What is Icaros?

Icaros is a free software application for Windows. It provides a quick way to view thumbnails of video files in Explorer windows. Its feature list is extensive and allows you to customize the display of video thumbnails. It also offers advanced settings such as setting a threshold for black/ white frame detection, and the ability to toggle embedded cover art for thumbnails.

The icaro is a fundamental element in Amazonian shamanism and ayahuasca ceremonies (Luna 1986, Bustos 2011). Icaros are chants used by curanderos during ayahuasca ceremonies to invoke the spirits of plants and animals, and to protect the space from negative energies. Icaros vary widely in melodic complexity, tempo and musical form. They can be based on existing melodic patterns, or they can be intuitively adapted and spontaneously produced according to the specific energetic landscape that the shaman senses (Kaelen et al., 2018).

Icaros have been shown to influence the experience of ayahuasca, helping people to navigate its many potential effects, including altered states of consciousness, spiritual transformations, emotional healing and psychological liberation. They are considered as important in the therapeutic context of plant medicines as they are to the spirituality and cosmology of indigenous Peruvian communities.

At Takiwasi patients become familiar with a wide variety of icaros over time and often develop personal connections to them. However, understanding the words is not traditionally connected to efficacy. Instead, it is the feeling and spirit that the shaman communicates with the icaro which is key.