Zoe Nightingale

So...plant medicine. It's something that I hold with utmost respect and complete reverence and it's something that's being exploited at a rate that makes my head spin. I first encountered it when I was traveling throughout South America when I was 18 (in 2004!!) I was living in Tena, a small rainforest preserve in a tiny straw hut and our guide, named Gato, who had yellowish eyes and was a tree frog expert asked my friends if we wanted to participate in a religious ceremony. He mostly spoke a language called Quecha, and some Spanish, so the translation left a little to the imagination but two of my friends, knowing nothing, went and did it. When they came back, they told me about Ayahuasca, about drinking a mud like sludge that tasted like a mixture of rotten flesh and fermented manure, and the subsequent 24 hours filled my mind with total wonder and confusion. My friend Ben, who was a light filled happy go lucky kid from Maine who always had a small guitar and a rainbow tacky sack and a smile, was never the