MedicineCrow Blog

Dear friends:

It has been a little over one month since Sara and I returned from our adventures in Ecuador. The trip made a deep impression on us, especially our time with Dante Bolcato, his family, his distillery and the Palo Santo trees.

Now I am driving back to Guayaquil with Eric and Don Perfecto, into an approaching dusk with the ocean on our right. The afternoon had ended abruptly, but it had to be that way as Eric was a man with many responsibilities, and just taking a full day to bring me to Puerto Lopez was a minor miracle and an expression of immense generosity. But enough had happened already to set many future events into motion, events that I was starting to sense were based on some kind of intelligence that manifested itself as meaningful coincidence, a synchronicity that seemed to emanate from a tree of great power.

We follow Dante through the village along rutted dirt roads, into a neighborhood on the outskirts of town where the homes have more land, more space, more greenery, less open sewage.

The doctor owns the side of a hill, which he is transforming into a gigantic sculpture. Walkways wind through courtyards, courtyards sit among small cottages, cottages are adorned with gardens, gardens are layered on terraces, terraces curve along the contours of the hill. In the center of this asymmetrical mandalic landscape rises a structure that looks like a hybrid between a tipi and a conch shell, part cone, part spiral. Partly adobe, partly glass, partly tree trunks, this is his home, his castle, his dream of a new life, adorned with a spectacular view of the ocean below.

Now I am driving with Eric and Don Perfecto Yagual along the coastal highway to the fishing village of Puerto Lopez. We are on the way to meet Dante, an Italian who speaks neither English nor Spanish, who seems to be the one who distilled the oil. I spoke with Michele, his assistant, when we called from James's house that afternoon in Guayaquil; he spoke enough English and I enough Spanish that we managed to make arrangements to visit.

Now I am in Ecuador. Nine months have passed since our gathering on the beach. I am here at the invitation of Eric Horstman, a man who has committed himself to the formidable task of protecting one of the country's largest remaining tropical dry forests and its disappearing flora and fauna from the encroachment of Guayaquil, a city of millions of humans needing food and fuel every day.

I am on the beach at Mahabalipuram, under the night sky. A strong wind is blowing off the Bay of Bengal, carrying warm marine fragrances and spraying sand in the eyes of a small group seated around a fire. We are devotees of Ayurveda, gathered at a conference devoted to the ancient medical art and science. A few Western teachers have been invited to speak to the Indian students, eager to hear of the possibilities their own traditions may hold for them as a career, as a source of respect, as a way of serving, as a path to knowledge; a tiny minority of Western students, most of them now seated just out of reach of the flames, are here to learn from the Indian doctors who are sharing their methods and wisdom.

Dear friends:
Many of you are familiar with the stories I have told about my first journey to Ecuador six years ago, and the many synchronistic events that led to my meeting the man who distills the Palo Santo oil for Floracopeia; many of you are familiar with the oil itself, but perhaps have not heard these stories yet.