The Power of the Sharing Circle: Oral Tradition in Medicine Ceremonies

For somebody born into the current epoch of Netflix, Instagram, Twitter or WhatsApp, it seems  increasingly difficult to imagine a world where contemporary forms of media were not yet the norm. Major revolutions in human history are often correlated with major advances in human communication. From the first emergence of symbols in caves and stones thirty thousand years ago, the effervescence of petroglyphs, pictograms and ideograms all the way to the invention of the first alphabets across the Mediterranean region, or the invention of the printing press in fifteen century Germany, and all the way to the telegraph, the landline telephone, radio, television, cellular phone technology, the internet and social media, novel ways of communicating information and encoding and transmitting knowledge have facilitated and cradled each and every collective transformation.

Nowadays, we communicate mostly through memes, reels and TikTok videos; like ancient hunter gatherers sharing the fruits of our labour, we spam our loved ones with the best of our daily bounty. Did you see that dancing cat that I sent you? Why didn’t you heart my meme? Here are thirty seven new reels that show that I’m thinking of you and care for you. Of course, this last paragraph is an exaggeration used mostly as a literary device: what we call “hyperbole”. And thats the thing about language — it can be used in infinite ways and forms, shaped to our will and crafted to be pragmatic, informative, useful, educational, defiant, upsetting, beautiful or poetic.  Different forms of media are usually apt to convey different messages. If we want to evoke a feeling, we could choose poetry. If we want to make someone laugh, we can tell a joke, or send a meme, or even write the script for a television comedy series. If we want to break up with someone, it’d be a good idea to do it in a heartfelt conversation where all parties are present. If needed, maybe a handwritten letter could be appropriate. However, we probably wouldn’t want to do it over an email, or a WhatsApp message. Even if the content and the intended result are virtually the same, the medium matters: it conveys information too: “hey, I don’t care enough about you to make an effort to break up properly”, or “hey, I don’t have the courage to do this in person”. Ultimately, “the medium is the message,” in the famous dictum of Marshal McLuhan.

Oral Traditions in Context

One of the oldest forms of language expression is the spoken word. Long before they were glued to tablets watching Paw Patrol and Bluey, their attention captured by pixels on a screen while the parents are busy, children the world over were entertained with the adventures, myth and stories told by their elders.  Huddled around a fire in a cold Arctic winter night, or under the starry skies of a humid tropical evening in a pacific island, gathered under the shade of a Banyan tree in Bengal or a Ceiba tree in the Yucatan or a Baobab in the Serengeti plains of Tanzania, generations of children perked their ears to listen to their grandparents’ stories. Oral storytelling, of course, is not only about entertaining the kids while the parents work or rest; its how cultures code and transmit customs, laws, myths, histories and social idiosyncrasies. Oral traditions have kept human knowledge and wisdom alive for millennia, well before we had cloud storage and USB drives with two terabytes of data in our front pockets.

Oral traditions, reflected in the spoken transmission of knowledge, ideas, and cultural narratives from generation to generation, is how societies have preserved and encoded history, laws, rituals, and customs. These traditions have played a central role in shaping the social and cultural fabric of communities worldwide, ensuring the continuity of shared values, beliefs, and identity. Oral traditions encompass a wide array of genres, from myth and folklore to epic poetry, songs, proverbs, and genealogies. Though often dismissed by those —like many of us modern post-industrial humans— who prioritize written records, oral traditions are living, dynamic sources of knowledge that adapt to the changing needs and contexts of the communities that practice them.

Many ancient civilizations and indigenous cultures used oral storytelling to preserve their historical narratives, maintain records of rulers, wars, migrations, and important events. These narratives often blend factual accounts with symbolic or mythical elements, which allows them to resonate across generations and be more easily remembered. For instance, the griots of West Africa are oral historians, musicians, and storytellers who have passed down the history of their communities through stories, poems, and music for centuries. The griot tradition links individuals to their ancestors, offering a sense of continuity and belonging in a way that written records may not fully capture.

Instead of writing history books, oral historians tell stories of the past that they have memorized. As there are families who have a long history of mastering and performing an essential service —stonemasons, blacksmiths, shoemakers— some cultures include designated families of historians, and the oral histories of a group are passed down from one generation to the next. Telling a story out loud is also a creative and performative art that allows the speaker the liberty to include poetic and musical flare. An interested, amused and delighted audience is a better informed audience. These elements combined —the artistic and the pragmatic— have contributed to many oral histories surviving for hundreds of years without being written down, while keeping essential truths intact.

Oral tradition in culture, religion and medicine

Oral traditions also play a crucial role in the transmission of cultural identity and values. Through stories, proverbs, poems, songs, folk tales and even clichés and jokes, individuals learn about the social norms, taboos, and ethics of their communities. None of these is banal — each joke, each song, each idiosyncratic saying is essential for reinforcing social cohesion and shared beliefs within a group, whether it is an indigenous tribe or a rural community. Similarly, oral traditions serve thus as educational tools. Through myths, jokes or anecdotes, young members of the community are taught the rules of behavior, the expectations of their roles within society, and the consequences of deviating from these norms. For example, the Dreamtime stories of Indigenous Australians serve as both a spiritual framework for understanding the world and a moral guide, teaching lessons about respecting the land, relationships, and the interconnection of all life.

Beyond their function as historical and cultural tools, oral traditions are often also intertwined with spiritual and religious practices. Prayers, hymns, ritual chants, sacred and medicinal songs, and all sorts of vocal performances are part of worship and communion around the world. These elements are integral to the performance of individual and collective sacred rites and ceremonies that affirm the spiritual beliefs and cosmologies of their people, whole providing opportunities for members of the group to come together and connect with each other on a deeper level. Oral traditions are often experienced in communal settings, such as festivals, rituals, or informal gatherings around the fire. This communal aspect reinforces bonds between members of the group and fosters a shared sense of meaning. Listening to a storyteller, or an ikaro performer, or ritual singer, is an active, participatory experience, in which the audience engages emotionally and intellectually with the material being presented.

For example, Vedic chants in Hinduism are an ancient oral tradition of souther Asia, preserved for thousands of years through meticulous learning and recitation. These chants are not merely poetic or spiritual texts but are believed by adepts of the tradition to wield divine power when recited correctly. In other words, the right utterance and performance of the chants is in itself the presence of the immanent. Similarly, Native American tribes use oral traditions in the form of songs, chants, and prayers to communicate with the spirit world, affirming their connection with nature and their ancestors. Hunters sing to their pray, farmers sing to the rain, and shamans sing to the spirits of the buffalo, the coyote and the black bear. Words and songs create the bridge between the human and the spirit worlds.

In previous blogposts we have explored the unique and marvelous medicinal songs of the Shipibo tradition, the ikaro. We have seen that the Shipibo people of the Peruvian Amazon have a profound relationship with the rainforest in general and the spirits of the plants in particular. The ikaros, which you may experience in our ayahuasca retreats, are rhythmic and enchanting chants central to the Shipibo’s shamanic healing practices; through the ikaro, the healer invokes the spiritual energies  and the help of their plant allies to help heal and guide patients and participants through transformative ayahuasca experiences. The ikaro is, of course, more than just a song; it is a sacred vehicle through which the healer, or maestro, communicates, negotiates and pleads with the unseen world, channeling its forces to restore balance, heal the body, mind and soul, and connect individuals  and communities with the greater web of life.

These ikaros, say our Shipibo teachers, have been taught to them by the plant spirits themselves, especially those of the sacred ayahuasca vine and other master plants used in shamanic healing. Chirac sanango, Toé, Bobinsana, Marosa, Guayusa, Tobacco, Tamamuri or Renato, each plant teaches particular melodies that transmit particular medicines. The maestro learns the ikaro directly from the plant spirits during periods of deep isolation and fasting, known as dietas. The ikaro functions as a spiritual steering wheel in ceremonies, directing the energy of the participants and the healer as they navigate the mareación, the non-ordinary expanded state induced by ayahuasca. Through specific melodies and rhythms, the ikaro can call forth plant allies that the healer has dieted with, protective spirits, cleanse negative energies, and facilitate deep healing. The song is the main tool of the healer, and the primary medicine of the Shipibo shaman. Everything else, including the ayahuasca itself, is secondary to the frequency, vibration, pitch and intention of the healer’s voice. The ikaro, once again, becomes a bridge between the material and the spiritual realms, invoking the presence of higher consciousness and sacred forces to guide the journey.

Beyond its spiritual significance, the Shipibo believe that the sound and vibration of the ikaro can affect the physical and energetic bodies. In their practice, and under the effects of the plants, they are able to see energetic patterns overlapping the patient’s body, patterned in a similar manner to the world-famous textiles and clothes that hey produce. They call these patterns kené, and they believe that harmonious, coherent and clean kené are essential for good health. The Shipibo, like many other amazonian people, believe that illness is often the result of energetic imbalances or spiritual blockages, or disorganized, incoherent patterning of the energetic body, and the ikaro serves as a tool to help realign these imbalances. The intricate patterns of sound created by the ikaro resonate with the body’s energy centers, or chakras, helping to clear blockages and restore harmony.

As a modality of sound-based medicine, the semantic meaning of the lyrics of the ikaro are not as important as the actual sound itself. Some parts of the ikaro may be sung in the Shipibo language, in the Quechua language, Spanish or other amazonian languages like the Kokama. Some words are not really words but strings of sound taught the healer by the plant spirits. However, it is the intention behind the words and the vibrational quality of the song that carry the true healing power. The maestro uses the ikaro to direct healing energy into specific areas of the body, working in tandem with the spiritual insights provided by ayahuasca to address the root causes of illness.

Oral Traditions for the Modern World: The Sharing Circle

One of the most fascinating aspects of oral traditions is their adaptability, the flexibility that allows traditions to evolve and change together with the cultures to which they belong. Unlike written texts, which are fixed and unchanging, oral stories can evolve with the times. As storytellers pass down narratives from one generation to the next, they often modify or embellish them to reflect current realities or challenges faced by their communities. Amongst the Shipibo, for example, we find myths that, while located in the ever-present relevance of the mythical time, reflect important events affecting Shipibo and amazonian history: the encounters with the God-like Incan rulers from the highlands, the arrival of the European conquistadores, the tragedy and misery of the missions and the rubber boom period, an so on. This flexibility ensures that oral traditions remain relevant and meaningful in an ever-changing world.

At this point, dear reader, you may be asking yourself: “why are we writing a post about oral traditions?”. And I mean, we covered briefly an important manifestation of the oral medicinal arts. But we have already written quite extensively about the ikaro in different blogposts. Storytelling and myth-making are incredibly interesting phenomena, and definitely relevant to anyone with a budding interest in indigenous ways of knowing and being. However, the main reason why we are writing about oral traditions, is because we want to focus on one aspect of the modern ayahuasca retreat that often times goes unnoticed, or, at least, is very seldom given the attention it deserves. We are talking, of course, about the sharing circles, a contemporary revival, or at least, evolution, of the ancient art of oral storytelling and myth making, adapted to the needs of the 21st century Western seeker.

For those of you who have already attended one of our world-renowned plant medicine retreats, you’ll be familiar with the power and beauty of a sharing circle. The sharing circle takes place after the ceremonies, and they are meant as a safe communal space for reflection, storytelling, and the exchange of wisdom, all framed by an appeal to vulnerability and authenticity. The magic happens quite quickly: almost invariably, a group of strangers who may have little in common with each other beyond the fact that they’re attending the same retreat will bond and create strong reciprocal relationships, based on the mutual respect and empathy derived from sharing their personal experiences with the medicine. It doesn’t always happen immediately, ot after the first or second time. But as the medicine does its work, and the usual barriers and defense mechanisms that guard us in our day to day start to dissolve, the shares become more authentic and heartfelt, allowing for our personal stories to really touch other people’s hearts.

As we have seen in this very blogpost, in many indigenous cultures, oral traditions are considered sacred. The mere act of speaking and listening is seen as a form of communion, a way of invoking the spirits and forces that shape the universe. The storyteller, or shaman, does not merely recount a tale; they embody it, becoming a vessel through which ancestral knowledge and spiritual wisdom flow. The stories that we tell are not static or crystallized; just like the flow of our own lives, our life stories are dynamic and living, always shifting as we experience, integrate and grow. Likewise, when we share our experiences with our retreat friends and co-participants, we are not merely describing a frozen frame of a stagnant life; as we weave our story, we are both describing and creating, simultaneously a present reality that reflects our current understanding of our situation. “Abracadabra” is much more than just a cliched magic incantation for children’s shows: the phrase, “Abracadabra”, in its original Aramaic meaning, is a primordial prayer and incantation that translates to one of the most basic insights of the oral tradition, including our sharing circles: “as I speak, so shall it be created”.

Beyond the realization of the power of the spoken word in our individual healing and transformation journeys, the sharing circle also creates a space for communal reflection. In a world that increasingly prioritizes individualism and personal achievement, the circle invites participants to engage in a collective experience. The circle is a symbol of equality, where each person’s voice is given equal weight, and the act of listening is as important as speaking. Just as oral traditions fostered a sense of belonging and connection within ancient communities, sharing circles help participants in our ayahuasca retreats feel grounded within a supportive, collective environment. The collective dimension of a retreat is crucial, and not taken for granted. The sharing circle is one of the main ways in which the group dynamic is nurtured, strengthened and loved.

Last, but not least, we come to what should perhaps be the most “obvious” purpose of a sharing circle: the opportunity for participants to process and integrate their experiences during ceremony. Plant medicine ceremonies often evoke powerful emotions, visions, and insights —you can read all about it in previous blogposts— that can be difficult to articulate or understand. In the safety of the circle, participants can express these experiences without fear of judgment, knowing that they are in the presence of others who may have gone through similar journeys. In this way, the sharing circle functions as the primary space of integration, where the act of speaking one’s truth can lead to personal catharsis and emotional release, but also to actual transformation manifest in embodied wisdom.

Conclusion: Listening, Learning, and the Horizontal Transmission of Wisdom

In indigenous cultures, storytelling has always been recognized as a healing practice. The telling of sacred stories, myths, and personal experiences serves to connect individuals to the larger cosmic narrative, reminding them of their place within the grand cycle of life, death, and rebirth. In the sharing circle, this tradition of storytelling is revived in a modern context. Each participant’s story becomes a thread in the larger story of the group’s shared experience, contributing to a collective understanding of the ceremony’s deeper meaning. Furthermore, it allows us to embrace and embody a role that we may not be very familiar with: the role of the listener. While western cultures often prioritize productivity, action, doing, speaking — a relentless forward motion where there is little space for receptivity, indigenous cultures tend to prioritize harmonious balance between doing and being, acting and resting, speaking and listening. In native lore, listening is a sacred act, one that requires presence, patience, and an open heart. In the sharing circle, participants are encouraged to listen actively, without interrupting or offering unsolicited advice. This type of deep listening can be profoundly healing for the speaker, as they feel heard, validated, and supported by their peers —something that we often sorely lack in our fast, self-centered lives. The listener, in turn, benefits by learning from the experiences of others, gaining new insights and perspectives that may help them on their own path. We don’t always have to climb a mountain to know that it is tall. Sometimes we can just trust somebody else who already climbed it, and we can save some precious time and energy in our own journey.

To conclude, it is important to highlight that sharing circles are much more than just opportunities to share about our own fears, pains, joys, visions, trials and tribulations. Yes, sharing is important, but the real gold lies in the reciprocal exchange: the horizontal transmission of wisdom that occurs naturally as participants share their stories and reflections with one another. Insights gained during the ceremony are shared openly, allowing others to benefit from the lessons learned by their peers. For example, one person’s experience with fear during the ceremony might offer valuable insights into how to navigate similar emotions in everyday life. This communal exchange of wisdom is particularly important in the integration phase following a ceremony. The effects of plant medicine or ritual experiences often extend far beyond the ceremony itself, influencing participants’ lives in profound and lasting ways. Sharing circles provide a space for individuals to discuss how they plan to integrate their insights into their daily lives, offering practical advice and encouragement. In this way, the sharing circle functions as both a bridge between the sacred and the mundane and a means of preserving the wisdom gained during the ceremony for future use.

Here at Rythmia, we hold our sharing circles to the highest standards of facilitation; we pride ourselves in curating beautiful, safe, and sacred shared spaces where all our guests feel inspired to step into that vulnerability and authenticity needed to really feel the full power of a shared, communal storytelling and myth-making experience as we speak our healing and transformation into existence.

You can learn more about our upcoming retreats here.

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