Creating a Container
As Psychedelic Guides, our nervous system is the container. Our ability and capacity to go within is the greatest tool we have access to.
I haven't written to you all in a while. I started a few newsletters, but the truth is that I have been so deep in the fires of my own transformation, I truly haven't known what to say.
Fall and Solstice are always the most powerful times of year for me. From early October through the beginning of January, I allow myself to surrender fully to the power of the ending of a cycle. I let life take me on a ride, so to speak, and generally I come out the other side with what can feel like lifetimes of change and expansion.
This year was no different. I allowed the death cycle to have its way with me, and as I sit in the time of fallow and compost, I feel the first roots pushing through the earth, securing my place in this new world.
I have a whole list of projects that I would like to accomplish this winter and coming year. The well-loved book, "The Artists Way" is sitting on my nightstand, a writing course by my dear friend Syris is waiting in my browser, visions of paintings and poems dance through my mind, as I begin a cleanse and recommit to caring for my body temple. There is no way of knowing right now which of these visions will come through to fruition. But, I enjoy feeling the potential and trust the process, deeply.
What I am doing this winter for sure... is holding space for transformation and psychedelic journeys. I recently moved into a new home where I am able to create a medicine temple. It feels amazing -- I can hardly describe the sensation. I have come into my own in this work in a way that I have dreamed of for many, many years. When my dear friend and housemate, Aleya, saw the space for the first time she said to me, "I can see your soul in this space". And as I pulled a scarf of Indian silk from my sister over my singing bowls, I felt an older version of myself. A version of me far in the future, decades more of life lived. I felt her knowledge, her wisdom, her experience, her compassionate and grieving heart, and her love for the work she has the honor to do in this lifetime. Holding space for those who desire to awaken and heal.
What I am learning as I build this space and home with my community, is that as a Psychedelic Guide, my nervous system is the true container. The outer worlds I create are a reflection of the work I have done within.
My ability to be with my humanness, my body, my emotional states, my mental chatter, my own aches & pains, my curiosities & and questions, my purpose, my truth, my pain, my fears, my presence… this is what creates the setting for a positive psychedelic experience for another.
This is why I don’t really believe we can “train” psychedelic guides. Becoming an anchored presence is a deeply personal process of self-initiation. It requires going to our own depths again, and again, and again. It requires that we have learned to be OK with our chaos, our messiness, our shadow, and our exalted states of being. It requires that we are able to just be. Present. In space. With another human…and all that is. It requires that we know the medicines we work with. We know our fears, our love, and honor our own unfolding.
I had a client ask me recently after a beautiful psilocybin session, “What do I consider to be my greatest teacher?”. In truth, with all the programs and certifications, and even advanced degrees — my greatest teacher has been my own experience. My walk through the light and dark worlds of the psychedelic realms. My bad trip on 7 hits of LSD, my 5 year long toxic relationship with an Ayahuasca curandero, my beautifully healing therapeutic experiences, the mind-expanding recreational use, the hundreds of hours working in a clinical setting, the years of therapy and facing my own trauma, watching myself overcome the fear of death again, and again, and again. Those are the moments that called me to this work. The gnosis of walking through these realms, and the beauty I have found there.
So, while this year I intend to continue to Train ThetaSoma Guides and apply for a PHD… I do it all with the knowing that the real practice is in the body, the heart, and the soul. All the knowledge we need, is found deep inside. It can't be taught, it must be gknown.
I love you.