A PLACE OF EMERGENCE
& RETURN

VISION

A temple to life and to nature
Open to all sacred paths
Without denomination or dogma
A place of emergence and return
To right relationship in our role
As caretakers of the Earth.

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MISSION

Establish a sustainable and regenerative community, living in right relationship with nature and with spirit.

Demonstrate exemplary practices, techniques and technologies needed to support that relationship.

Inspire members and visitors to high levels of consciousness and care towards each other and the environment.

Be part of and of service to the transformation of our presence on the Earth.

SIPAPU is a collectively owned 160 acre parcel of primary and secondary rainforest in the Tambopatá Nature Reserve Buffer Zone in the Peruvian Amazon.

Sipapu is a Hopi word for the “world navel” from which their ancestors emerged, and to which they will return.

The project combines sustainable and regenerative principles, methods, culture and technologies within deep ecological and shamanic worldviews.

Ecological, economic, social and spiritual methods, business, governance and practices form a sustainable, regenerative and inspirational vehicle for transformation.

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RIVERMAP

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PHASE 1
Q2 2020
Sustainability
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5

Water & waste
Food security
Agroforestry
Renewable energy
Core team
Key partnerships

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£35K

TBD

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Hour(s)

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Second(s)

5

PHASE 2
Q4 2020
Modular eco-village construction
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5

4-dome modules
Central dome
Platforms & walkways
Water, waste & energy
Governance
Transition community

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£250k Est

TBD

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Hour(s)

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Minute(s)

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5

PHASE 3
Q1 2021
Temple
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5

Energetic principles
Sacred geometry
Sustainable construction
Water, waste, energy
Resident community
Bioregional impact

5

£350k Est

TBD

Day(s)

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Hour(s)

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Minute(s)

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Our response to the call of the Amazon and its peoples to conserve Nature, wisdom and tradition.

Three-phase plan for a sustainable and regenerative community in the Amazon, focussed on the Temple of Emergence.

Meet the core team, advisers and partners making things happen locally, bioregionally, and worldwide.

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A scene of typical Tambopata bliss, the river like

A scene of typical Tambopata bliss, the river like glass, mirroring the clouds. One feels magically suspended, as though flying through islands in the sky. ⁠
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But what is that cloud on the horizon? ⁠
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A tower of smoke stacks up from the forest. It can only mean one thing. Clearing is under way. ⁠
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From a carbon-based climate change or climate emergency point of view, this is a Bad Thing. From a traditional Amazonian forest farming point of view, it's normal. ⁠
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From the carbon point of view, burning rainforest is a double whammy. It sends carbon into the air, and reduces the very carbon sink that might sequester it once again in the ground. ⁠
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It's summer here in Madre de Dios. The river is low, the rains are few and far between, the forest is dry. ⁠
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We haven't been here nearly long enough to say so categorically, scientifically, but our intuition, our bodily knowing, foresight, clairvoyance or whatever you might want to call it, says that yes, like everywhere else, the Amazon is changing. ⁠
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The regular wobbles in the climate––localised cold snaps called friajes––are more frequent, longer and present bigger change to temperature and rainfall. They're like mini monsoons. ⁠
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Perhaps the question is, how normal? Which is a question of scale on the one hand––scale of cycles of natural change. And a question of unnatural, i.e. human, damage on the other, and the ability of the ecosystem to recover. ⁠
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We don't wnat Feel free to comment, point us at thoughts, studies, data etc!

Yellow stuff you pull out the ground and can do al

Yellow stuff you pull out the ground and can do all kinds of good things with. ⁠
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Have we gone mad? ⁠
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Nope. We haven't joined the gold rush. ⁠
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We're talking about turmeric! 😀⁠
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Hit the website for the full story.

A leaf of the setico (cecropia) tree unfurls. Look

A leaf of the setico (cecropia) tree unfurls. Look closely. What do you see? ⁠
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The various members of the Cecropia family are among the most recognisable components of the neo-tropical forest. While very common––they are a fast coloniser––closer inspection reveals them to be highly unusual. ⁠
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They are probably the best known example of myrmecophytic trees––trees that operate in deep symbiosis with ants. ⁠
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The cecropia works with the azteca ant, a busy, red and of course biting version. The ants work tirelessly to protect the tree from the endless onslaught of herbivores––fungi, lianas and other plant parasites. The tree provides the ants with food and shelter. ⁠
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Cut a cecropia branch and you find its bamboo-like sections provide cavernous living space for its resident ants. ⁠
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Looking at the leaf in the picture, we see a family, snugly held in a protective wrapper, rather like those little cloth dolls you can buy everywhere in the Andes to represent your family.⁠
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Another thing that strikes you about the cecropia is its antiquity. Like the ginko biloba, it clearly harks from way back, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, if not long before that. ⁠
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Which of course is a clue to its continued success as an early coloniser. Show the cecropia some deforested land, and in it goes, building its ant network, fastening the soil, creating biomass, and a short while later (evolutionarily speaking) and you have a forest. ⁠
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It may be common around here, but that's because it's evolutionary bedrock. So here's the mighty cecropia! ⁠
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After months of lockdown, months of instagram meme

After months of lockdown, months of instagram memes, facebook ads, zoom calls, webinars, courses, sing-songs your soul may be feeling a little buffeted. ⁠
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Who or what is it that fans our flames? The answer is not in your phone or laptop or anywhere "out here." ⁠
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Rumi wrote many love letters in the sufi tradition, in other words to The Beloved, in other words The Soul, the anima, the animating divine essence, the Fire From Within. ⁠
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You know what? There is something deadening about reading ABOUT fanning your flames and dancing the dance and doing the work and all the rest. Something deadening about reading about OTHERS doing it (if we believe their Instagram accounts)... ⁠
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Who or what is it that fans our flames? ⁠
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As our friend Maestro Puma always says, Listen to yourself first and last. ⁠
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Cross section of a liana. Any biologists out there

Cross section of a liana. Any biologists out there want to name it? We were checking of course to see if it might be THE liana. In the course of the search we've come to appreciate (again) the incredible diversity of everything here, and the respect due to species that make it into perennial survival. ⁠
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THIS is the magic of the Amazon. It's MORE than the lungs of the world. It's the BIOCOMPUTER of the world. ⁠
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With all this life force gushing about, this is where nature solves some BIG problems, balances COMPLEX equations. ⁠
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If you're reading this from a university department somewhere... Get in touch! Our species urgently needs to pull head out of techno backside and understand the real stuff!

Edward O Wilson is an American biologist and ecolo

Edward O Wilson is an American biologist and ecologist and the world's leading expert in myremecology, or the study of ants ⁠
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From his discovery of the first fire ant colony in the USA, to the publication of countless books and papers, Wilson practically architected the field of socio-biology himself, applying his deep observations of the functions, systems and interactions of ant colonies to other animal groups. ⁠
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His magnum opus The Ants, won him a second Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1980. Viewing ants as an example of living Marxism, he concluded that they were forced to do so through their biology. ⁠
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Ants cannot reproduce independently, they rely on the queen. Conversely, are humans capable of Marxist or commune-ist living, as they can reproduce independently? ⁠
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On the subject of rainforest ecology he was equally forthright: ⁠
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"Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. ... Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects."⁠
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Important and interesting themese for anyone building a community in the rainforest 🙂 ⁠
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What do you think? ⁠
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Ok after all that talk of cannibalistic fish we're

Ok after all that talk of cannibalistic fish we're safely back on dry land... Well, back on dry land, anyway 😂⁠
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Life is intense in Amazonia, which many evolutionary theories hold to be the birthplace of life. It's why there are so many species here, be plant, animal or insect (which we like to think of as half way between). ⁠
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The sandbox or dynamite tree (hura crepitans) is one formidable contender. Its trunk and branches are covered in hard thorns, which makes scaling it difficult.⁠
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Any creature foolish or hungry enough to try risks being caught out by its exploding fruit! As the fruit dries, it can spontaneously pop with a loud bang, hence "dynamite" tree. ⁠
Over the millennia, this tree has mastered self defence. ⁠
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One wonders what medicinal and shamanic applications it might have!

You can't talk about Amazonian rivers without ment

You can't talk about Amazonian rivers without mentioning the legendary Piranha. Actually you can. They're not big fans of fast-moving rivers like the Tambopata. ⁠
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They prefer slower-moving environments like the oxbow lakes (in Australia they're called billabongs) formed when the river changes course over time. ⁠
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These three were the result of a fishing expedition a while back, to the Lago Tres Chimbadas. The top fish has had its tail chopped off to use as bait for catching more. ⁠
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This is the classic method for many kinds of fish. Are all fish cannibalistic? Piranha certainly seem to be! ⁠
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In fact there's plenty of evidence that many animal species are – chickens, for instance. Not to say in all cases that that they will attack another member of the same species, but, if food is put on the plate, so to speak... ⁠
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Which might get you thinking about cannibalism and Amazonian tribes and how true it is or was and how much was spun by Christian missionaries... Or whether the taboo of cannibalism is one of the things that separates humans from other species... ⁠
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Thoughts anyone? 👹 ⁠
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The Tambopata river is constantly changing, always

The Tambopata river is constantly changing, always surprising. One day it's a torrent of liquid chocolate, a river from another planet, the next it's a glassy mirror you have to inspect carefully to see its powerful current.⁠
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Like all waterways of the Earth, it is much abused. Now more than ever it is crucially important to honour these arteries of the planet. Honouring could be taking a moment to appreciate the life-giving beauty of moving water, to contemplate its clarity, flow, hidden power. ⁠
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It could be taking a moment to learn about your local waterways, where they come from, where they go to, and how they might be impacted. ⁠
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It could be deciding to come and visit us here, at the feet of the Andes, where the glacial waters are distributed through the countless rivers, streams, quebradas and streamlets that irrigate the rainforest. ⁠
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Meanwhile, let us know by comment here what your favourite or local river is! ⁠
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"The river is flowing... " ⁠

A red and green macaw (Ara chloropterus) keeps gua

A red and green macaw (Ara chloropterus) keeps guard high up in a tree overlooking a clay-lick. Seen via telescopic equipment courtesy of @dsolano.wild. ⁠
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Clay-licks are one of the big "eco-tourism" attractions here in Madre de Dios. Every day. flocks of macaw and other birds arrive at certain spots where the exposed clay beside the river is high in sodium – a rarity in parts of the planet more than 100km from the ocean, which includes pretty much all of the Amazon plain. ⁠
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There may be more to it than a salt fix. Scientific studies are ongoing to unravel the microbiological mysteries, and document behavioural patterns observed at the clay licks. ⁠
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With our shamanic hats on, there are many homages to the macaw, from the extraordinary creation myths of the Shuar and Ashaninka, say, to modern tributes like that of Danit Treubig's famous song, Guacamayo. ⁠
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We haven't got time to delve into Shuar creation myths here. Suffice to say that these beautiful birds are as stunningly impressive in their brilliantly coloured plumage, as they are somewhat scary when you hear them flying over. Their voices have to be heard to be believed! This is the kind of voice pterodactyls must have had! ⁠
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A reminder that all beings like to pause a moment

A reminder that all beings like to pause a moment to appreciate life’s beauty - either that or there’s a very tasty grasshopper inside. Why not pause right now, take a deep belly breath, look around and truly appreciate the moment 😊 #beauty #takeabreak #takeamoment #pause #WisdomthatWorks #Readings #PeruPilgrimages #FengShui #DavinaMacKail #Cacao #Mentoring #Healing #SacredSpace #ShamanicTraining #Retreats #Sipapu21 #PlantMedicineRetreats #ayahuasca #TarotReadings #HayHouse #Dreams #fengshuimadeeasy #hayhousebasics #TheDreamWhisperer #hayhouseauthors #consciousness #loveistheanswer #heartwisdom #jungleliving #peru

The caiman (caiman latirostris) is one of the rept

The caiman (caiman latirostris) is one of the reptilian archetypes of Amazonia. Who hasn't seen footage of them slipping silently into muddy waters, or watched their awkward gait and not been transported back into times when dinosaurs roamed the Earth? ⁠
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Most species are quite small––rarely more than a meter long. This massive skull, curated by our neighbours downriver at Inotawa, is from a rare black caiman, which once ruled the nearby Lago Tres Chimbadas. These giants can grow up to 4m in length and weigh up to half a ton! ⁠
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In terms of evolutionary theory, crocodilians, the order to which the caiman belongs, are thought to be the closest relatives to birds, with whom they share the honour of being the sole survivors of the reign of the archosaurians aka T-Rex and friends. (If T-Rex had any friends 😳) ⁠
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In terms of shamanism, the crocodilians are the power animals of the lower world, living manifestations of the great dragon-like energies that move to this day through the murky world of the limbic system––fight or flight, aggression, sexual arousal.⁠
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In Amazonia, crocodilians are almost always associated with brujos (sorcerers) due to their fabled ability to lay low for long periods of time, and explode into terrible violence without warning. ⁠
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Caiman-spotting is a favourite pastime of Amazonian ecolodges. The truth of the matter is that these days you have to go pretty far off the beaten track (or waterway) to find caiman of mentionable size or number. We've had one or two close encounters––still alarming, even when the crocodilian was only a foot long!⁠
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Like all archetypal creatures, the crocodilians occupy a powerful place in the imagination. For that they must be respected and honoured. ⁠
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A little glimpse of the action in our neck of the

A little glimpse of the action in our neck of the woods.⁠
We wanted to have Debussy's L'Apresmidi d'une Faune for the soundtrack, but it's kinda long for the 1 min Instagram format. ⁠
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Hopefully this version gives you a funky sense of the sheer aliveness and goings on – mostly unseen – and so a sense of respect for these creatures who survive – sometimes seemingly against all odds – raise their young, hurry about their business and every now and then pause, seemingly sensing the transcendent. ⁠

We're gonna miss resident engineer, chess grandmas

We're gonna miss resident engineer, chess grandmaster and closet medicine musician Kurt Schuermans, seen here overseeing the gritty business of rebuilding the port steps. ⁠
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A regular fixture at the Sipapu breakfast table, coloured pens in one hand, Spanish dictionary in the other, Kurt completed a long journey at Sipapu yesterday. ⁠
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In many ways it's the journey we're all making, a journey from the old world to the new, from the story of separation, to a new story of courage, heart, magic and grace. ⁠
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A big thank you to Kurt for raking many leaves, clearing many trails (literally and metaphorically) and for taking on all comers at the chess board, and all with the quiet, unassuming manner that earned him the nickname "El Kurtero" (after our favourite nocturnal visitor) 😂 ⁠
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Safe journeys and come back soon!

For the Indigenous Souls of all people who can sti

For the Indigenous Souls of all people who can still remember how to be real cultures, life is a race to be elegantly run, not a race to be competitively won. ⁠
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It cannot be won; it is the gift of the world’s diverse beautiful motion that must be maintained. Because human life has been give the gift of our elegant motion, whether we limp, roll, crawl, stroll, or fly, it is an obligation to engender that elegance of motion in our daily lives in service of maintaining life by moving and living as beautifully as we can. ⁠
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All else has, to me, the familiar taste of that domineering warlike harshness that daily tries to cover its tracks in order to camouflage the deep ruts of some old, sick, grinding, ungainly need to flee away from the elegance of our original Indigenous human souls. ⁠
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Our attempt to avariciously conquer or win a place where there are no problems, whether it be Heaven or a “New Democracy,” never mind if it is spiritually ugly and immorally “won” and taken from someone who is already there, has made a citifying world of people who, unconscious of it, have become our own ogreish problem to ourselves, our future, and the world. ⁠
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This is a problem that we cannot continue to attempt to competitively outrun by more and more effectively designed technological approaches to speed away from the past, for the specter of our own earth-wasting reality runs grinning competitively right alongside us. ⁠
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By developing even more effective and entertaining methods of escape that only burn up the earth, the air, animals, plants, and the deeper substance of what it should mean to be human, by competing to get ahead, we have created a brakeless competition that has outrun our innate beauty and marked out a very definite and imminent “finish” line.⁠
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Martin Prechtel, The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic.

Big shout out of absolute gratitude to @petrb.77 C

Big shout out of absolute gratitude to @petrb.77 Current superhero of Sipapu. Petr arrived with us on March 16th when lockdown began and hasn’t left the jungle since! Love of his life @sarkaelias is currently stranded in India and they still don’t know when they will be reunited. On more than one occasion he has held the fort singlehanded whilst we’ve had to journey back and forth for provisions, water etc. That takes enormous strength of character to be utterly alone in the jungle, four hours upriver when it’s not your natural habitat. He can pretty much handle anything in the forest from planting the medicine garden, to wielding chainsaws and machetes and also makes a mean spaghetti! Life would have been so, so much tougher without you Petr - thank you for loving Sipapu as much as we do and thank you for showing up! May you soon reunite with Sarka and may your lives always be blessed with whatever you need. Love you so much brother 💖🥰💖

One of favourite – and certainly the most succin

One of favourite – and certainly the most succinct – quotes from the gargantuan work, The Great Cosmic Mother by Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor, subtitled, Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. ⁠
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We could say an awful lot on this theme, but this is social media, where there are an awful lot of people, some of them saying an awful lot, and some not saying much at all. In any case, this meme risks being kind of reflexive! ⁠
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These days, whether you're conserving rainforest or baking cupcakes,social media plays a role in getting your message out there. Some, no doubt, will come no closer to the rainforest than an Instagram picture. Some might pack their jungle gear (maybe a waterproof box of cupcakes too). ⁠
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Or maybe the message gets lost in the medium. Maybe these platforms /are/ the experience. Knowledge becomes information. The simulacrum precedes the real thing. ⁠
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What do you think? ⁠
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Well. It's Tuesday, so we thought we'd give you a

Well. It's Tuesday, so we thought we'd give you a cat's eye view of guest photographer, chef and jungle gardener @TuesdaySherwood. ⁠
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She arrived in Puerto Maldonado shortly after we did, way back in February this year, and we have been navigating the jungle paths and waterways ever since.

We're talking about ayni, or interbeing of course,

We're talking about ayni, or interbeing of course, living in a relationship of mutual care with the life around us, nature, the Earth. ⁠
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Indigenous traditions, and their modern revival, offer many branches to the same path. It's the essence of the global shift, a return to a more natural way of life, an awakening from the dead and deadening idea that the Earth is "just a bunch of stuff." ⁠
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As Robin Wall-Kimmerer points out in books like Braiding Sweetgrass, some indigenous languages translate "plant" as "the ones who care for us." ⁠
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If you have trouble with the idea that plants have intelligence, that they can feel and perceive, or that some of them actually care for us, you might need a little imagination. ⁠
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And if that sounds childish, then you may indeed need to return to earlier years. Revisit your favourite childhood books or cartoons and chances are they're full of trees with faces, rocks that talk, magic frogs and mountains that preside over valleys. ⁠
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Entering into imaginative relationship with nature requires a kind of innocence. Remembering that innocence requires healing from the knocks and betrayals that took it away. ⁠
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The flowers have voices. The trees have faces. What now? Use your imagination. It comes naturally to us as children. ⁠
From there we enter meaningful relationship with nature. We realise that it is not out there, not an inert bunch of stuff, but intimately, inseparably connected to us. ⁠

It ain't half hot, Mum! ⁠ ⁠ Actuallly, it ain'

It ain't half hot, Mum! ⁠
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Actuallly, it ain't half variable, would be more accurate. The great plains of Lower Amazonia are home to some of the most intricate weather systems and microclimates in the world – all of it orchestrated by the forest. The trees literally create and maintain optimal conditions of light, shade, temperature, flows of water, nitrogen, carbon and so on. ⁠
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Okay, mostly, it's hot and humid, but the mean average is regularly broken up by spells of change. During a friaje (cold snap) temperatures can plunge to 15ºC. After weeks at twice that, it's certainly refreshing. ⁠
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Is it changing? Some think so, others not. Maybe the friajes are longer, or more severe. Like many things on the ground, information is anecdotal at best. Take another bend in the river, and its a different story. Diversity is the name of the game here, whether we're talking grasshopper species or species classification systems! ⁠
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Change is constant! In fact, make that #changeisconstant ⁠
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