Introducing: The Doctrine of the Forest

Many of you know that I spent 14 days in Brazil this summer — but few of you know the story as to how or why I arrived there. Over the past several years I've been feeling the arrival of a book that I would write, and it wasn't until recently that I realized my experience of 9 years studying the Santo Daime, a spiritual path from Brazil, would be the subject. This story has been growing in me for all these years, but it is only now that it has ripened to a stage where I can share it with you. The title may change, but for now it is called The Doctrine of the Forest. I'll be releasing chapters as they are written, unedited, here on this newsletter.

Chapter I: A Leap of Faith

Divine guidance comes in many forms. For many years, I looked for it in the sensation of a strike of lightning, all at once, as if an understanding suddenly appeared where before there was only confusion. I had this kind of experience many times in my teens and early twenties, but over the years these experiences became more rare. I understand now that at that time I was so covered over by layers of untruth that I need those peak experiences to break through and put me on the right path. While I still have layers to shed, the divine now speaks to me in a more internal form — through the voice of the heart that knows what it needs and where it longs to go. This form of guidance is more subtle, but if I am quiet enough to listen, unmistakeable. It was in this way that I came to the realization that I needed to return to Brazil.

December will mark 9 years that I have been studying in this doctrine of the forest. The Santo Daime was, for the first five years of that period, perhaps the single most important aspect of my life, and the main pillar of my spirituality. The fourth year, I dove deeply into the path by traveling to its birthplace, the Amazon rainforest. There I encountered many truths and also untruths, many contradictions and ways of being that taught me more about who I was, who I wanted to become, and who I did not want to be. I wrote about this experience and created a document called “Journey Into The Sacred” which would become my senior thesis for undergraduate studies.

Then, life continued — relationships, careers, and work took the foreground of my life. All the while I continued frequenting my home church in Massachusetts, practicing the Daime and becoming closer and closer to our small band of church members at home. Years went by, and somewhere along the line I lost touch with the fire that once burned so brightly for this mission — this spiritual path that in many ways has made me who I am today. Even the hymns of the doctrine which brought me joy and excitement for so many years started to seem unimportant, and I lost my passion for studying and practicing.

Many people go through crises of faith in their lives, and this one left me feeling flat, empty, and without purpose. In many conversations with my longtime spiritual guide and teacher, she would point out that I was very much attached to this feeling of flatness and that if I wanted to move forward I would have to find the willingness to let it go. I could feel that she was right, but it was as if I had a phantom limb that would not release its grip no matter how I tried.

Then came an opportunity. My godparents, the directors of the Santo Daime church at home, were making a trip to Brazil for the first time in almost 30 years. My heart wanted to join them, but I immediately shot down the idea with excuses about how expensive it would be, and how it didn’t make any sense from a practical point of view. “Why would I go to Brazil for such a short amount of time? If I’m going to go it would be for the June or December festival, not in July...”

The day of their departure grew near, and we had a Daime Work (ceremony) scheduled where for the first time in our church’s history, we would sing the entirety of the hymnal “O Cruzeiro,” received by the founder of the Santo Daime — Raimundo Irineu Serra. It was on this night of Saint John that things would begin to change.