Customer Reviews

Black Smoke: A Woman's Journey of Healing, Wild Love, and Transformation in the Amazon

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved this book and couldn't put it down, read it in just two days. It was inspirational!

I am so excited to tell you all about this book my friend Margaret De Wys has recently published.

The book tells of her true experience of her adventures in the Amazon becoming healed from cancer, working as a student to a native Shaman healer and a whole lot more.

For me it is such a wonderful recommendation not only for what has been so eloquently written but because I personally know the folks involved in this book. Margaret truly captures the essence of her experience in a vivid masterpiece that describes a way of life and healing that we here in the west ignore and refuse to recognize as a possibility.

I very rarely read memoirs, but something about this book just seemed so appealing. I loved the adventure and the spirit of it. I thought that it was captivating and applaud De Wys for her sincerity. All of us can learn from Margaret De Wys's journey: Traveling the road less taken can help us find faith where we least expect. Highly recommended!

I received this book yesterday and started reading and could not put it down ! Aside from being a very personal account of her illness and healing journey, this book is an adventure story (of her awe-inspiring trip to the Amazon, a love story, a spiritual story of personal growth and exploration of self, a story of a culture so different from our own and a political story dealing the the place of traditional medicine in our modern culture. It is beautifully written and unlike other books of its type, it is a page turner. At times it just takes your breath away ! Ms. DeWys is an extraordinary and fearless person who paves the way for those of us who share her belief but are afraid to take the first step. She walks us through many landscapes-the Amazon, cancer, her own inner transformation, marriage, Western and Traditional medicine. This is a must read for anyone who finds themselves in her situation or who is on the path to inner understanding and health.

There are very few books I pick up and cannot put down until I have finished reading it cover to cover. Black Smoke is one of those books. It contains so many journeys within its pages: a journey through cancer; a journey through relationships; a journey through love; a journey through a world unknown to most of the western world; and most of all, a journey TO self awareness. Ms. De Wys opens her life and her soul for us all, that we may share her incredible adventures. Her courage is undeniable, her experiences extraordinary. I was entranced from beginning to end. Whether you are living with disease, questioning your relationships, searching for a deeper meaning to what love is, or on your own journey of self-discovery, Black Smoke will speak to you.

Margaret de Wys' "Black Smoke" is a lucid, hypnotic journey--as enveloping as is her challenging and relentless healing commitment taking her into the rigorous rituals of shamanic transformation.

"Black Smoke" enters the realm of Castenada's earlier success-- but with a deeper reality risk, trust and the female voice at last able to establish psychic, physical authority.

A portal into a world populated by spirits, plants and human families living on the edge of time. This story gives an intimate glimpse at some of the issues that confront cultures living sustainably within a larger global struggle for resources. In revealing her path to physical health, we accompany the author on a magical expedition not only to the jungle but to NYC and a Canadian First People's community, all constantly in flux between the exotic and mundane.
As a reader / onlooker, I was captivated by the voyage, and didn't want it to end.

... but...
I own and operate a hotel in Banos, Ecuador, in the Sierra region. A customer left this book for our library. Being one of the few books I have found about a personal experience in the Ecuadorian Amazon, I had to read it.

Let me preface my comments with my attitude toward the "jungle" as it is called here. My wife and I have visited lodges in the jungle several times, and have spent a few days in indigenous villages (among the Ashuar, neighbors of the Shuar, in the Pastaza region). I must be honest in saying my preferred jungle experience is to take day hikes, but spend my nights in comfortable accommodations with fine meals and service.

Don't get me wrong; the Amazon is an amazing place. It is certainly awe-inspiring in the variety of plant and animal life there. And I can certainly appreciate the challenges the indigenous people face, and their ability to extract medicinal and other resources from an environment which is extremely hostile to human habitation.

Margaret has given us a rare, brutally honest glimpse into life there, of which a tourist such as me only gets a glimpse. Hers was a very personal, if not self-centered, journey. The theme is very complex, and it is difficult for me to put my finger on my discomfort with the book.

Maybe it is her unquestioning adoration of Carlos which is very naive and childlike. Also, if I put myself in the position of her husband and daughter, who she basically abandoned for long periods of time, she appears self-indulgent and focused on her own "vision quest" to the exclusion of her family and friends. And, ironically, as she points out, the Shuar have little or no concept of the "me-first" individualism of North American culture.

Her efforts to transport Carlos' healing technique to New York, is admirable, but a little naive, and, in current US culture, a little "new agey" if I may say so. What is a reality of life in the Amazon becomes a hip, novel exercise suitable for cocktail party conversation in NY social circles. And let's not forget that Western medicine probably has its roots in similar shamanistic practices, but over several millenia of trial and error, has eliminated those techniques that don't work. Despite the fact that Margaret was, according to the book, cured by Carlos, I simply do not believe that all the incredible range of human illnesses and injuries can be cured by drinking a fermented liquid and having hallucinations (although it may help one forget the pain for an hour or so).

It is true that the medical system in the US is a disgrace; it is understandable that one would be obliged to find alternatives. As Margaret points out, she and Carlos had a vision of combining the best of both approaches. Maybe I'm just too old to be that idealistic, but it would seem a naive and doomed project from the get-go, in view of the enormous power wielded by the medical-big pharmacy industry in the US, and the lack of information among the population about alternatives.

This book is an interesting journey of a woman who has a serious illness and takes an unconventional road to healing. Nice description of her lush surroundings.

Like another commenter, I could not put this book down. I am now passing it around to several people who I know will enjoy it as much. If you are interested in shamanism or "plant teachers," I highly recommend this book. I imagine it would be very difficult to share such "other worldly" experiences, but the author did a tremendous job. Now, more than ever, I desire to follow in her footsteps to the Amazon basin in search of healing and insight.