Donna Mulvenna left a busy professional life in Australia to live in the Amazon rainforest of French Guiana. She thought it would be a temporary adventure with her partner, an Olympic canoe racer. After many local frustrations, a serious illness, and some profound spiritual experiences in the forest, she's a changed person in how she views Nature, humans, and what's really necessary for a beautiful life.

Donna and I spoke while she and her partner, Franck, were visiting relatives in his native France. She's now back in the Amazon. We talked about:

How she now views her anxiety and discontent with urban life in AustraliaHer stages of adjustment to a wilder, way-more-than-human worldHow native jungle medicine quickly brought her back from a serious diseaseHer "awakening" experience while on a river expeditionThe many ethnic groups of French Guiana and how they get alongChallenges with companies and countries exploiting the AmazonThe animals she hangs out with in her tree house office where she wrote Wild RootsDonna's books are available at www.DonnaMulvenna.comMusic in this episode is "Home, Home at Last" by Blue Dot Sessions, from the album, Warmbody.By the way, if you like this podcast, won't you leave a review on iTunes? Just search for "the Big Chew Podcast" on iTunes and look for "reviews." Thanks!