TOBACCO APPRENTICESHIP
A 3-MONTH MASTER DIET WITH HERBAL TOBACCO
NEXT SESSIONS:
AUGUST 22 - NOVEMBER 20 2025 // AUSTIN TX // ALL MENS
FEBRUARY 1 - MAY 1 2026 // ARIZONA & ONLINE // CO-ED
GRANDFATHER TOBACCO
In the time in which we currently live, there is a call to remember the old ways. Not to perform something dead, which can no longer be authentically accessed or which is awkward and not fully relevant to our modern lives, but to awaken the aspects of ancestral wisdom which are still very much alive within us.
The Tobacco art is an embodiment of the old way and 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 connection are conducted under the provenance of Tobacco. Many indigenous words for shaman in the amazon mean something like "The One Who Knows Tobacco."
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 inform our lives through clarity, directness, truth, focus, practicality, depth, tenderness, vision and noble virtue. The traditional path to understand and learn Tobacco is not through smoke, or the nostrils, but to eat the plant and digest it.
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 presence, develop intimacy with intuition and integrate our personal magic into a finely developed subtly.
We 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 meditation which lasts for about 40 minutes.
Tobacco can move an enormous amount of energy inside the body and mind. To support this alchemical process, we maintain weekly group calls throughout the duration of the apprenticeship. Additionally, participants will be paired up with accountability partners for weekly check-ins.
EXPERIENCE
Dieting Tobacco for 3-months is incredibly grounding, first and foremost. It is an experience that brings aspects of ourselves, we struggle to meet, to the surface with relative ease, because often we can feel extremely anchored by the support of the container, the community and the presence of Tobacco working deeply through our system. This aspect of the Apprenticeship is almost unanimously expressed by those who go through the entire program.
This apprenticeship 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 any form of transformation process in the subtle, our sexual energy is highly active and engaged within us. When we retain this vital energy, the medicine can guide it.
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 the possibility of profound personal revelation.
COMMUNITY VOICES
THOUGHTS FROM FRIENDS REFLECTING ON PREVIOUS YEARS' TOBACCO APPRENTICESHIPS
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
ATX MEN'S APPRENTICESHIP SCHEDULE
AUGUST 22 – NOVEMBER 22, 2025
All calls will take place at 5pm CT and will be recorded and shared with all participants.
AUGUST 22ND & 23RD
OPENING CEREMONIES // AUSTIN, TX
AUGUST 27
CALL #1
SEPTEMBER 3
CALL #2
SEPTEMBER 10
CALL #3
SEPTEMBER 17
CALL #4
SEPTEMBER 21 & 22
NEW MOON CEREMONIES // AUSTIN TX
OCTOBER 1
CALL #5
OCTOBER 8
CALL #6
OCTOBER 15
CALL #7
OCTOBER 21ST & 22ND
NEW MOON CEREMONIES // AUSTIN, TX
OCTOBER 29
CALL #8
NOVEMBER 5
CALL #9
NOVEMBER 12
CALL #10
NOVEMBER 21ST & 22ND
CLOSING CEREMONIES // AUSTIN, TX
OUR CEREMONIES
We will have 8, full-force, purgative Tobacco ceremonies in our upcoming Men's Tobacco Apprenticeship. The Ceremonies will take place on the New Moons in August, September, October and November, at Jordan Mockingbird's private space in Austin, TX. In person attendance to these ceremonies is mandatory per participation in the Apprenticeship, even if no medicine is consumed.
The intention behind these ceremonies is to deepen the power of the web we're weaving through our group of 8 men, through shared bond in experience, alongside a continued teaching of the force of Tobacco within the body.
EXCHANGE
$4000
Includes:
⁜ 3x months of Tobacco paste ⁜
⁜ 8x In person Tobacco Ceremonies in Austin TX ⁜
⁜ 10x group calls designed to keep the diet anchored and flowing ⁜
⁜ 3x one-on-one calls with Mockingbird ⁜
BENEFITS
Why undertake a 3 month tobacco diet?
⁜ SPIRITUAL ⁜
Strengthening of personal will
Nurturing our inspiriation
Courting deeper authenticity
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
⁜ 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 Herbal Tobacco honors the delicacy, sensitivity and uniqueness of all peoples. Whether you come for healing, for learning, to journey, or to “power up,” your heart is welcome here.
This apprenticeship is excellent 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 apprenticeship
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 ancient plant 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 “Herbal Tobacco” cultivated by multi-generational families of medicine growers. It is free from chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers. Pure-earth, jungle medicine.
Herbal 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, Sacred Tree Keepers will be launching a full curriculum in 2026 that includes 16 diets: 4 Tobacco diets & 12 Master Tree Diets.
"It took 6 days for the deeper knitting of why I actually showed up to come into fruition. I came in with a deep prayer to receive the strength and protection of the Oak and I really felt the tree answer my prayer and come into my whole being with medicine. It was super powerful and such a gift." -Holly
"The Tobacco Apprenticeship has strengthened how I show up, hold structure and hold myself to a new standard of being in life, that has led me to feel the most vitality I’ve experienced to date. This Tobacco Diet is no joke. It’s extremely deep, profound and transformative. It requires a level of devotion I don’t see very often. I respect anyone who shows up to do this." -Grant
"Tobacco opens the heart and the Tree Medicine weaves up your spine and straightens you. Through the Tobacco practices, everything is distributed and with Primordial Breath you learn to hold all of that energy with yourself as the structure. The core of what I've learned is how to hold the energy that is coming through and I'm taking this lesson with me on all of my journeys. " -Nora
"The Tobacco Apprenticeship has rearranged all of my furniture. It’s like I went out for a weekend, came back and my house was tidied up and feng-shui’d. There’s been a re-orchistration of how I understand what is essential in my life. Tobacco is a spirit of directness that cuts through clutter and creates a clear outcome, bringing us back to simplicity in a way that is integrated and embodied." -Mateo
"A Master Tree Diet is an 8-day break from the world to connect deeply with nature and a specific tree. They're a really profound opportunity to be in silence in nature with your prayer and to strengthen your body, your mind, your soul, your heart, in beautiful locations with beautiful groups of people. The Birch diet was incredible because before I got here I couldn't identify a Birch tree and now I feel such a deep connection to her spirit." -Courtney
"Through the Tobacco Diet, I've returned to my joy, my authenticity and my center in a way that has felt out of reach. I've opened up my channel for spirit to move through me in a way that allows me to be of service in the containers, spaces and ceremonies that I hold and to share my medicine in a way that is pure, in right relation." -Greg