Origins and authorship
Naming where knowledge comes from, without exoticising or using Indigenous images or symbols as a lure.
Community
Community and reciprocity
What we do together, and the relationship we want to nurture with the cultures that have safeguarded knowledge of the plants.
The Brazilian Amazon seen from the International Space Station. Photo: NASA · public domain
Activities
Culture, learning and community life
Alongside the ceremonies, the association offers cultural, educational and community activities.
Circles and gatherings
- Sharing circles
- Medicine music, mantra and sound bath circles
- Spaces for listening and integration
- Days of reflection
- Four retreats a year
- One trip a year: to Peru, to do a diet with teacher plants, or to Brazil, to Indigenous communities we work with through other associations
- Barbecues and calçotadas, alcohol-free
Well-being and support network
- Meditation and yoga
- Mindful walks and forest bathing
- Family constellations
- A network of like-minded therapists and psychologists
Learning and outreach
- Ethnobotany workshops
- Talks and lectures
- Publications and research
Cooperation
- Direct collaboration with Indigenous peoples
- Collaboration through associations that work with them
- Support for projects with peoples of the Amazon and Central America
- Defence of their territories and traditions
Medicine music
The music that accompanies
Listen
Our own recordings will be available to listen to here very soon.
Also on
In Amazonian traditions singing is medicine: icaros are sacred songs that carry the strength of the plants, and those who accompany sing to guide, hold and harmonise the process. At AYNI we sing icaros, Santo Daime hymns, songs and mantras from different traditions, and our own original music.
Medicine music is also present beyond the ceremonies: in group singing, sound baths and the association's circles. Over time, many people make it their own tool for returning to calm and to the body.
How music helps
It is the thread that guides us
Like Ariadne's thread, which in the Greek myth allowed Theseus to enter the labyrinth and find his way back out, in ceremonies with entheogens music is the thread that lets us venture into unexplored places of the unconscious knowing there is always something to hold on to, so we can go through the whole process safely.
It is medicine in itself
Like the Om of India's ancestral tradition, many traditions place sound at the origin of everything, even before the word. Today the scientific evidence shows its healing effect. That is why, for us, music is medicine in its own right.
It guides the experience
During an entheogenic experience, music is a "hidden therapist": in a clinical trial, how the music was experienced predicted later improvement.
It opens emotion
Entheogens intensify the emotional response to music, helping difficult emotions to surface and be worked through.
It supports mood
Music therapy reduces symptoms of depression, according to the Cochrane review.
It accompanies recovery
In addiction, music therapy improves motivation for change and emotional state.
It eases stress
Listening to and making music reduces stress, both as felt and as measured in the body.
Studies it draws on
-
The hidden therapist: evidence for a central role of music in psychedelic therapy
Study of patients with depression treated with psilocybin: the experience of the music was associated with improvement.
-
LSD enhances the emotional response to music
Controlled trial: LSD intensified the emotions evoked by music.
-
Music therapy for depression
Cochrane review: music therapy added to usual care reduces depression.
-
Effects of music therapy and music-based interventions in the treatment of substance use disorders: A systematic review
Systematic review of 21 studies on music therapy in substance use disorders.
-
Effects of music interventions on stress-related outcomes: a systematic review and two meta-analyses
Meta-analysis of 104 studies: music interventions reduce physiological and psychological stress.
Reciprocity
Giving and receiving in balance
In Andean communities, ayni refers to a system of giving and receiving that keeps relationships between people, the community and nature in balance. Those who receive help return it when someone else needs it. That is where our name comes from.
Knowledge of ayahuasca and other plants does not belong to us: it has been safeguarded for generations by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Its global spread raises a fundamental question: what kind of relationship are we building with those cultures when their knowledge and practices cross borders?
Our answer is to collaborate: AYNI works directly with Indigenous peoples and also through associations that accompany them, supporting their projects, their territories and the passing on of their traditions.
Traditional preparation of ayahuasca. Photo: AYNI
Consent and autonomy
Respecting the right of peoples to decide about their knowledge and to be consulted freely, in advance and in an informed manner.
Non-extractive relationships
Contributing in concrete ways to sustaining communities, their territories and their structures.
Context
Initiatives and frameworks
FERM Code of Ethics
Member organisations commit to «la dignidad, la sostenibilidad, el respeto y reciprocidad hacia los entornos naturales y los pueblos nativos» (dignity, sustainability, respect and reciprocity towards the natural environments and native peoples) from which most entheogens come (point 28). They also oppose biopiracy and cultural appropriation (point 31). Read the Code.
Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative of the Americas
A Chacruna Institute programme, launched in 2021 and inspired by the concept of ayni, which channels contributions to Indigenous organisations in several countries of the Americas. chacruna-iri.org.
Nagoya Protocol
An agreement under the Convention on Biological Diversity, in force since 2014. It seeks the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, with prior informed consent. cbd.int.
A case of biopiracy
In 1986 a plant patent was granted in the United States on a variety of Banisteriopsis caapi. Amazonian Indigenous organisations, led by COICA, challenged it. The patent expired in 2003, and the case became a reference point in the debate on the ownership of traditional knowledge. CIEL.
Girona · 11–13 September 2026
World Ayahuasca Forum 2026
A new time of alliance
From 11 to 13 September 2026, with preliminary activities on the 9th and 10th, the World Ayahuasca Forum was held at the Palau de Congressos de Girona. It was organised by the Instituto Yorenka Tasorentsi (under Asháninka leadership), the Instituto Nixiwaka (under Yawanawá leadership) and ICEERS.
Its most significant feature was its governance. The peoples who safeguard ayahuasca had already organised their own congresses, and ICEERS other world conferences; this was the first time they did it together, sharing decision-making power, in a model of co-design and co-management. There were delegations from some twenty Indigenous peoples, and the press estimated total attendance at around 1,700–1,800 people.
The programme's main themes included:
- Recognition of Indigenous sciences and sovereignty over their knowledge.
- Indigenous rights and intellectual property, in the face of appropriation and biopiracy.
- Safety, ethics and good practice.
- The legal landscape and rights-based regulatory models, beyond prohibition.
- Territory, heritage and cultivation.
- An economy of life: from extraction to regeneration.
Some of us from AYNI attended the Forum as participants. The Red Micelio Federation (FERM), of which we are part, took part with an information stand and in dialogue panels on ethics, care and community self-regulation. What we took away.
The forum followed the 5th Indigenous Ayahuasca Conference (Acre, Brazil, January 2025). Its final letter called for respect for free, prior and informed consultation, denounced biopiracy and uncontrolled commercialisation, and affirmed Indigenous peoples as the legitimate decision-makers on the use of ayahuasca.
Official Forum website ICEERS 5th Indigenous Conference
Coverage: Ara · EFE/Infobae · El Gerió