Sacred Soil

ROBERT TINDALL, MA, is a classical guitarist, a long-time student of Zen Buddhism, an inveterate traveler, and the author of The Jaguar that Roams the Mind and The Shamanic Odyssey: Homer, Tolkien, and the Visionary Experience. Tindall works as a professor of literature, and divides his time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Peru. He leads journeys into the Amazon rainforest and to the Andean archaeological site of Chavín de Huántar to encounter the healing traditions there. FRÉDÉRIQUE APFFEL-MARGLIN, PhD, is emerita professor of anthropology at Smith College and director and founder of the Sachamama Center for Biocultural Regeneration in the Peruvian Upper Amazon. She was a research associate at the World Institute for Development Economics Research. She has authored and edited thirteen books and published some sixty articles and book chapters, including The Spirit of Regeneration: Andean Culture Confronting Western Notions of Development and Subversive Spiritualities: How Rituals Enact the World. DAVID SHEARER, PhD, is co-founder and CEO of Full Circle Biochar, a clean technology company developing biochar products for global agricultural and carbon sequestration applications. He was chief scientist at California Environmental Associates and principal environmental scientist at AeroVironment Inc., where he worked in next-generation transportation, energy, carbon mitigation, and information technology. Dr. Shearer has a PhD in environmental epidemiology and a MS in environmental microbiology from the University of California.