What is a Medicine Musician anyway?
Angels and Emo
There I was, somewhere on the East Coast. Was it Pennsylvania? Massachusetts? Upstate New York? I don’t recall exactly and I’m not sure if the year was 2007 or 2008 but I do know it was my third ayahuasca ceremony and it would change my approach to music and art in general for the rest of my life.
Like a lot of people I had a traumatic childhood. It peaked a week before I turned 18, with my father’s suicide, right as Chiron was exactly conjoined with my natal Venus. So naturally my punk phase faded into emo and the only thing I wanted was to leave a legacy of the most depressing music after I would, as I planned at the time, take my own life in my forties.
I continued down that road, determined, for the next seven years of my life. Although I searched for meaning for a bit while taking a World Religions course at my local community college, it only made me more of an atheist. Disgusted with my own pursuit of art as petty bourgeois, I decided to study labor history to cope with my pain. Framed through the lens of class war — surely my father’s suicide could be blamed on nothing more than the pressures of capitalism itself.
Nonetheless, music was all I knew. I made records with my band and we toured the US and Canada countless times while my cynicism festered. The lyrics I wrote came from a place of blame. I felt I was owed something and I grew abusive in every way.
But something was shaking me awake little by little. Near death experiences seemed to follow me everywhere I went for years as the pressure built. Several serious car accidents, including one where I flew through the window in a rollover at 70mph… Flat-lining on the operating table… Being pistol whipped by gang members, with guns pointed at me on my knees, completely covered in my own blood…
Even after all that, I continued on the road, making records, playing shows, trauma dumping in my songs… And, in the early 2000s, kids ate that shit up.
By the time I got to that third ayahuasca ceremony, I’d already unraveled a lot of my stuff. Night one, I got the atheist thing out of the way, along with my desire to ever commit suicide. By the second one I started to understand the patterns of my life, the trauma, the NDEs, the karma… All that is another story though.
So there I was… It was one of those candle-lit ceremonies with an elaborate flower altar in the center and the medicine, for me, was strong. I was flailing on the ground, moaning and forgetting to breathe… holding on for my life, slithering over to the altar.
I was made aware that my presence was disruptive and I tried to get some sense of composure and sit up but the force of the medicine pushed me into a bow at the altar as I looked up and saw what I could only describe as two arch-angels.
I should say that I grew up Catholic, but loosely. We only attended church on Christmas and Easter and although I went to catechism to be confirmed, I did so as an atheist punk rocker, getting stoned out of my mind in the dugouts outside the church before each class.
I look up. Eyes open. Angels. What the fuck. I remember thinking “I’m in the presence of angels and this is, perhaps, significant. There have been others who have supposedly encountered visitation from angels throughout history and it changed their lives significantly so I should pay attention”.
I heard a voice, telepathically. “We have a proposition for you”. But it was all too much and I just wanted it to stop. I resisted and rolled around some more, shaking my head attempting to escape the vision or change the channel, so to speak. Yet the force centered me back into a deep bow in child’s pose at the altar. And… the arch angels were still there.
Again, I think “There have been others who have supposedly encountered visitation from angels throughout history and it changed their lives significantly so I should pay attention”. I stopped resisting and surrendered to the force of their presence. It was then they made their offer: “If you accept, we will install guardians in your stream of conscience, to purify it, so that all of your music and art will be for the benefit of healing and consciousness”.
All of the sorrow and angst in all of the music and art that I created thus far flashed before me as I recall thinking how unworthy I would be of this. I didn’t feel I could bare such a responsibility, nor was I deserving of the blessing. But again I thought, “There have been others who have encountered visitation from angels throughout history and it changed their lives significantly so I should pay attention”.
I accepted the proposition, and they performed their rites, for which I won’t go into detail here. But did any of this really happen?
My intention in sharing this very personal vision has nothing to do with proving anything. It’s impossible to prove. That’s the nature of spiritual visions. They’re personal and not for boasting or broadcasting.
Whether it really happened or if I simply believed it did, is besides the point. That vision, like the visceral moments of my father’s suicide, or every near death experience I went through, was one of many definitive turning points in my personal philosophy and life direction.
From that moment I’ve only written three songs, but I’ve received probably a hundred, which brings me to my philosophy around medicine music.
First, let me say when I was coming up in this world there were just a few ways of learning medicine songs. You could either learn them directly by sitting in several ceremonies, or connecting with other song-carriers (collectors might be a better word) outside of ceremonies, and then there was the song-book, often a PDF - sometimes printed. Early on there was a website called ayahuasca wasi (later sacred valley tribe) that shared hundreds of songs and their chords for free. Occasionally people mimicked, to the best of their ability, recordings of ikaros they found on YouTube as well.
For clarity, there are many different types of ikaros depending on the tradition. Some are more song-like with a verse/chorus type of repetition calling on various plant and celestial spirits used mostly for a general type of healing work. Then, there are more specific forms of ikaros that are used to announce the work being conducted or direct the energy of the medicine relative to what is happening in the present moment for each participant or passenger in the ceremony.
Medicine songs on the other hand are usually accompanied, but not always, by another instrument such as a guitar and are sung by either the curandero/a or other passengers later in the ceremony after the chanting has been completed.
Often times these songs are sung in Spanish, although more recently many Brazilian tribes have adapted some of their traditional chants, and new ones, to guitar and drums. Obviously, you’ll occasionally see other tribal peoples using guitar and other instrumentation in their native tongue as well but in general this is what I observe to be the most prevalent form at present.
Here’s where it might get controversial. There seems to be a general conception, especially amongst many in the ayahuasca community in the global north that somehow medicine songs are more sacred if they’re sung in Spanish than say English. But isn’t Spanish just as much the language of the colonizer?
I’m of the mind that ayahuasca is boundless. Though I do hold a strong belief that those in the global north should learn how to approach what is sacred to indigenous peoples with utmost reverence and careful consideration of the seeds of colonization we all still carry within us. For instance, there’s no point in learning another tribe’s sacred chants if you don’t take the time to build a relationship with members of that tribe to earn their respect. I also am of the mind that the discipline it takes to learn proper pronunciation when learning an indigenous language is paramount to showing that respect, but again, that’s another story.
Everyone has a medicine song. Everyone is an artist.
Medicine music, like ayahuasca should be boundless. What many think of as medicine music is just one or two genres that a few people, not that long ago, developed based on their own style. Because, here’s the thing… the medicine makes a merger with who we already are. It does not completely transform us. I have studied in the Shipibo tradition for over a decade. I sing fluently in their language, but I will never become Shipibo. I know that.
But as someone who has a background in rock n roll, the medicine never forced me to abandon all of that flavor in a bucket-filling monster purge. No, it merged with my unique character to present one example of what we all have access to in our own ways when we open up our channels to receive, with humility and confidence.
Emulation is a beautiful thing, but it’s a bridge to your own voice. While it’s wonderful that there are so many medicine songs to learn from as a foundation, I would love to see more artists daring to channel their talents into expanding the limitations of the dominant genres of what we generally consider to be medicine music.
So whether or not the angels were real, that’s between me and them… I’m grateful for the life-changing vision way back when because it showed me that there’s a place for everyone in this great spiritual awakening, even for emo math-rock dorks who refuse to conform to the popular genre and must… forge ahead to create their own!
I’m fortunate to say that in ten years of guiding people on this path I’ve helped quite a few people find that balance between humility and confidence while expanding their own perceptions of medicine music and art for that matter. If you’re interested in exploring some of these ideas further while connecting with a grounded spiritual community, I just launched a membership you can read more about here. To listen to some examples of my unique flavor of medicine music click here.
I’ve loved your musical voice for many years but your writing voice is a really lovely addition to your body of work. Thank you for sharing your stories.
And this post is timely - I’m considering wading into prog rock territory for my next “medicine music” album.