I woke up is what happened. But not all at once, and not by my choice either, I don't think.
As an adolescent, my father had me removed from the country to avoid the felony charges I may have endured for an assault on another man.
Luckily, the place I was to stay had none of the white noise incessantly coming from the industrial sized fan which had been sucking me in back home.
While there, I was able to rub many of the lies and much of the propaganda from my eyes, which had formed while I was asleep in the states.
No longer was I required to go to school, or allowed to watch television.
My days were spent catching caiman from the stream, twining rope from bark strands, reading and thinking about the purpose of my existence.
Then one day I was given a snort of yopo from Nigel, the village shaman, and off to the mountain I went for some mediation and fasting.
The first day or so, I had talked to many dead ancestors, and was given knowledge of the jaguar spirit.
On about the third day I heard a voice, coming through the leaves and the stream, and it was unlike the usual inner dialogue.
This one was more refined, but not by human standards- because it sounded more as if it were coming from the earth, the sky and the rain.
The crazy thing is this voice was not in English or any other language I am familiar with, but I understood it clearly, as if listening to my mother's voice from within her womb.
"Who do you think your spirit belongs to?
If you say it belongs to you, then it is trapped within you, and can never be free.
If you give glory to a higher power, you can only go up.
But, if you say you have no spirit then you're already dead."
Or something close to those lines.
The voice explained my time had been spent well in the jungle, but that it was time for me to return home, as there was purpose for me there.
I didn't want to leave, but God assured me that I would return again to the jungles, but that I shouldn't think about that for the time being, and that I would know when the time came.
When I returned to the village from the mountain, I thought I had been gone for about 4-5 days.
When I inquired what day of the week it was, Nigel informed me that I had been gone for well over two weeks.
He and the elders thought perhaps I had been eaten by animals.
And, so I began making preparations for my return home, soon thereafter.
Back home again; decades passed, and I had forgotten about my promised return to the jungle, until one day I received a call from officials in the district.
True to the promise, last year I returned their once again to help resolve a legal land dispute, in which an old friend had been killed by illegal trespassers.
I was sad to hear of my friend's fate, but on my travels there, I was almost giddy anxious in anticipation to hear that beautifully haunting voice once again; but this time the forest spoke to me in a different way.
This time it spoke of pain and anguish, as it beckoned me to help, but lo; I felt helpless to listen, and my eyes could hardly bear to witness the wounds we have inflicted.
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