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Words Emma Vidgen // @emma_vee

US Vogue call her “fashion’s favourite healer” but for Deborah Hanekmap, exploring ritual has been a lifelong fascination. As a little girl, Deborah begged to be baptised. “I was raised in a very strict Baptist religion…When I saw a baptism happen I thought, ‘Wow!’ It was the only thing that really truly resonated with me from the religion,” Deborah recalls. “ I was eight years old and I basically just annoyed my pastor so much…I just asked him every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night – because that's how often we were going to church at that time – finally, he said, "Yes." I got baptised and it was a really powerful moment for me.”

Fast forward to her late teens and Deborah found her spiritual groove, away from the church. “When I was 19, I knew that I was going to open up a bricks and mortar healing centre, a yoga studio with space for healing work as well,” says Deborah. “I saved up and worked really hard to build my following for five years. And when I was 24 I was able to open up that space here in Williamsburg in New York.”

welcome to the jungle

Deborah’s life changed forever when a Peruvian shaman visited her studio and enquired about renting space to do healing work. “I didn't know anything about Ayahuasca or plant medicine, I just knew that felt like a big 'yes' to me. So he came and when we met in the first ceremony he said, ‘You're a healer and I want you to come and train with me,’ “ Deborah recalls. “So I started traveling with him, to Peru, to Brazil, Puerto Rico, all over the place, assisting him in his ceremonies.”

She spent the next eight years being initiated into traditional plant medicine. “I prepared for holding space for people in ceremonies, but also for learning how to sing to the plants and to the elements of nature to invoke healing,” says Deborah. “It was a very intense process. I was fasting in the jungle for an extended period of time, open to the elements and cooking my own Ayahuasca, finding my own vine of Ayahuasca, which is a month long process.

“In order to truly be initiated, the vine has to present itself to you. I had to go out into the jungle with a group of 10 guys with machetes, no big deal, and search for it. A big part of it is: can you identify the vine? And then when you find the vine, you find how old is the vine that you found and what tree is the vine growing around. These are all things that shift the energy of the medicine that you'll make and that you have to pay attention to. And then after you find it, you do a whole special ceremony to ask if it's okay to use the vine to make medicine.”

modern medicine woman

Deborah found the vine and went on to become one of the only western women to ever be initiated. “I went through that whole process. I received my initiation but I felt like I didn't want to lead Ayahuasca ceremonies. I didn't want to give people something from outside of themselves, in order to be their own healer. Also it's illegal here in the States and I am a young, white American. I wouldn't want to set the example to other people of just going down to Iquitos and buying a bottle of Ayahuasca and calling yourself a shaman, because there's a lot of that down there.”

Deborah returned to Brooklyn inspired to bring the wisdom of plants to her own practice, developing her own healing modality aka Medicine readings, a ritual that’s gained her a cult following. We spoke to Deborah to learn about how she integrates the magic of plants, water and the humble bath tub in her new book, Ritual Baths.

what is your morning ritual?

I usually wake up at five. I spend some time meditating. My meditation practice looks different every single day. Sometimes I work with sound or work with my voice. Sometimes it's just sitting in silence and stillness. Sometimes it's working with some of my crystals, which I've been doing a lot lately. After meditation I go into a movement practice. Sometimes it's yoga, sometimes dance, sometimes running, I change it up a lot.

What did your initiation as a plant medicine guide teach you about healing?

Plant consciousnesses is so powerful. If you think about it, in order to live healthy, balanced lives, we really need plants. They help us breathe, they help us keep our bodies healthy. If we sit with them, they'll teach us how to regenerate ourselves and heal ourselves. Even in a bath, there's a certain respect for the consciousness of the plants that go into them. Not even plants alone, but nature in general will always provide for us what we need and not necessarily what we want. I completed the initiation process and decided to not take that path of leading Ayahuasca ceremonies, I'm glad I completed that process, but I really felt that I wanted people to be able to find that healing nectar within themselves basically, because it is accessible to us.

so we all have the potential to heal ourselves?

In this lifetime I really want to provide tools for people to be their own healers. We're all very intuitive and we all have a lot of multi-sensory gifts that we haven't yet tapped into and I want to provide a way for people to access the tools that they need to heal themselves – especially intuition, in order to feel empowered and confident in this lifetime. If we all feel empowered and confident, then we'll empower the earth, we'll empower each other. It can change things.

And so I created a book called Ritual Baths, which is just about putting intention into the bath that you're taking in order to see what would happen for you if you shifted the energy around while you're in the bathtub, really put focus on something that you're healing for yourself while you're in there.

“ I wanted people to be able to
find that healing nectar within
themselves because it is
accessible to us all”

What happens in a medicine reading?

We speak about anything you're looking to call in or clear out and then I'll read your aura. I'll tell you about what I see coming up. That could be hidden talents and gifts or things that could be blocking you. And then we'll chat for a little bit and I will channel for you and see what is coming through.

It's not about me talking to dead relatives or predicting your future at all. It's about me looking into what you are carrying in energetically and speaking to that. And then I'll have you lay down and I'll do a whole healing ceremony to cleanse, bless and protect the auric field. Actually, it's a lot of you doing your own healing work in the ceremony. So you're doing a breathing exercise and it's a really interesting process.

“Nature in general will
always provide for us what
we need and not necessarily
what we want”

You might lay down and feel nothing. You may lay down and have visions of who you were in the tenth dimension. It could be anything that happens. And then after that I will prescribe you a bespoke ritual bath and I will also prescribe you some kind of steps to be your own healer. So the work that we just did doesn't get all caught up in the mind. You feel that there's actually something that you can go and do to activate the process of being your own healer. Three days after the medicine reading, you're still in quite a process with it and you can come one time for a medicine reading or maybe once a year, once a month, but even just coming once is quite powerful.

DEBORAH’S TOP FIVE TIPS TO BE YOUR OWN HEALER

Ritual baths: Check out our interview with Deborah over here to see why they’re such a profound tool for healing.
Go outside: “This is really important. Even if you do live in a very urban area, you have that connection to nature through the sky and even through the little weeds that grow through the cracks in the sidewalks. Number two is: go outside because we are nature and we need to honour how that connection to nature can really help us to heal ourselves. If you feel really overwhelmed, check to see if you've been going outside enough because probably you haven't.”
Practice gratitude: “It's really important for us to learn how to be happy with what we have in this consumeristic culture that we live in. There's so many different opportunities for comparison and that can really lead to a lack of self worth. When you practice being happy with what you have, not only does what you have then feel happier, but you also feel more confident, more self-assured.”
Notice synchronicity: “We all see them, but we often dismiss it as coincidence. Especially if you've lost someone very close to you, pay attention to how their consciousness will still speak to you through songs and music and maybe feathers and birds. Pay attention to the synchronicities in life.”
Make time for self-reflection: That leads to self-acceptance, self-understanding, self-compassion and forgiveness. With self-reflection, we're able to have acceptance and understanding and compassion for others. Healing is not about us just being healed and happy with the life that we have. Healing work is never done, it just moves in a spiral. We have so much we have to heal in each lifetime actually, but it's not actually about us as individuals. Healing ourselves is about being a beacon of light within the collective consciousness. And the more healing work we do on ourselves, the more we'll start to see that reverberate out through our communities.

*Ritual Baths* (Morrow Gift) by Deborah Hanekamp
is available now

Deborah Hanekamp: Fashion’s favourite healer