Jungle Chronicles #4: COMING OUT

It’s been 2 weeks since I wrote to you. And I cannot seem to grasp what can happen in only two weeks. We have exited the jungle few days ago and since then I have been making space to slowly come back to connection and have time to rest & digest. As I am writing this, I am on the beautiful deck of my dear friend’s house in Costa Rica, where I will be spending next few days to take a breath before I go back south, this time to Colombia. 

I feel incredibly blessed to leave the jungle only to go to another version of it - where the green is still everywhere around me, where people get up with the sunrise, and life stops to watch the sunset, where I can continue to walk barefoot, hear the birds, cicadas and monkeys, soaking up the sun and enjoy her majesty the ocean. What a beautiful, soft landing this is after the experience I just had. 

And the experience… it was everything. It was life-supporting, life-changing, incredibly beautiful, in some ways very simple but also incredibly profound. I am aware that it will take me (once again) many years for the unfolding of this journey to integrate into my life. At the same time, I feel how much this time it was not ‘here & there’, ‘life in the jungle’ & ‘my other life’, but felt like a beautiful continuation, grounded, and present, with no big difference of who I am there and here. And that is definitely one of the precious gifts of the journey.

As I have been slowly coming out into connections, I have been contemplating how, what and when to share, being aware of all of you reading my words and curious for more, being aware of my need for space, and being aware of respect and grace I want to treat all my friends from the jungle, all my companions on the journey and all the teachings I have received. That is why I have decided to continue writing over the next few weeks, when I can, how I can, sharing moments and insights, talking about my Sapara and Achuar friends, and giving it space to be received in the way which is hopefully aligned with the appreciation all of them deserve. 

And for now, I would love to share what it means to come back from the jungle. I would love to share that after days and days in the immense green, simple life, when it was time to go back the rain started. I would love to share that I was on the last plane to leave, along with my teachers and my friend Chumpi, to stay as long as I could with the people, with the land, with my friend, with the smell of the forest, with the view on the airline strip that is flattened ground, and with the sounds of the most beautiful songs. 

When it was our time to depart, we got into to the plane and started our almost an hour long journey towards the Shell. After all, the deepest part of the Forest where we were is close to the border of Peru. As we took off, I felt the knot in my stomach. Even though I am aware I am not comfortable in (small) planes - and God knows I had to get used to them to be able to accompany the thread of my life, I felt that the knot was telling me it will not go smoothly. In a few moments we were told by the pilot we cannot land in Shell due to rain, but that we will land in another community and wait for the weather to change. 

As it is in jungle life, once again we bowed to the forces greater than us and accepted the current situation. Once we landed, I was aware that the place we were was showing us many of the things we have been hearing deep in the forest that they are fighting against - indigenous community that welcomed the road, with the signs of contemporary life in a way that, to my eye, does not respect and support the nature, tradition, or the values of the ancestry of that land. I saw a little town where I would not feel comfortable staying on my own after the sun sets, that welcomed the new with its many troubles and became this weird mixture of everything and nothing, with green magic around it, and with a lot of trash in it. 

We waited for a couple of hours before we could leave to meet our group outside of the jungle and continue the journey. And those couple of hours made me stronger, more dedicated, incredibly angry and passionate about protecting the Forest with all that I’ve got and making my commitment to the richness I have been apart of the previous 10 days as clear as possible. 

So for the next period of time I will be sharing much more of that richness with you guys. Feel free to ask, to share, to be a part of it in any ways it feels good to you. 

And until then, a little preview of how it was: 

With whole lotta love and enormous gratitude, 

K.