so I grew up in nature in a tiny little
forest but in my eyes it seemed to be as
wild and as big as the Amazon
I remember feeling connected with every
living being with the plants the trees
the ants the bees the flowers I remember
holding their leaves against the Sun you
know in awe of how similar their texture
seemed to be with my own skin
I remember watching colourful strings
weaving all things including me together
but then time went by and stuff happened
I moved to big cities for studies and
work and slowly quietly and seemingly
painlessly I disconnected the colorful
strings fade away the ants the bees the
leaves eventually stopped talking to me
I hadn’t realized the extent of my
detachment until one morning about two
years ago when I was reading the news of
how a rain forest around the world are
being destroyed and I thought nothing by
the time I finished reading I knew
something had gone wrong where did my
love and compassion for nature go if I’m
feeling nothing I thought then others
might be feeling nothing to that thought
shook me to the core so I packed my
backpack and I left the city to
reconnect to the natural world and what
a better place to go than the largest
and wildest rainforest in the world the
Amazon little did I know but soon in the
middle of the jungle I was about to find
out what had gone wrong along my journey
I met an indigenous woman and I told her
why I was there and she said gringa to
reconnect with nature and speak with a
spirit of the earth again you must heal
your heart first I wasn’t sure what she
meant then she explained that it’s
through the heart that we experience our
connection to everything else through
the heart and not the mind flows the
love and compassion I was seeking for if
your compassion is lost she said be sure
your heart is closed now to a mind
oriented person
that hadn’t paid much attention to the
heart for years all this sounded a bit
too abstract so how can I open my heart
I asked find a shaman and drink
ayahuasca she’s the mother of all
medicines she can help you heal your
heart you see the Amazon rainforest is
like a living pharmacy full of
extraordinary medicinal plants that
mother nature created for us the
indigenous people and their shamans have
been working with the plants for
millennia holding a practising Asian
knowledge of what we completely forgot
which is the interconnectedness of the
mind the body and the soul the Amazon
rainforest is a healer but I didn’t know
all that just yet
I drank ayahuasca to feed the curiosity
of the mind but I received the healing
my heart was begging for as the shaman
sank his ocurro’s his sacred healing
songs all the layers that shaped my Goa
stick mine peeled off one by one all the
illusions of separation broke apart and
I went back to the pure space of the
heart and in there I was asked to face
every conflict every fear every pain and
every shame that was poison in my heart
for years I had no idea that I had left
so much stuff to be stuck in here but
day after day Cup after Cup song after
song one by one I let them all go
and what a relief it was to find that
underneath all that mud there was pure
eternal light I was shown that light is
love and that inside every beating heart
the same blinding light shines ecstatic
feelings emerge that I hadn’t felt since
childhood waves of all for the majestic
rainforest and massive gratitude for its
people started pouring out of my newly
opened heart but soon as I was on my way
back to the modern world my beliefs
turned to devastation as I saw hundreds
of countries taken out of the forests
through the river vast areas burned down
polluted
waters and indigenous people begging for
money in the city I realized I was
witnessing what I had read on the news
not long ago and finally I felt
something by the time I arrived at the
airport I made a silent promise I made a
promise to return and give something
back to the rainforest and its people as
I was sitting at the airport getting
tears thinking that that they might
never come the police came in armed and
stopped our flight from boarding I never
found out why but when I finally
returned home I had received an email
from the airline apologizing for the
delay and not fare me a ticket with the
exact amount I needed to return to the
Amazon I made a promise to return and
the universe gave me a ticket but at
first I didn’t know what to do how can
one person help the world’s largest
rainforest the answer came to me and it
was pure and simple
I had to spread the message with a
trembling heart I started a campaign
named healing the healer I promised to
the Amazon to help me cross the
rainforest plant trees and spread
awareness of deforestation to my eternal
gratitude people from all over the world
got inspired to help me reach the goal
and one year ago exactly on this day I
was back in the Amazon on a tiny boat
embarking on a mission to fulfill my
promise for the five months that
followed I travelled through the
rainforest sometimes has stayed with
local people sometimes with indigenous
families sometimes has slept in huts
other times just inside a mosquito net
under the stars in the mornings I joined
forces with other volunteers and we
planted seeds many seeds and many many
trees in abandoned fields and in the
afternoons I would get my camera and
trees to capture the magic of the forest
and talk to people to spread their
messages with all those following the
mission now planting in the forested
areas in the Amazon under the hot topic
calcine cutting through mosquito clouds
is probably not the easiest job in the
world but it’s certainly the most
rewarding because with every seed and
every tree are put into the ground I
reconnected I reconnected with every
living being the colorful strings those
divine connections that I knew as a
child started forming all around again I
dissolved I became one with the leaf
eating ants the speedy hummingbirds and
the screaming frogs I learned more in
those five months than in my whole life
I learned that nature is a genus and
patient artist it took her 55 million
years to put together the Amazon
rainforest this marvel this fine piece
of Biological art from above it all
looks green at first these cabbage field
effect stretches into the horizon but
underneath the canopy life is having a
party in supplies beetles bees
butterflies ants
crickets bats spiders scorpions lizards
frogs monkeys sloths bears anacondas
caiman pink dolphins Jaguars everybody’s
invited dancing the moves of symbiosis
when you walk in at first you’re struck
by the vegetation the shapes the forms
the patterns are unlike anything you’ve
seen before and then you notice the
music high-pitched piercing sounds
rhythmic humming and buzzing and
chanting singing and hauling calls echo
from far and if you’re quite enough you
get to see the party a monkey will fly
through the canopy and an almost nail
will appear crawling on a tree a
gorgeous boy might be posing in the mist
electric blue butterflies and sparkling
fireflies will come to dance around you
at dusk you may even find mushrooms that
glow in the dark learnt but nature is
sake
and that every being has a spirit every
insect every animal every tree the trees
these magnificent beings grow tall
unbelievably tall on just a thin layer
of fertile ground supporting life on
every scale from tiny little fungi to
the whole planet 390 billion of them
stand tall together in the Amazon
creating a home for all the lives that
thrives underneath these trees protect
our climate they cooled down our planet
they clean our air from all the poisons
we keep pumping into the atmosphere and
they produce 20% of the oxygen we
breathe they are the reason why the
Amazon is called the lungs of our planet
and ironically they’re breathtaking it’s
impossible to stand next to a 500 year
old ceiba tree in the middle of the
jungle and not change forever
I learned that nature nurtures happiness
this is Damaris my best friend from the
jungle and this is another gang that I
used to hang out with these children
owned pretty much nothing but as far as
I know they are the happiest children in
the world because they run barefoot in
these wild paradise
chasing butterflies they know the sound
of every bird and they can smell the
rain before it comes and when the Sun
Goes Down they jump in the mightiest
river in the world to swim and play in
laughter I learned but nature is fragile
and defenseless to our actions in just
40 years we have permanently destroyed
almost a quarter of this majestic
rainforest with chainsaws fires and
bulldozers for the timber and the land
which is stands on wood you see at the
top right in pink is what we lost
already and what you see below in orange
is what we are losing as we speak and
the indigenous people this precious
piece of humanity the guardians of the
our vanishing with it there used to be
ten million natives now less than
700,000 survived and as they disappear
get murdered displaced or modernized
there are cultures their knowledge
including that of them additional plants
that can heal our hearts disappear with
them and the breathtaking breathtaking
magnificent trees we cut them down to
turn them into furniture and floorings
for our homes or we just burned them to
make space for land and all that carbon
dioxide that they were storing inside
for us gets released back into the air
we breathe and the cleared land it’s
staggering 80% we turn into cattle
fields to cover our global demand for
beef the rest we turn into soybean and
palm oil plantations dams and mining
operations
this is Madre de Dios the most bio
diverse area in the peruvian amazon and
this is not a natural landscape this is
illegal gold mining that is savaging the
forest contaminating the waters with
mercury and poisoning the surrounding
communities and this is the ecuador near
a community of quito people that I
stayed with were oil companies companies
have been drilling the forests
mercilessly and as the oil keeps
spilling in the rivers all water life
disappears and those people that once
we’re living off the forests are now
unable to sustain themselves and are
often forced to work for the same oil
companies that are poisoning their lands
fact is we are collectively trading our
greatest biological treasure on earth
and the air we breathe for burgers
processed foods lipsticks shampoos
fossil fuel and jewelry we are losing
the most magical place on earth before
we even get to know it and all that life
the butterflies the insects the monkeys
and the frogs
thousands of species go extinct every
year in the Amazon because as the forest
shrinks as it breaks into parts the
fragile symbiotic balance between all
species falls apart when the forest is
gone life is gone the music stops and
the party is over
I don’t know if I fulfilled my promise
but I know that giving something back
made me feel fulfilled and I know that I
wouldn’t have given something back if I
hadn’t healed my heart that’s why I
believe that to heal our planet from all
the wounds were causing we need to start
looking inside for the wounds that are
begging to be healed we need to face and
let go of every conflict every fear and
every pain that is poisoning our hearts
belonging love and compassion from
flowing freely through us because as the
indigenous woman told me at the
beginning of my journey and I confirmed
for myself later on love is not
something that we create on our own it’s
not something we find on our path it’s
something we allow to flow through us
it’s always here
it’s a vibrational frequency constantly
and abundantly available around us all
we are asked to do is open our hearts
and tap into it every living being does
it’s what the three stop into and they
release oxygen for us to breathe
it’s what the births tap into and they
wake up and sing it’s what nature taps
into when she creates a rain forest it’s
what connects us imagine a world where
we all begin to connect where we all tap
into the vibration of love and we begin
to see that everything is one where we
all remember that we are connected to
the body of the earth the same way a
baby is connected to the body of its
mother where we all accept
responsibility for what we have done
with an open heart no blaming no debate
takes place no law needs to be applied
so we change our ways a world where we
all care to heal the wounds we have
created and no one has to fight to save
the Amazon because the Amazon and the
whole planet are safe and healed by us
already we’re gonna be amazing if this
is our future well it’s in our hands
or may I say in our hearts and the more
we open our hearts the more we see that
this future is becoming a reality
more and more gatherings happen all
around the world where people celebrate
love and one as a pay respect to Mother
Earth more and more people take action
every day from the place of the heart
more and more moments like the one we’re
experiencing right now in this room will
come a great shifting is unfolding
consciousness is rising we are
connecting we are remembering and we are
healing we are collectively in the
process of creating a whole new world
order more powerful than the order of
fear and separation that seems to be
spreading so fast the seeds have been
planted open your heart and join the
tribe reconnect with nature and one
another make a promise and the universe
will give you everything you need to
fulfill it trust me be fearless nature
loves courage give something back and
you will be rewarded with fulfillment
spread the message and it will be heard
open your heart and you’ll hear a yes
because the wise shaman told me in the
jungle the mind always has two options
yes and no but the heart only has one
yes [Applause]