Who Will Hold the Future of Psychedelic Healing? Maybe it’s Us.

No one could have anticipated exactly how it was going to happen, but witnessing what I have over the last six years of earth medicine practice it was clear it was inevitable — eventually the mainstream, big pharma and corporate America would catch up to what us guides and participants in practice have seen and known all along…

Nature heals.

But with Eli Lilly’s recent 2.8B purchase of a psychedelic start-up, an executive order designed to fast-track the government’s psychedelic approval process, clinicians scrambling to assign billing codes to psychedelic therapies, and venture-backed corporations betting on psilocybin’s synthetic brother rolling out in the near-future, it’s a good time to ask: Who holds the future of psychedelic healing?

My hope is that, at least in some part, the answer is: Us.

Don’t get me wrong — there are tremendous advantages to the ‘powers that be’ getting on board, and the acknowledgement and legitimacy it (finally) confers to the work itself. It is a victory for all the advocates who’ve spent decades seeking scientific validation and striving for acknowledgement, as well as the grassroots organizations who’ve campaigned and lobbied for permission to heal with natural medicines. Most of all, it’s a needle-mover for the millions of people around the world for whom this mainstream legitimacy will allow and invite them to seek psychedelic healing.

But at what cost?

When we effort to insert timeless, wise, sentient earth medicines into our dysfunctional, for-profit, bureaucratic, artificial and corporate models run by bankers and businessmen, what do we lose in the process?

Witnessing the inevitable growth of psychedelics into the mainstream has been remarkable, affirming and exciting, but it’s also been alarming to watch the same people who were ridiculing the work just a few years ago now suddenly lining up to lay claims of exclusivity to practice it. To watch the humans jockey and pose and position now that there is power to be sought and money to be made. To witness the beautiful complexity and more-than-human intelligence of the fungi kingdom reduced to a molecule, a ‘tool,’ and another patent in a billionaire’s portfolio.

Those of us who work daily - in the field, on the ground, in the arena - with people healing with earth medicines know that this work goes way beyond a molecule’s manipulation of the human brain. We know the quality of an experience - the quality of the medicine - is impacted by the hands that hold it… the energy, the intention, the quality & consciousness of the human character one comes in with.

Who Do The Medicines Belong To?

Today I believe what I have always believed: That Nature belongs to herself. That no human - no industry, company or culture - can claim ownership over what belongs to the Earth.

And I believe that the people best equipped to hold Nature’s medicines are those people who live closest to the Earth - to the land, the elements, to spirit… Our artists, our healers, our oracles and sages. The people who bring more beauty, gentleness, peace, wisdom and kindness to our world. Just as the medicines themselves are non-specific amplifiers, so are the humans who hold them.

A few weeks ago - watching arrogant politicians and brash podcasters assemble in front of television cameras in the Oval Office behind the psychedelic cause - I knelt on the land and wondered:

• What and who are we choosing to amplify?

• What will it mean for the medicines to be held by this energy, this level of consciousness?

• Why are we asking for permission to heal from the very same people causing so much of the original trauma & harm… the same trauma & harm we hope to recover from with psychedelic healing?

• What would Nature have us create? - How would Spirit do it?

This morning I was running my eyes over the registrants in our upcoming Microdosing Facilitator Training: Astrologers, therapists, healers and coaches. Human design guides, Reiki practitioners and massage therapists. Spiritual mediums, teachers and counselors. People who work with energy and the body, sound and light. Individuals at home with the land, familiar with the elements… attuned to frequency and resonance. People who work with the earth, connected to nature in their daily lives and rituals.

I could hear Nature quietly whispering: These are the people who speak for me.

Wall Street may bring the millions, and Pharma the molecule… but it’s us who carry the magic inherent in the living world, who breathe vibrant life into the practice, who act as a bridge & translator for the other realms, who bring the capacity to touch & center the human essence at the heart of healing.

As psychedelic healing continues to grow in prominence, acceptance and legitimacy, let’s empower ourselves - as citizens, healers and artists - to value and claim our seat at the table on behalf of the living world, the timeless, and realms beyond our own.

— The next Microdosing Facilitator Guide + Certification Training begins September 1. Learn more and join us HERE.