Honoring María Sabina:
A Medicine Woman’s Legacy

María Sabina: Keeper of the Sacred Mushrooms

“I am the woman who speaks with the little ones.
I am the woman who sings the words of the holy children.
They speak, and I listen.
They show, and I follow.”

-María Sabina Chant

In the mountains of Oaxaca, in the region of Huautla de Jiménez, a Mazatec woman named María Sabina lived in relationship with what she called los niños santos, the holy children.

As a young girl, she was in the mountains with her sister. They were hungry and looking for food. Along the hillside, they found mushrooms growing from the earth and ate them together.

Not long after, their perception shifted. They began to see and hear in ways that were unfamiliar to them. There was a sense of something being shown, something being communicated.

From that moment, a relationship began.

She came to know the mushrooms as beings, as presences that spoke, revealed, and guided. This relationship became part of her life as a curandera, someone her community turned to in times of illness, distress, or when something felt out of balance.

Her ceremonies, known as veladas, took place at night and were held in prayer, chant, and deep listening. People came to her with specific needs, physical, emotional, and spiritual, and the mushrooms were met within that context of care, responsibility, and relationship.

The mushrooms were approached with respect. They were part of a way of healing and knowing that lived within her community, carried through language, land, and tradition.

Within the velada, the words that came through her were part of a living exchange. She listened, followed, and responded to what was revealed.

She spoke of the mushrooms as the holy children, and followed where they led.

Her work was known within her community. People sought her out, trusted her, and entered ceremony with shared understanding of preparation, respect, and purpose. This relationship between her, the people, and the mushrooms lived within a larger fabric of community life.

In 1955, R. Gordon Wasson came to her village seeking knowledge of these ceremonies. He was received and welcomed into a velada.

He spoke of holding the experience with respect and discretion.

He later published his experience in Life Magazine, one of the most widely read publications in the United States at the time.

This sharing had a deep and lasting impact.

With that publication, many people began arriving.

People arrived without relationship to Mazatec ways of knowing, without preparation, and without connection to the ceremonial context or the land.

The impacts were immediate.

Her home was raided.
Her family experienced harm and displacement.
Her community was disrupted.

Sacred spaces were entered without understanding.
The places where los niños santos grow were disturbed and overharvested.
The relationship itself was affected.

María Sabina spoke about this in her later years.

She shared that the language of the holy children changed for her.
The songs no longer came in the same way.
The communication that had once been clear became quieter.

She named how the way people were coming, without listening, without preparation, without reciprocity, affected the relationship.

And still, she continued her work.

She is remembered as a keeper of relationship within her community, and as someone who lived through the consequences of her ceremonies being brought into wider awareness.

Her life continues to guide how this work is approached, with respect, listening, and responsibility.