Healing in the Amazon

The honors program I was in during college was fortunate to have many incredible speakers for our first Thursday lectures. I often attended but never knew how life-altering one would end up being. Hearing the lecture from a lawyer who was fighting for the rights of indigenous communities to their land and life in Ecuador was fascinating. I had never seen a community like this from such a personal lense and was so amazed. One particular community, the Huaorani in the Yasuni National Park, established an Ecotourism business to help fight oil development and exploitation of their lands. Through seeing pictures and hearing the lawyer’s stories, something in me felt like this was a bridge to another world that I would never have again, and that I had to go. After the lecture, I asked for her contact information and later found out that two other students in the audience felt the same way. 

With the help of a very dedicated professor, we managed to arrange that trip. We were in Birmingham, Al, and had a date and the name of a hotel to meet our guide. Somehow, we made it. Living in unaffected earth with a community so intimately connected to the forest encouraged more brain expansion than anything else I had ever experienced. There is so much to tell about this trip, but for now, I will focus on my first experience with plant medicine. 

While in the forest, I was bit by some bug and developed a raised red and itchy bump above my belly button. I showed this to the Shaman of the tribe and, speaking in his indigenous language, he instructed a few children to go into the forest to gather various stems and leaves. The children returned and I watched keenly as the Shaman shaved bits of stems and heated the leaves to squeeze out their juice, creating this healing concoction. This was placed on my belly button and I covered it with gauze from my responsibly packed first aid kit. I slept flat on my back that night to avoid disturbing the healing pack. Through the night, I could literally feel the infection being pulled out of my body. By morning, the symptoms were down 90% and by the end of the day, they were gone. 

I was amazed. I knew that treating the bite allopathically would not have healed this as quickly and I personally value healing without the use of harsh chemicals that can stress our bodies’ detoxification system. Also, how cool that it came directly from the forest and did not go through an environmentally damaging production process? 

While I did not immediately jump from this experience to studying Ayurveda, it was certainly a significant point in my mind for the wonder and healing potential of plant medicine and ancient knowledge.