Anchors for the Soul: How to Carry the Medicine Home
Anchors for the Soul: How to Carry the Medicine Home
One of the most beautiful truths about psychedelic work is that the journey itself is only the beginning. The real medicine unfolds in the days, weeks, months and even years that follow as we integrate what was revealed and allow it to shape the way we live.
During a journey, there are often moments that have deep meaning whether that be an image, a sound, a sensation in your body, or an encounter with something beyond words. These moments are not random; they are gifts. These moments we can use as “anchors,” which are living threads that you can weave into your daily life to keep you connected to the heart of your experience and moving you toward your purpose.
Here are six powerful anchors and ways you can use them to deepen your integration and keep your journey alive in ways to powerfully move yourself forward.
1.Spirit Animals
Sometimes an animal will arrive in the medicine space, such as a sea turtle gliding through your vision, a hawk circling above, or a jaguar walking right up to you. These beings are not just symbols; they are teachers. If a spirit animal meets you in a ceremony, invite it into your life as an ally. Find an image, statue, or talisman of that animal and let it live on your altar or in a place where you’ll see it often. Call on its qualities when you need guidance, helping you to remember that the medicine of that animal now lives within you.
Last year in Oaxaca, the Bull came to me so vividly and powerfully. He was teaching me about strength, about not backing down and remembering my inner courage. Also, "to take the bull by the horns" Me
2. Music
Music has a way of holding the entire frequency of a journey. Sometimes a single song or playlist becomes the doorway back to what you felt whether that be love, surrender, joy, or grief. If a piece of music opened something inside of you during a ceremony, make it part of your integration practice. Listen to it intentionally when you want to reconnect, or use it as a way to shift your state when you forget what you learned. Sound bypasses the mind and speaks straight to the soul.
Jump over to the Ganesha group and share what your most resonant song that brings your journey back.
3. Felt Sense
Often in ceremonies there is a moment where your body knows, “This is truth.” It might be the warmth spreading through your chest when you forgave yourself, or the steady weight in your belly when you remembered you are safe. This felt sense is a direct anchor into your healing. When life feels noisy or you start to forget, close your eyes, breathe, and invite that exact sensation back into your body. Let it remind you who you are becoming.
“ ….in the last journey my body and self were able to feel fully contained, safe and protected, melding with and melting into the protective shell, rather than feeling the tension between my body and the “container.” Since the journey, this melting feeling has persisted, allowing me to sink toward the earth, inviting deeper relaxation.” Jane J
4. Images and Symbols
Journeys often speak in visions such as trees of light, sacred geometry, or a doorway opening into the unknown. These images are medicine in themselves. You can draw them, paint them, or find representations that match what you saw and keep them near. Treat these visions as living guides, and allow them to keep speaking to you beyond words.
“In a recent journey, I encountered a dragon in my solar plexus — massive, radiant, and fierce. She carried a memory I’m not even sure belongs to this universe, but the message was clear: she had once caused great, unintended destruction. Because of that, I believed she needed to be restrained. She felt far too powerful for my soft human body, and the fear of unleashing her kept me stuck in a loop, unable to fully drop into myself.
Eventually, I broke through the wall I had built to contain her. And when I did, she didn’t explode out in chaos — I didn’t combust or disappear. Instead, I became more myself than I’d ever remembered being.
We replaced the jagged lava rock of that inner terrain with crystal — something strong, beautiful, and enduring. She lives there now, a fiery dragon goddess resting in a place of power. She’ll rise when the moment calls for her, but I trust her now. Even if she does leave a little fire behind, I know I can handle it. I can pick up the pieces.
And that’s what’s really important to me. I’m confident in that.” Aliya S.
5. Breath Patterns
Breath is one of the most immediate and powerful anchors because it’s always available to you. In ceremony, there are often moments where a specific way of breathing carries you deeper…a slow, expansive inhale and exhale that softens everything, or a rhythmic breath that feels like riding the current of life itself. If you notice this during a journey, take note of it. Outside of the ceremony, you can return to that exact breath pattern when you need to reconnect. It’s like a key that unlocks the state you touched. Even just three minutes of breathing the way you did in the medicine space can shift your nervous system and bring you back to center.
….My introduction to medicine work opened up a new perspective on using breath. I have a mini-mantra written out on my altar to remind me of my medicine journey path: "My path is Breath and Sound". I figured out quickly that Shane understands my background with breathwork and has always been a perfect coach during a journey, intuiting when deep breathing might provide that bit of a push to dive deeper, or using energetic breath work to move the energy coursing through me and channel it through various chakras where it can have the best effect, or using a combination of breath and chanting to ground when I have gone deep and working to release trauma or grief. David C.
6. Aroma and Scent
Scent is deeply tied to memory and can open doors in the psyche that nothing else can. If there was a smell in the ceremony, perhaps copal smoke curling through the air, the earthy fragrance of palo santo, or even the subtle aroma of the forest outside, bring that into your integration. Light the same incense, burn the same wood, or find an essential oil that evokes the scent of that moment. As soon as your body registers the smell, it can call back the entire frequency of the journey. Scent bypasses the thinking mind and drops you straight into the memory of your healing.
For me, the scent of “timber” (an organic essential oil created by my friend Tess) being placed on the souls of my feet to ground me to the earth becomes a calming reminder and brings me right back to the journey) me
Integration isn’t about clinging to what happened; it’s about letting the medicine become a living fabric inside you. We practice our anchors in order to make substantial change. Anchors are not static reminders, but rather, they are living bridges between the seen and unseen, and between the ceremony and the life you’re here to create.
I invite you to take a moment to reflect: What anchors have shown up for you in past journeys? How are they asking to be woven into your daily life now?
If you feel called to explore this more deeply, I welcome you to sit with me in ceremony. Together, we’ll create a space where the medicine can speak to you in ways that last long after the experience, and we’ll work with your anchors not just to remember the journey, but to deeply embody it.
(the next group ceremony will be Oct 9 - 12 in Boulder Colorado at the BOULDER CANYON RETREAT CENTER!)
