541 - The Divine Feminine

Program Notes

Date this lecture was recorded: May 2017

Today we feature the second of two interviews with Rachel Harris, author of Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety. In an earlier episode in the Salon2 series, we heard Rachel in her very professional mode, every bit the Ph.D. that she is. In this episode of the salon we get to experience another side of Rachel, the everyday human side. Not that we don’t get the benefit of her extensive background, research, and practical experience, but in this enjoyable conversation between her and our own Shonagh Home that is more like an everyday conversation between two long time friends. Even if you think that you know all about Rachel’s new book, you won’t want to miss this podcast.

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Shonagh Home

Shonagh Home is a shamanic therapist, teacher, writer and poet. Her specialized private sessions and retreats are probing and revelatory, assisting clients to break chronic, self-defeating patterns, and move into empowered personal sovereignty. Shonagh is an international public speaker on the subject of visionary shamanic-spirit medicine, a voice for stewardship of the honeybees, and a teacher on the subject of Traditional Foods. She is author of the books, ‘Ix Chel Wisdom: 7 Teachings from the Mayan Sacred Feminine,’ ‘Love and Spirit Medicine,’ ‘Poetic Whispers from the Green Realms,’ and ‘Honeybee Wisdom: A Modern Melissa Speaks.’

Website: www.shonaghhome.com

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’m very pleased to thank Pavel K. for his recent donation in support of the Salon.

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And I’d like to welcome Sal K. as my 10th patron for both the new book that I’m working on,

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as well as for here in the Salon.

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So thanks a million to both of you.

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Well, we’re going to do something new here today.

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A while back, the publicist for Rachel Harris’ new book about ayahuasca

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got in touch with me about doing an interview with Rachel for Here in the Salon.

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And since I’m not the best interviewer, I contacted Shauna Holm

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and asked her if she would be interested in doing the interview with Rachel.

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Long story short, Shauna was almost finished reading Rachel’s book in preparation

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for the interview when I received the recording of Lex Pelger’s interview with Rachel, the one

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that I posted as episode 7 of the Salon 2 series. Little did I know that the Symposia team was

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already working on this when I asked Shauna to interview Rachel as well. Well, when I told Shauna

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what had happened, she was kind of disappointed

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because after reading Rachel’s book, she was really excited about having an opportunity for

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the two of them to talk. So I suggested that Shauna listen to Lex’s interview, and then if

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she thought that there were still some things that she would like to cover in a follow-up interview,

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that I’d be happy to podcast it. And that’s what we’re about to listen to right

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now. However, Shauna has asked that I not call this an interview because it was really more of

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a conversation between two people who, well, they seem to be on track to becoming new best friends.

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And having been involved in many conversations about ayahuasca and other psychedelic medicines

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myself, I’m pleased to pass this along to you in the event that

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maybe you are one of our many fellow salonners

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that are out there on the edge of the tribe

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with no one nearby to talk with about these interesting substances.

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So, if that is a description of your own situation,

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well then just sit back and pretend that you are relaxing in a living room

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with these two interesting women and listen in on their conversation.

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And just to give you a better feeling of sitting in on their conversation,

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I’m going to begin the recording right now, just when their Skype connection was first made.

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Hi!

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Hi!

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How are you, Rachel?

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I would have dried my hair had I known we were going to look at each

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other. Oh, we don’t have to. No, it’s okay. I’ll get over it. Well, mine’s still wet from my shower,

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so. That’s it. Oh, there you are. Good, good, good. Yeah, and you can clearly hear me, so we’re good,

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huh? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that was loud. I just turned it down. Oh, okay. Okay, perfect. No,

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that’s okay. You don’t have to whisper. Okay. All right. Great, great. Yeah, that was loud. I just turned it down. Oh, okay. Okay, perfect. No, no, that’s okay.

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You don’t have to whisper.

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Okay, all right.

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Great, great.

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Yeah, I have this all kind of set up so we’re recording as we speak.

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I should just do a double check here and just make sure.

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I did find you do the tour to Ireland.

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You’re the right person.

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I’m the right person.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Great.

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You got it and I love

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that we have

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that connection

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you know that is quite

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magical and I must tell you Rachel

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that I read your book

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and I just thought oh my goodness

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I just want to sit by the

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forest with this lovely woman

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wouldn’t that be wonderful I know I want to go on the

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trip with you. Yeah. Oh my goodness. It’s going to be really magical. But look, so you have icy

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trees in the background. Are you in Maine? Yeah, I’m in Maine. Yeah. It’s a rainy day. You know,

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this is the normal spring. It’s 40 degrees and raining. Oh, well, okay. So I’m in Redmond, which is a

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suburb of Seattle. And it’s also, you know, rainy. And I don’t know if you can’t see,

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but I’m also by the trees. Oh, how wonderful. I live on in a little fairy cottage on a horse farm,

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and I’m nestled in trees. So in a way, we sort of are both of us magical

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ladies sitting by the trees. This is great. I will quickly read your bio from the book and then we’re

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just going to get right down to it and have a magical conversation. So yes, this is this is a podcast that goes out audio.

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It does go out audio. Don’t worry, don’t worry, it won’t. Neither of us shall be seen my dear.

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I wouldn’t do that to either of us. And certainly if I did, I would have given you

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fair warning for Lord’s sake. So, so, and so and this will be on psychedelic salon and it will be your second

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interview on psychedelic salon. And that’s because I was almost, I was just insistent,

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like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I want my crack at talking to this magical lady,

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especially after I read your book. So, uh, so, and of course, so you wrote, Ayahuasca, New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety. Rachel Harris, PhD, has been in private practice for 35 years. She received a National Institutes of Health New Investigators Award, has published more than 40 scientific studies and peer-reviewed journals, and has worked as a psychological consultant to fortune 500

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companies and the united nations she lives on an island off the coast of maine so i have to tell

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you that you know i had this whole sort of thing outlined what i wanted to cover because i took

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copious notes your book is now one of my treasure gems in my library. I’m one of those people, I dog ear the pages. I do,

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I confess, and I underline stuff. And I just want to start at the end because you spoke to my heart,

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and this was under the title of Underforest Bathing. And you wrote, I think Grandmother

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Ayahuasca traveled from the Amazon rainforest to the Western world to heal us so we can heal the earth.

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Westerners have been disconnected from our wild roots for so many centuries that we need personal healing to be able to experience, quote, wilderness rapture and initiation into the world of natural beauty.

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By falling in love with this enchanted world, we’ll realize that we are the caretakers

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of the earth, and we need to heal the environmental crisis we’ve created. And so I just thought,

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she is speaking my language, and this woman loves beauty, and loves nature, and Mama Aya

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speaking to you. Yeah. Yes, that’s absolutely true. To me, and this is one of the things that typically changes in people,

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is they become more sensitized to nature and more responsive to nature

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and more committed to caring for nature.

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And so people often report moving to an environment just like you’re in, where you’re, as you said, nestled in the trees and more connected.

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As a matter of fact, there was one week where three or five people talked to me about their need to be in the midst of the trees.

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It was that specific.

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So this is really something that’s kind of,

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it sensitizes many of us.

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Yeah, I think of it as Mother Nature

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is calling her children back.

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Oh, that’s lovely.

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Yeah, yeah, saying, dear ones,

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you have all but forgotten.

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And you used to talk about finding our roots.

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And then, of course, what do trees have but these?

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Oh, right, right.

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And that quote from Connie Grouts about when she asked, you know,

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she was basically asking, who am I working with?

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Who is this spirit?

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And the answer is.

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The unbridled.

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Yes.

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Forces of nature.

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We’re going to complete each other’s sentences for an hour.

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Yeah, I mean this sort of feeling of being awestruck in relationship to these cosmic forces of nature.

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I mean, we have to, this is so important for us.

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Yeah.

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And for our planet.

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You know, I think what is happening, I think we’re calling the magic back.

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Oh, that’s lovely. But don’t you think I mean, we have been rendered almost sterile in this

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Western mindset, which I think really is I’ve given quite a lot of thought to this. I think

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it’s like a commercial construct. So all of a sudden, there’s a price on everything. Everything’s up for sale. Nature,

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us, just everything. And so with that, we lost a very, what was a very intrinsic connection

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to nature, to the cosmos, to the journey that the planets make.

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We would farm and plant certain things

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according to where the moon was and the constellations.

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And we were in touch with the unseen.

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And so material sciences said,

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uh-uh, no, no, no, we’re going to just take this very literally.

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We’re going to break it down to the sum of its parts.

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to just take this very literally. We’re going to break it down to the sum of its parts.

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And I think we’ve just sort of gotten lost in all of that. And yet, you know,

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the physicists have come back to the unseen worlds.

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So, I don’t know. You know, sometimes

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I’m totally pessimistic and sometimes I’m totally optimistic.

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And so, I think perhaps

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the unseen worlds are calling us in more ways than one. Yes, and certainly through these plants

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and fungi. And so, you know, I really I would love for you to talk about your relationship with

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Mama Ayahuasca. And you know, Rachel, I think what you’re doing is such important work

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because you are really infusing the whole psychiatric model, psychotherapeutic model with

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this, a level of beauty of spirit connection that again, is really intrinsic in all of us, and you are giving it validation in a really profound way.

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Well, you know, I’ve had such conflict about what is this voice.

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I mean, from almost the very beginning, from just a few ceremonies,

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I literally heard a voice that I’ve heard a few times now,

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but I’d never heard before.

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I never hear it in any other context.

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It’s a very specific voice.

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And I’ve had such conflict about what is it.

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I mean, I’m a Westerner.

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You know, I’m trained in research.

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And, you know, there’s not much room in my cosmos for hearing a voice that’s a spirit entity.

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And so it’s been a real crisis for me to really change my worldview.

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And yet, even though I still say I’m in that crisis, I sort of hang out in the liminal, in the portal between one world and the other.

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And I’m not comfortable in either world right now.

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But I go back and forth.

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But when I look back on what have I been doing for the last 10 years,

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well, I have really dedicated my life to the research study,

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to the book, to this whole process.

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So when I look at my actual behavior, I don’t seem to have any conflict.

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So philosophically I have a conflict, not in terms of where I’ve dedicated my energy.

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Yeah, yeah, I know you are very much a modern medicine woman.

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And that’s what I gravitate to, is the medicine women.

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You are.

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I’m calling it.

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Yes, we are.

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Who me?

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And, you know, there’s like, I feel like, oh, my God, I hope this is like the last chapter of this.

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I’m exhausted.

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Again, I’m dedicating myself to supporting the book.

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And sometimes when people read me a couple of sentences like you did, I think, oh, that’s really good.

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Who wrote that?

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And I sort of have this odd disidentification with some of the writing.

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I’m not saying it was channeled.

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I know I chained myself to the computer.

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I sat there for hours.

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I know I wrote it.

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But there is this sense of I’m supporting the book as if it’s not my book.

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It’s an unusual experience.

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And again, I’m totally committed to it.

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Yes, I hear you.

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I hear you. hear you and so

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I think of that as the muse

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and Mama Aya

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I think has become

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quite a muse

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and amused

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yes so

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people ask me well what’s next

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and I have absolutely no clue

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and I’m sort of hoping this is the last part of this mission.

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And I don’t know.

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But again, I am doing what’s called for.

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And it’s really, it’s become like a job that I didn’t realize I was signing up for.

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But I’m as committed as ever.

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Yeah. And I feel so wholeheartedly that, you know, like I had one client who had had mystical experience since she was a child.

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And I was seeing her through a really difficult divorce.

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And even with that kind of working with her closely and being on her side through such a difficult time, it was a year and a half before she mentioned having a spiritual experience as a child.

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A year and a half before she trusted me with that information. And it’s because our culture is so unsupportive of the normal experience of having mystical experiences.

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We don’t know how to categorize them.

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We don’t know how to just respect them and honor them.

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So it took her that long.

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I mean, not everybody is that careful, but I understood it.

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She was afraid I would think she was crazy.

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Yeah, yeah.

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You discuss that in the book, and I really responded to that. And this is why I’m

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saying, Rachel, this is so important what you’re doing, because the psychotherapeutic model needs

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to receive this and really honor it and not overly, not intellectualize it either. I mean,

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you spoke in the book about the importance of being able to go see a therapist when you’ve had a profound and numerous experience

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and then run the risk of them just kind of analyzing intellectualizing it rather than

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seeing it for the experience that it is and and and it’s so dismissive. And you miss, you wrote about, you miss an opportunity

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to really cross a threshold into a broader awareness.

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Right, right.

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And therapists or well-meaning friends can take something away

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from an experience.

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So these experiences are like little plants that are growing.

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They have to be protected and watered and put in the sunshine.

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And we don’t want a friend or a therapist saying this is just unfinished business

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when it’s not.

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And yet, like I give the example in the book of this young woman

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where I was doing what was ostensibly a research interview, and she was talking about her encounter with the divine feminine.

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And I listened to her for quite a while, and the divine feminine as an archetype was really inspiring her, and that was very real.

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very real. And yet, I just could not contain myself. And I said to her, and this is an example of psychologizing spiritual material, and yet it was needed. So I said to her, and how’s your

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relationship with your mother? And she burst into tears. So, you know, when we’re in our 20s,

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she was maybe 27. The decade of the 20s is a prime time to work on our family of origin issues.

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We’re adults, and yet, you know, we still have, you know, we are just coming into our full adulthood.

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It’s a good time to work on childhood and family of origin.

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And yet, her ceremony experience was on both levels. And I don’t know how to talk about that therapeutically yet for other therapists to know how to work on both levels without downgrading the archetype.

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And yet she needed to.

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She was on her way home for Thanksgiving when she stopped at my place.

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She stopped at my place. And she needed to talk to her mother and begin that process of individuation,

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becoming her own person and being able to talk to her mother as an adult.

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But the divine feminine was also there as well

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and helping strengthen her in her individuation from her mother.

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So both are present.

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We have to respect both.

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So it’s delicate to work at both levels at the same time.

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Yes, and that is the mark, I think, of a really good therapist,

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who is working using both your professional faculties and your intuitive functions to

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intuit there is far deeper here.

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This is the time, you know, to bring that forth.

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I mean, that is, you know, your own wisdom and acuity to see that.

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And I had a Jungian friend point something out to me because I have gone very deeply

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into the studies of the divine feminine.

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And I had a troubled relationship with my mother growing up. And she’s a nice lady. I was just,

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you know, a rebel and all of that. And, and there was a disconnect. And she said to me, you know,

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Shauna, you would not have gone as deeply into these studies, if you had had this perfect

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deeply into these studies if you had had this perfect relationship with your mother.

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Oh, beautifully put.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So that enlarges the whole therapeutic space because it makes the issues with your mother part of your going so deeply into the archetype.

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And that’s a beautiful way to do it.

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Yes.

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And then also I could look back and see how that challenge with my mother served.

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It served because it sent me into a level of exploration, right,

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that I just would not have gone into.

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Right.

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So, yeah.

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Gosh.

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Well, that’s, you know, that’s what you’re saying about the mark of a good therapist So, yeah. Gosh. archetype of the divine feminine. And so you get a sense of, oh, yes, I’m all of that. I’m in the

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midst of all of that. Yes. And that broadening of the field is so important. Yes, because it is

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both, right? I mean, there’s so many layers. It’s layer upon layer upon layer upon layer. And,

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you know, when you were talking earlier about your being in this kind of crisis. I worked with a wonderful teacher named Brewjoy, MD.

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Oh, yeah.

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And he really changed my life. He was the master teacher that I found my way to. But

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one thing he said was crisis awakens. And then another dear friend of mine said, Well,

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Shauna, do you see the Isis in crisis?

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And of course, by Isis, that beautiful archetype of the divine mother who is waking us.

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And so then back to Mama Aya, we have this beautiful feminine grandmother, mother archetype.

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I hate to even call her an archetype because that feels so limiting, but she is.

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Yeah, it almost feels too conceptual. Because when I hear a voice, it is so

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just sort of practical and down to earth. So I don’t even feel like it’s an archetype for me

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it’s just you know i feel like i’m i’m serving i’m a good soldier i’m being called to action

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and i just yes ma’am you know okay and so it feels uh far more practical it’s you know i give

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that example of that young man who who um was really disappointed

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he didn’t have a mystical experience with ayahuasca and he said but she did talk to me and

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I said well what did she say and he said well she told me to go home and clean up my room and and

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cut my hair so that’s pretty close to what I you know I don’t get that exactly, but it’s that sort of practical, grandmotherly. Yeah. I certainly hope he did it. I mean, I’ve done what she said.

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Yes, yes, I have with the mushroom. That has been my, I’ve apprenticed myself to the mushroom.

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Does that feel, what’s the gender for you? You know, it’s interesting. The mushroom feels like a portal to me so i go through and then there

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are different teachers that are waiting for me so yeah that’s a little different isn’t it it is it

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is it’s definitely different because i’ve experienced the ayahuasca and i did a few journeys

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with aya and my first two journeys were with two very dear women who who you know were carrying this work on they had apprenticed for a number of years with a shaman in peru and and uh so it was an all women’s

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ayah ceremony but you know it just came to me this is not your medicine and and the mushroom was

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calling calling calling calling and so i think also you know these plants are working with our dna i always

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joke that your rap doesn’t work in in those realms because they can see all of you so just

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open your heart and be humble and you know let the chips fall right and uh so yeah so you know

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aya has you know called to you and so many others and you you know, for others of us, the mushrooms called and, you know, right,

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right. And have you in in your being called? Have you been called to be exclusive?

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To be exclusive with the mushroom? Yes.

00:23:18 ►

Not in so many words. But yes, that is like I’ve tried DMT. Nope, not my medicine.

00:23:27 ►

but yes, that is like, I’ve tried DMT. Nope, not my medicine. Um, I think that’s the only thing I’ve explored really. And so no, the mushroom, you know, it’s pretty specific. It is. Isn’t that

00:23:34 ►

so interesting? Yeah. You know, you just, you know, without a shadow of a doubt, not belief

00:23:41 ►

because there’s a difference. Like this is deep a deep knowing yeah

00:23:46 ►

I just want to say one more thing that sort of surprised me surprises me about the exclusive

00:23:52 ►

nature because it it kind of uh snuck up on me um because I’m I’m a child of the 60s I mean, I was at Esalen in 1968, so that gives you a clue.

00:24:08 ►

And so I’ve been surprised at my own personal conservative stance on really only doing this one medicine,

00:24:18 ►

really not doing anything else, and doing it as carefully as I do with only one person who’s quite authentic

00:24:27 ►

and well-trained and basically grew up in an indigenous situation.

00:24:37 ►

So I’ve been surprised how, in a way, narrow and focused I am.

00:24:42 ►

It’s sort of caught me by surprise.

00:24:45 ►

And as I talk to other people and they’re doing other things

00:24:48 ►

and I have no, I just am not

00:24:52 ►

called to, you know, I’m really called not to do that.

00:24:55 ►

I was in a conversation with a shaman who was saying

00:25:00 ►

when he’s working with people and they’re doing other things

00:25:04 ►

other energies are mixed in. And it’s when he’s working with people and they’re doing other things, other energies are

00:25:05 ►

mixed in. And it’s a little more difficult for him in his following with that person.

00:25:13 ►

That’s exactly right. Do you know, when I first began working with the mushroom,

00:25:18 ►

I didn’t even start till I was 48. And I, this wasn’t planned, but I just kept going back month

00:25:23 ►

after month after month. You know, I started with five grams and I just this wasn’t planned, but I just kept going back month after month after month. You know,

00:25:25 ►

I started with five grams and I just continued. I kept being called and I started in the forest.

00:25:31 ►

My first five or six forays were out in the forest. In any case, gosh, maybe it was the,

00:25:38 ►

okay, that was for a year. And then I would just do it when I was called. And then the second year

00:25:42 ►

I had the opportunity to sit in peyote ceremony

00:25:47 ►

with the Native American church, with a group.

00:25:49 ►

And the peyote, that was in late May.

00:25:53 ►

And in around mid-April, the peyote spoke with me.

00:25:57 ►

Only you and I would go, okay, yeah, all right.

00:25:59 ►

And it said, no mushrooms until I’m done with you.

00:26:04 ►

And I understood, yeah, I understood’m done with you. And I understood.

00:26:05 ►

Yeah, I understood right away.

00:26:06 ►

Ah, of course, because, you know, that’s like, that’s a whole different frequency, if you will, vibration.

00:26:12 ►

And the peyote is saying, daughter, because that’s how they speak to me.

00:26:15 ►

They call me daughter.

00:26:16 ►

And I think of you as daughter to mama.

00:26:18 ►

I, of course.

00:26:19 ►

And so saying, all right, daughter, this is, you’re mine for this period of time.

00:26:26 ►

There’s something that I need to imprint in you for you to carry.

00:26:30 ►

Right.

00:26:31 ►

Yes.

00:26:32 ►

Yes.

00:26:33 ►

And I have, you have a very sweet way of being a daughter.

00:26:39 ►

And I am like a bad teenager.

00:26:43 ►

Okay.

00:26:43 ►

I’m like, oh, my God, I hope you don’t want anything else.

00:26:48 ►

Is this enough already?

00:26:51 ►

So it’s a very, you know, but I do it.

00:26:53 ►

This is just how it is.

00:26:54 ►

I mean, it’s very, I don’t know what to say.

00:26:59 ►

It’s a different, but I can sense it’s a different kind of relationship.

00:27:03 ►

Yeah. And, you know, I would love to be sort of more fairy-like and spiritual and the whole thing.

00:27:10 ►

But I’m like, oh, my God, do I have to do this again?

00:27:13 ►

And I had, you know, there was, I think I talk about it in the book where I had a weekend.

00:27:20 ►

And one night where I cried for six hours.

00:27:24 ►

And then the second night I thought,

00:27:26 ►

it’s got to get better.

00:27:28 ►

That’s enough crying.

00:27:29 ►

It’s got to be.

00:27:30 ►

I picked up exactly where I left off.

00:27:32 ►

I cried for a second six hours,

00:27:34 ►

and I’m not a crier.

00:27:37 ►

At the end of it,

00:27:38 ►

when I came up for air the next morning,

00:27:41 ►

I had this sense of almost having a co-therapist in relationship to my own case,

00:27:51 ►

you know, my own history, where she kind of confided in me, I understand now how difficult

00:28:02 ►

your history is, basically. I mean, I sort of generalized it that way without going into it.

00:28:08 ►

A sense of appreciation for why some things are not so easily changed.

00:28:16 ►

And I felt like, as a therapist, I felt, well, good, thank you.

00:28:20 ►

You know, I felt like that was affirmation.

00:28:22 ►

I know there’s a difficult history there, and felt like that was affirmation. I know I had, there’s a difficult history there.

00:28:25 ►

And I know that as a therapist. And I felt like, well, another therapist was acknowledging it.

00:28:31 ►

And then I felt also as the person who cried for two nights straight, it was like,

00:28:37 ►

oh, thank God she really understands. I felt completely understood. So it was again,

00:28:43 ►

these sort of different levels of communication going on.

00:28:46 ►

And that was really important to me that I felt, you know, that’s sort of high in my book to feel understood.

00:28:53 ►

And so for me to feel that she really understood was very meaningful to me.

00:29:00 ►

And it was kind of a relief for why am I not one of those people who changes, you know, in a miracle cure.

00:29:09 ►

You know, people wake up the next morning and they’re no longer depressed and they’re no longer drinking alcohol and all they want to eat is kale and spinach.

00:29:20 ►

No, I still think about donuts.

00:29:22 ►

What is wrong with me?

00:29:22 ►

No, I still think about donuts.

00:29:24 ►

What is wrong with me?

00:29:30 ►

So, you know, I haven’t been cured yet of my sugar addiction, but I feel that in my therapeutic relationship with Grandmother Ayahuasca,

00:29:36 ►

she understands more and she’s patient and kind.

00:29:40 ►

So then I can be more patient and kind with myself.

00:29:44 ►

Ah, yes, good point.

00:29:46 ►

You know, that reminds me of that beautiful story you shared in the book

00:29:48 ►

about you were working, this was, I don’t know, the Harvard area,

00:29:53 ►

and there were all these doctors in white coats,

00:29:56 ►

and there was this woman who had just, you know, been in and out of mental hospitals,

00:30:00 ►

and this one doctor just looked at her and said,

00:30:03 ►

I’m so sorry for your suffering.

00:30:07 ►

And so this feels the same thing, this affirmation, this recognition, this being seen, being seen, and your sufferings acknowledged.

00:30:19 ►

And yeah, that had to be just so difficult.

00:30:22 ►

Like that level, that is a healing.

00:30:26 ►

Yes, that in itself is the healing, yes.

00:30:28 ►

Yes, and so then, of course, I have to step out of it a little bit and say,

00:30:34 ►

well, there’s a real therapeutic relationship here with the plant spirit.

00:30:39 ►

I mean, now I really feel a little crazy.

00:30:42 ►

But that is actually part of the process.

00:30:46 ►

And, you know, there have been times when I’ve been in conversation with someone

00:30:52 ►

where I felt like they had also ayahuasca in their blood, so to speak.

00:30:59 ►

I mean, they also were connected.

00:31:01 ►

And it almost felt like I had a co-therapist,

00:31:04 ►

that it wasn’t two people

00:31:05 ►

in a conversation, it was three. I felt that Grandmother Ayahuasca’s presence was helping

00:31:10 ►

both of us in this conversation. And that’s, you know, I want to talk about this more. I was

00:31:19 ►

just writing an abstract for a presentation in the fall. i want to talk about this and at the same time i think oh this sounds really weird you know yes well this is where i’ve talked about this

00:31:33 ►

i see our western conditioning as a hindrance yes it is absolutely i see what you’re doing

00:31:40 ►

and in my own small way as well i i think we are reclaiming something that has been lost

00:31:47 ►

and you’re doing it in that world of, you know, the clinical world. And you know what comes to me?

00:31:57 ►

I mean, there are good men involved in this also, but in my mind, I think it takes a woman.

00:32:01 ►

It takes a woman. And because, you know, that you can, you know, you’re, you can put people sort of off guard, you know, and just, you know, there’s a, there is, there’s, I know, the rebel teenager, but there’s also there’s a gentleness, there’s a tremendous warmth, and a tremendous humanity.

00:32:21 ►

And at the same time, it’s very clear the level of intelligence and

00:32:26 ►

professionalism. In other words, so then, you know, Mama has given Mama Aya your face to this piece.

00:32:33 ►

And so people can say, well, gosh, geez, I mean, look at Rachel. I mean, if this is how Rachel’s

00:32:39 ►

talking, it seems to be sane. Right, right, right. But if she’s in touch with this, then maybe I’m not so, you know, crazy.

00:32:46 ►

Maybe this is something I really need to delve more deeply rather than, you know, dismiss or hide or whatever.

00:32:53 ►

So, you know, you’re doing a service on so many levels.

00:32:58 ►

You know, that as well, for someone to actually really maybe, you know, go back to, all right, I need to look at this more deeply.

00:33:06 ►

You know, there’s more to this than I have deemed, you know, or to just know that, okay,

00:33:12 ►

God, thank God, I’m not crazy. I mean, look at this. Yes, for sure. For sure. Yes. You know,

00:33:18 ►

in my book, I talk about searching for therapists working with people who are in and out of ceremonies.

00:33:26 ►

And I finally found one woman, again, a wise woman, basically,

00:33:31 ►

who said, you’re asking the wrong question.

00:33:33 ►

It’s not how do therapists work with people drinking ayahuasca.

00:33:39 ►

It’s has the therapist connected with ayahuasca herself,

00:33:44 ►

and how does that change what she does?

00:33:47 ►

It’s from within the therapist that it opens the doors.

00:33:51 ►

So, you know, there’s always that question,

00:33:53 ►

does a therapist have to have experienced ayahuasca himself or herself?

00:33:59 ►

And, you know, I hate to be sort of dogmatic about it.

00:34:03 ►

Oh, yes, they absolutely have to.

00:34:05 ►

It helps a lot.

00:34:07 ►

I mean, I sort of squeak out of this question by saying they have to be familiar with their inner worlds.

00:34:13 ►

And there are many different ways of doing that.

00:34:15 ►

So I kind of want to leave that door open.

00:34:18 ►

But Grandmother Ayahuasca is so specific.

00:34:23 ►

And I don’t know.

00:34:25 ►

You know, I think to myself,

00:34:26 ►

well, what if somebody came to me

00:34:30 ►

who was working so deeply with mushrooms

00:34:33 ►

the way you are?

00:34:34 ►

Would my experience with Grandmother Ayahuasca

00:34:37 ►

open the door for me to work with that person?

00:34:41 ►

You know, there would be a difference.

00:34:42 ►

I would be limited in some ways.

00:34:47 ►

A difference. Yes, I agree there would be a difference i would be limited in some ways a difference yes i agree there would be a difference and you would get the deeper meanings but i wouldn’t be connected

00:34:56 ►

in the same way there’s an energetic connection that happens okay and though the conversation

00:35:02 ►

could still occur in terms of the connection with the spirit, the voice, the inner voice, all of that, you are no stranger to.

00:35:13 ►

And so there could still be a very in-depth and important dialogue that would occur.

00:35:20 ►

And I think that’s the bottom line there there is that they can speak with someone who

00:35:25 ►

you know you know the language they are speaking yes you’re in connection with a

00:35:30 ►

different intelligence shall we say but still they you know in other words they can speak

00:35:36 ►

freely and safely and you can hold that space yes yes yes so that opens that goes to the possibility

00:35:46 ►

if someone has traveled

00:35:48 ►

in these realms

00:35:49 ►

then it’s safe enough

00:35:53 ►

and I still maintain

00:35:55 ►

there’s a subtle difference

00:35:57 ►

that there is still a difference

00:35:58 ►

I agree

00:35:59 ►

and you know what threw me

00:36:01 ►

I talk in the book about

00:36:04 ►

this Swiss psychiatrist who was doing groups with a whole slew of different medicines and drugs, psychedelic drugs.

00:36:13 ►

And she would take them, too, in the ceremonies.

00:36:16 ►

Did you notice that in the book?

00:36:17 ►

Yes.

00:36:18 ►

Yes.

00:36:19 ►

Yeah.

00:36:19 ►

And I thought, well, I don’t have to be drinking ayahuasca to connect.

00:36:27 ►

And I was just, I came, there’s a place where I came out pretty strong by saying, you know, we have to be able to know how to travel in these inner realms with or without the medicine.

00:36:40 ►

And I love when the shamans say, if you really know the teacher of the plant, you don’t even need to drink the medicine.

00:36:49 ►

And so there’s an energetic connection that happens.

00:36:52 ►

And I really wanted to take a strong stand that in therapy, the therapist can connect without being in that state.

00:37:05 ►

Absolutely. Yeah, because I have my own therapy practice.

00:37:09 ►

And, oh, my gosh, I don’t do the mushroom or my collage.

00:37:13 ►

Are you kidding me?

00:37:14 ►

No, no.

00:37:15 ►

And I didn’t want that to be a model.

00:37:18 ►

There are not that many people writing about therapy with different entheogens.

00:37:23 ►

And I didn’t, because there’s so little written,

00:37:26 ►

I didn’t want that to be a model. I wanted to come out against that.

00:37:30 ►

I so appreciate that you did that in the book. And listeners out there who have not read the book,

00:37:36 ►

please do yourself a favor and read this book. Because you did this, like you said, it’s not

00:37:42 ►

dogmatic. But at the same time, we have to have some kind of principles.

00:37:47 ►

We have to have some kind of foundation.

00:37:50 ►

You know, I talk about how the early, you know, mystery schools and priest and priestess hoods, they had maxims.

00:38:02 ►

They had principles.

00:38:01 ►

They had maxims.

00:38:03 ►

They had principles.

00:38:05 ►

And they stuck to it. You have to because you’re delving deep into the mysteries,

00:38:08 ►

into areas of awareness that the general folk don’t have.

00:38:13 ►

And there’s a level of responsibility that goes with that.

00:38:18 ►

And I think you really covered that beautifully in the book.

00:38:23 ►

You spoke to that beautifully with humility, but also with authority.

00:38:27 ►

Because this is a big deal, this level of exploration.

00:38:31 ►

It’s a big deal.

00:38:32 ►

You know there’s people with tremendous trauma.

00:38:35 ►

They’re dealing with all sorts of stuff.

00:38:38 ►

And so if you’re going to work with a practitioner,

00:38:42 ►

there’s just so many people abusing this, that position.

00:38:47 ►

And you speak of that as well, you know, in these various sort of casual gatherings, you

00:38:54 ►

know, some of which are, you know, just wonderful and held with, you know, tremendous reverence

00:38:59 ►

and others that are not so much.

00:39:02 ►

Like this story you talk about, some reporter for

00:39:05 ►

the New York Times or something ended up in Brooklyn or something over a bar.

00:39:10 ►

The New Yorker magazine, which I’m a big fan of. It’s unfortunate to say the least. Nowhere are

00:39:17 ►

we supposed to be hearing sounds from a bar. No, it’s not supposed to be like that.

00:39:23 ►

No. I think this is a very, very important piece,

00:39:27 ►

that there has to be some kind of, you know, established go-to, some established format,

00:39:34 ►

some, you know, principles around this, you know, that we adhere to.

00:39:51 ►

too. And it’s quite difficult to describe this level of work. And, you know, I interviewed a president of the Jungian Institute at one of the major cities around the country. And he was

00:39:59 ►

familiar with different medicines. And he said he organized a group of Jungian analysts to have an

00:40:06 ►

ayahuasca experience an authentic ayahuasca and he said they could they didn’t do too well

00:40:11 ►

they were terrified wow and so I think well you know that kind of disappointed me a little bit

00:40:22 ►

I thought well Jungian analysts should be able to do, they should, my expectation, you hear my should in this.

00:40:29 ►

I would have thought that they would be able to travel in these realms.

00:40:34 ►

But no, they were more intellectual than experiential.

00:40:37 ►

And they had a great deal of trouble and never returned to another ceremony.

00:40:42 ►

Really?

00:40:43 ►

Yeah, that was it.

00:40:42 ►

never returned to another ceremony.

00:40:42 ►

Really?

00:40:44 ►

Yeah, that was it.

00:40:50 ►

And I spoke to a friend of mine who is a Jungian analyst,

00:40:52 ►

and she wasn’t at all surprised. She was more sophisticated than I was in knowing the limitations.

00:40:57 ►

So it’s very, you know, this kind of work is so much dependent upon who we are

00:41:03 ►

and the work we’ve done and the inner travels that we’ve

00:41:06 ►

done and so it’s in some ways it’s very difficult to talk about well what does this process look

00:41:13 ►

like and I thought well you know it would be great to have different therapy stories of an

00:41:18 ►

unfolding process over time and I’ve been wanting to make a distinction within the community, but everybody

00:41:26 ►

now is talking about integration. There’s a great deal of interest in integration. And yeah, I’m

00:41:32 ►

interested in integration, but I’m really interested in ongoing therapy. And integration is a part of

00:41:38 ►

ongoing therapy, but ongoing therapy is much bigger. And so I’m really wondering, well, what would those case studies

00:41:47 ►

look like? What does it look like when someone is in and out of ceremony and in that kind of

00:41:54 ►

container of a therapeutic relationship? And what does this look like after a year or two?

00:42:01 ►

And that’s kind of my focus now of, well, who’s doing that and what does that look like and it’s

00:42:07 ►

going to look very different with different therapists and different people and then

00:42:12 ►

somebody said to me well we don’t you know this is underground therapy

00:42:18 ►

maybe we shouldn’t highlight it right now and so you, you know, there’s that question as well, and yet people are

00:42:26 ►

doing it. And so these are very delicate areas, and I don’t know yet what I’m called to do or what,

00:42:35 ►

but these are very interesting questions, how to handle this emerging opportunity.

00:42:44 ►

emerging opportunity.

00:42:48 ►

Yeah, I just think of, through my teacher’s words,

00:42:52 ►

more to be revealed, more to be revealed.

00:42:56 ►

People working in this way, I mean, this is part,

00:42:58 ►

I’m sure this is part of why we wanted to talk to each other,

00:43:02 ►

is because we knew we share this kind of perspective.

00:43:07 ►

And often we’re working sort of quietly and more of an isolated way it’s not like we’re going to go to a regular supervision group

00:43:13 ►

and share what we’re doing so so it’s more private

00:43:17 ►

but you know what that feels almost more in alignment with this level of work you know what? That feels almost more in alignment with this level of work, you know, that it’s often done.

00:43:29 ►

Just close my door.

00:43:30 ►

This is often done in the quiet of night.

00:43:33 ►

That it’s naturally quiet.

00:43:35 ►

Yes, yes, or within groves of trees or at the kitchen table of a good medicine woman or a medicine man, you know, or you’re in their hut or whatever, you know.

00:43:45 ►

And that’s how, that’s how it’s done.

00:43:48 ►

It’s in that intimate, that intimate space.

00:43:51 ►

Thank you for that.

00:43:52 ►

Yes, it’s deeply intimate.

00:43:54 ►

Yeah, yeah.

00:43:55 ►

Because, you know, I do mostly now, I mean, I work with one-on-one clients,

00:44:00 ►

but then I do one-on-one retreats.

00:44:02 ►

And then I just had, yeah, then I just had a couple come last week

00:44:05 ►

and they stay for four days in my home.

00:44:09 ►

Oh my goodness.

00:44:10 ►

I know, I know.

00:44:11 ►

But I just call in certain people,

00:44:14 ►

but oh my God, Rachel, it’s deeply intimate.

00:44:17 ►

And it could not be done in a different context.

00:44:21 ►

I have no interest in the big group.

00:44:24 ►

So it’s very

00:44:27 ►

rich and, uh, yeah. And you, and then you can go very, very deep with someone, you know, I sort of,

00:44:34 ►

you know, I, I open and make myself, uh, not so much. Well, I guess vulnerable in that there’s

00:44:41 ►

that transparency. Absolutely. Right. And so then the other person feels, all right, gosh, look what she’s opening.

00:44:47 ►

Okay.

00:44:48 ►

I feel comfortable.

00:44:49 ►

I can do this.

00:44:50 ►

Right.

00:44:51 ►

Ah, well, let’s talk about allies too.

00:44:53 ►

I mean, so clearly Mama Ayahuasca is your ally, your guide, your teacher, your partner,

00:45:01 ►

your business partner, your personal assistant.

00:45:08 ►

It’s not exactly a business. It’s more like I donate to her.

00:45:14 ►

And so, yeah, so she seems to be the primary, you know, because we, you hear talk of, you know,

00:45:22 ►

tutelary spirits in the form of animals and whatnot.

00:45:30 ►

So for me, you know, I have the owl as well as the, you know, the fae.

00:45:34 ►

And so, well, just simply that, you know, those beings enter into that very intimate peace that you share with your client,

00:45:41 ►

you know, whatever the situation is.

00:45:43 ►

Do you have a sense of other tutelary spirits with you?

00:45:48 ►

Well, let me just first clarify that I’ve retired.

00:45:52 ►

I retired my private practice. Oh, I kind of figured.

00:45:55 ►

Yes, right, right. And I

00:45:59 ►

moved to my little cabin on this remote

00:46:03 ►

I’m on the remote side of a remote island off the coast of

00:46:06 ►

Spain. And so eagles fly by, you know, there are eagles nesting at the end. I’m on a pond across

00:46:15 ►

the street from the ocean. So this is a fresh one and it’s called a pond, but it’s a mile long. It’s

00:46:20 ►

really a lake. And there are eagles nesting at the north end of the pond. And so,

00:46:27 ►

you know, I see the eaglets as they begin to fly. And I see the eagles when they hunt the seagulls,

00:46:34 ►

because they will take them down right out of the air. And I’ve seen, there was one summer,

00:46:41 ►

I said to one of the locals who are very good naturalists, I said, I saw two eagles over the pond and they were fighting.

00:46:49 ►

And he looked at me.

00:46:51 ►

He waited.

00:46:52 ►

And I said, yes.

00:46:53 ►

And they were they engaged and they were kind of fighting, you know, tooth and nail hooked together.

00:47:01 ►

And they were, you know, coming straight down.

00:47:03 ►

And then like three feet from the

00:47:05 ►

water of the pond they disengaged and each of them flew away and he looked at me and he said

00:47:11 ►

they were having sex and I had never seen eagles having sex wow and it’s pretty wild you know they

00:47:20 ►

really they went straight down for hundreds of feet because they started pretty high.

00:47:25 ►

So I live with the eagles and I live with these big boulders that I know have a consciousness.

00:47:32 ►

And, you know, it’s been, it’s what I’m most grateful for in my life is living in the wilderness and in this silence and so close to nature.

00:47:45 ►

And so I have a lot of help just living where I am.

00:47:50 ►

But nobody speaks to me the way I don’t hear another voice.

00:47:56 ►

There’s no question I’m soothed and restored just being on this island.

00:48:02 ►

And there’s a community here and um you know half

00:48:07 ►

the community hates the other half oh really you know this is not an idyllic place this is more like

00:48:13 ►

the mccoys and the mccoys yeah and so it’s like who’s not talking to whom recently

00:48:22 ►

and so this is not a peaceful idyllic place but it’s loads who’s not talking to whom recently. And so this is not a peaceful, idyllic place, but it’s loads of fun and interesting.

00:48:29 ►

But the only thing we all agree on is to protect nature here, to protect the island.

00:48:37 ►

Everybody has their relationship to what we call the island.

00:48:43 ►

And that’s the personification, the island.

00:48:48 ►

And, you know, every dinner party eventually gets around

00:48:52 ►

to talking about the island and what’s best for the island.

00:48:57 ►

Wow, that’s beautiful.

00:48:59 ►

There’s this shared sense of a presence.

00:49:04 ►

Wow.

00:49:04 ►

Yeah. I love that. Well, a few a few things. So first of all,

00:49:10 ►

it’s just so lovely that you live there. And it also cracks me up at the same time, Rachel,

00:49:14 ►

because okay, you’re in this remote island, and you’re just all you know, and you’re retired. And

00:49:18 ►

that’s why I was laughing. It’s like, Mama, I was like, um, well, yes, and dear.

00:49:23 ►

It’s like Mama Aya is like, well, yes and, dear.

00:49:25 ►

Right, exactly.

00:49:27 ►

Exactly.

00:49:30 ►

So, you know, once we’re here, none of us want to leave.

00:49:34 ►

And I’ve made the commitment I will leave at any time.

00:49:36 ►

I will do whatever is necessary.

00:49:38 ►

I’ll go give a talk. You know, I’m so, you know, it’s a 40-minute boat ride to the mainland.

00:49:43 ►

It’s not a ferry. It’s a mail boat. Wow a 40-minute boat ride to the mainland. It’s not a ferry.

00:49:45 ►

It’s a mail boat.

00:49:47 ►

Wow.

00:49:47 ►

So I have a car on the mainland.

00:49:50 ►

I’m 10 hours to Manhattan.

00:49:52 ►

So I said to someone in Manhattan who’s organizing things, I said, I’ll come down.

00:49:58 ►

Well, that’s a two-day trip down.

00:50:00 ►

Wow.

00:50:01 ►

But, you know, I’m willing to do that.

00:50:03 ►

Whatever it takes, I’ll’ll do it and so that’s

00:50:06 ►

my commitment for this year wow well that’s impressive that’s impressive yeah because i

00:50:12 ►

could see why you want to be all curled up in that gorgeous space you are in right right exactly

00:50:18 ►

yeah and and it’s also incredibly restorative and i think very important also for the work that you were doing like quite a gift you know that you have this little nest on this island you know and so so I could see that

00:50:32 ►

really nourishing you and then you go out into the world when you’re called and you do this

00:50:37 ►

extraordinary work and then the eagle piece is really interesting just because it feels to me

00:50:43 ►

you know on a different mystical level

00:50:45 ►

like ah she’s bird tribe of course she is and uh you know i have been receiving these beautiful

00:50:52 ►

poetic messages as a result of doing the mushroom and come to find out that the original shamans

00:50:58 ►

were the poets and that of course these medicines yeah they were associated with you know the poetic

00:51:04 ►

inspiration but when you were speaking about that eagle and i thought i thought of you know this And then, of course, these medicines, yeah, they were associated with the poetic inspiration.

00:51:29 ►

But when you were speaking about that eagle, and I thought of this incredible connection you eye view is you can see the below and you can see the above you know and you can navigate both

00:51:35 ►

you know and that’s really what you are doing because you know you’ve got you’re navigating

00:51:42 ►

you know the clinical well you’re gosh it’s like you’re really marrying the two hemispheres of the brain, you know, and you

00:51:48 ►

say you stay in that sort of middle liminal sort of space in between, you know, I would say you are

00:51:56 ►

navigating that space brilliantly, you’re straddling both worlds, you know, and to the

00:52:02 ►

alchemist, you failed if you’re just stuck in one world.

00:52:06 ►

You know, I mean, you are navigating both, you’re really holding the tension of those

00:52:11 ►

opposites.

00:52:12 ►

But I am, I am trying to hold the tension and to become more comfortable in not knowing.

00:52:21 ►

But the truth is more like I feel completely um pulled in one direction or another

00:52:27 ►

so if somebody says to me like in this conversation oh yes we’ll talk about grandmother ayahuasca

00:52:33 ►

but if somebody comes up to me after a talk like someone did a few weeks ago and says

00:52:38 ►

you know from a buddhist point of view you’re you, everything is a projection.

00:52:47 ►

You’re co-creating this grandmother ayahuasca voice.

00:52:51 ►

I’m like, oh, yes, of course, that’s true, too.

00:52:53 ►

I lose it completely.

00:52:56 ►

I have no concrete sense of reality anymore.

00:52:58 ►

I mean, I just have to face it.

00:52:59 ►

I just don’t know.

00:53:04 ►

And so I can easily get pulled to one side or another of this portal.

00:53:10 ►

And so I don’t feel so much like I’m balancing beautifully in between.

00:53:12 ►

I feel like I get dragged one way and dragged another.

00:53:19 ►

And I just am working on accepting and becoming more comfortable in the mystery.

00:53:25 ►

That’s kind of what I’m sort of actively working on in my own inner acceptance.

00:53:29 ►

I want to say something about what you said about the ego point of view and that sense of a broader viewpoint.

00:53:36 ►

One of the interesting things that happens with people is even if I’ve had,

00:53:42 ►

you know, there are those miracle cures where someone wakes up and says,

00:53:46 ►

I haven’t been depressed in years after one ayahuasca ceremony.

00:53:51 ►

Why not me?

00:53:52 ►

You know, but, you know, it’s a miracle cure.

00:53:55 ►

But other people say, well, I still suffer with anxiety, depression,

00:54:00 ►

but I have a healthier distance from it.

00:54:04 ►

So I know it’s arising and it will pass

00:54:09 ►

and I don’t get stuck in it like I used to and I don’t layer on top of it like oh why am I so

00:54:17 ►

depressed or um what you know will I ever get through this you know I don’t layer the worry

00:54:23 ►

on top of it so that there’s such

00:54:26 ►

a wonderful therapeutic distance that people have and I remember talking to this one guy who

00:54:31 ►

very clear in just you know brief interviews that he really suffered with anxiety but he was able to

00:54:39 ►

almost have a sense of humor about it well no that hasn’t changed all that much except I have a better

00:54:45 ►

attitude toward my anxiety so that’s it that’s a fascinating shift that happens that I the closest

00:54:54 ►

I came to it seeing it in psychotherapy is I had a yoga teacher who started Prozac and she would

00:55:02 ►

be able to say well now that I’m on Prozac there’s sometimes I say to myself I should use my Prozac. And she would be able to say, well, now that I’m on Prozac, there’s sometimes

00:55:07 ►

I say to myself, I should use my Prozac mind to think about this. And so she was able to make

00:55:12 ►

that distinction between how she functioned without Prozac and how she could see things

00:55:19 ►

with the help of Prozac. And so there’s something very functional about that for sure. And it’s sort of, you know,

00:55:29 ►

if we’re not going to have a miracle cure, we’re not going to be one of those lucky ones,

00:55:33 ►

then this is kind of the next step that helps us live with what we have, with what we’re dealt

00:55:42 ►

with in a way. Whatever our biochemistry is or our situation,

00:55:47 ►

it helps us live with the life we have right now. Something else that I loved in the book that you

00:55:53 ►

talked about is that shattering, that necessity, that the death and rebirth piece of that part of

00:56:02 ►

the ego that has to, you know, sort of be broken down or shattered

00:56:07 ►

so that this new peace can come forth.

00:56:11 ►

But that really spoke to me as well

00:56:13 ►

because that’s so shamanic, that death and rebirth, you know?

00:56:15 ►

Absolutely, yes.

00:56:17 ►

So here’s something I want to talk about.

00:56:19 ►

You know, in the research coming out of Hopkins,

00:56:22 ►

they’re basically saying the therapeutic variable is the complete mystical experience.

00:56:29 ►

So, you know, where your sense of being an individual disappears and you experience unity and it’s ecstatic, complete mystical experience.

00:56:41 ►

And it’s ineffable.

00:56:42 ►

It’s very difficult to describe.

00:56:46 ►

And that’s what they’re most interested in and so they’re identifying what’s the what’s the best dosage that is most likely

00:56:52 ►

to lead to that complete mystical experience and that’s what leads to reduced anxiety about

00:56:59 ►

having terminal cancer or it enables people to stop smoking, which is a very difficult addiction to stop.

00:57:06 ►

That’s what the therapeutic variable is.

00:57:08 ►

And then I try and say, well, that’s their model for how therapy works with psychedelics.

00:57:16 ►

And then I put that on ayahuasca and it doesn’t fit at all

00:57:19 ►

because some people have mystical experiences with ayahuasca

00:57:24 ►

and some people relive childhood traumas.

00:57:27 ►

Right.

00:57:27 ►

And both are therapeutic.

00:57:29 ►

And there’s this much wider range.

00:57:31 ►

And so this is where people have death experiences where there’s a shattering, but it’s not necessarily a complete mystical experience.

00:57:42 ►

There are all kinds of shamanic experiences they have. So there’s this much wider range. And yet they’re incredibly therapeutic. So I hope for the convenience of research studies, we don’t limit our concept of what’s therapeutic about these medicines into one simple variable of a complete mystical experience.

00:58:08 ►

It’s far more complicated than that.

00:58:11 ►

And also, when you describe therapy, you have this lovely sense of a journey and an unfolding

00:58:19 ►

and curiosity about how that process is going to happen.

00:58:24 ►

It’s not just a one-shot deal.

00:58:28 ►

And so there’s that sense of ongoing work and process and involvement.

00:58:33 ►

And I don’t want us to lose that.

00:58:35 ►

In the 50s and 60s in Europe, when they were working with LSD-assisted therapy,

00:58:41 ►

they called it psycholytic.

00:58:43 ►

Do you know that term?

00:58:44 ►

Mm-hmm.

00:58:47 ►

Yep. So it’s the distinction between psycholytic and psychedelic and the psycholytic was the lower dose people could even talk during

00:58:53 ►

a psycholytic dose of lsd they weren’t um so blown away that they couldn’t communicate

00:59:00 ►

so but it was still lsd assisted psychotherapy they didn’t take it every time

00:59:06 ►

but it was an ongoing which is how maps is using mdma in their ongoing study of ptsd and they say

00:59:15 ►

it’s it’s mdma assisted psychotherapy so the emphasis on the psychotherapy even though the

00:59:21 ►

psychotherapy covers three to four months. It’s still short term.

00:59:26 ►

But the research with psychedelics is very much one or two experiences, and then you’re

00:59:33 ►

supposed to be cured, basically.

00:59:36 ►

So I’m sort of on a little bit of a crusade here, wanting us to remember the psycholitic process and how this framework doesn’t really work for ayahuasca

00:59:48 ►

and there’s more of a process that can continue over time.

00:59:54 ►

And I’ve watched people just working with ayahuasca over time,

01:00:00 ►

with no therapy,

01:00:01 ►

and I’ve watched them change and grow

01:00:04 ►

and become more self-confident,

01:00:07 ►

more whole, more themselves.

01:00:09 ►

I’ve seen, you know, very, you know,

01:00:13 ►

like sort of wispy women become stronger and more grounded

01:00:18 ►

and more, you know, more rooted and strong.

01:00:21 ►

And, you know, I’ve seen all kinds of changes

01:00:24 ►

just with

01:00:25 ►

ceremonies themselves and no psychotherapy so there’s a process that can unfold and i just i

01:00:32 ►

i want to be clear that it’s really not just about a complete mystical experience and that sometimes

01:00:39 ►

happens yes yeah well i just i look to nature for my cues, because, you know, we are nature and nature works in cycles. And she takes her time. And it’s a process. And she’ll get the job done. But it’s over time, you know, and it’s in layers. And, yeah, it’s not this sort of one, know one shot or one magic pill which i think is

01:01:08 ►

you know right the dame yes yeah yeah we you know people seem to be quite enamored of that

01:01:14 ►

in this culture and it’s like you know it’s just doesn’t work that way it’s not like you do a

01:01:18 ►

workshop over the weekend and now you’re a shaman or whatever you know i mean this is

01:01:23 ►

there’s a training program you can become a shaman in six, you know. I mean, this is. There’s a training program.

01:01:25 ►

You can become a shaman in six weeks.

01:01:27 ►

Oh, really?

01:01:28 ►

Yeah, it’s a retreat center in Peru, just in case you’re interested.

01:01:31 ►

Oh, okay, good to know.

01:01:32 ►

Thank you.

01:01:33 ►

Yeah, for sure.

01:01:35 ►

I’ll get right on that.

01:01:36 ►

Yeah, I know.

01:01:37 ►

I know.

01:01:38 ►

Yes, that’s it exactly.

01:01:39 ►

So I want more voice for this other process of unfolding and the concept of layers and working through and that it is a process.

01:01:53 ►

Yeah, yeah, it’s a journey.

01:01:55 ►

Yeah, I don’t want us to lose that.

01:01:58 ►

And I understand that’s impossible to research, what we’re describing.

01:02:03 ►

It costs too much.

01:02:05 ►

It takes too long.

01:02:06 ►

There’s no way to standardize the treatment.

01:02:09 ►

Or institutionalize it, for goodness sake.

01:02:12 ►

You know, well, thank God.

01:02:13 ►

Thank God, I say.

01:02:14 ►

You know, the mushroom said to me once, I am that which will not be legitimized.

01:02:21 ►

I am that which will not be civilized.

01:02:24 ►

I am a mystery. Oh oh wow oh you’re getting more

01:02:28 ►

poetry than i get oh well i don’t know i mean i just never forgot that you know it’s so true

01:02:36 ►

i don’t have anything on that medicine you know what i mean like it is a mystery i serve

01:02:41 ►

i serve those teachers with great humility but i you know i it is a mystery it is a mystery. I serve those teachers with great humility. But you know, it is a mystery.

01:02:49 ►

It is a mystery. And it’s ancient. I always joke, which came first, the mushroom or the shaman,

01:02:53 ►

or the ayahuasca or the shaman? I think, you know, what we’re talking about here,

01:03:00 ►

I think these are the original teachers, and the ancients learned from them, you know?

01:03:07 ►

Yes, yes.

01:03:08 ►

That is really what they say.

01:03:10 ►

Yeah.

01:03:11 ►

And so, you know, Western culture, you know, there’s a hubris that goes along with this culture

01:03:17 ►

to think that they can, oh, dare I say, trump it.

01:03:32 ►

oh, dare I say, Trump it, and think that they can hack it, essentially. And then, okay, here,

01:03:38 ►

we’ve got the magic piece. Here’s the formula. We’ve got the formula. And yet, they’re also missing the understanding that each of us is wired so differently. We may look the same, but there’s a maxim of law.

01:03:47 ►

I studied a little bit of that that says,

01:03:49 ►

what is like is not the same for nothing similar is the same.

01:03:55 ►

We’re all, you well know this, right?

01:03:57 ►

We’re so unique.

01:03:58 ►

And so there’s no magic formula that you can give the same formula to each person

01:04:03 ►

and they’re going to have the same

01:04:05 ►

experience. It’s impossible. And so I think there are some things that are just going to have to

01:04:09 ►

remain a mystery. And can we live with that? Well, that’s, that’s exactly what I work on

01:04:18 ►

in my own inner life. That is what I’m working on. Yeah, yeah, with these probing curious minds of ours, you know, we have to know.

01:04:26 ►

I know. I always joke and say, I just want to know everything. That’s all. That’s all.

01:04:36 ►

Yeah, and I hear the mushroom spirits laughing, you know, in the background. Oh,

01:04:40 ►

Shauna, there she goes again. You do you do you communicate do you hear from

01:04:47 ►

them all the time in and out of ceremony of course yes well that’s what blew my mind with the poetry

01:04:53 ►

because after a time you know i would do the mushrooms and i would just because i go in a

01:05:01 ►

kind of mediumship then i was just speaking poetry, the way you and I are speaking.

01:05:06 ►

No editing, full rhyme.

01:05:09 ►

And then that was happening as of last August.

01:05:15 ►

Then I went to Scotland.

01:05:17 ►

And on the plane to the Isle of Lewis, where I was going to be going into ancient stone circles,

01:05:21 ►

I had my pen and journal.

01:05:25 ►

And the beings started speaking to me. I call them beings. And it gave me a whole, it spoke in poetry and it said the

01:05:30 ►

gates you’ll stand before, meaning the stone circles will open and that you hold the key in

01:05:37 ►

you. And I understood that that key I hold in me is I’ve opened up a pathway as a result of all that deep work with the mushroom. And then Rachel,

01:05:48 ►

oh my God, poetry was just pouring forth. And then mostly it would happen as I was waking in

01:05:54 ►

the morning and I came home and they said, we’ve come with you, dear, we’re your new mentors.

01:05:59 ►

And so as I was waking, this poetic message would come through. So I was bringing to bed with me a digital recorder.

01:06:07 ►

Now, of course, people in your profession would call me loop-de-loop,

01:06:10 ►

but you and I know better that we’ve touched on something that is a mystery,

01:06:17 ►

and these exquisite messages would come through.

01:06:20 ►

And then you know what?

01:06:21 ►

It stopped as suddenly as it started.

01:06:23 ►

It stopped after a couple of months.

01:06:24 ►

would come through. And then you know what, it stopped as suddenly as it started. It stopped after a couple of months. And that resulted in a book I put out called Poetic Whispers from the

01:06:29 ►

Green Realms. And I love that you spoke to that green mystery at the end of your book. Truly,

01:06:36 ►

Rachel’s just like, Oh, God, this woman’s a sister. You know, I just can’t wait.

01:06:42 ►

I knew when I found you on the internet I knew

01:06:45 ►

yeah I’ll send you the book

01:06:48 ►

and I did an audio recording as well

01:06:50 ►

yes yeah

01:06:52 ►

I think you will it’ll speak to you

01:06:55 ►

so yes so that to me

01:06:56 ►

is so yes the mushroom does

01:06:58 ►

come and speak and then certainly when I do

01:07:00 ►

therapy sessions with people

01:07:02 ►

yes you get help

01:07:04 ►

yes I get help.

01:07:06 ►

There’s a presence there.

01:07:10 ►

And so, again, though, you know, this is ancient.

01:07:13 ►

This is not new.

01:07:15 ►

There’s nothing new about this.

01:07:16 ►

We’re modern folk, and we’re simply reclaiming something that’s very ancient,

01:07:24 ►

we’re simply reclaiming something that’s very ancient and,

01:07:24 ►

and we’re, we’re navigating how do we bring this into a 21st century construct,

01:07:31 ►

you know,

01:07:31 ►

and how do we do this gracefully and carefully and respectfully and

01:07:37 ►

intelligently.

01:07:39 ►

Yes.

01:07:39 ►

And,

01:07:40 ►

and,

01:07:40 ►

you know,

01:07:40 ►

here you are just this,

01:07:42 ►

a very important example of how that gets done.

01:07:49 ►

You know, I mean, I really cannot thank you enough, Rachel, for this good work you’re doing.

01:07:54 ►

And I thank you for your courage and your spunk and everything that goes along with it.

01:08:04 ►

You know, that takes ovaries, girlfriend, you know, really.

01:08:08 ►

I still have them.

01:08:09 ►

They’re not doing much, but I still have them.

01:08:12 ►

You know, a book that was really important for me was When God Talks Back.

01:08:18 ►

It’s an anthropologist who did a participant observer study by going into a landmark church.

01:08:28 ►

I think there are a bunch of churches across the United States

01:08:33 ►

that are part of this landmark church.

01:08:35 ►

They’re evangelical.

01:08:37 ►

And they train their members.

01:08:40 ►

Their members are in small group prayer circles,

01:08:44 ►

and they learn to recognize the voice of Jesus, the voice of God.

01:08:49 ►

Hmm.

01:08:50 ►

Hmm.

01:08:51 ►

Wow.

01:08:53 ►

I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that.

01:08:55 ►

Well, that’s what she was.

01:08:57 ►

That’s literally what she was.

01:08:58 ►

And in her book, she describes this.

01:09:01 ►

And, you know, the question I have, of course,

01:09:04 ►

is that any different than what we’re talking about

01:09:07 ►

and I mean this is you know pretty alien to me really I’m much more comfortable with a

01:09:14 ►

bolder talking to me than Jesus and and but people it takes about six months, and people are supported in the process of having coffee with Jesus every morning.

01:09:31 ►

Wow.

01:09:32 ►

Well, hey, there’s many paths, right?

01:09:36 ►

Yes.

01:09:37 ►

And how do we discern what this means, or is this legitimate?

01:09:46 ►

I mean, I don’t know.

01:09:48 ►

And so the only thing I have known to fall back on

01:09:53 ►

in terms of discernment, because this is not,

01:09:56 ►

this is pretty alien to me.

01:09:58 ►

I mean, this kind of evangelical,

01:10:00 ►

having coffee with Jesus every morning,

01:10:08 ►

evangelical, having coffee with Jesus every morning, is, you know, do these people then behave better in the world? Well, I was going to say this, that merits a study, Rachel.

01:10:14 ►

Are they more ethical? Are they kinder? Are they more loving? And so that’s the only I retreat

01:10:27 ►

to those questions ultimately.

01:10:30 ►

And I think it was

01:10:31 ►

Houston Smith

01:10:33 ►

in the 60s who said

01:10:35 ►

a religious experience does not make

01:10:37 ►

a spiritual life.

01:10:38 ►

And we have lots of bad examples

01:10:41 ►

of spiritual leaders

01:10:43 ►

not having

01:10:43 ►

ethical lives.

01:10:47 ►

And so I kind of want to include this in our conversation as well, that there has to be

01:10:54 ►

some process of discernment that we’re involved in.

01:10:59 ►

This is even more difficult to talk about.

01:11:04 ►

Well, it makes me think of an old wise saying, Rachel, the proof is in the pudding.

01:11:09 ►

Yes, exactly.

01:11:11 ►

You know, I mean, anyone can talk a good game and talk about this experience or whatever this group they’re involved in.

01:11:17 ►

But yeah, you’re exactly right.

01:11:19 ►

You know, how are you leading your life?

01:11:22 ►

I’m always interested as a mother in, you know, well, what are your kids

01:11:28 ►

like? You know, I mean, because kids, not always, but they can often, you know, reflect the kind of

01:11:35 ►

parenting that they received, they received and all of that. And so, yeah, I’m very interested in

01:11:41 ►

sort of the inner family life, you know, how are you running that family?

01:11:47 ►

You know, how are you treating your children? And, you know, because they are, you know,

01:11:54 ►

a reflection of that. And yeah, and how are you in your relationships? I remember many years ago,

01:12:01 ►

working, going on one of those journeys to the Yucatan and different places you could

01:12:06 ►

go, you know, with a woman who’s an author and she’s a channel.

01:12:10 ►

And I thought this was very early on in my explorations and I had really projected on

01:12:15 ►

her.

01:12:15 ►

Oh, she’s so powerful.

01:12:16 ►

She’s so that she’s so in touch.

01:12:17 ►

And she was terribly abusive.

01:12:21 ►

Oh, God.

01:12:22 ►

I mean, just terribly, really inexcusable.

01:12:26 ►

Well, not to us so much, but to the people who she had, you know, worked with at the center.

01:12:32 ►

And, you know, so only to realize, you know, wow, you know, you can touch these liminal places and still be, you know, a real jerk.

01:12:46 ►

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

01:12:50 ►

You talked about that in the book as well, that it’s actually no guarantee.

01:12:56 ►

No, but I still have this sort of

01:12:58 ►

childlike expectation that people will be

01:13:03 ►

authentic all the way through, well integrated, and it’s not

01:13:08 ►

at all true. I have to tell this one story. The shaman I work with went back to the jungle to

01:13:16 ►

meet with the shaman, his godfather’s shaman, who he lived and trained with for decades.

01:13:22 ►

lived and trained with for decades.

01:13:29 ►

And that shaman is 106 years old, give or take a year or two,

01:13:30 ►

because, you know, they never know when they’re born.

01:13:34 ►

And I had seen a video of him a couple of years ago.

01:13:37 ►

And when he just had like a string loincloth on,

01:13:40 ►

I mean, it was remarkable that nothing showed because I looked because there was movement in the video.

01:13:43 ►

Somehow he was completely covered.

01:13:46 ►

But that’s all I had on.

01:13:48 ►

And so at that time he was about 103, and he looked fabulous.

01:13:52 ►

It was remarkable.

01:13:54 ►

But at 106, this is possibly the last visit,

01:13:58 ►

and he’s getting ready to transition.

01:14:01 ►

And so I said to the shaman who i know i said well what were the final teachings

01:14:06 ►

what were the last teachings and he said well they were all about um ethics and love

01:14:13 ►

i thought well that pretty much sums it up what’s more important that’s right that’s right

01:14:23 ►

yep and you talk about that in your book.

01:14:26 ►

That’s how I feel about the mushroom.

01:14:28 ►

You know, that’s why I called a book I wrote about my experience, Love and Spirit Medicine,

01:14:32 ►

because I said, this is love and spirit medicine.

01:14:35 ►

That’s what this is.

01:14:37 ►

It opens your heart.

01:14:38 ►

It connects you to spirit.

01:14:40 ►

And ultimately, ultimately, it does.

01:14:44 ►

But I mean, ultimately, ultimately, it does.

01:14:58 ►

You know, if well, you know, you also talk about these people who a couple of these folks who just fought the medicine, essentially, that one fellow who was like, No, I’m going to keep my shit together, essentially, through this thing.

01:15:00 ►

And he gained nothing.

01:15:01 ►

Yeah.

01:15:06 ►

You know, so so yeah, there, yeah, there is that as well.

01:15:09 ►

But ultimately, yeah, this is love.

01:15:11 ►

It’s about opening the heart.

01:15:13 ►

Yeah, yeah.

01:15:15 ►

Could you speak a little bit to that before we end? Well, you know, I had a humbling experience just a few weeks ago.

01:15:20 ►

And this 60-something guy was about um he basically has a lifetime

01:15:27 ►

of being a player with women and you know i’m sort of trying to be objective and therapeutic

01:15:34 ►

about it but all right enough already and he’s been in maybe half a dozen ayahuasca ceremonies

01:15:40 ►

and he’s and i said well i hope they’re really authentic good quality thing and he said oh

01:15:46 ►

yeah we have a dj I’m thinking a dj and automatically I’m judgmental and I’m snotty and I’m thinking a dj

01:15:56 ►

as far as a player with women I mean now I really don’t know what to say and then he started saying

01:16:02 ►

and what I feel is happening is that my heart is

01:16:05 ►

opening and i’m seeking more authentic relationships with women oh and i thought oh my goodness it is

01:16:13 ►

still working yeah it’s working despite the situation and the years and the years of bad

01:16:21 ►

behavior yeah and so it’s something the movement is still going. Yeah. And so it’s something,

01:16:26 ►

the movement is still going in the right direction to it.

01:16:30 ►

I can feel my heart opening.

01:16:32 ►

I can feel I want more authentic relationships.

01:16:35 ►

And then I talked with him again,

01:16:37 ►

and he said, you know,

01:16:39 ►

usually I choose women,

01:16:41 ►

this is a brilliant statement,

01:16:42 ►

usually I choose women who are like my mother.

01:16:47 ►

Narcissistic and they’re cold.

01:16:51 ►

But, you know, I’ve started a relationship with a woman who’s warm and generous and kind, loving.

01:16:58 ►

And this is the first time I’ve ever experienced this.

01:17:01 ►

Oh, my goodness.

01:17:02 ►

I’ve been dating narcissistic women for four decades, five decades.

01:17:06 ►

And so all of a sudden he’s having a new experience and then and still it is still

01:17:15 ►

you know the DJ with the ayahuasca and I said something like well well, you know, I hope this gives you a different, a new experience that you can then build on.

01:17:29 ►

That this begins to give you a new baseline of what to expect in a healthy, kind, loving relationship.

01:17:39 ►

And he’s like, yeah, maybe.

01:17:41 ►

Maybe.

01:17:41 ►

He’s like, yeah, maybe.

01:17:50 ►

And so I have to say there’s the kind of unfolding that happens spontaneously with this medicine,

01:17:54 ►

despite maybe it’s not an ideal situation.

01:17:57 ►

And so that was very humbling for me.

01:18:06 ►

And his heart is opening and being healed despite the recorded music, whatever.

01:18:09 ►

I didn’t even ask what kind of music it is.

01:18:10 ►

I didn’t want to know.

01:18:11 ►

Yeah, yeah.

01:18:14 ►

And, you know, something’s happening.

01:18:18 ►

So the medicine works in mysterious ways.

01:18:20 ►

Well, and this is such a good point, Rachel, because when you were talking earlier about how it’s important that we have some a good set of principles here with how this is structured but at the same time we don’t want to

01:18:32 ►

be dogmatic because this is a mystery and and she really knows what she’s doing evidently yes yes yeah and then I shifted in my relationship

01:18:46 ►

to this guy

01:18:47 ►

because now all of a sudden

01:18:50 ►

I have more compassion for him

01:18:54 ►

I mean you have to have

01:18:56 ►

compassion for someone who’s been dating

01:18:58 ►

women like his mother

01:19:00 ►

like his narcissistic

01:19:02 ►

mother for four decades or so

01:19:04 ►

you have to have compassion for someone like that like his mother, like his narcissistic mother for four decades or so.

01:19:07 ►

You have to have compassion for someone like that.

01:19:08 ►

Yeah.

01:19:14 ►

That he’s just beginning to learn about what loving, generous behavior and relationship looks and feels like.

01:19:17 ►

So it was lovely for me to hear his story

01:19:20 ►

and to rekindle my own faith in this medicine that is very mysterious.

01:19:26 ►

Yeah, yeah.

01:19:27 ►

And she’s got a great sense of humor.

01:19:32 ►

Which the mushrooms do, too.

01:19:35 ►

And I love that.

01:19:36 ►

I love that.

01:19:37 ►

Because that, to me, is high medicine.

01:19:41 ►

Humor is high medicine.

01:19:43 ►

We don’t laugh enough.

01:19:47 ►

Really, we don’t. And we don’t get outrageous enough at times. You know, that just a raucous laughter that you’ll have with people.

01:19:52 ►

And it is just, and then later, a few days later, you think about it and you start giggling again.

01:19:56 ►

It doesn’t matter where. That’s fabulous. So good for us. Right. I agree. There should be more laughter in therapy sessions.

01:20:07 ►

I agree.

01:20:08 ►

Yes, yes.

01:20:09 ►

Even that emergency room humor, which is, you know, sometimes required.

01:20:13 ►

It’s just so bad.

01:20:14 ►

All you can do is laugh sometimes.

01:20:15 ►

Right, right.

01:20:17 ►

Yeah.

01:20:17 ►

Well, on that note, we’ll end this on that note of laughter.

01:20:23 ►

And, Rachel, I’m so happy to make your acquaintance,

01:20:26 ►

and I would love to stay in touch with you.

01:20:29 ►

Well, I’m going to send you my poetry.

01:20:30 ►

Oh, absolutely.

01:20:31 ►

Yes, please.

01:20:32 ►

Yes.

01:20:33 ►

So thank you from the bottom of my heart.

01:20:35 ►

This is great.

01:20:36 ►

Thank you.

01:20:36 ►

It’s been great fun.

01:20:39 ►

You’re listening to The Psychedelic Salon,

01:20:41 ►

where people are changing their lives one thought at a time.

01:20:47 ►

You know, sometimes when I pick up a book, particularly one written by a PhD, I find

01:20:53 ►

it easy to forget that the scholar who wrote it, even though her professional accomplishments

01:20:58 ►

far exceed anything that I’ve ever come close to achieving, well, nonetheless, we can now

01:21:03 ►

tell that Rachel is a normal person,

01:21:05 ►

just like you and me. Sure, we all have our own unique traits and personalities,

01:21:11 ►

but deep down we are all very much the same. For example, I really had to laugh when Shauna

01:21:17 ►

and Rachel were also laughing about the fact that even the therapists need their own therapists,

01:21:22 ►

which reminds me of why I quit practicing law.

01:21:26 ►

I really loved law school, and I also enjoyed writing appellate briefs.

01:21:31 ►

What I strongly disliked, however, was dealing with clients.

01:21:36 ►

These people would come to me each day with problem after problem that they were willing to pay me to take care of.

01:21:45 ►

problem that they were willing to pay me to take care of. What they never knew at the time was that as I was listening to them talk, I wanted to shout out that I was sick and tired of hearing

01:21:51 ►

about their lousy problems. If they wanted to see some real problems, then they should look at mine.

01:21:57 ►

I had my own damn problems, and well, I decided that I didn’t need to take on any more.

01:22:01 ►

So I gave up the practice of law, and McInnich and Haggerty became simply McInnich and Associates.

01:22:08 ►

But that’s another story for another day.

01:22:12 ►

While I truly enjoyed listening to Lex Pelger’s interview with Rachel,

01:22:16 ►

I think that we can probably agree that having the opportunity

01:22:19 ►

to listen in on this conversation as well

01:22:22 ►

does a lot to humanize Rachel,

01:22:24 ►

and really, for me at least it

01:22:25 ►

makes the book even more approachable. At least that’s how I feel and while I’ve not yet met

01:22:32 ►

either of these interesting women in person, I now feel as if I’d known both of them for a long time.

01:22:39 ►

I realize that sometimes I talk about little coincidences that take place and

01:22:43 ►

stand out for me, but really

01:22:45 ►

don’t have any meaning for most of our fellow salonners, well, that doesn’t seem to stop me

01:22:50 ►

from bringing them up anyway. So here’s the one for today. Until I heard Rachel mention the fact

01:22:56 ►

that Shauna is about to lead a group trip to Ireland, I didn’t even know about it. And here’s

01:23:02 ►

the coincidence. About a week from now, my oldest granddaughter is going to graduate from high school.

01:23:08 ►

And for a graduation present, my ex-wife is going to take her on a trip to Ireland,

01:23:13 ►

which has a very strong hold on our entire family.

01:23:17 ►

So I checked their itinerary in the hope that maybe they could get together,

01:23:20 ►

but as it turns out, Shauna and her group are going to be arriving in Ireland

01:23:24 ►

on the very

01:23:25 ►

same day that my ex-wife and granddaughter will be leaving there to return home. The expression

01:23:31 ►

ships that pass in the night obviously comes to mind. I wish them all a safe and wonderful

01:23:37 ►

experience as they walk on the holy ground where my heart will always be. Now I know that I’m

01:23:43 ►

talking too much here, but I do want to add a comment

01:23:45 ►

about the island life that Rachel spoke about. First she painted that wonderful picture of two

01:23:51 ►

eagles having sex over the water in front of her dream retirement home, and then she said that

01:23:57 ►

among the island community, half the people hated the other half. And as funny as that sounds, I,

01:24:04 ►

well, I discovered that it may be more than true.

01:24:06 ►

It may be universal to island life. Years ago, when my midlife crisis arrived, I fantasized about

01:24:15 ►

relocating to a Caribbean island. So I landed a job as a travel writer for the Rotarian magazine

01:24:21 ►

series on Caribbean island vacations. Yeah, go ahead, picture me as a Rotarian if you can.

01:24:29 ►

Anyway, over the course of several weeks moving from one island to another,

01:24:34 ►

I discovered exactly the same situation on almost every island that I visited.

01:24:39 ►

The physical settings were perfect, but the society was, well, let’s say, less than enjoyable. On each island

01:24:46 ►

that I visited for the series, I had to give a talk at the local Rotarian club. One island,

01:24:52 ►

I won’t mention which one, but on one island they actually had three Rotarian clubs that were almost

01:24:58 ►

equally far apart from one another, and the bickering about the order in which I was to

01:25:03 ►

attend their meetings convinced me

01:25:05 ►

that I no longer would harbor any fantasies about moving to an island. Now, before I go, I’d like to

01:25:12 ►

make a brief comment about another thing that Shauna and Rachel discussed, and that is the

01:25:17 ►

perception of gender in ayahuasca and mushrooms. To be honest, I was really pleasantly surprised

01:25:23 ►

when Shauna said that that for her, the

01:25:25 ►

mushroom was more of a portal and not necessarily gender specific, because that’s the same way that

01:25:32 ►

I experienced the mushroom. As for ayahuasca, everyone that I know who has participated in an

01:25:39 ►

ayahuasca ceremony, without exception, experiences that medicine as definitely having a feminine expression.

01:25:47 ►

Now, the old cynic in me would say that, well, of course, ayahuasca is going to be perceived in a

01:25:53 ►

women’s group as being feminine. However, the ayahuasca group that I belonged to was made up

01:25:58 ►

almost exclusively of men, and we all experienced ayahuasca as having a feminine persona, and not always a

01:26:06 ►

gentle one I should add. She can be a stern mother sometimes, if you know what I mean.

01:26:12 ►

And as for having a plant ask you to become exclusive just to them, well, I’ve had some

01:26:18 ►

experience with that as well. While I have had a significant amount of experience with both

01:26:23 ►

mushrooms and ayahuasca, well, one time after having what I think of as a deep conversation with both of them,

01:26:29 ►

we came to the conclusion that it was time for me to settle on a single plant as my main ally.

01:26:35 ►

And so I have.

01:26:37 ►

It’s neither ayahuasca or mushrooms.

01:26:39 ►

My ally is cannabis, and so I have become exclusive to her.

01:26:44 ►

That said, we also just heard Rachel say

01:26:47 ►

how shamans have told her that once you know the inner landscape, that you don’t even need to take

01:26:52 ►

the plant to journey there. Well, when I first heard that many years ago, I figured that while

01:26:58 ►

such a thing may be true for a shaman, whose life’s work involved using the medicine, I just

01:27:04 ►

didn’t think that it would work

01:27:05 ►

for us newcomers to the world of psychedelic plants. However, during the past several years,

01:27:11 ►

I’ve actually surprised myself at how deeply I can get into what I think of as ayahuasca space,

01:27:18 ►

without actually taking the medicine itself. Granted, I use my Ally cannabis when I do this, but after a couple of tokes and some

01:27:26 ►

quiet time with my headphones, listening to a recording of some Icaros that were sung at some

01:27:32 ►

of the sessions I attended, well very slowly and quietly, I begin to feel as if I am in a deep

01:27:39 ►

forest, full of strange sounds. It is night, and the humidity is so thick it’s close to fog. I don’t know how

01:27:46 ►

to describe the smell, but I know it well. It’s the place that Mother Ayahuasca always takes me to,

01:27:53 ►

to let me know that I shouldn’t worry so much. Everything is going to turn out just fine in the

01:27:58 ►

end. So she tells me. And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from cyberdelic space. Be well, my friends.

⚗️ alembic

Explorer

541 - The Divine Feminine

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