Mushrooms Aren’t Magic: How everyday rituals drive the plant medicine journey

Mushrooms aren’t magic. They don’t hold the secrets of the universe. They simply offer us another way to consider reality and our roles in it. They do reorder the cosmos, but only at the expense of our rigid and static worlds we’ve inherited. Likewise, they don’t sprinkle fairy dust on our deepest wounds. They uncover fundamental concepts and expose raw nerves that we’ve sealed up because they cause us so much anxiety and pain.

I’m being a bit hyperbolic because I’m dismissing the sacred element of the experience on purpose to prove a point. If we accept the preceding paragraph as mostly true, then we realize psilocybin therapy isn’t a one-dose miracle cure. Instead, it’s a torch in a dimly lit alley. It’s a life raft on a stormy sea. If we aren’t willing to probe deeper or paddle ourselves to shore, it probably won’t help too much.

Inward is Heavenward

There are plenty of reasons not to look inward. Some people’s trauma is so acutely painful that just thought of confronting it is enough to trigger an even darker spiral. Other folks may not have the support system nor the space to challenge their core assumptions and endure this kind of transformation. I know personally that when my depression is really hanging over my head, I can’t gather the requisite hope to peer inward too far.

All that said, a lot of us have the capacity to look inward right now. We’re just too scared to rattle our own cages, and as long as that fear outweighs our desire for personal growth, psilocybin therapy won’t be effective as it ought to be. So how can we prepare ourselves to maximize this transformation? I thought you’d never ask!

Rigorous Preparation and Ritual

Let’s start with some context. In general, my preparation process with a plant medicine client begins about 3 weeks before the actual journey date. After a screening call, I send a discursive intake form that asks the client to look inward and start bubbling up some of their wounds and incongruencies to the surface. About 10 days before the journey, we meet in person to discuss the form–and all the difficult things that emerged–and start to form some intentions for the upcoming journey. While we’ll have one more preparation session 48 hours before the journey, this period in the interim is so critical. It’s during that first marathon preparation session when I emphasize ritual. 

Though it looks different for everybody, ritual is generally a layered yet grounding activity that calls us back to our core selves. Ritual, in its heart, is generally spiritual and sacred too. It’s a practice we’ve adopted to help us navigate a wildly difficult and beautiful existence. For some folks a ritual is journaling every night about one of our intentions we surfaced. For other people, it’s a nightly meditation or simply lighting a candle, stowing their phones somewhere and listening to a record. 

I give my clients ritual homework too. I have them practice dropping into the medicine. What do I mean by dropping in? In general, the most intense and unmooring phase of the journey is the first hour or so. Once it becomes clear we’re departing from our ordinary state of consciousness that governs our existence, it’s only natural to put up a little resistance when we leave that world behind. However, since they’ve visualized this obstacle and practiced ways to negotiate it, they tend to drop in pretty seamlessly. And it’s ritual that helps them. They land on a practice that’s so intrinsic to their selves, it provides guidance and solace through those rough patches.

Mushrooms Aren’t Magic But You Are

Do you see how rigorous preparation can unlock an incredibly productive and psychedelic mushroom journey? If we are honest with ourselves and we truly want to heal, fear and anxiety can’t grab a hold of us on our way to that extraordinary state. If we’re well prepared for difficult truths, memories and emotions to surface, we’re not ambushed nor terrified by their presence as we unbox our psyche during the session. 

In conclusion, mushrooms aren’t a miracle cure for anything. They are a new powerful way of seeing that helps us examine painful and ingrained ideas and feelings. They show us ways to reconcile pain that reconnect us to our most vibrant selves. It ain’t easy. Looking inward is hard. Mushroom journeys are intense. Do one without the other, and you’ll probably have an epiphany or two. Couple the two together, and you have a recipe for long-lasting transformation within a new and improved universe.