The Story.
Once upon a time, in the forest where the valleys ran deep and the trees whispered their secrets, there lived a shaman with the wisdom of the earth in his heart. The forest taught him how to heal with the gifts that grew wild beneath the trees, and how to see truth where others saw only shadows. Among his most sacred tools were mushroom powders he ground by hand, each one a remedy drawn from life’s quiet cycles of growth, decay, and rebirth.
But one fateful day The Machine arrived—its arms stretching through the forest, promising health in convenient pills that glowed like false moons, and branding nature’s remedies as dangerous outdated relics of the past. The elders of the forest scorned the Shaman’s defiance, dismissing his mushroom powders as rebellion, and irresponsible. “What you do will bring ruin,” they told him, blind to the ruin already taking hold. And so, they exiled him.
Cast out from the only home he’d ever known, the Shaman walked to where the trees gave way to towers and the air grew thick with smoke. In a forgotten corner of the city, he found refuge—a derelict apartment, its walls covered in graffiti that told stories of other rebels who came before him. The pipes dripped, the bulbs flickered, and the hum of the city vibrated through his soul. It wasn’t the forest, but it was his new home.
Wanderers sought him out—those who’d grown tired of The Machine’s grip, and sick from its toxins. They came, one by one to the Shaman’s door. There, in the dim light, he ground his powders with the same reverence as he had in the forest. Every bag a middle finger to The Machine, a quiet act of resistance.
“You can’t bury what already grows underground,” he’d say to those who came seeking answers. Those who lapped up his powders grew stronger. Their eyes sparkled with life, and their bodies remembered what it felt like to thrive.
The Exiled Shaman never looked back at the forest that turned its back on him. He had work to do—fighting The Machine one bag at a time, helping all dogs reclaim what was theirs: health, vitality, and freedom.