10 photos can’t do justice to the 8 nights I spent living w/ the Huni Kuin tribe in a remote corner of Brazil’s Amazon jungle. The indigenous people here- gentle, introverted except when they fill their bodies with swelling music & singing-call the jungle the “forest,” a magical & mystical realm of transformation. Plant medicines of every type are deeply revered in sacred rituals & used habitually: from the Nixi Pae (ayahuasca tea) which we consumed in 3 night time ceremonies & 1 day time (hallucinogenic hiking probably not recommended for the future), Hapé (the sacred snuff we endlessly consumed then spit & gooed out of our noses), medicinal baths (applied by dunking a pitcher of muddy herbed water boiling over an open fire onto our skin (no tubs, guys!), Rampaya (a throat chakra purifier pecked onto our tongues by the Pajé holding a dead bird’s beak), Kambo (a frog secretion burned into open skin on our shoulders that made us burn up & vomit bile to deeply purify our insides) and multiple plants I’ve never heard of that were secreted into our raw eyeballs. While the visions I experienced in the ceremonies were profound & otherworldly, especially the last night when we were submerged in giant smudging fires, then descended upon by 4 feather crowned pajes who shouted spells in my ears, face & aura, pulling out entities, spiritual blocks & energetic density, the real work began outside the ceremony ring. There were no bathrooms, no sinks, no plumbing, no electricity, no Wi-Fi, no text messages, no instagram, no fresh vegetables or fruits (rice and beans for 10 days), no good night sleeps, no walls on our raised 8 foot platform where 20 of us lived in squashed commune. When I wasn’t freezing cold, I was boiling hot, sticky, stinky & itching like crazy from the microscopic bug bites. There was no refuge, no place to hide, to escape. There was just the invitation- no, the command- to surrender to what was there: raw discomfort, vulnerability & helplessness. My lesson this trip? Not trying to fix, criticize or punish who/what ever was responsible for my own pain. I sat in it by myself, holding it, watching it, trying to love it. Grateful for this test of fortitude.