In Pucallpa I visited the gallery of Pablo Amaringo, a painter who depicted his ayahuasca visions in vivid color and detail. The cacaphony of pattern and symbology mesmerized me, and I stared at the selection of paintings for well on an hour. An affable fellow, a student of the late Amaringo and a teacher at the school for disadvantaged children he founded, followed me and answered my questions. One exchange went like this:"I'm interested by all the centaurs and mermaids," I said. "Did these symbols have significance for the Indians here pre-contact, or did they arrive with the Europeans?"
"When one takes ayahuasca, there are no borders. It is all one big space."
Besides the centaurs and mermaids, there were UFOs, bearded white angels, minarets, onion domes, fantastical cruise ships, an underwater snake with portholes in its side, devils emerging from pots of fire, supine women being healed by flaming shamans, fabulous headgear, geishas, and all manner of forest creatures. In almost every picture there was also a group of people gathered around an ayahuasca pot. Sometimes there was a figure vomiting, and sometimes a shaman blowing tobacco smoke from a pipe. There were many angels.
The human figures were often rough or stylized, but many of the animals were hyper-realistic. The style reminded me of Alex Grey, with whom Amaringo was in contact. Grey sent some of his paintings to Pucallpa as a gesture of friendship.
I left the gallery feeling dazed from my intense viewing of these wild visions. I look forward to learning more about Amaringo in "The Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo" from Inner Traditions Press when I can get my hands on it. His life story apparently includes a clandestine canoe trip to Brazil among other adventures, and seems worth reading about.
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