William Keefer

William Keefer is a writer and private investigator based in Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of Anamnesis, a novel that takes place in the Amazon rainforest, and publishes essays on plant medicine and other topics at www.williamkeefer.com. He is currently working on White Bear, a sequel to Anamnesis, which “continues the story of global consciousness evolution with an emphasis on the role of the plants in the process.”    

Excerpt from White Bear by William Keefer

Day by day, the life of the Amazon high forest went on around Centro Camarampi. Flowers blossomed and fell. In the nooks of tree branches, opportunistic plants grew that had no need to touch the ground. On the forest floor, stout plants that flourished in the shade lived out their purpose. Underground, the roots of plants connected through the mycorrhiza to form a single being dedicated to the manifestation of life.

The plants and the fungi were not alone. The insects that devoured leaves and cleaned the forest of waste had settled into their partnerships with the plants over millions of years. The plants loved how quickly they moved and the tap of their little feet. The bite of their mandibles was equally joyous because it was the unfolding of how things were. The insects were so surrendered to the flow of the jungle that they, like the plants, were a vessel for God.

The birds and small mammals of the forest gave and received from the plants—pollinating the flowers, spreading the seeds, keeping the insects in balance. The larger predators, like the boa that ate only other animals, also provided to the plants of the forest. They sensed her energy as she gracefully slid past their leaves on the hunt. She was carrying out a sacred drama that the plants willfully fostered. As she rested on a tree limb with a full stomach, the snake was comfortable amid the turning of time and the plants were pleased.

The plants loved their human children most of all – although most had left the forest that was their true home. And when they left, they did not just walk away from the garden, they leveled it to the ground and burned it. Yet the plants accepted that this was the price to be paid in carrying out God’s will. Even now, at the apex of humanity’s separation, the Earth remained a plant world. It was the plants that fed the people and made the air they breathed and the oil they burned.

The Amazon rainforest, shrinking by 150 acres every minute, was the spiritual heart of the plant world. There lived people who still had not forgotten the legacy and destiny of humanity: its forever bond with the plants. At the core of the beating heart was Centro Camarampi, where intrepid men and women came to commune with the plants. It was not just forest people like Maestro Ríos, but outsiders too—damaged and alienated ones from the north—who were granted the privilege to meet God through the plants. To come to Centro Camarampi was to travel in time—not to the past but to the future. It was a shining star that was destined to grow and illuminate the whole world. The plant spirits who resided there were filled with immeasurable joy to do their work.

“Oh. Listen,” the spirits thought as they moved through the forest and along the banks of the boiling river. Someone was whistling to them. Soft and barely audible. Yet to them all that mattered was the intention. The gentle whistling was a spiritual call that they could hear around the world. Three spirits flew down the river—Shihuahaco, Tamamuri, Tabaco—two medicine trees and the humble yet powerful ground plant. They followed the dirt path to the Centro, flying over day hikers who took no notice of them. Then, over the thatched cabins, until they reached the big ceremonial maloca where they found the man calling to them. The sound of his whistling was like light flowing from his lips. The spirits settled into the room to listen.

Rono and Jim sat crossed-legged facing each other on the wood floor of the maloca. During the afternoon, people came to the maloca to relax and get out of the sun. Rono took a break from his labor to come here and teach Jim an icaro. Rono was Shipibo-Conibo and he usually sang the medicine songs in the soaring, high-pitched style of Ayahuasqueros in his tribe. Yet Maestro Ríos was Asháninka and Rono also learned icaros in his maestro’s mestizo tradition, which used Spanish, Quechua and Asháninka words and had a repetitive, melodious style. At Jim’s request, he was going to teach him one of Maestro’s icaros now—a song to the Tamamuri tree that Jim was dieting on. The icaro was an offering to the plant, so that the spirit would provide healing force in return.

Rono finished whistling and began to sing. The icaro began with sounds—“die da die da die”—that did not have specific meaning and served to welcome the spirits. To Jim, an English speaker, the “die” reminded him of the death and rebirth process of the Ayahuasca experience. After establishing the melody, Rono introduced phrases asking the spirits to pray to God for strong medicine: “medicina ora yay, hora llamo llamo ni.” The words helped the plants close the distance between their plane of reality and his. Rono began to feel their presence. During an Ayahuasca ceremony his perception would be clearer, yet he knew these spirits well enough to instinctively sense that they were there.

Each plant spirit had a distinct character and attributes, but in general they were hybrid of plant and human, with two legs, arms and a head. Shihuahaco—a tall hardwood tree—brought the power of his timber to his spiritual form. He was tall with limbs that shook his leaves to display his presence. Those who dieted on Shihuahaco were granted strength but were also forced to accept rigidity in carrying out their purpose. Tabaco, a master plant that helped regulate other plants in the Amazon medicinal tradition, took a more indefinite form, with smoky, dark green tendrils that demonstrated the spiritual reach of the little plant. Tamamuri medicine, made from the blood-red bark of the tree, cleansed and healed trauma and was an important diet for those just setting out on the medicine path. Jim had been dieting on Tamamuri for the last two weeks at Centro Camarampi. The Tamamuri spirit was beautiful and reassuring, with large black eyes ringed by jewels and strong crimson arms. He was like a mother holding her children in the womb.

Rono sang to the plant—"lindo Tamamuri, lindo curanderito”—lovely Tamamuri, lovely, precious healer. The spirit grew more definite as his icaro continued until Rono could begin to see his familiar form in his mind’s eye. Jim, with the Tamamuri medicine thick in his blood, felt his heart rate grow and a tingle in his limbs as the work of the plant intensified. There were four decades of poison to clear. “Suena-riri” Rono directed the plant—swirl around within him. “Rama y rama y tronco y ní, llora, llora cogollo, lindas flores mayayay, pura medicina ay ní”—branches and branches and trunk shake, weep, weep little bud, beautiful flowers bloom, pure medicine flows. Rono sang with passion so that the plant would reciprocate with equally ardent healing. The coda of the icaro ended with a long exhale—a gift of his breath to the plants.

They sat in silence for some moments and then Rono spoke: “El espíritu del Tamamuri está aquí.” He said it very quietly so that the spirits would not be disturbed. They preferred to work in silence. Outside the maloca, the usually bustling Centro was quiet too, a synchronous peace that reflected the calm of the moment that Rono and Jim had created.

“Si,” Jim said. He had not sensed the spirit as Rono had but he felt the medicine working in his body. Jim began to sing the icaro, haltingly at first but with improving ability. He mixed up the words and didn’t pronounce them correctly, but it was his energy that mattered most and that was right.

The spirits heard his voice beginning to break into their realm. It was like a tiny mustard seed that caught a gust of wind to come from far afield. “Medicina ora yay, hora llamo llamo ni,” Jim sang. The seed planted into the holy ground and a green shoot began to grow. "Lindo Tamamuri, lindo curanderito.” Tamamuri took Jim in a symbiotic embrace—healing him and in return was satiated by the promise of his destiny. All the pieces were in place now in a system grown across time and dimensions. Tonight would be a ceremony for all time.

Rono heard the promise too and smiled as Jim finished the icaro. The foreigners who came to Centro Camarampi were odd to him—in their language, appearance, and ways—but he understood that they all had a role to play in Maestro’s great work. Jim offered Rono a mapacho cigarette as gratitude for his song. Rono blew tobacco smoke for the spirits and then the two men smoked in silence.

The Tabaco spirit came to them then, sweeping over them with his misty appendages, balancing the energies of the other plants and deepening their efficacy. Jim felt the change. It was a strengthening. He had fought doubts about staying so long at the Centro, away from his family in Canada amid such apocalyptic events in the world. He now understood he was right to come. What was happening here was important and he was a part of it.

Then they were done with their mapachos and Rono held out his hand to shake Jim’s. The ritual was over and the spirits were gone. The plants had much to prepare before the ceremony that evening.