Real life Survivor: Tales of a ten year rainforest excursion
By Cynthia Logan
DaVeed Forrest's resume must cover more than one lifetime. The bio goes like this: "Public speaker, international seminar leader, documentary writer and producer, musician, songwriter and music producer, body worker therapist, iridologist, book author, reflexologist, electronic acupuncturist, aromatherapist, Tantric yoga teacher, designer of herbal elixirs, nutritional and medicinal formulas and creator of exquisite perfumes." Author of Miracles From the Rain Forest, he would describe himself more simply as a "Pioneer explorer of the intimate connection between spirit, mind and body." A more mainstream description may read "a real-life 'survivor' of the rainforest"-and he may be the only white person on the planet who is. Searching for the secrets of immortality, Forrest spent ten years in the deep forests of southern Columbia, facing starvation, malaria, elephantiasis, poisonous snakes, killer cats and every type of tropical pestilence imaginable.
Like Sean Connery in "Medicine Man," Forrest had shamanic
mentors; when he "emerged from the jungle" in 1988 he
was a different person-secret teachings and experience had made
him a real life Medicine Man. Though his re-entry into modern
civilization was "a major culture shock," Forrest is
now enthusiastic about sharing the wealth of knowledge he's gleaned
and is using his many talents to let people know how to be "eternally
young at any age." Born David Cusack, Forrest grew up the
middle of seven children near an oil ranch in southern Texas.
He drove cattle, pitched hay and pursued his father's dream for
him, attending the University of Texas at Austin and Texas Tech
to get a law degree. But apprenticing with an oil-lobbyist in
Washington during the Watergate trials so "disillusioned
and devastated" the conservative cowboy ("friends would
tease me because I wouldn't take pot") that he re-evaluated
his career path, "broke off school" and sought to discover
how he could become what his mother and grandmother had always
wanted him to be-a gentle-man.
He grew his hair and beard long, traded his ten gallon for a turban
and became a fruitarian, studying archeology and anthropology
at West Texas in Alpine, where books there stimulated a passion
to connect with Mayan and Incan cultures. He planned to take a
few weeks between semesters and make a pilgrimage to sacred sites,
but the night he left the country he was in a near-death auto
accident. "I remember sitting in council with angelic beings,"
says Forrest. "They told me I'd really messed up and was
dead." Forrest says he "begged for the opportunity to
come back" and, suffering from a broken leg, cracked coccyx
and jammed vertebrae, "crawled" onto a train headed
for southern Mexico, in search of native healers he thought could
help him.
The beaches there offered manna in the form of mangoes; declaring
himself on "mango safari," he headed for the mountains
of Oaxaca. There, Mazatec healers got him on his feet and sent
him to Lake Attitlan near Guatemala, where, he says, "humble
peasant people working with ancient Mayan teachings introduced
me to the connection between nature and herbs." He also made
a connection with Shandara, a Transpersonal Psychologist on sabbatical
from California. "It was an instantaneous 'Soul Mate' kind
of recognition," he says. They soon married and began the
adventure that would shape his future and claim her life.
Heading towards the Andes, they hitchhiked across the continent
with the dream of establishing a fruitarian community in Ecuador.
Climbing steep mountains to the Sierra Nevada, they reached one
of the few ancient civilizations untouched by white culture, the
Cogi Indians. "We were some of the very few white people
they allowed near them," says Forrest. "It was a rare
honor to share their shamanic medicine practices and herbal healing
techniques," he adds. As they continued their journey, peasants
"came out in droves," eager to hear about traditional
ways that had been taken from them (by deals made between multi-national
corporations, missionaries and the military-deals that pushed
agricultural chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs). Police ("seventeen
year old boys running around with guns and badges") would
show up and intimidate the couple for infringing on their territory;
after being pistol whipped and threatened with machine guns, they
headed towards a valley where only ruffians and outlaws went,
a valley where the police were afraid to go.
"That valley," says Forrest, "was an incredible
paradise." The awesome beauty was soon eclipsed by rain that
fell for the next eleven months, bringing them to the point of
starvation. Less than a year later, Shandara died of elephantiasis.
"I was on my deathbed for a year with it," says Forrest,
"but local peasants sent in a shaman with herbs to keep me
from being consumed by the parasites." Before he could get
his strength back the cocaine wars began and, barely able to stand,
he was forced into cooking and cleaning for the FARC (Fuerzas
Armadas Revolutionarios de Columbia) revolutionaries. Simultaneously
as the United States government started spraying a type of "agent
orange" on the coca plantations cultivated by the peasants,
he was abused and tortured.
Left for dead, at times he needed to hunt and fish to stay alive,
always with the reverence for life his father had instilled in
him. Without a gun, he used flutes and harmonicas to ward off
wild cats and large snakes. "I learned to hear and sense
their 'voices', and communicate with them in unprecedented ways,"
Forrest says. "I would serenade them with music and pile
up stacks of ripe plantain bananas; even the carnivores would
come within three or four feet of me, preferring the fruit to
flesh." He also tuned into the spirit voices of rainforest
herbs, fruits and flower essences, and studied with indigenous
shamanic healers. "The rainforest and Native American peoples
taught me that plants are representations of an invisible frequency
with spiritual significance," Forrest says, adding that,
"traditional peoples I lived with always acknowledged the
spirit force and could do miraculous things just by boiling the
herbs in water and applying them to the skin."
According to Dr. Marcus Laux, a rainforest expert, modern pharmaceutical
companies owe much of their success to native healers who share
the names and medical applications of various plants with scientists
and researchers. Forrest says that, "Indigenous peoples have
a deep understanding of mixing herbs synergistically; it's the
whole basis of Amazonian/Andean shamanism-potentiating the herbs
using vines, roots, leaves, barks, flowers, fruits."
Interestingly, many South American myths and shamanic practices
coincide with those of ancient India. Forrest is an initiate of
the Viracochans, an Andean forest people whose sacred teachings
mirror almost identically those of ancient Indian Vedics. He is
currently working to introduce Ayurvedic products for agriculture
and medicine. Among the products soon to be available are insect
and pest controls with bases of essential oils (such as neem)
that are not only non-toxic, but biodegrade into excellent fertilizer.
Ayurvedic scientists have tested some micro-organisms in India
that appear to neutralize all but radioactive environmental toxins
and, says Forrest, "They are on the verge of discovering
micro-organisms that have the potential to quickly eat up the
life cycle of radioactive pollution. At least our children will
have the hope that the poisons we're spewing out now will be able
to be turned back into biodegradable substances that won't keep
compromising our immune systems."
In the meantime, we can enhance our well-being with herbs such
as Una de Gato, or Cat's Claw, which has been used traditionally
as a tonic and blood cleanser. Formal research is now proving
it efficacious in building immune response. A more controversial
herb, Guarana, is an effective vermifuge, eliminating worms. And,
although it contains caffeine, the amount compared to coffee is
low and it makes a non-acidic substitute for people trying to
break the coffee habit.
Perhaps the most well known rainforest herb is Pao d'Arco/Lapacho.
Forrest notes that the purple flower variety has anti-viral, anti-fungal,
anti-cancer qualities that the white flower Pao d'Arco doesn't
have. "It's a very different frequency," he explains;
then cautions that, "It's important for people to know whatever
they're buying is certified. There's a lot of bogus Pao d'Arco
out there on the market and, in the case of Cat's Claw, there
are more than 60 varieties, most of which do not contain immune
enhancing agents.
According to Forrest, millions of peasants have become dependent
on "raping and plundering" their native environment,
due to policies that were (ironically) implemented during the
"Green Revolution" of the '60s. "Transnational
corporations have been reaching into rainforest countries for
at least the last forty years," he says. As detailed in the
eye-opening book Thy Will Be Done (recently published by Harper
Collins), they clearcut to exploit the mineral resources, establish
lumber sources, graze cattle and plant crops, which struggle to
grow in an environment ill-suited for such purposes. Without the
trees spiraling up to pull in moisture, rainfall is less each
year and much of the land once fertile has become desert; rain
that does fall erodes the bare soil, leading to a vicious cycle
that has world-wide ramifications. Global weather patterns are
radically altered due to changes in wind and ocean currents and
the planet may even spin faster. Even worse, there has been no
regard for the bio-systems of plants, animals and micro-organisms.
"Insects and micro-organisms are mutating and proliferating
so fast," states Forrest, "that antibiotics are proving
less and less able to fight them."
The effect on the human population has been just as devastating.
"Indigenous peoples have been bought off, rounded up off
their lands and put in environments with forced education, a new
religion and a new way of being," says Forrest. The result
is that very few of the forest people have any traditional knowledge
left; most of the younger generation can produce only a mono-crop
(rice or sugar cane, for example) using pesticides and chemicals.
At 47, Forrest claims to have "more energy and enthusiasm
than I did at sixteen," energy which he dedicates towards
"waking people up to the plight of our rainforests, the wealth
within them and what can be done to save the few that remain."
Over half of the world's rainforests, which circle our planet
for twenty degrees of latitude on either side of the equator (like
a green belt worn by Mother Earth) have already been destroyed
by chainsaws, torch fires and bulldozers for cheap burgers and
lumber. According to Forrest, by the time it takes to read this
sentence, another two football fields of rainforest will have
disappeared. The organization he co-founded, Millenium Alchemist
and Friends, is attempting to "educate the right people";
they hope to persuade monied interests to cultivate the rainforest
as a garden. Through the International Rainforest Preservation
Society, investors can "adopt" an acre of rainforest
on a private reserve for just $35.00 per year.
Forrest is also in the process of setting up a non-profit foundation
to establish "One World International Healing Centers,"
which will train practitioners from all over the world in holistic
healing therapies. He already offers herbal detoxification programs
and "Trance Dancing," an ecstasy rite which he says
allows participants to experience blissful states of consciousness
without drugs; dancers are inspired by the "neo-shamanic
fusion" music he provides, sometimes in concert with native
healers. Forrest leads "Jungle Excursion" retreats to
sacred sites, and brings representatives from such sites to the
United States, assisting them in presentations which educate the
public about their traditions and about the role they say ancient
teachings play in coming world changes.
"From a Shamanistic perspective," says Forrest, moving
into the Millenium is a really major event-this is going to be
one of the most powerful moments that's ever been on this planet.
It's not only the end of a decade, a century, a millenium-the
cycle keeps going, bigger and bigger. It's the end of a cycle
for our solar system, for the star system that our solar system
rotates around, on ad infinitum." As vortices of ancient
energy, old growth forests play an integral role in this unfolding
drama, focusing healing and protection for the planet. "Think,"
says Forrest in awe, "of the lifeforce a 3,000 year old redwood
tree is drawing in. Trees are beings of cosmic consciousness and
are growing and expanding into deeper levels of their divinity-they
are antennas reaching out from the planet, striving to collect
the solar energies of the heart of our sun. Their vitality is
almost explosive as they stretch their plant-forms out towards
heaven. Coming within 100 feet of them you can feel the majesty
and power of their collected cosmic force-it's as close to a pure
healing force as there could be." And, says the son of a
cattle rancher, "I can't think of a greater crime against
future generations and nature than to cut down these few remaining
forests for lumber and cattle grazing!"