Mushrooms as Sacred Medicine
My exploration with psychedelics began long before I had the reverence or understanding that I have today. As a teenager eating mushrooms and ‘tripping’ with the trees was a common weekend event. Although I may not have entered those experiences in a ceremonial sense, I still recall feeling the illumination of my conscious self and a deep connection to the natural world. I would find myself in deeper conversations investigating the meaning of life and pondering my purpose here. There was a calmness and clarity that would follow me for days and weeks afterward.
Mental health issues have been a part of my story since I was a young girl. Bouts of extreme anxiety that would leave me debilitated and feeling totally out of body at times. I felt unable to shift my response to triggering situations and was always bracing for the next impact. Finding breathwork and deepening the connection to my body and nature have been invaluable tools to help me reclaim my nervous system but I never seemed to be able to dig the weeds out by the root. I never fully felt like I was able to let go of the stories and free myself of the incessant loop of thoughts in my head.
I really started to dig deeper into my own psyche over the last 10 years and discovered my anxiety stemmed from fear of abandonment, feelings of unworthiness and just never feeling like I was good enough. I revisited moments from my childhood and young adult years and recognized that much of my suffering was occuring in the past and not actually here in present time - that all of my patterns could be traced back and were not the truth of my experience in the here and now. This is all valuable information but even having this awareness I still wasn’t able to flip the switch. I could understand my patterns intellectually. I could trace them back, name them, sit with them, breathe through them and offer compassion to the younger parts of myself. But understanding something and actually feeling free from it are two very different things.
Queue the Return of Grandmother Psilocybin
A few years ago I began seeing studies being performed with the use of psychedelics to assist in mental health challenges. This peaked my interest and I began down the rabbit hole to investigate how this new approach to healing the mind was being deployed. To my surprise I learned that this was nothing new and in fact much of the pioneering psychedlic reearch was done right here in Saskatchewan in the 50’s and 60’s. The focus of this research mainly focused on using lysergic acid diethylamide — more commonly known as LSD — as a medical treatment for illnesses like depression and alcoholism. Healing with Psilocybin is not a new concept and in other cultures it has been used in sacred ceremony for centuries as a medicine for the mind, body and spirit.
Modern research into psychedelic-assisted therapies is showing promising results for a number of mental health conditions, although the research is still evolving and these medicines are not appropriate for everyone. My experience has been outside of the traditional medical system and has merged my connection to spirit and the natural world in the form of Sacred Ceremony. For me, working with Grandmother Psilocybin isn't simply about changing the way the brain functions or treating a particular symptom, it is about relationship. Relationship with the medicine, with the natural world, with our own bodies and inner worlds, and ultimately with the people and life around us. Ceremony creates a space to remember that we are not separate from any of these things.
What Does Ceremony Look Like?
Sacred plant medicine ceremony is an invitation to step outside of the pace and noise of everyday life and enter a space that has been intentionally created for you to turn inward. There is something profoundly beautiful about being held in a container where you don't have to take care of anyone else, be productive, keep up appearances or have all the answers. You are given permission to simply be. We begin with intention and preparation, creating a foundation for the journey ahead. During ceremony, there is space for stillness, silence, music, movement, emotion, tears, laughter, wonder and whatever else wants to move through you. There is no expectation that you need to have a particular experience or arrive at some profound revelation. The invitation is simply to be present, to listen, and to trust the process as it unfolds.
For me, one of the most beautiful aspects of ceremony is the experience of being witnessed without judgment. When the world around you becomes quiet and you are able to soften the layers that you carry every day, you may encounter parts of yourself that have been waiting to be seen. Some moments may feel expansive and filled with love and connection; others may ask you to sit with discomfort, grief, fear or things you have long avoided. You don't have to navigate those places alone. The role of the ceremonial container is not to direct your journey or tell you what your experience means, but to provide a grounded, compassionate presence from which you can explore. It is a space where you can surrender to the experience while knowing that someone is there holding the thread and supporting you.
Bringing the Medicine Back
The journey isn’t over when the ceremony comes to a close. The awareness, wisdom and questions that arise during ceremony are brought back with you into your everyday life, where they can be slowly woven into the way you live, relate and move through the world. The ceremony is but a small part of the healing process. This is the integration and it is where the real work begins. It’s the softening of edges, the recognition that an old pattern is surfacing, the awareness that you have left your center and are triggered. It is becoming the conscious observer of your own life and choosing a new way to respond to the things that have kept you stuck or kicking your own ass. It is returning to the wisdom within over and over again - forgiving yourself over and over again. Changing patterns that have been with you for decades does not happen over night; it is a gradual process of allowing what no longer aligns to fall away.
No Bad Trips
You have more than likely heard about people having ‘bad trips’ and I want to propose that there are no bad trips. At least, this is how I have come to understand my own difficult experiences. In my experiences Grandmother Mushroom has illuminated the places where I am not yet free - shown me where I am holding onto old energy and offered profound insights and solutions to my troubles. The discomfort you feel or the ‘yuck’ that sometimes arrives is inviting you to investigate the places in your life that you have ignored. It is the underbelly of the monsters that you have come to accept as your own. In some of my own journeys I have experienced moments of great expansion and a feeling of love so great my whole being was consumed and held in the most tender way and I have also been shown the darker side of my own fallible humanness. I have felt fear, unbearable sadness, grief that consumed me and yet I came out of those journeys with greater wisdom and the remembrance of the truth of who I am. Each experience guiding me, teaching me and cracking me open to a deeper understanding of how I am showing up in my own life and what shifts are asking to be made so that I can create more harmony in my life and for those who share in it.
Use Discernment
Working with these medicines is not something I believe should be approached casually. Psychedelics can bring profound experiences, but they can also bring challenging or destabilizing ones. Preparation, intention, setting, support and integration all matter. Part of approaching the medicine with reverence is understanding its power and taking the time to discern whether this work is appropriate for you.
I share of my journey because this medicine has become such a meaningful part of my own healing. Not because I believe psychedelics are the answer for everyone, or because one experience can magically resolve a lifetime of stories. I share it because I have experienced firsthand how profoundly our relationship with ourselves can change when we are given the right conditions to look inward.
If something in these words has stirred your curiosity, or you find yourself wondering whether this work might have a place in your own journey, I am an open book. Reach out. I'm always happy to have a conversation, answer questions, and explore whether ceremony feels like the right next step for you.
Blessings,
Arielle
