Volcano-land!

I am packing up my Portland life and moving to the equator. Intriguingly, this is the fulfillment of a prophecy issued when I was 11 and my parents brought my sister and I to consult with a shaman in the Amazonian forests of Ecuador. I was to return someday, and here I go.

There is another prophecy worth noting, which a friend recently recounted: the story of the Eagle (N. America) and the Condor (S. America) told by many First Nations people. When the se two unite, the Earth will awaken. Eagle and Condor messengers are called upon to *become the bridge* in order for this union to occur. And so I go. I will aim to manifest the promise of the Eagle and the Condor in my own tiny ways.

My days and nights have been filled with dreams about my life's newest chapter. Brian and I will be leading study tours for learners to witness different ecological and cultural features of Ecuador as well as the political and economic injustices that threaten them. And we will be helping coordinate the Amazon Mycorenewal Project, an exciting attempt to call upon native oyster mushrooms to break down the oil pollution carelessly and shamelessly allowed to happen by sloppy oil companies over the past 25 years. By fighting the pollution, mycorenewal fights the destruction of arable land, devastating prevalence of cancer, and economic and cultural despair which the petroleum industry leaves in its wake.

I plan to dedicate myself to these wonderful projects but I also have other dreams for my time in Ecuador. I want to become familiar, even intimate, with the dazzling array of people, plants, fungi and waters that make the Amazon what it is. I dream of learning how to call upon the plants to heal, and unit this insight with my friends' knowledge of herbal medicine in the North. I want to witness the shamanic lineage that has granted these types of insight, and be overwhelmed by the glorious diversity that makes life worth living.