Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Rematriation, Plant Medicine & Trauma-Informed Reproductive Health w/ Mikaela De La Myco of MushWOMB

Transcript

Rematriation, Plant Medicine & Trauma-Informed Reproductive Health w/ Mikaela De La Myco of MushWOMB · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Hello everyone.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to this week's episode on the Healing Her Story podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Riva Jean-Paul.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a trauma-informed somatic practitioner, coach for women, and host for your show.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Today I am just feeling those really warm, nourishing, tingling feelings all over my arms and a little bit in my heart as I am getting ready to welcome today's guest.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Today's guest is a very special guest to me.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: She is someone who I greatly look up to and someone who I have been following for years now, specifically with the work that I do with sacred plant medicines and as well as with the work that I do with women.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: I have sent several women to this person as they were looking for more information and education in their motherhood journey.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I have also gone to her to receive information for my own journey as well.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I have received feedback from the people that I've sent to her and have also experienced myself just the clarity that can come from the wisdom that she is so devoted to sharing, not just in today's show, but out in the community and out in the world.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's truly such an honor.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: This is a powerhouse that has blessed us with her presence today.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm really excited for today's conversation.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I thought you were going to do a short bio.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: No, that was just my little intro.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and read.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: That was my wonderful.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's so nice to receive the kind words.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're welcome.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: I always try to put in my own little um personal perspective too on the patient person that's coming on.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll read uh Michaela's bio.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Michaela De La Michael is a mother, mush womb practitioner, herbalist, community organizer, and researcher centering ancestral healing modalities, sacred earth medicine, and psychedelic parenting.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: As a founder of Mush Womb, she provides education for mothers and birthing people, queer folks, and BIPOC in the sacred earth medicine and full-spectrum womb care space.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: In all things, she acts as an instrument of change and the struggle to re-matriate etheogens.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Michaela, welcome to the show.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: So nice to have you on today.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good to be here, Riva.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for creating a space.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we always start, Michaela, by sharing a little bit about our story.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: So, what is your story?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a story of a weird kid, um, very out of place in a lot of these spaces that she was asked to be in.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles called San the San Fernando Valley.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's quite in how I have this unmistakable accent that likely won't ever go away.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, my father, such a beautiful ancestor, um he was really on a mission to kind of like westernize our entire family line, right?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And like assimilate and um adopt um and acculturate to you know being in the late 90s as an interracial family.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um that meant private school, that meant a Catholic school upbringing, that meant going to church every Sunday, um, and singing.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so interesting because like the weirdness in me continued to just break through all of those confines to his deep frustration.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm just so grateful for like my ancestors and my rebellious spirit and like my spirit of resistance um to just kind of shine through, even if it meant just getting in trouble, getting thrown out, like being a problem child.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's certainly where I found myself.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very grateful to my mother.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she is uh an immigrant from southern Italy who was raised on the land.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we are just you know one generation away from very traditional herbalism folk practices, um, in-house care um for ailments, ranging from broken bones to breach birds to, you know, poisonous snakes and all kinds of shit like that.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm very grateful that I was raved up in her kitchen.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um she was mostly a stay-at-home mom.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I was doing most of the, you know, prep work in her kitchen, going to go pick the herbs and chopping certain vegetables and picking parsley and just building an intimate relationship with herbs and plants as food and getting very connected to like nourishment in that way, and not just caloric nourishment, but like what it means to prepare food for a family and to create a home like that.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, yeah, this really interesting dichotomy of, you know, my father who was going through an acculturation process and anglified his name at age seven, you know, like kind of peeling the layers on that is really a person raised by a single indigenous, detribalized Mexican woman in abject poverty, um, who had him with an Afro-Caribbean musician, poet, songwriter who lived in Havana for many years, um, and you know, traveled.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, um, I just I saw a deep grappling with the multiplicity of identities, being an interracial person, even himself, um, and being a person who wanted to find the American dream and wealth and happiness for his family, and had to give up so much of his identity in order to become that.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of my story is being a weird kid moving through these systems, and the daughter of weird people moving through these systems, and the granddaughter of weird people moving through these systems.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in my lifetime, really trying to create opportunities for integrating, um, you know, re-becoming um all the things that our families have been and always wanted to be.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm very grateful that um there is safety in some ways and there is a lot of courageousness that needs to take place for a lot of us to be able to live um in ways similar to our ancestors.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So um that is the ongoing work that my story is about.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for sharing all of that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm noticing some uh tears well up behind my eyes, just listening to the polarities of your background.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I can relate a little bit with um being a multi-racial child myself.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it's just really lovely to hear all those threads that got you to where you are now.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I also love this piece you shared about your mother having you in the kitchen and encouraging you to build that relationship with herbs and plants at such a young age.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know if jealous is the right word, but like, oh man, I didn't hate, I didn't get that, which is okay.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I just I think that's so wonderful that you had that experience as a young girl.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it makes a lot of sense to to see you as the human that you've become today.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't totally love it when I was a kid.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I want to eat lunchables and pop-tarts and whatever, like big box store cereal, and it was just like homemade lasagna and all the things that we like would be like this is amazing now, but just you know, it was very like I was dogged and like made fun of at school for like being immersed within my culture, even in some small ways.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so yeah, I'm really I'm really grateful.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't love it, and um, but I just see the benefit of children raised up in their cultures and raised up in like ancestral arts.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's good to see there's a resurgence of that with like nature-based schools and schools that are thinking about the kinds of foods that kids eat, um, because the way that we treat kids in the world is um not preparing them very well for the life ahead and what it's gonna take to survive in the world coming.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So um thank you for acknowledging that.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm glad I have one um like living parent.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my father passed away when I was 14.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I'm glad that my mom is still around and that I get to kind of carry on her legacy in that way.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's really beautiful.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, now that we know a little bit about what led you to be who you are today, I'd love to talk a little bit more about what we're we're here to talk about today.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: And as we were um getting ready to record the episode, I had shared um somewhat vulnerably and just in a very real way that as I was preparing for your episode, listening to some of your other interviews, I noticed myself um bumping up against these programs and these beliefs that aren't even necessarily mine.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: And these beliefs were telling me that some of the things that you were sharing just weren't right or that's wrong.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'd love to start there today and ask you why do you think that so many of us have internalized the belief that ancient indigenous ways of healing either um aren't good enough or are wrong, or yeah, isn't something that we can trust?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for naming that internal sense that you had to resist the things that I was sharing.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I actually hope deeply that people have a level of discernment with the teachings that they come across because just because I'm on a screen or just because I'm like in a podcast episode doesn't mean that I have any qualifications or credentials to say the things that I'm saying.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so everyone should have a deep level of like inquiry, discernment, and question.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's something that has guided my way a lot and kept me safe.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to thank and acknowledge the part of you that's like, I'm not sure about that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and then to follow that, I am I'm always also very curious about um what was the installed information that this was now cutting across and getting grainy with.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um that to me is like an important inquiry is like where do we learn the things that we know and and who do we trust, and what knowledge bases do we adhere to and care about?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what what ways of knowing do we acknowledge as valid and as um the most important to listen to?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so um empirical knowledge, knowledge that comes from higher education, knowledge that comes from books, reading, um, book smarts, and things like that have their important place in how we discern and come across information.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I also like to make a claim for things like oral tradition folk ways of knowing, experiential learning, um, things that you know through direct experience, for example, that um people that don't come from higher education rely on deeply for how they navigate the world generally.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so um there is an important, there is an important discussion to be had about how do we honor those many ways of knowing.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so when it comes to most of my practices that I adhere to both in my personal life and then the things that I share, I do my best to pull from a number of different worldviews on the subject because it is important many people will not have access to the ways of knowing that I do and might need other means to fill in those blanks for them.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so without completely saying like fuck Western conceptions about knowledge, um, I like to meet people where they are.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that sometimes means that like folk-based knowledge traditions and indigenous ways of healing and knowing, and also to mention that indigenous is like a homogenizing word that somehow like clumps a varied group of people with very different worldviews um all together.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I literally only come from a very like specific worldview in that, and in you know, my lineage and in my parents' lineages.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's also good to like have a grain of salt with like, oh, indigenous-based healing practices, because it's like, well, which ones are we talking about and what part of the world um, and how does that relate to me as maybe someone who's like from Ireland?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is the medicine system relative to where I'm from?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the important things here are like what way of knowing is this information coming from?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is this empirical-based study, um, observational knowledge?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is this um direct experience, antidotal, anecdotal knowledge?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what part of the world is it coming from and what coloring that worldview?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then how does it even, how is it even culturally competent to me?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when I speak about my use and advocacy and education around psilocybin mushrooms or as an ally for birthing people, cycling people, humans of all kinds, um, I draw my conclusions based on what I've been taught through direct experience, through elders, and then through the empirical knowledge that is available on psilocybin mushrooms, which there is quite a lot now, which is wonderful.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so my work as a researcher is like pulling those threads together.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I've written, you know, 52-page ebooks, the entheogenic Earth Medicine Assistant Motherhood Guide is one of them that I wrote back in like 2022.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then this latest research project, the Mothers of the Mushroom Project, is actually trying to take real-world lived um phenomenal experience, direct experience, and data collecting on mass so that we can create empirical knowledge through um like turning those real world experiences into data points that now we can look at as stats.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: So um it is citizen science, and that has its place in the world of science generally, and it actually is how the scientific community gets to pivot and look at some of these um outer edges of um inquiry.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So psychedelics, motherhood, parenting, family life, plant medicine, does it belong with families?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um if we are just looking at empirical knowledge now, there's very little.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look at anthropological information and as told by generations of people, then we see that one system kind of knows quite a bit on the subject and one is just learning to understand.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a reason for that, and I think when we talked pre this interview, you know, what are those things that gave us the cue to question or be concerned?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And mothers eating mushrooms, mothers taking any kind of drug, um, really got centered a lot, especially for women of color during the drug war and all of the propaganda that went around crack moms, crack babies, like that being such an ugly, like horrific um visual for mothers that altered their state of consciousness, where at the same time we see maybe like mom with a glass of wine, and like that somehow is like socially acceptable.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And now, even this psychedelic exceptionalism, which means all drugs are still bad except psychedelics are like cool, becoming cooler now.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, like we're even seeing that with like the micro-dosing mom.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And even within that, we have a subsect of like, well, it's only okay if you're microdosing, but if you're like high dosing or eating, you know, journey size, having journey experiences within the home, that's where we draw the line.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, you know, this is really nuanced and it's always changing and it's changing generation for generation, but I have to give it up to the cannabis moms for sure, because like we're standing on the shoulders of giants, like moms have been smoking weed since the fifth century in China.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like a long time.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And like in you know, the 60s, the 70s, like during the love revolution, like moms are smoking Halloween.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's blotter babies, there's kids that are conceived on acid, like there's kids that that ate their moms' mushrooms when they were five.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, this shit is just kind of coming into the mainstream because people like Michael Pollan are on Oprah.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, people like me are being seen as like less like I don't know, dangerous, I guess.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: But um what makes me kind of upset is that the movement of mothers who lean on plant medicine is becoming highly fetishized at the same time that like in some corners of the world, um, mothers having a relationship to psychedelics is becoming grounds for like removing their children from them in custody case, which happens often.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that story, that forcible removal of children from houses whose mothers ingest hallucinogens is as old as Indian removal for peyote or other sacred earth medicines here in the Southwest.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a perpetuation of a harmful thing.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And mothers do have relationship to entheogens and have for a very long time, and a mother's relationship to entheogens has been grounds for breaking up their family because of the United States government's views, because of Christian conservatives' views on what a good family is.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I just sit here at like an intersection remembering what has already taken place, what is now taking place, and what will continue to take place because of you know, um ways of knowing the things they know better.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow, so much um that was shared there.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really hearing this invitation for discernment um to people out there who are listening to really sense into what feels right for them.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this is something that I talk about a lot on the show is that we only know what's right for us.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's important that we can connect with that that compass inside that lets us know what is right and and what isn't right.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also really hearing this intersection, as you named, between what we've been doing and what we've known and what we've been experiencing for centuries, converging with the modern practices of science and learning to work with the modern elements of science in a way in which you're able to really meet people where they're at so that they can kind of bridge both of those worlds together, which I think is really important for the day and age that we live in now, because things are much different than they were.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Centuries ago.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, there's also a lot of value that is that can be found in some of the things that have been been happening for centuries.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And for anyone imagining that the West is the only civilization that does science, I mean, like Africa has incredible sciences, and Mesoamerica has incredible sciences, and the Caribbean has incredible sciences.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a way that people understood the makings of the world.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Before annotation, before language, before written words, we had a relationship to the animate world and our place in it.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it is important, I think, to just say here that you know we are describing a human being's relationship to the natural world.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Cannabis is a part of the natural world, psilocybin is a part of the natural world.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a logical fallacy to just say that, oh, just because it's natural means that it's safe.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'd love to discuss safety because that is something that actually, you know, I think informs the United States government to want to do certain things in the name of safety, um, because of things that they might not understand, or like the hesitancy that you might have or another mother might have hearing the thing, the ways that I speak, like that might not be safe.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I would love to discuss um maybe what looks like flagrant uh promotion of a potentially harmful substance when people hear me speak, and the things that I know about safety and psilocybin and things like cannabis and herbs and other things too.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: So would it be appropriate for me to just speak briefly about what we do know as far as safety in psilocybin and use in humans?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Please, yeah.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: I know safety is something that I deeply value in the work that I do with humans.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you're also trauma-informed.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, I would love for you to share anything that you're feeling inspired to share around that.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so and I love that you come from this background of like this internal sense of safety and also discernment and like knowing when things feel right and not.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was at a point in my life, in my pregnancy journey, that I wasn't sure either.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had a relationship to psilocybin mushrooms, and I'm a now pregnant body that I'm now learning what pregnancy is like in my body.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, can this helpful ally be woven into this like changing woman phase?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can I can it come with me for the ride?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know if it was safe for them to come on the boat with me.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a reasonable question to ask.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what most questions, that's what most people in the survey were like looking to figure out was, you know, are mushrooms safe for pregnancy, breastfeeding, and postpartum?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really what Mothers of the Mushroom is like centered to try to like get an understanding about.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually like kind of our our focus is like understanding the safety profile of psilocybin mushrooms at this gestational period because it is a sensitive time.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it is also a time where mothers and birthing people and and birthers of all of all kinds like are constantly ridiculed about how we approach and what we engage in during that.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, like psilocybin mushrooms, they're like, oh my god, how dare you! Um, and I'm like, well, let's just look at what we know about psilocybin safety profile.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I love is that yeah, like psilocybin as a substance has put been put through scientific rigor along with other like psychoactives.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we have certain tests to understand toxicity.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there is one test in particular that I learned about in high school called the LD50.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the LD50, for those that are not um maybe familiar with the LD50, is a test to generate like a lethal response in a population of lab animals, which is like so sad because it means that they have to kill half of them.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: How much of the substance would it take to kill half of our subject?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's the LD50, life death 50.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, or lethal dose 50.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when psilocybin mushrooms is stacked up against other psychoactive substances, and some of which are used very routinely in obstetric practice, like aspirin and morphine during epidural.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have caffeine, we have nicotine, um, we have mescaline.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: So in mescaline-producing cacti, so like peyote and san Pedro, cannabis, LSD, and psilocybin mushrooms, psilocybin and mescaline stack very close up to the top at the highest safety profile of any of those afromeshroom chemicals.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's very helpful, at least if we're looking at death as a toxic endpoint, it's rather challenging to get there with psilocybin and mescaline, which is huge.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which also tells us some really interesting things about the cultures that have fostered relationships with these medicines.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not every single culture works with them in gestation, but a lot do.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: A lot won't break the relationship between mother and mushroom, even if there is pregnancy, even if we're in postpartum.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, um in the emam guide that I wrote, I talk about peyote's relationship to postpartum and um how it is intricately woven into the pregnancy experience and how it's intricately woven into the postpartum experience for even thing um practical uses like increasing breast milk production.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, like these medicines do have some cultural place in the gestational world.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so we do have some examples of psilocybin's use, like in conception experiences, pregnancy, and then in postpartum, even in modernity, um, like in Colombia, for example, there is a clinic that utilizes psilocybin mushrooms as part of their postpartum depression protocol.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, and that is backed by indigenous use um provisions with the Colombian government.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's cool.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's cool, like we're figuring it out and kind of teasing the things out now, but culturally, and in different places around the world and Spanish-speaking countries, um, and in some communities that still have these practices adhered, um, they acknowledge psilocybin and mescaline-producing cacti as um generally safe for just baby bodies, which is awesome.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so the LD50 is showing that, and then we've had other testing done with psilocybin that just in some ways just shows that it's safe for adult use, and so um, I mean, that gives me, I think, a little bit of ease when coming out with research like this, because if I was promoting a natural substance that I in any way felt like had lethality or like toxicity or like could cause mutation or something like that, then I would be a lot more like erring on the side of caution.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I do even do that, even with the research that I do put out.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a pretty safe substance when we're looking at it comparatively to other substances used in obstetrics, which is great.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: We do have uh legacies of indigenous use spanning back 5,000 years.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we do have a huge legacy of psilocybin mushrooms intricate relationship to humankind.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think to just uh the last two points I'll make on safety are when we did do some surveys to look at mothers who ate mushrooms while pregnant, um when they gave us their birth stats.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that's like birth weight, birth age, um if there were complications, those statistics in that very small population, I want to be very clear that it was a small population of moms.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was like 13 moms that gave us their stats.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: They did eat a variety of doses of mushrooms while pregnant.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when we looked at the data and compared them against national averages, the outcomes of their children in particular did not deviate from national averages.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: So without controlling for any other variable, like adding psilocybin to pregnancy didn't radically change the outcomes of births outside of the norm of the nation.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a stat that I like want to expand out to see like how does that perform at like 100 kids, 200 kids.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: So um, that is the only way we're really gonna be able to assess safety in pregnancy for now until science figures out how to get around the ethical part.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um that's just my piece on safety.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and what I will say is it is possible to have challenging experiences.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the um survey data, we do showcase what were some of those challenges that people experienced because death isn't the only bad thing that can happen when you take drugs.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um you can have, yeah, you can have like really destabilizing experiences.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so we wanted to also highlight, you know, um not just the rainbows and butterflies, but also the gray clouds and like the other things that were um particularly challenging about mothers' relationships with mushrooms to just be honest and forthcoming with that kind of information.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I greatly appreciate that.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm feeling that tingling sensation again as you've been sharing all of this.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: And perhaps that's just kind of like my internal system giving me permission to explore this.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not a mother currently, I plan to be soon, and I do have a deep relationship with mushrooms, and it's crossed my mind as to, you know, am I going to continue this relationship or what might this relationship look like in motherhood?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so to hear of all of these cases of um, you know, it being completely safe, um, if not even beneficial for many women, it's really um, really empowering for me to receive all of that.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I hope that um maybe it won't land in that way for everyone, but I hope that whatever is shared sparks something within you that um can kind of point you in the direction that you might need to go down if if you're considering bringing sacred plants into your motherhood journey.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: The education, we're working on it, you know, the research, we're working on it diligently because when I was coming up, when I was pregnant with my son in 2019, there was very, very little.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Very little and even being even asking the question in somewhat, you know, progressive psychedelic online forum type spaces, like, oh, is it safe for me to eat while pregnant?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And like the kind of ridicule, the kind of backlash, the kind of like, yeah, shaming for even asking the question is really not helping the problem at all and not leading us into greater safety.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, we take a very harm reduction approach when like talking about this work, and education is gonna be liberation um when it comes to this thing for sure.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: I love that saying.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Education is liberation.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's really beautiful.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: And all this information you're sharing about the mom, mom with mushrooms, mom on mushrooms, or motherfucking mothers of the mushroom.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: Mothers of the mushroom.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is all of this information now available?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: I know this is a study you've been working on for quite some time.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the our preliminary paper has been published.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is available on the mothersofmushroom.com website, and it also has an audiobook version for those people that just like are folding laundry and doing regular life stuff.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we wrote the preliminary research paper at a high school grade reading level so that like most people are very much um shut out from scientific empirical knowledge because of the literacy and the language barrier.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so we really want to make this as accessible as possible for people to digest and understand.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna work pretty hard in the next several months to receive and get uh more grants and funding and guidance around getting it published into a peer review journal.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be sure to include um the link for that in the show notes.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if there's any way that I can personally um support this moment, um I'm in your corner and um let me know.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I think this is really wonderful work that you're doing out there in the world.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's my pleasure.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's something I wish I would have had, and I'm just grateful that I knew an Awalita who kind of took me under her wing a little bit in a few ceremonies while I was very visibly pregnant, while my son was, you know, nine months old and just really kind of held me, not just with the verbal permission, but like to be able to come, to be able to sit, to be able to be in a container of traditional mushroom use as a birthing person, as a postpartum mom, and to like receive information and feedback from a medicine woman who is also a mom.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's a rare, not it's not, it wasn't always a rare exchange, but it's becoming a rarer exchange now with like less elders, you know, maintaining practices, less young people remembering and holding on to these.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, it's the movement that we have um around sacred earth medicines is less about, in my opinion, for me, um like optimizing performance so that I can be in this system better, but to like preserve like cultural knowledge and like keep things alive and like breathe life into these practices and to like remember our songs and to like you know anchor, um yeah, anchor in honoring of the sacred earth and our relationship with it.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: So um, if that means that like we need to do a peer-reviewed fucking study, like I'm down, homie, like I'm college educated, let's fucking go for it.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: But like at the at the foundation, I'm like a person of the earth, and that's why it's called Mothers of the Mushrooms.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, God bless Tracy T, who's like the one who gets a lot of shine on like Dr.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Phil, because she's you know, she looks like your typical white lady who's blonde and like I'm friends with her, we're cool, it's it's all good.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And like she's gonna go places I'll never be asked to go.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: But like moms on mushrooms, like I'm not on mushrooms, like I'm not above them.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm of them.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like they made me.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: We make each other.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is a relationship.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is a relationship.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I do my best to try to use language like I'm not using mushrooms, like I'm with mushrooms, like I have mushrooms in my system, like that that even that language piece of relationship and animism and shared sensual connection is like the meat of the way that we interact with water, the way that we interact with our kids.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um that that means a lot to me.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like a worldview that I've had to like kind of remember coming out of Catholicism, coming out of Christianity, coming out of like suburbia, where a lot of that is lost.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that people can remember like these beings are alive.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're alive, we're in relationship.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Your relationship's gonna look different than mine.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I not only like serve mushrooms, I as in from my hands to yours, but also like my hands up to mushrooms.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I serve you, I'm doing your bidding.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you told me what to do.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I think you told me to do.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um I just yeah, I pray deeply for you know, Maria Sabina, the legacy of the Mazatech, the Ligatica community, people who've been stewarding mushrooms for a very long time, all in Mexico, you know, like and a lot of mushroom stewardship in Africa, a lot of mushroom stewardship in Asia and in like Scandinavia and in like the British Isles and in Ireland and like Jamaica.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's so cool.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like what I love about working with mushrooms and like communing with mushrooms and like sharing education around mushrooms is because they're ubiquitous upon the face of the earth, as in they can be found on pretty much every continent.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: So they are like a people's medicine, like they're a medicine that we build cultures around that might feel look a little bit different, but like we are imbibing in similar spaces, and so I just love that it's a very unifying consciousness, and I think it's why they've become so popular here for so many different kinds of people, because they kind of belong with everybody, which is really nice.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you for for naming that.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: How it can really be found all over the world.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's so interesting to hear because I know that I have, in my understanding, a lot of it has been based in Mexico.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's um, yeah, it's lovely to hear that it is happening in in other parts of the world and has been for a very long time.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's um, yeah, just really opens up a world of possibilities.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I love what you shared too about this relationship with the plant.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I know when I first started using psychedelics, it was very recreational.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And without getting too deep into some of my experiences, a lot of them were positive.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: And after some time, they'd started to not be so positive.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I was having a lot of what I now know to be traumatic inference arising in these altered states of consciousness while I'm at some festival or some party or something, and I have no idea what is going on.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I ignored those experiences for many years and still kept trying to use these substances in a way that was recreational.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: And eventually I had to stop because it wasn't working.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, a lot of times it was making things worse.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: And when I came back to sacred plants, that was one of the main things that I I noticed was this need to change my relationship to the substances that I was using.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: Was I using these substances to escape or was I using them to enhance?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: And as I went further along that journey, it's like, am I coming here to take from the plants, or am I coming here to commune and to spend time connecting with these plants?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: And it has really significantly changed my psychedelic experiences that I have now.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I find I don't even really need to do big doses anymore.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: I can do a 0.15 microdose and have a very therapeutic and deep experience that gives me exactly what I need.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I think it's important that relationship piece.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's everything.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Who introduced them to you and like yeah.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: So when I first used them, I was 15, very young, and I was with a group of friends, and these friends were much older than I was, and I had no idea what I was doing.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: This is a very unsafe way to use sacred plant medicines if this is something that you're wanting to do.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I asked them how much should I take?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, Oh, take the whole eighth.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Okay.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I ate an entire eighth of mushrooms, which is three and a half grams, for my very first time as a 15-year-old with no preparation or idea of what was going to happen.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I was in a relatively safe, safe enough environment where I was able to have an okay time.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think that I was honestly very um overwhelmed and I kind of blocked out for a piece of it.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even really remember.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't believe anything traumatic happened in that state.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think I was just so overwhelmed by the altered state that I my body just didn't know how to process it.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: And um one thing that I remember from that trip was seeing a bush and having it look a lot like a monster.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I was convinced it was a monster and I was kind of arguing with the people around, like, no, no, no, there's a monster outside, be careful out there.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, no, no, it's a bush.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's kind of the one thing that I remember from the first experience that I had and went on to have um, you know, other experiences in nature.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: And in different sorts of environments.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: But when it started to change, I think it was a friend of mine who had talked to me about microdosing.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: And at that time I really struggled with addiction.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: And Adderall was kind of my drug of choice.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I just liked that edge that it gave me.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was coming off Adderall, I had tried microdosing actually to help kind of give me that edge that I was looking for.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of what you've named about using microdosing to optimize our performance.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of how I was initially approaching it.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it did help.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: I was able to get off Adderall and essentially kind of replace it with the microdosing.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then I kind of went through these different stages of my, you know, my journey with plant medicine.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that as I started doing the trauma-informed work, I kind of reached another layer of deepening my relationship with the plants.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I noticed those similar tendencies of addiction, of using them to escape and, you know, maybe taking them and going and doing like a workout or like, you know, going and driving, which is not to say right or wrong, but I just noticed that it wasn't quite feeling right.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so as I've continued to study and just explore and change and grow, I've ended up in this place that I'm at now where I literally block out an entire morning to commune with the plant.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: I take a small amount and I have a very um just a quiet space where I can really listen and be open to receive whatever wants to be shared with me when I'm in that space.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, what an evolution.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I just I love the stories of people's relationships with mushrooms and how they've kind of transformed over the years.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: And 15 is rather young to come into it.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I would love to say too that um I think two things I'd like to say.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: 15 is not actually that young to ingest suicide in mushrooms in certain cultural content.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um there are children as young as three years old that begin their relationship with mushrooms and the context and the intention in which we explore or get introduced is hugely transformative to the kinds of experiences that we have.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there's been definitely some concern around, you know, psilocybin in the breast milk, and like that's so unsafe.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, in fact, that is one of the many ways that some indigenous groups can't speak homogenously, but like from anecdotal experience and from anecdotal information from my sister who lives among the Mazatec, um, that psilocybin in the breast milk is how children begin their introduction to like imbibing, digesting through that exposure, through the genius like filtration system that goes through mother.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then the dosing practices are like very much more akin to you know, a grandmother parsing out dosages that are age appropriate as opposed to like a group of friends eating just bags of mushrooms behind the school campus.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then you know, so it's cultural context and holding um within these frameworks makes a huge difference.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think like the age number is definitely the focus, it's really like what what was the context of it?
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's definitely when I was coming up in college, this idea, like you said, about like eating an eighth is a dose for some people, and for a lot of people, that's extremely a lot.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: And for people that are survivors, so I am a survivor of sexual and intimate violence.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I am also someone who's dealt with substance abuse as a young person.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have a sensitive nervous system, like, yeah, three and a half grams is like a very special amount that you know I I don't need to arrive at in order to get insight and to like enter the space of it.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I've really just come to know that we can take a very like kind nervous system central approach to like easing into our relationship with mushroom.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's part of the genius of the way that our ancestors and people living right now do with kids and then bring them up gradually with education and learning about the songs and learning about the fire that you honor and learning about the right offerings that you give and like immersing the children in ritual and in ceremony.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like my son is bobbing around while we're sitting around the fire during our, you know, our ceremonies that we do here at the house.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like he's getting the context, he's getting the understanding, he knows how to put the offering in the fire in a respectful way.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: He knows, you know, how to shake the rattle in the right way when the song is on.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, you know, let's not miss all of the components of the environment around medicine that also makes it extremely sacred.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: That, you know, as you said, you give yourself the morning, and that was what feels right for you.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you probably have your own special steps.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, going through those steps even alone are beneficial.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I will say for folks like with performance and optimization, and like I all I don't even want to dog that because we do live in a world that we have to perform at some like inhuman-ass level, and we're trying to find a way to exist in that, um, especially moms with octopus arms and the kids and the food and the, you know, making sure that they kind of look okay too, and you know, needing that extra support, I think is very compassionate, you know.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I never like to shame people for how they want to approach the benefits that mushrooms can provide for them.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what I will say is that there are some helpful measures around the mushroom that can also be of great benefit.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, as a folk herbalist, like learning and knowing that there are very supportive plants that work well with the mushroom that can help support your experience.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: So in microdosing, sure, you can just add microdosing to your fucking caseload.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe if you had some like herbal infusion of like oat tops and oat straw and like some nettles and maybe a little St.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: John's wart thrown in and like a rose, you know, and you drink that every day, you're like, damn, maybe I can stretch the space between my doses now because I'm getting these other nutritional and nervous system supportive needs and hepatic needs met.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like my liver is detoxing properly, you know, I have micronutrients I didn't have before, and now there's space between my thoughts.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: So just know that like mushrooms, like any other medicine within these frameworks, are like a member of a symphony of helpful practices and experiences, and not the isolated, you know, silver bullet that's gonna save the world.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like our healing with mushrooms is gonna have to be extremely like intersectional, intergenerational, and interspecies too.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: And plants and mushrooms work really wonderfully together.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: Music and mushrooms work really well together.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, get on your playlist, get in your art space, like get in your creativity if you can, get in your body space.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, because mushrooms can speak so beautifully to subtle, beautiful, kind, soft spaces.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I really struggled with hanging around people that like want to eat a handful of mushrooms and like go to the most crowded hippie beach or like go be front row at the rave.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yo, like my body might just be built different.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to sit down on the ground and like drink like a warm cup of tea and like with like a single candle, and like that is the most profound shit.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I you'll ever put me in.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I get more insights with a cup of warm tea and just the right music and one little candle.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't you can save your speaker, you can save your lights, and you can save your video screens.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm I'm good.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually like when everything around me quiets that the inner voice of the mushroom really can like be heard better.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that you know, in this world that we're asking mushrooms to do all the savior things, right?
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: That um us squeezing them into our very loud, tight, rigid world, you know, what is that gonna do for them?
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: If this is a relationship, can we like make room for them?
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: Can we like listen?
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: Can we ask the question, not what you can do for me, but like what can I do for you?
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: And how can I make how can I help create a comfortable environment for you to experience the human experience?
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because they get to be with you in you, experiencing life from your unique point of view and perspective.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um I just I feel so enchanted by them.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: I feel so enchanted by this conversation that we're having.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's so many things to talk about.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's survivorship and like the mushroom, there's the menstrual cycle, there's parenting.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: How does it all come together?
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I just yeah, I just hope that um maybe this conversation can send someone on like a little web of exploration because I'm really grateful that I get to just um educate and share about some of the things that I've come to know in these in this time.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I talk about a lot of these other topics too, like survivorship and ethics and raising kids and environmental crisis, and it's it's a very intersectional healing that our human family is going through right now.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let us not forget all the other pieces we got pulled together.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said, mushrooms are not a silver bullet, and it's really important that we approach this work holistically.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I love what you shared about bringing in other plants as well into the healing process.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's really beautiful, definitely inspiring me to switch up uh my herbal teas for my my ceremonies that I host for myself.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm curious about the herbal teas that you like.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: Who are your herbal allies that you like to work with?
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe you're gonna put me on game about someone that I'm forgetting.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, a lot of the ones you've already named definitely really enjoy working with Rose.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_02: And lately I've been using cacao.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_02: There's a cacao blend that I really enjoy using, and it has Rose and a couple other things uh mixed into it.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: I forget the brand, but there's a beautiful uh cacao shop here where I live locally and everything's ethically sourced, and so I feel really good about going and buying medicine there.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's what I've been doing for probably the last six months or so.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit of cacao with a little bit of psilocybin.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: The classic combination.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, yeah.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Michaela, as you said, so many other like, where do we go?
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_02: I know we're kind of uh we're we're approaching an hour here.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm wondering if there's anything else that is feeling alive for you that you would like to share around the themes of rematriation and reclaiming our autonomy.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I mean, what does rematriating and the engines mean?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: And um just to start.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: Rematriating is rematriation is a word that was really kind of coined as part of the land back movement, which is an important one.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um reconnecting native people to land is probably one of the most uh important um spells of reconnection that we gotta be a part of, and um for a number of reasons.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: And rematriation means to reestablish relationship between like land and maternal caretakers, or like to reconnect like people to the mother of that is the land, right?
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, everything that we know, everything that we're taught like is coming from our cues to nature and from nature, and um, when people are forcibly removed from their homelands and the lands of many generations of knowing, and this is how you're safe, and this is where you're safe, and this is how our language is formed, and this is how your spirit is animated, like is a rupture in consciousness.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a rupture in health.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: We see it happening on reservations, we see it happening to folks that have been, you know, part of the diaspora and the forcible removal from Africa.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like it does something to human spirit to be forcibly removed from their homelands.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like rematriation, in my view, and the way that I like to apply these teachings in the psychedelic movement is obviously reconnecting Native folks with their practices.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're seeing in the psychedelic renaissance is just a mass remarketing of like ancient practices for capital gain.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one thing.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's to bring attention and awareness to that like horrible like monster that's taking over our space, but also um to bring rights, responsibilities, resources, and respect to like native and black like mothers, caretakers, aunties, daughters, like the people that really hold this um nurturance of sacred earth medicines and really give the power back.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: And like not only just, oh, let's invite like the one native woman that we know to like with the abalone shell and the sage before the psychedelic conference to come and do their little opening ceremony, but to like you know, honor her voice wherever it wants to be, however it wants to be, like listen deeply, apply the teachings.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen the inverse.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen indigenous and black women get overworked in the psychedelic community, like, oh, they're on every panel, they're doing like every fucking thing because they're getting hella tokenized, like they're getting hella like, oh, well, maybe we're gonna do the right thing by like overworking them and putting them in every position so that we look like we have diversity.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not looking for equality, like I'm looking for equity, like I'm looking for you know, our vision for the world to be really centered.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's rematriate and theogens is like who's in charge of psychedelics right now?
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not reflective of the people that have been giving their fucking life for generations to make sure that we even have these things, if it's not looking like that, then we got to do a complete revamp on the way that we're organizing the psychedelic community, where the money is going, and who who is helping, who is being supported in the movement to decriminalize, who is getting heard in policy reform, who is who is at the table, you know.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, rights, responsibilities, respect, and resources back to women of color and psychedelics.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not an easy ask because the same thing that we're seeing in the whole United States right now, with this just like crazy final like swan dive of like late-stage capitalism and like all of the isms, and just like you know, this the dying breaths of this like really interesting wounded spirit um that we've been seeing.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: This like Watiko, this like, yeah, this really consumptive, power-hungry, very hurt young person, probably.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we want to protect our relationship to the sacred earth from that hurt.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's gonna mean our songs, it's gonna mean our practices, it's gonna mean the way that we organize, it's gonna be the way that we take care of each other.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: We need warmth in the psychedelic community.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like we need tenderness and kindness and grace and gratitude and like sitting in a circle and fucking hashing it out because we've hurt each other collectively.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, I think we just need kind of um a mother's embrace and a grandmother's embrace for the world, really like a big blanket for the world.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: So uh really create everything and I gotta stay in my fucking lane, and this is the space I find myself in.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wonderful and so beautifully said, and um, yeah, just really touching to hear you say all of that.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: And this is a lot of the work that I believe is what we need here in this world.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_02: I love what you said about just the whole world needs a big grandmother hug right now because it's true.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, the world is such a hard place, and what we don't need is more hardness.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: We need more of that softness and that compassion and that nurturing.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I really believe that's that's the only way to bring balance and harmony back into this modern world that we're living in.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we need a shoon, like we need warm, sweet water, we need laughter.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things we need, and things that I'm seeing, like you embody the way that I'm hearing your breath, and like I just um glad you're here.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad that the audience is like able to feel you and like get the nourishment that they need from this little corner of the world because it's like it's a big world.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if we can kind of nurture and nourish our corner of the garden, I hope that people can like, yeah, um, enjoy the flowers that grow from this place far and wide.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: So um thank you for yeah, sowing some seeds with me today.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um I think it's always a great opportunity for further kinship.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: So would love to stay connected with you.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I would love that too.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: Wonderful.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Michaela, we'll be sure to include all of your um information in the show notes.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: But if listeners want to connect with you, what would be the best way to get in touch with you?
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, so my work can be found by typing up mush woom, w-o-m b.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, mush wom is what I do.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you can find uh a website, you can find an Instagram, you can find a TikTok.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm very accessible via email.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: I do lots of one-on-one work.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I travel, I do um some gatherings and retreats, usually four times a year.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_00: So um I'll be making it out, you know, to the East Coast.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna travel internationally pretty soon here.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so just stay in touch if you'd like to connect in person.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is usually a possibility and virtual is really great too.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm healing right now um a lot.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm taking it a little bit slower.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: So just yeah, be patient with a human who got a kid and a business and stuff, and I will be here for you at the capacity in which I am able.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, mushroom is it, and mothers of the mushroom is the research that I was referring to earlier.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think on the um, in addition, if people are interested in um trauma-informed herbism and survivor advocacy, so if you are a sexual assault survivor, you are a clinician or someone who works with survivors, um, I've been building a yeah, a platform and curriculum with a dear friend of mine from the original instruction school.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: She's also an indigenous herbalist.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we love to steward and shepherd um people's relationships with plants in a way that really acknowledges, yeah, trauma and our relationship to a sovereign body and the sovereign body of earth.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: So um I wanted to just plug, it's called eco-sensual.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'll share some of that uh information on my platform in the coming weeks.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're just finishing up our course right now for the self-paced course.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: Wonderful.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, plant that little seed here and um listeners can wait until more information is available.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I'll be sure to include all of that in the show notes.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, wapakumati, thank you so much for your time.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for being here, Michaela.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: You take good care.