The Medicine Works in Relationship
One of the most important things I’ve come to understand through my years of walking this path, both as a guide and as a student of the medicine, is that the medicine never works in isolation. It works in relationship…always.
That is why I so wholeheartedly believe in a wholistic and multi-dimensional approach to, well, everything!
Nothing exists in isolation and part of our current conundrum is that Western medicine and other (deficient) mental thought processes, we call “rational” have us wrapped into a isolated sense of self and other.
This path isn’t about going off into the mountains to heal in solitude forever (though you can!), or trying to piece your life back together on your own after a powerful ceremony. While moments of aloneness are sacred and necessary, real integration, real embodiment, happens in connection with others, with the Earth, with Spirit, and most importantly, with ourselves in relationship.
That is why our group / community medicine journeys are so important, as I say - the ME work and the WE work! The WE work provides a powerful container where everything is amplified, as well as
There’s a common pattern I see in the Western approach to psychedelics and plant medicine: we often try to “integrate” privately. We journal, we meditate, we try to “figure it out.” But I’ve seen over and over again that the most profound integration happens when we’re mirrored and when we’re witnessed. When someone reflects back to us what they see emerging, what’s shifting, and what’s softening. That moment when someone looks at you after a ceremony and says, “You feel different”...that’s when something really lands.
In many indigenous cultures, the concept of integration doesn’t even exist. Not because it isn’t happening, but because it’s not separate from everyday life. They don’t need to carve out “integration time” after a ceremony, because their lives are already designed for it. They live in community and nature, they - work, eat, grieve, raise children, and tend the land together. The lessons from the ceremony are lived and breathed together daily. A vision received in ceremony is shared with the group around the fire, talked about with the elders, and woven into the rhythms of the village. Healing is not isolated or intellectual, but it’s deeply communal, embodied, and relational.
But in the Western world, where so many of us live in separate homes, behind screens, moving at a pace that leaves very little space for reflection, we’ve had to create a whole new language and infrastructure just to remember what it means to stay connected. We’ve had to relearn how to lean on one another, how to process together, and how to share our truth and let someone else hold it with reverence. We’ve had to ritualize integration because if we don’t, we would forget about it. It would slip away, and we would fall back into the trance of isolation.
That’s why I always tell people: don’t do this alone. Integration isn’t meant to be something you carry by yourself. We need mirrors. We need resonance. We need others to remind us of who we are when we forget.
And what happens when we forget, make a mistake? Are we exiled and pushed out of the community? Shunned? Not here! Shadow work is the deep work, everything is a polarity and a mirror. How deep are you willing to go for your own transformation?!
As Ram Das quotes - “Police create hippies and hippies create police.” It’s only when we truly learn that we are BOTH.
Moving on :) - After ceremony, check in with the people you journeyed with and share what you’re learning…what feels confusing and what feels alive. This is why I deeply try to create a space where we can be heard and to hear others…hosting potlucks, monthly integration check ins, and walks in nature together. These aren’t just nice add-ons, but they are the actual work.
Group ceremonies can also be a powerful container for this kind of healing. When we sit together in sacred space, we don’t just experience our journey; we witness each other’s unfolding, and in that witnessing, something often shifts. We start to remember that we are not separate and that our grief, our joy, our fear, our longing…it’s all shared. Someone else’s tears might unlock your own, and your laughter might help someone else remember their light. Healing in community helps us repair not just the personal, but the collective.
So, when might you know you’re ready for a group journey? You might feel called when you’ve done enough one-on-one work to hold yourself with a certain level of steadiness, and you’re curious what it feels like to be witnessed by others. Or perhaps you’re longing for a sense of tribe…for connection and shared experience, or for ritual that includes the collective. Maybe you’re sensing that your healing is no longer just for you, but it’s for something bigger than you. These are all signs that it may be time to step into a circle, to let the medicine work not just within you, but between you and others.
Of course, not every journey needs to be communal. There are seasons for solitude. But even then, integration still requires connection…a trusted guide, a beloved friend, or a community of practice. A place where your sacred unraveling is not only allowed, but it is welcomed.
The truth is, we are deeply relational beings and we come into this world through relationship…we’re shaped by it, wounded in it…and ultimately, we heal in it. Let yourself be seen and let yourself be held. Let yourself remember that integration doesn’t begin or end, but unfolds in every conversation, every shared meal, every silent nod that says, I see you, I’ve been there too.
That’s where the real medicine lives.
