"Holy Voyage" to the Amazon
Ronnie Citron Fink interviews Margaret De Wys about her memoir, Black Smoke

Local resident and Bard College faculty member Margaret De Wys has written a memoir about the dramatic shift in her life that set her on a path of healing, passion and spiritual renewal. Black Smoke will be released on January 6, and De Wys will be talking about her book at a book signing at 4pm on January 10 at the Morton Library in Rhinecliff.

Why did you write Black Smoke?
I felt compelled to go to a traditional healer in Ecuador, Carlos. My flight was precipitated by a crisis. I was diagnosed with breast cancer, thrown from my comfortable family life, thrown into a stratosphere that forced me to look at my options differently, how to deal with cancer, what to do? I think we all come to these points in our lives that drive us to dig deeper. People have different responses. My response came from the gut on a very deep level.

After meeting Carlos and my experiences in the Amazon, I realized I needed to write about it. Then I had to figure out if I had the writing chops. As a composer who's written for orchestra and string quartets, I had the ability to write time-based works. That helped; as well as the fact that I was driven. In my mind I knew I had to make a book.

You've traveled a bit.
I've been to Guatemala, Central America and Europe, but South America is very different.

At what point in your healing did you decide you were going to take another path?
I was creating sound installations in Los Angeles, New York City, and Europe—at the height of my music career. Then the diagnosis.

I looked at what the medical establishment had to offer and decided it wasn't right for me. There was something compelling me to find another way to be healed. Serendipitously, there was a gathering of hundreds of healers that came all the way from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego to meet in Guatemala. I went hoping I would find someone who could help me. There I met several healers I felt were capable of dealing with serious illnesses. When I met Carlos, he came up to me and he immediately said, you have this, that and the other thing. "Come to Ecuador and I will take care of it." My response was to go to the jungle, to Carlos, to get healed.

The subtitle of Black Smoke reads: "an adventure story, a romance and a rich exploration of a little known culture." Can you elaborate?
Black Smoke is totally an adventure story. At the time I didn't know where the journey was going to take me. I was going into the unknown, into the jungle, into the soul, into the center of the earth, and my journey became much more than just about me getting healed. I learned Carlos was from the Shuar tribe and he had a very highly specialized form of healing. My healing included arduous, intense purifications, difficult initiations, and drinking plant medicines. We became lovers. The romance, the love was compelling, so present, so real, so exciting. The experience was tactile; what took place in the jungle was riveting—in horror, in sensuality and beauty. In the moment.

Tell me about the Shuar culture.
It's a beautiful culture, very unlike our modern world here. Carlos's family lived in the High Upper Amazon, near the Peruvian border. In the book Carlos explained that the conquistadores said the Shuar were uncivilized savages living in the jungle. Carlos said, "I am one with her. I am not in the jungle. The jungle is within me. The wisdom I hold cannot be learned from a book, but from the earth, which sends its voice through my body. We are one and the same."

Culturally, the Shuar are artists in every sense of the word. They make their homes, clothing, and furniture. The artwork, beadwork, pottery, and the clothing are finely crafted. Their music is religious in its nature. In the book I wrote: "Carlos's singing sounded like an ancient tongue, fascinating in its strangeness. My hearing skills are honed from years of writing orchestral music and listening intently to sound. But Carlos's recitation was utterly outside my frame of reference." On my website are two examples of Carlos singing.

Themes that resonate throughout Black Smoke are trust, fear, self-discovery and generosity. There are some terrifying moments in the book. How did you deal with the fear? How did you learn to trust in healers? The people you encounter are so generous with their sharing of culture, possessions etc.
I had some crazy faith that what I was doing was right. Generally, I'm not a risk taker. But fear threw me out of the nest. It was like a big fireball, this big explosion yelled at me. Move. Cancer got me there.

There were harrowing initiations. How did you counteract what was going on at the moment in your head?
I felt extremely alive, like I hadn't felt before. Maybe that had a great deal to do with my healing. Carlos started teaching me and I would go with him as he healed others. I apprenticed with him after I was pronounced cancer-free by Western medicine. Ecuador changed the way I live in the world now, how I approach other people. Now I go into other cultures and work with healers in South America, Indonesia, Egypt and Sub Sahara Africa.

What did you learn about yourself from your journey? Do you have internal debates about how best to heal?
We all die. The body gets old and expires. Living fully and being healthy is not an internal debate. It's just, the more you feel, the more fully you live. You just don't worry about it.

During your healing you drank a liquid called ayahuasca. What is that?
Carlos prescribed several potions made from plant medicines. "Plant doctors" helped Carlos heal me. One of the most potent medicines is called ayahuasca. With it healing takes place on the cellular, emotional and spiritual level. It can bring visions to the patient. In my case it did just that. People have called ayahuasca an hallucinogen, but I did not experience hallucinations. What I saw was real. The Shuar would never think of using this sacred plant for recreation.

The book chronicles your journey through the jungle, but it also takes you back to the Hudson Valley and puts Carlos in your world. Did the relationship change and how did he deal with your culture?
People were crowding us to be healed. I was talking to cancer patients daily. Carlos's work was very effective here. But Black Smoke is a cautionary tale. Crossing cultures can be dangerous, and in the book the reader will see how dangerous it was for Carlos.

Do you find many people who are open to your type of experiences?
Even though what I did is outside everyday experience, everyone can understand the pain of crisis and the journey to try to move through it. It resonates with everyone and is a common human condition.

How do you pass on Carlos's vision?
The book does that succinctly. I share Carlos's worldview, his absolute love of human beings and nature. His commitment is to heal others. It is my view today.

What do you still find most challenging?
Everyday one wakes up to make choices. The choices don't disappear, but our relationship and responsibility to the choices we make are a challenge everyday.

How did your experience in Ecuador change the way you view disease and healing?
I realized that there are many layers to disease —stress, emotional, physical, and genetic problems. But there is also a spiritual element. Carlos worked on the spiritual level and he was also very good physical doctor. He called himself a naturo medico. A natural doctor. I believe our modern technological culture can learn and benefit from his ancient wisdom.

How do you feel about Western medicine now?
I think it is fabulous. It is great in crisis situations and saving lives. But If there could be an exchange of knowledge between natural medicine like Carlos's that is preventative and works on a spiritual level, with modern technology, then we would have the best medical system possible.

Are you still on the road to being healed or are you cured?
Interesting question, healing vs. curing are two different things.

Curing takes place in such a way that the physical problem is completely gone. Healing continues towards wholeness. It's an ongoing process. As we age, there are always things happening to our body, which continues to try to heal itself.

Has your healing experiences influenced your music?
I'm on a hiatus from writing music these days. I am still making art. Has it influenced my art? My art is traveling to different cultures and bringing that information back here. I make sound recordings and when I get commissions, I am wholly involved in the music making.

How did Sterling Publishing get involved?
An editor there adored the book and picked it up. My editor and I hit it off famously. Many of the people who have been working on Black Smoke are big champions of it.

Have you ever been published before?
I published an article in Germany about South Africa.

The book reads like a novel. Was that intentional?
That's a compliment. I think that my experience was so present for me that it comes off the page that way.

What type of support did you get? Family? Monetary?
At the time the airfare was $400. In Ecuador it costs almost nothing to live. Living there you can save lots of money! I spend more money in the States than in South America.

What is the message that you think Black Smoke holds for its readers?
We are the artists, creators of our own lives and we can live fully and with joy. That is the main theme of the book. But sometimes one has to move away from the norm, break patterns.

For more information about Black Smoke visit the website www.blacksmokethebook.com