Eagle/Condor Prophesy

The prophesy of the Eagle and the Condor is clearly told by Stephen Larsen in his Forward to Alex Polari de Alverga’s book Forest of Visions: Ayahuasca, Amazonian Spirituality, and the Santo Daime Tradition (1999).  He describes the arrival in 1992 (in upstate New York) of “an Andean shaman, a Quechua-speaking Yachag.  He told us in his fluent Spanish that he was an appointed spokesman from the traditional peoples of the Andean high plateaus.”  The message is eloquently expressed by Larsen who continued saying:

“Exactly five hundred years had passed since the coming of the European conquerors to the New World, and an Incan prophecy was asking for fulfillment.  The white men’s arrival had been prophecied before they ever set foot on this continent.  The white brother, forgetful of many things, would enact awful cruelties on the native peoples during the first five hundred years.  There would be disrespect of the most fundamental rules of the proper human relationship to the earth, and the resulting catastrophes would affect Pachamama, the Great Earth Mother.
But after five hundred years, a great turnabout would occur.  The white brother would awaken, like a sleepwalker, from his violent trance.  There would be an amazing healing that would affect the entire world, helping with the purging catastrophes that were coming.  The spirit of the Condor (South America) was asking to dance with the Eagle (North America).  From their flight would emerge great joy and brotherhood between the peoples of North and South America and a new understanding between the children of the white brother and of the traditional peoples.  A new relationship between the earth and all of humanity would ensue. (pp. ix-x)”

Seven years after Larsen heard the prophesy, during early August of 1999, when Persius showers us with shooting stars, there was an eclipse of the sun.  That evening I picked up a hitchhiker, who was the spirit son of an Arapaho medicine man/road chief of the Native American Church.  We went to the ceremony that night and in the glowing charcoals a display of the Eagle was laid down in the fireplace.  This I learned was an ancient tradition.  The crescent moon (Grandmother) altar surrounds the display and contains it, while the sacred fire (Grandfather Sun) burns the Standing People (trees) and, with the help of the Fireman, transforms them into symbolic images.  An entheogen (peyote) is central to this ceremony and stories are told about how the plant spirit spoke to and saved the life of a young mother and her child.  She in turn shared the body of the sacred medicine plant, which has been teaching us how to be more evolved humans ever since.  After writing my Master’s Thesis on the transformative, healing properties of this medicine, I was asked by my spirit son to attend a South American ceremony performed by a shaman from the Andes.

At first hesitant to “mix the medicines” of the peyote, which was my spiritual guide, with another plant medicine, I bowed to the pressure of Young Eagle and attended his cousin’s birthday celebration.  Much to my surprise, after drinking ayahuasca, I asked the shaman to “clean me” during what he calls a limpia (spiritual cleaning).  He had explained in great detail his altar, the sacred objects, how the alcohol infused with plants from the rain forest was the “white dog”, sprayed from his mouth like gentle rain, which “chases the disease, shows us where it is”.  The eagle, with claws shaped like the roots of the sacred tobacco plant, he told me grabs the disease.  He told me that I could help him during the limpias by rolling a smoke and praying with it.  Why all this information for a first time experience?  He knew my nephew, another Eagle, who had told the shaman about my work.  The shaman told me that my white hair is like the snow in the mountains, a sign of wisdom, which deserves respect.  During the limpia the shaman shape-shifted into a mountain lion and extracted an energetic “snake” from the base of my spine, where it had cracked 40 years earlier in a fatal auto accident.  I was so amazed by the synchronous healing, that I gifted him an eagle feather which I had found on a Native American reservation beach in northern Washington State the week before.  I had been collecting sand dollars to give as gifts in my upcoming peyote ceremony, when I found my first eagle feather.  Although I had been gifted eagle feathers, I had never found one.  Overcome with gratitude I gave that feather to the shaman.  He wore it in his headdress for the rest of the ceremony.  Now he calls me Tio (uncle).

The following Saturday was my peyote ceremony, when some amazing things happened.  First I asked my sister, whose Arapaho fireplace it was, if I could put flowers on the Sponsor Pole (the pole wrapped with the end of the tie rope, which holds the Tipi poles together and symbolizes the prayer of the person sponsoring the meeting).  She said yes, and when I entered the Tipi, I got another surprise.  She had turned the equilateral triangle “ash tray” for the Sacred Smokes inside the crescent moon into a heart.  She said, “it came to me while I was making the moon, you have such a big heart, Mikey”.  During the ceremony when my brother turned it over to me to explain my prayer, why I had brought everyone together, I told everyone of my experience the previous weekend with my nephew, whose birthday celebration it had been.  He, Great Owl, was sitting beside Young Eagle, my son, who had flown out to California from Virginia.  In the morning after the ceremony, I was approached by the ayahuasca shaman’s sister from Colombia.  She had no idea to whose meeting her brother was taking her.  They had just returned from Sundance and Eagle’s dad (my brother) was running a meeting.  It turned out the meeting was for Eagle’s uncle Michael, the White Eagle.  They were both surprised.  She told me, “you have made my brother’s dream of the joining of the Condor and the Eagle a reality” and with that, she took off her ring, while her escort, Eagle, sang a South American icaro (sacred ayahuasca spirit song) into the ring.  She put the ring on my finger, taking me as her uncle, saying “my brother knows how much this ring means to me.  When he sees it on your finger, he will know what it means.”  That was in August 2006.

Now in August of 2011 the dance has continued.  During a Cura (healing) Work of the Santo Daime (ayahuasca) tradition, the Padrinho told us to ask for the help of our Spirit Guides.  Mine is the White Eagle, so I went to my cedar box and removed the White Eagle feather.  I used it during the service in the ways I have been taught by the ancestral people of Turtle Island (North America).  This had never happened before, but the Brazilian shaman, not only permitted, but encouraged, me to “doctor” people.  My lineage is that of the Eagle, his of the Condor.  Once again the prophesy had been fulfilled, the eagle was dancing with the condor.  We are seeing miracles happen everyday.  The merger of the medicines is very powerful.  Mutual respect for our different traditions and lineages is transforming the energy of the planet.