Los Awichus

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Potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations. Okay, so we're all trying to get healthier, but can feel like shadowboxing. General basic diet plans, general health advice, general supplement stacks. And we know we are not general. No one size fits all. But what if you could measure how your body is aging and know exactly what to focus on next? That's what True diagnostic does. They test your biological age and key health markers like vitamins, nutrients, and inflammation, then gives you a clear 90-day plan based on what your body needs without the guesswork. And it's easy. All I did was order online. The kit ships right to your door, pricked my finger like they said, sent back the prepaid return package. It takes just two to four weeks to get digital results. My only job now, follow the three most important actions and results say I should for 90 days, then retest to see progress. Easy. That's why True Diagnostic is trusted by top longevity clinics and health professionals, not just consumers at home. And right now, Spook listeners can get 20% off at truediagnostic.com using code spooked at checkout. That's truediagnostic.com and use code SPOOKED for 20% off today. Choose True Age, True Health, or the Combo Kit as a one-time purchase or subscription. Starting a business means wearing many hats, designer, marketer, manager, while chasing your vision. Shopify powers millions of businesses with tools to build beautiful stores, create content, and market with ease. From inventory to shipping, everything runs smoothly. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Sign up for your 1 euro trial today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. So this is Fra. bright green size of your fist lives high in the canopy of the Amazon rainforest 100 feet high can't even see it high but you can hear it and right before the dawn thousands of them croaking, pulsing, throbbing a chorus echoing through the darkness the Kashinawa people an indigenous tribe of the Brazilian Amazon they've been listening to this song for as long as they have been a people. And they've come to understand something about this creature. They know if you take a secretion off its skin, this milk-white, waxy stuff, and you put it on a burn, it will heal you. Not like fix a cut, I mean heal the insides of you. They call this medicine combo. But that's not what was called at the beginning. In the beginning it was called something else. I'm going to tell you the story. Though it was told to me. A long time ago, generations ago, Kashinawa were in trouble. Some kind of sickness tore through the village. People were dying. And the medicine man, the Pazier, he's trying everything. Every root, every bark, every leaf he knows. Nothing is working. People keep dying. So this old shaman, he makes a decision. He walks into the forest, alone. Deeper than he's ever gone. And there in the dark, he drinks of the sacred vine. And he sits. And he waits. And that night, she comes. the grandmother's spirit of the forest. She doesn't speak. Instead, she reaches up, way up into those trees, and she brings down a frog. Bright green, white spots on its belly, and she shows him how to scrape that secretion off its back, how to make little burns on the skin and put the medicine right there directly into the womb. when the Paje opens his eyes again you can still hear the frog singing he goes back and does exactly what the grandmother spirit showed him and one by one people get well from that day forward they call him Paje Campo and when he finally passes away this old man full of years surrounded by the grandchildren of people who should have passed away from that disease they say his spirit did not leave he went to the frogs merged the medicine was named in his honor combo and recently in Rome, Italy university laboratory a sample of that frog secretion It ends up in the desk of a scientist named Victoria Ospalmer, the man who discovered serotonin, Nobel Prize nominee, one of the most important pharmacologists of the 20th century. And this man appears at Combo under a microscope and calls it, and I quote, a fantastic chemical cocktail because inside that frog are peptides no one has ever seen before. A painkiller 40 times more powerful than morphine A natural antibiotic material that fights inflammation That regulates blood pressure And now there are over 70 pharmaceutical patents based on that frog Billion dollar companies trying to figure out how to synthesize What the Kashinawa already have But how do they know? don't have microscopes centrifuges how do they know you can't swallow it how do they know to burn those holes first how do they know the dosage how do they know which frog out of thousands of species in that rainforest how did they know trial and error is impossible statistically so the scientists they sit with the elders the ethnobotanists the anthropologists researchers with notebooks and recorders and reasonable questions they ask very politely how did your people figure this out and the elders answer they say the grandmother spirit told us the pencil stops scribbling the scientists they smile politely then they ask the question again different words looking for the real answer. The rational answer. The elders blink back at him a long moment until one of them finally says, what part of the grandmother spirit do you not understand? Spookstar. Now. Thank you Now for this spook story I going to travel to Peru to meet Ladoiska. Now Ladoiska, she wants to help the communities of her homeland by building libraries and schools. She's on a boat with some friends on her way to a very special place. Snoot. The vastness of the lake is fascinating. The water is turquoise. There's a cool breeze The sun is shining There's a sense of peacefulness that I can't describe We are arriving at Isla Amantaní the largest island in Lake Titicaca It rises from the water like a mountain and it's home to 10 different small communities We get to the dock, and my first thought is, this feels like home. There are kids playing around, wearing their little fleece chullito hats. They're giving us shy smiles. The other locals are wearing colorful traditional costumes, with women wearing yigyas, beautiful shawls that cover their shoulders. I'm greeted by Alexa and Abel. They are the kids of the Mamani Calcín, the family I'm staying with for the next few months. They help us carry our backpacks, our groceries, and we start walking. As we turn to the right, I see a flock of sheep following us. They look a bit frightened by our presence. That's when I have this feeling of being watched. There's a tingling down my spine. I look around, but the people aren't paying any attention to us. I don't know where this feeling is coming from, but it's as if someone is watching and wondering, ¿Para qué has venido? ¿Quién eres? What are you doing here? Who are you? I try to explain this feeling away, like, maybe I'm just nervous about the project. I want to build a library on the island and provide literacy workshops. But in order to do that, I need to gain the trust of the community. I don't know if they actually want this, so I wonder... ¿Realmente soy bienvenida aquí? Am I really welcome here? As we climb up a cobblestone path, the views are spectacular. Little red houses dot the landscape. There are green fields and farms everywhere. Lake Titicaca glistens to my right. The closer we get to the Mamani Calcín's home, the more I can feel the altitude changing. We're now 4,000 meters above the sea level, and it's getting hard to breathe. I know that coca leaves can help with altitude sickness. So I reach into my bag and pull out a small stash, and I start to chew. In this community, coca leaves aren't just a remedy. They are sacred. Farmers chew on them for energy. And people also use them to greet one another on the island. The tradition is to take three coca leaves, each one representing a different realm. The world of the gods. The world of the living. The world of the dead. Together, these three leaves are called a quintu. Using both hands, you bring the coca leaves to your mouth, ask for a blessing, and then you give the leaves to the other person. They will receive this quintu with their skirt or their hat. We finally arrive and meet Mama Anselma at the door. She's wearing a chuco. a black cloak that covers her head. She's so happy to see us and welcomes us inside. Did you know there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? And they found a way to combine THC with carefully selected functional ingredients to create gummies, baked goods, flour. I'm talking about Mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis gummies and you can get 20% off your first order at Mood.com with promo code SPOOT. Forget one size fits all supplements. Mood's functional gummies are formulated to dial in the mood you're looking for. like the Sleepy Time Advanced Gummy for mind-soothing calm at night. Or Mood's Pure Relief CBD Gummies for gentle relaxation without any psychoactive effects. Plus, beyond gummies, Mood has a selection of flour, pre-rolls, bakery treats, beverages, and everything ships directly and discreetly right to your door. No dispensary lines, no awkward conversations, just better days and nights delivered to your doorstep. Best of all, Every mood product is backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. And as I've mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code SPOOKED. So head to mood.com. Find the functional gummy that matches exactly what you're looking for. And let mood help you discover your perfect mood. And don't forget to use promo code SPOOKED when you check out to save 20% on your first order. Try it today at mood.com. Spooked is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, for owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit Progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Okay, so we're all trying to get healthier. But it can feel like shadowboxing. General basic diet plans. General health advice. General supplement stacks. And we know we are not general. No one size fits all. But what if you could measure how your body is aging and know exactly what to focus on next? That's what True Diagnostic does. They test your biological age and key health markers like vitamins, nutrients, and inflammation. Then gives you a clear 90-day plan based on what your body needs without the guesswork. And it's easy. All I did was order online. The kit chips right to your door. prick my finger like they said, sent back the prepaid return package. It takes just two to four weeks to get digital results. My only job now? Follow the three most important actions and results say I should for 90 days, then retest to see progress. Easy. That's why True Diagnostic is trusted by top longevity clinics and health professionals, not just consumers at home. And right now, Spook listeners can get 20% off at truediagnostic.com using code SPOOKED at checkout. That's truediagnostic.com and use code SPOOKED for 20% off today. Choose True Age, True Health, or the Combo Kit as a one-time purchase or subscription. Starting a business means wearing many hats, designer, marketer, manager, while chasing your vision. Shopify powers millions of businesses with tools to build beautiful stores, create content and market with ease. From inventory to shipping, everything runs smoothly. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Sign up for your 1 euro trial today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. The sun sets and we gather for dinner. As we eat quinoa soup, I tell Abel about this feeling of being watched when I first arrived on the island. He just stares at me and says, gustar conocer la noche en Amantan Would you like to know Amantan at night We all look at each other and say noche qu pasa en la noche en la isla Why? What happens during the night? And he says, well, that feeling of being watched, it comes from spirits you can't see. These spirits, they wake up at night. I'm like, what do you mean, spirits? Annabelle starts telling a story. The Aguichos are the ancestors of our ancestors of our ancestors. They are very, very, very old. You may say that they were the first to inhabit a Mantaní. They used to live on this island just like us. They had their own laws, their own religion. But at some point, desobedecieron a su Dios. They disobeyed their God. At this point, Abel is very serious. So, the Awiches were punished. El Dios Inti los calcinó. The sun god Inti burned them alive, and their bones were the only remnants left behind. Those bones are now buried in a cave, deep within the island, where no one is allowed to go. The Ahuitzas guard that land, because not everyone is welcome there. There are people who are afraid of the Ouichas, because they say that if you ever bump into them, you can get sick and die. Now, Mama Anselma is like any other mom. She goes, so you better not go out at night. The day is for the living, and the night is for the spirits. The ahuichos don't bother us during the day. Why would we bother them at night? Cuando se oculta el sol, es hora de regresar a casa. When the sun goes down, it's time to go back home. I had heard these kinds of stories and legends in other native communities. But I must admit, this one is a bit scary. I mean, the whole family is dead serious when talking about the Ahuichos. But I tell myself, hold on. This is just their belief system. Es una historia. This is just a story. For the first few days, I'm in a bliss. I wake up to the birds singing and the whisper of the lake. But the work has been exhausting. Some days I have to walk for over an hour to reach Okosuyo, the community where we're building the library. The children in Okosuyo laugh when they see me. The adults approach me with curiosity. Some look at me with suspicion. This one particular day, I really needed some alone time. The week had been intense and the project was stalling. We didn't have enough money to fully fund the library. We had launched a fundraiser, but it wasn't successful. We were starting to doubt ourselves, like, is this really going to happen? So I grabbed my coca leaves, a book that I'm reading, some crackers, and I head out. It's around 11 in the morning. I'm walking through the island, taking my time, and I decide to go to El Agua de la Juventud. It's a natural water spring. The locals say that the water has healing powers. They drink it for longevity. To get to the spring, I walk through some of the sacred areas of the island, along this cobblestone path that goes up and down this lush hill. There are so many red, yellow, and pink cantu flowers all around me. Then finally, I go down this one last hill and get to the spot. It's a little natural spring that is located near a cliff's edge. And this spring is surrounded by a meter-high stone wall. The first thing I do is I introduce myself to the water, the way that the family taught me. Yo soy Ladojka, gracias por permitirme tomar tus aguas. Hi, I'm Ladojka. Thank you for letting me drink from your waters. And I take out some coca leaves. Then I grab my bottle and I fill it with water. And I fill up another bottle for Mamá Anselma. Me quito los zapatos. Then I take off my shoes, sit right by the spring, feeling the dirt under my feet. I just close my eyes and enjoy the sun in silence. Time slips away, and I notice it's getting dark. I lost track of time. I need to hurry. Mama's going to get worried. But what could go wrong? I pack my stuff and I start making my way up the hill, back towards home. Y escucho murmullos. And that's when I hear murmuring. Someone nearby is mumbling. I turn and look down the hill. Veo una señora muy pequeña. There's a short woman behind that stone wall surrounding the spring. She's about four feet tall and probably in her 70s. She's wearing traditional clothes. And she's covered in this grayish dirt. She's carrying a bucket and pot. Maybe she's been working on the chakra all day. No puedo ver su rostro porque está encorvada. I can't see her face because she's hunched over. I'm wondering, where did she come from? There's no path behind this stone wall. Then she starts trying to climb over the wall. Her arms shake as she tries to push herself up. Tengo que ayudarla. I need to help her. So I head back down the hill and I walk to where she is. I extend my hand and say, Mamita, Mamita, apoyate aquí. Mamita, grab my hand. But she ignores me. It's as if I'm not there. She's still hunched over and mumbling. So I remove some stones so that it's easier for her to climb over. I know I shouldn't be doing this, but she needs help. I say, Mamita, Mamita, I've opened a path through the wall and I offer her my hand once again. But she doesn't grab it. It's like she doesn't want to be touched. But then, she slowly starts climbing over the wall's opening. And now, La mamita está frente a mí. She's standing in front of me. She's really, really tiny. I offer her some coca leaves. I tell her, Mamita, coge tu falda. Mamita, pick up your skirt. She turns and looks right at me. Her eyes are so black, dark and deep, with a bit of hazel. Her gaze is so heavy, so piercing. It's like she's looking right through me. She starts whispering, and with her right hand, she picks up a curvy leaf. And then a round one that is on the same stem. She pulls the two of them apart, and she starts drawing with them in the air. And I think, oh, she's reading my coca leaves. Sus manos ya no le temblaban, ah. Her hands are not shaking anymore. She looks stern, confident. She's pointing with the bigger leaf, making circles in the air. Y me empieza a hablar mirándome a los ojos. And then she looks me right in the eye and starts talking. she's speaking in Quechua so I can't understand a thing so I tell her mamita, thank you for reading my coca leaves but I don't speak Quechua I don't speak Quechua and she just keeps staring at me but then she goes to the well and takes off her yigya. She drops her bucket and pot and takes off her sandals. Suddenly, a really, really strong wind picks up. Really, really, really strong, like a whirlwind. Some old trees in front of me start to buckle. I don't know what is happening. I close my eyes. For a split second. Open them The wind stops Y la mamita ya no est And the woman is gone Anyhow create content and market with ease. From inventory to shipping, everything runs smoothly. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Sign up for your 1 euro trial today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. My heart is racing. It just started going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The bucket and the pot are gone. The yigya is gone. This is impossible. Nadie puede desaparecer. No one can just disappear like this. Her shoes were off. How could she put them back on so quickly? I jump over the stone wall and I look for her. But there is no other trail. Where could she have gone? Who was she? I'm starting to freak out Every hair on my body is standing up It's now really dark outside And I'm just thinking, I'm gonna get scolded by Mama Anselma But I need to tell the family what happened I get home I find Mama Anselma waiting on the doorstep Papa Juan is also there Mamá Anselma starts asking Where have you been? Why were you so late? It's dinner time already I start to tell them what happened As I'm talking, Mamá Anselma and Papá Juan are looking at each other They whisper in Quechua Mamá Anselma looks worried But Papá Juan, he's so chill He even starts smiling. He looks me in the eye and says, The experience you just had. Those are the ahuichos. He tells me, The ancestors have given you their welcome and their blessings. You should feel accepted and joyful. I'm like, Is this true? Did I just see the ahuichos? Mamá Anselma says, Yes, you did. But now, you might get sick or get into an accident. But Papá Juan says, They have seen your truest intentions on the island. Everything will work out for you. This is an answer I wasn't expecting My rational mind is saying, wait, this is impossible After this encounter, the project all of a sudden was back on track The funding for the library came through And everyone seemed more receptive to our project It just felt like the doors opened About a week later, the whole community comes together to help build a library. As I see everyone working together, I feel so grateful. What Papa Juan told me made sense. I'm like, A witcher exists. For some, sin and a witcher is bad luck. But for others, it can be a welcome, a blessing. Even today, there's still work to do on Isla Amantaní. Every time I visit, I still get this feeling of being watched. Pero esta vez ya los conozco. But I know who they are. Y ellos también a mí. And they know me too. Thank you, Lidojka, for sharing your story at the Sput. Lidojka's voice in English was Lorena Berge. It was scored by Sandra Lawson Indu. It was scouted by Juan Diego Bratran and produced by Eric Yanez. now if you have a story from beyond the veil please please please please let me know spooked snap judgment dot o-r-g because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. Spook Studios lives inside Schrodinger's box, which is both there and not there at all. Deep under KQD Studios in San Francisco, don't seek to find it, lest it seek to find you. Tell the robots that no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission on Team Spooked. The union representative producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL, CIO, Local 51, and Spooked is brought to you by the team that very much likes its plant medicine, especially Mark Ristich. There's Davey Kim Zoe Frigno Ann Ford Eric Yanez Taylor Ducat Marissa Dodge Miles Lassie Suyi Chu Evan Stern Eve Jeffcoat Isha Lopez Jack Darrell Doug Stewart The Spook Bean Song is by Pat Macidi Miller My name's from Washington They say the universe began with a bang a flash, everything everywhere all at once. But long before telescopes, before equations, before anyone knew what a galaxy was, people sat quietly asking the same question. How did this begin? Rig Veda, composed around 1500 BCE, opens its creation hymn with a confession. It's his first there was neither existence, No non-existence. No space, no time, no night, no day, nothing, just potential. The Vedic sages called it the unmanifest. And when it finally stirred, they said it merged from a single source. The golden womb, the cosmic egg, not an object in space, but space itself. Before, space learned how to stretch. modern cosmology tells us the universe began as a singularity no time no distance and expansion cooling matter stars this is a different language with the same sequence instead of the big bang they called it the unfolding and here's the thing they said it wasn't a one-time event the Vedas say the universe It's breeze. It expands. Then it collapses before it begins again. A cycle. And today, physicists argue about cycles of their own. Cosmic rebounds. Endings turning into beginnings. The ancients did not argue that Rig Veda ends its creation song by saying simply, Who knows? Perhaps even the gods do not know. 3,000 years ago, they admitted the mystery. And now with our machines and our models, we stand in the same place of unknowing with the same question. Where did this come from? The same answer we do not know. Saying it started with the Big Bang is no answer. What started the Big Bang? where did we come from instead maybe we should ask ourselves where are we going and after that one sage piece of advice from the ancients does illuminate the darkness never they said ever never never ever not ever not never ever ever turn out the light Thank you. Everything runs smoothly. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Sign up for your 1 euro trial today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl.