TOBACCO WISDOM, ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS & VOICE ACTIVATION - My Initiatory Journey

In March 2025, we held the 2nd edition of REMEMBER’s PLANT MEDICINE IMMERSION RETREAT in Ecuador, on Kichwa territory. Over 9 days, we took participants into the jungle for a profound healing journey with 25+ plant medicines, as intended in the Indigenous Kichwa tradition.

Even if I go there to work, the medicine of the container directly impacts me and my own healing/spiritual journey. This time, I received an unexpected Voice activation initiation.

On the integration day of the retreat, I decided to go for a Tobacco purge. Which didn’t go as expected at all. This and the wisdom it came with is what I want to share with you today.

Tobacco: A Master Plant

As a Master Plant in Kichwa tradition and most indigenous cultures in Latin America, ‘Mapacho’ has a very sacred and central place in ceremonial and healing work.

Tobacco is very much a part of the retreat.

Smoked or smudged in ceremonies, it is used as a unifying thread of communication between humans and spiritual powers, or a form of currency to interact with the spirit realm, as well as to direct and potentiate other plants such as Ayahuasca, and to provide protection.

Infused in water, it is taken as drops into the eyes and nose for cleansing, grounding and centering purposes. In the retreat, this is a ritual prior to each ceremony with the Sacred Medicine of Ayahuasca, to clear and open the channel, which I partake in too. It’s painful in a satisfying way and brings a sense of confidence, euphoria and centeredness that I find exhilarating. (Kichwa people used to take Tobacco in the eyes before going to hunt, as it's said to enhance vision, confidence, and focus.)

Tobacco tea is drunk to purge and cleanse the body on a physical, emotional and energetic level. We offer it as an optional healing modality during the retreat. Most people appreciate its post-effect, which fosters clarity, spaciousness and groundedness, and a feeling of renewal.

Since my first shamanic experiences in 2015, Tobacco has been a plant I have built an ever-growing relationship with. It has a masculine presence that I trust and appreciate. It’s honest, direct and bold. And in this time of my life, going through a lot of changes, clearing out the old and making space for the new seemed appropriate. So when the opportunity appeared to experience Tobacco in a purge, I answered the calling.

"Va A Limpiar Todo"

“It’s going to clean everything” - the words of Juan, the shaman, resounded in my head throughout the experience.

Juan explained to us that the energy of Tobacco is cleansing, centering and clarifying. Like a fatherly figure, the Spirit of Tobacco gathers anything that comes in the way of your highest potential and alignment - repressed emotions, trauma, blocked and stagnant energies, energetic residues - and pulls it out of your system. And as a warrior-like archetype, it comes with direction, drive, confidence and straightforwardness.

Tobacco, like many other Master Plants, seems to have a “no bullshit” policy.

The process is simple: you drink, and after about half an hour, you start purging. It might come in 2 or 3 waves, and in between, it’s important to drink plenty of water to keep flushing the nicotine out of the system. It may last a few hours to half a day, depending on how much one has to clean - the unfolding is rather personal.

The ceremony started in the kitchen area, with Juan blessing and serving the brew. I asked to go first as I was a bit nervous. He sat me on the bench and faced me, standing with a half-coconut bowl a quarter full of the tea. While reciting invocations to the Tobacco spirit, he blessed my energy centers with the solid remains of tobacco leaves - this allows the medicine of Tobacco to penetrate the body and work through, otherwise you would reject it and immediately vomit. Then I drank, all at once without pause, as told.

Tobacco tea is dark with an intense smell that reminds one of cigars, and in the mouth, it displays a very full, rich, awakening presence with a slight prickly aftertaste on the throat. After a few minutes, my body started trembling. The amount of nicotine is hard to determine, but it is highly triggering for the system.

The Journey

I went to my cabin and created a cosy purging station out on the deck facing the jungle, with blankets and pillows, gentle music and my bucket.

The first hour passed with no effects, but there certainly was a presence in me at work. I used rattles and chanting to support the cleanse. I could feel a density building in my field, something moving energetically up and down my body, almost like a scan, until I eventually purged.

I started drinking a lot of water, as advised (liters), then a second wave of purging took me. It felt good, but I also sensed that more might be coming, so I stayed sitting on the deck, drinking more liters of water.

Another hour and a half went on like this, where I fell into a deeply meditative state, some kind of grounded high. I became very inspired, creative and playful - I wrote poems and sang and colored mandalas - while also getting cold, sleepy and dizzy. All the water I drank remained in my system, which started to worry me. I tried to induce vomiting with yuca leaves down my throat, but it didn’t work out well. I went for a dip in the river to activate my system, but it also didn’t work as planned.

At that point, I had been in labor with the plant for 5 hours already. I was getting tired and impatient, increasingly worried, dizzy and confused. The shaman had gone to town, so his support wasn’t available. I started walking around the land with my bucket, in my bikini, as the day was ending. I remember that the warm, moist earth under my feet felt amazing and that my stomach reacted to the angles in my walking patterns, so I used that to trigger the purge. I walked and walked and walked.

I was very uncomfortable in my body, swollen with water, wanting to vomit but not knowing how - I felt like something had to happen but I didn’t know how to get there.

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In my trance and repetitive marching, I suddenly let myself fall onto the ground, looking at my bucket with exasperation - there I understood that words might help me, so I started speaking out loud: “I purge this and that”. I went on for a while, feeling so raw and animal, crouched over my bucket half-naked, trying to understand and follow my body’s agenda.

I thought of women in labor giving birth, in prey to a force so much bigger that the only thing you can do is just to go with it, ride the waves, trust, let go of the thinking mind, of the well-behaved girl, proper and under control. I mean, I was at work. I said yes to a 3-hour cleanse but not to any of this. The closing ceremony of the retreat was scheduled at that time. And at the same time, I owed my girls the surrender that I guided them through in their ceremonial work with Ayahuasca. They inspired me, and it was my turn.

I kept shyly “purging” ideas when a powerful wave of energy traversed me, made me hit the ground with my fist, then fall on my back while my whole body started shaking like a leaf. There I entered an altered state of consciousness.

The purge became purely verbal. For the next 6 hours, I was to talk and talk and talk. Words flowed out of my mouth by themselves, according to a very specific rhythm and order regarding what had to be addressed. Any expression that had been repressed in my lifetime came out. The process was as precise as a surgical operation. Knots being untied, boundaries being set, relationship patterns being disclosed and alchemised, oracle being spoken…

I kept shaking for hours on, feeling cold although my body was warm, with cramps in the forearms, ankles and jaw until the next day. I was gone, like possessed, yet at the same time extremely present. I felt afraid, too. My body took over as well as my psyche, an innate intelligence way more powerful than my rational mind. The whole thing took a lot of energy out of me.

All my chakras were fully activated, something opened in me, and my channel totally cleared for the energy to move through and out. I received clear directions and downloads. And I expressed all my needs, my fears, my ideas as they came.

My voice changed, taking a higher pitch - the voice of my inner child. The words were those of my body, my heart and my higher self. My Voice aligned with my heart, with my vision, with my instincts, rooted in confidence and anchored in safety - unmistakably the Voice of my Truth.

The Initiation

Rarely in my life had I felt or shown myself so vulnerable, open, raw. There was no filter whatsoever. The energy of my speech was absolutely pure, detached from any outcome and from any emotion, too. I expressed for the sake of expressing. I freed what had to be freed. I found closure. I made space by giving back what wasn’t mine to hold. I rewrote patterns and dynamics. I experienced words as a powerful technology.

My Voice opened. My channel cleared. And through that, I tasted the value of being heard in my purest truth and authenticity. This was the initiation.

In contrast, I realised that a lot of times in life, I have unknowingly used my voice to manipulate an outcome, to receive validation or attention, to guide energy in a certain direction, to keep things together or to try not to hurt people, not to compromise myself... I always “used” my voice in an effort to be true and with good intentions, and as a writer and poet, I am good with words and language, yet it was rooted in patterns that weren’t aligned with the bigger picture, or detached from egoistic desires, even subtle.

A new level has been reached. A new power has been found. An opportunity to simply voice my truth. Without fear to bother, to be judged, to destroy.

From now on, I intend to use words as a healing technology in the right frequency of Love through my cleared channel.

If the initiation opened a door, it is now my work and responsibility to keep walking this path. Repatterning is a process in itself.

Epilogue

Two words stood out from this experience: clarity and alignment.

The next days, I felt small, tender and vulnerable like a newborn, and sore inside from all the stretching, unlocking and rewiring of my channel and nervous system.

It was an intense and confronting challenge which surely “cleaned everything”, cleared space, healed me and invited more of my abilities in, at a time in my life when I dedicate myself to the work of Voice Reclamation - be careful what you wish for :)

I experienced Tobacco’s presence as directed, firm, grounding and loving. I certainly felt held and guided by it throughout the process, and, even if I first resisted, like I could let go and trust what was happening. I am so grateful for Tobacco spirit and its powerful medicine.

I have smoked tobacco in its toxic industrialised version for 15 years until I quit in 2022. When I did, I realised how numbing it was - I smoked literally every time an emotion arose in me, positive or negative, to cope with the emotional charge itself. It’s mad to me to now experience the true and pure power and energy of Tobacco, which gives nothing but clarity, presence and truth. A reminder that the same substance can be both poison or medicine depending on the intention.

Thanks for reading me.

With Love,

Iris

If you're feeling a calling to join our next Immersion Retreat in Ecuador, learn more about the retreat here, or get in touch through private message.

If you are feeling a calling to reclaim and activate your authentic Voice, consider joining my 1:1 SOULFUL Mentorship.