Meeting the Serpent

Chapter 15: I want to tell you this story of a Serpent I met… Her name is Nalini.

Chapter 10: Meeting the Serpent

Nalini, on the 11th of December 2014.

Some meetings rearrange the way you walk through the world. This one happened when I had just finished ten days and nights of drinking Ayahuasca in the Yawanawá territory. My body was fragile, my spirit wide open, and the medicine still singing in my veins.

When I started this Substack, I wrote that I wanted to tell you the story of a serpent I once met. This chapter is where that story truly begins.

Her name was Nalini. This is how she entered my life and invited me into the silence.

When the ten days and nights of drinking Ayahuasca came to an end, I slowly emerged from my hammock. I could barely walk. I went to bathe in the small creek next to the temple. With a towel bound around my waist and the dented aluminium pot in my hand, I had to concentrate very hard with each step, stumbling to the river. It took me a while to focus; the force of the medicine was still strong inside me. I was still in a dream state, getting back into my physical body. The reality of my situation dawned on me: I was standing naked in an Amazonian creek, deep in the jungle, mosquitoes feasting on my blood. What the hell was I doing? I chuckled faintly to myself and began to pour the water over my arms and legs.

As I bathed, I looked up to the sky. The sensation of cold water on my skin brought me back to reality. I heard the beautiful songs of the birds and the symphony of insects. I felt the sun warming my skin.

What an incredible journey it had been. In those ten days of ceremony, I had explored the outer edges of my consciousness. I had visited so many places and gained so many insights into my life and the path ahead of me. I had revisited many moments from my past and also seen moments of my future. I experienced memories with a higher level of consciousness, a heightened perspective, and was able to understand the purpose of those lived experiences and why I had behaved as I did. I felt sorrow, gratitude, forgiveness, compassion, and deep love for many people in my life. I had come closer to understanding who we are, as humanity, and where we came from. I felt so much gratitude for that time. A big smile came over my face. Here I was again—back!

JIIIIIIIIHUUUUUUUU!

I shouted in joy. Edi and Muca erupted into shouts, too, echoing me from the temple. We all laughed together.

“Strong warriors!” We shouted to each other. I felt such joy and gratitude for those two men, for my ten days of ceremony, and for this experience. I walked back to the temple and gave them big hugs.

That night we sat together around the fire. I was able to eat a full plate of food for the first time in days. Edi and Muca had caught some small fish, and Louisa had grilled them over the open fire. I peeled the tiny morsels of flesh from each minuscule bone. It was one of the most delicious meals I had ever eaten in my life. When we finished, Luis sat down and said, “Vāta Txanu, I want to tell you a story about the Runūa, the serpent.”

I always enjoyed story time. With a smile on my face, I laid back in my hammock to listen.

Luis was sitting in a chair, the only one in the whole village. It was close to falling apart, but he looked like a king, sitting up there while we were hanging on his every word. The fire burning on the temple floor flickered, and a few lanterns burned like candles. I could only see the right side of Luis’s face. His right hand held the end of what remained of his left arm.

“The Runūa is the most sacred animal of the jungle,” he began. “We have four different kinds of Runūa here. The mānā Runūa, which is the serpent that lives on the earth, sleeps on the earth, and eats on the earth. They also can be found in the waters or in burrows under the ground. In your language, you might call them boa constrictors. This Runūa is a very sacred animal and carries a lot of force, but she is difficult and tends to be slower in giving her force and wisdom away if you connect with her.

“Then we have the waka Runūa. She is the Runūa of the water and is very powerful. She carries more power than the mana Runūa. She spends most of her time in the water, but she also spends time on land. You would call her anaconda.

“Then we have the Runūa Txitu, a very sacred serpent who is difficult to see. She is like a waka Runūa, but without a tail. If you saw her, you might think she had an accident and cut her tail. Her body just ends at one point, but that is exactly as she is. It is very hard to find one of them, as they are excellent at hiding and masquerading. They don’t grow very long, maybe a maximum of three meters, but they can become very thick.” He pointed with his right arm to the height of his knees. “Because of their size, they won’t move a lot when they are fully grown. Not many people see them. You have to be very lucky to encounter one. She is extremely powerful, and she carries a lot of wisdom.

“Then there is the most sacred of all, the queen of the Runūa: Axuiká. She lives in the trees and hardly ever comes to the earth. Fully grown she is twenty-five to thirty meters long. She is an extremely powerful animal, and not many people can report an encounter with her. The last man of our tribe that saw Axuiká, and could tell about it, lived one hundred fifty years ago. If you encounter her, and she sees you first, you will never survive. If you spot her first, she will know, and that moment will almost instantly turn you into a pajé.

Axuiká, the Queen of Serpents who lives in the trees

“I want to tell you today about the Runūa, and what I tell you is true for all the four types of Runūa that we know about. They live here in the forest. They don’t move very much; they just lie in one place, in silence. A mature Runūa does not go hunting. She commands her territory, which has a distance of thirty minutes walking in each direction.” With his only arm, Luis gestured in a circle. “That is her world, her space, and she is the master of that space. She is a master of consciousness. No other Runūa will enter that space; one Runūa will hardly ever meet another, not even to mate. A female doesn’t need a male to have fertile eggs.

“In her space, the Runūa is aware of everything that happens: every animal, every plant, every movement.” Luis held a long silence after that sentence, and looked deeply into my eyes.

“She never goes out hunting. If the Runūa wants to eat, she feels into her territory without moving from her place on the jungle floor, sensing which animals are around. She selects an animal in her kingdom, locks into it mentally, and then sings a song to it. The song is undetectable to the human ear, but her target can hear it. Hearing the song of a master, it can’t help but walk right into the mouth of the Runūa. And while the animal is getting closer, the saliva of the serpent begins to flow, sometimes coming out of her mouth like foam, allowing her to ingest even a large animal. It is in that saliva that some of her force resides, the force that calls the prey. You see, the animals are in service of each other, and this is the way that the Runūa lives as a master of consciousness. She never hunts. She lets her food come to her.

“A Runūa is not an animal we see often,” he continued. “If you see one while walking in the jungle, you can be certain that she wanted you to see her. If she did not want you to see her, she would not be there. She knew you were going to come long before you were even aware that this snake existed. To meet a Runūa is a special moment in your life. For most people it happens only once or twice. Some people will never see a Runūa at all.

“Runūa normally do not attack human beings. You do not have to be afraid. Snakes will only bite for two reasons. If you step on her, you will be bitten before you know what has happened. The only other reason a snake will attack a human is if you clear a piece of jungle to build something in her territory and threaten her livelihood. It is not so simple for a serpent just to leave and go to another space, because that could be the territory of another serpent, and they will defend their kingdom. In all other cases, they are peaceful animals.”

I asked Luis what to do if I should come upon a Runūa. He nodded, knowingly.

“If you meet a Runūa, you must take time. Whatever you are doing, stop doing it. Just pause, and sit down to be with the animal. Take some rapé, the snuff made of tobacco and the bark of a tree. Rapé is the medicine of the Runūa. Take your time. She will not go anywhere. Sit close to her and take a stick. With that stick, tap her body very gently. Look her in the eyes, and ask the serpent for its blessings. At that moment, tapping the serpent’s body with your stick, you speak the intentions for your life. But be wise: whatever you ask the Runūa for in that moment, you will receive.

Luis told me that if I were ever to meet one, I should ask her for a good wife, a good house, and a boat with a motor. I laughed. The life of a Yawanawá Indian is very simple! If you have those three things in the jungle, you are the man.

Growing serious again, I looked deeply into Luis’s eyes. “I want to meet a Runūa,” I said. “I want to meet that serpent.”

I closed my eyes and went into a deep meditation, calling in an encounter. As I was just coming out of a ten-day ceremony and was still feeling the presence of Madre Ayahuasca strongly inside of me, it was not difficult to go deep into a meditative state. And in that meditation, I saw her: a big, beautiful, female serpent appeared in front of me. Her colors were stunning. I could feel her wisdom. She was moving right in front of me, swimming in beautiful colours and patterns. She looked straight into my eyes, and I looked back without fear. With a gust of wind, she blew her name: “Nalini.”

I looked straight back at her and said, “Nalini, I want to meet you.” She didn’t say anything; she just gazed penetratingly into my eyes. At that moment, I knew I was going to meet her. I knew she would be on my path in the coming days. I didn’t know where, I didn’t know when, but I just knew it was going to happen. I opened my eyes to face Luis again. He stood in front of me and nodded, knowingly. He had seen what had happened in that moment. “Let’s see,” I said.

I spent the following day in the temple, walking around, eating, talking, and laughing, coming back into my body, after the ten-day journey with Madre Ayahuasca. The sun was shining, and we decided that the next day we would begin cooking some Ayahuasca. A friend of Luis had come by and left us a big stack of Ayahuasca vines. All we had to do was find the leaves of the chacruna plant to add to the brew and start cooking. Luis knew where to find the chacruna plants in the jungle.

Chacruna ~ Rainha da Floresta ~ Kawá ~ Psychotria-Viridis

We went looking for chacruna the next day. In the Yawanawá language, chacruna is called “kawá,” while the Santo Daime call her “rainha da floresta,” queen of the forest. And so the four of us set out: Luis, Muca, Qwatsi, and I. We walked deep into the jungle. There were no real paths. We followed some tiny hunting trails and cleared the way with machetes, looking for plants along the way.

Looking for the chacruna was not easy for me. I am quite familiar with the plant, having spent time with Santo Daime communities in Brazil. I was under the impression that I knew the plant well enough to recognize it, but in the jungle, where there are thousands of different plants, they all begin to look more or less the same. Finding one chacruna plant amidst all that flora, was a very different experience from seeing one-hundred chacruna plants in a field, planted in rows.

Luis was a good teacher. He told me that the chacruna was close and that he already had seen it. He refused to help me find it. That was my task. It took me more than twenty minutes to find the plant, which, in the end, was right in front of my nose. I walked around in small circles, examining every plant. Luis sat patiently at a root of a tree, and Qwatsi stood next to me, laughing. He had identified the plant long ago.

We collected twenty-five chacruna plants that morning. We took them out of the earth, roots and all, to add to our medicinal garden. I walked back to the boat next to Luis. We were in good spirits as our walk had been fruitful. We joked about me not being able to find the plants so quickly, and as we walked, I was not paying a lot of attention to the path.

Then suddenly I saw a glimpse of huge snake right in front of us. I almost stepped on her. There she lay, in the middle of the path: a huge, beautiful mānā Runūa. It was her: Nalini. My heart skipped a beat.

Her body was very thick, bigger than any snake I had seen in my life, covered in beautiful colors. I felt terrified, but I could not help but look at her in awe. She looked straight into my eyes, and I looked straight back. Luis hadn’t seen her at first, and even he looked a bit scared. He watched from a distance. Later, he confessed that he almost stepped on her as well.

I stood frozen, trying to remember Luis’s instructions. She was such a big animal, probably four meters long by my estimation. Her body had a girth greater than the belly of a baby. I just stood there, paralyzed. Luis saw my fear and touched me gently on the elbow, saying, “Let’s walk a bit.”

“What if she goes away?”

“She will not go away,” Luis assured me. “They don’t move during the daytime. They only travel at night. Don’t worry. She will be there when we get back. Calm down.”

So we walked, the four of us. Twenty minutes passed. We gathered some other plants to put in our ever-growing medicinal garden. I couldn’t stop thinking about Nalini, lying on the path, waiting for us to return. My heart was beating fast, and my mind was racing. Muca led us back. Sure enough, she was still there, in the middle of the path, exactly where we had left her.

Once again, I stared at her in complete awe. I couldn’t believe I was in the presence of such a beautiful, strong, sacred animal. I could really feel her sacredness, the power of her consciousness, as she stared directly into my eyes.

I remembered Luis’s instructions: “You must take rapé when you meet the Runūa. This is the medicine of that animal.” I checked my pockets for some rapé, but they were empty. Nobody else seemed to have either. I looked at Luis in horror. What should I do? He calmly told me not to worry, to find a stick, and to sit down.

My fear began to subside, especially as I saw how calm Luis was. I found a long stick and kneeled near Nalini, as far away as I could get while still being able to touch her with the stick. I had picked up one of the longest sticks I could find. I took my time, moving gently and purposefully. Luis watched. I slowly began to tap on this beautiful, strong animal with the stick. As I tapped this sacred creature, I put out my intentions. I looked her straight in the eyes, and she looked straight back into mine.

Silently, tapping Nalini all the while, I asked her for health, happiness, an open path, abundance, prosperity, friendship, love, and wisdom. My main intention was to encounter my mate: a beautiful woman to be by my side, a shining soul to share this dream of life with. And I called in my forever home, when the time and space was right. A home that would be connected to friends and community, with clear waters and abundant food. I asked her to help me with the healing work that was happening in Peru, and to show me the next steps on my path. Throughout it all, I was very precise, using specific details. I had learned that if you’re not specific enough with your intentions, you can get exactly what you asked for, but not what you wanted.

I took my time. I carefully chose my intentions and asked Nalini to help me to manifest them. For at least twenty minutes, I tapped her with the stick. Luis was watching me from close by, and Muca and Qwatsi were sitting at a distance, all observing what was happening.

When I finished, I stepped back. I watched the snake in complete awe. The silence was singing. It had been a very sacred moment, so the others had respected it. I felt so much honor, so much love, and so much gratitude for this animal.

I felt that my time with her had not yet come to an end, but I didn’t know what could come next. So I asked the others if we could go on a walk again and return a third time.

Again, we left. And again, we found some plants for our garden. We returned about half an hour later. This time, I found the courage. I sat down very close to her, took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and put my hand on her cold skin. I took a deep breath and focused myself. It was unlike anything I had felt before. I kept breathing deeply, my heart pounding in my chest. Sitting there quietly, unmoving, feeling the sacredness of this being, feeling her power and her wisdom. Sitting there, I just knew: she had to come to our temple. She had to come and give her blessings to the space. I opened my eyes and looked at her:

“Nalini,” I spoke, ”I am going to take you. I have built a home and a temple not far from here. I am going to bring you there to ask for your blessings. Please come with me, Nalini. I want you to bless our space with your presence. If you want to live there, you can live there. It is a beautiful house. We have food. We have everything. Everything there is for you, Nalini. If you want to leave again, you are free to come back here. Please, Nalini. Come with us.”

I spoke slowly, as calmly as I could. She just looked me straight in the eyes.

To Luis, I said: “Luis, I’m going to take her.” Luis stood up, shook his head, and walked away in silence. I understood: this was not his thing; it was only mine. Luis took Qwatsi by his arm and walked away. Muca, a strong warrior, stayed with me, and I felt very grateful that he did. I had never caught a snake before.

I prepared to transport Nalini to the temple. I found a strong, long branch with a V-shape at the end. I also took a straight branch and collected some small vines to use as ropes. Standing in front of her, with the V-shaped branch in my hands, I looked into her eyes: “Nalini, I’m going to catch you.” I told her out loud, “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to kill you. I’m just going to take you. So please, Nalini, relax.”

I stood right in front of her with the branch in my hand. I took some time to gather my courage. When I felt ready, I pinned her neck to the ground with a strong, swift movement. Both sides of the V-shaped end were on either side of her head, so she was unable to move her neck and head. As I did this, I stood just half a meter in front of her head, still looking her straight in the eyes. She went into a fit, thrashing and hissing. She slapped and whipped her tail around. She could easily have knocked me out with her tail, I realized later. She resisted so much, but I just stood there, holding the branch down, pinning her to the ground with all my force.

“Nalini, calm down,” I told her gently. “I’m not going to hurt you. I am not going to harm you. I am not going to kill you. I am going to take you to my home. After that, you can come back if you want, or you can stay there with me. It’s your choice. Calm down, Nalini. Calm down.” I closed my eyes and began to breathe slowly, radiating as much peace and calmness as I could gather. After about ten minutes, she began to relax. I kept breathing slowly, and a few minutes later opened my eyes to find her, once again, staring into my eyes.

“Nalini, I’m going to take a branch, and I’m going to bind you to it, okay? I’m going to take you, but don’t worry. I will not hurt you.” She stayed calm.

I reached for the other branch that was lying next to me, at the same time continuing to anchor her neck to the ground with the branch in my other hand. I laid the second branch next to her body. She completely curled up, making it impossible to bind her body to the branch. With all my strength, I tried to pull her straight again, but there was no way I could do it on my own, especially as I continued to anchor her head. Muca stepped in to help, and we carefully extended Nalini’s body alongside the branch. I used the small vine as rope, binding her head to the stick. Together, Muca and I pulled her straight and bound the middle of her body to the branch with another vine. I looked around, sweat dripping from my face. Muca and I were working together in silence. In that moment we understood each other. She curled the back of her body around the branch, and we carried her back, each with one end of the stick on our shoulders. I walked in the front, Muca in the back. She was quite heavy, I estimated around forty kilograms. We walked back to the boat, which would take us back to the temple. On our way we found Luis and Qwatsi, patiently waiting, a pile of plants lying beside them.

“Luis,” I said with a big smile, pointing to the beautiful creature that we were carrying, “Nalini.” Luis just laughed.

“Nalini,” he repeated. “They baptized her Nalini.” He shook his head as he said it.

We all got in the boat, and Muca and I lowered Nalini down onto the floor. We covered her with some of the plants we had taken so that she was not in the sun. After a short boat ride, we arrived at the small harbor close to the temple. We walked to the temple, Muca and I still carrying Nalini on our shoulders. Inside the temple, many woman were sitting and talking. When they realized we were carrying a giant serpent, they all ran out, screaming. Muca and I just laughed. It was a very funny moment.

We placed Nalini gently on the ground. There, with the snake still bound to the branch, we took out the rapé. Muca and I sat on either side of the Runūa, and I handed Muca the rapé applicator to put in his nose.

Ffffwwwpppp! I blew the rapé into his nose while my hand was on the cobra, touching the body of that beautiful creature. Then Muca and I exchanged the applicator and rapé bottle, and he blew the medicine into my nose. There I was, sitting, touching the serpent, slowly drifting into the deep forest of rapé. I went deep into the arms of that medicine. We stayed in silence for a while, my hands still on Nalini.

After some time, I said to Muca, “We have to release her. She has to be free.”

In the meantime, many Indians of the village had gathered around the temple. The news that we had caught a Runūa had traveled fast.

Sitting right next to the animal on the ground, I took out my pocket knife, an old blade that I’d grown fond of during all my years of traveling. First, I cut the twine at the back of her body, very gently, all the time speaking out loud to her, reminding her that all would be well.

“Nalini, you’re going to be free now. You can go wherever you would like. If you want to stay with us, feel free. We have food. We have a temple for you. If you want to go away from here, you can go. You are completely free now.”

Next, I cut the small vine that was keeping her middle tied to the stick. Many Yawanawá were standing around, watching from a distance, some of them close by with a machete in their hands, ready to strike if something were to happen. Later, some Indians told me they thought I was very brave, a strong warrior. But who knows what they were thinking at that moment.

I prepared to cut the last vine, the one that was keeping her neck tied to the branch. I cut it very gently. When I cut the other vines away, she had hardly moved at all. But the moment the last small vine was cut, something happened that I never expected. Her head shot up so quickly I could barely follow the motion. Before I could blink, her upper body was standing perfectly erect, and her face was right in front of mine. She stayed there, not six inches from my face, looking into my eyes. My heart almost pounded out of my chest. I felt so many emotions raging through my body.

In that moment, I took a deep breath and decided not to move a single inch. I kept sitting there, looking straight back at her. The Indians were watching, ready to jump into action if needed. I realized I was doing something not many people had done before. It took me a while to figure out what to do. There was utter silence at that moment in and around the temple.

Then I spoke to her. I put my hands up, palm towards the ground at the level of her head, and whispered, “Okay, Nalini, relax.” While speaking, I lowered my hands, showing her to go down. And that is what she did. She lowered her head and again relaxed onto the ground. I took a deep breath, relieved.

“Vāta Txanu, strong warrior!” some people shouted nearby.

My heart was still beating hard, and gently I retired at a distance from the serpent. I went to sit with my back leaning on one of the benches. What a morning it had been!

I noticed there was a dog walking around. I hoped Nalini would not eat him. Nalini made no aggressive moments. She just surveyed the room, very alert.

Though I had just finished a ten-day Ayahuasca ceremony only two days before, I felt this opportunity was too powerful to pass up. I made a decision and announced to Luis: “It is a beautiful day for a ceremony. I will drink some medicine.”

With Nalini still lying in the middle of the temple next to me, the Indians still standing around watching, I took the bottle of Santo Daime and blew my prayers into it. I took time to prepare myself for the journey, as I had an inclination it was going to be a deep one. After sitting there for about half an hour, I gathered the strength and poured out half a liter of the medicine, drinking it all at once. A typical dose of Ayahuasca is about thirty millilitres, so this was an unusually large amount. I had never done anything like this before. I carried the memory of my dear friend Maurillio telling me that once, in the middle of his church, he had drunk an entire liter of Daime. I had been building up to this moment for many days, maybe even throughout all the years I had been drinking Ayahuasca.

It was difficult to swallow all that medicine at once. I had never consumed such a large quantity before. But I did it with the intention of connecting deeply with Nalini, communicating with her, and going past all the boundaries between us. I moved closer to her again. While drinking, I kept my hands on her body, feeling her strength and her presence. It must have taken me a good 15 minutes to get it all down.

Muca also drank a heavy dose of Ayahuasca, and the two of us sat next to the snake. After about twenty minutes, I could feel the force of the medicine strongly. I said to Muca, “Let’s give her some medicine.”

We poured a small amount into our glass and gently poured it onto her nose—just a couple of drops. She stuck her tongue out and licked it away. We laughed, put our right thumbs into the air, and I told her: “This is Ayahuasca, Nalini. One of our medicines. You are a strong warrior. Very good!” I chuckled a bit from the joy of being able to share this moment with her.

Then I remembered that rapé is the medicine of this animal. I shared that thought with Muca, and he said, “I’m going to give her some rapé.”

Rapé can be lethal to serpents in bigger doses, so we gave her just a tiny bit. We gently put the V-shaped stick over her head again, gently pinning her head to the ground. Muca took the applicator and filled it with a tiny bit of rapé. Squatting very close to her face, he blew the medicine gently into Nalini’s nose.

When I released her, she shook her head. Swaying, gliding, she looked about the room in a hypnotised—and also hypnotising—state. I could see that the medicine was affecting her. Still sitting next to her, I said, “Nalini, I am going to lie down in my hammock. I would love to speak to you, so feel free to join.” I walked to my hammock and lay down, dropping deeper and deeper into the force of Ayahuasca.

After about fifteen minutes, Nalini started to move. Very slowly, she moved through the temple, her body gliding over the floor. She came closer and closer until she curled up on the ground just next to my hammock. She put her head in such a way that she was looking straight at me; my head was on one side of the hammock, looking straight back. Deeper and deeper, I fell into the realm of the medicine. Beautiful patterns and colors appeared in front of my eyes. When my eyes were open, I saw her lying right next to me, this beautiful, strong, powerful, sacred animaI. When my eyes were closed, I saw all the patterns and colors. Madre Ayahuasca was singing her songs. And in the center of it all, there was Nalini, looking straight into my eyes.

It was as if, in that moment, the veil between dream and reality had completely disappeared. It was an unreal experience.

What happened those hours is very difficult to put in words. In a way, it was a beautiful communication between us, a communication that happened on a higher plane. She told me many things, all of which are difficult to repeat now. She started to talk to me about life, about the universe, and about all manner of things that are almost impossible to describe. I just listened.

One of the things she asked me was, “Why are you living like this?” I had no idea what she meant, so I asked her to explain. She continued: “Why are you living like this? Why are you grabbing things? Why are you not always true to yourself? Why are you doing all that? Why are you trying so hard to make things happen? To please people? Why are you out all the time?”

Still, it was very difficult for me to understand what she was asking. Feeling my questions, she showed me many situations in my life when I had gone out and made things happen, convinced people, moved situations. In my visions I could clearly see some of the moments of impatience that I had in the past. It was incredible to see how she was reading my mind, seeing my questions, and at the same time providing the clarity that I was looking for, in the visions that I was receiving at the same time. The moment I would understand one part of her teaching, a new question would come up, and she would just change the vision gently and fluidly, providing the next part of the answer to me. I started to learn that she was the master of the realm of the visions.

Then she started to show me another way, the way of letting the universe work its plan. Instead of going out to make things happen, I could go inward and envision the things that I desired. Then, I could let those vibrations magnetize all that I desire, and let things flow to me naturally. I slowly understood the things she was showing me. It took me by surprise, as I had never been aware of my way of living like that before.

Then she took me into her world, and while the visions kept changing, more words were coming. “I just lie there,” she said, “all day long, in silence. I hardly move. I don’t go out to get things. I am present in the silence.” While she spoke, she took me into the silence, step by step. She took me into deep states of meditation until I couldn’t hear any noise or sound. The silence was so profound, so deep. I felt many things in that silence. And, at the same time, I felt nothing.

“When I am in the silence,” she continued, “ and I would like something, I just plant a seed. I plant a seed in the silence.” She spoke softly, calmly. She took her time to communicate with me both in words and visuals.

“When I have planted that seed firmly in the silence, I stay with that seed for a while. I water it with silence. When I have watered the seed with enough silence, I slowly come out of it again, back into this reality. Now and then, I go back into the silence and water that seed with more silence.” She described this process to me so vividly. I could see it happening before my eyes. I felt humility. I felt gratitude. I felt wisdom.

“That is how I invite you to live,” she told me. I nodded. I felt so stupid, in a way. How could I not have known this before? Understanding was pouring in. I pondered that wisdom for a long time.

“Because you caught me, I have a gift for you. I will be with you for the rest of your life. Wherever you go, I will go,” Nalini said. “I will be your ‘spirit animal,’ as you call it in your world.” I felt my chest well up with emotion. “Whatever seed you plant in the silence, I will plant the same seed right next to it. We will water your seeds, your intentions, together.” I saw it all happening right in front of me. “Like that, the fruits of the seeds that you plant will come even faster to you. I will be there with you, in the silence, always. That is my gift to you.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. The moment was indescribable. I was overcome with gratitude. I thanked her: “Nalini, I honor you. You are such a beautiful animal, so full of wisdom, strength, and sacredness. Thank you so much for being on my path. Thank you so much for coming into my life. Thank you so much for granting me the ability to take you here, to our temple. Thank you for bestowing your blessings on the house, on the temple, on my life, and on the lives of all the people here. Thank you so much for coming, Nalini.”

We stayed there for several hours, communicating on deep levels of existence. Many people came from the village, asking for the blessings of this beautiful animal. I just laid in my hammock, in a deep state of bliss, right next to her. As she bestowed her blessings on our visitors, she kept teaching me about life, about the world, about the universe. She showed me things that I cannot yet put into words.

We must have stayed like this for a few hours

About six hours after I had started my ceremony, it began to get dark. The sun went down, and Nalini and I shared our last moment of communication. She showed me her heart. And in my vision I could see it very clearly. It looked like a treasure that contained many secrets and an almost infinite amount of wisdom. I could truly see why they called her the most sacred animal of the forest. “My heart contains a secret,” she told me, looking straight into my eyes. “Maybe one day you will find out what that secret is.” After those words, she slowly started to move away. Lying in my hammock, I saw her stretching out in front of me. At one point, as she moved back into the jungle, I saw her full length. She was massive, so powerful. I reached out and grabbed her tail. With all the strength I could muster, I pulled her back. Any fear I had felt earlier in the day had subsided. I knew she would never hurt me. Swiftly, she turned her head. Vvvwooooosh.

I reached my right hand out to her with my palm faced to the left, and I spoke to her a final time: “Thank you so much, Nalini. Thank you so much for being on my path, for coming into my life. Thank you so much for your presence, your blessings. Thank you so much for the teachings. Thank you so much for being with me for the rest of my life. I honor you. I love you. I bow to you. I thank you.”

After those words, I let her go, and she went back into the jungle. I lay in my hammock, still trying to grasp what had just happened. A few minutes later, I was overcome with a desire to see her again. I took my flashlight, got out of my hammock, and tried to find my shoes. Stumbling, I walked into the night to look for her. I was still deep on the medicine. I looked around, but there was not a single trace left of her. She was gone.

I went back to my hammock, and Luis came to sit next to me in his chair. I was still deep on the force of the medicine. The fire was burning. I shared with him some of the visions and teachings that I had received from Nalini. He just listened in full attention. When I told him about her last message, telling me that her heart contained a secret, he gently started to nod his head. “Ta bom,” he said knowingly, leaving a long silence.

“There is one dieta that only a handful of men have done in the history of the Yawanawá,” he continued. “It is the most profound, powerful, dangerous, and difficult dieta we know of. That dieta starts with taking the Xiná, the heart of a Runūa. You will drink the essence of her heart, and in that moment you will enter a dieta for one year.

“That year will be a very strong and challenging one. If you finish the dieta well, you will receive all her wisdom, all her healing, all her power, everything. It is as if her spirit will come and live inside of you. There will be no holding back. The men that have finished that dieta, became the greatest leaders of our tribe. It was around one-hundred-fifty years ago that the last person successfully completed that dieta. The last person who attempted it broke his dieta—and died. To get to the heart of the Runūa, you have to kill the animal. You can only kill such a sacred animal for the purpose of opening Runūa Xiná, and by killing her and taking her heart, you enter a very sacred contract with her. That contract is not to be taken lightly.

“Her spirit will go on a journey, starting at the nearest river. She will travel through all the rivers of the forest, exploring the whole forest and its powers, learning, studying. She will travel through the whole earth, all the mountains, all the seas, all the oceans. And wherever she goes, she will soak up all the wisdom, all the force, all the healing. Then she will go to each single planet and do the same, soaking it all up. Then onward to the stars, the universe. Then she will continue into the heavens. Her journey will end at the highest level of the heavens, where the cosmic serpent lives. This journey can be described as a true university, as she will study everything in the universe on her journey.

“When she encounters the cosmic serpent, she will communicate that a man has drunk the heart of one of her children. Taking the heart is like taking a secret key, putting it into an invisible lock, and turning it. The spirit of the Runūa will receive the force of the cosmic serpent and stay in the heavens. Then a part of the cosmic serpent will start to move and travel to the Earth, making the same journey that the spirit of the Runūa made, only backwards. That whole journey there and back, takes a maximum of one year. In that year, the person who does the dieta has to prepare his body for that force to come in. It will be a very strong year with many challenges; you have to be really prepared to start and finish that journey.

“When that force arrives, it will observe you, look right through you, and will see every single part of who you are and your dieta. If she sees that you have broken the dieta in any way, she will kill you. She will put a disease inside of you that no plant, no animal, no man or woman can heal. But if she sees that you kept the dieta pure for the whole time, then all the force, all the wisdom, all that she is, all that she has, all that she represents, will come and live inside of you. All that she has, you will receive. Then you will become a dreamer, and everything that you dream of will come into this reality. You will become a ‘professor do professores.” A teacher of teachers.”

I looked at Luis and felt the depth of those words. I felt their truth resonate at a deep layer of my being. I felt a seed being planted inside of my heart. I watered it with silence. I closed my eyes again and spent the whole night deep in my journey. The journey took a long time, maybe fifteen hours in total. The whole time, I saw Nalini in my visions; in the patterns, in the colors. She was there, swimming right in front of me. She was looking at me, teaching me, talking to me, listening to me. She was always in the silence.

***

The next day, everyone in the village was talking about the day with Nalini. I received many hugs and gentle taps on my shoulders. It was a surreal situation, and I started to doubt if it had all really happened. I sat at the fire eating some rice and beans. Qwatsi was sitting next to me, reading straight from my mind. He ran off and retrieved my iPod, which had been lying around in the temple for the last few days. Proudly, he showed me all the photos he had taken. Scrolling through the pictures, I saw that many of them were with Nalini. Qwatsi had photographed our carrying her on the branch, and Nalini lying on the floor beside me in my hammock. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Reality was still reality, dreams were still dreams. I gave Qwatsi a huge hug. What a special boy he was!

After breakfast, Mēyu, a woman of the village, arrived at my house just as I was preparing to walk to the stream for a bath. She brought two beautiful bracelets and showed them to me. They were made of tiny beads of beautiful, bright colors, designed into intricate patterns. They reminded me of the patterns on Nalini’s skin.

Mēyu had made the bracelets specifically for me. She said that putting them on my wrists during my dieta was a very powerful action—and that the force of the dieta would stay with me for as long as I wore them. They would remind me of my spiritual family, the Yawanawá, and of my sacred time in the jungle. Covering my hands with water and soap, Mēyu slid the tight bracelets over my wrists.

One of the bracelets had a design that showed the head of a Runūa and the various designs on the Runūa’s body. That bracelet was specifically designed to keep the energy of my time with Nalini with me.

The bracelets pressed against my skin like a reminder of that seed, planted in silence, waiting for its time.

Obrigado, Nalini

In the shimmer of the serpent’s saliva, the hummingbird finds a drop of ancient magic…