Teia da Lua

With an impulse, there goes inertia ; a breath – a droplet – of nature and connection.

Before bathing in the river to balance out the temperature and relax at the end of a work’s day, an act to clean the body and the soul from everything that’s exceeding, like a step in a ritual of connection with other worlds. An offering to guardians to evoke the Spiritual Plane: Forest Medicine that carries knowledge and shamanic conversations.

Tobacco, herbs, ashes from trees and roots: grounded into thin powder and kept in boxes that travel through worlds. From the Huni Kuin and the Yawanawa peoples in the North of Brazil, but also from so many peoples who have their recipes and mixtures and customs, comes Rapé, snuff tobacco prepared with care and devotion by several Amerindian cultures.

From the personal Tipí – an artifact made from hollow bamboo and ornate according to the beliefs and visions of the artist that creates it – follows inhalation. It can also be blown by a shaman or spiritual leader: from the longer Tipí made for collective use, into the nose of the inhaler. From the air in the lungs, to the thoughts of those carrying the energy… the wind that circulates with the possibility of renewing spirits can also pollute the days. From intent to blow, the remedy is materialized in the contact between two lives.

Smoke. Impulses. Sneezes. Coughs. Energy. Trance

The immediate sensation that a vitality once hidden somewhere in the body or the soul is awakening. Each inhalation allows five to ten minutes of potency.

Back to immersions into Indigenous forests, many became bridges between hinterlands and cities: pathway-people with the ancient wisdom whose skin is tinted with the earth’s color, whose bodies are scented by the grass and woods on their route to coloring urban landscapes.

Inspiration. Reconnection. Pleasure

At Teia da Lua, a group formed by three women in Porto Alegre, the capital of the southern-most state in Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), the Rodas de Rapé are among the many meetings taking place due to the will to reclaim the Sacred, the Natural, and the Feminine in the context of the cities.

With a flame burning at its center, hearts and intentions gather round. From their trips to the northern region of Brazil, the urban priestesses acquired the knowledge for making Rapé: they sing the Amerindian peoples’ songs and perform songs that are also at the crossroads of native languages and Portuguese. They have blessings from forest Shamans to energize those seeking ways to become awake in the concrete jungle.

They invite you to a dance with air, to an intoxication of certainties. Into the clean lungs of the Amazon, they invite us to seek a new source of strength.

Breathe in. Wake up !