A Weekend at a Mushroom Retreat

This is an account of a small group Mushroom (Psilocybin) Healing Retreat from the personal perspective of a ceremony facilitator and retreat planner. This doesn’t detail one specific event, it’s a mix, a stew, of the ceremonies I’ve held and helped to facilitate over the years. My intention is to give insight into what a weekend small group (2–10 people) healing retreat is like for folks interested in facilitating, attending or recommending one in the future.

Weeks Before The Retreat

I’ve been an event planner since I was 8 years old and threw a well attended roller skate party in my friend’s cul-de-sac. In the 29 years since, it feels like I’ve worked about a thousand different jobs. And, if I piece them all together, the tie that binds my many years of work is Service. For whatever reason, I love supporting people, I love creating warm, fun, easy, chill spaces for people to enjoy themselves in, maybe learn and definitely heal.

That said, supporting people spiritually and emotionally in the format of a healing retreat is a heavy lift in terms of service. Folks who find themselves at the altar of a psychedelic healing retreat are often arriving with deep unresolved (often unidentified) trauma, grief, resistance, apathy, you name it. They’re entrusting me and often 1–3 other fellow facilitators, depending on the group size, to support them and offer guidance in a very vulnerable and mystical way. It’s a huge responsibility that I don’t take lightly. I have to personally do my own inner spiritual work to be able to support others. It’s like a job in itself to cultivate balance, maintain wellness and practice surrender in my own life!

It’s uncanny, once you declare that you are going to create a container of healing, your own healing is activated. Deep themes, old traumas, unhealed wounds and heart opening gratitude and appreciation may arrive in your life all at once.

Truly, the initiation starts well before the actual retreat does.

And not just for facilitators but the folks who sign up for the retreat as well.

Being a quality ceremony space holder, requires you to work to have a pretty radical approach to self care. In the week before the retreat, I ramp up and fine tune the practices that give me energy, that balance me, relax me and fortify my immune and nervous systems. And I tell the participants to do this as well in our pre-retreat interviews and communication. The more you can get into better alignment and balance before ANYTHING you do, the smoother your ability to endure, possibly even enjoy, the ride.

Two Weeks Before

Two weeks before the retreat, life seems to fade away around me as my focus sharpens on the journey ahead. I tend to go inward during this time, limiting exposure to harsh substances, words and energies. I love to spend a lot of time with just myself and this period feels like a cocoon.I’m contemplative but very tender with myself.

There was a time when I would have an intentional ceremony and go on a psychedelic trip of my own before each retreat. It served as a way to shed my own baggage, increase my compassion for the guests and provide insight into the upcoming retreat. After a certain point you learn to commune with the mushrooms and plant spirits without even ingesting them. Now it happens that two weeks before a retreat begins, without partaking, I clearly hear and feel the lessons of the mushrooms.

It’s a privilege to recognize psilocybin wisdom when it pops up in my life in the form of self-compassion, interconnectedness, unconditional love and playfulness.

Speaking of playfulness, mushrooms have a curious, silly, airy and non judgmental spirit. I can always count on comical glitches, or wild synchronicities to pop up in the weeks leading up to the retreat. You can feel the possibility in the air….

One Week Before

So many things go into putting together a retreat and the best ones make it look seamless and easy. One week before the retreat it is a joy to see everything coming together. I’m usually just like, “Let’s get this thing going already!”

Make no mistake, planning a great retreat requires advanced event planning experience and a detail oriented nature. For safety reasons alone, it’s not something one should plan without experience and on top of the logistical and personal financial load of planning a retreat, it’s a plant medicine retreat. As you can imagine, discretion is of the utmost importance. There is a very real hurdle in getting the word out while remaining “underground”. However, once you enter the plant medicine world you find a very robust, very large network of people from more backgrounds than you can imagine, open to healing in this way. Still, the muddled legality, lore and stigma around psilocybin use can make it tough to find locations and vendors that are open and supportive of this work. Sure, you could have a beautiful psychedelic experience in a living room but healing retreats are best when held in a beautiful, inspiring space. Even better, the gift of lovely outdoor space! Slowing down to absorb nature alone can heal a multitude of things.

A week before the retreat is also about when deep resistance toward attending shows up for some folks. A small number of guests will suddenly have second thoughts or create barriers toward arriving. Part of being a good facilitator is making sure the experience is a great fit for everyone in attendance, it’s not always the right timing or setting for some. Most folks just need a nice little cocktail of compassion, reassurance and patience.

Happily, most of the participants are nervously excited and want to be IN it and not thinking about it. In some retreats you might already be getting to know the people in your ceremony via a WhatsApp group or email chain. Some folks might be coordinating plans to arrive on the same shuttle or share a rental car to the location.

The Last Week countdown begins!

First Day of A Three Day Retreat

The first day of the retreat isn’t just about ice breakers and orientation, we also hold our first of two ceremonies, so there is an excited, upbeat yet tense energy. Most humans choose to laugh it off, make light and try to “joke” it down. That has certainly been my go-to when I’m a guest! Others find ways to create a little distance from the group, content to observe from the outside looking in. That’s sort of how I play things now, when I enter ceremony.

As a facilitator though? I’m holding the container. Which is to say, my vibes and energy permeate the space and can directly influence how the retreat feels and how much flow is allowed. If I’m flustered and scattered, it ripples out and the retreat feels that way. If I’m lethargic and distant, it’s felt.

It’s a big responsibility and that’s why you prepare weeks in advance. It is really important to feel as healthy and balanced as possible so that you can generate a container that is, at least, balanced and open and, at best, healing, nourishing and expansive.

On day one the guests check out the space, “move in”, and get to know one another better. It is pretty wild, as an adult, to be in a space where you don’t know most people and have to sort of introduce yourself again. Connecting with new people doesn’t happen as often as it used to the older I get. And we’re not just meeting at some dinner party. We’re about to co-experience one of the most transformative times in our entire lives!

As we get to know each other, the synchronicities start showing up between us and they are downright chilling. This is a hypothetical but it’ll be something where everyone has a kid with the same name, they’ve all had liver issues or they’re all arriving to work on their experiences with anger. When people share and others are like, “Omg me too!,” it’s pretty beautiful. The eerie nature of it all makes me giddy but, more profoundly, it offers a sense that we are right where we’re supposed to be, that each of us is meant to be there, in that exact time.

In my experience, most psychedelic retreat guests, about 80%, are above the age of 50.

When I tell people that, their minds bend. To me, it makes sense, it takes a mature and courageous mindset to finally face the things you’ve been trying to run from for decades. It’s very confronting work, emotionally and often physically.

People don’t readily recognize their bias or stigma around psychedelics and assume a retreat is an excuse to get high and dodge true healing. Nuh uh, quite the opposite. If you want that quintessential frolic through the forest on shrooms* laugh-crying and learning the meaning of love from a pine cone then I recommend you do that for free in a safe setting, outdoors, with people you trust.

(*Using the term “shrooms” can really polarize a medicine space. It’s sort of like the difference in saying “making love” or “fucking”. The words may have the same origin but they carry different energies. There’s a time and a place where referring to this medicine as “shrooms” is fine but a healing ceremony is not one of them.)

The first ceremony starts later in the day after the early lunch has been digested and individual private meetings have been conducted with every guest. The private meetings are to suss out how guests feel going into the ceremony and to help them form an intention before we start if they don’t already have one. We also ask questions that help us get a feel of what type of dosage might work best for each person. The guests do not choose their dosage, it’s up to an experienced facilitator to have very good knowledge of what they are serving and how that specific substance can move through certain energies.

There is little “science” to dosage.

How the medicine will affect you has nothing to do with how many times you’ve tripped (the majority of people have little to no experience with mind altering substances beyond alcohol). It doesn’t matter how much you weigh or how high your alcohol tolerance is or how much baggage you have.

The mushrooms work through each body in profoundly different ways. I have had multiple psychedelic trips with varying doses and they’ve all been very different. There are a few contraindications to mushrooms and I recommend folks take the time to cross reference and get second opinions for any and all medications, medical issues etc. Your mental health should always come before attending a retreat so seek trusted and compassionate counsel regarding you and your system specifically in choosing what is right for you.

In the psilocybin ceremonies I’ve been privileged to work within, we use mushrooms that have been cultivated specifically for spiritual healing or journeying. They have been tended to by experts and/or mushroom lovers with great energy. As a personal rule, we’ve used them ourselves (in a macro or microdose ceremony) which offers a deeper confidence. We blend the psilocybin mushrooms into an airy fine powder and add hot water to make a tea which makes them easier to ingest than chewing the mushrooms themselves. It’s also known to bring on the sensations of the plant more rapidly and ease possible feelings of digestive discomfort.

The Ceremony

The Ceremony space is where the main altar sits. On the altar are important items that I will use throughout the ceremony to: neutralize or ward off old or processed energy (sage, incense, fire/candles), to bring in energizing energy (palo santo, tiny bells), to move stuck energy through (drums, rattles, feathers, crystal sound bowls), certain items to offer to ancestors, guides, etc (cedar, copal, fresh flowers) and items to channel or discern energy (crystals, divination cards, totems). Before the guests arrive I prepare the space energetically making it an optimal place to journey into a different dimension.

Depending on the amount of people, comfortable mats are laid down with sheets and layers of covers with a pillow. By each bed I place a basket with supplies one might need for the journey ahead (tissues, water, eye mask, ear plugs). As guests arrive they find their bed and begin to adjust to the vibes of the ceremony space. There are no electronics in the space besides a speaker, especially no cell phones or time keeping devices. Guests may bring items with them such as a journal, a teddy bear or sacred items to put on our altar (for example a grandfather’s ring or their favorite crystals).

Before we drink the mushroom tea we go through a series of rituals where we state our intentions and secure ourselves energetically. We also take turns individually praying, inviting in supportive ancestors and our guides, angels, etc who might accompany and assist us on our psychedelic journey. The process takes time and you wouldn’t want to rush it.

When I was a guest in indigenous ceremonies, opening prayers and preparation could take hours. Before you know it, the time comes to sip the warm mushroom tea that’s been steeping.

The mushroom tea tastes like it smells; earthy, dank and a bit musty, some people really like it, most make a face when they ingest it. Some practitioners take a small amount of mushroom tea with the group to feel more connected to their journey. I abstain as I’m very sensitive to the medicine and find my connection is stronger to my guests without the medicine inside my own body. After finishing their cup of tea, the blindfolds go on and I usually play music on a steel tongue drum or we sing a song with an accompanying rattle. The effects of the plant medicine come on quite differently for everyone but some can expect to feel sensations in as little as 10 minutes.

Feeling the mushrooms is subtle at first until it isn’t. You may feel flushed and experience temperature changes as medicine begins to interact with your blood pressure. The sensations of the heart may begin to feel like they’re magnifying as you become aware of your heartbeat and your breathing. A bit of fear and anxiety may arise and for some, relief, that they are feeling the effects of the plant medicine at all (a fear for many is they won’t be able to feel the effects of the mushrooms).

In the first few hours of the journey (which tends to last 4–6 hours) guests are encouraged to put on their blindfold mask, lay back and let the mushrooms unfold for them a journey. This is a tremendous thing to ask of an adult, to release all control to a Plant Spirit. I believe most people come to a retreat fearing their worst traits, deep dark secrets and horrifying traumas will rush to the surface and torment them for hours.

The majority of journeys are like a series of waves. You feel the mushrooms come on, intensity builds, you may have deep moments of clarity, insight, rushes of emotions or physical sensation. It comes out of nowhere and suddenly you’re “in it” accessing something you might not have even suspected you needed to.

There may be a release like a yawn, a sudden stretch, tears, laughter, shuddering, twitching etc and then you might feel the descent of the wave, the intensity sort of drains. After a wave many guests feel they might even be sober again. You might have to use the bathroom or feel the urge to chat with a neighbor, see what time is or go outside. And then, inevitably, another wave of intensity comes on and you remember you’ve drunk a whole cup of mushroom tea, you’re still very much “in it”. The work continues until the waves get smaller and smaller over the course of a few hours. Many people find the medicine wears off sooner than they thought it would and others feel mildly affected even as they’re getting in bed later that night.

During the ceremony there is a lot to manage for the facilitators. Guests are wobbly on their feet and require assistance up and down. Many guests need a supportive hand to hold and intermittent reassurance they are safe and OK. Some guests need something but can’t name it. We don’t encourage guests to “figure it all out” while at the retreat, let alone while with the medicine so we do our best to stay compassionate but keep guests in their work, trusting the plant to guide them on a path where they might heal or work with their intention.

Throughout the ceremony the space shifts dramatically in energy. Deep sobbing, hysterical laughter and groaning go in and out of the group. It is the job of the facilitator to keep things as balanced as possible. For hours at a time a facilitator might be singing beautiful icaros and spiritual songs and playing instruments if that’s what the space needs. A facilitator might also offer energetic support like reiki, prayer and conversing with the ancestors or guides of the participants. Sitting in quiet meditation and breathing peace and insight in the space is another way to support.

While mushrooms tend to be a more gentle plant medicine where you won’t see too many darker, intense energies enter, it is not for the faint of heart. I might hold the hand of someone in their darkest hours of soul searching, maintaining my sincerest compassion and deepest gratitude for the transformation taking place.

I might also grapple with folks who are having a difficult journey where they aren’t feeling anything, questioning if they did something wrong or questioning if I did something wrong. In a space where anything can happen, it’s important to feel confident that you can handle anything and stay present with the dark and heavy energies when they arise.

In the last couple hours of the ceremony, when the psychedelic waves are coming in at lower intensities, guests might be given the option to venture outside in a safe protected space where only folks related to the retreat might be (unexpected energies and unintroduced people can really rock those in this vulnerable state so it’s imperative to create a strong bubble).

When I first started experimenting with psychedelics my greatest moments of wisdom and insight came from communing with nature. Mushrooms put a beautiful sheen on everything from the sky to the grass and it’s quite energizing for guests to approach Mother Earth while with psilocybin. In these moments the hallmark “childlike wonder” of mushrooms can really come in as guests might enjoy watching an ant hill with true delight or lay on their backs too gaze up at trees. These moments tend to bring on some of the deepest but most simple healing lessons.

Nature tells us not to worry, not to fear impermanence and to be ok with growing slowly, appreciating everything that comes our way.

We always reconvene back in the ceremony space to formally close the ceremony. A very general rule of thumb is if people’s hunger begins to return, they may be coming down from the climax of their journey but a facilitator must also use their intuition to make this call. Everyone that started the ceremony returns to their bed/seat and, similarly to the opening, we pray and use things like sage and palo santo to protect ourselves on the way out of the journey as well. Prayers of gratitude and appreciation are made by each person.

This is an interesting time because I so want to know how each person is feeling and what they’ve experienced but it’s best to let the journey marinate and sink in before picking it apart and trying to grasp everything that happened. Most guests are rapturously happy and very proud of themselves that they’ve gotten through something they’ve almost been obsessing over. Some people wait for years to take the leap and attend a healing ceremony. There can be anxiety as well, as some guests wonder how they’ll get through another journey. Some folks are quiet and contemplative while others are determined to stay more focused or take the next journey more seriously, hoping for a deeper or more profound experience. Some guests aren’t really sure if they felt anything or had a psychedelic experience and feel disappointment and confusion. Any and all emotions are welcome, valid and certainly have something to teach each of us.

After we’ve closed the ceremony, guests wash up and we are treated to a beautiful dinner. Which brings me to one of the most important parts of the plant medicine retreat in my opinion, the nourishment, our meals/menu.

When I first started planning and facilitating retreats I would take it upon myself to cook the meals. Now, I’m a good cook but I’m not anywhere near great and it’s not my calling to bless people with my cooking. Sure cooking myself reduces cost but it adds a whole other job which can be draining and certainly take me out of my focus on the space and the guests. A few years ago we had the blessing of hiring an incredible chef to cook for the retreat guests and I never looked back.

Not only did I have more time and energy but the food tastes infinitely better and the chef can serve dishes that heal,that’s true soul food. After folks go through a psychedelic journey you may be rocked to your core. It’s an honor to treat them tenderly and serve them a truly comforting meal they don’t have to think up, cook or clean up after.

Having a delicious meal cooked for you with love might be one of the greatest gifts there is!

At the retreats I plan we eat fresh nutritious, anti-inflammatory comfort vegetarian cuisine throughout the whole retreat, cooked by a skilled Chef who is on the same page. We are there to support the healing and transformation of others. Nourishing food is necessary in healing work as transformation happens from the inside out. Finding a chef who is open minded, humble, professional, discreet and cooks from the soul is tough enough, hiring them for a mushroom retreat can be even tougher! Valuable retreat chefs must also be patient and work to shed their ego as you never know how guests are going to feel about eating after a psychedelic journey. Sometimes I’m ravenous with a hunger unlike any I’ve ever known. Sometimes I look at the food and appreciate its beauty but have no interest in eating. No matter how guests are feeling it’s always a beautiful thing to encounter a gorgeous spread made just for you with love. Many guests report that they physically felt better than they had in a long time after only 3 days of eating well and hydrating deeply.

After dinner people may be feeling quite tired and retire to their rooms. Some guests feel energized and might stay up in the common areas, journaling their memories from the trip or swapping experiences. Mostly things wrap up quickly as we have another ceremony the next day….

Day Two

Day Two is the second and final ceremony in a weekend retreat. The next day we are leaving and heading back to our lives and there is a sense of determination about the ceremony ahead. Guests are now familiar with the space and look forward to trying to surrender more control. We start the morning with coffee, tea and a breakfast buffet that guests enjoy at their leisure when they wake up. Guests seem to sleep beautifully at a retreat and I love when our insomniacs report they sleep deeper than they have in years. We also get reports of wild dreams and things of that sort. Post breakfast there is often an optional movement workshop which opens the body up and provides some time for meditation and a break from all the mental processing.

After a morning break the group gathers to work on integration.

Integration is the process of adopting given insight and wisdom and applying it to your everyday life. Integration does not happen in a flash of insight but in the tiny micro changes that we make over time.

At the retreat, I share valuable lessons in meditation, breathwork, movement and more that assist in the integration process once you get home. The morning sharing circles are not meant to lay out every fine detail of one’s whole trip. This can dilute and confuse folks in the process and put the focus on trying to problem solve instead of allowing understanding to develop over time. We try to access the deeper themes of our journey and hold space for folks to share from their heart.

Which brings me to vulnerability. Vulnerability is a huge factor in healing. I bet I could put it on some sort of line graph or pie chart: the more open, vulnerable and real people are with the group, the deeper the capacity to heal. In fact vulnerability IS healing.

Sometimes we carry things we think are so ugly and deep that we stuff them down at every turn. Do you know how much energy it takes to conceal and deny parts of yourself? It’s a very big tax on the system. Opening up offers almost instant relief for the brave person putting themselves out there and creates a space that encourages others to do the same, to trust the group and lay it all out. It’s freedom.

After integration, guests have ample free time to journal, take a walk, nap or just BE. Throughout the entire retreat guests are encouraged to stay off the internet and enjoy being unplugged and unburdened by life outside the experience. The healing isn’t just happening from the medicine but from the ability to relax, leave responsibility behind and be taken care of richly. Before the second ceremony, I meet with each guest once again to discuss how they are and reframe or reaffirm intentions.

Generally, in the first of two ceremonies the dose is lighter, a sort of “get to know you” to the mushrooms and the feeling of being with psychedelics. For the second ceremony I don’t necessarily always raise someone’s dose. Like I mentioned before, everyones body, system and current state is quite different and it takes experience and intuition to make the right call in dosage. There isn’t a website or graph that can tell you how much to take, you just have to know the medicine as best you can and work to stay in alignment with the guests and the process. If you take 1 gram in the first ceremony and 2 in the second ceremony it doesn’t mean you’ll feel the effects doubly, psychedelics have exponential effects. While no one has died from the ingestion of psilocybin, you certainly don’t want someone so affected that they can’t stay in their power and work with the plant.

There are absolutely folks in the plant medicine world who are looking to lose themselves and be taken over but, again, that’s not what a healing retreat is for. We are trying to FIND ourselves and the deep inner strength it takes to shift our lives.

The second ceremony starts about the same as the first and I always notice guests seem much more comfortable with the ceremony as a whole, offering more robust contributions and prayers. Once you’ve been in that psychedelic space, you have a bigger appreciation for life, nature and ancestry. For many, there is a sense that this is the “last chance” to work things out and get answers to life’s most pressing issues.

Folks that tend to have the best outcome have made a heartfelt intention and surrender as much as possible, come what may! Surrendering control takes practice and it’s not a muscle that folks often use.

It absolutely supports and enhances your journey if you have a meditation practice going before taking a spirit medicine. Practicing meditation greatly increases your ability to ride the waves of life AND the waves of a psychedelic experience. The more practice, the more familiar you become with observing things as they unfold, moment to moment, instead of plotting and judging, lost and distracted by thoughts of the past and/or future.

If the guests have a higher dose in their mushroom tea, the second ceremony can last a bit longer but that is not always the case. I’m once again feeling the energy of the room and balancing it for optimal psychedelic journeying. I’m tending to guest needs like bathroom breaks, tissue handling and moral support. I offer reiki, massage and the often requested hug. It’s hours of staying present and in tune. And it’s not just the guests who are getting deep insight and revelation, facilitators do too! The space is just filled with psychedelic energy, you can’t escape it’s effects, it’s quite a thick, interesting feeling throughout the whole retreat.

Not a time goes by that I’m not in awe of this plant family, of this process and of its potential. It’s quite humbling to be of service in this way.

There is already a bit of nostalgia at the closing of the second ceremony, and dinner on our last night is quite sweet and loving. Even though it’s been only two days, we know each other more deeply than we know most people. The best thing about mushrooms is they open your heart and grow your compassion. You really do come to love and appreciate each guest and you find yourself easily rooting for people to grow and expand into their best selves possible.

Day Three

Day Three is bittersweet, beautiful and spacey. The two days we’ve spent together have completely maxed our systems and rearranged our cells. We’ve grown close and connected in a flash and it feels like it’s been months, not days. On the other hand, that level of vulnerability and emotional access can leave you feeling raw, ragged and yearning for familiar people and faces (and often yearning for a deep solitude for integration). After a final delicious breakfast we gather once again for integration and our final group meeting.

As a facilitator, of course I want for everyone’s life to be forever changed and for the mushrooms to have cured them of everything that was ailing them. The reality is that even when you are gifted with beautiful insight and clarity, you still know that you’ve got a long road of change ahead of you. Everyone receives a few special nuggets of insight from our ceremonies that they can take home with them. Most feel a sense of excitement about creating change in their post-retreat life. A lot of people gain closure from grief and trauma and others feel like they’ve been given a blank slate, a second chance.

Mushrooms often give you a glimpse of your best self and your greatest potential and it’s a wonderful thing to be able to remember what you’ve learned, even without the tea coursing through you.

Some people are excited to see their families and tell them how much they appreciate them or give them a message they received. Others are quite weary of returning home, knowing that deep conversations, boundaries and shifts are going to be called for.

In the final session on Day Three we practice meditation and the other tools folks will need to continue integrating at home. I like to have people free-journal, an excellent meditation for bringing what’s on the inside to the outside. In some retreats we’ll write encouraging sentiments on a card for each person in the group as an offering of support and love when we’re back in our individual lives. I give each guest a handwritten letter and a gift of a stick of palo santo to maintain good energy in their homes and a crystal they can put on a newly created or existing altar at home. The crystals I give them have been charging on the ceremony altar the whole time so they are filled with the spirit of healing and a great souvenir and memory of their time.

Before they head outside our bubble and back into the world, guests are treated to lunch at the house or we pack their lunch to go. We hug and promise to keep in touch. I offer online support to each guest in the weeks after the retreat so I know I will see them again but it’s up to the guests to keep in touch with each other if they choose. I imagine it’s like sending a kid off to college? I feel so tender towards them, I’ve held them as they cry and encouraged them to keep taking steps toward their truth. They’re also like my mentors because they’ve gone through so much and have inspired me and taught me with their own journeys and insights.

Right After The Guests Leave

Right after the guests leave I feel a massive sense of relief. Yeah I said it! That happens at the end of ANY event you put on, something you’ve been focusing on and grinding over for months. It’s done. Everyone survived, no major issues came up and there was enough food, the basics. I sort of float around the house and bask in the beautiful afterglow. The vibes are off the chart and I feel like dancing, celebrating and getting a freaking massage.

The energetic work is not finished though as I keep candles burning and continue to balance the energy even after the guests have left. I offer prayers of deep gratitude and appreciation for the angels, guides and ancestors that were with us on our journey and chant and pray for the continued protection and growth of our guests. They are going out into the wild world raw and open and I always suggest they take that entire afternoon off and the next few days if possible. You can not guarantee how you will feel or what you will need in the days after the retreat so it’s best to plan for total openness and ease, I do the same. It’s not the time to attend a party or take on heavy work or decision making. Finding space to relax and reflect is a major part of integration.

Another reality of this job comes in full relief when it’s time to break down and clean the retreat space. I hold very detailed retreats and it takes days to set up. I’ve since hired a house cleaner to do the basic stuff but it can take several hours to load everything out of the retreat location depending on how much support there is on the facilitating team. Often we’ll rent the space for an extra night so we don’t have to go into work mode right away. At this point I just want to be home and I’m so excited to be back in my bed and home with my partner. I just want the nuts and bolts pieces to be done with so I can prepare for integration. The work is far from over….

One Week After

One week after the retreat the energy and insight from the retreat are still quite ripe and even just beginning to blossom for some! I hold post-retreat integration for all the guests in attendance for two weeks after the retreat (with the option to book more sessions if needed). A lot of guests report wondrous occurrences they use to prove their alignment and highlight that a shift has actually occurred.

Many guests report they regard the people around them in a different light or have much more energy, optimism and hope for the future.

It’s also pretty lovely to hear that folks miss the bubble of the retreat and the people.

Many times guests will start a group chat or email chain to keep in touch. Integration is WAY way easier to do with people who understand what you have been through and can speak to the experience of working with psychedelics. Some guests don’t have the luxury of an understanding person in their life and so our integration sessions are quite valuable. We generally do a short session of meditation and breathwork and then co-create a plan to begin putting the wisdom we learned into a manageable daily practice. I offer understanding and encouragement in these sessions that is invaluable when it comes to the tough task of transformation.

When they return from retreat, a lot of folks get bombarded with questions and comments from friends, family and coworkers and that can be quite overwhelming.

You don’t always want or know how to share your experience and you certainly don’t owe anyone that information. It’s a sacred, intimate moment and I encourage guests to hold it close to their heart as long as they need. Working with an integration counselor can really soften the line between retreat and real life.

I also often work with guests who didn’t have the experience they wanted or are confused or unsatisfied with how they feel post retreat. I can usually link guest disappointment to the broken expectations they had before going in. Some guests read a lot about the experiences and outcomes of others before coming to retreat or hear their fellow retreat mates having significant experiences. This expectation of healing can really set folks up for a fall when their personal experience doesn’t seem to measure up.

Despite how much I express that plant medicine is in no way a magic pill of healing, some guests really do expect to be healed of their woes upcon completing the retreat. Just like with any procedure, the outcome is not guaranteed, not always permanent and is different for each and every person.

The best I can do is help folks find the kernels of wisdom and beauty that I’m certain were bestowed upon them in retreat and then go from there.

There is always something to be gleaned from sacred ceremonial space. A lot of folks don’t recognize healing and trauma release when it happens or reject wisdom they find too simple or basic. It’s my job to help reframe the fruits of their work in a way they can use to move forward.

What some guests fail to realize is that those small micro changes they can make and feel day to day IS the healing! You just gotta make the moves yourself, you’ve got to want to change because as much as we might not like it, no one and no thing will do that FOR us. The active, personal decision to heal IS the healing!!

Two Weeks After

Week Two post retreat is quite different from Week One as the psilocybin has left the system and the giddiness from those deep revelations is fading. During my integration sessions this week I start to encounter folks who are desperately trying to “get back” to the high they felt in the last week. A lot of people can’t believe that that happiness and beauty is within them just waiting to be tapped. They start to believe that only mushrooms can generate those sensations. Sigh, that’s a trap and it often leads to people jumping into using more mushrooms or other entheogens right away to chase a high.

Plant Medicines REMIND us of our power and worth within, they don’t create it.

This feeling is always available to us but the drop in euphoria can lead to some people doubting their experiences or starting to feel their resolve to transform is fledgling. This is where I really reiterate that change happens within our seemingly innocent daily routine. Keep at it, even when it seems like your efforts are not “working”, trust, patterns always create reality! Sometimes the shift is big but most of the time the shift is subtle. I encourage folks to read their journals or continue to repeat the wisdom they received in ceremony as a mantra, as a way to access the fruits of the retreat whenever they need.

I also always encourage meditation because it helps us slow down and pay attention to the micro changes happening within and around us.

Weeks After the Retreat

In the weeks following the retreat you really do feel like life is starting to settle back into its rhythms but you retain a beautiful secret within. It feels good to reconnect with friends and my life post ceremony and I often go through a short period where I indulge my cravings and tap into a bit of the hedonism I had put on the shelf prior to the retreat. Balance right??

One of the coolest things about mushrooms is you don’t forget the deep knowledge that you felt on your journey. You take the treasure back into the real world with you.

Weeks after the retreat these truths still resonate, even if they don’t pound in my heart like in the days after the retreat.

I will say it again, true integration takes daily, small incremental changes in your behavior.

There is not a plant medicine, a drug, a procedure or prescription that will change you fundamentally. Only you can do that.

Meditation supports this process because it gets you comfortable in the present moment where all the action is and where anxiety and depression have a hard time existing. You can also tap into the lessons of the mushrooms by communing with nature, massaging your creative energy and doing something playful and silly while practicing self-compassion.

In those spaces, regardless of if you have taken mushrooms or not, you can absolutely access healing and growth that will carry you to places you might currently only be dreaming of.

Where I’m At With Plant Medicine Healing Now

I had my first experience with mushrooms in a beautiful forest outside of San Diego with a small group of treasured girlfriends.

Even as novices we recognized the sacred nature of psychedelics and intentionally created a set and setting that served up one of the most life changing, course correcting, beautiful moments of my life to date.

Whether you journey in a retreat setting or take them to the woods, mushrooms respond to the intention and openness you put into your experience.

After years of facilitating this work and many more years spent being a guest, a few things have emerged clearer and clearer from the plants themselves. All the healing and insights that are possible with a plant medicine journey are just as possible without Them.

I distinctly remember the moments that different Spirit Medicines have imparted this to me and I continue to have the personal experiences to back it up. I’ve had the same cathartic multilayer healings, the visionary insights and full Being resets that I received on a mushroom trip in a breathwork ceremony. I’ve felt my cells regenerate and trauma leave my body in deep meditation. Haven’t you been moved and reset through music, dance, communion with nature and more?

At the end of the day the plants simply remind us that Wholeness is acceptance and gratitude for your world and your life.

The reality is, many of us have packed down years of trauma or have become afraid of what we perceive change and growth might mean. The comforting truths that seem so simple after coming out of a mushroom trip or a long hike can seem like nonsense to a person who has spent a lifetime rejecting their true nature. Pair that with mental health challenges like anxiety and depression and spiritual healing can begin to feel like a burden best left unaddressed. That’s why I’m humbly and exuberantly grateful that the plants have come forward to assist in restoring balance and unblocking people so we can get back on track with discovering our true potential to love, enjoy and profoundly experience our lives. They are here to help!

But they’re not a fast track, short cut or the only way to support your spiritual growth and physical health. Psilocybin is just one of many beautiful (and gently effective) ways we humans have at our disposal to come back to center.

As profound as this medicine is, serving it in a way that is sustainable for my effort and energy and respectful of the ceremony lineage and guest safety can make the experience as a whole quite cost prohibitive for a large swath of people. As a result it saddens me to say I served almost exclusively affluent middle aged White Americans.

As a Black woman in the psychedelic space, the absence of people that looked like me really started to ache in my heart.

Seeing all these lovely people get a second chance at their life, feeling relief physically and emotionally made me want all that for BIPOC people as well. The truth is, a vast majority of folks can’t afford to attend a plant medicine retreat or come up with the time off needed. Many folks aren’t looking for a sleepover retreat experience or have resistance to issues around legality. I was also feeling like I wanted a shift in how I expended my energy, the retreat setting took a mammoth amount of planning and energy. I waI’m also looking for a space where I can support people in their spiritual growth in a way that This is a big reason I’ve been studying healing through Breathwork. Ceremonies last around an hour or two, they are low cost and you can head home shortly after your experience!

After multiple journeys with psilocybin, my trips were less spent in deep spiritual churning and more spent appreciating the surrounding nature and my body (tip: they’re the same thing!) while I (impatiently at times) waited for the effects of the mushrooms to fade. I felt myself coming to the end of the road with one of my most trusted teachers and mentors. I suppose that’s quality education, you should grow and flow toward new support and inspiration eventually.

Saying goodbye to those who have supported my transformation, the mushroom family included, is bittersweet but wisdom isn’t like a gift (i.e. something you didn’t have, that was given to you and could be given away). True wisdom lives indestructibly within us all, we just have to discover it.

I recognized on my last few trips that the insights and messages of this dear, wise and compassionate Mushroom Family we’re mostly the same, I sensed I’d gone as deep with Them as I could. It’s now up to me and my fellow journey folk to bring back, blend and integrate the golden Mushroom wisdoms that can help heal Plant Earth: Love is the Ultimate Power, this planet and all beings are connected and therefore affected as One, gratitude and appreciation are the keys to happiness, Love yourself as your are now, get loose & stay silly.

Heather Adams is a breath meditation teacher and writer based in the Pacific Northwest. She is currently working to reconnect people with ancestral ways to heal the body, mind and soul. When she’s not facilitating a ceremony, you can find her fussing over her houseplants or dance-walking around the neighborhood.