Prologue

The White Owl

Early in my journey to become a vegetalista—a healer who works with plants in the Peruvian shamanic tradition—I was swimming upstream in the deep and mysterious waters of the Amazon jungle. It was 2005, and I was on my first dieta in Peru led by the shaman Don José Campos.  Dieta, in Amazonian herbalist traditions, means not just diet but a kind of spiritual quest. Participants embark on a silent retreat in the jungle that involves isolation from others, a strict, simple diet, and the ingestion of a tea made from a variety of plants. Called “teacher plants,” they are known for their ability both to bring us closer to the knowledge of the spirit world and to remedy certain physical diseases.

At the time, I was drinking a medicinal tea made from the bark of the Bobinsana, a beautiful, water-loving tree that grows along the river banks. I had been meandering along the small river, the Rio Rinquia, that runs through Don José’s camp, when suddenly I felt very drawn to being in the water myself. Just past the last tambo (shelter), the river made a sharp turn to the left and got quite deep. I had not yet explored beyond that point and felt a little scared as well as drawn to go farther.

As I swam upriver, I noticed what appeared to be two eyes looking at me just above the surface of the water. It seemed to be a caiman, a small crocodilian weighing up to a hundred pounds. It started moving toward me, and I swung my feet around to kick it away. I wished I had a large knife with me like the one Tarzan had in the movies: properly armed, and with much thrashing about in the churning water, I’d fight the aggressive beast until one of us were dead. To relate how I killed the caiman almost with my bare hands would have made a great opening to this book. But the truth is that, as the thing got closer, I could see it was just a floating stick with two bumps on it that looked like eyes. I laughed at myself for getting so frightened over a stick! And the real creature I was soon to meet seemed a much more benevolent omen.

The Rio Rinquia at this point becomes uncharacteristically straight for a quarter mile or so, and, with the overhanging trees, the space above the water is like a tunnel. Birds and butterflies, such as kingfishers and the giant blue morpho, use it as their highway to travel up and down the river. On the day I was there, far ahead a bird attracted my attention by seeming abruptly and rapidly to make a sharp, ninety-degree turn to the left. What made it strange is that the riparian zone along the river is so dense that flying right into the jungle at a rapid speed would be impossible.

I swam to the point where I had seen the bird veer left and found a very small stream that entered the Rio Rinquia there. Setting off to explore it, I could mostly wade through the shallow pools and walk along the rocky paths. Two or three hundred yards upstream I came upon a grotto-like space where the stream had cut a channel through the hard rock of the cliff, creating a beautiful, deep pool with twenty- to thirty-foot, fern-covered, rock walls along the upstream side.

Suddenly I sensed that I was in a sacred space. Feeling I should be naked, I removed my swimming trunks. Standing there, soaking in the beauty and sanctity of the place, I noticed a large, white owl staring at me from a tall tree beside the pool. For what seemed like five minutes we locked eyes. I felt I was receiving something from the owl—a transmission of sorts. I can’t say exactly what I was receiving, though, as it did not seem to have content that my mind could grasp; nor were there words. I left the sacred area knowing only that something very special and significant had happened there . . . an encounter with the wild and the mysterious.

A day or two later I returned.  As I was swimming upstream in the main river before the side stream, I telepathically asked the owl to send me a signal if I were welcome to visit again. Just then a white feather floated downstream to me, which I took as an affirmative sign. Wading through the stream’s shallow pools, I spied a large, brightly banded snake in the water, later identified by the jungle staff as a very poisonous Naca Naca, or coral snake. When I arrived at the grotto, I looked for the owl and was disappointed that he wasn’t in the tree where I had last seen him. Then I could “feel” him looking at me from somewhere to my left. The sensation is hard to explain, but it felt like a subtle knocking at my left temple. Sure enough, when I looked to my left I found my friend in another tree. We had another few minutes of communicating with each other visually and in other ways.

Although I have returned to the Sacred Pool many times, I have never seen the white owl again. Often, when I am ready to make a commitment with the plant spirits to go deeper into shamanic work, I have entered the pool’s deep and cool waters and swum into the small waterfall that creates it. With the water cascading over me, I have blessed and thanked the water and spoken of my intentions.

I tell this story for several reasons. For one thing, it explains why I have often used White Owl as my pen name. The illegal status of doing healing work with plant medicine in the United States necessitates such caution.

For another thing, the story represents my intention to transmit, to the best of my ability, something that is beyond the power of words—something that cannot be grasped with rational thought, that comes from the unfathomable, mysterious realm of Spirit. As I write, I ask the spirits of the medicinal plants to guide me and to come through between and around the written words.

I also tell the story because it highlights my emphasis in this book on a much deeper connection with the nonhuman, living world around us, not only with the Earth herself but also with the plants, animals, and invisible beings that inhabit this plane of existence alongside us. I am talking about a connection with all sentient beings—beings who, as David Abram states in The Spell of the Sensuous, long for recognition from and relationship with the human realm.(1)

Finally, let us not forget the poisonous snake that guarded the entrance to the Sacred Pool. To me, the message is “proceed with caution” and “keep your eyes open.” This realm of plant medicine is not to be entered into lightly. One needs to be prepared for some difficult, confusing, and sometimes frightening experiences. One will be tested, challenged, and maybe initiated. Even in simply reading this book, you may come to recognize parts of yourself that are hard to accept. What is your experience as you read these words of caution? Do you feel frightened? Do you feel excited?

¹ David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York, NY: Vintage, 1997).