Program Notes
https://www.patreon.com/lorenzohagerty
Guest speakers: Veronica Hernandez & Shonagh Home
Today’s podcast features a conversation between Veronica Hernandez and Shonagh Home. Veronica Hernandez, is a clinical psychologist and shamanic practitioner. Born in Peru, since 2006 she has been trained on shamanic facilitation. She received her clinical training at the Institute of Rational-Emotive Therapy, New York, under the supervision of Dr. Albert Ellis. She was assistant professor at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia and research assistant at the Hospital Psiquiátrico Noguchi de Lima (Peru). In the United States, she worked as a Social Services Clinician at John Muir Health Hospital’s Inpatient Psychiatric Adolescent Unit, California. Currently she is completing her doctoral degree at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), San Francisco, where she is carrying out research on the healing and transformative benefits of entheogens, especially Ayahuasca. Among other topics, Veronica and Shonagh talk about children using pharmaceuticals, personal growth, spirituality, Jung’s concept of a shadow, and processing psychedelic experiences.
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Transcript
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Greetings from cyberdelic space, this is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in the psychedelic
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salon.
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And I would like to begin today by first thanking our fellow salonners
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who have made donations this year to fund these podcasts.
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As you know, there won’t be a month of fundraising requests this year
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because I’ve decided to see if by having an optional payment plan for our salon’s forums,
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well, that maybe those donations could cover our annual expenses.
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And I’m happy to report that, well, it appears to be working.
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So far this calendar year, there have been 64 new members who have registered for our forums,
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and 13 of them have passed up the free membership and made donations
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that will be used to keep these podcasts coming
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your way. And those wonderful fellow salonners are Philly B, Rasmus P, Charles P, Steve A,
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John C, Wooly W, Jim J, DeWalt Photo, Sasha P, Andres J, Mike W, Zach W, and another Steve A. And thanks to those wonderful
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salonners, our expenses are covered for the next few months. But on top of that, last week I
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received a check in the mail from longtime salonner and major donor Marjean M. There was no note in the envelope, just a very large check.
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But now, thanks to Marjean, our expenses are covered well into the summer months.
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And so, again this year, Marjean, I want to thank you for your very generous donation to the salon.
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Also, I want to thank all of the participants in our forums
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for the interesting comments and exchanges that are being posted there.
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And after today’s talk, I’ll have a little bit more to say about some of the goings-on in our forums.
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Now, as I was previewing the recording that we are about to listen to,
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it caused me to pause for a moment and think about how far, how wonderfully far, we have come in moving the discussion of
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psychedelics and shamanism into the realm of public discussion and public academic work.
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Since most of our fellow swaners are, well, at least relative to me, somewhat young, I feel that
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I should remind you that back in 1984, when I first became involved in this community, there was essentially no information whatsoever to be found on these topics
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outside of a few academic journals.
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When I was still working in corporate America,
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it was next to impossible for me to discuss cannabis or psychedelics
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with anyone that I knew at work.
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Eventually, I made contact with just one other psychedelic person out of the
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thousands who worked on our particular IT campus. And we never, as in never, spoke about such things
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at work for fear of being overheard and losing our jobs. Now, that may have been an overreaction
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on our part, but that was the way things were back then. And from what I understand, that’s basically how things remain in the military
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and on some police forces. So we still have a long way to go
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before we can talk about psychedelics around the water cooler at work,
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but progress is definitely being made.
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So as we listen to Shauna, who lists Veronica’s achievements in
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blending shamanism into the default world,
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I hope that you too will be understandably proud of the fact that today we are getting much closer to my dream
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of being able to discuss psychedelics and shamanism in casual conversations, anywhere we go, even at the places where we work.
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Now, here is Shauna Holm, who will introduce today’s speaker,
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Veronica Hernandez. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another podcast discussion for the
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Psychedelic Salon. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Veronica Hernandez. She is a
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clinical psychologist and shamanic practitioner. Born in Peru, since 2006, she’s been trained in shamanic facilitation.
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Veronica received her clinical training at the Institute of Rational Emotive Therapy,
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New York, under the supervision of Dr. Albert Ellis.
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She was assistant professor at the Universidad Peruano Cayetano Heredia and research assistant at the Hospital Psiquiátrico Noguchi de Lima, Peru.
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In the United States, she worked as a social services clinician
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at John Muir Health Hospital’s inpatient psychiatric adolescent unit in California.
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And currently, she’s completing her doctoral degree
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at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco,
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where she is carrying out research on the healing and transformative benefits of entheogens,
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particularly ayahuasca.
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So welcome, Veronica.
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I’m very much looking forward to our conversation.
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Thank you, Shauna.
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Me too.
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Me too.
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Thanks for the invitation.
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Oh, yeah, absolutely. I heard that talk you gave at, I think it was the Entheo Health and Wellness Conference,
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and you were discussing entheogens as a catalyst for individuation,
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and that got my attention right away.
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Yes, yes.
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That’s been a theme that I’ve been, you know, it’s a personal theme,
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been a theme that I’ve been, you know, it’s a personal theme, as well as bringing it into academia, you know, for personal growth, for bridging two models, you know, like Jungian
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model, psychology model, and the shamanic model, how we we individuate which means how we become whole
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so that’s that’s been the theme for the last few years in my life and you know that’s where i’m
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carrying research and you know working with clients along the lines as well well this is
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it’s fascinating and i’m always curious to know how the interest in the shamanic piece came about.
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And I understand you’ve been working with shamans for some time,
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and there is quite a bit of history there.
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So would you mind sharing what sparked your interest in the first place
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in the shamanic world?
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Absolutely.
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Well, I come from a country where we have a lot of shamanism as a spiritual practice.
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I wouldn’t say that most of the population follows that, but a great part of the population.
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And also, my father is from the jungle.
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My grandfather was from the jungle. My grandfather was from the jungle.
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So I think that was one of the things that at an early age was brought to me in various ways.
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But let’s say I went with my father for the first time when I was 14 years old to drink San Pedro, which is a plant from the Andes.
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And that built a different reality for me.
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And that’s when I started, you know, looking into plant medicines, looking into healing properties.
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I grew up with a mom who was always ill.
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So I was always looking for ways to help her.
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So that’s how I started on a personal,
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on my personal path of healing and of using plants and being curious about what shamanism brought as opposed to any other religion,
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in this case,
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Catholic religion that I grew up with as well.
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Okay.
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So you grew up with,
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with a Catholicism.
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That’s interesting.
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And shamanism on the side,
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let’s put it that way.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Well, you know, that’s interesting because a lot of these traditional indigenous communities have incorporated a lot of the Catholic vernacular into their practice.
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You see the saints there and the Virgin Mary is worshipped. And it’s actually,
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I think it’s very striking the way that has worked, you know, where they just assimilated
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that into what they already had and made it very beautiful, I think.
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It’s like a syncretism of those two. Yeah, that’s in many ways, yes.
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The tradition that I am mostly, like now, mostly interested in ayahuasca is the Shipibo tradition.
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It’s a tribe from the jungle, from the region of Pucallpa, although they’re very settled in Iquitos now because that’s where most people
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go to drink ayahuasca,
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most foreigners.
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And that’s a very
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old tradition.
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It doesn’t have to do
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anything with religion. It’s
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very nature-based plant. It’s called
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vegetalismo. It’s their tradition.
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And it’s just very
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communal to plants.
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You commune with the jungle and with every living being.
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And they really work with yourself in getting the resources yourself, your internal resources.
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And that’s what transforms your life.
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So that’s the place that I’m using more, you know, that tradition and that lineage
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in my work, in my personal work, and as a practitioner as well.
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I’m going to start using more of that take.
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Okay.
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How did you find your way to that tribe?
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Because this was obviously, so you started at 14 with San Pedro, and then it has been obviously quite a path since then. And so what brought you to the ayahuasca? How old were you when you experienced that?
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I drank ayahuasca when I was 16. It was not a full-blown ayahuasca journey.
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It was quite a bit to look internal and start seeing aspects of myself that I really wasn’t aware.
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When you’re a teenager, you’re not very aware of yourself.
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You’re trying to find yourself right yeah so that brought certain i wouldn’t say negative because it’s not about
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you know something negative it’s about some shadow parts you know and as as you said let’s become
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let’s come to be afraid our shadow part because that’s part of us right and we need to give it a place and we need to incorporate it
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to all other aspects but um that that piqued my curiosity especially like you know like that um
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i connected very much to the indigenous part and i have indigenous in me and i just uh a few months
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ago discovered by my dad that i i come from the lineage of the Shipibo.
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You know, my grandfather was born out of a Shipibo woman,
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which we really didn’t know until recently.
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So, I don’t know, it’s been a long walk into different shamanic traditions,
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you know, some more loose, some more eclectic.
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I trained with a Peruvian shaman here, has an eclectic approach to shamanism.
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And when I went back to the jungle and started working with the Shipibos, that’s where I found
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like, okay, this is really the place where I belong. It’s just a feeling, my spirit can just
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really rest, I can open up, I can deal with everything because I’m
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held in a space
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that allows for that, allows me to go
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deep inside to look at what
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I don’t want to look and to
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be more conscious
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bring light to that so that
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I can transform my life
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this last time in May
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of 2015
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I was so blessed with the many sessions I was doing with Ayahuasca.
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And I know that this has happened to many people who have drank it because that’s the purpose.
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Ayahuasca wants you to know yourself.
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It’s the one plan that will let you know what’s going on with you, whether you’re aware of it, whether you want to see it or not.
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Now, what you do with that information is a whole different thing, you know?
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But that’s why I choose that plan for transformation
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because there’s nowhere to hide with her.
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Right.
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And also, it’s a plan that brings also so much compassion, you know, because if you really tune into her energy, she just wants you to know yourself.
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She pushes you to the limits so that you can transform your life and be the creator of your life and actually be what you came here to be
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and to do
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so
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that to me is
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my life purpose
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and that’s why I serve as a
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guide for people to do that
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discover what are you here
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for you know and what makes
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you the most
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happy fulfilled whole human being you know it’s not
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easy sometimes to be a human being we have spirit we have matter and it’s that struggle sometimes
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on how to integrate how to connect those two right and also our world is really i mean people are mad
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as hatters right i mean there is incredible change, flux, turmoil.
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It’s crazy out there. I think also, yeah, people are really trying to, you know, deal with all of
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that, which I think is overwhelming as well. Well, I think it’s very interesting, this contrast that
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you have, because you have this extraordinary training since the age really of 14
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in the shamanic, in this very nature-centric, human-centric also path.
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And then you have chosen clinical psychology as well.
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And so what got you interested in that?
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What got me interested in clinical psychology?
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I wanted to, you know, I wanted to study a career in philosophy or psychology.
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I was interested. I was always reading things to
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help us understand a little bit more of us
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I love literature and then I
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finally chose psychology because it had
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a broader, like it could include
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many things, I could
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you know, do many things with
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it and also because
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I wanted to
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answer a lot of questions
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like of meaning of you know of different ways that we can explain the whys of life.
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I had so many whys since the age of four.
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And I don’t ask why anymore.
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I’ve learned that.
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But at the time, it was like, okay, I needed those answers.
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And I went to a medical school to study clinical psychology.
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And that was very, very, very clinical, medical model oriented.
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It was great training.
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But it was missing, it felt like it was missing something for me throughout the years.
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You know, I worked in many hospitals, psychiatric hospitals.
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Even when I came to the United States, my first job was in a psychiatric hospital,
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and I ended up staying there for eight years.
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I was a social worker, a clinician for an adolescent patient psych.
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But the thing that was missing and what got me, like,
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so my interest was trying to understand human behavior, my behavior,
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people’s behavior, and how we could connect more.
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The thing that over the years was lacking was the spiritual part.
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You know, many, many schools of psychology are missing connecting to spirit.
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And it’s about behavior.
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It’s about cognitive behavior.
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It’s about the internal process.
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It’s about psychoanalyzing everything you’ve got in life.
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But you know what?
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It’s almost like they’re missing that connection, you know, that human connection, that complete empathy,
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that something that we get with other spiritual traditions.
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So I decided, okay, well, I want to combine those two.
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You know, I have my shamanic practice, my personal practice, and I’m a clinician.
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So why don’t I bridge those two?
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And also in 2006, I lost a dear friend he was a
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psychiatrist that I was working with in this hospital he died of a sudden accident and I got
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really depressed he was one of my best friends he was holding our unit so lovingly that it was a great loss for patients, for staff, for everybody.
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So I decided I just got off work for a couple of months and was dealing with all the losses,
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all the grievings that I didn’t do because I was always keeping myself busy.
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And I said, you know what?
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because I was always keeping myself busy.
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And I said, you know what, like in psychology, in psych hospitals,
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in the medical model, what’s missing is the connection to spirit.
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And I started, you know, going and doing my traumatic practices even more.
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And that’s what got me really out of my depression out of that, you know, like place where you’re like,
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don’t find meaning much in what you’re doing. And it started like questioning,
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okay,
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am I going to do this for the rest of my life?
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Although there’s some aspects that are not working and I know that are not
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fulfilling.
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So I decided to go back to school and bridge those two.
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Because, you know, And so I decided to go back to school and bridge those two. Because there’s many things also that spiritual traditions,
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we miss out by not dealing with emotional things,
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with our own personality, which we call spiritual bypass, right?
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So I think that two are very important,
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that two can work together beautifully.
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Bring spirit into your,
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into your emotions, into your being, and, and make a whole sense of yourself.
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Yes, I, I agree. I have a question for you with all of that work in those psychiatric hospitals.
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that work in those psychiatric hospitals, that’s a lot of psych drugs. And I mean, I work with clients as well. And the people who I work with who are on antidepressants are endeavoring to get
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off them. I have worked with two people, one who was hospitalized for attempted suicide,
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another person who was in a psych ward for another reason.
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And they said people are walking zombies. They are drugged left, right, and center.
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How do you feel about, I’m just very curious to get your thoughts on that, especially because you
00:20:00 ►
are so well steeped in the shamanic, which, you know, would not give a nod to that
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kind of thing. That’s very sort of antithetical to the shamanic way.
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I completely agree with you. I mean, I think the medical model and the psychiatric model
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are following what, you know, just like they treat treat symptoms and they use medicines and they give
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out medicines left and right without really like there’s not a whole lot of research especially
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with kids and adolescents you know i mean i i work with kids that from ages 5 to 18
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and there was not a lot of research into what’s what’s good for them they were diagnosed
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just because a kid can be a little hyper they did their adhd immediately give them meds because they
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don’t fit in the classroom you know in the norm so we have to normalize everybody by dispensing a
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lot of you know pharmaceuticals and and the only thing we’re doing is, you know,
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getting the pharmaceutical companies rich,
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and we’re not getting any better.
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Right, and who’s determining the norm?
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I mean, that’s, I find, the most disturbing, right?
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Because our norm…
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That’s the thing, exactly.
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It’s not normal.
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It’s not normal.
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Yes.
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And that’s something that we really need to have a stand.
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And many times I’ve said, you know, like when I had talks and even when I was working in the hospitals, you know, like some of the kids were just dropped and then completely asleep.
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You know, even when they were awake there was like their their spark their
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spirit was gone right you know because you you that’s what that’s what many um pharmaceuticals
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do you know many psychiatric medicines do to do to you they break your spirit you know
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then you’re just like like what you said a walking walking zombie, you know, following the norm, following what we’re supposed to fit in, never question anything, never come up with a different way of perceiving the world and actually wanting to live that way.
00:22:30 ►
Because, you know, it’s just, it’s a battle, a constant battle we have with the pharmaceutical companies.
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I mean, you have to, you know, sell a certain brand, a certain thing, and then everybody’s taking it.
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Then there comes out a book.
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Everybody is in the diet or in the medicines that, you know, that they determine,
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that’s a sad thing.
00:22:49 ►
You know, it’s almost like we’ve lost the capacity to feel for ourselves,
00:22:54 ►
you know, and to let our bodies just be different and have different ways of being, different ways of behavior.
00:23:02 ►
And I’m not saying that that’s, you know, like some people
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some people really
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need it. They do need, but it’s not
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the majority of people.
00:23:12 ►
No. Oh my lord, no.
00:23:14 ►
That’s the thing. You know, I think
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here they’re trying to give out
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medicines for everybody. Everybody
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comes and then you get diagnosed with
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depression. They already have a list of things
00:23:24 ►
that they’re going to give to you. Instead of taking the time to getting to know the person you know right right
00:23:30 ►
right well it’s really almost like the diagnosis is the commercial and then the drug is the the
00:23:36 ►
product they’re ultimately trying to sell so it’s not not not the whole person. Yeah, yeah. So I really think that, you know, being in psychotherapy these days,
00:23:48 ►
I think it is a massive responsibility because, I mean, personally,
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I could not in good conscience, you know,
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maintain myself in an environment that condones, you know,
00:24:02 ►
the drugging of people, particularly children, just willy-nilly
00:24:06 ►
as we see. And so this is also why when I hear of people like yourself who have been touched
00:24:16 ►
very profoundly by the shamanic path and the use of entheogens such as ayahuasca, San Pedro,
00:24:24 ►
shamanic path and the use of entheogens such as ayahuasca, San Pedro.
00:24:33 ►
I want to hear more of what you people have to say, because I think that is a very old path of healing, although I don’t think it used to be used in the way that we are using
00:24:41 ►
it today, because I don’t think it had to be, right?
00:24:43 ►
Because it was maintained by these cultures
00:24:46 ►
which were very different.
00:24:48 ►
And yet, it is providing an amazing route
00:24:53 ►
out of a lot of incredible emotional and mental issues
00:25:01 ►
that people are experiencing today.
00:25:03 ►
How does your practice look, Veronica?
00:25:08 ►
How do you incorporate the shamanic into your practice?
00:25:13 ►
How do I incorporate shamanic into my practice?
00:25:15 ►
First of all, what I do is I interview people, you know, new people,
00:25:26 ►
I usually
00:25:29 ►
work with people that are not
00:25:33 ►
taking a lot of medications.
00:25:36 ►
I mean, they might be taking some medications
00:25:38 ►
and we work into,
00:25:40 ►
because they want to.
00:25:42 ►
They want to get off their meds.
00:25:43 ►
I don’t work with anybody trying to convince people,
00:25:46 ►
oh, you know what, you shouldn’t be taking meds.
00:25:49 ►
It’s people that actually have not found a lot of progress.
00:25:53 ►
They’re not happy in their lives.
00:25:56 ►
Psychiatric medicines are actually debilitating their capacity
00:26:01 ►
to live fully in their lives.
00:26:03 ►
So a lot of the times they come to me and what they want is they want to have an experience
00:26:10 ►
of, you know, feeling alive with either it’s pain or joy or whatever, but the capacity
00:26:19 ►
to feel is gone.
00:26:21 ►
Okay.
00:26:21 ►
That’s what I want to do.
00:26:37 ►
And so, you know, I take people to Peru, you know, when they really want to, you know, experience, you know, medicine in a container like the jungle.
00:26:42 ►
That is great to be able to get off some of your medications. And, you know, I work with physicians as well that are on the shamanic path
00:26:49 ►
because I’m not a physician.
00:26:51 ►
I know a lot about medications, but I always want to make sure that we’re monitoring,
00:26:56 ►
you know, as we’re tapering off medicines for people
00:26:59 ►
and incorporating more natural medicines, you know, jungle medicines.
00:27:04 ►
Right, right. So that’s one thing I do with them. and incorporating more natural medicines, you know, jungle medicines.
00:27:05 ►
Right, right.
00:27:09 ►
So that’s one thing I do with them.
00:27:13 ►
And then the rest of them I take them to nature.
00:27:15 ►
You know, that’s another part of my work. I take people to nature to experience what you can experience also sometimes with entheogens.
00:27:24 ►
You know, just being in nature, being able to breathe, and you can take different herbs to open up to that experience to just, you know, settle you in and really connect.
00:27:36 ►
See, the thing is, medicines and natural medicines and entheogens help you connect.
00:27:44 ►
They start the pathway.
00:27:46 ►
Then there comes a time when you really don’t need much of them because you already have that pathway.
00:27:52 ►
So when you’re in nature, you immediately feel it.
00:27:54 ►
When you’re doing an activity or a practice, you’re immediately feeling it.
00:27:59 ►
So as I say, I use herbs.
00:28:03 ►
I use entheogens
00:28:05 ►
and then the other
00:28:07 ►
part of my practice is
00:28:08 ►
actually spiritual counseling
00:28:10 ►
and I don’t call it
00:28:13 ►
like you know like
00:28:14 ►
it’s clinical psychology
00:28:17 ►
practice but I mostly
00:28:19 ►
call it spiritual counseling you know we include
00:28:21 ►
arts we include a lot of things
00:28:23 ►
that Jung itself
00:28:24 ►
gave us a great model for you know, we include arts, we include a lot of things that Jung itself gave us a great model for, you know, and that’s why I love Jungian analysis so much because incorporates all the arts and rituals and practices that are so close to shamanism to me, you know, and what was, what was missing in Mrs. A lot of psychology,
00:28:49 ►
you know, and many of the other talk therapy or, or other practices.
00:28:53 ►
Well, let’s talk a little bit about Jungian psychology. In the psychiatric world here,
00:29:02 ►
often this expression of dissolving the ego ego and we’re going to dissolve the ego
00:29:08 ►
and I always take that step back and I’m like, well, if we dissolve
00:29:12 ►
the ego, we’re dead. We need the ego.
00:29:16 ►
So what does Jung
00:29:19 ►
say about the ego? What is the importance of the ego?
00:29:24 ►
Well, it’s not, I think. It is the dissolving
00:29:28 ►
of that unhealthy ego. Right.
00:29:31 ►
That gives birth to the self. So it’s almost like
00:29:36 ►
let’s say in our first half of life, right,
00:29:40 ►
we are developing our ego. You know, we’re developing
00:29:44 ►
our way, our place in the world.
00:29:47 ►
And we’re establishing ourselves, right?
00:29:49 ►
So that requires for us to build a persona, you know, our ego.
00:29:55 ►
That’s what we show to the world and that’s how we function.
00:29:59 ►
Right.
00:29:59 ►
But in the second half of life, usually after midlife crisis or some crisis around your late 30s,
00:30:05 ►
40s.
00:30:07 ►
And then for some people, maybe in the earlier mid-30s, the process starts, right?
00:30:14 ►
So it requires to letting go of that persona so that we can have the ego, you know, get
00:30:23 ►
healthier.
00:30:22 ►
can have the ego get
00:30:23 ►
healthier.
00:30:25 ►
When I say let go of the personas,
00:30:28 ►
letting go of those parts of the ego
00:30:29 ►
that don’t serve, that
00:30:31 ►
keep us in a status quo
00:30:33 ►
and don’t allow us to connect with
00:30:35 ►
spirit, to connect with something
00:30:37 ►
bigger than ourselves
00:30:39 ►
and to give birth to
00:30:41 ►
a real self, the one
00:30:44 ►
that guides. That’s the spirit connected to your heart, connected real self, you know, the one that guides.
00:30:48 ►
That’s the spirit connected to your heart, connected to your gut.
00:30:51 ►
That’s the place where we want to develop.
00:30:56 ►
We want to develop it, but it usually comes in the second half of life.
00:30:59 ►
So that’s what Jung always said.
00:31:02 ►
The ego needs to be a servant to the self rather than the master.
00:31:04 ►
Right, right. We’ve mastered in the first half of life
00:31:07 ►
everything is about the ego whether it’s relationships jobs and things like that it
00:31:12 ►
usually has that okay what is in there for me yes which is a necessary staging and we still need to
00:31:20 ►
do and we still have to keep that but we can broaden it because yes there’s this part of me
00:31:26 ►
that is you know otherwise i wouldn’t exist as veronica and you as shauna but you know and
00:31:33 ►
that’s not the end of it right right but it’s almost it’s like consciousness though
00:31:38 ►
needs it needs a carrier it needs a vessel right and ego, our healthy one is the vessel to be able to connect to spirit.
00:31:47 ►
So actually it’s not a dissolution of it.
00:31:49 ►
It’s dissolution of the parts that don’t serve us.
00:31:52 ►
Thank you.
00:31:53 ►
Yes.
00:31:53 ►
Okay.
00:31:54 ►
Thank you.
00:31:54 ►
That helps a lot to hear that.
00:31:57 ►
Yeah.
00:31:57 ►
Yeah.
00:31:58 ►
Yeah.
00:31:58 ►
I mean, I really see the ego as the carrier of consciousness.
00:32:01 ►
And so that is the process of individuation then.
00:32:06 ►
Yes, an ego persona is developed. And then around late 30s or so people start to ask the heady, headier questions, or
00:32:14 ►
I see also, often there’s like a midlife face slap, and which throws everything into question,
00:32:22 ►
right? And you do start looking at things very differently
00:32:26 ►
and starting to go hopefully much far deeper
00:32:31 ►
than you have to that point.
00:32:35 ►
And then this incredible process begins.
00:32:40 ►
And so, yeah, and so you were talking about the self,
00:32:42 ►
that’s self capital S, yes, like the high self.
00:32:46 ►
Yes.
00:32:47 ►
And we are ultimately subordinate to that self.
00:32:50 ►
It like lives within the deep psyche, if you will, or the soul, yes?
00:32:55 ►
Yes, yes, absolutely.
00:32:57 ►
Okay, okay.
00:32:59 ►
I like, there’s a fellow named Edward Edinger.
00:33:03 ►
I’m sure you know of him.
00:33:04 ►
Yeah, yeah. of him yeah, yeah
00:33:06 ►
scholar of Jung
00:33:07 ►
he said something
00:33:10 ►
to the effect that as you
00:33:12 ►
cultivate your psyche
00:33:14 ►
you know, on your own
00:33:16 ►
you’re actually influencing the greater
00:33:18 ►
collective, so
00:33:20 ►
in other words, this work
00:33:21 ►
yeah, this is not self-indulgent
00:33:24 ►
this is essential and if youulgent. This is essential.
00:33:25 ►
And if you can, you know, come into greater awareness of the inner workings of your own psyche and, you know, make whatever shifts are necessary, you are going to have an effect on the collective.
00:33:43 ►
Ego self. to have an effect on the collective ego self and it’s not self-indulgence but it’s actually
00:33:47 ►
i completely agree with you in terms of as we move our consciousness and work on our own
00:33:54 ►
consciousness then we’re you know bringing also the collective consciousness um up you know up
00:34:02 ►
with us wherever we move you know so i completely agree with you that it’s not a self-indulgence.
00:34:09 ►
That is the work we came to do, transform ourselves, because we can transform the world.
00:34:13 ►
We can transform anybody.
00:34:15 ►
We’re not going to change anything if we don’t start with ourselves.
00:34:19 ►
Yeah.
00:34:20 ►
The only thing we have, we have a mission, control over, and we can do.
00:34:25 ►
And actually by doing that, we serve as an example, as a living example for other people to see if that resonates with them or not.
00:34:36 ►
And what they want to do.
00:34:38 ►
But it’s in our own transformation that we can move consciousness and grow.
00:34:44 ►
That’s what I believe.
00:34:45 ►
Yeah, I think I think I think so. I think this is very important. I, you know, things have changed
00:34:54 ►
so radically in our culture in the last 100 plus years. And I was listening to Edinger a while back
00:35:03 ►
and he was talking about how Jung loved Nietzsche.
00:35:06 ►
And he was talking about Nietzsche making that declaration that God is dead.
00:35:11 ►
And essentially what he was saying, not that necessarily a creator is dead, because that’s impossible.
00:35:19 ►
You know, we’re alive.
00:35:20 ►
There’s some kind of intelligence available, but that the vast container that man looks to,
00:35:29 ►
be it mythology or religion, that that was passing essentially, right? And then when that happens,
00:35:38 ►
then the state will take over and you get socialism, communism, you know, statism,
00:35:46 ►
take over and you get socialism, communism, you know, state ism, right, that becomes the new religion. And, and that can’t ultimately fulfill you because there’s nothing holy in that there’s
00:35:52 ►
nothing sacred in that there’s nothing human in that, ultimately. And so Jung was saying,
00:36:00 ►
correct me if I’m wrong, but essentially that then it becomes, you know, when the collective has lost that container, then it becomes up to the individual.
00:36:11 ►
Can we do this individually and essentially find the God, if you will, within ourselves?
00:36:21 ►
Correct?
00:36:23 ►
Absolutely.
00:36:24 ►
Absolutely.
00:36:24 ►
And I think that’s why, yeah, I agree.
00:36:28 ►
That’s exactly what Yun says,
00:36:29 ►
and that’s how it overlaps really beautifully also with shamanism.
00:36:32 ►
It’s because by the definition,
00:36:35 ►
entheogens is finding the God within.
00:36:37 ►
They help you find your own God, your own beauty,
00:36:40 ►
your own creativity, your own image of the creator.
00:36:45 ►
Like we are the creators of our lives, and that’s what antigens help.
00:36:49 ►
That’s why that’s also what Jungian analysis promotes, you know.
00:36:54 ►
It doesn’t promote following whatever.
00:36:57 ►
No, it’s your own individual.
00:37:01 ►
And it’s not individual as being individual and adjusted by yourself it’s
00:37:06 ►
individuation in the sense of growing so that you can be more in community so that you can be more
00:37:13 ►
for others because if you’re not really you know in congruence with yourself that’s what you’re
00:37:19 ►
going to bring in in the world so right it is about the God within.
00:37:26 ►
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:37:27 ►
And I think, you know, we see all too many people who want to go out there and make a
00:37:32 ►
difference, but have not necessarily done their own personal work, if you will.
00:37:36 ►
And so a lot of shadow material comes forth and, you know, it just becomes a mess rather than having someone who can see
00:37:50 ►
what is going on, see that, you know, things are very wrong and whatever that area is that they
00:37:56 ►
feel called to and be able to address that, but not coming from this almost, you know, place of sort of irrational my way or the highway kind of mentality.
00:38:09 ►
But at the same time, you know, I mean, we need stuff done
00:38:12 ►
and we need good warriors.
00:38:14 ►
We really need good warriors at this time.
00:38:16 ►
Absolutely.
00:38:18 ►
We do.
00:38:19 ►
But it’s great when you really know yourself and know your needs
00:38:23 ►
so you stop projecting or you catch yourself when you are doing so.
00:38:28 ►
And, you know, you turn it around.
00:38:29 ►
And then, you know, otherwise it just won’t go anywhere.
00:38:33 ►
It’s like a lot of, also, again, mentioning a lot of spiritual traditions.
00:38:38 ►
They go on this spiritual bypass because they have not grown emotionally psychologically right um
00:38:46 ►
to to where they are in their spiritual practice you know and when you see their everyday lives
00:38:54 ►
and their relationships and and things like that you’re like thinking okay like how is this possible
00:38:58 ►
but it is possible because it’s almost like the human part is not caught up with whatever tradition they’re trying to follow.
00:39:07 ►
I was going to say, Veronica, that this weaves us, I think, into shadow here.
00:39:14 ►
And I actually think that learning the work of Jung in relation to shadow and what that is all about.
00:39:25 ►
It’s a very essential foundation for working with entheogens
00:39:30 ►
because the entheogenic experience can also bring up a lot of shadow stuff,
00:39:36 ►
which if you don’t have a touchstone for that, that can really throw you.
00:39:43 ►
And so can you speak to what is shadow?
00:39:47 ►
What was Jung talking about?
00:39:49 ►
He was very adamant that we explore this
00:39:54 ►
and get some kind of a handle on our own shadow here.
00:40:00 ►
Yes, yes.
00:40:01 ►
Well, what he was referring basically on shadow work with all those aspects that we have neglected, although those aspects of ourselves that we have neglected that we don’t want to look at, whether it’s feelings, experiences, ways of being that are, you know, we’re either ashamed of, embarrassed, we really don’t want to, we don’t want to relate to them so we you know we
00:40:28 ►
just put push them down somewhere in our psyche and what it does is when we encounter situations
00:40:36 ►
that actually have those aspects then we start projecting them you know like we start criticizing
00:40:42 ►
things that otherwise we have in ourselves but we just decide to project it and see it in the outer world. Because we’re not in
00:40:51 ►
congruence with our inner world. Right? Which includes sometimes, yes. To give an example,
00:41:08 ►
give an example, you know, like this last time, and I’m going to give an example of myself, you know, like there was a masculine way of me, of being in the world that was
00:41:16 ►
not serving me anymore.
00:41:17 ►
And I, you know, and I was at, how would I put it, at odds with aspects of the masculine in the world
00:41:25 ►
because I internalized a certain masculine way that was in conflict.
00:41:31 ►
So when I went and had ayahuasca this last time in May,
00:41:35 ►
I just realized, you know what, the very thing that I’m criticizing,
00:41:39 ►
the very thing that I don’t like about what’s going on in many institutions
00:41:43 ►
and many situations I have
00:41:45 ►
inside myself and and you know and I’ve created this persona to survive in like as a woman in a
00:41:53 ►
Latin country where I have to be tough I have to you know like develop this ways I didn’t have to
00:42:00 ►
but I chose to and I realized you know what that is not working in my
00:42:07 ►
relationships it’s not working in certain areas in my life so I decided to
00:42:12 ►
take a good look at where are the places where I hold a masculine that I so much
00:42:19 ►
criticize in the outer world so that is an example of shadow work you have to look inside of you
00:42:26 ►
where are you holding when something really triggers you when something is um it’s something
00:42:34 ►
that you’re really ashamed or embarrassed like sexuality for example is a big one for everybody
00:42:40 ►
you know because we’re supposed to by wherever we grow up, our society or religion,
00:42:46 ►
to be a certain way, and sometimes we’re not, and sometimes we have other feelings, and
00:42:52 ►
sometimes we have preferences, and so all those things are kept in secret, kept inside,
00:42:58 ►
and not, you know, not integrated, not fully acknowledged, not fully like brought into, okay, so at least I’m aware of
00:43:08 ►
this, I don’t need to act on it. What comes with shadow work is you don’t have an awareness or an
00:43:14 ►
acknowledgement of it, and it comes out, you know, unconsciously and acted out. That’s the piece that
00:43:21 ►
we need to work on. Right, and often other people can see it,
00:43:25 ►
but the person themselves has no clue.
00:43:29 ►
Or are blind to it, yes.
00:43:31 ►
Right, that’s the shadow.
00:43:33 ►
I worked with an amazing teacher, Dr. Brewjoy,
00:43:36 ►
who’s since passed away, but he was very Jungian,
00:43:40 ►
and he explained that, he said the ego has a really hard time doing this kind of shadow work because it is so identified with, you know, its identity.
00:43:51 ►
And he was saying that the best way to approach the shadow is through the heart center.
00:43:59 ►
And he would encourage us to sit for a few moments and just sit in that heart center, which is that spark of divine in us,
00:44:06 ►
that place that can hold the bigger picture, and then approach it from that place, which
00:44:13 ►
many of us found tremendously helpful. And he would also say, when you are working with a
00:44:20 ►
shadow piece, he would explain this is but a clump of trees in the forest of your being.
00:44:28 ►
It’s not all of you, but to, you know, be sure you have that understanding. But the more we
00:44:35 ►
cast that out, then of course, the bigger and more exaggerated it becomes until we can really,
00:44:42 ►
as you say, integrate that and and how does that look
00:44:47 ►
veronica to integrate it how well how does that work well integration integration is like well
00:44:54 ►
for one have consciousness and awareness of of parts of yourself and so when you go and you know when you want to act in a certain way or you just stop and feel it
00:45:09 ►
like okay like there’s a part of me that feels this and feel it you don’t need to stay in the
00:45:15 ►
feeling you don’t need to dwell on certain feelings or certain things but you know what
00:45:21 ►
give it a give it a space give it a space because it needs a voice. It’s a part of us.
00:45:25 ►
I mean, we’re human here.
00:45:26 ►
We’re not, for one, there’s no room for perfection.
00:45:32 ►
There’s so much room for humanness.
00:45:34 ►
And humanness includes everything.
00:45:36 ►
Includes light and shadow and everything in between.
00:45:39 ►
So when something is coming up in a way that we don’t want to look at,
00:45:47 ►
don’t want to feel a certain feeling, don’t want to be this, don’t want to be that,
00:45:52 ►
just feel it.
00:45:54 ►
And then just get past it and see what’s on the other side of it.
00:45:59 ►
There’s so much more to it.
00:46:00 ►
But the minute we start either wanting to push it down or ignore it it becomes
00:46:08 ►
bigger and then that it takes over you know it takes over other aspects of our lives other aspects
00:46:14 ►
of our persona of our you know of ourself or the key here and what I found also in working with antigens is when people are really in terror or really freaked out, I hold them and I just travel with them.
00:46:32 ►
You know, I don’t want to, like, tone it down.
00:46:34 ►
I just want them to know that there’s somebody there with them that has been there and that that will pass.
00:46:43 ►
That is just one space, one place, one aspect of them, and that will pass. That is just one space, one place, one aspect of that,
00:46:48 ►
and that will pass and go into something else.
00:46:51 ►
You don’t, to not resist it.
00:46:55 ►
Right.
00:46:55 ►
Just flow with it.
00:46:56 ►
When you flow with life, everything passes,
00:47:00 ►
and then you get to choose.
00:47:02 ►
With your heart, with a clear mind, with your gut,
00:47:06 ►
you get to choose what is it that you want to engage in.
00:47:09 ►
That’s right.
00:47:09 ►
And it has to be conscious in order for you to even be able to make the choice in the first place.
00:47:14 ►
It has to be conscious.
00:47:16 ►
And theogens will help you see your shadow, won’t they?
00:47:19 ►
Oh, my goodness.
00:47:21 ►
Big time.
00:47:22 ►
Big time.
00:47:24 ►
Yeah. Yeah. So, my goodness. Yes, big time, big time. Yeah.
00:47:26 ►
Yeah.
00:47:27 ►
So, all right.
00:47:28 ►
Well, let’s get back into that, actually.
00:47:30 ►
So, Veronica, so when you incorporate theogens into your work,
00:47:37 ►
so you said you bring people into the jungle to work with another shaman,
00:47:42 ►
or how does that work?
00:47:45 ►
So, yes, when it comes to working with ayahuasca,
00:47:49 ►
I work with mosquitoes.
00:47:51 ►
And ayahuasca is a very big medicine.
00:47:55 ►
And I am learning to work with it.
00:48:00 ►
As I say, I’m training.
00:48:02 ►
I love to work with someone and, you know, hold a space and work with people, with energetics, holding them, you know, helping them through their process, preparing them for the journey and integrate.
00:48:18 ►
So I call preparation sessions.
00:48:22 ►
Then it comes the ceremony. And then it comes preparation sessions. Then it comes the ceremony.
00:48:25 ►
And then it comes integration sessions.
00:48:28 ►
So all the things that come up, you know, in a session with the medicine, then we integrate them in their lives.
00:48:36 ►
We start making meaning of it. in a way with these new insights that they got or symbols that came to them
00:48:45 ►
and how do they translate in their everyday lives because that’s the work.
00:48:52 ►
The work not so much let’s go in this fabulous journey
00:48:55 ►
and then I’ll have all these visions, insights, or things.
00:49:00 ►
Well, if you don’t really bring it back to your everyday life,
00:49:03 ►
it doesn’t really mean much other than having a great experience.
00:49:06 ►
And you’ll have a collection of great experiences, but not something that actually is going to bring transformation in your life if you don’t incorporate it in your everyday life.
00:49:16 ►
So bring that non-ordinary place into your ordinary life.
00:49:22 ►
That is the work, actually.
00:49:24 ►
Okay. And you mentioned symbols.
00:49:28 ►
And, of course, the deep psyche or the soul speaks.
00:49:31 ►
I mentioned what?
00:49:32 ►
You mentioned the word symbols in there
00:49:34 ►
with regard to the journey.
00:49:37 ►
You know that it’s very symbolic.
00:49:40 ►
And the deep psyche speaks symbolically.
00:49:43 ►
And so can you speak to that in terms of how, so this is how it speaks.
00:49:51 ►
It speaks symbolically.
00:49:52 ►
And we are really, as a people, symbolically illiterate.
00:49:56 ►
So how does one even begin to come into an understanding of the language of symbolism?
00:50:06 ►
understanding of the language of symbolism well when I when I work with people I mean they usually you know come up with I mean whether it’s in their
00:50:11 ►
visions or their feelings and come up with symbols I often ask them and they
00:50:17 ►
sometimes kind of know so what is what is this or what is what does it feel to
00:50:22 ►
you that this is speaking?
00:50:25 ►
You know, sometimes it’s a certain, it can be an entity, it could be a religious figure,
00:50:33 ►
it could be something in nature that’s coming strongly as a symbol in your journey.
00:50:42 ►
And what connection, like start finding the connections you have to those symbols
00:50:47 ►
if any sometimes people have the ayahuasca patterns and they’re from other cultures right
00:50:55 ►
even even for me you know i i didn’t grow up in the shishibo tribe but i do see the patterns
00:51:01 ►
so a lot of the times we want to know, okay, so what does this mean?
00:51:05 ►
So there are common visions, you know, like if, let’s say you and I go and drink ayahuasca,
00:51:11 ►
we’re probably going to have some common visions, right?
00:51:14 ►
That come from the medicine and from the jungle.
00:51:18 ►
But then you’re going to have your own personal symbology, you know,
00:51:23 ►
that comes from the containing myth you grew up withology, you know, that comes from the containing myth you grew up with,
00:51:26 ►
and, you know, the place you grew up with, the things you have read, your connections to symbol.
00:51:32 ►
What I do is I bring those into what are they speaking to you, you know, what part of that
00:51:45 ►
You know, what part of that speaks either to your ego, super ego?
00:51:49 ►
I mean, what is it that you’re speaking? For Jung, he, you know, there was this feminine figures because he was not very in touch with his anima, right?
00:52:00 ►
And that was the voice of the anima, like these different female figures, you know, that were coming.
00:52:08 ►
And and so was speaking to him because he was very disconnected from soul.
00:52:14 ►
And so there are different different pieces or different symbols that come to speak to the things that we are either not in touch with,
00:52:26 ►
and we need to pay attention to what they’re trying to tell us, you know, because they do speak to us.
00:52:32 ►
Well, and so those are the things that I’ve encountered.
00:52:39 ►
You know, people within time and actually, you know know bringing movement and bringing art
00:52:45 ►
sometimes they draw the symbols they see and after a few sessions they start
00:52:50 ►
bringing meaning to it and what it means to them through their dreams as well I
00:52:56 ►
don’t know what is what is the place that you’ve encounter symbols in your in
00:53:00 ►
your work or how have you oh my goodness well first of all dreams and i was
00:53:07 ►
going to ask you about that if you work with people with dreams and because i will often
00:53:12 ►
and if i’m working with someone um also who’s had a mushroom experience or an ayahuasca experience
00:53:20 ►
and they want to come in and discuss and integrate and i will work with it as if i’m
00:53:25 ►
working with a dream and so uh i explain that the dreams are the deep psyche speaking to you or
00:53:33 ►
really psyche being the greek word for souls the soul it’s the language of the soul which is uh
00:53:40 ►
completely symbolic and um so and then i explain that when you’re working with dreams, you have to
00:53:48 ►
shift states of consciousness, you can’t work with a dream in this conscious mind, because it’s not
00:53:54 ►
this language, right, you have to shift states, and then go into a far more intuitive, closer to
00:54:01 ►
the state of the dream, the dreamer, and then, you know, play with, you know, what is it
00:54:06 ►
trying to tell you. And then that the events going on in their lives are very important, because
00:54:14 ►
that plays a role in terms of often what these dreams are saying, or often what the journey
00:54:20 ►
is saying to them. And, and then it’s very important, I think,
00:54:26 ►
to know your mythology
00:54:29 ►
because a lot of that,
00:54:31 ►
as Jung spoke of archetypes,
00:54:34 ►
that there are common themes for us as human beings.
00:54:38 ►
Right.
00:54:39 ►
That has to do with our containing myth.
00:54:41 ►
And that’s why it’s so important also to be in nature
00:54:44 ►
and to use art as a way also to, you know, bring meaning to those symbols, you know.
00:54:54 ►
Right.
00:54:54 ►
Yeah.
00:54:55 ►
Yeah.
00:54:56 ►
Right.
00:54:56 ►
Because a picture, what is that expression?
00:54:59 ►
A picture speaks a thousand words.
00:55:01 ►
A thousand words.
00:55:02 ►
Absolutely.
00:55:03 ►
Yes.
00:55:03 ►
And nature and art are amazing integrators
00:55:06 ►
of everything, healers. I mean, they are. Yes, and I think also dance. Dance, absolutely. One
00:55:14 ►
form of art, yes. Yeah, because it’s something, you know, we’re just not encouraged to move our
00:55:20 ►
bodies like that anymore. And yet, language is only one way of expressing. And I
00:55:27 ►
think, you know, especially when you’re trying to understand, you know, a journey on ayahuasca,
00:55:34 ►
or psilocybin, or San Pedro, well, and dreams, I think they are so very similar. Like you say,
00:55:41 ►
you can express it through art, and so much more comes out because you’re using a different part of the brain.
00:55:47 ►
And you can dance it as well,
00:55:50 ►
and that can activate something,
00:55:52 ►
a very different place of understanding within the psyche
00:55:55 ►
that can actually give you another key into what was really being presented to you
00:56:02 ►
or what was being said.
00:56:03 ►
I’m a dancer, and that’s what a lot of the
00:56:08 ►
times integrates because there are things that don’t make sense also in our journeys
00:56:11 ►
and it’s great to move it through our bodies and have an expression of all that energy you know
00:56:18 ►
i’m supposed to try to you know make meaning of it i mean make we can make meaning of many things
00:56:23 ►
but sometimes it’s just a matter of moving it.
00:56:26 ►
Sometimes it’s just a matter of releasing certain energies.
00:56:31 ►
So that’s when I use, you know, like tobacco and other things
00:56:35 ►
to release energy and move energy.
00:56:38 ►
Yeah, you know, to me that is just so, it makes perfect sense.
00:56:42 ►
It’s so human because we have become so mechanistic.
00:56:47 ►
Our entire culture is mechanistic.
00:56:48 ►
School is mechanistic.
00:56:50 ►
Hospitals are mechanistic.
00:56:52 ►
And that’s actually the antithesis of what it is to function as a human being.
00:56:57 ►
That’s actually not how we function at all.
00:57:00 ►
And so, yeah, so what you’re speaking of,
00:57:02 ►
this is really about freeing up the psyche and hopefully deprogramming it to a certain extent.
00:57:10 ►
Get out of all of that mechanistic institutional training that we all have.
00:57:17 ►
Yes, deconditioning.
00:57:19 ►
That’s what we’re here to do.
00:57:21 ►
Deconditioning and remember.
00:57:24 ►
Remember the ways that we used to connect.
00:57:27 ►
Remember the ways that we used to relate
00:57:28 ►
and we used to create.
00:57:31 ►
You know, I don’t think there’s a whole lot to learn.
00:57:35 ►
There’s a whole lot to unlearn
00:57:36 ►
to be able to be in touch with that basic instinct
00:57:40 ►
that’s connected to your heart, to your spirit
00:57:42 ►
in order to create something different you
00:57:46 ►
know yeah yeah gosh let’s see all right so well i want to talk about dreams just a little bit more
00:57:52 ►
so do you go you do you go into that you must go into that with your clients their dreams
00:57:57 ►
exploring we explore we explore it we explore dreams um yes we do. I usually, so dreams is one thing I work with, but it’s not the main thing I work with.
00:58:12 ►
Usually what we do is I create a space for them to be able to act or move or express a lot of their emotions,
00:58:28 ►
a lot of their processes, whether they understand it
00:58:32 ►
or they have meaning to them or not.
00:58:34 ►
It’s almost like they need to act, you know, their process.
00:58:38 ►
Right.
00:58:39 ►
So that’s what usually, that’s what mostly I work with.
00:58:42 ►
Right. that’s what mostly I work with and it’s dreams
00:58:46 ►
I work with dreams
00:58:48 ►
although that’s not
00:58:49 ►
what I
00:58:50 ►
let’s say that is not
00:58:54 ►
the main thing I
00:58:55 ►
use to be able to do my work
00:58:58 ►
and do the integration work
00:59:00 ►
with them
00:59:00 ►
do you find though that
00:59:04 ►
when people have uh experience with the
00:59:07 ►
their entheogens you know that their dreams will uh uh be activated absolutely oh no no no no as i
00:59:17 ►
say i do i do in journal and then we bring the dreams and and and we do and the dreams and, and, and we do, and the dreams get so vivid. A lot of their emotional,
00:59:26 ►
um, world comes in their dreams. So absolutely we do, we do work with it. Um, as I say,
00:59:34 ►
it’s not the only thing I use. Like I don’t only work with the dreams. Of course. Of course.
00:59:40 ►
Got it. Okay. I remember one dream that was really, you know, that came to me in this last time I was in the jungle.
00:59:53 ►
It was like I was walking over a lot of what I thought was a lot of dead bodies.
01:00:00 ►
But then once in a while you would see somebody like really looking at you.
01:00:08 ►
And it’s almost like trying to extend their hands, you know.
01:00:27 ►
That was a disturbing, was very disturbing because it was a very large area with a lot of bodies there, almost dead and some of them dead, but it was, you know, when I came to work with it,
01:00:31 ►
and it was always like a passage between, you know, like the underworld,
01:00:35 ►
and you’re in the underworld, and some people are really wanting to, you know,
01:00:39 ►
connect and say, hey, what happened here, you know, or at least, hey, you see me,
01:00:49 ►
you know, and dreams a lot of the times, the images that come that come just give like very deep explanations of what’s going on.
01:00:52 ►
Oh, yes, absolutely.
01:00:54 ►
And you can’t read them literally.
01:00:56 ►
No, you can’t.
01:00:57 ►
No, you can’t. No.
01:01:33 ►
You’re part of what I think is a wave of people in the psychotherapeutic field who I think are paving a new way for people to heal, for people to come back into balance in a way that honors their psyche, that does not ply them with the latest pharmaceuticals, but really assists them, ultimately empowers them to come back into, to establish an inner harmony and and i think this is this is a wave that is growing
01:01:48 ►
because it has to yes it’s almost like we have no time you know it’s like that’s that’s that’s why i
01:01:58 ►
often feel like you know what this is a time and it’s a time to to act and it’s a time to feel and transform and it’s it’s
01:02:06 ►
it’s like there’s no time to waste anymore you know and things that for one have not brought us
01:02:12 ►
here to where we are thank you and then we can move on to you know those places of of healing of
01:02:20 ►
of being more in touch with ourselves you you know? Because the more you’re connected to yourself,
01:02:26 ►
the more you’re going to be out in the world,
01:02:28 ►
in a much better space, in a connecting space.
01:02:32 ►
So that is, I think that is what we’re trying to, all of us, you know,
01:02:39 ►
you and I trying to bring to the world,
01:02:41 ►
be more in touch with ourselves and in connection with others.
01:02:46 ►
Yeah. And you are really bringing in the medicine woman into the modern picture. I mean,
01:02:54 ►
I consider women like yourself to be the faces of modern medicine woman, that this is what it is.
01:03:01 ►
You know, we don’t have our tribes anymore. I don’t have my Celtic tribes.
01:03:06 ►
You don’t have your tribes necessarily.
01:03:09 ►
And here we are in this 21st century, bizarre modern world,
01:03:13 ►
and yet we are human beings.
01:03:16 ►
And some of us have this calling,
01:03:20 ►
and especially the weaving of the plants and or the fungi
01:03:27 ►
is a very ancient profession, if you will.
01:03:34 ►
Yeah, yeah.
01:03:36 ►
And so, yeah.
01:03:37 ►
Yeah, go ahead.
01:03:39 ►
I was just going to say simply that what you’re offering is very special,
01:03:43 ►
very special.
01:03:44 ►
Thank you. Thank you too you too
01:03:47 ►
and it’s like you know what for some of us that’s that that that’s our that’s our way you know plant
01:03:55 ►
medicines um you know can be can be seen as substances to help us grow but also like i
01:04:03 ►
consider them emissaries their purpose is to
01:04:06 ►
catalyze consciousness in humans you know so it’s like that that to me is when i when i work with
01:04:14 ►
the plants it’s like okay they’re helping me be more human you know they have an intelligence of
01:04:19 ►
their own that is much bigger than mine so i I really respect them, bow to them,
01:04:26 ►
thank them every day for helping me see,
01:04:30 ►
for helping me feel, for helping me be.
01:04:32 ►
Yes, yes.
01:04:33 ►
Thank you for saying that.
01:04:35 ►
And they love us deeply, deeply, deeply.
01:04:39 ►
I mean, I have, I don’t need a mushroom to tell me this,
01:04:44 ►
but on the mushroom as well,
01:04:46 ►
in conversation with some of those spirit teachers, they have made it very clear,
01:04:53 ►
human beings are not a scourge, we are not a cancer, we are dearly loved,
01:04:58 ►
and we are an integral part of this planet.
01:05:02 ►
And nature responds to where we are as a collective, and you know, where we are as a collective,
01:05:07 ►
and we can see where we are as a collective is a mess right now. And nature is a mess. And obviously,
01:05:13 ►
if, if, you know, we had very different system of leadership, because we don’t have leaders right now we have psychopaths right
01:05:25 ►
um but if we had you know noble sages as leaders and people you know followed uh suit uh or or you
01:05:38 ►
know just many many many healthy balanced individuals nature would reflect that back
01:05:42 ►
obviously because we would be approaching people would be approaching nature very differently. So yeah, I feel a very symbiotic
01:05:53 ►
relationship with the entheogenic plants and fungi. And I think it is no accident
01:06:01 ►
that many, many people are being called to that right now
01:06:05 ►
because that’s what’s needed for many people, right?
01:06:08 ►
Is to call them back to nature and their own human nature.
01:06:13 ►
Yes, absolutely.
01:06:14 ►
That’s what it is.
01:06:15 ►
It connects us back to our own human nature.
01:06:17 ►
You know, that we’re part of it all.
01:06:19 ►
We’re not separated.
01:06:20 ►
We’re not dominating nature.
01:06:22 ►
We are part of nature.
01:06:24 ►
Right.
01:06:24 ►
An integral part. Integr part part of it yeah
01:06:28 ►
yeah hey quick question so uh do you work with the spirits of these plants what’s your what are
01:06:35 ►
your thoughts in terms of the the spirit worlds with the with the spirit of The ayahuasca and other plants as well.
01:06:46 ►
Absolutely.
01:06:47 ►
I mean, it’s like when I’m in the jungle,
01:06:51 ►
I mean, that is such an amazing place for all the spirits,
01:06:54 ►
not only the medicines, but nature itself, you know.
01:06:59 ►
The trees, each plant, each medicine, you know,
01:07:04 ►
you take on the
01:07:05 ►
spirit. I’ve dieted on many
01:07:07 ►
plants.
01:07:09 ►
And you take on the
01:07:11 ►
spirit of ayahuasca, you take on
01:07:13 ►
the spirit of San Pedro,
01:07:16 ►
you commune with the Apus,
01:07:18 ►
the mountains in the Andes.
01:07:20 ►
I
01:07:21 ►
take people also to drink San Pedro
01:07:24 ►
in Cusco, in the Andes, and I take them to the Temple of the Moon, where it’s a beautiful temple where the moon priestesses, you know, there were women that were raised to be sacrificed to the goddess of the moon.
01:07:48 ►
raised to be sacrificed to the goddess of the moon and but it was not this sacrifice i never understood when i was you know reading history and and reading things like okay why you know
01:07:54 ►
because a lot of people consider those civilizations like really not only primitive but um in human you
01:08:01 ►
know they’re having human sacrifices well you, you know what, I remember years
01:08:06 ►
ago, I drank San Pedro and I went for
01:08:08 ►
the first time to the Temple of the Moon
01:08:10 ►
high on San Pedro, lying down
01:08:12 ►
in that slate
01:08:14 ►
looking up, because they
01:08:16 ►
have a hole there, like this is
01:08:18 ►
so this is like a cave
01:08:20 ►
and you have a hole that looks up
01:08:22 ►
into the moon, and I
01:08:24 ►
was looking up there and i
01:08:25 ►
was lying down and this i don’t know images of this life where i was a priestess happy to be
01:08:32 ►
alive my purpose in life was to be raised to finally be sacrificed to this beautiful deity
01:08:42 ►
that is the moon and it’s like it gave me all that knowledge in my body of, you know,
01:08:49 ►
how to be a woman and what was my place in the community.
01:08:53 ►
And it was just beautiful.
01:08:56 ►
So I take people there so that they can have a connection to the moon,
01:09:02 ►
to the spirit of the moon in their bodies,
01:09:08 ►
you know, in their experience and what it is, you know, like what it is to have mama moon hold you.
01:09:13 ►
And just with so much light and love,
01:09:19 ►
that’s, that’s connection to spirits.
01:09:24 ►
Or when you’re walking
01:09:26 ►
you know and you
01:09:28 ►
look at the mountains
01:09:30 ►
they talk to you
01:09:32 ►
you see how they guard all that
01:09:34 ►
place so that you can be there
01:09:36 ►
you can be safe, you can be alive
01:09:38 ►
and they transmit
01:09:40 ►
so many
01:09:41 ►
subtle ways
01:09:44 ►
of being just by
01:09:46 ►
being there, you know, silent and quiet
01:09:48 ►
and, you know, consistently
01:09:49 ►
there.
01:09:54 ►
It’s a beautiful
01:09:56 ►
way to commune with the spirit of the
01:09:58 ►
land, the spirit of the place
01:09:59 ►
and
01:10:01 ►
the spirits that are in
01:10:04 ►
nature, you know. It’s beautiful to look at the moon. One thing is to feel the moon, you know. and the spirits that are in nature.
01:10:07 ►
It’s beautiful to look at the moon.
01:10:12 ►
One thing is to feel the moon, to be in touch with that spirit of it.
01:10:16 ►
Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, I mean, if more people had that kind of experience,
01:10:21 ►
I think it would change them in a very beautiful way. No question. Well, Veronica,
01:10:29 ►
this has been really fascinating to sit here and hear you have so much great information and a lot
01:10:37 ►
of wisdom. Is there a way that people can get in touch with you? Do you have a website?
01:10:42 ►
that people can get in touch with you?
01:10:43 ►
Do you have a website?
01:10:48 ►
Yes, I would like to be contacted by email.
01:10:49 ►
Okay.
01:10:56 ►
It’s vhernandez, A-R-R-U-E, at gmail.com.
01:10:58 ►
Okay.
01:10:59 ►
All right. And do you then take groups?
01:11:03 ►
Can people contact you?
01:11:05 ►
Absolutely.
01:11:06 ►
And I’m actually forming my groups right now.
01:11:08 ►
This is the time of the year where I start, you know, organizing the groups to go to Peru.
01:11:16 ►
And also, you know, if they can contact me for preparation work.
01:11:23 ►
You know, I also work with clients that have done other medicines
01:11:25 ►
that they really want to integrate in their lives.
01:11:29 ►
And, you know, before we start doing ceremonies or medicines.
01:11:35 ►
And a lot of them include entheogens,
01:11:38 ►
and other ceremonies include other kinds of herbs
01:11:40 ►
that are not necessarily entheogenic.
01:11:44 ►
So, yeah, those are the kinds of things that I do. herbs that are not necessarily entheogenic so yeah
01:11:46 ►
those are the kinds of things that I
01:11:47 ►
that I do and
01:11:49 ►
I wouldn’t say regular psychotherapy because I
01:11:52 ►
don’t do regular psychotherapy although
01:11:54 ►
I use
01:11:54 ►
I use I’m a Jungian
01:11:57 ►
use Jung and
01:12:00 ►
but it’s also
01:12:01 ►
very linked into a process
01:12:03 ►
that is very spiritual.
01:12:06 ►
So it’s not just psychological, although by its very nature,
01:12:09 ►
Jungian analysis is a spiritual analysis to me and to you.
01:12:14 ►
Yes, it is.
01:12:16 ►
And I’m creating my website.
01:12:19 ►
You know, I had a website, so I’m in the process of transferring.
01:12:23 ►
It will be, you know, more or less within the month.
01:12:26 ►
I’ll have my new website coming.
01:12:30 ►
What will the name be of the website?
01:12:37 ►
It’s Kusi Healing Arts.
01:12:38 ►
K-U-S-I?
01:12:41 ►
Healing Arts?
01:12:43 ►
That’s going to be my website.
01:12:47 ►
Okay, kusichealingarts.com dot com yeah excellent okay great i just want people to be able to uh reach you veronica and
01:12:55 ►
i’m very excited to see the uh website as well so that will of course have the upcoming trips so
01:13:01 ►
we can check back in a month or so and and see all of that absolutely
01:13:06 ►
fantastic fantastic well gosh thank you so much it’s been such a pleasure to talk to you and it’s
01:13:14 ►
just like i feel like this sisterhood and you know medicine women and just our connection to you and
01:13:20 ►
just you know lovely connection to you yeah yeah, yeah. Well, I hope to someday have the
01:13:26 ►
pleasure of meeting you in person. And so have a wonderful rest of the day, Veronica, and I’ll
01:13:31 ►
look forward to catching you soon. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks. Bye-bye.
01:13:38 ►
You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon, where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.
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And that’s the ultimate challenge, isn’t it?
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Integrating our psychedelic experiences into our everyday lives.
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While it may seem unnecessary to even mention this,
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the information in the conversation that we just listened to was,
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well, it was next to impossible to learn about just 30 years ago.
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However, during the past three decades, some big changes have been taking place right before our eyes.
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For one thing, the World Wide Web and web-enabled phones that are equipped with cameras and microphones have changed everything in regards to the ways in which information can now be passed from one person to another
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without corporate intermediaries managing what we are allowed to learn.
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Another big thing that I see taking place, however, is a generational shift that is every bit as profound as the one that took place during what is loosely called the 60s.
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In fact, if you were paying close attention to Veronica’s story just now, you will have picked up on two parts of that shift.
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While many indigenous people have moved into towns and cities for one reason or another,
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the old ways are beginning to seep back into the mainstream culture of the West.
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As an Ayahuasquero told me some time ago, the plants are telling shamans that the time has come for them to take their place in Western culture.
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Also, we learned here that Veronica’s father, who was no longer living in the jungle,
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took her on her first shamanic journey when she was only 14 years old.
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In essence, this seems to me to be a double-edged generational shift that’s taking place.
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And the younger generation is now in the process of helping
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plants become more tightly integrated in the healing work that so many of us need to take
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advantage of. And so I thank Veronica, Shauna, and all of the other healers out there for
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taking on what Terrence McKenna sometimes called the great work. Now speaking of helping others,
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I recently put out a call for help on our forums.
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As you could tell from the recording that we just listened to,
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we still have to come up with a better way to record interviews that take place over the Internet.
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Because, well, there’s still some issues, such as hearing a guest’s speech lag a little bit every once in a while.
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I assume that comes from one of their computers writing to disk and struggling to keep up, or maybe an email client on one of the computers is still open.
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Actually, there can be a lot of reasons for these little technical issues to occur, and
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I know Shauna and I have both worked on trying to fix them as best we can.
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But here’s the request that I posted. What all of us podcasters can use is a clear and simple set of instructions
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for recording a Skype conversation, not only suggesting what software to use, but also
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providing step-by-step instructions on how to set all the settings on both Skype and any other
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software involved. And already two salonners, Jim and Free, have posted some suggestions.
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Hopefully a few more of our fellow salonners will also join in that discussion.
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So if you think you can help us on this, please go to the topic titled Skype Podcast Recording
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in the open discussion forum and add your comments there.
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As you know, if you aren’t already signed up for the forums, you can do so for free by registering as a student member.
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And being a student of psychedelic thinking is the only requirement.
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You don’t have to be in a formal school in case that’s what you’re thinking.
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After all, we’re all students here in this life, the way I see it.
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Another topic that I started recently is called American Elections 2016.
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And since I don’t want to turn the Salon’s podcast into a political program,
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I thought that it would still be interesting to explore our various thoughts about the political situation,
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or I guess you’d call it a political circus, now taking place in the United States.
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To set the stage for these discussions, I posted an MP3 file that I think you’ll enjoy
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listening to as a way to kind of get your ideas flowing. The file is a short audio collage that
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begins with a soundbite from the movie Vendetta, followed by soundbites from the movies The Newsroom
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and Network, and also there’s a bit of comedy from Bill Maher, as well as from my favorite comedian, George Carlin.
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Now, my thought is that these soundbites may trigger a few ideas about the state of the world that maybe you’d like to share with us.
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And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from Cyberdelic Space.
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Be well, my friends. Thank you.