Ah, yes. The dreaded preparation "dieta" and all the stress it carries behind it. For many, this can be a far more difficult process than the actual weekend itself. But there is a widespread misunderstanding about what this word actually means — and why it's not what it's often thought to be. So let's untangle the terms.
Diet (in the context of working with plants) refers simply to the preparation guidelines around food and substances in the days leading up to a retreat weekend.
Dieta is the Spanish word for diet, but when used in the context of working with the plants, it is commonly — and incorrectly — applied to the dietary preparation for a retreat weekend. Properly used, it refers to something far older and distinct: a process known in the Shipibo language as sama.
Sama, translated into Spanish simply as dieta, carries far more meaning than a literal translation can convey. It is a cultural and spiritual term referring to a very specific energy, container, and endowment within the Shipibo tradition — describing how one engages with master plants at the deepest level.
Sama (the true and correct use of "dieta" in context of this work) is a process that takes place specifically — and, for purists like us, only — in the jungle. Briefly put, sama is the process within the Shipibo tradition of building a relationship with a master plant over an extended period of time through isolation, meditation, silence, and fasting. Each day, you ingest a liquid extract of the master plant, and the growing relationship is mediated by a curandero in the Amazon jungle as you root the plant or tree within your body.
In the present day, with the immense and growing popularity of this work over the last 20 years, western adaptations have emerged under names like "distance dietas" or "soft dietas." These are, again, a misuse of the word dieta — and by extension, sama. In the Shipibo tradition, sama is a strict process rooted in ancient technology. It cannot be engaged with lightly or offered casually... But that will be a conversation for another article...
So then — what are we actually talking about when someone refers to their "dieta" before sitting with the plants on a weekend retreat?
This is the process of spending a number of days to weeks (or longer, if one prefers) shifting toward clean, whole foods in the lead-up to a retreat. You begin removing excessive salt, oil, processed foods, sugars, stimulants, fried and spicy foods, dairy, heavier meats, and more. We can all agree that the standard Western diet doesn't place health and wellness at the top of the pyramid (pun intended) — and the general diet of most people in the modern world is incredibly processed, dense, and heavy on both body and mind. It weighs us down, constricts our natural flow of energy, and dulls otherwise healthy frequencies throughout the entire human system.
When you receive medicine, you are not simply drinking plants. You are inviting one of the highest, most intelligent forms of consciousness into your body. One of the most common responses to working with this medicine is a deep, innate sense that it knows you far better than you know yourself. It moves and permeates through you, reaching corners of your body and mind you didn't know existed, hadn't visited, or had forgotten entirely. You want to do everything you can, on the human side of things, to create as much space and openness as possible so the medicine can activate, move freely, allowing you to do your work in partnership with it.
If you are carrying a significant amount of density and sludge from the food you eat, you are creating roadblock after roadblock for the medicine to move through. This can considerably slow your process of getting into the deeper work you came for. But if you prepare accordingly — if your body is clean and energetically light — much of that initial, surface-level clearing is already handled, and the medicine can move directly into the more meaningful work you came to do.
Think of the medicine as a flashlight moving through the different rooms of your conscious and subconscious mind, bringing light to the areas that need attention and investigation. The unnecessary densities that a poor preparation diet creates are like mud on the lens — the light is still there, but it can't shine as clearly or reach as far. Or like a thick fog, diffusing the beam before it can land where it’s needed. You prepare your diet before a retreat weekend to bypass this as much as possible, understanding that you are entering into a partnership — you and the medicine working together. Showing up for yourself in preparation is what creates the environment for the medicine to show up for you.
Something we like to say is that the ceremony starts the moment you say yes to joining a retreat. Energetics begin to move, and life can start conspiring in your favor — aligning you in the direction your work is calling you toward. The energy of these plants reaches far beyond the cup you drink and long before you arrive to drink it. When you start looking at it this way, the diet is no longer a restriction — it is an invitation. By the time you sit down to drink, the work will already be well underway.
