SPIRIT ANIMAL

In the heart of the Amazon, a journey toward rediscovering ourselves.

Text & Photos by Leslie Ramos

My three best friends and I spent a week exploring the Mamirauá Preserve deep within the Brazilian Amazon. Our local guide was a 24-year-old named Alieudo, born and raised in Caburini, a village nestled between the creeping jungle and the river’s edge.

Fourteen families live there, drawing nearly everything they need from the ecosystem that cradles them: homes and canoes carved from trees, meals of fish from the river, manioc pulled from the soil, fruit gathered from the forest.

On one evening canoe ride, Alieudo suddenly announced, “Two of you are macaws.” Then, with a mischievous smile, he rowed away — leaving us to wonder which of us had been given such a prestigious title.

The next day, he explained that in his culture everyone has a spirit animal— an animal you share character traits with.

Discovering it is part of discovering yourself, he said, and it requires learning the ways of the animals around you. To him, each species isn’t just a name in a guidebook, but a neighbor with its own personality: the macaw is loyal, the hawk is an adventurous leader, the anteater explores with curiosity.

When I asked him about his spirit animal, he revealed his connection to the anteater because of the way it explores the forest with curiosity.

As for me, Alieudo says my great spirit animal is…a squirrel. Humbling. According to him, the squirrel collects information to share with others. I’ll take it.

For Alieudo, animals are not “others.” They are kin. He has cared for injured monkeys, watched over jaguar cubs, learned the habits of pink river dolphins, even raised baby turtles. Each one joins his extended circle of friends.

That experience taught me to shift my perspective from separating the “human” and the “animal,” to seeing it all for what it truly is — spirit.