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My name is John Davidson
During more than twenty years of working in ceremony with ayahuasca, San Pedro, and psilocybin, I have continued to listen and learn. Nature speaks through these doorways. It is inviting humans first to heal, then to step into their potential of planetary purpose.
Member
Psychedelic Bar Ass'n
What I do
I am not a healer. I teach people how to connect with nature with the help of the medicine in a way that allows them to heal themselves. My process arises from four decades of work with various forms of meditation and vision questing, qi gong, annual travel to the jungle and mountains of Peru over a period of sixteen years, and something in the magnitude of 150 ceremonial medicine encounters. Some of my teaching is done on the massage table. One fundamental goal of this work is to move the default location of attention from the mind to the intelligent heart.
What is nature saying to us?
I have published two books specifically about my works with natural psychedelic medicines and have completed the draft of a third. Each of these recounts my experiences to the point in time each was written, but each subsequent ceremony has added another piece to the puzzle that has gradually formed a coherent picture of what nature is trying to teach humanity through these medicines.
Over time, I have come to an inescapable conclusion: nature is a living, breathing, intelligent and ensouled being that speaks to those that can hear. The medicines have been gifted by nature to help us hear, at least those of us who choose to listen.
Nature's overarching message is simple. "Humans," nature has said quite directly, "are like teenagers who have wrecked the family car." "Now," nature says, "its soul to soul." Nature invites anyone who does the work of maturation to partner with her in an ongoing, open-ended process of co-creation. And, ceremony by ceremony, nature has disclosed the rules and conditions by which that can happen.
More emphasis has been given in the recent literature to the idea of integration than preparation. I regard preparation as far more important. Good preparation is the most effective way to work with the medicine, and the medicine itself shows us the way to integrate.
It has been interesting to me to come to the understanding that, while we think we are coming to the medicine for healing, healing is only the first threshold of a dedicated relationship with the medicine. Healing gives way to a sense of purpose and the opportunity for partnership--partnership first with self by integrating soul with body, then partnership with nature, and ultimately functional partnership with other humans. And, for a very clear reason, in that order.
In the midst of humanity's lurch toward extinction, the question arises how to remain steady, loving, heart-centered, and purposeful. I have found that the development of a steady-state sense of deep connection with nature--with nature in the fullness of its quality as a loving teacher and collaborator--has allowed me to continue to work with a heightened sense of purpose despite the pending challenge we now face.
