AyaKambo Plant & Animal Spirit Work by Armin Raso
Welcome to the original AyaKambo Project. AyaKambo stands to honour the custodians of this medicine, to restore clarity where confusion has spread, and to uphold the integrity that the original tradition deserves.
AyaKambo is a contemporary field of plant and animal spirit work rooted in Amazonian frog medicine and allied plant teachers. It exists to honour the custodians of these medicines, correct confusion where it has spread, and hold a clear, safe container for genuine transformation.
I founded AyaKambo in 2012 and carried the work intensively until 2017. During those years, it became a reference point in the German-speaking sphere for Kambô held with discipline, safety-consciousness, and respect for tradition. After 2017, I chose to pause the public work for nine years. That pause was intentional: the field needed to mature, be audited, and be restructured—less identity, more responsibility; less scene, more stewardship; less talking, more clarity.
From the beginning, my orientation was aligned with the caboclo lineages in Brazil, which historically carried forest knowledge into urban contexts while keeping the distinction between worlds intact. AyaKambo grew in that same spirit: rooted in traditional context, carefully adapted for contemporary life, with preservation of lineage as a priority rather than an aesthetic.
The work is research-led. Over the documented years, I have accompanied close to 2,000 individual frog-medicine processes. More important than the number is what repetition teaches: that real clarity does not come from theory, but from consequence—observing how fasting, ritual structure, precise language, and contact with non-ordinary intelligence shape people over time.
In its evolved form, AyaKambo has become inseparable from disciplined dry fasting. Fasting is used as a body-honest threshold that strengthens the link between body and soul, reveals dependencies, and makes the inner terrain readable. Alongside this, my focus has moved from “doing Kambô” as a technique to tending the relationship with Kampū—the archetypal Frog Spirit—and to the ethics of discretion in a landscape where misuse has become widespread.
A parallel strand that has stepped forward is the work with Harmal, a soothsayer plant of the Orient. After years of research, Harmal has taken its place in the AyaKambo field not as an accessory, but as a guardian of mind and speech—a way of confronting illusion, refining intention, and learning inner censorship before words become action.
Because the global spread of kambô has generated confusion, exploitation, and performative appropriation, AyaKambo is now held under an explicit Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodianship. This is not symbolic language; it shapes how the work is offered, how reciprocity is handled, and where boundaries are drawn. I do not regard myself as the owner of these medicines, but as a contemporary carrier who is accountable to tradition, ecology, and community.
For this reason, selection is a core part of the process. AyaKambo does not market itself as a miracle solution, nor does it offer medical diagnoses or healing guarantees. The medicines involved are powerful and can be dangerous when used outside of an appropriate container. Transparent screening, honesty about health conditions and medication, and a willingness to work within clear boundaries are essential.
Today, AyaKambo is carried in retreat and circle formats that integrate indigenous medicines only where lawful, ethically sourced, and genuinely suitable for the person. The frame is clean and simple: transpersonal, initiatory, and responsibility-based. If you are seeking spectacle or spiritual consumption, this work will not resonate. If you are seeking a serious threshold space where your intent, your shadow, and your life architecture can be met with clarity, then we can explore together whether AyaKambo is the right field for you.
My commitment is clear: I do not own this medicine; I answer to it. The task is to keep the work clean, researched, and worthy of what it touches—loyal to the roots while refusing exploitation as the price of visibility.
