One of the things I share pretty openly is how I can experience the psychedelic space without taking psychedelics. For me, this is actually not the “psychedelic space” — this is the true nature of our reality. This is the Medicine space. At times, this can mean experiencing an intense loving connection to all things or utilizing a particular healing gift. At other times, it can mean experiencing hallucinations and losing touch with “reality”. While people can easily become enchanted by this idea of entering a psychedelic space naturally, or perhaps they even feel that I may be mentally ill (lol), this concept brings up a conversation worth having. There are important messages here that need to be shared.
I am going to speak at a relative surface level today because I think that's where a lot of people are on this concept. Beyond what I mention here, there are much deeper levels to discuss, such as living with intention/choice versus living from an unconscious space/from the shadow self. This will be saved for a later blog.
I do feel that most people have the ability to experience the Medicine in their everyday life without the need to consume any type of altering substance, breathwork, meditation, shamanic journeying, or other trance-inducing activity. The state I describe is one that can be achieved naturally. While all of these other modalities I mentioned can and should be utilized in the process of getting to that point, imagine for a moment that none of them are meant to be used to achieve the higher consciousness space.
These things are simply tools for healing and going deeper within. Once we get to different mile markers within, we are able to see our outer world more clearly each time. This is the same place the Medicine will take you when you are working with Mushrooms — at least in the Ceremony setting I work with.
Living the Medicine means getting yourself to a point where you can allow yourself to see the magic and connection that is already in front of you. Many are able to get a taste of this when they sit in Ceremony, and it often fades shortly after, because we aren’t able to immediately digest this truth. The Medicine is giving you a glimpse of what is really there — something that you can indeed access — and it points to the direction you must go get there.
Side note: your first several Ceremonies may not reveal this if there is a lot of “stuff” to be cleared out or walls that need to come down. The clearing often needs to come first.
Ok, so what does that really mean? What does that look like for a beginner?
This is where things get a little cheesy and will seem like I am changing topics, but I assure you I am not. I could talk endlessly about all the ways magic enters our lives, but let’s talk about something relatively simple to digest — dreams. The average person does not take their dreams seriously, nor do they understand the importance of spending time in the dream space. Dreams are not what we think they are! This is a great entryway/starting point for the beginner because it starts to unlock so many other things as we dive down the rabbit hole. Here are some great questions to ask yourself about the dream space right off the bat:
1. Do you have to take something to fall asleep, smoke cannabis or have a glass of alcohol to “bring you to a mellow place”?
2. Do you have recurring dreams?
3. Do you turn into someone else in your dreams?
4. Do you have nightmares?
5. Do you not dream at all? False! Everyone dreams. You just don’t remember them, and that’s ok.
6. Do you feel like you leave your body while you are falling asleep?
7. Did you have night terrors, paralysis or see dark figures/shadow people in your room as a kid?
8. Do you write down your dreams and/or offer the opportunity for them to reflect things happening in your life?
9. Are your dreams prophetic? Have you been hiding that your whole life because people might think you’re crazy? Teehee.
The interesting thing about this topic is that once you take the leap into curiosity and consider that dreams may be something more, the doors will start to open for you about both dreams and about the rest of your life. This is exactly what sitting with Mushrooms does for you too. I love Robert Moss for this, and a favorite for me is his book “Dreaming the Soul Back Home”. Astral travel is also a fun deep dive and Robert Monroe is a good resource for that. I find that individuals who are in a more feminine space are often drawn to Dream Shamanism and those in a more masculine space are often drawn to Astral Travel — I feel this is due to the natural strengths, interests and skillsets of primarily masculine and/or primarily feminine embodied individuals. The bottom line is to pick up a book that resonates and jump in with an open-minded curiosity.
Living in the Medicine is all about being open to what’s really there and dreams are one of the doorways that can lead you to that space.
I talk a lot about doorways in my blogs, they are important concepts in my work because we are all operating at different levels/dimensions/frequencies. We can all get to the same places, but we must take different doorways to get us there. One of my jobs is to open doors when people are stuck in a room without windows.
What are some other doorways to opening these perspectives? Psychedelics are one for sure, but I find that people often get so sidetracked with the bigness of psychedelics, that they don’t embody the message that psychedelics are here to share — they don’t bring that information into their every day life, they often just keep taking the substance because it’s easier. I see this as a great abuse of the Medicine (mushrooms, ayahuasca, cannabis, etc.). Other doorways onto this path are through tarot cards, working with a psychic/seer, studying astrology, human design, breathwork, yoga, or Shamanic Journeying. Although it has improved, our society is still not particularly kind towards many of these modalities — writing them off as “woo woo” or with other equally demeaning descriptors.
It’s funny, isn’t that similar to what was being said about hippies, communes, meditation, yoga, hypnosis, cannabis, mushrooms, and LSD 50 years ago? These things were demonized and now we are finding massive benefit in these spaces. Hmmmmm.
Other doorways that I recommend for extreme skeptics or beginners who are having a hard time getting started are Quantum Physics and science-based research around these topics. Some resources I love in that arena are The Hidden Messages in Water, The Intention Experiment, The Holographic Universe, and my husband loves E-Squared.
For a person who has more experience, I recommend a deep Shamanic Journeying practice and cultivating plant spirit relationships with non-psychoactive plants. I love teaching people about these resources and how far it can take them. These are the game-changing practices that I live for.
The other half to Living the Medicine is about faith. This is the aspect of Shamanism that most closely resembles other religions out there and the one where people start to get stuck. You don’t get to see it to believe it, you have to believe it to see it. This is why diving into things like dreams can be helpful, because you will start to see it and that ball will start rolling. You can never unsee it once it starts!
This “believing to seeing” is not just a Shamanic thing though; this is a big ass life lesson. It’s one of the biggest ones each of us will ever learn. If you want to live a full life, where you feel connected to the world around you, where you live in your joy and follow a life purpose, where you experience magic — you must have before things will shift. The more you drop into faith, the more magical things get. The Medicine asks you to be willing and open to the idea that this world is full of magic — just as the mushrooms will show you when you sit in Ceremony with them. They are such great teachers for those willing to listen and embody their lessons.
It is often easy for someone to go “trip” with a psychedelic and talk about how that experience was the most meaningful one of their life. But why is there such an unwillingness to embody that experience and bring it into the rest of our lives? Why are we afraid to see the magic that surrounds us every day? Why must we put it into a box of “my cool mushroom trip back in my 20s” instead of being open to seeing how Every. Day. Is. A. Mushroom. Journey.
Can these psychedelic experiences be healing and profound? Absolutely, yes. But why aren’t we letting it be more? This is a question that the spirits ask me so frequently — “Nadia, why aren’t you letting this be more? Why aren’t you allowing it to be as big as it wants to be? Why are you putting it into a box?”
Well, it’s Fear. It’s always fear!
For me, I live in a space where I get to see and feel magic every day. I see miracles and healings and get to help so many people find their truth. And I experience so much joy. This is what I want for all the people who come to work with me. Yet, I sense there is more magic to be had. I find that I am often afraid to be disappointed. I am afraid of my bigness and my power — what if my intuition is wrong? (It’s never been wrong rofl). I am afraid to imagine a better world, one where we consciously create the systems we live in, the communities we are a part of, and a better future. I am scared. Because I (we) like to stay close to the demons we know instead of risk meeting the ones we don’t.
As I said when I started this post, Life is a Ceremony, and just like every Medicine Ceremony I have ever sat in, there is always the choice to go deeper.
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