IPSWICH — It was only a month ago that 22-year-old Rachael Carlevale was walking on a 200-foot canopy walkway and being blessed by a shaman in the Peruvian Amazon.
Now the senior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is studying for her ornithology exam, but still thinking about the incredible 10 days she spent in January in the Amazon jungle.
For the first time, UMass had an international trip that sent 16 students to the Amazon to study medicinal plants and botany. The three-credit class, "The Shaman's Pharmacy," was an eight-day study trip, with students traveling up the Rio Napo from Iquitos to the Rio Sucusari.
When Carlevale heard about the class, she couldn't say no.
"With a strong foundation in the study of conventional medicine through the UMass premed program, I strove for the opportunity to explore the holistic and naturopathic medicine," Carlevale said. "I wanted to expose myself directly to those cultures that, to this day, embrace the potential of plants as a legitimate form of medicine."
Although the trip to the Amazon was academic, "there was nothing classroom about it," she said. "Most of the time was spent in the depths of the rainforest, searching for and identifying certain plants."
With other students, she took medicinal plant hikes, prepared ayahuasca (a vine mixed with leaves) for ceremonial purposes, fished and ate piranhas, and visited villages to meet the locals.
The experience that made the greatest impression on her, she said, was when Shaman Guiermo blessed her with the positivity of the rainforest. The process involved Guiermo tapping a handful of leaves on Carlevale's body, blowing mapacho smoke on her head and singing ceremonial songs.
"This ceremonial application of medicinal plants and herbs gave me irreplaceable insight into the spiritual aspect of healing that often times goes hand in hand with the healing and prevention of physical ailments," she said.
Her professor, Chris Kilham, has been studying medicinal plants in the Amazon for years and encouraged the school to take students there.
Zoe Gardner, a plant and soil graduate student and department adviser, was co-leader on the trip and gave lectures on botany and medicinal plants. According to Gardner, the opportunity to study in the Amazon was particularly special because 90 percent of what they looked at was native and unique to that region.
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