Shaman

Cela fait tres longtemps que je n’ai pas publie en francais, voici mon dernier episode en francais, j’espere avoir l’occasion d’en faire plus bientot! Vous pouvez vous abonner a mon podcast sur itunes et Spotify.

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A friend of mine, Susi Mai, just told me she appreciated my “Balls to the Wall” approach. While I immediately liked the sound of this expression, I never heard about it so another friend - Ouriel Ohayon looked it up for me.

I am thinking about calling this newsletter “balls to the wall” what do you think?

Now for some recent news about my adventures. I have spent a few days with Benki in Los Angeles. He gave the most powerful talk I have ever heard and I am hoping to publish it here and my podcast soon. If there is anything you listen to and want to share it’s definitely this talk.

Spending so much quality time with him, I have seen him as the most powerful leader currently alive and I am confident you will agree with him. I have decided to dedicate all my time to help him in his projects and also help the leaders of the Yawanawa tribe, Nixiwaka Biraci the chief and his son Isku Biraci Jr that I highly recommend you to follow on Instagram. With their people they are on a mission to save the Amazon forest and long term help the world heal. They shared with me some of their plans and I have offered my financial help and time which they accepted. We will need your help too, when the time is right as the forest and the tribes are threatened and disappearing quickly. The tribes protect the Amazon forest and are on a constant life threat. One of the guardians of the forest and friend died last week, shot in the face.

Paulo Paulino Guajajara, also known as Lobo

Fortunately the press around the world started to talk about it, not enough though.

‘Guardian’ of the Amazon Killed in Brazil by Illegal Loggers

Amazon’s ‘Guardian of the Forest’ shot dead by illegal loggers

An ambush in Brazil’s Amazon that killed a forest guardian

Please read and share as broadly as you can in your social networks, emails, friends, everything you have if you have not shared it yet.

We heard about the forest in danger but much less about the indigenous losing daily their lives to protect it. Millions were killed by the missionaries and it continues. They are considered by the Brazil Government and President as “animals” that do not deserve to live. They have their own lands but the new President decided to let anyone invade their territory and kill them.

We all live on indigenous lands. They are in danger. We need to learn about them and their ancestral knowledge. Tribal Map of America Shows Whose Land You're Actually Living On

We kill them for our burgers.If there is one simple thing you can do to help, stop eating red meat and particularly beef. When you buy beef in most places, you fuel the need to feed the cattle and the soy industry. There isn’t enough soy in the world so it farmers and large multinational suppliers of soy burn the forest to produce it and feed the animals. It is very difficult to trace and a piece of meat you buy in the U.S. or in France might be produced here but the soy has likely been grown in the Amazon forest and destroys it.

There is a great document showing the whole chain and companies such as Burger King, McDonalds, Cosco and most of the largest supermarket chains in the world as major customers of these soy suppliers. I was shocked to see on the list brands such as French supermarkets E. Leclerc, Auchan and others around the world. I love meat too but it is a very easy thing to do for the planet: stop buying it.

Here are the companies behind the burning of the Amazon (absolutely must read)

Avoid buying any meat from these companies. I wish there would be a complete list of the offender brands available online and maintained daily. Like cigarettes, there should be a warning on every piece of meat for sale that says “red meat kills indigenous people in the Amazon and the forest. Your children are in danger”.

Governments around the world are considering taxing red meat like tobacco in an effort to curb climate change

Also at the entrance of fast foods:

Burger King Linked to a Whopping Million-Plus Acres of Deforestation

Fortunately Governments are starting to take action: Governments around the world are considering taxing red meat like tobacco in an effort to curb climate change

Sadly, the Brazil government is doing everything it can to destroy the forest and the indigenous to “boost its economic development”. Including killing those who defend it. Brazilian official who protects Amazon indigenous tribes shot dead. The indigenous I worked with received 100 death threats and constant attempts to kill them. Most of the great indigenous leaders have been killed and it is happening right now. It is a silent war against the planet we need to be aware of. This is all of course in addition to the way we constantly destroy our planet, which I am learning about and hoping to contribute to. Starting by less consumption and less plastic. We're Now At A Million Plastic Bottles Per Minute - 91% Of Which Are Not Recycled.

Thank you for reading me and sharing as much as you can these links and if you feel like, this newsletter and podcast.

I will write a more positive note very shortly.

Much love,Loic

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Shoñaki, Ashaninka from Peru, Livia King and myself

Greetings everyone and hi from Los Angeles. I am here with Livia King, that I met in the jungle while we were doing our short dieta with the Ashaninka. I thought we should really have a Portuguese version of this newsletter so that the tribes and friends from Brazil and Portugal can read it.

Livia is Brazilian and agreed to join me translating the newsletter and writing her own posts on it, sharing about her experience with plant medicine, her love with the tribes and of course mother Ayahuasca.

Livia is from Rio de Janeiro, currently based in NY. She has been in the spiritual path since a very young age, and has started the healing path with the indigenous medicines recently in the Amazon. You’ll be able to know more about her in the following newsletters. Keep your eyes open!

Subscribe to the Transformation newsletter in Portuguese.

We’re in Los Angeles until Monday to meet with Benki Piyāko who we worked with in the Amazon Forest. Read about him planting two million trees in Time Magazine.

Benki is giving many talks and also planting trees on Saturday in L.A. on Saturday, we will be there join us if you can!

Other news:-we are looking for volunteers to translate in French and possibly other languages just reply to this email if you are interested and thanks!-the podcast is now available on iTunes and on Spotify!-I relaunched my YouTube channel and posting videos as well

Gadgets and tech-I started using the astrology app Co-Star knowing nothing about astrology but it’s very cool-I got some podcasting gear, more on this later.

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I have been working with plant medicine for more than three years now and I posted about my first Ayahuasca experience in Peru. I received mostly great reactions from friends. I also got some negative feedback and lost a few friends over it.

I have also decided to restart my YouTube channel for those of you who like videos so here is today’s video and you can subscribe to my YouTube channel if you like.

What you find online and in books about plant medicine is mostly misleading, scary and poorly documented. It is most of the time the exact opposite of my own experience. I know some of my friends and family are worried about me and either trying to make me stop my progress or simply disappeared as friends. I guess this means they aren’t real friends if they cannot have some compassion, patience and understanding for my work. I will not have any hard feelings if you decide to stop following what I publish or take some distance. 

I will just hope that you look at the positive changes. Each time I drank a cup or did any of the many medicines I tried I felt better or got improved as a human being. I have stopped drinking entirely for nearly two months. It is new and hard (being French I really like my glass of wine) but I intend to keep going and also hold the other parts of the dieta I learned recently. I hope my friends can watch the improvements instead of focusing on the negatives.

I am in now way suggesting anyone should try or recommending anything. I share my own personal experience as I think the world would be better if everyone would try at least once in their lives. I am aware of the contradiction “I do not suggest you try” but at the same time I am convinced absolutely everyone should.

The tribes I worked with live until 110 years old without the common cancer, Alzheimer and other widespread diseases of our western world. The older adults from the tribes look 10 years younger than the western older people I know at the same age and have a much more fast and vivid brain. They start giving ayahuasca to kids very early regardless of the fact that the human brain keeps evolving until age 27. I have played and talked with many children in the tribes and they are among the happiest and best young human beings I have had the pleasure to meet.

I call it work because there is not much entertaining about it. It involves deep introspection, recollection of past trauma all the way up to childhood, vomiting and other purging, intense body reactions that can lead to loss of consciousness and some of the “medicines” are actually dangerous if they are not applied by highly experienced masters from tribes that learned them over generations. Who you do it with is more important than what you actually take. 

If you read and listen to me please take it as my own personal experience and keep all the critical mind necessary to understand that your own experience might be very different if you try. Each time I drank a cup of ayahuasca I had myself a totally different experience. It can be wonderful and the best feeling and visions in the world (my first cup) as very dark, scary and uncomfortable (my second cup one day after) that makes you never want to do it again. Yet, I did it again and have always been really happy to see the positive changes both in my physical body and my mind. I would say the most impressive effects are on your mind and spirit and how it makes you calmer, less needy and generally happier. I am feeling great and very light.

There are major risks and basics to know if you decide to start drinking the medicine. Who you do it with. Ask the background of the “shaman”. What’s his lineage? Is if from or originating from an indigenous tribe? How long has he or she spent learning the techniques and prayers? How long has he or she spent in the Amazon forest? Where are you going to do it? It can be wonderful as well outside of the forest but I would highly recommend to do it in nature, the environment is very important. How many ceremonies has this person lead and how many people? Which friends do you know have worked with him or her? How was their experience? I do not know of any major incidents of anyone drinking ayahuasca ever. All the issues I know about are either with “shamans” that had insufficient training or way worse, that something else other than the two plants composing the ayahuasca brew has been added to it. Anything except water added to the brew can be dangerous or even cause death. 

Before considering drinking ayahuasca I would recommend at least a week with no alcohol, drugs of any kind including from plants (weed is forbidden in many tribes for example), no red meat or no meat except chicken, no sugar if possible including fruits and no coffee. The absolute “no no no” is any anti depressant of any kind. Any medication affecting the brain should be stopped months before. More surprisingly, the masters I worked with also ask no sex (including with yourself) before and after ceremonies (a week before and after is a good practice). Sex they say is the most powerful energy we have and we need to keep it for ourselves to go through what the medicine will drive us to. Tribes also believe that each time you have sex with partner you carry their negative energy and that should be avoided close to a ceremony. They say that Ayahuasca is very exclusive and “she” (always presented as feminine energy or mother nature) doesn’t work well with other energies. Students in long term dietas say they are “married to ayahuasca” and observe the dieta for a year or more. It is highly recommend to observe the same diet at least a week after. I have been on the dieta for two months as I write this and intend to keep going. 

I have friends who told me they would like to try but avoid the ceremony around it. I would say that the ceremony is even more important than trying any medicine. Masters use powerful prayers and techniques to prepare the brew, the group taking it and protecting them. It generally comes with wonderful songs and instrumental music that enhances or even starts visions. What you see will be very different depending on who you do it with. I would absolutely never consider just “drinking a cup” without a proper ceremony and master with me.

I also recommend checking the legality of the substance you are thinking about in the place you are going to do the ceremony. Most countries where the Amazon forest belongs such as Brazil or Peru legalized it or tolerate it in ceremony, religious or medical use. This is one of the main reasons why I went many times to the Amazon forest. Many countries unfortunately never did the homework to understand the difference between plant medicine and drugs.

Alcohol is generally impossible to find in the Amazon tribe villages I stayed in. There is little sugar and fat (no butter, no milk) and they often joke at soda and processed food as “poison from the western world”. It’s a cultural difference. We eat and drink sugar, milk, alcohol without thinking about it as a drug or something bad for us and without thinking about the millions of sick people in our world.

Ayahuasca is known to be absolutely not addictive and in fact helping stop any addiction to any substance (it helped me completely reduce and then stop my alcohol consumption). Some drug addicts take it once and never touch their drugs ever again.

Ayahuasca also self regulates the quantity you take. If you take too much or there is too much in your body you will just get rid of it through vomiting or going to the bathroom. The more you take the more difficult it gets to drink more. Your body knows what to take and it is very interesting to see the shamans offer more medicine during the long ceremony nights and absolutely no-one is willing to take more. Most “shamans” will also feel you and know exactly what to give you. If your first cup is only filled in with a third of a glass, just accept it and go slow. See what it does. It generally is safe to try a little and see what it does as it is very powerful. If you feel good and want to have some more, go for it with the same caution. There is no “over-dose” possible as your body will reject it by itself.

Feeling bad during ceremonies is part of the “work” and it is the medicine either fixing something physically or spiritually. Accept it and go through it focusing on the fact that you will get better. A cup lasts two to four hours generally and there are no side effects after or recovery time like too much alcohol can do. You might just be tired and sleep before waking up feeling great and full of energy which has always been my experience.

With these words of caution, I will share how incredibly healing my experience has been and how it changed me.

Thanks for reading my words of caution, my next post will be a detailed story about my life changing first cup in Peru in the Amazon forest, almost exactly three years ago. 

Notes-I asked if you could introduce yourself in my previous note but comments are turned-off on substack. I will post a dedicated conversation soon.-if you’re in San Francisco please join Erin Granat’s preview of her new documentary about… death! It’s on Monday October 28 at 7pm at The Laundry 26th Street in SF and I will be there. Say hi if you come! Erin was first to introduce me to the Yawanawa tribe three years ago so she is very special to me. -currently reading: When Plants Dream: Ayahuasca, Amazonian Shamanism and the Global Psychedelic Renaissance

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Biraci Jr Yawanawá “Isku” and myself at Akasha in Brazil a few weeks ago. Isku has helped me for three years and invited me recently to the Yawanawá sacred village. The face paintings are a traditional activity with the Amazon tribes and are said to provide protection. More soon. Nothing scary with the paintings I promise!

Since this is a new newsletter and a new podcast I thought I should introduce myself briefly.

I live in San Francisco, California since 2007. I learned from the incredible technology entrepreneurs at the heart of Silicon Valley and also spent time on my two passions, kite-surfing and paragliding which are both easy to practice 20 minutes away from my home.

I was born on July 14, 1972 (yep Cancer) in the South of France, a small city called Perpignan an hour and a half drive from Barcelona in Spain, on the Mediterranean coast. 

My father Patrick originated from French Brittany which shows in my “Breton” name. He died more than ten years ago from lung cancer smoking too many cigarettes. His lineage is Breton and my 23 and me shows Nordic origins. He gave me my tall body and heavy bones and stature that some people call “Viking” like. Patrick and my mother were selling small sailing and motor boats in a village called Saint-Cyprien Plage. He also gave me my passion for sailing and now kite-surfing training me and following me in many races on “Optimist” and “Moth-Europe” before they had foils on…

My mother Anne was born in Barcelona and is of Catalan origin. She spends her time between the mountains in Font-Romeu and Perpignan. I was mostly raised in Catalan by Anne and my grand mother and grand father. I love the south of France and the Spanish Catalunya. I am a big fan of that region, people and of course food. I don’t go back there very often and miss it.

I got engaged when I was 18, married at 20 and first kid at 23. I was happily married for 20 years. 

I won’t talk here about my ex-wife Geraldine to respect her privacy. She gave me three beautiful children. Arthur, Gauthier and Grégoire. Géraldine is an incredible woman. I have the deepest gratitude for everything she gave me and made me. We built together many successful businesses as co-entrepreneurs working together and supporting each other. I don’t even know how she managed to run our businesses at the same time as raising our beautiful children.

The most important I achieved is without any doubt to have three beautiful boys in this world. They are now adults and very successful and I am very proud of them and love them with all my heart. I won’t talk too much about them either for the same privacy reasons but love them with everything I have.

Entrepreneur and business angel

I built several businesses. Some failed, some succeeded. I am the most proud of building with Geraldine the LeWeb conference that helped many people realize they could be entrepreneurs too. LeWeb featured the talks of great technology entrepreneurs for 12 years or and inspired many. The conference at its peak had about 4,000 participants from 90 countries and was one of the pioneers and first of its kind in the world. When we launched in 2003 was only one similar event, in Silicon Valley, which was called Web 2.0. We sold the conference and it ended (sadly!) in 2014. I am also a business angel and invested and supported many entrepreneurs financially and with some advice. 

Writing online 

I have started writing on the internet in 2003 as one of the early bloggers and never stopped. Sharing has always helped me in my business career and definitely got the LeWeb conference started. It was originally called “LesBlogs”. The first edition gathered 200 of the top first bloggers in the world, from 20 countries. I gathered them mostly thanks to my early blogging. I also wrote a book in French about blogging as I was obsessed by the phenomenon and how I thought it would change the world by enabling anyone to share any thoughts without the need to go through traditional media and publishing. 

Personal transformation 

It is now time for me to share much less about business and technology and much more about myself and my personal transformation. 

While successful in business and family I also went through deep personal challenges as I divorced 7 years ago. I was 40 when everything started to seriously shift and the very well known personal crisis many men go through between 40 and 50 hit me hard.

Meditation and therapy 

I did several silent meditation retreats and learned to meditate which greatly helped. I highly recommend the Vipassana 10 days silent meditation which I did and loved even though it was hard. I did 7 years of therapy hoping I would let go of the past and what made me feel bad and finally be happier. While therapy helped me understand my issues better it did really not make me happy. I am however very grateful to my therapists who put great efforts in changing my mind. It definitely helped. It mostly kept me on track with my life and made me understand my past and my key issues which is very important for the next chapter of my life.

I have been journaling for years after reading the Miracle of Morning pages which I highly recommend.

My friends helped me the most. I have fantastic friends around the world and love them. I cannot be more grateful for their constant support.

The experience and change I went through with three years of plant medicine and my recent 30 days in the Amazon forest changed me so much that I now feel like sharing everything I learned on this new newsletter.

Please do introduce yourself also on comments below as I am also hoping to make this place a real community. It takes a minute, say a few words about yourself, what you do and where you live!

Thanks for reading.

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