age of six, learning about healing energies and medicinal plants. Soon he was introduced to tobacco infusions, taken first through his nostrils and later orally. He has spent substantial time in the forest finding his element, water, observed a variety of diets and practised celibacy until his mid-thirties. At the age of sixteen Fidel began to cure his immediate family, by the age of nineteen he became sought after by other people as well. Fidel is acquainted with San Pedro and Angel's Trumpet, but Ayahuasca, which he began to drink in his early twenties, is his main companion plant alongside tobacco. As a widely recognised curandero, Fidel is often called upon by communities around Ecuador to heal, and resolve conflicts, and he continues to learn from a variety of ethnicities and teachers: “We never stop learning”.

Fidel has been very active in the movement that successfully resisted the witch hunts of traditional healers in the 1980s and 1990s, resulting in the legalization of curanderos in Ecuador with the establishment of ASHIN (Associación de Shamanes Indígenas del Napo) in 1997. ASHIN, which now counts members from all around Ecuador, was co-founded by Fidel and he acted as Vice-President and Secretary for ASHIN for several years and has been its President since 2006. Fidel continues to be involved in the social and political organisation of Ecuador's indigenous nationalities, and is currently part of President Rafael Correa's movement for a constitutional assembly to rewrite the Ecuadorian constitution.

Alongside all of these activities, Fidel is conceptualising a set of academic workshops for medical doctors, psychologists, para-psychologists, hospital directors, pharmacologists, and constitutional lawyers about medicinal plants and their traditional usages; as well as working with independent researchers of a local reforestation and autonomous development foundation to develop an Ayahuasca initiation programme for foreigners in Tena, Ecuador, with a focus on personal and relationship development, creative unfolding and, of course, healing of whatever illnesses, mental, physical, or social, that anyone may approach him with. However, his main commitment continues to be his work with local communities and individuals.

Fidel can be contacted via: fidel.andy@gmail.com
webpage at: the River Island of La Soga