A JOURNEYER’S NARRATIVE
My cultural imprints were the intersectionality of being Gujarati, an immigrant, and a woman. I was born in London, England and I lived there until 1984 when we moved to Coral Springs, Florida, a predominantly white middle-class suburban neighborhood with a sparse Indian community. As a 9 year old Indian girl from London, I struggled to assimilate; I was the only Indian girl in my third grade class, I had an accent that I was desperate to discard, and my clothing did not have the same expensive labels as my classmates. I remember watching the Uptown Girl video that was released by Billy Joel the year before and looking at Christie Brinkley who epitomized every notion of what was considered beautiful in America and what I was not. I spent the better part of my adolescence straddling two different cultures; my parents endeavored to raise a devout and subservient Indian daughter and I, not so dutifully, played the part. Outside of the house, I had small acts of rebellion which my father quickly quashed. I knew that when it came time to look for colleges, I was not going to be anywhere within striking distance of Coral Springs. I finally decided upon New College in Sarasota, Florida.
New College was a progressive liberal-arts college, and my first two years were devoted to exploring altered states of consciousness (in the recreational and not academic context). After finishing New College and law school I ended up in Northeast Florida for work. In 2014, I stumbled upon an episode of ‘This is Life’ where Lisa Ling introduced the healing aspects of Ayahuasca for veterans who were experiencing PTSD. Instantaneously, that episode triggered something that was akin to a calling and I knew that it was something that I wanted to experience. In my journey through law school and later to become an attorney, I had forgotten about my yearning to explore altered states of consciousness. After several months of extensive research on indigenous uses of this sacred plant medicine, I found a small and incredible Brazilian Ayahuasca Church. After eight years of working with this sacred plant medicine, I can definitively state that it has been instrumental in my spiritual growth, in healing my reproductive trauma, and in my relationships. Through my work with Ayahuasca, the feeling that I had of being an outsider and my yearning for belonging through my adolescence and into my twenties and thirties diminished significantly.
In a 1967 edition of Psychedelic Review, Ralph Metzner and Timothy Leary aptly stated that, “The process of being brought up and educated in a particular culture is a process of having the nervous system imprinted with a few thousand tribal concepts and symbols.”
Psychedelics are the “chemical key” that unlock and “opens [open] the mind, frees [free] the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures [and imprints].”
While each sacred plant medicine ceremony has imparted different insights, there have been a few ceremonies which have been spiritually significant in my life. One such ceremony was my fifth ceremony during a seven day retreat. During that ceremony, I was a young child and I was transported back to my grandmother’s brownstone in London surrounded by my aunties singing kirtan; through the call and response and chanting, any duality that I had disappeared and I felt cleansed and mentally liberated; I experienced an indescribable oneness and peace. Months after that ceremony, I began a daily meditation and mantra practice which allows me to continue to experience that oneness and peace when I am able to quiet my thoughts and just be. This dissolution of duality and the oneness that I have experienced during my sacred plant medicine ceremonies is not unusual.
In 2006, Johns Hopkins researchers published studies that looked at the potential of psilocybin-assisted therapy to induce mystical-type experiences. After the studies were completed, researchers interviewed participants at the 14 month mark; 94% of the participants rated at least one psilocybin-assisted therapy session in the top five spiritually significant experiences and in the top five personally meaningful experiences of their lives.
A psychedelic experience may, “give us an experience of and orientation toward wholeness, along with insight into the barriers and misalignments that will need to be addressed to continue toward or maintain wholeness.”
I found that “orientation toward wholeness” through my daily meditation and japa practice. But that “orientation toward wholeness” is an entirely unique experience and varies from individual to individual. Some experience this wholeness through drumming or music, while others may experience it through mountain biking or hiking. The content of this blog will primarily focus on ways to to optimize your human experience focusing on integration, wholeness, and wellbeing.
Sources:
Coder, K. (2017). After the Ceremony Ends: A Companion Guide to Help You Integrate Visionary Plant Medicine Experiences. Boulder, CO: Casa de Raices y Alas Books.
Gorman, I., Nielson, E. M., Molinar, A., Cassidy, K., and Sabbagh, J. (2021). Psychedelic harm reduction and integration: a transtheoretical model for clinical practice. Front. Psychol. 12:645246. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645246
Griffiths, R. R., Richards, W. A., McCann, U., & Jesse, R. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology, 187, 268-283. doi:10.1007/s00213- 006-04
Leary, T., Metzner, R. & Alpert, R. The Psychedelic Experience (University Books, 1964).
Metzner, R., & Leary, T. (1967). On programming psychedelic experiences. Psychedelic Review, 9, 5–19. Retrieved from http://www.maps.org/research-archive/psychedelicreview/ n09/n09005met.pdf