She talks about the "Master Plants" of the Amazon; these plants are seven teachers chosen from the rain forest that give access to all other plants. In Ayurveda, we reduce the vast complexity of the body to three doshas, so that we have an anchor and a systematic approach to all pathology. Do the master plants serve that purpose in the Amazon? Are they masters for the whole planet?

I wondered how the master plants relate to the plants of my "inner garden." The inner garden, as Frank Cook of Plants and Healers explains, are your individual sacred medicinal plants that you carry with you in your heart chakra.

Aubrey continued with perfumes of the Amazon. "Perfumes shift energy," she explains, "People here are aware of smells and how to use them. For example, they wear a certain perfume for important business transactions, another for meeting a lover." In Ayurveda we learn that smell comes from elimination (molecules emitted from a substance that strike our nose), and is thus smell related to the root chakra. Kapha people have a strong sense of smell. A culture that knows smell would probably also be a grounded, kapha culture.

We like think of the silent old man on the mountain, but maybe he is not just meditating. Maybe he is also with the plants. Maybe he is experiencing the potent life force of plants by drinking and communing with them. In the Amazon, such a deep interpersonal experience with a plant is called a Dieta. How do we as North Americans take a spiritual hermitage with plants? Frank Cook, on our trip through Jemez Hot Springs, suggests a week long hermitage of wild foods. He says, "Then the 'Father Stone' rock formation above us would begin to talk." Through meditation we connect with divine. Through plants we connect with earth. To experience the divine on earth we should meditate with plants.

When I think of the Amazon, I automatically think of the vine. Maybe my spirit gravitates towards the potency, fertility and vitality of the vine. Vines are reaching outward and twisting upwards. But vines are also somewhat parasitic. Aubrey reminds me that in the Amazon many shamans also practice black magic. I am grateful that Ayurveda is rooted in a sacred, holy spiritual tradition to help us avoid dark energies. I am also grateful for the summer time, when the vitality of the plants reaches our northern latitudes. And for friends, like Aubrey, who offer so much knowledge from different corners of the world.

Aubrey Bamdad offers a product line of tinctures from the Amazon and can be reached at lilaraja@hotmail.com.