WASKA: The Forest Is My Family

Often on Sonic Journeys we hear from filmmakers about how they work with sound, but today we’re trying something different: we’re just going to listen to a short film. 

“WASKA: The Forest is My Family” feels like bathing in a forest. It honors co-director Nina Gualinga’s grandfather, a leader who had a deep relationship with the powerful – and coveted – plant medicine Hayakwaska. Gualinga explains that the film “invites us to collectively question the ways in which we seek to heal ourselves, so that we don’t perpetuate the legacy of extractivism.” 

What does it feel like to just listen to this film? We invite you to try. 

Learn more about "WASKA" on The Guardian’s website.  

Sonic Journeys is presented by 4th World Media, a matriarch-led organization dedicated to media justice, narrative sovereignty and the holistic care of underserved filmmakers.

Host and Creator: Stina Thomas Hamlin

Supervising Producer: Jenny Asarnow

Executive Producer: Tracy Rector

Theme song: Tooh Nílíní by Kino Benally

Consulting Graphic Designer: Joel Schomberg

Cover art: Mer Young

Connect with us on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Sonic Journeys is an independent podcast. You can find it on Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you get podcasts.

Transcript

Waska:  The Forest Is My Family

Sonic Journeys 

Season 1 Episode 3

Release date: October 9, 2025

Nina Gualinga:  Our land, language, culture, memories, and Hayakwaska are inseparable.  When these are fragmented, we too, are fragmented. 

[Intro soundscape]

Tracy Rector:  Welcome to Sonic Journeys.

[Music plays: Tooh Nílíní by Kino Benally]

Stina Thomas Hamlin: Hey, I’m Stina Thomas Hamlin and this is Sonic Journeys, where we listen to cinematic sound and sometimes we hear from filmmakers about how they craft the sound in their film.  We did that in the first two episodes so, you should definitely check out all the episodes.  But today we are going to something a little different and just gonna to listen to the film and just feel it in its entirety. 

The short we’re gonna hear today feels like bathing in a forest and in the words of co-director, Nina Gualinga, “it invites us to collectively question the ways in which we seek to heal ourselves, so that we don’t perpetuate the legacy of extractivism” 

The film is called Waska: The Forest Is My Family. It’s one of our 4th world media projects and Nina, she narrates the film.  She’s is a Kichwa storyteller from the Ecuadorian Amazon and she and co directors Eli Virkina and Boloh Miranda, and they made this film for The Guardian, so it’s a pretty big deal, and Waska honors Nina’s grandfather, he was someone that had a deep relationship with Hayakwaska. Hayakwaska is a powerful plant medicine and it’s deeply connected to Nina and her family and her community and what’s happening now is that it’s coveted by so many people, too many people, that are seeking to heal themselves and so it’s also being exploited.  And so how can we heal if we’re exploiting? It doesn’t quite make sense. And so Nina’s grandfather told her to listen to the trees and to the birds as if they were her loved ones, which they are and that’s why the film is called Waska: The Forest Is My Family.  And I wonder how it feels to actually sit and just listen to this film and see how we feel in our bodies. We’re going to hear the sound of four generations, they’ll be speaking Quechua and Spanish and English. It’s about fifteen minutes long. So get comfortable and let’s  go. 

[crickets, and stream running]

[Nina] Grandfather, I think about you often.

You were never a man of

many words, but your tender eyes

expressed love and

wisdom that expands beyond

the universe itself.

[insects trilling, bird calls]

You and my grandmother

taught me to listen to the trees,

[leaves rustling]

the birds, to respect the river,

the mountains and the wetlands.

I remember you made me

feel safe when the storm came.

And you gave my spirit strength

when I was giving birth to my son.

You are here with us

in our dreams, in every conversation,

in your grand and

great grandchildren, in the forest.

You are here, everywhere, all at once.

[insect and forest sound continue]

♪ woman singing in Kichwa language ♪

[fire crackling]

Can we find hayakwaska

[ayahuasca] in the forest?

Yes, it chooses who it shows itself to.

It is the same with the

spirits of the forest and rivers.

What is hayakwaska used for?

To heal? To be strong?

For strength, to walk the forest,

to hunt, fish and use a blowgun.

To acquire the samai, the

breath and the energy of the forest.

Old Mother, how do people

become wise, how do yachaks learn?

Is it by drinking hayakwaska?

By receiving and nurturing the energy from

wise people, and from drinking hayakwaska.

[children laughing, footsteps on soil]

[dog barks]

[loud footsteps on metal]

People who drink hayakwaska

become strong.

Yes bro, and they fight the oil companies.

Now let's be strong and jump!

Bro!

[crickets chirping, water lightly splashing]

[Nina] I remember floating down this river

with my grandparents.

My grandfather would fish and

my grandmother tended the fire.

Millions of stars

would blanket us

as we slept on the beach.

I was taught that everything

is alive and interconnected.

They called it Kawsak Sacha,

the Living Forest.

My grandfather was a yachak:

the one who knows,

the one that keeps the balance,

the one with the wisdom.

[hands molding and patting clay]

His world was the forest.

When a person dies,

their spirit continues

to live in the great trees.

So if they cut down

and destroy all the trees,

where will they live?

Through him, we understood

that the oil companies

would be destructive

to our lands, people

and everything he loved.

[Nina] When he was a little boy,

he had a vision when drinking

hayakwaska that shaped my family

and the forest for generations to come.

On one side I saw people carrying spears.

On the other side, there was awful

black smoke rising from the earth.

I saw an old dying tree with

toxic smoke coming out of it.

[Nina] He told us that if we're

careless with Mother Earth,

future generations

will bear the consequences.

We are made of stories,

but our stories have always been

told by foreigners, who don't know us,

who don't know our lands.

They wrote about us,

about the savages, the Indians.

And they came for the

forest giants, for the rubber, oil

and minerals.

[symphony of birds chirping]

In this place, I sowed the plants.

This looks like a yagé leaf.

When did you come here?

Did you plant a branch?

Those who drink hayakwaska

also have profound knowledge

of other plants and

their medicinal purposes.

We have much respect for the forest.

Only those who know are allowed to

enter the sacred places of the forest.

Those who drink

hayakwaska only a few times,

do a couple of diets and

then return back to the city

cannot build that kind of

relationship with the forest.

[birds singing, stream flowing]

In our culture, a yachak

starts learning and dieting

since they are a baby

at their mother's breast.

The knowledge grows

like a seed in their body.

How can those who do not

live here possibly understand

how our life systems are connected

between plants, animals,

community, culture and knowledge?

Growing up in the forest we

learn to know and love her deeply.

When hayakwaska is taken

out of its original context

it becomes superficial and self-centered.

Our yachaks and our elders

are family with the forest

and that is why hayakwaska is our family.

These plants have been used by our

ancestors since the beginning of time

to heal our body and spirit.

We are forest people,

we live in community in the forest

and it is through this constant

relationship with the forest

that we acquire

experience and knowledge.

Hayakwaska, when separated from

the rest of our knowledge system,

can only give you so much.

Knowledge stems from the relationship

with the earth and the forest.

Your grandfather transmitted this to us

and you must share it with your children.

[Nina] Our land,

our language, culture, memories

and hayakwaska are inseparable.

When these are fragmented,

we too are fragmented,

and the acceleration of extractivism

and commodification of our lands

and cultures are pushing us to the brink.

[helicopter sounds]

When I was a little girl,

the oil companies

came to my community,

backed by the

Ecuadorian government and the military.

They threatened us, beat our leaders,

they cut down sacred trees and buried

1,400kg of explosives on our sacred lands.

[distraught voices]

[crickets chirping]

Our elders have always used hayakwaska

to foresee dangers and to lead our people.

When the oil companies came to Sarayaku

our elders, Sabino, Vargas and my father

came together in ceremony

and drank hayakwaska.

With their help, everyone in

the community, both youth and elders,

gathered strength to stand

in unity to protect our territory.

[Nina] Every year,

thousands of people visit the Amazon

to seek this world-renowned brew

that people are tweeting

and Instagramming about.

It is being taken out of the forest

to be commercialized and exported

all over the world

in the name of healing.

But commodifying Indigenous lands,

sacred plants and ancestral knowledge

is the opposite of healing.

It is extractive.

We have always said

the extractive industries

will not succeed here.

We demand respect for our

way of life and our rights.

Ancestral knowledge is at the

core of our existence as a people.

Foreign people come here

and investigate our knowledge

around plants and

trees for medicinal purposes.

Then they claim they

discovered something

and that they own this knowledge.

That kind of extractive

practice is unacceptable.

It is called stealing.

A people that has lost

its yachay, knowledge,

and connection to

the land, is a lost people.

I call them ayallakta, ghost people.

That knowledge is kept

with care within the family,

directly connected to the land

and transmitted to the children.

We don’t need to expose it on

social media or for the public.

We need to practice it

in our homes, learn from our

mothers and fathers.

That is how we keep it alive.

[Nina] My people

have had an intrinsic

relationship with our territory.

It is our bodies,

earth, rivers, plants,

laughter, songs, art and community.

It is us.

We have endured

a long history of

extractivism and colonialism,

and hayakwaska is part of this resistance.

With the guidance of our elders,

my community successfully

kicked out the oil company

and took the Ecuadorian

government to an international court,

where my grandfather

and my family members

testified on my people's

spiritual relationship with the land.

I have been part of the forest

since I was a child.

I have profound knowledge of

the life of the forest, trees, lagoons,

rivers, and even the stones.

Sarayaku is a living territory.

Even though we are few,

we are the symbol of life.

We are exercising

our self-determination,

to protect these spaces of life,

to guarantee the future

not only of our people,

but all of Ecuador and the world.

[Nina] The court ruled Ecuador guilty

of violating our rights.

My grandfather's teachings,

together with my people's resistance,

led to the legal protection of our home:

140,000 hectares of land,

a gift to future generations.

♪ woman singing in Kichwa language ♪

♪ rythmic drums playing ♪

[Nina] This endless taking has to stop.

The world needs a new

relationship with Indigenous Peoples.

♪ drums continue ♪

My peoples’ existence

depends upon our right

to land and autonomy.

Our right to reclaim our story,

including the story about hayakwaska

and our relationship to it.

[stream running, footsteps in water]

[raindrops falling on leaves]

Grandfather, you taught us

that the forest is our family,

that we are rooted to our ancestors.

So as long as the grand trees stand tall

in the Living Forest,

you will continue to live.

You have shown us

that if healing is what we are looking for,

we must heal the land

and all life on Earth.

♪ woman singing in Kichwa language ♪

Stina:  You can watch Waska with your eyes open or closed on The Guardian’s website, and you can find a link to that in our show notes.

[Music plays: Tooh Nílíní by Kino Benally]

Waska is a Film by Nina Gualinga.  Co-Directed by Boloh Miranda and Eli Virkina, produced by Marc Silver and Nina Gualinga. Executive Producer Tracy Rector. Executive Producers for The Guardian are Lindsay Poulton and Jess Gormley. Narrated by Nina Gualinga. Sound Design by Nicolás Fernández Pérez. 

This podcast is Sonic Journeys. It’s produced by 4th World Media. We are a matriarch led organization dedicated to media justice, narrative sovereignty and the holistic care of underserved storytellers. Come say hi to us on Instagram or find us on LinkedIn. 

We’re always @ 4thWorldMedia and since we’re just starting out, please give us a review, follow us, subscribe, we would really appreciate it!

Our supervising producer is Jenny Asarnow. Our Executive Producer is Tracy Rector. Our Theme song is Tooh Nílíní, by Kino Benally. Consulting Graphic Designer, Joel Schomberg. Cover art by Mer Young. Sonic Journeys is created and hosted by me. 

I’m Stina Thomas Hamlin.  See ya later!