Writings

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7.3.2026
Tobacco Medicine

Yesterday I attended an event with a friend, led by a healer from the Zapara tribe in Ecuador. I walked quite a distance over to the community center, and the mid heatwave, oven-hot air languished over your shoulders like a tired labrador retriever. Heavy, lazy, dog days of summer came early.
I walked in, exasperated, and accidentally stepped into the prepared ritual room with my sandals on. Embarrassed, I turned around back to the foyer to enter in properly and bare foot. I looked around for my friend, and finally to my relief, I saw her and gave her a big hug. I saw the Zapara healer, named Tania, and I was struck by her makeup, and her long, beautiful hair. She had a red line drawn horizontally across the center of her face, dividing the lower and upper half equally. My friend sat beside me and whispered, “my friend did this ritual before, and I heard we put the tobacco oil up our nose.”
Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical at first of the experience. Not because of the woman herself, mind you. My father’s side of the family is from Peru, and in my travels there, it became abundantly clear that some people were capitalizing on tourists’ fascination and lack of education with indigenous spirituality and culture. I was in one of the markets in Peru and granted- these are literally tourist traps, but I remember overly pushy vendors expounding on the spiritual symbolism of some of their items. While sure, not all of that was in bad faith, it just didn’t sit right with me to hear a whole condescending spiel about a plastic keychain with supposed powers. Being privy to that, I didn’t want to be in a situation surrounded by people who fetishized indigenous spirituality, and fall for this economy of scamming ignorant westerners. I don't hate New Agers, but I’m looking right at you, bub.
I sat with this in mind, and also remembered that drunk cigarettes weren’t hitting anymore so I wondered how I’d react to tobacco oil up my nose. The thought didn’t exactly excite me, but I still sat, open for what was to come.
We all came together in prayer, helped by a translator. We hooted like birds and bounced, and we were off to our first meditation. Tania guided us through this stream of consciousness meditation, grounded in a story of a bird flying over the jungle. When this was done, we spoke of our experiences, drank tea, and Tania came to each and every one of us, with a bowl of a tobacco leaf poultice. She squeezed the wet tobacco leaves into our cupped hands, so it filled with this brown, fragrant liquid. The tobacco oil. There were a few people snorting the oil before me and I understood why we were all given paper towels and a puke bucket. Everyone sniffled, coughed, and spat into their bucket, panting. One woman threw up a bit. Tania came to me next and I snorted the medicine. I accidentally snorted twice in one nostril, and Tania corrected me, making sure I snorted with the other nostril too. It felt like a spicy neti pot and what followed is what I can only describe as what poppers feels like times ten. My head rushed, my heart pounded, I felt euphoric and at the mercy of the Tobacco. It was a humbling and almost sad feeling. I felt compelled to share my mediation visualizations- Seeing the mountains in Peru, and the struggles I had this week in New York. It was a split vision, on one side, seeing what I saw on my trip- the beautiful nature and a glimpse into the brutal labor exploitation of indigenous people, and on the other side- the oh so small in comparison, arguments I was having with my boss this week. I was swirling in this vision, feeling my own frustrations from the week, and putting them in context of the world. I finally came into one grounded feeling, integrating my anger, with the understanding that I will be okay. That I could not only be okay, but I could help another person. Tania sold beautiful jewelry. A pair of huge puffed feather earrings caught my eye when I walked in. I knew how horribly the Peruvian government and Petrol companies treated the indigenous populace, so I couldn’t imagine Ecuador would be much better. I knew that parting with a pretty penny would be less of an ouchie for me than the huge impact for Tania and her women’s group. And I’d get fabulous earrings from it. I also knew that even if I lost my job, I realized that I was like the bird in the jungle. I would make my journey and be okay. But it was this realization that allowed me to relax into this trust in the world. Trust that I can give, and I will be taken care of, just the same. What’s the point of being yelled at by a tiny boss man if I can’t make myself and others happy. The fear of losing my job felt much smaller than before, and my trust expanded tenfold. I felt like I actually processed this week, and felt this jolt of trust and confidence from this journey with the Tobacco and the meditation.
Tania ended the night with a shoulder massage using the Tobacco Medicine. She said we carry the heaviness of our day to day on our shoulders, and this weighs our wings down. She cleansed every one of us, and when it was my turn, I noticed she grabbed the back of my neck for quite a while. I felt my throat space open and run clear with energy, like a dam removed from a river. I wondered what would come of this, and here I am now, writing my first essay in years. At the end of the night, we gathered around her jewelry and purchased her handiwork. I walked out, with giant feather earrings in my ears, feeling like a beautiful bird on a journey through the jungle. Shoulders lighter.

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