Robert Tindall's blog

The prophecy of the Eagle and Condor, which is common to several traditional indigenous cultures of North, Central, and South America, points to a time when humans face the evolutionary choice of moving into symbiotic presence within the more-than-human world or destroying the planet.  (more)

Indigenous, shamanic ways of healing and prophecy are not foreign to the West. Rather, they are simply unrecognized. Native symbiosis in a living, sentient cosmos is found at the very origin of the European literary tradition. (more)

During this period of geological upheaval and societal discord, anything that draws the heart away from unity will be consumed, and there will be a moment of opportunity in each individual's life when the passage will open to go from two-hearted to one-hearted, or vice-versa. Once the bridge is traversed, however, there is no return. (more)

In my eyes, Rolf came to represent a now rarely practiced, but time-honored approach to healing: that of the vision quest, where the "goal is to get back inside nature to hear her original medical voice." (more)

One of the greatest breakthroughs in 20th century medical science came from a preparation used to shoot monkeys down from the tops of trees. Naked "primitives" turned out to be master chemists whose muscle relaxant revolutionized the practice of surgery. Many experts claim the rainforests continues to promise cures. Have we exhausted Nature's cornucopia? Or are we wearing blinders that prevent us from seeing them? (more)

It came as a real delight when I realized the good folks in the Native American Church seriously loved their children. During my first teepee, in the early morning hours, bleary eyed from intense dreams and the long vigil at the sacred fire, I beheld a handful of big guys, accompanied by a water drum, vigorously chanting: "Daddy loves his little one. She's his morning star. Daddy loves his little one. May she live in joy with every day..." (more)

At the recent conference, I was intrigued to hear the question, "Can we be healed by self-delusion?" posed about Western ayahuasca practices. This was immediately followed by another presenter going forward and saying, "If the healing of my severe asthma, which had debilitated me from childhood, was a delusion, I'll take more of it, please!" (more)

As a writer on ayahuasca shamanism, and a leader of small groups down to the rainforest to encounter the practice of traditional medicine, I have watched the rising of the phenomenon labeled "ayahuasca tourism" with apprehension. (more)

Amazonian medicine has been ahead of the biotech companies for years, and there is now documentation of traditional healers successfully curing cases that Western medicine had been powerless to treat. But can shamanic medicine function outside of its traditional matrix? (more)