Hummingbird: Behind The Scenes

Prophetic Origins

The journey toward making this film started at a Bitcoin meetup in Toronto, Canada in 2020. My two friends, who owned a popular tea house, were hosting dinners where people could hang out and meet one another. It was casual, and little did I know the connections I made there would shape the course of my life over the next couple of years.

One of the people I met at those meetups was my now good friend, Tomer Strolight, a Bitcoin writer, who we joked was the unofficial 'priest' of our meetup. He would read us his articles before he published them, and listening to him sometimes felt revelatory. It was like tuning into the heart of the spirit of Bitcoin at that time.

Somehow, what we heard revealed things we couldn't see before. This anchored in a sense that Bitcoin's place in the world was part of something greater than we had originally conceived.

Even though Bitcoin is only money on it's surface, the intention behind it and the values it embodies—openness, neutrality, decentralization, and personal responsibility—to name just a few, all represent an ethos that transcend it's outward appearance.

It was a special moment, and at the height of the Covid lockdowns in 2021, where questioning the mainstream narrative was sure to lead to social ostracization in most circles, our little meetup felt like a sanctuary.

Tomer had been commissioned to write a piece for mimesis capital, and he got the idea to turn it into a film. He brought me on to make it, and we went on to produce Bitcoin Is Generational Wealth in 2021, which racked up 350K+ views on Youtube.

As the mandates and restrictions ramped up at the height of the hysteria in 2021, my new Bitcoin friends and I caught wind that Canadians were moving to Costa Rica. It wasn't only Canadians, but people from around the world tired of overbearing lockdown policies were leaving their home countries and heading to Costa Rica—called by the jungle, perhaps, to experience a different way of living.

By December of 2021 I was living in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. My friends who had been hosting the meetups in Toronto decided to organize one on the beach, and that's where I first met Paul Keating, the co-producer and host of this film.

Paul had driven in his grandfather's truck all the way from California and found himself in Santa Teresa. We quickly became friends, and roamed around the country in his truck (which was on the verge of breaking down).

Paul truly lived the "sell your chairs for Bitcoin" lifestyle. There was a period where he literally slept on the beach in a half-broken tent for over two weeks (proof below):

While surfing, spending time in the surrounding nature, and meeting lots of new people, we started to hear murmurings of a Bitcoin Jungle that had sprouted up in Uvita and Dominical. With the support of Estella and Keyna Aguilar, two local farmer's market organizers, a group of Bitcoiners had launched a wallet that local vendors were using, and it seemed to be working. Could we really buy coconuts with Bitcoin? Apparently so!

Though I returned to Canada after 8 months of living abroad, Paul stayed the course, and his curiosity led him to checking out the project, which was quickly onboarding vendors.

After connecting with Govinda and Lee, two Bitcoiners leading the project, Paul and his new girlfriend at the time—now his wife—Laura, packed their suitcases and made Uvita their new home, where they would live for the foreseeable future, paying for food and amenities almost entirely with Bitcoin.

The Film

Paul and I kept in touch, and I made regular visits back to Costa Rica. He kept me abreast of the growth Bitcoin Jungle was seeing, and in February of 2023 I decided to head down with a camera to film some interviews at the first Nostr conference, Nostrica, in Uvita.

We intended to create a short video about the conference, but at the end of an interview with Francis Pouliot, he mentioned something off-hand that grabbed my attention.

Francis had spoken of an article that Richard Scotford—one of the founders of Bitcoin Jungle—had written about an ancient prophecy known as The Eagle And The Condor. The idea was that what was happening in Bitcoin Jungle was perhaps the beginning of the fulfillment of a prophecy that had been passed down orally for thousands of years, with traces all the way back to the Mayan civilization!

This perked my ears because my travels to Costa Rica had felt like one big mystical journey from the start—having fled from Canada, to finding myself on the beach with a bunch of Bitcoin fanatics who all had a bubbling interest in spiritual and esoteric themes. It certainly felt like something beyond ourselves was organizing or birthing itself through us.

Richard's article, which you can read here, sparked something in me, and from then on a seed was planted that this project was going to be more than a short news piece.

The idea was that the Eagle people represented the mind—the industrial, the scientific, the masculine—while the Condor represented the heart—the intuition and the feminine. Once upon a time, according to this myth, these two energies were in harmony with one another. However, 500 years ago, when Columbus came over to the Americas, the Eagle started to dominate the world, which led to an imbalance.

The Inca's, who built a vast civilization across the Andes during the 13th to 16th century, described history as unfolding in 500 year eras known as a Pachacuti. The prophecy states that in our time—the 8th Pachacuti—the Eagle and the Condor would reunite, where tech and organic, mind and heart, would come back into balance.

Hopes For This Project

When Paul and I first met in Costa Rica we found people who wanted to be closer to nature, detach from reliance on corrupt institutions, and treat the planet better.

The writer, Charles Eisenstein, talks about The New Story. The idea is that at any given moment a civilization has a guiding story of the people. This story provides individuals and groups with a set of principles to live by and guide their actions toward.

For most of the 20th century, in the western world at least, you could call progress our story of the people. Through science and liberal democracies we were going to rid of all diseases, end poverty, drive flying cars, and colonize the solar system. In short, we were going to master and control nature, leading to a technological utopia.

In 2026, however, it feels this story of the people is on life support—having failed to deliver on many of the promises of progress, most minds are no longer animated by it. And so, we have entered a time of transition and a new story is being discovered, where the Condor is beginning to rise within an Eagle dominated world, and we are starting to embrace the wisdom of the past.

At the farmer's markets in Bitcoin Jungle, as you'll see in this film, you will find a small example of this re-unification, where organic farmers, natural healers, and shamans holding ancient wisdom are embracing Bitcoin. You'll understand how the current banking system has led the elevation of the Eagle mindset to a malignant level, and how Bitcoin offers us a more holistic economic path forward.

In the future, we can imagine a human mindset that successfully integrates the best of the Eagle worldview and the best of the Condor worldview. Richard calls these future people Hummingbirds, and our children might be them!

All of that being said, perhaps these prophecies are participatory, and are not guaranteed by the movements of the stars or the billows of cosmic stirrings alone. Perhaps they only come to fruition if a certain threshold of believers show up to complete the task. As John Perkins mentions in the latter half of the film: “The prophecies don’t say that it will happen, they say we’re at a time of potential, and it’s up to us to make it happen.” 

Let's make it happen.

A big thanks to everyone who participated in the film, but especially Estella and Keyna Aguilar, without whom there would be no farmer's market.

Stream us some sats and watch the film here: https://indeehub.studio/film/hummingbird

DirectorHodl + Paul Keating