The Psychedologist

Spirit Traveler, my beloved twin and much admired role model, comes on the podcast for an enlightening conversation about getting the lesson, giving thanks and keeping it moving!

Topics include growing up in Detroit, day dreaming and cloud gazing; how she got her name; being sensitive and intuitive, finding support and mentorship to understand and develop her gifts; changing perspective about food and the energy and vibrations that come along with anything we consume or do; being the vessel.

Spirit also shares about saying thank you for those who are responsible for who I am; pausing and giving thanks, being present, and giving back to community.

“Each moment can be as good as you allow it to be.”

“Remember to take the same medicine that you give others.”

“Death is sad, though through understanding life’s cycles, it is a blessing.”

We talk about singing and tap dancing, and Spirit expresses her views on how being technical can stifle us from being fully self expressed. We can be mindful not to let the laws and rules restrict our full self expression, our art.

Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference

Links:

We’re All Doing Time - https://humankindness.org/product/were-all-doing-time-by-bo-lozoff/

Leia reads an article that she wrote for DoubleBlind Magazine. This reading is the unabridged version of the article. An edited version, titled Why Connecting to the Earth May Be a Vital Part of Psychedelic Healing, is available at https://doubleblindmag.com/permaculture-healing-sacred-rebels-recovery/

Claude L. King is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and Employee Assistance Consultant based in the Chicagoland Area with 13 years of experience in the mental health field. He specializes in working with teens, young adults, and working professionals with a focus on work-life balance, employee mental health, emotional regulation, stress-management, mindfulness, positive parenting, and healthy masculinity. In addition to his therapy practice, Claude is the founder of CK Psych and conducts trainings and workshops on various mental health and wellness topics for corporations and community-based organizations. Through his work, Claude is committed to promoting mental wellness, improving emotional health, and empowering individuals to live their best lives.

In this episode, Claude shares that his earliest experiences with consciousness were around race. As he grew up, he recognized that the phenomenon of race extended beyond physical appearance, to things that had happened historically and even that were still happening now, such as educational disparities. He questioned why this was the case.

Now he works as a therapist, with a passion for men’s mental health, specifically men of color. We discuss Gabor Mate’s insight about trauma being not what happens to you, but what happens inside of you as a result of what happens to you, and that having support can make a huge difference in processing difficult or traumatic experiences. Claude wants people to know that therapy is a process, that it’s not necessarily an immediate deep dive into one’s darkest traumas and secrets. It takes time to build rapport and develop trust, and that is part of the therapeutic process.

We touch on shame, the stigma around mental health, trying to conform our authentic selves into the norms society deems to be appropriate, and the need for therapists to recognize the societal context we are in and to look at how it's impacting us and our mental health. Finally, we discuss honoring the coping mechanisms that we’ve had to develop out of survival as an integral part of shifting into new coping mechanisms and ways of looking at the world, and giving ourselves grace as we learn something new.

Links: https://www.instagram.com/ckpsych

Claude King, LCPC (@ckpsych) | TikTok

(24) Claude L. King, LCPC | LinkedIn

website: www.ckpsych.com

A dear friend comes on the podcast to discuss all things kink and BDSM!

bondage /dominance/sadism or submission/masochism

Links:

https://altsexnycconference.org/about/

https://www.instagram.com/whoisbellaluna/reels/

Makena and Sapha are the founders of Sacred Rebels Recovery, a project supporting individuals in recovery from addiction through land based treatment and plant medicine in Peru, in association with Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual.

According to the International Journal of Indigenous Health, land-based healing is a culturally defined practice, program, or service that takes place in an urban nature-based, rural, or remote location, on a land base that has been intentionally spiritually cultivated, honored, and respected (Hanson, 2012). The land is situated as firmly relational within an Indigenous pedagogy, and is understood to be an active “partner to the person or people engaged in the healing process” (Hanson, 2012, p. 2). Steps are taken to identify how an individual or community’s relationship with the land, self, and others has been disrupted and how best to help renew this relationship (Laurie, 2013). This has also been referred to as “land-based intervention” in the literature (Walsh et al., 2018).

Sapha and Makena discuss the importance of being in community, how they were first exposed to permaculture, and the magical way that gardens attract community and offer a meeting place for connection to spark. We also explore some ways that permaculture can be practiced, either to reproduce colonial systems or to deconstruct them.

The conversation turns to addiction, and the prejudice that people who use psychedelics can face from the recovery community. Sacred Rebels Recovery is bringing together land based healing with community, both in the jungle and virtually. Sapha and Makena share about working alongside the local community village Llanchama (sounds like yawn-chama), which neighbors Nihue Rao, about 1 hour away from Iquitos by motocar/river boat. This collaboration adds value to the recovery journey, as knowledge and healing is shared and integrated.

Sapha and Makena shared with me in an email that Sacred Rebels Recovery is indigenous owned and operated, and visitors/residents have the opportunity to access psychedelic therapy and permaculture during the inpatient treatment process, which is generally not available with treatment in North America. The modalities are traditional indigenous healing practices held in a traditional container by indigenous people.

Land based healing abroad adds a layer of adventure to the experience and an opportunity for the individual to be away from the city or town they used drugs in for an extended period of time. They also get the chance to experience a different culture, art, spirituality, and way of life. Their time away gives the family or closest care of the individual seeking treatment a break and ability to create healthy distance to allow space for healing on both sides. Seeking treatment internationally can also be more cost effective.

Sapha and Makena’s intention as stewards of the land is to develop food forests and systems that can thrive with native medicinal and edible plants, so the local community can continue to cultivate and enjoy the fruits of the land for years to come. They are also hosting ayahuasca retreats and residential programs for individuals on a path of addiction recovery.

The conversation also includes a discussion of the ways that ayahuasca and other native jungle plants have supported us in our individual recovery/mental health journeys.

There were various candid appearances in the background of this episode, from people splitting wood, dogs barking, planes flying overhead, birds singing, motorcars, to other jungle creatures. Thank you for your patience and understanding :)

Links:

sacredrebelsrecovery.com

IG: @‌sacredrebelsrecovery

[email protected]

Youtube: @‌sacredrebelsrecovery

Éva-Milan Zsiga (aka Coyote) is a writer, preschool teacher, artist and mindfulness meditation facilitator interested in finding awe in the “mundane” and emanating reminders of meeting ourselves where we are. She is a holistic-health advocate and “jack of all trades,” learning to embrace her fullness and multitudes, with each breath - shifting nervousness to excitement and fear into fascination.

Raised in Brooklyn, N.Y, Éva-Milan has had the honor to offer tools and techniques of mindfulness through her guided meditations for the past 7 years- in NYC, Mexico, and virtually- far and wide.

Some things that tickle her soul & bring her joy are;

-moss, frogs, & many animals (sparrows!)

-communing with the ocean on a surfboard

-the vagus nerve & learning more about the fascinating human brain

-being barefoot

-exploring nature

-traveling the world"

Links:

Éva-Milan’s website: http://www.waterforease.com/sos

Tumbleweed: www.tumbleweedbrooklyn.com

https://thebodyisnotanapology.com/

Ellen Wong is a Chinese-American psychedelic death doula who guides medicine journeys, breathwork, sound and somatic root healing. She companions people in reclaiming life through facing death.

She is a resident facilitator for DoubleBlind Magazine and The Ancestor Project, and co-creator of the “Woo Knew.” Podcast

In this rich and potent episode, we discuss ancestral wounding around the sharing of emotions, embracing the light and dark within ourselves, accountability, developing the tools to sit with discomfort that comes with taking responsibility, anger and grief, technology, and astrology and revolution. Ellen shares about coming into a more loving relationship with religious trauma, representation in medicine spaces, death doula work, the mundane as the special sauce of life, and turning toward nature and her own intuition to direct her toward what feels resonant.

Links:

https://tripwithellen.com/

wearealldaughters.co

IG: @‌tripwithellen

moonomens.com

Caitlin and I recorded this juicy and nourishing conversation over herbal tea in her home (you may hear her ancient kitty, Mimi, chime in occasionally). We talk about stories, masks, meditation and reiki, her relationship to the plants, eating with the seasons, food as medicine, herbs and astrology, the moon, cannabis, and microdosing various medicines (including those that are more famously known for macrodosing). A recurring theme in the dialogue is tapping into the enormous universe while dropping down into the earth, connecting to being a Being who is crossing these many and various plains of existence.

Caitlin Bernhard, MSN, FNP is a radical wellness clinician and an expert in plant medicine and cannabis care. Caitlin has been an herbalist since she first started playing with plants and she has an extensive background in holistic health. She is also a Family Nurse Practitioner and Integrative Health Coach specializing in cannabis and preventative medicine. Combining her passion for science, plants, healing, and fun, she created Azalla Wellness & Education LLCs, her clinical practice and education platform. She resides in western Massachusetts, where she can be found watching for hawks and listening to rivers.

Karen Kieffer, my dear friend and colleague, comes on the podcast to talk consciousness and her journey with cancer.

Bio: Karen Kieffer currently is.

She is a trauma therapist, trainer, and integration coach, as well as mom, sister, daughter, friend, plant mom, and cancer egghead. She has lived in Massachusetts for over 30 years, but may soon become a nomad.

In this episode: What is reality? Karen discusses out of body experiences, pleasure activism, and how culture shapes us. Karen mentions her path to social work, the experience of being disabled by depression, peer support, becoming trauma informed, becoming a therapist, and her present work. She shares about open dialogue, a systems approach to mental health and working with families. A theme of this conversation is supporting others by being human. Karen has also helped white people understand why issues of race can be so hard for us. We discuss somatics, complexity, resilient movements, and psychedelics.

Links

Talk about cancer Leia described in Intro: https://youtu.be/6VXTiI7eWD4

Facundo Raganato, writer, poet, artist, and philosopher comes on the podcast to talk about understanding philosophy through introspection and self-awareness. We talk about conscious dreaming, lucid dreaming, and how our being is ruled by the subconscious. Other topics include alchemy, astrology, empowering ourselves through adversity, and some of Facundo's work, including the book The Author, and his forthcoming game, The Mystic Mountain, which engages the player with different virtues.

Leia reads a poem that recently touched her: The Ocean of my Life, by Antonella Russo-Ball. At the end of the episode, you'll hear music by Raganato!

Links:

Bio: Facundo Raganato, award-winning author, composer, artist, alchemist & philosopher.