As I watched the steam come billowing out of the sweat lodge when the door opened in the early morning light at last year’s Midwest Shamanic Gathering, I smiled at the realization that the dreams, goals, and vision of so many people were coming true right before my eyes. As wisdom teachers from North America and South America climbed out of the lodge and greeted each other in the traditional way after sweat lodge, then mingled with a large group of spiritual seekers from all over the United States, I also realized that the prophecies upon which the Midwest Shamanic Gathering are founded are also coming to fruition. The prophecies of which I speak are from the Inka (also spelled Inca), but are echoed in many North American traditions and speak about a time of great change. According to the Inka a time will come when the eagle will fly with the condor, the tipi will be seen from the rocky mountains of Alaska all the way into the Andes of South America, and the water drum will be listened to again. As Don Valerio Cohaila, a Peruvian medicine man and the water pourer for this particular sweat lodge revealed, “Now we see the water drum being used in Europe, the United States, all over, and now is the time when all the nations of the north and the south will come together and the grandfathers will share.” Don Valerio Cohaila, or Freddy as almost everyone affectionately calls him, is himself a living example of these prophecies. In the 1990s he moved from his home in southern Peru to come to the United States to teach and bring his medicine traditions to the north. In the process, he also learned many of the North American medicine traditions and is now a leader in the Native American Church, blending the teachings from the South and the North in a beautifully integrated way.