Shamans & Staff - The Feather Crown Ayahuasca Team
Don Carlos Landazuri
Kichwa Elder and Traditional Healer, Age 82
Ceremonies led by Don Carlos unfold in an atmosphere of profound calm and safety. Throughout the ceremony, he connects participants with the sacred forces of the Amazon. His individual cleansing ritual includes a limpia with a bundle of surupanga leaves, followed by blowing over the crown chakra.
You can meet him in this video: Introducing Carlos Landazuri on YouTube. You can turn on the English subtitles for this video by clicking on the [cc] icon.
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Don Carlos was born into an Indigenous Kichwa family from the Napo River region of the Ecuadorian Amazon. He is a highly respected healer with an excellent reputation, sought out by people from several provinces of Ecuador.
Within his Kichwa tradition, Don Carlos understands his calling through encounters with sacred places in the rainforest and relationships with beings regarded as possessing healing powers. This spiritual understanding informs his work during ayahuasca ceremonies.
Don Carlos is a yachak—a traditional “man of knowledge.” He embodies the wisdom and depth of the healing traditions of the Napo Runa people. He generously shares his knowledge, and participants have the opportunity to ask him questions on the day after each ceremony.
His life’s calling is to help those who seek support through his tradition. If you would like to discuss a personal concern, we can help arrange a conversation with him or a separate individual traditional session.
During his healing ceremonies, Don Carlos performs an individual limpia for each participant using surupanga leaves. He also sings soothing healing songs that were taught to him by the spirits of nature.
Don Carlos is remarkably calm, humble and kind. He takes a sincere interest in every participant and seeks the best way to help each person move towards greater health and harmony.
As a Kichwa elder, he carries the knowledge and spiritual strength accumulated throughout his long life as a healer and ceremonial leader. Spending time with him offers a rare opportunity to connect with the wisdom of a living Amazonian tradition.
Maestro Sina – Emilio Ramirez
Shipibo Maestro and Traditional Healer, Age 75
Maestro Sina works within the Shipibo tradition, using icaros and individual ceremonial work to address what this tradition understands as energetic blockages. Participants may experience the ceremonies in different ways. He also guides month-long master plant dietas.
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Maestro Sina was born in a Shipibo community on the Ucayali River in Peru. From early childhood, the spiritual wisdom of his ancestors was passed down to him. Both his grandfather and his great-great-grandfather were Onanyas—traditional Shipibo healers.
Sina has dedicated his life to helping others. For the past 35 years, he has worked both with members of his own community and with visitors from many different countries.
He is humble, thoughtful and wise, with a profound understanding of Ayahuasca and medicinal plants. The Shipibo people are renowned for their mastery of plant medicine and sacred plants, as well as for their extraordinarily beautiful healing songs known as icaros.
They are also highly skilled artists and craftspeople. During your stay, you may have the opportunity to purchase some of their beautiful traditional artwork and textiles. All the women in Sina’s family embroider and create traditional handicrafts.
Throughout the night, Sina sings icaros and works individually with participants. In the Shipibo understanding, these songs are used to perceive and cleanse energies and support harmony. This describes his traditional and spiritual approach to ceremonial work, rather than a method of medically examining the body.
Through his ceremonial work, Sina addresses what the Shipibo tradition understands as heavy or dark energies and imbalance in the energetic body. He may also interpret previous experiences with substances or medicinal plants from this traditional perspective.
One of Sina’s greatest qualities is that he does not keep his knowledge secret. He enjoys teaching and sharing his wisdom with others, including people from outside the Shipibo culture. Under his guidance, several students have learned to sing icaros and help others through traditional healing work.
For the past five years, Jan Rostlinka has also studied with Sina and completed several traditional plant dietas under his guidance. Through this work, a strong friendship and bond have developed between them.
This alliance allows us to invite Maestro Sina to our center, which he has already visited in the past. The local Kichwa people are also very much looking forward to welcoming him back. They greatly appreciated his work and felt its benefits on many levels—to put it simply, they were moved to tears.
Jan Rostlinka
Feather Crown Founder and Retreat Organizer
Jan's life mission is to help others using sacred plants. To achieve this goal, he moved permanently to the Amazon rainforest in 2008 and underwent training with elders from the Kichwa, Shipibo, and Yawanawá tribes. His training continues in close connection with his teachers. For this work, he built his own center in a beautiful location in the Ecuadorian Amazon highlands on the banks of a crystal-clear mountain river, where Jan lives. During retreats, Jan coordinates the program and support team, assists during ceremonies, helps with communication and is available for personal conversations. He will guide you through the garden of medicinal plants and explain their many secrets. He will assist in ceremonies led by elders and, if necessary, will be happy to help with personal consultations.
Born in 1982, Jan continues to study with his Indigenous teachers. Read his full profile for details of his background, teachers and role at Feather Crown.
Omar Yumbo -Kichwa tribe
Ceremony assistant and jungle guide, Age 38
Omar Yumbo is a 38-year-old Kichwa man from the Ecuadorian Amazon who has spent his life in close relationship with the rainforest and his Indigenous traditions. His uncle is a Kichwa yachak who has been passing knowledge, experience and spiritual strength to him. Omar has developed a grounded understanding of ayahuasca medicine and brings a calm, capable and confident presence to the ceremonies. He supports participants both during and outside the ceremonial work and also offers sananga, the traditional Amazonian eye medicine.
Barbora Alegría, Mgr. — Baru
Psychologist, Integration Facilitator and Interpreter
Baru is a warm soul who will accompany you throughout your stay. She was born in the forests of the Bohemian Highlands and nature and the Earth have become her lifelong teachers. She felt a strong calling to discover the secrets of a happy and joyful life and to inspire and support others on this journey. 'The secret is in each of us, in the depths of our hearts. There lies the source of life and our divinity. All we have to do is remember who we really are, let go of fear and the programs of the mind, relax and trust. We create the whole world from within, and likewise, all change begins within. Plants used with good intention and in a supportive environment can help us clear out old energies and expand our consciousness. To remember who we are, health, joy, inner strength and wisdom and above all love.' Barbora completed her master's degree in Psychology at Masaryk University in Brno in 2014. She brings a psychological perspective to participant support and integration. Her personal interests also include meditation and energy work. During her three years in the Peruvian jungle, she studied and helped at a healing center, where she assisted a local shaman and followed several plant dietas. She is also a lover of music and will make the moments before some ceremonies more enjoyable with the tones of a string santoor. Last but not least, Baru has studied and worked in translation and provides us with Spanish interpretation. She assists during ceremonies, sharing, forest walks and plant baths and is there for you whenever you need advice or support.
