I grew up in Lima, Peru, in a world where men rarely spoke about grief, pain, or the soul. The masculine landscape around me was shaped by power, alcohol, money, business, politics, sports, and the performance of toughness and machismo. No one taught me how to tend the inner emotional life, or how to become a man with soul, depth, integrity, and heart. Like many men, I was shaped by the collective unconscious, without elders, rites of passage, or wise guidance into manhood.

Everything shifted when, at sixteen, I encountered the sacred teachings of Peruvian visionary plant medicine. Something ancient opened inside me, revealing a living doorway into music, consciousness, and spirit. The breath moving through flutes, the pulse of the drum, the wisdom of indigenous cosmology, the intelligence of plants, jungles, mountains, and sea, each taught me a truth that healing is not control or self-improvement, but a dialogue with the unknown, a descent into the depths, a surrender to psyche and soul.

For more than two decades, I devoted my life to that dialogue. I became a musician not simply by profession, but by calling. My research into shamanic and indigenous sonic traditions led me to study how ancient instruments were used to alter states of consciousness and mediate relationship with the invisible world in Paqarina: Healing Sounds of Peru. This work evolved in Sounds of Nasca, a musical production created for the NASCA exhibitions in Lima, Zurich, Bonn, and Madrid, featuring original instruments dating back to 200 B.C. - 650 D.C. I later composed and produced the film score for Meraya, weaving Shipibo ayahuasca medicine songs, bridging indigenous medicine and contemporary storytelling.

My path carried me through plant medicine retreats, sound ceremonies, and workshops across Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Iceland, and the United States. Along the way, I came to understand sound as a technology of consciousness, a vessel of memory and myth, a way of traveling the unconscious and learning through it.

Eventually, my life carried me to the United States, where marriage and family became the next initiation. Becoming a husband, a father, and a stepfather brought me face-to-face with my own boyhood and the places where guidance had been absent.

Fatherhood initiated me into shadow work, compelling me to confront the hidden and often uncomfortable aspects of myself. It transformed marriage into a crucible—a testing ground where I had to carefully discern which traits, beliefs, and patterns I had inherited from my family and past experiences, and which I was resolutely determined to change. This process demanded deep self-reflection and intentional growth, shaping not only my identity but also the way I engage with others and navigate life’s challenges.

From this ground, I felt called to deepen my understanding through academic study. I returned to school to give it intellectual grounding, symbolic language, and discernment. I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and am currently completing my Master’s degree in East–West Psychology. My studies draw from depth psychology, Jungian and archetypal thought, mythology, alchemy, and psychospiritual integration.

In my current practice, I integrate shamanism with Jungian psychology, utilizing sound and music as gateways to the unconscious. This approach includes active imagination, dreamwork, Compassionate Inquiry, and mythopoetic methods for men's development, as well as exploring both modern and traditional aspects of fatherhood.

Onward,
Fred Clarke