Taita Leónidas Lezama
Leonidas has immersed himself in the study of ancestral paths with the Elders of different communities from the Amazon
Taita Leonidas Lezama
Since the age of six, Taita Leónidas Lezama has immersed himself in the study of ancestral paths alongside elders from different Amazonian communities. Throughout his life, he has been trained by wise Indigenous masters from the Coreguaje, Macaguaje, Kamentsá, Inga, Siona, Secoya, and Cofán peoples, developing a profound and pure connection with the jungle and the sacred medicine of yagé.
Leónidas was born in a small town descended from the Pijao community in the central Andes of southern Colombia and belongs to the Seborucos Indigenous council. He drank ayahuasca (yagé) for the first time at the age of six, beginning his training as an Indigenous traditional healer under the guidance of Macaguaje and Coreguaje elders. Since childhood, his life has been driven by the desire to help people in their processes of healing, harmonization, and spiritual awakening.
At the age of fifteen, he received the blessings of the grandfathers and grandmothers to begin healing with this sacred plant. He spent the first twenty years of his life surrounded by the wisdom and cultural richness of various Amazonian Indigenous peoples, learning about traditional medicine, supporting community processes, and accompanying elder guardians of this ancient tradition.
For the past twenty-six years, Taita Leónidas has dedicated his life to preserving, planting, harvesting, praying with, cooking, and serving the medicine of yagé in ceremony. He continues to honor the plant and his ancestors by preserving the ancestral structure of the ceremonies and offering only pure medicine, never including other plants or additives.
Leónidas is also a guardian of the jungle and of the culture surrounding this sacred plant. Together with his family, he protects more than 40 hectares of virgin rainforest in the Amazonian foothills, within one of the most biodiverse and important reserves in Colombia, where more than 100,000 hectares of tropical forest are currently preserved — habitat to the jaguar, the tapir, and thousands of other species.
This territory is cared for as a sacred altar where life breathes and where the ancestral medicine of yagé is born and grows. There, together with his wife, Iyari Garcia, Taita Leónidas founded the healing center ZIRU YAI, where for more than ten years people from different parts of Colombia and around the world have come to experience processes of healing and reconnection with nature.
The spirit of this wise plant has led Taita Leónidas to share his medicine and knowledge in different cities across Colombia, as well as in countries throughout the Americas, Europe, and Australia, continuing his mission of supporting healing and the awakening of consciousness.
His work as an Indigenous traditional healer is supported by the INDIGENOUS ASSOCIATION FOR THE GOVERNANCE OF THE FIRST PEOPLES of Colombia, as well as by different Indigenous traditional authorities around the world.
