Don't Judge the Journey

Meet Jack

I have been working with, let’s call him Jack, for a year. Jack is 80 years old. When we met he was battling (and beating) prostate cancer, not yet diagnosed with hydroencephalitis which caused tremendous mobility challenges, and had one long running bad mood.

He was in a place of despair.

He, like many, had lived his whole entire life mostly disconnected from his heart, his feelings and the truth of his being. “Why am I even here?” Many of my clients have had full lives, children, marriages, careers and societal accolades. Most of them say they would do it all different, but one can only know these things in hindsight.

When I work with a client over 60, which is a lot of them, I begin with a bow in gratitude for braving the massive life review they are willing to undergo. We talk about the difference between elder hood and old people. Every one of them has the unavoidable tug that they are supposed to be in a different position than where society has guided them- which is the feeling that they have no place and no wisdom to share when innately they somehow know they are supposed to be the ones guiding others to a different place than where the majority of us end up:

• Terrified of and ignorant to the process of death

• Knowing deep down that there is and always has been something more to Life

• Disconnected from our heart and soul

• Without a community around us to share wisdom and stories

• Sick, on handfuls of medications and immobilized from lifelong depression

From the beginning Jack was committed. I guided him through a journey where he did not remember or experience much of a shift due to his complications- until the integration. There was a course of events immediately after the journey that guided him to the right doctors to finally get a proper diagnosis of the hydroencephalitis, have a very important surgery and change his life. The journey played out in his daily life in ways that brought back his mobility and a newfound hope for his last bit of time here.

We then began a year long microdosing regimen. Someone in his community recently came up to me and said “can you do for me what you did for Jack?”. He is no longer the curmudgeon of the community; his spirit of activism has ignited, his relationship with his wife has improved and his soul is loads lighter. He is on purpose and in service to the people around him. He has been a strong advocate for our decriminalization bills being passed in the county (which just passed yay!) and state legislature.

We just finished our second journey together. His prayer was to continue his path of remission from cancer, connect to his sense of indigeneity and meet his ancestors. He has an affinity for Native American traditions and before we met was beginning to have visions of past life connections to Native American and indigenous cosmology.

His journey was deep and this time he was aware of what was happening. However, he did not have the connection he was hoping for during the journey. In our follow up integration session he expressed that he felt great and also disappointed.

I reflected to him what may have happened. Often people are seeking to see something through a certain lens- like through the actual eyes- and blocking how the vision is meant to be seen- which is typically through the emotional body and the eyes of the heart. He may have been looking one way when the medicine was trying to point him another. This is common.

Also, the Ancestors, I explained, aren’t always about seeing our dead grandpa. They are an archetypal energy often more than they dead relatives. They are a cosmic family tree of wisdom that connects to all aspects of our soul’s many lives. Their wisdom lives in our heart.

So, I guided him into a meditation. Something entered our field and all of a sudden his Ancestral channel opened, he had a full vision of them circling around him, his heart burst open, tears poured from his eyes and he inherited a sense of belonging he has been seeking since birth. It changed his life. That pathway has been reopened in him after all of these years. It was profound to steward and witness.

I will keep repeating the importance of having a guide, mentor or teacher. Find someone who resonates with you and who knows these pathways. Make the investment that pays for itself over an over again throughout your life. This would not have happened for Jack had he not carved the space for integration support. Good integration support will teach you how to eventually enter these spaces on your own so that these powerful channels can remain open.

There is more research showing the long term effects of psilocybin on neuroplasticity with large dose journeys vs. micro dosing, especially in the case of more complex mental, emotional and even physical diseases. The healing pathways one can travel during and after a large dose journey tend to be more available due to the impact of larger doses on the ability to access and be with big emotions and feelings that hold the majority of our healing. I have seen that after the large dose journeys the micro dosing has more felt impact. It is a great tool for integration depending on the individual.

The medicine is always with us and works its magic in our daily lives more than it does in the journey. To have the experience Jack did in some random ol’ day had more impact on him because it is the mundane days that make our lives. And, he was able to travel that pathway because of his journey with the magic mushrooms.

These sacred medicines are rooted to indigenous cosmology. They will bring you back in touch with your innate sense of belonging and expand your family tree to include what has always been hanging out on limb waiting for the eyes of the heart to open. Only then can we perceive what we are truly a part of.

Times are excruciating for many right now. I get calls from people in serious mental and physical crisis and I expect this to amplify. There is a lot of transformational energy on the planet kickin’ up shadow. I may be repeating myself by sharing about the medicine and its value to our lives, but people need help. Little coping skills just don’t cut it for most.

I see lives change, like mine has, from the wisdom that lives, fruits forth, sprouts and flows under our feet. You best believe I am going to stand up and sing praises every day if I must.

Bless the mystery of Mama Gaia. Bless the medicine. Bless those ready and willing to look through another lens and become beacons of what is possible on this arduous human journey. It ain’t easy, and She knew that which is why She provides everything we need to dance ourselves home in beauty from the mouth of the beast.

Blessed be.

PS- did you read “Bless the Heart (magic mushrooms and plant allies)”- there are some goodies there for you.

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