Widen the River, Deepen your Roots: Microdosing Huachuma (San Pedro Cactus)
Before introducing a new medicine within our community, I personally work with each and open to its unique spirit & teachings. Aside from psilocybin mushrooms, Huachuma (aka San Pedro cactus 🌵) is the medicine that always most called me, so I was especially looking forward to experiencing it…
As we open the autumn season and begin to turn inward, I'm excited to share much more about this beautiful, wise, elegant and expansive medicine in the coming weeks.
Huachuma is a traditional medicine of the Andes derived from the San Pedro cactus, a gorgeous being that blooms large fragrant, ephemeral blooms for only a night or two each year in its maturity. Its entheogenic quality - mescaline - works upon both our serotonin & dopamine receptors and has a very slow, gentle, wave-like onset.
I’d heard Huachuma referred to as “Grandfather Medicine” many times, and I was so curious to experience its spirit for myself in a microdosing series.
Practicing a protocol of 500mg once a day for five days on/two days off with Rooted from our friends at Golden Rule, I noticed a shift near-immediately within the first few days and it has continued to build and compound each week.
The word that kept coming to me throughout the experience was SMOOTH - smooth and wide, smooth and deep… smooth & gently stretched, as if all the wrinkled layers of my soul were being steadily, gently smoothed out by the practiced, knowing hands of spirit.
My daily perspective felt longer & wider - I could rest in the folds of time more contentedly - and witness humans on the playing field of life with more compassion, understanding and amusement. When people were rude, aggressive, selfish or oddly baffling, I was surprised how little it clung to me, how much easier it was to stay in my own energy. I was able to respond to challenging people or situations with calm maturity, held in an energetic halo that seemed to neutralize aggressive energy. Typically very prone to sweating the details, I could feel my aura widen and energy clear - releasing any inclination toward perfection or pretense - as well as a heightened sensitivity & ability to read the energy of others.
I felt less of a desire to speak, to respond, or reply when I sensed it was unwanted or unnecessary — instead I was happily content to witness, just witness, and by holding & conserving that energy within myself - by speaking less - I could see more clearly.
My mind felt sharp, with clear, decisive lines and a sustained, calm, even energy; my mind and body moved in a new harmony and synchronicity. The spirit of this medicine loves to move - to hunt, explore, adventure, swim, bend, hike, stretch, climb, paddle - and enliven the many limbs of our being.
Physically I could feel my entire body with remarkable, cellular nuance - the slightest tense muscle, the spiral in my hip, the compression in my spine asking for release. I held a greater awareness that when I unwound my body - as my body became more pliable & free - my thoughts followed the body’s cues with less resistance and greater ease.
I fell into a more natural, spacious rhythm in daily life and felt a deeper aversion to external pressure in any form - if psilocybin helps us to process & metabolize fear, Huachuma makes it feel even farther away, distant and alien.
This is an expansive & freeing medicine, but also grounding, gentle and deeply rooted.
“Grandfather Medicine” —
As a child I grew up mostly without the presence of a Father, having lost mine at a young age. There were many times throughout childhood I imagined & envisioned what it would feel like to have a Father presence - a Chief’s presence - a noble Male presence in my life.
I imagined what it would have felt like to be held in constancy & reliable presence. To feel safe & protected, and therefore innocent & free. To have had a secure foundation and steady love to build my self-confidence from within… to not have had to betray or abandon myself so many times in order to finally find it. To know I could have strived and stumbled, failed or triumphed - and still have had the steadfast protection and unwavering support of a father’s love behind me.
The Chief puts his people before himself. Speaking little, seeing much. Eating last, leading from behind. Staying calm, even and steady through strife. Protecting, providing… uplifting women and children, the afflicted and the vulnerable. Whose wisdom and gentle power is sourced in service to the collective — with freedom, fulfillment and peace the greater intention for all. A wise, reflective elder of few words but great vision, one who holds & invites the universe to speak through his presence, as softly as a butterfly in a field of stillness.
The spirit of Huachuma - in my experience - has felt like being quietly held in this kind of presence, and what a truly incredible feeling! The kind of peace you can only know in a place fear doesn’t exist.
It never ceases to amaze me how spirit delivers the medicine meant for us at a particular moment in our lives in the most perfect, aligned timing. How Nature watches us, ever patient, and generously steps in to give us - to model for us - what we most need to learn and remember as a human family.
In a world yearning for this very energy & presence, to feel & experience it feels like the deepest nourishment: a steady loving hand at one’s back, a reassuring balm, a transmission from nature… a felt sense, a thread to hold onto, a tiny glimmer - of who we are becoming.
May Nature sustain us, inspire us, embolden us, and help us remember.
— We’ll be featuring San Pedro (Huachuma) medicine in our Community’s Medicine Keeper session and podcast episode later this month. If you’re feeling drawn to work with it, too, please visit our friends at Golden Rule HERE and use the code KAYSE10 for 10% off always.
