Jeffrey Bronfman was the lead plaintiff and legal strategist of the União Do Vegetal’s (UDV) successful legal action to secure its right to the religious use of its sacrament in the United States. Today, in addition to his continuing work on behalf the UDV internationally, he is a member of the Steering Committee of ICEERS’s Ayahuasca Defense Fund and an avid supporter of ICEERS’s work.
We’re living in a time of undeniable change, where I feel that we’re being challenged on many levels, personally and collectively, in terms of internationally, globally, and in terms of social challenges, political challenges, economic challenges and, I think, critically, ecological challenges. And, I think that within all that, what’s evident is that we need different ways of thinking, a different kind of solution that’s holistic, that’s more spiritual, that’s more unifying, that’s more integrating in terms of our place before Nature and who we are as humanity, who we are as individuals, who we are as communities.
And many of us recognize that these sacred plants from the Amazon, who have so powerfully influenced and positively influenced our lives, could be keys for humanity in terms of a guiding light, as a way to a better future. And we’ve also seen that there’s this movement of awakening that’s happened, that there’ve been political challenges, legal challenges, people who have faced imprisonment. People have faced very serious challenges on a political and personal level as a response to their making use of these plants. And, this conflict of values, this conflict of worldviews, there’s many different ways of looking at it, but for the people who face criminal prosecution and the possibility of losing their personal property or their freedom over their use of a sacred plant in order to improve themselves and improve their community, that’s a different view that many of us who have lived through that have.
So, in my view, the work of the Ayahuasca Defense Fund, which I’ve committed to, which I’ve committed my resources, and my time, and my experience to helping. It is really critical at this time in our collective evolution to be able to have a place where as these cases come forward that there’s a resource centre of people with legal experience and scientific knowledge and community experience to guide and advise the people who find themselves coming in conflict with a paradigm that doesn’t respect their practice, whether it’s psychological, or therapeutic, or spiritual.
And I think there’s also a dimension of the work of the Ayahuasca Defense Fund which has been, in terms of public policy and advocacy, working within different realms that have opened for us to be able to influence laws, influence political processes. We’re making contribution and support of indigenous communities and a vision of a different world that’s born of an indigenous worldview.
I ask you to join me in supporting this. I consider it one of the most important things that I do in my life and know that every contribution is valued, it’s not a matter of how much, it’s the intention that it comes with, that we’ve used this time of transition to help this message from Nature to come forward, to be able to educate and inspire and heal us, to build together, to together create a better world.
Jeffrey Bronfman
Categories:
NEWS
, Ayahuasca
, ADF
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ayahuasca
, Ayahuasca Defense Fund