The Story Behind Our First 5 Designs

When our founder set out to create Earth Medicine Apparel Co., he knew he wasn’t just making T-shirts; he saw the opportunity for weaving together stories, medicines, and meaning while cultivating community.

Each design in our pilot collection holds a piece of that tapestry. They honor the Earth and its creatures - with an initial focus on the Amazon Rainforest of Peru. And most importantly, each design honors the relationships and experiences that birthed this brand - especially our founder’s time deepening his own relationship with Kambô and the jungle with the late Maestro Jhonny Javá in the Peruvian Amazon.

Keep reading to hear more about our flagship collection, information about the featured Earth Medicine, and how each purchase supports our pilot impact campaign.

🌿 What is Kambô?

Kambô (also known as sapo) is the name given to the secretion of the Phyllomedusa bicolor, a large, green tree frog native to the Amazon rainforest. Traditionally, this secretion is used by several Indigenous tribes in the Amazon basin as a powerful cleansing and protective ritual. It’s applied to small surface burns in the skin, initiating an intense purge that clears toxins—physical, energetic, and emotional.

Our founder met Kambô in 2022, on the banks of the Napo River in the Loreto region of Peru. There, he studied with Maestro Jhonny Javá, a Kichwa healer who carried this medicine with immense skill and heart. That journey changed our founder forever. It led him back into his body, back into right relationship with nature, and ultimately, into the creation of this brand.

✨ Our First Impact Mission: Rebuilding Jhonny’s Healing Center

In 2024, Maestro Jhonny passed away unexpectedly, leaving behind his family and the land he stewarded. Their center—Ecomunidad Nativa Kambo Family—has since fallen into disrepair.

Now, with their blessing, we’re launching this collection to raise $5,000 in profit to help rebuild the center’s maloca (ceremonial house) and infrastructure. This is a place of medicine, cultural preservation, and community resilience.

This campaign has been co-led by Uli, Jhonny’s wife, along with their children. From granting permission to produce art from Jhonny’s image, to identifying needs on the land, to envisioning the future of their work—this collaboration is rooted in mutual respect and love.

🐸 The Designs

Each shirt in this flagship collection speaks to the legacy of Kambô and the vibrant life of the rainforest that nurtures it. They act as love letters to the Amazon. And they are all original designs by our founder, Cloudsong, drawn on Adobe Illustrator using a Wacom Cintiq Pro 22. Each design was brought to life in collaboration with two domestic, artist-led print shops and is printed on sustainable, ethical garments.

1. Maestro Kambô

An illustrated tribute to the late Maestro Jhonny Javá, his presence in ceremony, his inseperable connection to the Amazon Rainforest, and his role as a beloved teacher. Created with permission from his family and with deep reverence, each color is sourced directly from our featured Earth Medicine, Kambô (Phyllomedusa bicolor).

Jhonny Javá served Kambô for 36 years, having received it for the first time when he was 8 years old. Of Kichwa (Ecuadorian) lineage, he spent much time learning also from the Matsés while stewarding a parcel of land in the Isla Patrona Native Community of the Napo River Valley of Peru with his wife, 13 children, and siblings. Jhonny was a good friend of Peter Gorman, a renowned journalist credited with bringing Kambô’s medicine to the Great North. Through this friendship, a profound, if not neo-shamanic, style of serving Kambô was born. While many may not know who Jhonny was, most Kambô ceremonies today have echoes of his fingerprint on the practice. At the intersection of indigenous wisdom of South America, the chakra system of India, and observational wisdom of physiology through a Western lens, the modern Kambô ceremony was born. Its power as both a somatic medicine and an energetic medicine began to spread across the world. Jhonny suddenly passed away in 2024 in his late 50s, and his profound loss is felt by the dozens of Kambô practitioners who had the privilege of learning from this radiant wisdom keeper.

Towards the end of his life, Jhonny turned to social media and made an open invitation to come and learn from him. 2 planes, 3 boats (one of questionable buoyancy), 1 mototaxi, and several miles of hiking later - our founder had his life forever changed when answering this invitation in 2022. 

With this and the other designs in our flagship launch, we hope to share Jhonny’s story with a wider audience. Even for those who are not relating to Kambô as a medicine directly, every human on this planet benefits from a healthy ecosystem in South America, and so we are working long-term with his surviving family to ensure they maintain their land title as his eldest son continues to carry on his legacy.

2. El Guacamayo Malu

A psychedelic scarlet macaw bursting with color, drawn from photos taken during our founder’s time in the jungle. The Guacamayo (macaw) is a messenger bird, a symbol of spirit, vibrancy, and ancestral connection. In real life, Malu was rescued by the Javá family after his mother was poached. Despite not having clipped wings, he stays on site, interacting with the children and animals, watching carefully over his beloved human family. A mandala behind a perched bird bears feathers, sacred Mapacho (Nicotiana rustica) leaves, and patterns suggesting sun rays. Each color in this design was sourced directly from Malu’s feathers.

3. Kambô y Toé Mandala

A circular design featuring the Kambô (Phyllomedusa bicolor) frog rendered in multiple ways at its center, radiating harmony, strength, and sacred geometry inspired by the interconnectedness of life. Behind the frogs, a mandala of Toé (Brugmansia suaveolens) - a powerful medicine plant which provokes visionary dreams when related to with reverence and prayer, or makes one crazy when related to in an abusive and careless way. Each color for this design was sourced directly from the Kambô frog.

4. Jungle Love

A mated pair of Kambô frogs snuggle on a leaf, featuring textures derived from traditional Peruvian woven textiles found in the Mercado Belén in Iquitos. This source photo was taken by our founder on Matsés land in the Loreto region of Peru in 2022. These frogs are known for their large size, distinct barking-like call during mating season, and their docile nature. The frogs live high up in tree canopies and descend late at night, the moment when they are collected for medicine. Each color in this print was derived directly from the frog.

5. King of the Heart

A throwback to our founder’s first Kambô-themed design he made in 2021. This design features our favorite frog nestled aloft a human heart, with patterns representing the lungs and radiating light behind him. Some call Kambô the “King of the Jungle,” and its medicine is known to open the energetic heart and clear emotional pain, while also having a profound effect on the physical beating and resulting pressure of the heart and veins. All colors are sourced directly from the Kambô frog.

🌍 What You’re Supporting

Every purchase from this collection goes directly toward:

• Rebuilding the maloca and supporting structures on Jhonny Javá’s land

• Helping the Javá family continue their healing work with visitors from around the world

• Preserving rainforest ecology through land stewardship

• Honoring the legacy of Indigenous wisdom and ceremony

• Creating long-term networks of support for the Javá family

This is more than fashion—it’s wearable activism, story, and soul.
Thank you for walking this path with us.

With gratitude,

Founder, Earth Medicine Apparel Co.