2025 SPRING TOBACCO APPRENTICESHIP
A hybrid container to deepen into connection with the tradition of Shamanic Tobacco
3-MONTH DIET WITH SHAMANIC TOBACCO
February 11th 2025 - May 13th 2025
GRANDFATHER TOBACCO
Tobacco holds codes to the apex embodiment of the masculine spirit—for both women and men. When we undertake study with Tobacco in a good way, we come into deep communion with the power of a benevolent wisdom which acts to guide our lives through clarity, directness, truth, focus, practicality, depth, tenderness, vision and nobility.
Tobacco has remained the foundation of traditional shamanic practice in the Americas for over 20,000 years. Whether it be a Sundance or an Ayahuasca ceremony, rituals of prayer are conducted under the provenance of Tobacco. Many indigenous words for shaman in the amazon mean something like "The One Who Knows Tobacco."
Through embodied study, tobacco is revealed a master teacher of unrivaled strength and quality, with the ability to fortify ritual containers at the most subtle level, allowing energetic order to flow through the body in a way which changes who we are and the individuals we touch with our medicine.
PROCESS
This apprenticeship with Grandfather Tobacco is intended to provide a multidimensional learning experience that makes contact with our physical bodies, our emotional landscape, our belief system, our dreams and our psychic channel. The focus is to sharpen willpower, develop intimacy with intuition and integrate our personal magic into more developed subtle bodies.
We will work with a paste of Nicotiana Rustica, known in the Amazon Rainforest as Mapacho. It is a species of wild tobacco cultivated in the jungle for many thousands of years as pure, unadulterated plant medicine. The paste is taken once per day in a shamanic meditation which lasts for about 40 minutes. This tobacco paste is the primary vehicle by which we will conduct the apprenticeship.
Tobacco moves an enormous amount of energy inside the body and mind. To support this alchemical process, we will be maintaining weekly group calls throughout the duration of the apprenticeship. Additionally, participants will be paired up with accountability partners for weekly check-ins. Guidance to work with the energy tobacco moves will be given during the weekly group calls.
EXPERIENCE
When working so closely with tobacco paste for an entire season, a deep element of the experience may be found within our dreams. We are advised to record our dreams every morning upon waking and, during our weekly calls, we will be reviewing techniques for interpreting our dreams—a process which invites profound personal revelation.
Another aspect of this apprenticeship is that it requires both celibacy and sexual fluid retention for 3 moon cycles. While this can pose a potential challenge, it is one of the most transformative aspects of traditional shamanic training. When undergoing inner transformation, our sexual energy is highly active and engaged within us. When we retain this vital energy, the medicine will guide it.
Sitting daily with mapacho paste activates omnipresent communication with tobacco’s spirit, as a dialogue or vision we can regularly tune into. Through this intimacy, tobacco can help guide us deeper into our psychic abilities, open our capacity to channel , refine our integrity to hold space for others and show up with presence, in both worlds.
COMMUNITY VOICES
THOUGHTS FROM FRIENDS REFLECTING ON THE 2024 SPRING TOBACCO APPRENTICESHIP
I’ve gained a stronger sense of clarity, discernment, integrity & how I direct my energy. My favorite part of the Tobacco Apprenticeship was slowing down and being anchored to a practice every night. The consistency of that was really magical and allowed me to process my day while working with such deep, powerful medicine in front of an altar at the same time. -Zuzanna
This diet has helped me ground down, and from a place of stability to understand what my own needs are and how to meet them, enabling me to show up more fully in all aspects of my life, from work to relationships. My favorite part of the Tobacco Apprenticeship has totally been the people. Meeting people who were so easy to talk to, so willing to be vulnerable and show their authentic parts gave me a permission slip to do so as well, not just in the container but throughout my life. -Genar
INITATION
This 3-month tobacco apprenticeship is an initiation. Simply put, initiation is the passing of delicate information from source to our person. It requires undergoing a prolonged, altered state of consciousness. Tobacco is an indispensable guide and ally for all peoples walking a path of initiatory wisdom, helping us remain sober in mind and humble in spirit.
The path of initiation requires a responsibility we must accept for the refinement of our personal will. Will is one of the highest expressions of mankind—it is the god-like energy that lives within us, which we are all learning to cultivate and direct towards the greatest good. This work takes place at the level of the soul and cannot be bargained-for, but only embraced.
One of the gifts of initiation is the alteration of our perspective. As we journey and focus our attention, the process of change within us can deepen and cause radical shifts that sometimes feel like quantum leaps in our sense of identity, belief system and approach to life.
SEX, INNER ALCHEMY & PARTNERSHIP
Inner Alchemy is a process of refining one’s core energy, which is sexual in nature. It is the life energy passed from food, into our bodies and ultimately into new generations of human life. Coming to an understanding of this energy is the very essence of shamanic medicine. We learn to heal not with plants or magic, but through the study of life energy within all things.
Celibacy is the old way this energy is trained and comprehended. Most people think of this as coming from am oppressive vision of sexuality as sinful or unclean. There is some truth to religious orders of old using discipline to control the sexual life force of the community, but that is a distortion of the essence of this way of training.
These types of practices were kept within secret orders of initiates, who had to pass esoteric tests to be deemed fit for study. We are living in a time where these profound ways of cultivation are available to all. We embrace this as part of living a healthy life: vibrant loving sex, with periods of celibacy for self-cultivation.
PARTNERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO JOIN THE TOBACCO APPRENTICESHIP AS A COUPLE
A discounted partner rate will apply
SCHEDULE
All calls will take place at 5pm ET and will be recorded and shared with all participants.
February 11-13 - Opening Ceremony // Sonoran Desert, Arizona
February 17 - Call 1
February 24 - Call 2
March 3 - Call 3
March 10 - Call 4
March 17 - Call 5
March 24 - Call 6
March 31 - Call 7
April 7 - Call 8
April 14 - Call 9
April 21 - Call 10
April 28 - Call 11
May 5 - Call 12
May 11-13 - Closing Ceremony // Sedona, AZ
OPENING & CLOSING CEREMONIES
Opening & closing a container in which shamanic medicine will occur is probably the most important puzzle piece in the architecture of the arcane science. We will be holding in person gatherings to open and close our group container, in the wilderness of Arizona. Fully off-grid, these ceremonies both invite the energies in and then finally close and seal them up.
Attendance to the opening and closing are not required. For those who cannot join us in person, your names will be read aloud and brought into our circle energetically. For those who do not join us in person, a simple opening and closing protocol will be shared, laying out an intuitive way to tune in with us while we hold ceremony in the desert.
For those who would like to attend, the wildernesses we’ll be visiting for ceremony are spectacular open ranges of land undisturbed by any form of traffic, cell or radio signals. It is in these completely remote badlands where the strongest environmental vortexes are alive.
EXCHANGE
$2200
Includes
3x months of Mockingbird’s mapacho paste
2x retreats to open and close the diet (wilderness camping / bring your gear)
12x group calls designed to keep the diet anchored and flowing in alignment with the greatest good
3x one-on-one calls with Mockingbird
🜨
Couples Rate: $4,000
Benefits
Why undertake a 3 month tobacco diet?
Spiritual
Strengthening of personal will
Clarification of our mission
Illuminating our path of service
Tempering our sexual energy
Sharpening our discipline
Opening our understanding of dreams
Inviting deeper intuition
Deepening our psychic sensitivity
Shamanic
Building alliance with tobacco
Creating a strong foundation for shamanic work
Refinement of one’s auric force
Deepening alchemy with plants
Opening one’s channel for shamanic songs
Deeper embodiment of the mystery
Strengthening core practice of connection
Expanding our capacity to hold space
Physical
Healing Chronic Inflammation
Strengthening gut lining
Toning the connective tissue
Balancing hormones
Detoxing lymph, blood & liver
Rooting the nervous system
Clearing parasites and viral load
Centering cognition
WHO IS THIS APPRENTICESHIP FOR?
This apprenticeship is for those who desire to deepen into the mysteries of the shamanic path of learning, healing and evolving. The terrain we traverse in this apprenticeship will ask you to look into your soul and make adjustments to the areas in your life where things are not in alignment with your higher knowing. This is a serious commitment.
This apprenticeship is for those who desire to walk this path in a way which is deep, but gentle; strong, but meditative; profound, but grounded. Mockingbird’s approach to tobacco curanderismo honors the delicacy, sensitivity and uniqueness of all peoples. Whether you come for healing, for learning or to “power up,” your heart is welcome here.
This apprenticeship is for those practicing healing arts or facilitation, who desire to deepen their understanding of how to hold containers, conduct ritual, clear energies and deepen their practice of reading spaces with intuition. These concepts will be explored through oral offerings, practiced in the ritual of the daily tobacco sit and actualized in ceremony.
REQUIREMENTS
In order to undertake this apprenticeship:
All participants must be free of pharmaceutical drugs for the duration of the apprenticeship
All participants must agree to refrain from sex for the duration of the apprenticeship
All participants must agree to refrain from masturbation / ejaculation for the duration of the apprenticeship
All participants must agree to refrain from alcohol or intoxicants including marijuana for the duration of the apprenticeship
All participants must agree to refrain from caffeine for the duration of the apprenticeship
All participants must agree to refrain from taking any other plant medicines for the duration of the apprenticeship, including hape, kambo, aya, mushrooms, etc.
All participants must agree to refrain from smoking of any kind for the duration of the apprenticeship
All participants must agree to refrain from red meat, pork, shellfish, dairy, fermented foods, processed foods included vegetable oils and seed oils fur the duration of the apprentieship
All participants must agree to show up for all scheduled calls for the duration of the apprenticeship unless absence is otherwise approved
All participants must agree to sit daily with the medicine for the duration of the apprenticeship
CLARIFICATIONS
This apprenticeship is an initiatory step on the path of deepening into the sacred medicine of Tobacco. It is intended to offer an experience which is challenging yet realistic, completable and fully supported. This is deep and real plant medicine.
The skills you will learn in this apprenticeship are valuable, powerful and worthwhile, whether or not you continue studying with tobacco beyond this container.
Mapacho (Nicotiana Rustica) is NOT commercial tobacco. It is “sacred tobacco” cultivated by multi-generational families of medicine growers. It is free from chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers. Pure, Amazonian jungle medicine.
Pure tobacco does not cause cancer. Pure tobacco has been used as the most powerful medical herb in the pharmakon for thousands of years, across the Americas. The “tobacco industry” causes cancer.
Completion of this apprenticeship does not make you a “shaman” — only time and great strength of will can do that. If you believe that is your path, walk it slowly and humbly.
This apprenticeship does not certify you to serve orally ingested or purgative tobacco. Administering orally ingested tobacco is a shamanic medical practice requiring multiple years of apprenticeship, given the technical skill and knowledge of the medicine required. The potential severity of malpractice with tobacco is to be respected at the highest level.
For those seeking a path of training to serve purgative tobacco, treediets.com will be launching a full curriculum in 2026 that includes 16 diets: 4 tobacco diets & 12 tree diets.