In this blog post I share some potent moments I've experienced in the last weeks about the meaning of my life: bridges between Movement Medicine, the Long Dance, the Amazon rainforest and myself as a woman healer on a life-long journey.
I always knew I was "designed" to be a healer. I wanted to be a hunter-gatherer, and was fascinated by the inhabitants of rainforests. As a teenager I studied herbs and treated my family and animals. And though I really wanted to live in accord with the seasons and dance into and through everything, I went to medical school (briefly) as I also loved science. I was awed by the perfect intricacy of living systems which biology revealed and the mind bending, concept shattering mystical wow of physics. For more on this listen to my recent podcast with Katherine Llewellyn.
On the night after leaving medical school I asked myself what I really wanted to do in my life. I had a vision of a greek style amphitheatre with a woman liberating herself through song and dance. But I had no idea how to follow that vision. So I did my best to follow this glimpse, which I sensed included theatre as ceremony, as healing. Gestalt psychotherapy training helped me work wth my heart. I send my deep thanks to Peggy Sherno, my first Gestalt psychotherapist who encouraged me to train at the Gestalt Centre London, even though I was very young.
Ya'Acov and I met in 1986. We became a couple and recognised that we had a shared purpose in this life to do with healing. In a women's 'Sacred Dream' ceremony workshop with Heather Campbell I had a vision. From above, I saw a great snake of people from all over the world and of all ages, singing and dancing through the Amazon rainforest. I didn't know how to follow that vision either, but I knew the "dance" part was important. Soon afterwards, Heather sent me Gabrielle Roth's brochure about her first 5 Rhythms training. I knew that this was the next step on my path and here I am, decades later, with gratitude and awe for the vision, for Heather and for the journey.
We met the Pachamama Alliance through the wonderful Awakening the Dreamer Symposium which Bernadette Ryder introduced us to. Following the path of that connection over many years, we have been to the Amazon many times leading groups as part of the Fundacion Pachamama's programme. Not as or for tourists, but as and for people intent on learning how to be allies.
In the early 1990's the Achuar (an indigenous people of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon) recognised the need to create an alliance with people from the industrialised world to stand together in protecting the forest - protecting the forest for the sake of their people, their children, for the revered spirit of the forest itself, and for the whole world. The Pachamama Alliance, the Fundacion Pachamama and the Symposium are responses to that call. It's one of the great joys, honours and responsibilities of our lives to be part of this alliance.
In January we accompanied an incredible group of dancers on one of these Fundacion Pachamama Amazonian journeys. Because of Covid and being with my father in his last years, it's been 5 years since I was in the Amazon. It was so good to be back there, accompanied by two extraordinary guides; Ecuadorian guide Estefenia Paez and Achuar guide Chumpi Vargas.
There has always been a fascinating challenge and enquiry for me as a woman healer when I am in the forest. In general, and as far as we know, the particular tribes we visit do not have women shamans. They have always recognised Ya'Acov instantly as a shaman, and with me it's been more ambiguous. Manari, shaman and leader of the Sapara nation, told me once that they didn't have a category for the kind of being I am.
I have struggled at times with this and simply not known how exactly how to understand it although I have felt loved and respected as a being who lives for and is a voice for the earth. So, as we came to the first ceremony in the forest on this journey, I wondered where I should place myself. What really is my appropriate role? One thing that has always been super clear to me is that the name "shaman" is not something you can give yourself. There are enough self-appointed shamans. I (and we) don't believe this is how it works. This role wisely, traditionally, has to be given or recognised by elders of wisdom and of that lineage, and by the community you will serve.
When we visited the Achuar community of Sharamentsa, our host was an Achuar man called Marco. He took great care of us and gave us a fascinating account of the role of a padre called Louis Bola in helping the Achuar people unite with each other so they could face the outside world in strength, together.
As dusk fell, Marco was in the middle of this intricate account. Suddenly he got up saying he had to go and check on Fabiola. We assumed he was talking about a child, or maybe a grandmother, but he explained that Fabiola was his tapir. What? Your tapir?! Minds boggled.
He told us that Fabiola is free to come and go, and as a nocturnal animal rests somewhere in the forest during the day, appearing between 4pm and 6pm in the afternoon to visit with her people. Then goes back to the forest to find food overnight. He came back soon with her and we all met her. A large, curious, freindly and excitable animal who is loved by the whole village.
Later, Marco told us an extraordinary story. He was talking about ceremonies, vision and action. For the Achuar, the point of ceremonies is to receive a vision for the next part of their lives. It's like an instruction, their guidance system. In their culture, he explained, you only share that vision after you have realised it - which may take many years. Until that time you simply do your best to follow it.
The vision gives you one side of the bridge, the work of manifestation builds the bridge until, when the whole bridge is there and you have brought the vision into realisation, you can truly celebrate the accomplishment.
He told us that in as a young man, in his third ceremony (for which his mother had made the medicine) he received a vision that he needed to become a pilot. For a young man in the middle of the forest, this is a challenging thing to even imagine. He told us how he followed this vision over many years and how hard it was. After years of working at it, he did indeed become a pilot in the Amazon.
One day he had an emergency call to pick up someone who was very sick and needed to be brought from one of the communities in the interior to a hospital. As he flew on this rescue mission, he was told that the person in need of help was his own mother. He picked her up and as they flew across the forest his mother blessed him and celebrated the realisation of his visit with him. She had been part of creating the ceremonial container in which he had received his dream. And he was now holding his mother as he took care of her. He was very moved as he told us this story, and as I write, I am touched by it again.
He used this story to illustrate a mistake that people from the modern world often make. We want visions and then we want more visions. And often what we are seeking is visions which reassure us that we are OK, that we are special. Not many of us seek a vision that will be hard work to bring into being. Even less then get down to the work to make that vision real.
He told us that bringing a vision from the dream (spirit) world into manifestation is always hard, and takes dedication, tenacity, patience, and courage. I found this deeply reassuring. At times, I've experienced doors opening with inexplicable grace and ease. But side by side with this, I experience the reality of sustained work - the sustained labour of love - which is needed to bring something reliably and solidly, into the manifest world. I think if you asked anybody who has brought something into the world reliably substantial beauty, whether that is playing Vivaldi, creating a beautiful garden, having a good relationship, or being a Movement Medicine teacher, they would acknowledge that its taken dedicated, persistent work and effort.
In our modern culture it’s easy to think that something is wrong if I have to work at it, if I have to put in effort. It’s one of the new age traps. Miracles definitely do happen, and/but most often work and effort is required too. Just like giving birth.
A labour of love dedicated in action, especially together with others (thanks to my Dad for this key addition) can be a joyous thing.
This is a huge part of the adventure of life - the adventure of bringing vision into the world. Of finding out how what works, often through finding out what doesn't work. It's the adventure of incarnation, book ended by the knowledge that dissolution is also inevitable. Creation and letting go. A genuine Phoenix dance.
Please return with me now to the day of our first ceremony in the forest this January. We were in Sapara territory, at the visitor centre called Naku. I had got myself a bit twisted up as I just didn’t know what to do. I don’t want to push myself forward, but I also don’t want to hold back my medicine. Do I need to do something? If so, what?! If Manari had been there I would have talked with him, but that day he wasn't.
Ya’Acov was brilliant. He reassured me that whatever role I held, the healing that comes through me comes through. I don’t have to worry about that. And he knows my medicine. He simply suggested that I pray, and ask the spirit of the forest for guidance and clarification. So I did, as I participated in the beautiful cleansings the Sapara offered us: the herbal baths, the charcoal rubs, the immersion in smoke, in the river, the waterfall, the mud! And a long hike up and down almost vertical hills, on fallen trees across streams, always guided and taken care of by our attentive hosts. Our group, which included people in their 70s, did amazingly.
And then we were brought to back to the village. Mukutsawa (Manari's mother) and I had an emotional meeting. When she thanked me for the healing I had given her 5 years ago, something clicked. In the discussion that followed, she opened the door for me. I am so grateful that the recognition that I knew needed to come in its own way and its own time, came from this beautiful, wise grandmother, who I have loved since we first met.
In the ceremonies that followed, I was invited to work alongside the indigenous shamans of the community we were visiting and Ya'Acov. This felt so natural and yet was a big deal at the same time.
Asking the indigenous shamans for feedback and any advice after each ceremony, I was told, each time, that I am doing beautiful healing work, to keep going. The shamans also told us how much support it gives them to know we are also working in the world in this way.
I recognise that all that time of not knowing and struggling with that, was a necessary aspect of my initiation into where I am now. 5 years ago I was in a different space. I wasn't ready. If I had received this recognition then it would have fed the wrong part of me.
There’s another factor of course, the role of women in the Achuar and Sapara cultures is changing. My being welcomed, as a woman, in the role of shaman is new there, as far as we know. It’s very rare that a man who is not of the forest is seen in this way. Ya’Acov being acknowledge in this way was already a massive thing. Having 3 people in the role of shaman working on ceremony side by side, including 1 non-indigenous woman, is a paradigm shift.
at Kapawi lodge
We hope and pray that the ripples from this in the Achuar and Sapara cultures go on supporting the evolution of positive mutual interchange and "the integration" (as Achuar leader Domingo Paez says) "of the best of indigenous wisdom with the best of the knowledge of the modern world".
I am personally very grateful. I feel as if I have quietly received my doctorate. This 'vote of confidence,' like sunlight, is needed and yet it cannot be controlled.
I don't feel comfortable with the name “shaman” but I am very happy to know myself as a shamanic healer and someone still very much involved in learning how to be human and to bring my love through into this world.
And our incredible flagship not for profit ceremony the Long Dance is approaching. It is no accident that the central charity of the Long Dance is the Fundacion Pachamama. I want to tell you about this because it is so linked.
Each participant in the Long Dance ceremony is required to raise money for a charity of their choice, and invited to do this for the Fundacion Pachamama. The cost of being at the Long Dance is simply the cost of creating the event (hiring the venue, marquee, food, chef, event production). All the roles in the ceremony are held by volunteers, from practical team, to musicians, DJs, artists and ceremony leaders. This is a big giveaway by a big team of people. And the reason that participants are asked to raise money for the Fundacion Pachamama (or charity of their choice) is to strengthen the bridge between prayer (invisible world) committed in action (manifest world) to ensure that we root our visions all in practical commitment in the manifest world.
This is in the spirit of a “sponsored dance” which those of us from the UK grew up with as a way to raise funds for a good cause. In our experience it strengthens the prayers and those who make them, including those who sponsor the dancers.
This is a bridge and we dance across it. We are grateful for the insights Manari has given us about the healing efficacy of the Long Dance ceremony. We are proud and happy that Manari, Belen and Chumpi will hopefully be here again with us at Hillyfield, strengthening the bridge between the Amazon forest in Ecuador and the forest on the edge of Dartmoor.
One of the simple and yet profound things I came back with from this time in Amazon was the instruction to plant more wildlife friendly trees. It has begun. The forest grows. At the same time, we saw and heard how real the threats are to the Amazon right now. The Fundacion Pachamama needs support to do its extraordinary work. You are invited to participate.
You might want to find out more about the story of the Achuar and Sapara peoples - how the alliance came into being and what our journey has been in the Amazon Blog.
I feel honoured and happy that our Movement Medicine work offers contexts and frames that allow people to hear their soul speak, to become more whole and to follow their own dream bridges into the lives they dare to commit to bringing about.
With love,
I hope to see you on a dance floor soon!
Upcoming workshops with me:
Movement Medicine Study Hub, March's online lesson with me is:
And for the first time, I'm taking the Phoenix Retreat to Germany
And the time for this feels so right!
