Re-Defining Legitimacy in a Changing World
For a long while I resisted creating a Certification Program in the field of Microdosing Guideship. Why?? Because in many ways, to me, this field reflects nature — organic, mycelial, diverse, nuanced, compounding and seasonal — more than human constructs. It resists being codified, standardized, or built “to scale.” In fact, the more humans try to exert our control and superiority over Nature - the more we try to jam it awkwardly within our human frameworks - the less we seem to understand about the true nature of healing and wisdom of life beyond Homo sapiens.
But something shifted inside me at the start of this year. Today I want to share why creating a professional certification program became important to me & why I’ll be dedicating the foreseeable future to training, mentoring and supporting new and aspiring microdosing guides.
“So why create a Certification Program in a field where there is no regulating body or authority to oversee or give us permission to offer this work?”
Twenty years ago I watched my chosen healing arts field of massage therapy & bodywork create regulatory bodies & professional licensure as a means to ‘legitimize’ the field. Nearly overnight it went from a largely organic, mycelial, unregulated and unnoticed network of female practitioners (87% women when I started out) to a clinically-oriented, anatomy-driven business regulated & run by bankers, MBAs and nearly exclusively men. Spirituality, contemplative arts, meditation, and energy work were summarily stripped from massage therapy education and training programs and replaced by a focus on anatomy, physiology and memorization tests. The human client went from being a holistic, layered body of chakras, energy, heart, muscles, fascia and bone to an orientation of ‘addressing symptoms’ and ‘fixing body parts,’ and ‘circle what hurts’ - mirroring the approach of modern western medicine.
Small independent massage therapy studios shuttered. Local, community-based schools were swallowed whole by vast, faceless, corporate franchises owned by business suits who’d never had a massage, let alone given a massage. People who never personally participated in practice ran the companies, were appointed to oversee its regulation, and given the power to dictate what was taught in massage schools. Massage therapists - IMHO among the most talented and valuable healers we have on the planet - were reduced to factory-style employees, churning out exhaustive shifts in polo shirts for $13/hour while the men at the top passed their companies from one private equity company to the next, pocketing millions of dollars.
In just a few short years, I watched the field I love - the field I devoted myself to - stripped of its essence and everything that made it special: its intimacy. Its connection. Its holism. Its gentleness and warmth. Its personalization, uniqueness, diversity, and nuance. Its humanity.
Twenty years later, I do not want the fledging field of microdosing earth medicines to fall to the same fate. I do not want bankers and VCs, biotech investors and pharmaceutical executives with no experience in healing - no care for this work beyond how they can profit off it - in charge of regulating and running this field. I do not want them dictating how we do this work while simultaneously rigging things in their favor by limiting and controlling access. I do not want them degrading, eroding and erasing everything in this work that is sacred, everything that is holy, everything their human minds are unable to comprehend, measure or prove.
And so I create and hold this training with and beside my peers as a form of preemptive resistance and alternative, a form of standing my ground, and a way of protecting this work from those who do not understand it or truly honor it. I want those of us in the field who are inside this work - who love this work - to claim our own authority before the MBAs arrive to claim it as their own & make us pay them for the privilege of serving. To me, the ultimate legitimacy does not come from man - it comes from having the blessing & allyship of nature, the trust & respect of peers, the witnessing of the profound transformation in clients, the nurturing of a community beyond ourselves, and the building of a body of honorable work that stands on its own.
This is what professional certification & legitimacy mean to me.
I’ve also learned a lot - been molded & shaped a lot - by listening to clients, to peers & fellow guides, and especially the aspiring guides in our training. Certification - to them - means something they can ground into, a container and structure that helps give form to their education, skills and learning. It gives them legitimacy in the eyes of professional peers and other health care providers. It signals depth and dedication, a seriousness and thoughtfulness of intent behind the art & craft of guideship. It gives them a community & network of professional peers, collaborators and friends to recognize one another and create strength in solidarity. It keeps them accountable and in integrity, knowing they are holding a standard, for themselves and each other. And lastly, the sharing of certification means we honor this work as valuable, meaningful and worthy of its own professional standing.
In a moment in history when our ‘leaders’ and ‘authorities’ fail to offer truth, honor, respect or integrity, this is the time for us to create it ourselves - within our own lives & communities - together. To hold a higher standard in our professions and guideship so we may provide our communities with hope, inspiration and consistency, and model leadership & a true legitimacy that comes from within… an authority based on real experience, authentic embodiment, essential value, human dignity and self-empowered permission to serve.
