Sometimes life tells the most beautiful stories. And sometimes all it takes is a shaman, a (broken) laptop, and a pinch of Ayahuasca to remind us that there is more than one way to understand the world. 🌎💫

My Visit with Marlon the Shaman

My first encounter with Ayahuasca took me deep into the Amazon, near Iquitos in Peru. To be more precise: to Marlon, a local shaman whom I visited on recommendation.

What was planned as one night with the sacred medicine quickly turned into a stay of several days. I had nothing with me, not even a toothbrush, but my heart said: stay. And so I did.

And as life would have it, an unexpected, almost magical lesson occurred on the very first evening, though without any plant medicine at all.

A shaman, an IT professional, and a frozen screen 💻

Beside me was Ruben, a Portuguese IT specialist with a gentle nature and a keen eye.

Just before we began the ceremony, Marlon asked him for help. His laptop was on strike. The mouse wouldn't move, countless windows were open, and everything was frozen.

Ruben asked matter-of-factly: “Have you tried restarting it?”

Marlon looked at him as if he had just spoken in a foreign language. 🫢

Ruben pressed the power button, held it for a few seconds, and the screen went black. Marlon was horrified. Total incomprehension. 😳

But then: reboot. And everything worked again. As if by magic. ✨

A new insight that needed to be shared

Ruben was just about to start explaining to Marlon how he could restart his laptop himself in the future. But the shaman asked him for a second; he disappeared briefly and came back with his entire family in tow. Wife, children, grandchildren—everyone gathered curiously around the table.

Because: there was something important to be learned here.

Ruben demonstrated to the gathered extended family how to properly turn a computer off and then on again. And in that moment, as banal as it may seem to us, something great happened:

A shift in perspective.

An understanding.

An expansion of one's worldview.

The world isn't complicated—just different

For Marlon, the computer was off when he closed it and the screen was no longer visible. That seemed logical to him. Why turn something off that was obviously already off?

And so, this little story shows us how differently people can view the world. Not wrong, not right, but simply different.

And that is what fascinates me so much about the indigenous way of life. It is a philosophy that comes not from knowledge, but from understanding. From feeling. From being in relationship with what is. 🌿

What we can learn from this

This story is not a joke about technology. It is a mirror.

A mirror of how complex, fast-paced, and often overloaded our world has become, and how beneficial it can be to engage with simpler points of view.

Not because they are “better,” but because they ground us.

Because just as we sometimes need to restart our laptop, we, too, need a conscious reboot every now and then.

A quick press of the internal off-button.

A few deep breaths.

And a cacao. 🍫🫶

What do you think of this story?

Do you also know of moments where a different perspective opened your eyes?

Or would you like to hear more of my adventures from the world of cacao?

Then feel free to leave me a comment or write to me directly. I don’t just love sharing my stories, but I do so with the desire that we grow together, beyond our own perspectives. ☺️🤎

In gratitude,

Your Mischa