As I pulled my right leg from the juicy mud to lift it over the fallen tree in front of me, the pain shot once again through my pelvis and coiled around my back like an unrelenting serpent. I cursed under my breath and felt tears rise in my eyes. My guide, Juan Carlos, sensing my pain, stopped and waited for me, gently steering me by my left elbow back onto the nearly invisible path. I instinctively knew where to go. I was connected to this jungle, to Juan Carlos, to my friends, to every insect, tree, mushroom, plant, and flower. In the vastness of interconnected life here, my pain faded into the clouds overhead, promising a deluge that would soon engulf me.

It’s been two weeks since my awakening in the Amazon jungle, but I still haven’t completely processed it. Writing about deep epiphanies sometimes brings truths into focus, so I’ll try to articulate what I learned this month in hopes that it will inspire some of you.

I didn’t really want to go to Amazonia. I hate heat and humidity. I’m a mountain girl. That’s why I moved to the Andes. But my friend, Karen Harrison, lit up when I mentioned that another friend had visited the rainforest here. “Can we go? I’ve always wanted to experience the Amazon rainforest!” She has been my Reiki teacher and mentor for ten years now. How could I say no? Once again, I decided to answer the call to adventure and begin another hero’s journey. In Human Design, I’m a Projector, and to live my design, I need to wait for invitations and then listen to my intuition about whether or not to accept. I listened and got a distinct, “Go!” So I picked her up in Quito and headed out with our guide, Diego Jaramillo of Go Diego Tours. Sometimes the biggest and best shifts in life come from listening to and following your intuition. Your soul knows what you need. In this short trip, I received three gifts that continue to transform me.

My first gift from the jungle was an awakening of the Divine Feminine. The Kichwa of the Amazon understand the connection of women to Pachamama, the intelligent force that guides all of Earth. For example, in a demonstration of how to make chicha, a fermented drink made of yucca, a lovely young woman knelt with both knees on the ground, to establish the connection with Pachamama. Only women can pound the yucca into the mash to make the drink. It was refreshing to be in a culture that values the creative power of feminine energy. And I could feel the power of the women in the way they held their bodies and how they moved with bare feet around the communal stove or dancing in a circle, inviting us to join them as they held the handmade pottery bowls, a symbol of their receptivity and capacity to hold life. Their steady, gentle gaze from their dark, mysterious eyes penetrated into my green, curious eyes and communicated to me that I held that power as well. I had forgotten. As I sat and listened to a lecture about the village, the housing, the food–an older woman, maybe in her fifties, sat next to me radiating an energy so deeply rooted that she may as well have been an ancient wise tree. She smiled at me once, and I felt seen on a level I have seldom experienced in my life. She communicated to me in that instance that all women have her power. We use it to see others and empower them. We receive what Life gives us, and we transform it into something new. And when one of us is overwhelmed with too much, women have the power to share the burden.

The second gift from the jungle was a surrendering to The Whole. I have always struggled with the pain and struggle of life–not my personal struggles but just the process of living (killing of plants/animals to eat, loss in general). As the Buddhists rightly acknowledge, all life is suffering. But in the jungle, I bore witness to such an abundance of life and death. I was overcome by the understanding that life and death are truly just flip sides of the same process, ever evolving, spiraling from one state to another ad infinitum. I made the decision to open to Life. I even ate a culona, a giant roasted ant. I couldn’t bring myself to eat the palm grubs that I gave Reiki to and connected with, but our guide ate one alive, and I didn’t cry or hit him. I accepted it in a way I’ve never been able to before. I think my grandparents lived more closely to Earth and understood the cycles of nature more deeply.; however, I grew up disconnected from my food, from extended family, from nature. Being in the Amazon rainforest immersed me in the smell of decaying leaves, fresh rain, sounds of birds and insects I could never isolate or identify without living there for years. I felt so small in comparison to the giant ceiba tree near the village we visited. Losing myself in the jungle brought me home to my own essence, my own contribution to this planet, my own unique frequency. We all bring a special vibration to this symphony of Earth.

The third gift from the jungle was the cracking open of my culturally created chrysalis to reveal my Wild, Authentic Self. It was as if the humidity precipitated the softening of the sheath that protected my vulnerable inner child. I noticed it first in my hair. Without a dryer to subdue its shape with a brush as I usually did, it took on a wavy, spiraling Medusa quality. I let it be free. Each hair was like an antennae receiving energy from the life pulsing all around me. I let go and relaxed into green, sticky energy. As I unwound into my surroundings, my grip on my hip pain loosened, and the grinding, bone-on-bone arthritis agony screamed throughout my body. I began releasing years of trauma I had held captive there–letting it seep out through sighs, f-bombs, and tears. It is still releasing. I’m crying as I write these sentences right now, which tells me that this emotional pain runs deep. When we hold pain inside, it just grows denser, eventually manifesting as a physical problem. I will have my hip replaced because it is physically beyond energetic healing, but I still have to do the emotional healing. I felt the dammed up emotions release at the end of the jungle walk. The clouds had been gathering throughout the walk, and as we neared the spot where we would exit the labyrinth to meet the boat on the river bank, the sky opened up and poured a wall of water down upon us. My pain had broken free of the cage where I had imprisoned it, and I openly cried as I hobbled through the mud. My two friends stopped to put on their ponchos, but Juan Carlos took my arm and led me down the treacherous incline toward the river. He had a death grip on my arm. His fingers left bruises, but I knew he would not let me fall. I cursed and cried and slipped down the embankment, finally landing on the sandy river beach among rivulets of water. The pain had become a part of me now. I accepted it. No one could see my tears. They blended with the water cascading down my forehead. Juan Carlos smiled at me, and I laughed/cried/smiled back at him. He threw his arms out and looked upward, shouting, “Gracias, Pachamama!” I did the same. My friends slid down behind us, equally drenched. We climbed into the boat and headed back to the lodge. I knew that whatever had been unleashed as I struggled down that muddy bank would not be caged again. Two weeks later, I am still releasing and relaxing into my Truth. I have brought the fearless, wild energy of the rainforest with me back to the mountains.

You don’t have to go to the Amazon rainforest to connect with your Sacred Self. Your truth, your authentic self may be lying dormant inside of you, just waiting for you to step outside of your comfort zone. It’s the painful times in your life that call you to your hero’s journey. Your adventure awaits you–sometimes after a divorce, after your parents die, after your kids leave the nest. Any time you find yourself alone with nothing but pain, move through it. Focus on the mundane details of your life as you trudge forward. Notice how the universe conspires to help you–sometimes with just a smile from a stranger in the grocery store. Be present in the jungle of your life. Be grateful for all Pachamama brings you–the life, the death, the joy, and the pain. Go inside and find the fearful child within and bring her/him out to play in the rain of life. Let the fear wash away into the river as you step into the next part of your adventure a little more healed, a little more whole.