What if learning is not about getting everything right?
What if the real art of learning — especially when it comes to learning from nature and indigenous traditions — is learning how to listen, to ask, to be patient… and to admit that we are all still students?
Recently I had a humbling realization.
One of the most popular Huni Kuĩ medicine songs — a song that is sung in ceremonies and song circles all around the world — turned out to be different from the way I had assumed it was.
For years I had practiced and shared this song with sincere intention, assuming that I was singing it correctly. Yet through my ongoing studies with my Huni Kuĩ husband, I asked the right question and discovered that some of the words I had been singing were not actually aligned with the original prayer.
At first, this discovery felt a little embarrassing. But very quickly it became a humbling reminder of how learning actually works.
Because the truth is that many of us in the Western world were never really taught how to learn in a healthy way.
For many people, making a mistake carries a sense of shame. In some families and cultures, mistakes are met with criticism, blame, or ridicule. Over time we learn to protect ourselves by trying to be perfect — or by avoiding situations where we might be wrong.
This can create a subtle fear of learning. Instead of approaching new things with openness and curiosity, we become defensive. We cling tightly to what we think we know, because admitting we are still learning can feel uncomfortable or even threatening.
But walking the path of medicine songs — and the indigenous plant medicine traditions connected to them — has been teaching me a very different relationship to learning.
Learning Through Relationship
In many Indigenous traditions, knowledge is not approached in the same way that we approach it in the West.
Learning does not always happen through formal instruction or through someone constantly correcting you or telling you how to do things. Instead, people learn through observation, listening, and imitation.
In my experience with my Huni Kuĩ family, I have realized that they rarely step in to fix mistakes. Often they simply respond when you ask specific questions. Over time, understanding deepens through relationship, experience, and careful attention.
This can be challenging for those of us who come from cultures that expect clear instructions, definitive answers, and corrections. But it also creates a very different learning environment — one that requires patience, humility, curiosity, and the courage to ask clear and thoughtful questions. And it reminds us that learning is a lifelong process.
Many Indigenous traditions themselves have also experienced periods of cultural disruption and erosion. Today there are communities where people are still rediscovering and rebuilding knowledge that was nearly lost. Often these learning processes are not openly discussed, because an individual’s journey of learning is respected. So in many ways, we are all learning together.
At the same time, this learning environment also asks us to cultivate discernment.
One thing I have noticed in my interactions with Indigenous communities is that people do not always openly say when they don’t know something. Sometimes, out of kindness or a desire to be helpful, they may give an answer they think you want to hear. In other cases, knowledge may be shared gradually or only when the right question is asked.
This means that learning in this context requires patience and careful listening. It invites us to stay curious, to ask thoughtful questions, and to remain aware that understanding often unfolds over time rather than arriving as a single clear answer.
In this way, humility and discernment go hand in hand.
Learning Is Not Done Alone
Another difference I have observed is that learning is not seen as something humans do alone.
In the Western worldview we often imagine ourselves as isolated individuals who must master knowledge through effort and discipline.
But in many Indigenous cosmologies, learning happens within a much larger web of relationships.
Human teachers are important — elders, community members, and lineage carriers who transmit knowledge through stories, songs, lived example, and energetic transmission such as prayer.
But nature itself is also considered a teacher.
Among the Huni Kuĩ people, there are initiations connected to plants, animals, and spiritual allies that help a person develop certain abilities. One example is the initiation connected to the Txana bird, the yellow-rumped cacique. This bird is known in the forest as a master of mimicry, able to reproduce many different sounds of nature.
In the Huni Kuĩ tradition, singers, spiritual healers, and teachers work with the spirit of this bird to develop the ability to learn, remember, and express themselves clearly.
In this way, learning is not only a human effort. It is also a relationship with the living intelligence of nature.
The Deeper Art of Singing
Through my own journey with medicine music, I have come to understand something else. Learning these songs is not only about memorizing words or melodies. In fact, the deeper art of singing sacred prayers is almost the opposite of effort.
The masters are not the ones who try the hardest to control the songs. They are the ones who know how to step out of the way.
In many traditions, it is understood that the songs ultimately come from the spirits and ancestors who first received them. The singer’s role is not to perform them perfectly, but to become a clear channel through which the prayer can move. When that connection is strong, something very powerful can happen. The singer is no longer struggling to remember every word. Instead, the prayer sings itself.
For those of us who are still students, this connection may come and go. Sometimes we forget the words. Sometimes we get them wrong. And sometimes, unexpectedly, everything aligns and the song flows effortlessly through us.
These moments remind us that mastery is not something we achieve through force. It grows through practice, relationship, resonance, and transmission.
Returning to the Spirit of Learning
Perhaps one of the hidden medicines of these songs is that they invite us to soften our perfectionism. They remind us that learning does not require us to be flawless.
It asks for something much simpler — and much more challenging. Humility.
Humility to listen.
Humility to ask questions.
Humility to admit when we are still learning.
And the willingness to approach the path with the curiosity of a child discovering something beautiful for the first time — with the courage to make a mess in the process.
It is through this very humility that we begin to trust the process, allowing our voice to open and our relationship with the songs to deepen.
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If you would like to explore the topic of Indigenous medicine songs and the questions around sharing and singing them more deeply, I recently shared a longer reflection in a YouTube video. You can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHs4fZvzpWk
If you are curious to know more about the Txana bird initiation, you can read about it here:
https://www.enchantedboa.love/hampaya-initation/