Michael Stuart Ani has been a student of plant wisdom for almost fifty years. As a young man, the Lakota sage, John Fire Lame Deer, guided him through his first peyote ceremony and then sent him south to Mexico in search of the steps of the Ghost Dance. These steps led Michael to the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca, famous for its sacred mushrooms. From the 1960’s through 1970’s, Ani lived in the Mazateca’s most remote cloud forest and became the only outsider who was ever allowed to collect the sacred mushroom species of the region.
