Tony Natem Duku
Tony Natem Duku, an artist dedicated to healing, grew up distinct amongst his community in Iquitos. With his heightened sensitivity, he developed telepathic skills and telekinesis since the age of nine. At the age of 16, following a near-death experience, Tony’s healing capabilities fully materialized with the need to save his own life. He learned to work with energy, sound and color, in connection with and aided by the Amazonian maestro plants, his spiritual guides — unique in that he did not learn from a human maestro. With channeled therapeutic systems and diagnosing using mathematical calculations, he theorizes that anything and everything in ones environment is capable of assisting anyone’s healing process, and therefore there exists infinite ways to develop therapies to support an individual to align most harmoniously with their essence and life force.
“I have always sought new ways of healing, and this is why I was interested in terminal illnesses. I noticed when terminally ill patients were on their deathbed — yet still with life in them — that their path was not death.
They needed to find their own strength, to find love and reconciliation with themselves, for themselves. My biggest intention in all of my work is to help people encounter their inner strength — this energy that lives within each person, learn to love themselves, and encounter the love that exists in each person.”
In the early 90’s, Tony founded an organization of Curanderos, native healers with the objective of preserving the lands, knowledge, tradition and language of the healers. At this time, he was also teaching and working with foreign scientists and students visiting the National University of the Peruvian Amazon and the Institution of Investigations of the Peruvian Amazon. Since the early 2000’s, Tony has visited several European countries as a speaker, therapist, curandero and artist in painting expositions. In Chile, he has also taught courses on healing with plant medicine ceremonies and alternative therapies to psychotherapists at the University and various psychiatric clinics. In 2007, he founded his center outside of Iquitos, Trocha Amazonica. In recent years, he spoke at several conferences for the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy and collaborated with Dennis McKenna in his Journey of the Soul ayahuasca retreats. Tony continues to study, experimenting with his own experiences, searching for faster and more efficient ways to help people, on a more profound level.
“Every day I try to perfect my work. It’s another form of art — the art of healing — a profound introspection of the being.”
Christina Lemomi Chaya
Christina’s transition in 2002, from Senior Art Director of a marketing agency in Manhattan, to social and environmental entrepreneurialism in South America, led her to awaken to her ancestral lineage — dedicating her life’s work to a more harmonic and soul-empowered existence of self, community and planet. Along her path of collaborating with various maestros, she met Dr. Dennis J. McKenna with whom she shared a common vision, and they embarked in establishing the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy. As co-founder, board member and Executive Director during its nascent years, she led the development of all its events and programs including the 50th Anniversary Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs Conference (ESPD50), Journey of the Soul ayahuasca retreats, Mystery School Retreats (first launched with Alexandre Tannous in Nov 2019), online events including “A Tribute to Terence McKenna,” and the ongoing BioGnosis Project where she co-directed the award-winning documentary “BioGnosis, Bridges to Ancestral Wisdom.”
Her vision to help interweave the wisdom of the ancestors, new regenerative methodologies, with the basic needs of the people — in their space, at that time — has led her through diverse projects in South America.
In the “Valley of Longevity” Vilcabamba, Ecuador, she established a Cultural Community Center with the efforts of the local people, parroquial and regional governments, where its Youth Eco-Club organized workshops, projects for their town, and produced a local newspaper. With a grant from the Ministry of Culture, she organized Festivals for Sustainability, and local artisan fairs. She also produced a book of stories told by over 100 elders, interviewed by local volunteer high school students she trained, published by the University of Loja. In northern Ecuador, she spearheaded innovative waste management projects in a remote town in Cotacachi, involving the schools, local organizations and foreign volunteers. In Urubamba, the Sacred Valley of Peru, she initiated awareness campaigns for healthier living with the Municipality, which included public forums, a TV program and mini-programs on the regional radio station. From 2013, Christina started to support Dennis McKenna’s Ayahuasca conferences. She gained much more insight into the world of plant medicine as the Ecuadorian representative for the Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council.
Currently with Wasi Medicine Journeys, she is pioneering a more holistic approach to working with plant medicines, principally ayahuasca, for healing self, community and planet.