Lately I’ve been observing the psylocibin and plant medicine movements. I feel they can be very potent for some and it has been very interesting to hear experiences. I am not discouraging anyone from following their intuition if they feel right for you. Above all, as always trust your guidance, your intuition, your bones.
I’m simply addressing a nuance that is relevant for some. And sharing a little ‘memoir’ bit.
Given the challenges with mental health in my family, they are not something I’m willing to explore. I was sharing this with a friend and he was being fairly dismissive of my concerns, saying how safe it is. As we talked, I realized again how different our realities are. And that this plant medicine craze is a bit ableist.
(Not to mention a decontextualized process too often used in a western way, that in many cases should give us pause. This pill popping culture likes to make everything a craze/simple solution to complex situations. It is essential to work with someone who understands ancestral medicine ethically and can support you safely and with integrity.)
When I think of mind altering substances, I do not think of a happy trip.
I remember the blank stares on my mother’s face.
I remember her in many moments of psychosis, a zombied out state.
I remember being five years old, asking for Strawberry Nestle Quik and her pouring me a cup of bleach in her dissociated state.
The voices in her head told her to kill me, and I’m not sure if she was trying to do so in that moment. Or if she was just dissociated. Moments after, she walked out into the neighborhood, half naked, knocking on people’s doors and begging them for cigarettes.
This was normal. This is how I experienced my mother in many waves throughout my early childhood and are ultimately what led to my placement in foster care.
As a teen and young adult when we reconnected, there were many times when she was destabilized and again, I looked into eyes that were somewhere else.
Sitting in the latest psychiatric hospital, cold hallways, wounded people all around. Sitting in a stark white windowless room trying to have a visit with my mother who was ‘not there,’ my young heart ached with heartbreak to see her so lost.
After so much medication and many years, it’s hard to know what was her innate sensitivity as Gabor Mate would say, her mental health issue, and what was the result of the cocktail of medications.
All this on top of my father’s heroin addiction and the multiple family members who’ve been destroyed by alcoholism.
Even tinctures that are alcohol based, give me pause.
My self care is so important to me, I do not touch alcohol.
Throughout my life, I have seen far too many people deteriorate with substances, so even though I know ancestral medicine can be healing when held integrally, I choose sober, present, connecting processes.
I have clients and friends who have had similar concerns so I feel it is important to honor this. Plant medicine CAN be transformational AND it may not be for everyone.
The good news is, I feel very clear that my journey in foster care WAS a trip. I was exposed to so many different lifestyles, realities, traumas, barriers, all of which help me to live and think out of the box and sensitize me to the needs of the world at large.
There are many ways to be cosmic, connected, expansive and healed. And mostly it is about the choices we make to connect with earth, ancestors, Creator/Spirit in every moment.
A way of walking with life that IS a happy trip :)