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How to Survive the Psychedelic Renaissance

Hello and welcome back for day two of PSYJuly! So, we are well and truly in the midst of a psychedelic renaissance, boom, even. How do we each go about navigating this chapter in human history? Today we have Leia Friedman with a step by step guide…

How to Survive the Psychedelic Renaissance

What will they say about this moment in time 25 years down the road? 100 years? 1,000 years? Will humanity survive for that long?

Clinical trials of psychedelic therapies show promising results. Public approval of and interest in psychedelics increases by the day. More and more jurisdictions have decriminalized psychedelics, some even all drugs. Venture capital pours into the psychedelic field. 

Meanwhile, indigenous peoples face violence and a legacy of threat to their way of life from globalization, colonialism, extractive industries, climate change and more. The American public remains divided on issues of identity, equity, access and oppression. The number of suicides may match the rates we saw at the height of the Great Depression. The pandemic made it abundantly more clear that distribution of power in our human race is grossly disproportionate. Climate change charges forward, yet there is little sense of urgency to address it. 

How can we embody the psychedelic values of oneness, exploration, connection and interdependence as this psychedelic renaissance unfolds? 

From a political, social, ecological and psychological (OK, psychedological) lens, I offer some tips and prompts to help psychedelic activists, therapists, enthusiasts, researchers, and beyond as we traverse this uncharted territory. 

  • Practice nonviolent communication

Nonviolent communication (NVC) is a technique that can help us embody self-connection, honest expression, empathic presence, self-empathy, and awareness of/right use of power. Learn more about the theory here, and a foundation of the practice here. 

  • Do your own healing work

“We have to be called into our own healing sometimes. We have to be called out into the desert, to the wilderness, to do the work on behalf of others.”

In a podcast conversation on Finding Our Way, Lama Rod Owens, Buddhist teacher, author and activist, shares his concerns about healers not doing their own work. He quotes Whitney Houston: “show me the receipts.”

Lama Rod continues: “There are a lot of us who don’t have receipts. Who are trying to put our hands on people and heal them when in fact we’re the ones who need to be healed. It’s nothing more than a perpetuation of violence and trauma on the bodies around us.” 

Indeed, we can do more harm if we try to heal others when we ourselves have not done our own work. It can be an ongoing process, an upward spiral; invest in your own healing, especially if your intention is to help others on their healing journey.

  • Learn about and engage in accountability

Accountability is the responsibility that we each have over our own behavior, especially behavior that impacts others around us and in our community. 

Although psychedelics are regarded as having tremendous healing potential, psychedelic communities are not immune to consent violations, interpersonal and systemic harm and abuse. 

A transformative justice facilitator once told me, “we don’t hold people accountable. People get to be accountable.” It is a privilege to have the opportunity to look at our harmful behaviors and get the support needed to change, even to repair harms what we have participated in in the past. 

Before we can actually hold people accountable (or give them the chance to be accountable) in our communities and on a wider level, we need plenty of practice with accountability in our own social circles and with our trusted loved ones. 

  • Connect with nature

Have you ever taken a trip and felt the planet supporting you? Or looked at a tree and watched the leaves shimmer, felt the trunk breathing, heard the gentle hum of water moving up the roots and spreading through the branches? Nature is all around us, giving life to us, sustaining us, teaching us about ourselves. Studies (like this one and this one) have shown that psychedelics can increase our nature relatedness. This is so incredibly important, especially now as the consequences of human activity run the risk of destroying the delicate ecosystem on our spaceship, mother earth.

Side note: a carpenter ant crawled up my arm just as I finished writing this paragraph. 🙂

  • Connect with yourself

Modern society seems determined to disconnect us from ourselves. Taking time and space to connect with yourself and nurturing the connection between your body, mind and spirit is a revolutionary act. 

A guideline that I try to live by is that I am responsible for my own emotions, needs, boundaries and desires. (Side note.. It is challenging AF to actually do this). In order to uphold this commitment, I need to prioritize connecting with myself enough that I can be aware of those things and advocate for them appropriately.  

  • Know where you come from

If you have little or no connection or awareness of your ancestors, know that we all have roots that were once deeply intertwined with land and tradition. 

Through the colonization of ancient Europe over the last 2,000 years, my ancestors were separated from their traditional ways of being. Millions of “witches” were burned for working with the healing power of plants. I believe that some of my relations (and their knowledge of plant healing ways) perished in those fires. 

Rather than communing with nature, the cosmos, and the spirit and tradition of my people, I prayed to the gods of media, capitalism and superficial beauty standards for the first 24 years of my life, until I began working with psychedelics.

Studying permaculture, engaging in my own anti-racism and anti-oppression work, and sitting in tender presence with the fragility that still arises in me sometimes has been part of my process of finding belonging. Psychedelics and psychedelic community has taught me that it is never too late to come back to who I am and where I come from. It is a painful and intimidating process, but worthwhile. 

If you, too, are disconnected from your lineage, I invite you to embark on the psychedelic journey of looking back to find your roots. You may also want to explore the idea of tending to your relationship with your ancestors. 

  • Listen to, support and co-conspire with indigenous people

Many psychedelic plant medicines have been stewarded by indigenous cultures for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. I offer thanks to the wisdom keepers, the water protectors and the healers. 

Have these peoples consented to the widespread use and commodification of their sacred traditions? Will the money being generated by this psychedelic gold rush actually end up back in the hands of those who we have to thank for these medicines? Can the psychedelic renaissance stop the spread of colonization and the devastation of people, land, wisdom and culture that comes with it?

I don’t know about you, but I went through 13 years of public education, 4 years of undergraduate education at a state school and 2 years of grad school and I never once learned about the genocide of indigenous people on this continent. Colonization wasn’t a word in my vocabulary until I deliberately sought to learn about it. 

Psychedelic communities must talk about colonization. Equally as important, recognize that decolonization can only be done in collaboration and alliance with indigenous peoples. Our groups, conferences, and organizations should become accurately informed about the true history of the plant medicines and the people that they come from, and committed to justice and equity as we move forward. 

If you don’t already know, learn about the land you are on because sure enough, it once was stewarded by peoples who may still be struggling for their autonomy and continued existence amidst increasing deforestation, development and destruction of the land and their ways of life. It will probably be painful to recognize the reality if you don’t see it already, so be sure to tend to your own body and nervous system as you learn how to be a better ally and co-conspirator. 

And please, listen to indigenous people. 

  • Recognize that all of these issues, including our personal traumas, can be traced back to capitalism

I believe it to be true, and I don’t have the capacity to unpack it all here. But I will say this..

If you are free, if you have access to resources, if you were born into a body that this society confers certain privileges to, let’s use that to help usher in a new era of collective liberation and healing. 

Kai Cheng Thom writes,

“I think the major difference between a social justice and a white/colonial lens on trauma is the assumption that trauma recovery is the reclamation of safety—that safety is a resource that is simply ‘out there’ for the taking and all we need to do is work hard enough at therapy. 

“I was once at a training seminar in Toronto led by a famous & beloved somatic psychologist. She spoke brilliantly. I asked her how healing from trauma was possible for people for whom violence & danger are part of everyday life. She said it was not.

“Colonial psychology & psychiatry reveal their allegiance to the status quo in their approach to trauma: that resourcing must come from within oneself rather than from the collective. That trauma recovery is feeling safe in society, when in fact society is the source of trauma.”

How much longer can we operate under this lie that if we just work hard enough, we’ll be safe, healed, and whole? In the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “no one is free until we are all free.” Let’s embody this truth in our healing work, our organizing, and our actions.

I am a queer, white, jew-ish, middle class, college-educated cis-woman with US citizenship. I can use the privileges that I have to protect others and fight to change the conditions under which such gross inequity currently exists in our society. I can put my body on the line and use my voice to advocate for access to psychedelic therapies for people belonging to historically marginalized identities. 

Reciprocity in the Quechua language is Ayni, meaning “today for you, tomorrow for me.” In the spirit of ayni, perhaps you can support the roots of the psychedelic movement. You may be in a position to offer financial support, especially to BIPOC-led projects and organizations, and those that have meaningful relationships with indigenous and traditional plant medicine communities. Let’s stand in solidarity through activism and advocacy, not charity or pity. Check out this list of foundations and initiatives that are engaging in sacred reciprocity.

Conclusion

This blog post isn’t about how you can survive the psychedelic renaissance. It’s about how we, as one human family, can survive and thrive, together in balance with the rest of the planet. 

The more that I do this work, the more I feel my ancestors encouraging me and guiding me in the directions of my own continued healing, and toward that fulfilling the dream of a collective liberation and belonging for all beings. 

May we thank the plants, animals, and fungi, and give back their right to take up space and thrive. 

May we all put our efforts toward achieving balance again. 

May we look within ourselves and find belonging. 

May we look at each other and see common humanity in the shared struggles, hope and dreams reflected back to us. 

May we contribute to a culture of freedom, agency and reciprocity, where all people can access nourishing food, clean water, good medicine, and room to grow, play and explore. 

May we all vision and manifest the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. 

May all the beings in all the world be happy, peaceful and free. 

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About Leia

Leia Friedman loves to connect the dots as a teacher, writer, and permaculturist. Born and raised in Lowell, MA, Leia obtained her master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Rivier University and worked as an in home therapist before psychedelics turned her world inside out. She is now a psychedelic integration facilitator, a student in psychedelic somatic interactional psychotherapy (PSIP), a trainee in restorative and transformative approaches to conflict, a budding herbalist, and the host of a podcast called The Psychedologist: consciousness positive radio. Leia holds her permaculture design certificate from Starhawk’s Earth Activist Training, a program that emphasizes social permaculture and spirituality in regenerative land care. Leia has written for Wiley Encyclopedia, Psymposia, Lucid News, Psychable and DoubleBlind on topics relating to consciousness through the lens of social and environmental justice. You can find her teetering on a slack line in Costa Rica, up to her elbows in dirt from working in the garden, or nose in her laptop, grading papers for her psychology students.
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path

The Medicine Path

Welcome to day one of PSYJuly 2021!

I’m thrilled that we have psychonautic author Julian Vayne kicking off our carnival this year. I first met Julian over lunch in Berlin at Altered conference in 2017, and have since bumped into him at a couple more conferences, Beyond Psychedelics in Prague 2018, where I interviewed him for a video series, and then the first Occulture in Berlin 2019.

I have to say he is one of the friendliest and warmest people I’ve met on the circuit and has always willingly lent his help and support to projects I’ve been involved in. It’s a great pleasure to share his work here on Maps of the Mind.

Before getting started, I’d just like to notify you that there is now a PSYJuly homepage, where you can find links to all the articles. I will update it as the month progresses.

Without further ado, over to Julian…

The Medicine Path

Mind-altering drugs go with human spirituality the same way that music goes with human celebration. Sometimes the consciousness-changing substance is primarily symbolic (like the wine in the chalice at a Catholic Mass), other times the chemistry is central to the process (as with the use of ayahuasca by a South American curandero). Across times and cultures, psychoactive materials have been a ubiquitous part of the human experience. They may be used to generate peak experiences, like the revelations sought by mystics. They may be used instrumentally, to do something, such as an act of healing in shamanic or psychotherapeutic context. They may also be about communion, experiencing joy or empathy, and sharing those feelings with others (as happens in the Native American peyote circle, or at a rave).

Psychedelic drugs can dramatically affect conscious awareness. Therefore, consideration of ‘set’ and ‘setting’ are crucial to the way a trip unfolds. ‘Set’ includes everything ‘within’ the (mind) set of the individual, their mood, expectations and memories of previous experiences. Setting includes everything ‘without’, from the immediate environment of the trip, the presence or not of other people, through to the broader cultural backdrop (which, of course folds back into the ‘set’) of the experience.

The mental states that psychedelics give us access to can potentially prove as extreme as heaven or hell, and which state we find ourselves in is, in large part, determined by our orientation to the experience. For example, on LSD one might joyfully exclaim, “Look at all the little faces in the trees!” However, under less positive circumstances, the exact same perception of faces in the forest, the very same words uttered in different tones, might be imagined as unnerving, or utterly terrifying.

In a sense all experience can be conceptualised as chemical process (it is the complex interaction of chemistry that arises into your ‘self’ that is reading these words). Through the intelligent use of these sacred substances we can reveal, explore and change the self that we are, and by doing so, change our world.

Why Take Psychedelics?

There are many, often overlapping, reasons that people seek out the psychedelic experience.

Self-Exploration

More than two millennia have passed since Socrates claimed that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’. The restless desire to discover who and what we are, to explore, and to make meaning, is intrinsic to all humans. For some people drugs can be allies in that exploration. One may be simply curious of what these states are like, especially when framed within the context of ritual practices.

Healing

Whether illness exists in the personal, psychological, physiological, social or even cultural body, psychedelic drugs can act as medicine. The healing power of these substances can appear spontaneously or may be encouraged by methods derived from psychoanalysis, shamanism and other approaches. Psychedelic drugs can combat alienation, depression, isolation and ennui, and can occasionally have clear effects on other forms of illness. This can occasionally include remission or cure of organic illnesses or chronic conditions, or at least an improved psychological relationship with such health problems. Addictions and other debilitating psychological habits may be broken by the skilled use of psychedelics.

Numinous experience

The peak experiences encountered by inspired individuals (mystics, shaman and prophets) can be accessed by the sacred use of drugs. Ecstasy, rapture and other often life-changing, frequently (though not exclusively) pleasurable, states can be encountered. These may be highly internalised experiences or may be intimately linked with the tripping environment (psychedelics used outdoors often provoke experiences of the natural world as sacred, enchanted, sublime etc.).

Other realities

Psychedelics can allow us to enter what appear to be other realities or realms of experience. Whether we like to imagine that these experiences are of fantastical, internal and imaginal worlds, or represent some more objectively real realm (such as the ‘astral’, or a dimension populated by alien beings), is a matter for personal reflection and exploration.

Occult or parapsychological

Substances that alter the mind may be used to empower acts of magic. This could mean prayers, Neo-Pagan spells, divination procedures, or any method that seeks to use the power of the imagination to interact with the past, present or future through occult (i.e. mysterious) means. Magical acts include techniques aimed at creating a particular external and concrete result; they may be ‘acts of psychological neurohacking’ (implanting positive affirmations in the mind). Psychonauts may want to conduct experiments with psychokinesis, extrasensory perception and other parapsychological phenomena while high.

Creative insight

Drugs can be used not only to explore our own psyche and social relationships but can lead to concrete insights into the arts and sciences and potentially give rise to new artworks, technologies and other innovations. They can enhance problem solving, stimulate new ideas, and demolish conceptual or psychological blocks to creativity.

Preparation for death

Drugs can be used to explore how it may feel to die. They can teach us the importance of ‘giving up’ to the experience, providing a broader perspective on our own mortality and reducing anxiety about death.

Reset

Psychoactives can be used as initiatory tools to create a radical discontinuity in experience and allow the individual to experience a rebirth.

Recreation

There need not be a strict division between spirituality, play and enjoyment, and ‘re-creation’ can itself be a healing act, something that nourishes our souls. Psychedelics used for recreation can help remind us of the simple joys of life, things we sometimes forget because we are so busy getting from A to Z that we forget there are 24 letters in between.

The enjoyment and fun of getting high may be an important reason for including psychedelic drugs in one’s life. While some forms of religion encourage a belief that pleasure is morally wrong (that all the world is suffering, the body is sinful etc.) there are other spiritual beliefs (ancient, contemporary and emerging) that take a very different position. Within many Neo-Pagan cultures the idea that one should (while being mindful of the rights of others) ‘follow one’s bliss’ or ‘do what thou wilt’ allows the delight in getting higher to be a legitimate expression of a life and world affirming attitude, and a valid spiritual practice.

Potentiation and safety

A small dose of a substance may be potentiated by ritual or other procedures. Pragmatically this means that the user gets more ‘bang for their buck’. Ritual techniques used to enhance the set and setting of the psychedelic experience can make that experience feel deeper, stronger and richer. Intelligent manipulation of set/setting can also help people feel safer, reducing the likelihood of ‘bad trips’ and other difficulties.

Neurological benefits

Research on the effect of some psychedelics has begun to make use of technology to look at brain activity of people whilst high. My current, purely layperson, understanding of their results suggests that the classic psychedelic drugs work by causing less connectivity and/or activity in the region of the brain which acts as a processing hub (so, the part which decides what we pay attention to, and centralises many other inputs); simultaneously connectivity increases between areas which are normally isolated in their functions. These areas tend to deal with sensory inputs, and movement. This effect mimics some of the benefits of meditation. In practice this means that the sense of an ego identity gets ‘turned down’, whilst immediate physical environmental processing takes on strange new forms; e.g. ‘seeing’ uses more than just the visual cortex to process images; memories can be retrieved as pictures, and other areas get involved too, with notable effects such as synesthesia.

Psychedelic drugs may provide periods of remission for people suffering degenerative neurological conditions (such as Alzheimer’s). These effects can sometimes be observed at microdose levels (which cause imperceptible sensorial effects). Psychedelic drugs may enhance organic brain processes such as neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain cells to form new connections), and compounds found in some psychedelics have been shown to cause neurogenesis (neuron formation from neural stem cells).

Finding your way

An exploration of how we can include psychedelics in our individual process can be a life-long journey. For some the psychedelic experience may be best avoided, for others perhaps only a handful of journeys in a lifetime may be needed. Seek good advice, tread gently on this path and may you discover the medicine you need for the benefit for yourself and all beings.

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This article was adapted from Getting Higher: The Manual of Psychedelic Ceremony. Highly recommended!

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About Julian
Julian Vayne is an occultist and the author of numerous books, essays, journals and articles in both the academic and esoteric press. While his name is closely associated with chaos magic Julian is also an initiated Wiccan, member of the Kaula Nath lineage and Master Mason. Over the past 30 plus years he has participated in group ceremony with a variety of druids, shamans and others as well as sharing his own practice through public workshops, retreats and networks of practitioners including The Illuminates of Thanateros.

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psychedelics carnival festival online blog
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PSYJuly 2021 | 31 Days of Psychedelics | Welcome!

psyjuly welcome

Welcome to PSYJuly 2021!

Over the next 31 days we are going to be featuring 31 articles on psychedelics, one for each and every day of July.

This is the second edition of PSYJuly here at Maps of the Mind, with the inaugural edition last year, and becoming a blogging carnival and more collaborative and community minded project this time around.

Welcome, and I hope you enjoy!

Connecting the background

In the process of organising and setting this up it has been really nice to reach out and refresh communications with acquaintances and friends in the community but it has also been great to make introductions and new connections. It’s exciting in that you never know where these small sparks may lead. Sure, some may go nowhere, but also, and more importantly, some may go somewhere. I’ve had many meaningful, supportive and collaborative relationships arise from these kind of initial encounters and they continue to bear fruit in both my personal and professional life.

My sincere hope is that this will bring about more of those connections for both emerging and more established figures within the psychedelic space. I’ve benefited so much from being involved and included in various projects when I was looking to become more engaged and I am truly grateful that I was given those opportunities, be they volunteering at conferences and retreats, writing guest posts, and even just exchanging messages and emails. I hope that in someway I am able to give back through PSYJuly.

Who are the posts going to be by?

Due to my scattergun approach of contacting people and putting word out through various forms such as email, twitter, facebook, and telegram, and being flexible with deadlines to allow certain friends and acquaintances to contribute I cannot at this moment really give a finalised full lineup. 

At present I would estimate that around half of the posts will be guest posts and half will be written by yours truly. The guest posts are coming from various people: authors, activists, movers and shakers in the psychedelic space, as well as some up-and-comers.

What topics are going to be covered?

Oh baby we’ve got a whole host of goodies. Occultist psychonaut Julian Vayne will be kicking us off tomorrow and then we’re gonna be traversing our way through a host of topics, with Psychedologist Leia Friedman walking us through how to navigate the psychedelic renaissance, and then Akash Kulgod telling us why it should be actually called the psychedelic revival.

We have a special audio post from the (Ir)Reverend rabble-rouser Danny Nemu and we’re going to share lessons from ayahuasca from Mr. Steve Pavlina. My comrade and Magic Medicine author Cody is going to share his excellent post on Tripping for Self-Realization, brother outlaw KR is going to give us the lowdown on how to be a connoisseur with nitrous oxide, the girls from A Whole New High on how to surrender to a psychedelic experience, my buddy Dave from the MIND foundation on integration and, well actually I don’t want to give it all away. Let’s keep a few little secrets back. There’s more beauties to come.

And then, of course we have your resident host yours truly. I’ve got a few articles that I’m pretty excited to share, some that have been formulating in the background for a few months and have built into a nice little list of articles to write. I’ve already started working on a number, and I am really glad to have the impetus to sit down and write them and the opportunity to finally share them.

Getting Set…

Each post will be shared here and published by midday European time each day. If you’re stateside then they’ll be up by the time you’re awake so you can enjoy with your morning cuppa or breakie. You can bookmark the PSYJuly 2021 homepage for easy access to the latest posts over the month. And finally, I invite you to join us in celebrating psychedelics during this time.

Last year I started day one answering the question: Why Psychedelics?

This year, I’m delighted to announce we have author Julian Vayne with a special adapted section from his modern classic Getting Higher, on a fittingly following theme:
Why take psychedelic drugs?

See you tomorrow!

🙂

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journal psychedelic
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My Psychedelic Journaling Practices

When I first started using psychedelics, I used to always make sure that I had a pen and paper handy during my sessions. I did this so I could make notes during the experience, as there would nearly always be thoughts that popped up that seemed crucially important to write down and remember.

Since I started doing more formal, psychedelic therapy style sessions, however, I’ve made it something of a rule to not write anything down during the trip itself. I may take some notes after the peak, but generally the session day is for experience, not for journaling. That day is for me to be in the experience, not to analyse or take notes on it. In terms insights, I’ve found that the most important stuff sticks, and I’ll revisit and capture the next day.

Journaling on integration day

Thought I don’t write during the session day, I journal a lot after the experience.

The day after I will put on the playlist that I used and listen to it again from start to finish. Getting as close to the session format as possible, I will also wear my eye mask and headphones again, with the mask slid above my eyes. Listening to the music helps to bring back memories from the trip.  The other details also help to recreate the context of the experience which helps to retrieve the memories in as much detail as possible.

I will then sit or lie down with pen and paper. As I listen to the music, I journal freely about the experience. I follow a directive I found in one of the research studies on psilocybin done at Johns Hopkins, to write up an ‘open-ended narrative of the experience’. The write up might include feelings, thoughts, or realizations. Whatever comes back up, I journal about it.

Psychedelic explorer Christopher Bache has written about how he did this the day after each of his sessions too. His integration process was so meticulous that he would listen to each track on the playlist on repeat, until he felt he had captured the essence of what he experienced during that piece. Admittedly, I don’t quite go that far. Once through the entire playlist is already 5 hours journaling, and I spread this over the course of a day, breaking it up with walks outside and meals.

Whilst journaling, I also identify key themes from the experience. These keywords may look like: health, gratitude, listening, providing. Though those may look obvious or trite, each word will be infused with my own personal meaning from the session, and having them neatly identified in keywords can help to quickly touch base with the essence of the experience. I’ve found this is useful for longer term integration, or setting integration intentions.

Journaling as preparation

Journaling can also act as a useful preparation exercise. An empty page is a good and private place to dump thoughts and feelings and can be a good way to explore what’s on your mind. Writing thoughts and feelings can help to have some kind of detachment from them and having them on a piece of paper in front of you helps to externalize them. This can help to bring about new perspectives.

Journaling on lower doses 

This could be thought of as something like crossing journaling with a psycholytic approach. Here the pad acts as the therapist. This is something I use with the non classic psychedelics MDMA and ketamine. With these I always journal any personal things that come up, invariably at the beginning of the session. This might be about some tension or a problem I’m experiencing in a relationship. I will journal, going with the flow of what arises. This may take the form of simply writing thoughts or feelings down, or it may take the form of writing a letter to someone, writing down things that I would like to say to them. 

In my review after the session, I will decide if it’s actually something that I should send or say to them, or if its something that I need to look more into myself before taking any action. Sometimes getting clarity through writing is enough.

Audio journaling

Another way of doing journaling is audio journaling. You can open a voice memo app or use some other audio recording device and freely speak out loud. Here, the audio device is the therapist. This can also be a great way to give voice and expression to your inner world with tone and texture.

If you are experiencing frustration or anger with someone you might press record on the voice memo app and just dump all your stuff as if you were speaking to the person. This can help to really tap into your feelings and to allow them expression in a way where no one has to be on the receiving end. It can provide some relief and also help to clarify your truest feelings that you may have been afraid to actually express. 

If you would like written notes on your vocalisations, you can also get a digital tool to transcribe for you. I often talk directly into google docs and have the little google robot wizard type up what I’m saying as I go. I even wrote the first draft of this article by talking into my phone 😉 

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To sum up, journaling can be a great accomplice to psychedelic work, at all stages: before, during and after. For preparation, navigation, and integration. I encourage you to give it a go and find what works for you.

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tripping in nature tips

Basics for Psychedelic Tripping in Nature

Psychedelic tripping in nature can be whole ‘nother level awesome.

The difficulty is that it’s an uncontrolled environment. Tripping safely and making the most of your time in the great outdoors can be helped hugely by some simple preparation.

Here are five tips to help you stay safe and enjoy the experience without getting bogged down in logistics. Some of these may seem obvious, but can be easily overlooked in a spur of the moment trip…

Take enough water and snacks with you

You do not want to get caught short out in nature and begin getting hungry or thirsty only to realize you’re either quite a long way from a shop or home, or that you don’t yet want to go to either. Keeping these supplies keeps you independent of the need to head to stock up.

Make sure you have the appropriate clothing for the weather

If it’s going to be hot you don’t want to be stuck in jeans, or forced to strip down to your undies, which will probably make you more self-conscious.

Conversely, you don’t wanna be left in shorts and a T-shirt if it’s cold and raining.

Check the weather forecast, prepare appropriately. You might need sunnies or a cap. Or you might want a pocket raincoat.

That said, don’t overpack because you don’t want to be lugging around a big heavy bag with you. Strike the balance and in cooler weather consider thin layered clothes rather than bulky winter jackets.

On the subject of weather, having some kind of base camp for your excursion can be helpful. Perhaps you have an airbnb which is in the countryside, from which you can go out and explore the vast expanse of nature. If needed, you can then stroll back to the comforts of home in what won’t be too much of an arduous journey.

Don’t get lost

You do not want to get lost in nature anytime. But especially when tripping.

This has happened to me before and I was pretty worried for a while there. I managed to find my way out of it due to a tip from a friend to stay in a certain area of woods. The woods ran alongside a stream which gave me a point of reference from which I could navigate back to town.

However you manage it, just make sure you know how you’ll find your way back.

If it’s maps on your phone, be careful that you’ll be able to get a signal if you need to. 

Or just pay attention to where you’re going and keep a lookout for points of reference.

I always take an old school compass with me. I have a rough idea of the direction I’m heading and the direction of my base camp, so in the worst case scenario I can always figure out how to make my way back to base. 

Depending on your substance, you may be sober enough to navigate with ease, so it might not be too much of a consideration. Judge accordingly.

Bring something that you can lie down on

Whether it’s a simple blanket or a sleeping mat, this can be very helpful. This can give you a little extra comfort if you want to lie down or just chill out. It might be that the ground is rough or has some kind of grass which is itchy or otherwise irritating.

As with any session setting, be it inside or outside: comfort is key.

Bonus: here is a Google Sheets copy of an outside trip checklist. Feel free to make a copy and make adjustments. You can then access it from your phone and do a quick run through before heading out. Copy of Outdoor Trip Checklist

Beware of interactions

Interacting with other people you might come across can be uncomfortable and a little weird. Just remember that you have no obligation to stop and talk with anyone. It’s fine for you to simply give a friendly smile and keep on walking.

If you are around people that are making you feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, move on. If there’s something in your view that’s distracting or disturbing you, just changing your view and turning to face the other direction can be a simple and effective fix.

Get home safe

If you’re tripping in a park or nature area but heading back to your city home to sleep, you might consider treating yourself to a taxi to avoid the hassles or difficulty of navigating public areas and transport. You can consider this as a gift to your tripping self, and enjoy getting snuggly with a cuppa tea and some blankets once you arrive home. 

 

Leave no trace

To borrow a Burning Man principle here, this is less of a tip and more of a plea.

Please tidy up after yourself when you head out into nature. Our natural habitats are suffering enough as it is, and we should do our best to be stewards for the incredible planet that we are blessed to inhabit. 

Also, to move the psychedelic movement forward, you as a psychedelic tripper out in nature are representing psychonauts around the world. If you go round leaving your garbage behind, then you’re giving a bad name to us all and contributing to a negative public perception of the drug user. If we’re going to make ground as a movement then we want to show ourselves to be responsible, thoughtful and considerate citizens of the Earth.

Pick up your trash and leave no trace.

Final Thoughts

Tripping in nature can be a wonderful, beautiful, life affirming experience. It is something I think every psychedelic explorer should try: to connect to the wondrous and deep beauty of the Natural World. This can deepen our connection and stir up further ripples for the environmental and ecological movement. 

If you’re an environmentalist, this is a great way to strengthen your bond with the Earth and the biosphere, to reconnect with this living organism which we could certainly work to improve our relationship with.

As always, safe and awesome journeys. Enjoy your time in nature.

And remember to hug some trees.

 

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/by

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