Espiritu
A book of plants, leaves, trees, jungles, forests, wild places & magic spaces.
Available Now at Blurb
Espiritu is a book about plants, trees, leaves, flowers, nature, wild areas, jungles and forests and has grown, in part, from my experiences with ayahuasca, a plant medicine used throughout the Amazon rainforest.
Much has been written, discussed, debated, explored, criticized, questioned, examined and extolled regarding ayahuasca, the science and the mystery, the shamanism that surrounds it and its use by different cultures and peoples. While the awareness, knowledge and use of ayahuasca by indigenous peoples stretches back thousands of years, popular, global engagement with the plant has emerged slowly within the previous 100 years.
It’s use continues to expand, consequently, ayahuasca drinkers are thrust into the sometimes frightening, often beautiful, harsh reality of nature, natura, “essential qualities”, and the art and discipline of ayahuasca, which can be wild, clarifying, rich, wondrous, terrifying, healing, dark, expansive, illuminating, chaotic, purgative, teaching, challenging, shifting, strengthening, difficult, dangerous, cleansing, evolving, demanding, trusting, flowing, deceptive, capricious, immersive and complex.
At perhaps its most simple expression, ayahuasca is a plant, a non-descript jungle vine. On a more transcendent level, ayahuasca is a life force capable of opening and inviting one to the presence, vitality and reality of the spirit world, the spirits of plants and other life, inner workings of ecosystems, planetary holism, health and wellbeing, the darkness and light of this world, and worlds beyond.
This book offers a passing glance into world of spirits. Kaleidoscopic ghost-hunter snapshots. Faces and figures appear. Dream-like mirrors. Wonderland looking-glasses with which to unite and highlight the diversity, symmetry, balance and relations of nature, animals, humanity, and the planet.
It is my hope that Espiritu encourages one to engage with nature at a more profound level, helps one to see and feel the spirits of plants and places and nourishes the development of deep, respectful, healthful relationships with a miraculous world.
The original photographs were taken, over the course of three years; in the Peruvian Amazon, in the areas around the Aucayacu, Lobo and Galvez Rivers, in the forest near the Peru-Brazil border, and gardens and wild areas in Alberta and Ontario, Canada.