YOUR GUIDE FOR THE RETREAT
Meeting you at the Airport in Iquitos will be your guide during the retreat, Carlos Tanner. A student of the shaman, Juan, he will accompany you as you travel through the rainforest and attend each of the ceremonies that you attend. You may not be able to spend a lot of time with the shaman, but Carlos may be able to answer your questions, especially if you don't know spanish. Juan doesn't speak english very well and Carlos can help clarify what was said at the ceremonies or during conversations.


Carlos Tanner Dunn
Born in Maryland on July 8th, 1974, Carlos is the fourth of four boys in the Dunn family. Having an early interest in music and art, Carlos earned degrees in both art and philosophy from the University of Massachusetts and has studied african percussion for over 10 years. As a philosophy major, Carlos became very interested in world religion and the different perceptions of the truth. His desire was to find the purest form of religion there was. He began studying and practicing Buddhism in the spring of 1992.

He began to study African percussion in the spring of 1992 as well. Through the drum Carlos experienced spirituality for the first time: the sensation that the drum was no longer being played by him but rather by a spirit while he observed. Carlos noticed a similar phenomenon when dancing for long periods of time. He began to formulate his own spiritual belief system. Drumming, Dancing, Meditation, Chanting, Yoga, and the use of plant medicines all combined to form a unique practice for Carlos.

Carlos now practices various forms of meditation and has adopted many Buddhist principles into his beliefs but he continues to search for a spiritual teaching that will remind a modern-day person of the ancient wisdom of how to live in harmony with each other and the natural world.

His interest in shamanism can be traced back to when he was very young and saw Return of the Jedi in the movie theatre. Carlos was intrigued by the role of the shaman in the Ewok village. Even at an early age, he knew he wanted to be a shaman. In college he experimented heavily with mind-altering substances and began performing 'fusion' percussion with a House DJ named Hush. He developed theories about the spiritual use of plants like mushrooms and peyote and began to investigate ancient ceremonies. He read books by Carlos Castenada, Richard Bach, Terrence McKenna and Richard Alpert and found articles pertaining to every known psychedelic plant medicine, including ayahuasca, said to be the king of all the healing plants.

Carlos first journeyed to Peru in January of 2000. He hiked the Royal Inca Trail to Machu Picchu but did not, to his dismay, meet a shaman he could trust. He vowed to come back and go to the Amazon Rainforest, where shamanism was still practiced regularly and indigenous tribes were still common. Three years later, having already drank ayahuasca once in Massachusetts with a minister from the Santo Daime church and having used Salvia Divinorum extensively and experimented with DMT, Carlos ventured back to Peru, to the Amazon Rainforest.

He was prepared now. He drank ayahuasca with a shaman in Pucallpa but was not completely satisfied. He then travelled by boat for five days to Iquitos, the heart of the Peruvian Rainforest. There, he met Don Juan Tangoa Paima and stayed with him for three weeks, drinking ayahuasca five times. By the fourth ceremony, Carlos had been completely healed of a stomach problem that had bothered him for several years. He had also come to realize that he was meant to be a healer like Don Juan.

Now, Carlos lives with Juan and studies the science of the plants. He still plays his ashiko (african drum) and dances like no one's watching and he still meditates. He visits the United States twice a year to see family and friends and check in with the program assistants. He hopes to found a school for shamanism in Peru, so that people from all over the world can easily get an education in plant spirit medicine and recieve a certificate that will be respected by all medical communities.





As an art major, Carlos studied photography, illustration, and graphic design. He encourages program participants to express themselves through artistic exercises like post-ceremony painting sessions, free form chanting, drum circles, and spontaneous dance parties. Allowing the spirit to sing brings a joy to the soul, the inner core of one's being. Carlos suggests that everyone keep a journal during their stay in the rainforest to record their experiences and their development towards total health. A journal can serve as a vivid reminder of realizations that may be forgotten in another environment.

Another aid to remembering the lessons learned here is photographs. Depending on the length of the retreat, Carlos will shoot up to four rolls of film. With extensive knowledge of photography and a high quality manual camera, he will capture the participants on film during memorable moments and present each person with a photo album to take home at the end of their stay. He may also record one the ceremonies on CD or even film one on DVD. This is a very unique aspect of the retreat, a chance to listen to or watch this incredibly interesting event again and again and to show your friends and family just what a healing ceremony entails. It's somewhat difficult to describe in words alone.

With a journal and a photo album, and maybe a CD or even a DVD, as well as the advice of the shaman, ayahuasca inspired artwork, ancient tribal rhythms, and plant medicines to take back home, each participant is given the optimum opportunity to continue on the path towards total health and to maintain this health once it has been achieved.

Carlos is the director of AYAHUAYRA and also maintains this website.

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Contact Carlos at AYAHUAYRA to request more information
carlos@ayahuayra.org