A friend contacted me a few days ago, having heard that I “needed some grounding,” and offered to do a hapé ritual with me. Hapé is an Indigenous ceremonial snuff made with wild tobacco, various sacred plants, and ashes from tree barks, etc. I had never worked with it before, nor had I ever used snuff in general. I was just reading about the history of snuff on Wikipedia and was surprised to learn that snuff was the main form of upper-class European tobacco use in the 1500 through 1700s. But I don’t think that use mirrored what I experienced this morning other than it also brought one to a sense of calmness. I’ve never used tobacco/nicotine so I can’t compare the way I felt after to how someone feels having used tobacco.

My friend and I slowly walked to the top of Corona Heights (a nice hilltop park in San Francisco) and chatted along the way. Once in the park he told me about the Central American woman he knows who made the hapé blends for him. He had several to choose from, made with different sacred plants, and he asked me a few questions before deciding on which to work with. He said some prayers and helped me feel very safe in his care. He guided me to set an intention and after thinking for a moment I decided it was to “feel peaceful.” When I told him I was ready he used a tepi, a kind of ceremonial pipe, to blow the snuff up my first nostril.

The sensation was of fire entering my head. There was a sense of burning across the whole of my head, but especially through my nose and the top of my throat. It brought tears to my eyes and I coughed a few times. I also had to spit a bunch. I kept my eyes closed and breathed through my mouth as directed. As it continued to burn it came to me that the burning sensation wasn’t new to me. It was the same burning sensation I experienced as a child when I had a drowning episode in my hometown lake when I was very young. I slipped into the water, breathed water into my body, and was carried back to the beach by my cousin and sister. In my mind’s eye I rewatched that experience. I was brought to my mom and I was coughing a lot and my throat and lungs burned hot with pain. In that moment as a child I felt scared and embarrassed. In that moment today I felt the love of my family and my mother who helped me. I felt the love for my beach in my hometown and how safe I felt there as I grew up.

I kept my eyes closed for a few minutes and cried. I waited until the intensity of the sensations calmed. I kept my attention on my mind’s eye to see if the mind had anything else it wanted to show me. When I finally opened my eyes I felt very relaxed and very grounded. The funny thing about the last few weeks is that several people including my therapist have asked me to “visit a calm place in my mind” and I didn’t have one that came to mind. That mental trick never had much meaning for me. Moving forward, I can definitely see that my hometown beach is a peaceful place in my mind that I can return to as needed.

Much appreciation for my friend and to the Indigenous people of these continents.