I Return From The Jungle

Allow me to introduce Martín. This little Marmoset adopted the very small camp of Onanyan Shobo (literal translation means Shaman’s House) where my friend and I stayed for 10 days. He would repeatedly visit our hut to kill bugs. He peed on my backpack before we left.

We also had the occasional bat.

It was a truly profound and enlightening experience that I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to show up for. We were among the indigenous Shipibo people, who are the most generous, kind and affectionate people I have encountered in years. Not to mention gorgeous. I have said many times over the years that I needed to get away to a place where I was fed and watered and had nothing around me to contribute to the everyday stress of life. This was certainly the place.

The following list is of a few of the things we lived without for the duration – not necessarily listed in order of importance:

electricity
telephones
flushing toilets
hot showers
dairy
sugar
chocolate
tiled bathrooms
air conditioning
internet/email
multi-thread count sheets
fluffy pillows
coffee
bubbly water
sourdough bread
soy milk
peanut butter
facial scrub
makeup
hair product
blow dryer
stable toilet seat
dryness of any kind
stress
rushing
bug-repellant free skin
our loved ones
cars
music/radio
television
newspaper
machine washed clothes
chemically treated bathing water
smog
traffic
rude people
sales calls
people wanting things
work/job
gas prices
bills
gym
Starbucks
blueberry scones
olive oil

The day started at sunrise around 6 a.m. and ended when the forest became pitch black at about 6:15 p.m. There are more stars than the eye can take in. With nothing much to do after sundown, we went to sleep around 8 p.m. The sounds of the jungle are relatively quiet during the day because most of the animals, birds and insects are nocturnal, so at night the chorus was incredible – and sounded like any movie you have ever seen with the sounds of jungle in the background.

The spiritual healing ceremonies were profound, as were some of the day-to-day experiences, but to try to explain would sound nuts to anyone who wasn’t there. Suffice it to say, we were among a culture of people who live in a world where the physical world and the spiritual world exist on the same plane and things happen that cannot be explained – which they explain with frankness as it is part of the everyday world they live in and just the way it is.

I ate piranha and swam in the Amazon River. How cool is that?

There will be more pictures forthcoming over the next few blogs. It’s good to be home, but I do feel that I left part of myself there to make a home for part of my spirit.