168: Natural Healing Show with Catherine Carrigan - Episode 168168: Natural Healing Show with Catherine Carrigan - Episode 168
UK Health Radio Podcast
Traditional healer Daniel Solarte shares how his Sikuani lineage works with yopo, kapi and tobacco for grounding, heart-opening and clarity. He explains the training, rituals and ethical principles that shape this ancestral approach to healing and community.
46:20•5 Apr 2026
Yopo, Sikuani Wisdom and the Dance of the Gods with Healer Daniel Solarte
Episode Overview
- Yopo is treated as a master plant used by trained healers to release heaviness, root the body and open the heart and thoughts.
- In the Sikuani tradition, every act with the plants is guided by clear intention and spiritual permission, not casual consumption.
- Healers undergo strict diets and spiritual training, including practices with energetic “crystals”, before working on others.
- The Sikuani “dance of the gods” uses movement, chant and yopo over several days to cultivate cleansing, connection and abundance.
- Respect for elders, lineage and the specific tradition behind each plant is seen as essential ethical practice.
“Everything that we take, we take it with an intention and everything what we give, we give it with an intention.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? For many, reconnecting with nature and tradition becomes a big part of that shift, and this conversation on UK Health Radio’s Natural Healing Show taps right into that theme. Host Catherine Carrigan chats with traditional Colombian healer Daniel Solarte, who shares how his Sikuani lineage works with master plants such as yopo, the root of ayahuasca (kapi), and tobacco.
Rather than focusing on “trips”, Daniel repeatedly stresses that these plants are used for service and healing, explaining that yopo gatherings are about releasing heaviness, rooting into the body, opening the heart and thoughts, and reaching what he calls a “space of clarity”.
As he puts it, “everything that we take, we take it with an intention and everything what we give, we give it with an intention.” Daniel talks through what yopo actually is, how it’s prepared, and why, in his tradition, only trained healers historically worked with it.
He honours his teacher, grandfather healer Clemente Gaitán, whose family has carried Sikuani healing for generations, and describes the strict diet and discipline required to become a healer, including spiritual “crystals” placed in the throat to draw out illness. You’ll also hear about the Sikuani “dance of the gods” – a three-day ritual dance guided by yopo, chants and community, aimed at cleansing, connection and abundance.
Daniel shares striking stories of people who came to him with physical and spiritual struggles and found change through this ancestral work. All the way through, the focus stays on respect: respect for plants, for elders, for spiritual law and for doing things with clear permission and intention. For anyone curious about traditional plant work, or looking for gentler, more rooted ways to support emotional healing and clarity, this conversation offers a thoughtful window into a living lineage.
How might your own healing change if you treated every step as an act of intention and respect?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.
Related Episodes
Similar episodes from other shows in the catalogue.