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Virgen de Guadalupe were in a corner. The rolled-up poster of Quan Yin had a spider nesting inside. She uncovered Buddha. Very carefully she began to dust each photograph and to put it back, just where it was before. Soon her altar, with its pregnant, barefoot Third World woman, Bessie Smith and Lester Young, its candles and a pair of baby shoes, a red clay pipe and fresh flowers from her garden, looked just the same as always. She studied it carefully. What was missing?

Yolo came in and Kate handed him a box of matches. He began to light the candles until they illuminated the room. They sat on cushions facing the altar, enjoying the scent of sage and the candles’ golden glow. Feeling connected and at peace, they fell into meditation without signal or plan. When they came out of it, half an hour later, Yolo went into the kitchen and returned with a small bowl of water into which he’d poured salt. This he placed on the altar near the flowers. Kate went to the refrigerator and took out the half bottle of yagé Armando had given her, which, at the river, she would use to paint the faces of her friends. She placed it between Che and the pregnant woman. Next she went into the living room and dragged the tall potted ficus close enough for its branches to gracefully shelter them as they sat. Finally she went to her bedroom and got the anaconda clock. Giving the anaconda a kiss and not looking at the time, she placed it in Buddha’s lap.

Afterword

There is a magic intoxicant in northwesternmost South America which the Indians believe can free the soul from corporeal confinement, allowing it to wander free and return to the body at will. The soul, thus untrammeled, liberates its owner from the realities of everyday life and introduces him to wondrous realms of what he considers reality and permits him to communicate with his ancestors. The Kechua term for this inebriating drink—Ayahuasca (“vine of the soul”)—refers to this freeing of the spirit. The plants involved are truly plants of the gods, for their power is laid to supernatural forces residing in their tissues, and they were divine gifts to the earliest Indians on earth.

—PLANTS OF THE GODS:

Their Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers,

Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann, and Christian Rätsch

Thanks

For their inspiring lives of curiosity and dedication I thank master kumus Margaret Machado and Glenna Wilde, of Hawaii; Don José, of Peru; and ethnobotanist and preserver of ancient medicine Mark Plotkin, of New Orleans. For their legacies, their books, their talks, and their generosity in sharing knowledge and experience, I thank Maria Sabina, Richard Evans Schultes, and Jeremy Narby, whose book The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge contributes important insights to our time. I also thank Michael Harner for his ongoing work in the study and interpretation of shamanism, and Terrence McKenna, whose Food of the Gods offers a radical and rather cheerful vision of human development, deeply influenced by our primordial use of entheogens.

Kuma = teacher (Hawaiian)

Entheogen = Goddess/God within

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALICE WALKER won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for her novel The Color Purple, which was preceded by The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Meridian. Her other bestselling novels include By the Light of My Father’s Smile, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and The Temple of My Familiar. She is also the author of three collections of short stories, three collections of essays, six volumes of poetry, and several children’s books. Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, Walker now lives in northern California.

Also by Alice Walker

FICTION

The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart

By the Light of My Father’s Smile

Possessing the Secret of Joy

The Temple of My Familiar

The Color Purple

You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down

Meridian

In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women

The Third Life of Grange Copeland

NONFICTION

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