Palhano-Fontes and colleagues randomized 29 people with treatment-resistant depression to a single dose of ayahuasca or a placebo, inside a clinical setting. Depression scores were lower after ayahuasca the next day and at one week. At day 7, 64% of the ayahuasca group had responded, against 27% on placebo. It is a small trial. It is not a promise about a ceremony.
Palhano-Fontes et al., Psychological Medicine, 2019
Rao
Rao
Medicine, in Shipibo
Atlanta, Georgia
Private ayahuasca ceremonies in Atlanta. Come as you are.
Atlanta, Georgia
Ayahuasca ceremonies in Atlanta.
If you are looking for an ayahuasquero in Georgia, write to me. The ceremonies are private, one on one, in my home in Atlanta.
Most people drive, from Georgia and the Southeast: Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee. If you are farther away, you are still welcome.
If you are looking for an ayahuasca retreat in Atlanta, a private ceremony or a custom retreat is possible. Group retreats.
Rao · Atlanta, Georgia
Something called you here.
We all come to this work for different reasons, and some of them you may not even know yet. Rather than list them here, I would rather talk with you by phone. I want a sense of who you are, what you are looking for, what you may not know about Amazonian medicine, and how I can be part of your journey in a holistic way. What I can say is that this is a partnership between us. We are both working together to achieve your goals.
What is different
Someone is with you the whole way.
A large group circle with facilitators is a challenge, and it might be the right place for some people, but that is not how I work. My training uses ayahuasca as an interface, and as a way to connect us with the vibratory chants the Shipibo call icaros.
The technical title
Onaya is a technical title. It comes from the Shipibo language, for someone who knows, or who has wisdom. It is not a certificate we are handed. We have to show that we actually know, by doing the duties of an onaya.
In Spanish the title is ayahuasquero, or médico. We are not licensed medical doctors, and we do not pretend to be. The skill comes from years of learning by experience: how to serve ayahuasca, and how to open, connect, protect, align, cleanse, and close a ceremony, so the night can move in the right direction for you.
Shaman is a word from another part of the world, and that kind of practitioner exists. I do not consider myself one. The name matters less than this. I had to prove, in front of my teachers, that I can do what I say I can do. That took seven years.
What dieta means
Dieta is the foundation of this Amazonian science. In Shipibo it is called sama. It is the container for apprenticeship, and it is also a prescription that can be given for a person's healing and growth. People diet for many reasons. The two that matter most are to heal, and to learn. The requirements are not the same. An apprenticeship diet is much harder, and much stricter, and it takes years.
A 2026 study with Shipibo-Konibo families describes sama as months alone in the forest, repeated across many years. The person eats river fish and roasted plantain, has no sex and no alcohol, and stays out of strong sun and rain, until a relationship with a plant, and a song, can be received. What I give someone who is living an ordinary life is a soft diet. That is written below.
Ikaros. Vibrational technology.
From our understanding as practitioners, the ikaros carry the plant's medicine. They are vibrational technology, a tool that is picked up and put down. They are different melodic chants that loop. It takes many years to receive an ikaro. It is passed from plant intelligence to the practitioner, not from human to human.
The ikaros conduct the whole ceremony. While my mouth and throat are producing the sound, we are both listening, and both receiving that connection. The ikaro lets me understand more of what is happening with you, and it helps me hold a container for the whole ceremony. I am not singing for entertainment. The songs are beautiful. They are also the tool, the conductor, and what is processing the experience for us.
Shipibo testimony gathered for a 2026 study says this from the view of elder onaya as well. In Shipibo the chant is rao bewa. I do not claim a chant is a medical treatment.
- Favaron, Williams, and Bédard, Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 2026 Onaya, sama, and rao bewa among the Shipibo-Konibo.
- Brabec de Mori, Indiana, 2012 Shipibo magical song as the doctor’s way of meeting what is not human.
Markham Jenkins
I went because I needed help.
I started this path looking for help with my own pain. In 2018 I went to the Amazon with the largest questions I had. Most of my life I had been a musician, an artist, a photographer, someone who watched. I also wanted a skill that was truly mine.
What I found with the Shipibo was not a psychedelic being handed to me. I was invited into a cosmology of medicine, learning, wisdom, and a wider consciousness. It is a serious practice, passed through generations. The way I have come to see it, it holds plant knowledge, a disciplined body, and questions about consciousness that brush against physics. I still do not know why I was pulled in so far.
I was stubborn enough that my teachers agreed to let me learn. The skill used in ceremony comes from self mastery. I had to go into my own darkness, heal what I could, and condition myself physically, psychologically, and spiritually before I was fit to sit with someone else. That took the better part of seven years.
The house
Come in as if it were your own.
Most of the people who sit here become part of the community. Many arrive because someone they trust sent them. You are welcome in my home, and in my family, as if the house were your own. I look after the people who come, and I am glad to build partnerships and collaborations with others who hold this work with care.
The house is not a tour. It is a place you can enter.
A process, not a single night
The first night starts it. It does not finish it.
There is no number of ceremonies posted here, and no promise of where you will arrive. What to pause, and whether a diet belongs in the work, we decide together on the phone.
Ask for a call01
The first ceremony
The first night begins the cleansing, and it tells us something about the road ahead. Through the icaros I can offer a sense of how many ceremonies I believe it will take. That is an estimate, not a promise.
02
Hard to connect, then deeper
At first it can be hard to feel a connection. As you become clearer, the night starts to open. It deepens as you go. I stay with you.
03
Your pace, a real commitment
We can sit close together, or leave time between ceremonies. The pace can be yours. What matters is that we stay with the process. It does not finish in a single night.
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Then it is done
When the ceremonies are complete, you are free to be done. You do not owe another night. The work had a beginning, and it has an end.
Shipibo training
Seven years in the Peruvian Amazon.
I was welcomed as a student of Shipibo healer Maestra Angela Sánchez Ríos, and I stayed. She has worked with ayahuasca for more than twenty five years. She leads her family's center, Marosa, in Iquitos, and she prepares the diets as well as the ceremonies. Maestro Raul Ramirez is my other teacher. He is Shipibo, from Vista Alegre, upriver from Pucallpa, and he was taught by his parents and grandparents.
Those years were an isolation diet. Away from family. Away from friends. Not being touched. Not eating salt, or red meat, or the other things a diet sets down. That is how the icaros are learned, and how you learn to stay with someone through a ceremony. It is not a vacation, and it is not a list to copy from this page. When a diet is right for you, it is opened with the people who hold it. Some of that still happens in the jungle, with my teachers.
Dieta suave
A relationship, not a list of rules.
Dieting is the foundation of Shipibo Amazonian science. There is a food part to it. Most traditionally that is plantains and fish, with no oil, no salt, no sugar, and no spices. It changes with the purpose, and with who is giving it.
Think of a diet as a prescription for healing, or for learning, or for both. It is the process of connecting, symbiotically, with plant intelligence. A strict protocol has to be followed. In the traditional form, that means isolation.
I give what we call dieta suave. A soft diet. It lets a quieter connection begin while you still live your life. It is an introduction, not the isolation diet I kept in the jungle.
I do not pick the plant. I usually do not have the plant, or the tree, with me. In ceremony it comes and asks to be prescribed. I try to stay out of the way and pass on what it asks.
If you do not want to diet, tell me. I can close that connection. The ceremony itself can still be the work.
You do not have to drink to begin. You can come, and I can sing the icaros, give direction, and open, keep, and close a diet. That care can stand on its own.
A few things are not flexible. No sex. No pork. No drugs. No alcohol. There is more room with salt and with other food, and still we stay away from dairy, cold drinks, old food, and eating out as little as possible.
From there the plant can teach you, and I can watch that connection with you as it deepens. At the end of a diet I close it and protect you, so ordinary life is somewhere you can return. What you kept from the discipline stays with you.
Shipibo cosmic visions
The world of medicine starts to open.
These paintings are Shipibo cosmic visions. When we start to heal, the visions of the world of medicine start to open. They are not a promise of what you will see, and they are not a lesson.
Safe Ceremonies · 21 reviews
What people wrote after they sat.
These are their words, posted on Safe Ceremonies. They are not a promise of what your night will be, and they are not a medical result.
“Markham is genuinely a master of his craft. His magnificent ícaros are a true highlight, guiding you through a profound, delightful, and profoundly safe inner journey. Having attended several ceremonies with him, I have witnessed a beautiful personal evolution within myself.”
“I had never found someone I truly trusted to guide me through it. From the very beginning, Markham was incredibly patient and caring. Markham’s Icaros were especially powerful. As he sang, I could feel the sound moving through my body. He checked in with me afterward and continued to be present in the days that followed.”
“He welcomes you with warmth and knowledge. He is easy to talk to and you feel heard. The Icaros he sings are beautiful and powerful. I was immediately set at ease with our first phone call. He checks on you throughout.”
“Markham is a treasure, a truly kind, empathetic guide. I feel completely safe and supported in each ceremony. The space he creates and holds for this healing and transformational experience is unlike any other.”
Cited research
Depression, PTSD, grief, purpose, and pain.
People write to me carrying depression, trauma, grief, a loss of purpose, or pain. I do not diagnose, and a ceremony here is not the same thing as a clinical trial. These are the studies, in the researchers' words. Read them, and then decide whether a conversation feels right.
Weiss and colleagues followed eight military veterans with PTSD through a three-day ayahuasca retreat. Most showed a meaningful drop on a standard trauma checklist by the end, and many still did at three months. This is a case series, not a randomized trial. Adverse experiences during the retreat were also reported.
Weiss et al., Psychological Trauma, 2024A 2025 study in Spain followed 84 adults in severe grief. Those who received ayahuasca plus meaning-reconstruction therapy improved more than therapy alone or no treatment, including on prolonged-grief symptoms. It was not randomized. The authors asked for a larger randomized replication before anyone calls it established care.
Scientific Reports, 2025That same 2025 grief study also tracked post-traumatic growth and quality of life. The ayahuasca-plus-therapy group improved on both, with medium-to-large effects. The authors still asked for a randomized replication. A shift after a loss is not a general promise about purpose.
Scientific Reports, 2025A 2023 review of ayahuasca’s therapeutic research found controlled human evidence for depression, and only early or observational notes for many other conditions. It did not find a controlled human trial of ayahuasca for chronic pain. Animal work on pain and inflammation is not a reason to promise relief. If pain is why you are writing, say so. We will talk about whether this is the right room.
European Neuropsychopharmacology, 2023None of these papers were conducted here. If you are in crisis, contact local emergency care or the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. This page is not a medical service.