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The Retreat Arm of the Huachuma Foundation

We take people to Peru on a ten day retreat of ceremony and planting.

Huachuma columns of different heights in a garden, with trees and the mountains of the valley behind

The structure

Owned by the Foundation

Huachuma Works LLC is wholly owned and operated by the Huachuma Foundation, an Arizona 501(c)⁠(3) public charity.

The Foundation works on habitat, propagation and preservation, and the Huachuma Sanctuary in Peru is that work on the ground.

Huachuma Works runs the retreat, the only thing we sell, and the ten days are built around the ceremonies on the mountain and the planting at the Sanctuary.

Someone seen from behind looking across grass to the stepped stone terraces of a ruined temple complex, green mountains rising behind
Dozens of young Huachuma cuttings standing in dry red earth across a cleared slope, a painted marker stone set beside one of them

Why We Teach Before We Travel

Huachuma has been used in the Andes for about three thousand years, and most of what you can read about it today is one person repeating another. Meanwhile the wild plants are being cut faster than they grow back.

We think people look after a plant they understand. So before anyone travels, the preparation calls go through its history, science, cultivation and ceremonial use. Then we go to Peru, where it grows, and everyone who comes plants some before they leave.

Preservation

The Huachuma Sanctuary

This is the Foundation’s conservation project in Peru. Mature plants are protected there and new ones are propagated, so that there will be Huachuma for future generations.

Several hundred cacti are in the ground already, and the hillside has room for five thousand.

Someone in a wide brimmed hat kneeling to set a Huachuma cutting into the earth at the Sanctuary
Tall Huachuma columns standing together against a blue sky above a tiled roof
Huachuma cacti growing in a row along the foot of an adobe wall
Someone outdoors holding a long section of Huachuma cut open lengthways
Hamid Jabbar standing outdoors in an open white linen shirt, smiling, beside a weathered steel post with flowering desert trees behind him

Who runs this

Hamid Jabbar

Hamid first sat in ceremony with Miguel Mendiburu in the Sacred Valley in 2018, and he knew then that he wanted to bring people there. He took the first group in 2023, and he has been with every group since.

Hamid studied music at NYU on a scholarship. He then earned a law degree at UCLA and practiced law in Los Angeles for several years. He has practiced yoga and meditation since 2005 and taught them since 2013, and he has worked with Huachuma, and with the people who hold its ceremonies in Peru, since 2017.

He founded Huachuma Works and the Huachuma Foundation, and he is the Foundation’s director.

The ceremonies are guided by Miguel, who has offered Huachuma ceremonies in the Sacred Valley for more than twenty years.

Hamid has played guitar since the age of four, and his sound and contemplative music is at hamidjabbar.com. His work on minerals, health and lab testing is at mineralshaman.com.

Someone standing on rock high above a valley, playing a wooden flute

Where to Go Next

In person

Huachuma Retreat in the Sacred Valley

Ten days in Peru in 2027, on the Heart Path in July or the Fire Path in June. Both have ceremony on the mountain and planting at the Sanctuary.

See the ten days

Online

Huachuma Wisdom

Huachuma Wisdom is the Foundation’s six month online course, and a good place to start if you want the history and the science first. The suggested donation is $108, and nobody is turned away for lack of funds. It is at huachumafoundation.org.