I took drugs with 15 strangers in the woods.
Captivated? Intrigued? Tell you more? Yes, there is much and more to unfold.
This summer I began working for the Association of Entheogenic Practitioners also known as AEP which is a religious based organization offering legal support to practitioners using sacred medicine. In the materialistic world, the medicine is also referred to as toxic drugs.
To me and to many others, it is sacred medicine. It is medicine because it is a catalyst for healing. It is sacred because the medicine has spirit and teachings that humans have related to before records of human history were kept. Sacred medicines are used in ceremonies to act as healing agents to the participant.
How I got here is a long story, but where I am and where I am going is presently important. In summary, I had a spiritual awakening sailing in the most remote places with no contact with the outside world for 2 weeks. Then, I tried mushrooms and cannabis, and I experimented often. In school, I dedicated my biology studies to Psychedelic Therapy and Native Plant Medicine. Then, I met my friend, a Shaman, who introduced me to ceremony. I cleaned my life up; the intake and consumption right to my creative output; and of course I am still cleaning.
I took drugs with 15 strangers in the woods. Yes, and no. The truth is, I participated in a medicine ceremony with healers, medicine carriers, light workers, therapists of all kinds and had the most powerful ceremony I’ve participated in (yes, I have voluntarily done this multiple times before).
When I got settled into my campsite on this beautiful hillside, I met my new community. I shared the open-mindedness and especially open-heartedness of immediate friends. I learned about the work my friends do as healers and the gifts they share to the world. The first night contained a circle of merriment. We opened the gathering with everyone sharing why they were here. We each gave a word for our past, present, and future. The words that engulfed me to speak were isolation, initiation, and abundance. Around the ceremony fire, under the full moon, we drank Cacao, shared hape and cannabis while dancing and singing to music. Once tired, I slept the best sleep I had in months inside my little bedroom of a backpacking-made tent.
The following morning was a Grand Rising for each of us. Coffee and cacao warmed me as I awoke. I spoke with the medicine woman multiple times throughout the day and she ignited inspiration within me - they all did. We shared individual space for music, meditation, yoga, and lots of grounding. This hillside was magical, exceptionally beautiful. Spending time in nature is always so healing. The day held space for intentional regulation and coagulation with each other. We waited until the sun went down to begin.
Joining under the full moon yet again, we intentionally circled around our sacred ceremony fire. Our medicine woman shared her ayahuasca-infused psilocybin-mushroom chocolates and we each ate them with our intentions. I intended for clarity and to receive what may come to me. Soon, we all laid down and her medicine music chanted around us with tasteful flavors of the colors in the song; as if she were painting the colors of the wind that blew through the hillside. About an hour in, I left my body and floated into patcha mama to receive some sort of symbolic language - So then the journey really began.
Mushrooms are fascinating because you lose sense of your egoic identity and this could right up confuse a person - but not us 16, as we are all healers. We are all knowledgeable in the way of medicine. The self showed me much about Hannah within this container. As I’ve been working with the medicine for a couple years, I didn’t have much to sit on internally at the time because I already have healed and understood a lot of it (yes, there is still work to do!); it was clear to me that it is my time to do the external work, to join my community. The men around the fire were chanting and blessing the spirits. At this point I felt the ancestry of the medicine, feeling into that I thought I was back in Pangea or wherever humans originated from. Each time I opened my eyes, I saw our bare feet in dry dirt and everyone leaned over praying into the sacred fire. The tribal feeling engulfed me.
They kept calling me the Captain because we were on a boat during ceremony. Before ceremony, I told my friends about my line of work, potentially why it was spoken. We were sailing through consciousness and to be honored with the name of Captain who helped lead this ship was fulfilling. Yet I also found this amusing because in August I had to remind myself that I am the damn captain of my life and here it was showing up in the medicine. The last line in my journal before leaving for this trip quite literally wrote, ‘I am the Captain’. It’s always a silly little reminder to laugh when life reminds you of your patterns.
Water is always an integral part of ceremony. When you allow yourself to drink water it enters your body and you can feel it hydrating every single cell and pulling out the dead cells or toxic cells. When you use the bathroom, you feel the energetic release of the water leaving you, and all of a sudden you feel clear again. What a beautiful cycle.
At this point, the waves of the boat are strong. The medicine was strong. I am so tripped out I have to remind myself that I am camping in the woods and the medicine woman gave me this medicine. I prayed to my parents to remind them I was okay and safe. Recounting this, I laugh at how deep my journey was that I forget who my identity is, where I am, and what I am doing. Yet, I never felt scared, and knew I was always safe. Eventually, I worked through some energetic ailments, came back into my body, and I was crying tears of utter happiness and complete euphoria. And I just sat there smiling at each and every one of these people because there was SO MUCH WISDOM in each of them, in the medicine, in the land, and most especially, in the present. I laid on my back looking up at the night sky and the dancing leaves on trees in complete infusion with myself, enlightened beyond belief, crying at how beautiful the universe really is. I already have everything I need.
These days following ceremony feel so bliss; the flow, the peace with no resistance. My nervous system, biologically and chemically reregulated. Reset. Writing this, I reencounter the journey and the medicine, and I feel the bliss. I know am here in my physical body on Earth to create this space: to allow those who feel stuck, who feel disempowered, who are in utter chronic pain in any form; physical, mental, emotional… I am here, and I am ready to do the external work.
