A deep, thoughtful and bright conversation with Dr. Katherine MacLean, my friend and colleague! Love is the starting point for this episode. Katherine shares wisdom from her experiences with life, death, psychedelics and forgiveness. We talk about how lower doses of medicine can also be healing. Katherine shares about the psychedelic experience of publishing a personal memoir, Midnight Water, and the process that led her to choosing to write the truth.

The conversation flows through more themes: being reborn, working with recognizing, owning and releasing burdens. At a certain point, Katherine stopped trying to exile or destroy the parts of her consciousness that were tormenting her, and befriended them, after recognizing that “there might be another way.” She shares about how a story can be like water, and about the magic of mist.

We discuss the medicines as having character, personality, intention. Hooray for the Psychedelic breadcrumbs! Katherine speaks to the miracle of letting go of one way of trying to heal yourself, which often pits you against the problem. We explore the idea of monsters as invisible, ever present aspects of our own minds. The topic shifts to forgiveness, and Katherine reads from a chapter of Midnight Water.

Links:

https://www.katherinemaclean.org/midnight-water

Katherine MacLean, PhD is a writer, research scientist, mother and adventure-seeker. She has spent the past two decades studying the effects of mindfulness meditation and psychedelics, surviving motherhood, and learning a lot about death and grief. Her debut book covering all of this terrain - Midnight Water: A Psychedelic Memoir - is available in print (now) and audio formats (soon).