Produced by: Patricio Robles Gil

Text by: Federico Reyes Heroles

Body painting is the most ancient communication between humans, nature, and the spirit. For our ancestors, it was - at once - an art, a prayer, and a pledge of relationship. Truly, their lives depended upon it.

As ancient as it is, this most primitive ritual retains the power to transform us.

Through extraordinary tests by one of Mexico's greatest opinion leaders - Federico Reyes Heroles - and extraordinary illuminating images by some of the world's best photographers - WILD RITUALS: Painted Bodies tells the story of a contemporary resurrection of this ancient ritual. In the old hacienda in northern Yucatan, Mexico, at the 9th World Wilderness Congress, WILD 9, art, conservation, and spiritual invocation combined to create a timeless expression of human connection with, and celebration of, wilderness and people.

During a tropical evening in November 2009, a militia of modern shamans - artists, models, and nature photographers who had never done such an exercise before joined forces to create and document a surreal wild ritual in which living sculptures captured the hearts, eyes, and minds of an international audience. At that moment, we all belonged to wild nature.

This small but powerful book tells the story of that ritual. Open its pages, Allow its photographs to seduce you, and raise awareness of this powerful ceremony of home for the future of wild nature and all humankind.