FOR INDIVIDUALS
If you feel called to an encounter with the medicine and are unsure how to start, that is a good time for a conversation that may help you orient. If you have had one or more encounters that seemed to have opened a door you are unsure how to enter, that is similarly a good time for a conversation. I can help you develop a strategy for either circumstance, including a program of preparation and integration that is one on one or in collaboration with another professional who is supporting your work. If your ceremonial experience has been traumatic, there is usually a clear reason, and we can talk about that as well.
FOR THERAPISTS
I have spoken with a number of therapists. Some are looking for a facilitator to work with a client who has expressed interest in a medicine experience. Some have inquired how to approach a medicine experiences themselves. I am conversant with conventional therapeutic and Jungian constructs and can share my perspective regarding the unique and different construct by which the mediicine and nature approach healing humanity's common wound.
FOR MEDITATION TEACHERS
Before my first encounter with ayahuasca, I had meditated regularly for at least fifteen years, including a number of six-day vision quests in nature. The medicine changed the way I meditate and my purpose in doing so. American meditation culture has been deeply affected by a single fact relayed to me by a Buddhist Roshi: everywhere Buddhism planted itself—Tibet, China, and Japan—it formed a relationship with an underlying shamanic culture. That was not the case in the West for the simple reason that European colonization decimated indigenous practices while Western Christianity prohibited mystical practice, leaving the West without. If we are going to bring meditation into an effective partnership with the medicine, we need to renovate. The medicine itself has shown me a specific way to do that.
FOR FACILITATORS
I am happy to work with facilitators who wish to have another perspective on how to prepare clients for ceremony, support them in ceremony, and approach a program of integration beyond a general referral to therapy, meditation, yoga and other generally available self-help practices. I am firmly of the opinion that it is the responsibility of facilitators to guide clients in effective ways to prepare and integrate these experiences.
