Keys to Decolonizing Plant Medicine Culture
Keys to healing trauma and reducing harm from unconscious perpetuation of racial violence, oppression and privilege in the plant medicine community.
IF SACRED PLANT MEDICINES HAVE BECOME INTEGRAL TO YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE...
And You Wish to Reinforce this Connection with Integrity, Inclusion, & Awareness
GET THE KEYS TO DECOLONIZING PLANT MEDICINE CULTURE!
IMAGINE A WORLD WHERE PLANT MEDICINE HEALING WAS ACCESSIBLE TO ALL, SUSTAINABLY, & IN RIGHT RELATIONSHIP TO INDIGENOUS WISDOM KEEPERS
Have sacred plant medicines become an integral part of your spiritual practice, identity or vocation? Perhaps you lead ceremonies or regularly participate in ceremonies. Maybe you have a healing profession, coaching business, integration therapy practice, or vocation that is informed by your ceremonial experiences, and the relationship you are cultivating with plant spirit allies feels authentic. Even if you are not indigenous, nor from the culture where these practices originated.
I understand where you are coming from.
Plant medicines can be profoundly healing and transformational, and humanity is in deep need of healing right now, especially where Western medicine has been ineffective. For so many people, of all races, orientation and economic means, from activists to war veterans, plant medicines have had a tremendous positive impact on our lives.
However, the globalization of plant medicines like ayahuasca has unfolded much like the expansion of yoga to the West: there are now far more non-indigenous people drinking ayahuasca, holding ceremonies, and making money from plant medicines than there are indigenous. The vast majority of people participating in plant medicine culture are doing so from a spirit of love and good intention.
Yet the inequities of society are being played out in the most spiritual of spaces… racism, privilege, supremacy, and extractivism can all be witnessed in a space where we are all supposed to be “One”.
Most would agree that increased access to plant medicine healing is beneficial to humanity. How might it be possible for people from the Global North to participate in medicine culture without inadvertently perpetuating colonialism and cultural appropriation?
WHY DO WE NEED TO DECOLONIZE MEDICINE CULTURE?
The globalization and increased consumption of plant medicines like ayahuasca, iboga, magic mushrooms, peyote, and huachuma (San Pedro) are predominantly being driven by Western demand. Ceremony circles, retreat centers, and coaching organizations that offer ancestral plant medicines are expanding around the world. Most of them are owned and operated by white people, who are changing the context of the ritual container to suit their mostly white clientele, who are, in turn, paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for ceremonies and retreat experiences.
On the one hand, the expansion of plant medicine is helping an increasing number of people around the world who deeply need it, in spaces that feel familiar, comfortable, and culturally safe, with people they can relate to, in a language they understand.
On the other hand, to many indigenous, however, the capitalization of ancestral medicine and ceremonial ways of working with plants, feels like yet another colonialist extraction. But instead of oil, timber, rubber, or gold, this time it’s a spiritual extraction.
HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
- Settler Colonialism & the Psychedelic Renaissance. From the filing of patents on molecules found in indigenous medicines, to the upsurge of white entrepreneurs in a newly legalized market, while BIPOC casualties of the Drug War continue to languish in jail, we’ll explore what settler colonialism looks like in the Psychedelic Renaissance and how we can do better.
- Recognizing Neocolonialism in Plant Medicine Culture. It’s easy to think that mundane divisions do not exist in unity consciousness spaces, until you learn how to recognize them. Harmful beliefs and behaviors can be seen in seemingly innocuous statements that romanticise indigenous shamans and people, or more overt displays of white supremacy, tokenization, saviorism, racism, sexism, and classism.
- Healing Ourselves from Colonization. We’ll explore the pervasiveness of supremacist premises that shape Western belief systems, especially everyday language, and how they affect how we see, think, feel and speak about “ourselves” and “others”, so that we can begin to dismantle internalized oppression.
- Decolonizing Sacred Medicine Space. We’ll cover strategies for space holders, ceremony leaders, coaching companies and psychedelic ventures to create more inclusion and diversity in their organizations and racial safety in psychedelic spaces.
- Activating Reciprocity. We’ll explore the difference between “optical allyship” and authentic allyship, and the myriad ways to create meaningful reciprocity beyond making a charitable donation once a year.
HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL GET
- The Keys to Decolonizing Plant Medicine Culture Workbook with self-reflection journal exercises
- Study Guides & Handouts, so that you can do self-reflective journaling and widen your inquiry
- On-demand access to recordings of 2 live Master Classes on decolonization
- 10+ Hours of Bonus Interview Recordings, on how to activate reciprocity and partner with indigenous communities in a meaningful way. Keep scrolling for more info on bonus content!
- 20-Min Guided Soul Retrieval Brainwave Meditation, to call back your power with the help of your Spirit Guide, and accelerate shamanic healing
Your Instructor
Deep in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, Lorna "Liana" Li discovered her purpose and her divine calling while drinking visionary plant medicines with indigenous shamans. She was given a mission:
With the explosion of interest in the West, coupled with inadequate preparation and integration, there is an alarming phenomenon of Westerners emerging from shamanic experiences worse than when they started.