Kat Courtney: Ayahuasca, Plant Medicine & the Patriarchy

Welcome to season 5 of the Dear Patriarchy Podcast -  we're back, baby!

Season 5 is the beginning of our evolution of the Dear Patriarchy offering. A year and a half ago, we stepped away to start healing and we're bringing back what we've learned and want to continue the healing journey with you.

Our first conversation is with the incredible Kat Courtney, founder of Plant Medicine People, who has been involved in the plant medicine and shamanism communities for the last 2 decades. She is a loving source of wisdom and this episode is an outpouring of her knowledge, gained through 20+ years of experience in ceremonial healing.

In this episode, we discuss what plant medicine actually is, specifically focusing on ayahuasca, and discuss Kat's journey with this beautiful medicine. Kat deep dives into her experiences of finding patriarchy within plant medicine & shamanism communities, and gives us a guideline of how to find safe retreat spaces, including things to look out for and red flags to be aware of. She shares her decades-long experience of sitting in, and holding, ceremony space and how plant medicine can not only heal, but also offer support and wisdom in helping you find purpose in the work that you're most passionate about. Towards the end of the episode, she offers up a powerful process for transmuting anger into purpose which we hope will help you as profoundly as it has helped us.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode once you've listened - share with us on Instagram or at patriarchypod@gmail.com

If you want more Kat Courtney in your life (because of course you do!), find her here:

• Discover the Plant Medicine People community
• Dive into excellent articles by Kat here & here
• Read Kat's fantastic book "Plant Medicine Mystery School Volume I"
• Connect on Instagram with Kat here and with Plant Medicine People here
• Retreat scholarship information

Transcript

Hi, welcome to a very different season of the Dear Patriarchy Podcast.
And maybe a different evolution because it won't just be one season. 
No, it's the most forward of all the seasons. 
Forward indeed. What I think Jen is trying to say is that we've had a long break. We're coming back after nearly, well, more than a year of being away. There are reasons for that that we're not going to get into. We took time away to heal some things that needed to be healed, to rebuild some things that needed to be broken down and rebuilt. And we are starting this new chapter of what the Dear Patriarchy podcast offering a moment when there's a lot of healing that's needed and I think we came to this point because we were carrying so much anger around with us, seeing how much injustice civil rights issues that were going on, not just issues of rampant widespread internalized and systemic racism, but also civil injustices within the LGBTQ plus community. And around the world, we see what's happening in Palestine, we see what's happening in Sudan. And we know that to be alive in this moment is to be surrounded by a lot of anger and a lot of pain.
Yeah, and a lot of gaslighting. 
Oh, and a lot of gaslighting too. 
So from the folks in power that are trying to kind of keep us angry with each other rather than dealing with the issues that people are facing. You know, it's not just things happening in other countries that are terrible humanitarian crises, but there's also economy has left a lot of folks in a really bad spot financially.
That's globally. That's not just in the States or in the UK. That's around the world, isn't it? 
Yeah. And so, you know, everyone's kind of at the end of their rope and fighting with each other. We have a pretty big election coming up in the States. That's pretty hideous. Very divisive. 
Yeah. And so what we're trying to say is that we are aware of everything that's going on in the world and for the work that Lisa and I are so passionate about trying to shed light on the gas lighting and helping folks understand that what they're feeling is absolutely 100 % valid. We kind of have gotten to a place decided to, rather than stoke that anger, we're working through ways that we can. Oh man, how am I going to say this without sounding completely trite and ridiculous? 
No, no, not ridiculous. I know what you're coming up against. Let me just insert this, which is that while doing this work, which we love and which we're very much called to do and we are so passionate about. We found the extreme heaviness of the anger sitting on us in a way that was making us sick and making us just generate more anger, not just within our own, within our own bodies, but then also within our family units and then out within the community. So we really had to take a step back and evaluate how that anger could have a purpose, how we could be purposeful and still be present in the world, still understand what's going on, still want to be part of the movement to eliminate or help systems evolve past this injustice and how we can support ourselves and other people in still engaging in this work because it's deeply important work, but doing it in a way that's healing to both yourself and to those around you without losing any of the passion and without negating the fact that anger is valid and to feel anger is right and righteous in the moment when there's injustice.
Perfectly perfectly put and so.. 
This is the way. 
Well, we also we don't want to come across as toxically positive and trying to say that because we're deciding that we've chosen peace, we want everyone else that that's the only way so.
This is a way. 
When we started the podcast there, I had always said to Lisa, like, let's do this. We can do this, but let's make it funny. Let's make it, let's make it light and...
Find the lighter side. 
Yeah. And so here we come full circle and we're hoping that our work moving forward is a place that brings you understanding, but also peace. that is our goal moving forward in dear patriarchy 2 .0.
And so to start that off, our first episode is with Kat Courtney. So Kat Courtney is, as you'll hear from the recording, Kat Courtney is a pretty amazing human being. first and foremost, the creator of and she runs Plant Medicine People. Please, please, please at the end of this recording, there will be links for all of Kat's articles that she's written, which are fantastic, but then there's links to Plant Medicine People, which is the website for  the learning center that she runs. And Kat's worked within the plant medicine and shamanism space for over 20 years. So as she puts it, way before it was popular and definitely way before it was so much part of the a current conversation about healing and about medicine and the way that we look at healing modalities and the way that plant medicines come into that. 
So it's a super enlightening conversation we recorded it as I was leaving my first retreat and so it was a very timely and interesting and deep conversation and really shed some light on ways that you can be think through being involved with civil rights work or humanitarian rights work and be surrounded by that anger and work through it to keep yourself healthy, but then also to help support others. 
And to keep yourself engaged because the social justice work is so fiery and so it requires so much of you that there is the risk that people run of getting burnt out on it. And that is what ultimately we felt the beginnings, the stirrings of like it was exhausting, it was hard just carrying all that anger. So how do we transmute the anger? We don't deny the anger. Kat talks us through it in a beautiful way in the episode. Not denying that anger, but recognizing it and working with it so that it brings you into a new evolution of what that anger can become.
So yeah, just hope everyone that listens really loves this episode and it would be great to hear your thoughts on it once you've had a listen. And we look forward to more episodes that take this idea of how to heal ourselves, our families, our communities within the greater realm of the work that we all want to be doing with social justice and also bridge building and healing. I think I said healing twice. 
That's cool. Healing's awesome. I healed two times. Also, if you're feeling the call at all to work with ayahuasca, this is a super informative episode that can kind of give you, the stepping stones of how to get there if you're wondering how you can make it happen for yourself. 
Yes, yeah. So we are speaking mainly about ayahuasca in this episode with Kat. But that's just because both Jen and I have that as a healing modality, that's one that we found that works for us, and is helping us massively in our lives. And maybe it's something that's been circling around you and calling you as well. I guess you'll if you're if you're called to it, you'll listen. But yeah, just really excited to share this conversation with Kat. She brought so much wisdom into the space and yeah, here you go. Have a listen, Kat Courtney.

Okay, hi, we're here and we have Kat Courtney with us. We are so blessed to have you in the space with us today. Thank you so much for your time. It would be amazing if you could explain to us who you are, what you do, and what you're really passionate about. 

Ah, a condensed version. No pressure. Lisa and Jen, It's so good to be here. I feel really good about this conversation already. Who am I? I am a woman on a healing journey, you know, like most of us. I 20 years ago or so I had the perfect life on paper. I was running a video game company and living in Hollywood and everything was great. But, you know, I had that quintessential like existential crisis going on where I didn't love myself. I was bulimic, a functional alcoholic, diagnosed bipolar, like really not happy, but felt like I should be because everything was great on paper. And I followed my then boyfriend to the jungle, to the Amazonian jungle and drank ayahuasca for the first time, which I had no idea what that was. This was 20 years ago. Nobody had heard of it. This was a weird thing to do. And it instantly like shifted the trajectory of my life because what I discovered in that moment is that I too could heal. Previous to that, I had been basically brainwashed by the allopathic system that, you know, I was stuck being with a broken brain. Good luck. You know, here's some medicine, like farm, big pharma drugs, right. And so the first time I drank ayahuasca, it was like, wait a second, is that true? I can heal. I got this. And it sent me on a journey that not only helped me to one step at a time, uncover my own awakening and healing, but I also found my life's purpose. So now,
I work with plant medicines like Ayahuasca for helping other people heal. And I'm also a psychedelic integration coach. And before it was cool, 15 years ago, when nobody was thinking someone would pay me to help them integrate a psychedelic experience. I'm like, I think maybe this is needed. So I've been working with the plants for almost 20 years. I feel like I have my dream life now. And so that in a nutshell nutshell is who I am right now. 
Oh my God, love it so much. Thank you for that. That's so great. 
I have to say we came, or rather I was lucky enough to come across something that you wrote about patriarchy in the plant medicine space. And obviously it was like such a call because I explained briefly to you before we started recording that this episode is a really big shift away from where we have been, or maybe it's an evolution of where we have been into where it needs to go. And we are really hoping that with these episodes, we can bring a lot more peace and healing into this discussion about patriarchy so that it can evolve and it can move past into what our interactions or the social perspective should really be. And so reading that article by you was such a beautiful thing to find because it was like oh, that's the next thing is this is how we talk about this and also making the space for the healing that has to happen on the other side of it. 
So as a quick reminder to anyone listening, I know we mentioned it in the intro, but just a reminder that the article will be linked in the show notes.
And I actually found another article by you Kat just in the last two weeks about how you kind of stepped away from shamanism as well and that whole journey, which I love that one as well. So both those articles will be in the show notes. They're so beautiful and so helpful. So I can't thank you enough for what you've written and what you're putting out there, because it's so powerful. 
Thank you. Thank you. You know, this is actually so poetic how this discussion is your new sort of evolution and what you both have been doing because without plant medicines, I would still be in the space, I think, of being just angry at the state of the world without a balance of also seeing, A, the perfection of it and how it's getting us to something better. And most importantly, I think my own personal peace with it. Like I'm still angry, by the way. Oh, sacred rage galore. But I also feel empowered by the medicines to do something about it, right? And if we just stay angry in that paralysis of it, we're not actually creating what it is that we all deserve to experience. So both are so important and especially working with Ayahuasca, this plant is the one that says be angry and, and here's what it looks like. So what a perfect, like the universe knows what it's doing. Absolutely, it really does. Yes, AND.
I'm gonna have chills the entire time we have this conversation. It's just like one big goose bump. This is such a beautiful way to move forward. Whoops, sorry, Jen, I cut across you. What were you gonna say? 
No, that's okay. We can call it hashtag goose bump episode. So I guess then, how about we start at the beginning? Let's talk about, you know, as, you know, when you kind of first came into this journey. Where did you start with like taking the healing on your own and moving away from kind of like big pharma and like where, how did you start? How did your evolution begin? 
It actually started before I drank Ayahuasca because I knew big pharma wasn't working for me. I took those drugs for a short period of time. I'm like, I am not myself. Yeah, sure. Maybe I'm not manic, but I didn't feel it was not authentic for me to take those drugs. And by the way, I was studying early on to be a psychiatrist. I was working for a psychiatrist. This was going to be my world. I thought that was why, how I was going to help myself and other people. And I realized, no, no, they don't really know anything about the brain and psychology and the way that it felt like it was needed for me to feel safe. So I had kind of given up, you know, of thinking, well, maybe I just have to figure out how to maintain some sort of stability being who I am, which was highly sensitive and emotionally reactive and all of the things. But then when I, you know, I call it before and after ayahuasca, cause that ayahuasca moment of wait a second, there is a path forward. It's not like I knew what that path was, you know, instantly. It's just that I think we all need hope that it's possible first and foremost to live in a different way, to have what we want, you know, not that it's a light switch, but that I had to know that it was possible. And once I knew it was possible and I felt like ayahuasca was the tool for me, like that was my path. It's just one path. It's not the only one, but it was mine and I knew it. I felt so lucky to have found it. Then it was going, at the time I had to go back and forth to the Amazonian jungle because there was no other place to do this work. And so it was just saving money and going back and continuing my journey and every trip just brought me closer to myself. That's the best way I can put it. It's like just coming home to unraveling trauma and making friends with myself and that is an ongoing process. Actually, it's probably going to be forever while I'm in a body that that is the journey. That's gorgeous. I love that. And if we can just kind of, for people that are listening that maybe Ayahuasca hasn't started circling around them, because she does call you definitely when you're ready and when she knows you're ready, she calls you and you start to find that you hear more and more about her. But what she's supposed to do is one, she's the mother of plant medicine. How would you describe plant medicines? Because there's a lot of like, "it's just drugs" conversation that goes on for people that don't really understand it as a healing modality.
Yeah, great question. I'll share from a personal perspective. It wasn't my first journey with ayahuasca. It was the morning afterwards that I realized why they call this plant medicine and it's not a drug because I felt more like myself. I'm like, oh, oh my God. That's why they call it medicine. Even pharmaceutical drugs, even like, you know, I loved MDMA in the back of the day, different things, LSD. I would still feel a bit hung over. Of course, alcohol, right? Eww. You kind of feel like. Right. Icky the next day. And so when I woke up the next morning after I was going like, I feel amazing, tired, because that was intense, but I am more me is like, that's why we call it medicine. So for me, especially the plant medicines, meaning the organic medicines, they are the ones that do bring us home to ourselves, that bring us back into our natural states of feeling interconnected, heart connected, joyful, present, you know, that's who we are. So for me, that's how I define a medicine is - it's something that helps us get back to our natural state of being. 
I love it. So true. Perfect. Oh my gosh. I want to say that my experiences with ayahuasca, because I've been lucky enough to go on ceremony three times, I had things that from a traditional psychological, like a counseling, therapeutic background, I probably could have gone, and I had gone, for decades. And that trope about ayahuasca being like 10 years of therapy in one night is, was so true for me. I was able to heal and forgive, but even go past forgiving in the state where I knew that those things didn't even need to be forgiven which I don't think I ever thought would have been possible for me in a single night. And that healing perspective was so alien to me, but at the same time, so familiar. I love that you keep saying the remembering things, the bringing back, because that is one thing that I think is very, and Jen, you'll have to jump in, because this is now your experience too of like how these medicines teach you what you already knew and that's why they feel so right as you go through the lessons because you already know this. But you've been conditioned to forget in a way and it's all a journey of remembering the way home I guess which I really love. I don't know how that sounds for you Jen. 
Oh I mean I'm literally driving home from my ceremony so I'm still like in the processing portion, but I'll say, you know, I apologize for my irreverence ahead of time, but you know, when Lisa would say to me, "Mama Aya" I inwardly like cringed and like rolled my eyes, but I have to say this morning, I absolutely 100 % get it. And I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on therapy and I was lucky enough to have a bio tuning session before I went on my journey and the bio tuning cleared my chakras and it just, and to anyone listening, like we get how like, hippy dippy this sounds, but just go with it. You can watch romcoms. You can handle this. So just, I was able to let go of so much and there's an understanding. I feel like with, not that there's anything wrong with therapy and a lot of people swear by it, but I feel like there's a different type of understanding now. Like my soul understands. My soul has always understood, but like my whole, I understand now with my whole form that everything that I've been through and like I'm at peace with it. And I think it's the moment of like surrender where you just kind of let it all go. And I don't know that I don't feel that for me, had I not been able to journey with ayahuasca that I would have been able to get to that place of surrender where I absolutely let it go. So. 
Yeah, beautifully said. And by the way, Jen, I'm right there with you. I thought it was crazy that plants have consciousness before I drank ayahuasca. I'm like, No, they just sit in the backyard like, they give us food. Like, that's so woo woo. And the moment I drank the first cup and that opened up, I'm like, I was wrong. I was wrong. This plant has intelligence that's so beyond what I will ever have. It's so humbling. But you know, we don't know until we get to go through that portal. And I've seen people so skeptical come out the other side like, okay, I just had a conversation with a plant, oh my God, that alone is life changing, because then we realize how conscious and sentient nature really is. A lot of us don't know that going in. And there would be so much more.
I think this ties really beautifully into one of the next things that I wanted to talk to you about, which is within social justice movements and within just this need that we have from an environmental perspective, from a social perspective, to come closer together, to build better communities so that we don't hurt each other and the planet any further. Where we talk about patriarchy within this healing, if you have all of these elements that you look at every day, that you see areas where social justice work is so needed, it makes you so angry because you haven't healed yourself, you haven't healed this material being. And then you're looking at all this other pain and all it does is make you angrier. And when you're in that place of unresolved, unreleased anger, you can't look around with compassion and love, which is the place where we have to, I feel we really have to be in order to evolve past these really toxic, patriarchal, racist systems that ruin the earth, ruin all of our organic communities. So it was so interesting to come across your article about finding patriarchy in the shamanism community, which of course it is because it's everywhere that there's people, there will be that. But I would really love to hear where you found it. And if you could talk a little bit about how you've seen that affect the spaces that you've been in and that other people have been in? 
Oh, I love this question so much because you find it in the obvious ways, right? That men lead ceremonies more and, you know, they've sort of taken over what, by the way, in the old days was priestesses giving the medicine to the people. Of course. It was women who carried the medicine in the beginning, right?
Yeah.
So all of that is kind of obvious of like, yes, because we see that in every single facet of our society. But where it is more, I think, prominent in a harder to define way is the way the medicines are worked with as a whole. Ayahuasca is a perfect example. Jen's talking about this beautiful experience of surrender, right? Well, to me, surrender is a very feminine experience of letting go. It's the feminine, and we all have the feminine, so I'm not just saying that women have this, but the feminine knows how to be a container for all emotions, just to be with it. So I look at the feminine as being and the masculine as doing. So in ceremony spaces, there's all this doing. It's like there's a very masculine way of pushing people to the edge of drink more medicine. I went to Rhythmia and they had this motto, don't think, drink. I'm like, no, no.
No, no, no. 
The medicine teaches us to think for ourselves, to be connected to our intuition, which is part of the feminine wisdom that we all carry. And so this the masculine principle, the toxic masculine masculine principle that more is more, that we have to push and it has to be hard and scary in order for it to be profound. It's all over the medicine space. And it's BS. Because a lot of times, just being with something that's soft and subtle and gentle, which is one aspect of the feminine, it can be just as profound as an ego death. So I'm pushing against this idea that we have to have it hard and scary and pushy and all of that in order for healing to happen. If the medicine needs to create that with each individual, she will, and sometimes that's what needed. But the idea that that's the way ceremony should look. Like I see a lot of medicine people sort of brag about, yeah, six people popped off in my ceremony last night. And I'm like, good for you, gold star. Like, you know, it means nothing in the context of how much healing is happening. And I think that patriarchy energy just shows how addicted we are to making it hard, to making it dramatic, to pushing instead of just being and allowing things to unfold and surrendering into it. So that's one of the ways in which I see the programming of the patriarchy creating a lot of pain for all of us in the context of the healing space, not just plant medicines, but healing across the board. 
Oh my God, I love that. And I'm realizing how, because I came to the medicine, because I'm from like a really pragmatic, like financial perspective, access to the medicine is not always easy. And when you do have to go far afield there is that block of how much it costs to get to where you're going regardless of whether they're actually upholding that you don't need to pay for the medicine but you do need to pay for your food in your lodging however the ethos is of wherever you go and drink but there is that like pragmatic people go and they think this is a big investment for me and I need to make it count like I need to make it so I get that there's sort of that lean because I came with that the first time, because I was like, I need to make sure that when I go, it really means a lot. And it was always really intense. Because maybe because I was asking it to be that. However, I need to think more deeply about that because you've just opened up a whole thing in my head. But I'll take that one away. But also, there is that when you come into an integration circle and everybody's experience is so different. You do find or I have found that almost like an even even split in the room of men having really hard experiences. And women going, it was really soft and gentle and loving. And I was like, Oh, man, that actually sounds really lovely. Because I showed up asking for the hard stuff. And that's what she gave me because I came with that masculine need to, like, make it count. So when I go again, next time, I'm gonna, I'm gonna really think about that to take with me because that's a really beautiful point to start from and I never even realized how I had absorbed that really masculine tendency. So thank you for that. Can I piggyback on that real quick? Yeah. So my first, I mean, Lisa, you got the text. I wasn't ready and it wasn't my time. Like I was lucky enough to have a ceremony that had to or to go on a retreat that had two ceremonies. So we had a Friday night and a Saturday night ceremony. Then the Friday night, like I, finger quotation marks, didn't feel anything. And I was so mad. I was so mad. I was like, I paid so much money to be here. I'm laying on a, I'm laying on a floor, on a mat, in a room full of people. And I'm, this sucks. I think I actually wrote, this sucks, in a text to Lisa, which I shouldn't have been on my phone. So clearly I wasn't ready at all. And then the next morning, to what you said earlier, the next morning was when I was like, oh, I just had an anger purge. And that's what had to come through before I was ready. And I think that with that financial aspect, we're so tied to money in our kind of materialistic viewpoint, capitalist viewpoint, that we come, like plants don't have a schedule. Like she'll come when she's ready. Like if you're not ready to have that conversation, like I feel like she's not gonna waste her time. She can't if you're not ready. And I don't know, I feel like I've kind of gone adrift a little bit, but what I wanted to say was I think that with that mindset of, I mean, maybe that was me kind of, I don't know. Okay, at least you're gonna have to cut a lot of this out, but. 
No way, it's great. Don't you dare. 
I just, it's just such an interesting, it's such an interesting concept because it's not what we have been programmed by our, you know, capitalist society, materialistic society, like that you wait patiently and you do this as many times as it takes with this large financial investment that is out of reach for many people just sorry, Lisa, I'm going to say, we understand that this financially is and there are a lot of retreats that have scholarship opportunities, if you feel you're being called, you can always reach out to us, patriarchypod@gmail.com .com if you want to about this and let us help you find your way. 
You have to be with plant medicine. We're taught, you know, with big pharma, we're taught you take this pill, you're fixed. You take this pill, you will be the thing that you're supposed to be to like be part of, be a tangible part of society. But plant medicine is not on that schedule. Plant medicine does not work that way. No, no. And I would love to illustrate, you're so spot on Jen, is like the allopathic model literally means to attack the disease, like going after it. You sit with plant medicines, and it is more a space of beingness. So Jen, what you're bringing in, I think is fundamental to this conversation around healing and the patriarchy's influence in it. Number one, we have a disease of entitlement in our culture. And it's this programming of like you said, I paid money, give it to me. Like, you know, this, this capitalism disease and nature as a whole doesn't play that way of like, it isn't an exchange. Healing isn't a demand that we make. It is an experience that we allow ourselves to have. And I love that you got to the place of recognizing, Oh, that was my experience to be pissed off, to be angry, you know, and to have that purge because Ayahuasca in particular makes space for the things that we want to come in. And so she has to help us move through whatever is in the way, anger, grief, trauma, you know, jealousy, lack of forgiveness, all of the things. So she made space. It didn't feel like what you expected it to. It never does. I like to joke. I wish I had a jar on my altar, like a swear jar, but that's not what I expected jar. I would be rich. I would be like house on the hill because every single time, oh, it's not what I expected. Myself included. I'm like, I know, right? That's why it works. It goes beyond what our programming says. And the second thing with that is this whole relationship with control is, you know, the allopathic model, allopathic means to attack the disease. Our medical model is all about control, controlling that we have to stay alive and we have to kill the disease and we have to do all these things. Nature doesn't work that way. She's, look at, you look out the window, it's springtime here in Portland, it's gorgeous. Taking its time, one layer at a time of healing and revealing and awakening. And it's, there's divine timing to it that we don't necessarily understand. So I feel like the plants help us get back into that feminine space of trusting that. All in good time and that whatever happens is exactly what needed to happen and that we'd be better served to spend our energy investigating why did I need to get angry in that cup of Aya instead of that's not what I wanted, that's not what I expected, that entitlement which creates so much suffering for us because we're not then trusting that what happens is exactly what's supposed to happen. So the plant is not teaching that.
Amazing. Oh, man that's such a good perspective. I'm going to listen to this conversation every day because this is so lovely and I am just enjoying this so much. So thank you. I want to say as well, like within the plant spaces, because we we really want like I went I went to ceremony on my own and I don't really have a risk profile, that's part of ADHD that I have. So that's just like a natural neurodivergence thing that I've got going on. But for people who are a bit, have more of a developed risk profile and wouldn't just go, uh, on ceremony, by themselves to a place they've never known, like you haven't really heard about or anything like that and tying into this like patriarchal sort of an endemic patriarchal vein that happens within like the healing space and the spiritual space. It would be amazing, Kat, if you could just kind of either give us red flags or give us the reverse of like things to look for, for women or anyone who want to come into a space that is actually going to give you that healing journey and not tell you like don't think drink, which is horrifying. 
Yes, it is. This is one of my favorite topics because plant medicine, we were talking about how it invites us to go into a place of surrender, but we can't surrender if we don't feel safe. So we have to hold the responsibility, each of us as individuals, whether we're seeking out a doctor or a shaman or whatever it is that we feel safe. Because if we don't feel safe, we can't let go and trust the process and do all of these things. So for me, safety first and foremost involves like a personal connection with the people that are going to be holding the ceremony. I do personal interviews with every single person that's gonna sit with me. That starts to build the safety that they get to know me and vice versa, that it's personal. You're not just this anonymous person coming in and sitting down and trying to trust someone you've just met. That's really hard to do. And then beyond that, you just wanna make sure that the places where you're sitting, it's about the medicine and it's about healing, not the cult of personality. There's a lot of guru worship happening in the shamanic space right now of like, it's about the person pouring of, oh, aren't they amazing? Like, no, maybe we are, maybe we aren't, but we're vessels for the medicine and for the healing. It should be about the medicine first and foremost. That's the thing that's amazing is that this can happen thanks to these various plants. And so not falling for the pedestals and all the ego, there's a lot of ego. So if you feel like the person that you're sitting with amplifies more the first of all, the space of safety and second of all, that it's about medicine and healing, then that's a really good start, you know? And then beyond that, we each have our own definition of what safety means. So for example, if I'm healing sexual trauma, I'd rather sit with a woman that also has healed or is healing sexual trauma because I feel safe that I've understood. You know, I'm a white woman. Some people come with to my ceremonies, working with racial trauma. I can love them and hold space. I don't have the same personal experience. And so maybe that doesn't feel safe to them. I can't be safe for everyone. So to give ourselves permission to define what safety means, because the cool thing is whatever it means, there are ceremonies out there that can honor that. But if we don't do the work to define it and just kind of, you know, take whatever like is given to us, we're gonna learn the hard way. That's how I learned, like this isn't safe, this isn't safe. And that's not a healing space. So we can actually add to our trauma instead of remove layer by layer if we're not discerning, if we're not holding ourselves accountable for defining what that safety means.
That's such a great point. And I think both Lisa and I kind of got lucky with where we ended up. I ended up with an incredible woman. I found it on Reddit and I read the reviews and they were good. And it was close enough. I had found a place and I had found another place that I emailed and the email I got back from them was so ick and so like first of all, very expensive. Second of all, like all the add -ons that they were offering seemed very..They were, it just was, it was more of a resort experience and it wasn't about the medicine or the healing or about the practice in any way. And that's not what I was looking for. And then with this one, it was, it was a little bit more bare bones and it was, it was exactly what I was looking for. And I felt called there. And Lisa, I think you kind of had the same experience with how you found yours, but I mean, I found it on Reddit, which isn't really, it's not probably the, maybe it is the best way. I don't know. So I would love your, at least I don't know if you want to talk about how you found yours, but I would love your perspective on if you're feeling called like what's the first steps too. 
Oh man. So I first heard about Ayahuasca, she just, I felt like she'd started circling me like 12 years ago. It was a really long time and the first person that mentioned it to me made it sound really scary. She was like, you're gonna go, like you can only go down to the Amazon to do this. You will sh*t yourself and you will vomit the entire time. And it's really hard and you do it in a big group and everybody watches you. And I was like, so why are you going? Like I'm confused. What's the draw? But she was also like, I'm going to really unpack my trauma because this is like, I think she was the first person I'd heard say 10 years of therapy in one night. And I was like, ooh, that but that part, everything else, not so much. But that part. Yes. And I was like, well, when you go, like, tell me what happens when you come back. And then I never kind of caught up with her again. So I don't know if she came to it and I never came back. I don't really know. But then I would hear people sort of talk about it. And I think that's how, in my experience, that's how she worked. She circles around you and sort of goes, little noises in the background. And you kind of go, this is a really hard moment and I'm in this therapy process and I just don't feel understood and I don't feel like it's right. And I know I need to make these changes and I don't love myself. I don't love my life. I don't love what's around me. I don't feel connected to other people. I feel really closed off and she starts to get louder and louder and I felt like she was everywhere. I felt like I was hearing about her everywhere. And I just started all of a sudden looking for retreats. This was over this last in 2023 in this last summer. I had been looking in the earlier part of the year, but not really. And then I went away, came back and I had spent time doing yoga while I was away. And that kind of led me into looking for retreats and all of a sudden, bang, I found a three day retreat, one ceremony, completely silent, and you really went deep. And I was like, yep, that's it for me. That's it. Perfect. I'll go. And I just packed my bags and I went and I came back and I told some people what I had done. And I realized she was not circling them. Like she had been circling me. I was like, I've gone and done this Ayahuasca ceremony and they were like, I've never heard, I don't even know what that is. It was like I had been in this sort of vortex of her and she was shouting at me just to come and sit but it wasn't happening to literally anybody else around me, but to me, it felt like she was everywhere. So I think that was my experience of it. I don't I don't know how it happens for everybody else. 
Well, I had the pleasure of talking to thousands of people about their calling and it's a calling. It's exactly what you're describing, Lisa. For some people, it happens like overnight and they're like, I gotta go. You know, that's how it happened to me. I'm sitting having a salad with the guy I was dating. He's like, you want to go to the jungle to do ayahuasca? I'm like, I don't know what that is, but yeah, yeah, I do. I can feel it. Like, like everything in me. It's just important that it's a calling. Whether we've been thinking about it and circling around for years, or it just popped in today because we're talking about it, that doesn't matter to me anyway. It matters like, is it coming from someplace deep in terms of the calling, not because my therapist told me I should do it or my boyfriend's doing it or like, you know, something that feels more logistical instead of heart led. Like that's really important. Cause it's not easy. It's not easy. It's magical, but we have to want it o that where, you know, it's kind of like when you go to the gym, you better want what's on the other side so that you work hard in between, because it's not easy to get the results that we want. So the calling is what I listen for and it happens in all kinds of ways. 
Oh, I love that. And I so agree. I think there was someone on my first retreat that I went on that said that he came because his girlfriend wanted to come. And I was like, Oh, that feels so, cause like we did a tobacco purge with Rosa Sisa together the first night and then the second night we sat with ayahuasca and that tobacco purge was the hard part. That was the part that like and the shaman that we sat with he said he feels like everyone should do that. The tobacco purge not ayahuasca but just that as a cleansing of like everything that you absorb from being out in the world and social media and all that stuff just just totally cleansing all of that. And I've come to really like it now, but I think I was looking across the room at this guy as we're doing this tobacco purge, like literally throwing our absolute guts up for close to an hour and going, I don't think you still want to be here after this because I don't think you signed up for this part because you really have to be there going, I'm here to heal some stuff and to move some stuff and that's and that's a beautiful part of the process. And maybe a scary part of the process. I don't wanna say these things and like make it sound like it's hideous, but it demands of you a real humility and a real dedication to want. Like not that you have to prove that you want it, but with these actions that we do to cleanse ourselves before we sit with her, whatever that is, even if that's the movements that she creates in the weeks before you go, because man, those weeks before are hard. It brings up old stuff. She works before she works, right? Like she goes deep and you're getting phone calls from people you haven't talked to in years and emails are coming through from people you just haven't connected with or thinking about things you haven't talked about. She gets it all moving before you even sit with her. And it's so powerful and so beautiful. And it makes you really understand the interconnected nature of our lives and our world as a whole. But it's not just something you do for fun. It's something you do because you wanna remember and you wanna remember the way home and connect and make that next step.
But I think there's also room for the boyfriends and the girlfriends and the husbands and the wives, because we had a couple situations where people came with a spouse or a partner and they ended up having, they ended up you know, she meets you where you are. And I feel like they ended up having very profound experiences when they, they weren't the ones that were the, you know, figure quotation marks, sorry, like focal point of the trip. So I think there's room for both. Like if she calls you and she gets you there, there's room for both of those things. 
I would say as long as it's a safe container where the facilitators are treating each person as an individual. Yeah, because a lot of places are one size fits all in terms of how they dose you and how they treat you. They may not know your past, your story, your intentions. If it's a scenario where like the way that I do it, I know everybody's story. And so if the wife is coming with the husband and she thinks she's there to support him, but I know she's called, I can build trust gently with little doses of medicine and like meet her where she's at because a big dose of medicine, Aya has one speed, you know, and sometimes she's like, well, you drank it, you know? So it's important that everybody be involved in coordinating the safety of the experience. And if that's the case, fantastic, you know, but it's unfortunately not always the case. And that's an element of the patriarchy too, that I hold, that it's like, why can't we honor the sensitivity that some of us have? That a little bit of medicine is a big experience. It's not one size fits all, but a lot of places treat it that way. So yeah, just wanted to add that in as an element of the safe space. 
That's great. So I think this is a perfect segue to, I think Lisa asked you red flags earlier on and I probably cut everyone off and went on a ramble. But so how, so then how, how do we, you know, in this, we're in the States, Lisa's in Europe, like how, how do we, if you're feeling called like, what's next, where do you go? Like, how can you find that safe space?
Great question. Because there's so many choices right now, especially with ayahuasca. So if you've done the thing of defining what is safe to you, if you know, for example, do you feel safe going to someplace more in your backyard? You know, finding a little local underground, because most of it has to be underground. I only do work in Costa Rica and Peru because I've been arrested in the States for this work. So I can't do the underground anymore, but the underground is alive and well. So some people feel safer just going to somebody's living room and doing a small, more intimate, down the road experience. And some people are like, no, I need the whole retreat experience. There are pros and cons to both. I figure however anybody feels called to get their healing, it's fantastic. I have my favorites. For example, one of the things that makes me feel safe is I need to be immersed in nature too. I can't be in a warehouse in Brooklyn. I have done that. Ugh, it's hard. When you step outside and there's sirens and there's like the city energies, that doesn't feel safe to me. It feels safe when I hear frogs and birds and like the wind and the trees and like, okay, yeah, that, but everybody's different, you know, but defining that. And then you mentioned Reddit. I think Reddit is great because you get people honestly talking about their experiences. There are people like me that I'm happy to point you to places that I sit that I think are safe, which I only have a handful, you know, that I have vetted that I'm like, yes, that's where I go to do my work. Having the opportunity to talk to the people that are doing the ceremony, at least one of them, so that you can be like, well, does that feel safe? It's a red flag if they're not available, you know, that if you have to go through layers, because if safety is the priority, which it is for me and my team, of course we're available, because that's part of being safe. It's like, yeah, come talk to me. Like I want to answer your questions. I want to give you all of the information you need, which by the way, when people interview with me and they say, what, what haven't I asked that I should ask about the medicine, where does it come from? Who makes it? What's in it? Like people are buying stuff off the internet. They don't know what's in it. Like this isn't safe. You need to know every single touch point of when those plants come out of the ground, how they are cultivated and put into a brew.
Who does it? All of that's important. What's in it? Because a lot of people are adding things like, ooh, I'll add this plant. It's strong. It's like, mm -mm. You read labels on what you eat, right? Ask about what it is that's in the medicine and that you're consuming. And then ask about the training of the individual serving. There's unfortunately a lot of people who forgot very little experience that think that they are ready to serve medicine. And for me, the analogy I make, that's like watching a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy and saying, I can do surgery, I got this, trust me. No, this is psychic surgery. This is really intense work. I had to train for a decade before I poured a single cup of medicine for somebody else. And even then I'm like, oh God, am I ready? This is a huge responsibility. So don't trust that people, oh, I started drinking last week or last year and the medicine said, I'm a shaman. Like, well, maybe, but you still got to go through the process. Because if somebody does that as a doctor, spirit said, I'm a doctor. I'm like, uh -huh, right. But go through the process of making sure you're a safe doctor. We don't let them take shortcuts. So don't let people pouring you medicine take shortcuts. Think of them as doctors in their own right, spiritual doctors. And we want to make sure they're super experienced. So to me, those are the most important things is that they're accessible. They have you know, experienced a lineage that they've trained with and followed and they know every single thing there is to know about the medicine itself. 
I love that so much and I just want to say like had we had this conversation a week ago, I would have felt really discouraged by that because I would have felt like, oh, I didn't ask the right questions because I certainly didn't because I didn't know and I'm realizing how lucky I am to have had the experience that I had because I didn't know and I wanted it close to my house and I wanted it fast and I wanted it cheap, which like probably not the best place to bargain shop. So I got super lucky. But what are some of the things, like let's say you ask the question, what are you adding or how is this prepared? Like what are some things that people can look out for?
Don't add anything. Like if they're like, well, I have a close relationship with tobacco. So I put that in the brew. Like, no, Ayahuasca is strong enough by herself. If you're doing tobacco purges and all, there's lots of other plants that we work with in context with this medicine, but not at the same time. She is strong enough by herself. We do not need to mess with it. For me, that's like somebody who's trying to, you know, play like in a laboratory of like, what happens when I add a dash of this and that? I'm like, that's cool if you're drinking your own medicine, but not if you're pouring it for a bunch of other people. So, you know, I say nothing else should be added personally. I don't think it's necessary. And, you know, the right answers around the rest of the questions are based upon the fact that, you know, they have mentors, they've trained, they didn't train themselves. We don't want, just like I don't want a doctor who trained themselves, like, no, no, that doesn't feel good. Like they've had people further down on the path, teach them how to do a lot of these things. They need to have an emergency protocol. Do they know where their nearest hospital is? Do they have a protocol to happen if the worst case scenario happens? Cause it does sometimes, you know, like this is big work. So sometimes somebody, we've never had to take somebody to a hospital, but we've had to look for the signs. Are they in a diabetic crash? Are they having an epileptic seizure? Like we're trained to be able to recognize those things because it's tricky. Ayahuasca will make us feel like we're having a medical emergency and we're not, because that's what happens when we're healing trauma. It can feel like we're dying in order to be reborn, right? So you need facilitators that know the difference, the true difference between a medical emergency and a deep process with the medicine. And if they don't have that kind of training, like I'm certified with CPR, I've never had to use it, but I have it as an element of safety for people because that is the nature of healing in general. It's intense, it can be messy. So we need to be able to identify when something is truly an emergency and when it isn't. So making sure that the medicine people you sit with have that baseline understanding of what is physical and what is spiritual.
I didn't ask any of these questions. 
We didn't know. 
I didn't either when I first started. I didn't know. Like I didn't know any of this. So it was hard earned. 
Oh, this is important. 
Yeah, I love that. So everyone that's going to listen to this is going to be like they're going to have their little tick list and they'll know when that's the right thing to do is just to get all the background information. If would you mind sharing the places that you really love the venues?
Sure, only the legal places because I won't out anybody in the underground, right? 
Yeah. No, that's fine. 
So maybe people can reach out to us if they want specific places, unless there's places you feel comfortable sharing. 
Well, I can share the places that are in legal spaces. 
Absolutely.
So I began my journey at a place called Spirit Quest in Peru. Now, unfortunately, the gentleman that used to run it (Don Howard Lawler) is no longer with us. He transitioned but the shaman that I first drank medicine with is still the shaman there, Don Rober Acho. He's incredible, he's safe, he's all of the things. I run a company called Plant Medicine People, of course I'm biased that our retreats are amazing. It's myself and a team of, I think there's eight of us now, depending on the retreat that do this work. And we do it with lots of love and experience. And then I think Soltara is doing great work in Costa Rica, legitimate Shipibo -Conibo which is the tradition I trained with healers. And I have a gentleman named Dom Moises Llarena in Peru, who I trust with my life. That's who I sit with. He has a center called Madre Selva, deep in the jungle. That's rustic. What we do is comfortable and luxurious. His is rustic. Whatever you're called to is beautiful. But those are places that I trust, that I think are doing all the things that I just mentioned. And of course, I'm biased to our group, but you've got options. 
Wonderful. That's so great. Thank you.
So I guess, sorry, go ahead, Lise.
 No, I was gonna say I love the two that you mentioned, Spirit Quest and Soltara two that I, when I'm able to go further afield, I love that you put those on your list because I really am like, I would really love to go to those places. But actually I've been looking through the Plant Medicine People website and I'm gonna be getting more involved in all your different classes, because like I'm so into everything that you offer. And we'll obviously put the links for everything in the show notes. But what plant medicine, I think that you're being very humble, which is really lovely and obviously suits the work that you do. But plant medicine people as a website and as a as a center for knowledge, what you're offering, and I've not taken any classes yet, but I'm really looking forward to joining some of them. It blew my mind when I looked through it for the first time because if this is the kind of thing that you like and I really like this like this is gonna absolutely well, it would just blow your mind what the what is available and what you have curated as an offering for people who want to learn more and want to really engage with these plants and a super respectful super loving compassionate way that is safe. And you get that just from the website, which is incredible. Like that safety thing is so apparent. 
It's the most important thing to me. So there is no greater compliment. Thank you for that. Is that it feel like not just a safe space for other humans, but for the plants too, because we put plants back in the ground. We make sure we're not just taking and taking and that there's sustainability baked into this too, because there's not a limitless amount of ayahuasca out there. And it takes her many years to reach maturity. So we make sure we're creating balance and that it's safe for the plants and safe for the humans as best we can being human ourselves. So thank you for that. It means a lot. 
It's honestly, it's been so much fun. I mean, we get your emails as well, which are so, they're always really like on the nose. I had come across Bobinsana, I heard it mentioned late last year and I was like, I don't know what that is. I need to look it up. And I never looked it up cause that's me. And then just last week, you sent through an email about Bobinsana I was like, oh my God, perfect. So I got this little précis about what Bobinsana is and how you work with her on a diet. So, just all of the information that you're offering is so wonderful. And I think one of the things like when you were talking about how you came to this space 20 years ago, it was very sheltered and closed off as it would be because it's a traditional medicine that's existed for millennia. And now it's being brought out because it needs to come out. It needs to be more widely available. And I understand the need for it to be more, to have this information more widely available, but not everybody is as respectful of this knowledge and respectful of these plants as you seem to be at plant medicine people. So it's just very neat. And I can't recommend it highly enough just even just learning about what we're talking about because ayahuasca is not the only plant medicine. There's so many that are so important. And it's been blowing my mind just learning even about like tobacco because the tobacco that I know is the one that we illicitly smoke at 12 and 13 and then we, you know, get addicted to and it's the one and then you learn about it as this again a master healer and it seems so incongruous with what we've been raised with the tobacco that we know as a carcinogenic substance, but then when you use it as a healing plant, as a masculine healing plant, how it adds to your life and how it helps you ground and how it helps you feel your own feelings. 
So as an integration, can you remind me, you're an integration counselor. Sorry if I say that wrong. 
Integration coach. 
Okay. So I guess I'd love to kind of come back around to like as you have, as you're helping people integrate back into the world after an experience that's, that's, am I understanding that correctly? 
You got it. 
Okay. So as you're coming back into the world, and this is incredibly timely for me, so I would love to hear how, how do we deal with that anger, like how do we deal with the injustice? How do we deal with the all of like how, what can we do as far as like having an understanding, being having present, like being conscious and present and, but then coming back into a world that is not built that way. 
Great question. Cause that to me is the hardest part of this work. It isn't the ceremonies themselves. It's coming back into this world, no matter what happens in those altered spaces, there is like a sense of connection and possibility that sometimes doesn't feel so present when we come back into this crazy world. So you said specifically Jen, like, what do we do with the anger? You know, the things that we feel as a result of being part of this toxic patriarchy. So what I have learned to do with the shamanic training is to take it to nature because she knows what to do with it. So anger, I'm like a triple fire sign, tons of fire energy. I am angry on the regular. And I kind of love it because it shows that I care, that I'm very passionate, but it can be poisoning to carry right? So I do a lot of fire ceremonies, I give it to the fire. So I have a little fire pit out in my yard, and I'll light up the fire and I'll write uncensored like, you know, all the the rage I have at people myself, God, spirit, whatever, just like whatever's in me channel it and then give it to the fire and let the fire alchemize it or I'll scream into the fire. Like basically what we want to do is the opposite of what we do in this culture, which is just to kind of shut it down and try to pretend it's not there and put on a fake smile. Like that doesn't work. And it makes us sick. And then we pop off cause someone puts too much mayo on our sandwich, you know, and we're like, ah, like a patriarchy. So to feel it, to be with it and giving it to nature, like, you know, various like working with the elements earth, fire, wind, air, and water, you know? Like finding different ways that we can connect, which is always available. Even if we live in an apartment in New York, we can light a candle and work with that. You know, we can light some sage, which I always have next to me, and work with that. Like there's always a way to let nature help alchemize whatever it is that we're working with. So that's my thing. 
I love that. We're very spicy people, both Jenny and I, so that is super helpful. And I have a fire pit, so I will be screaming into the fire pit. Thank you so much for that. I will take every opportunity to do a fire ceremony. So that is perfect. That is a perfect fit. 
Jen, I mean, from like an integration perspective, I love that you asked that question because I think that that integration process and Kat, I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well is it sort of, as they say over here, how long is a piece of string? So it kind of has no set duration. Like you can integrate for a couple of weeks and start to feel like you've really learned your lessons. But I'm guessing, cause I'm still quite like my first ceremony was back in September of last year. So I'm still integrating stuff from that. And I imagine I'll still be integrating lessons from it and learning how to really dig deep and release other elements for years to come. What I would ask you, Kat, is for someone who is really passionate about being involved with plant medicines as I am as Jen is, there is sort of a, there's a feeling of wanting to go on more ceremony. Cause you still, like I personally still feel called, like she still has more, I still have more work to do. Is there a sort of duration that you tend to give to people as far as like letting yourself heal before coming back into this ceremony space?
Tricky, isn't it? Because we're all so unique and we're all working with different things at different times. So I don't think there's a way to quantify it in a universal sense. But what I do with people is to, OK, they've had a previous ceremony, whether that was last week or 10 years ago. Is there a sense of embodiment of the lessons that came through? Not that we're done. Like, you know, most of us are going to work with things like self -love our whole lives. So there's no point at which I'm like, done, love myself perfectly. It's like, that's, you know, hasn't happened to me. Let's just say that. But there is a sense of what I was working with with the last ceremony or the last retreat or the last cycle feels like I've done the homework enough that I'm ready for something new. Even if I'm working on the same thing, I've got a puzzle piece in place and I'm like, I want the next puzzle piece. So again, that could take weeks. I mean, I've sat a lot in my life. So I don't, you know, I'm not a hypocrite saying like, well, you should wait at least a couple of months. But there has to be a sense of like, okay, that experience I've grounded in to a certain degree, I'm ready for the next one. And sometimes that's years. Sometimes it's days. It's really up to us in our own discernment. There's no handbook for that. Yeah. Wow. I love that. And that feels so real. I think there were people at one of my ceremonies that I sat in afterwards that were like, I'm done. And in myself, I'm going, oh man, I'm so not done. It's so different, isn't it? It's so, everybody just has such a different personal experience to it. I love that. But I love that feeling of embodiment. That's something I really get. So that's beautifully put. Thank you so much.
That is actually the word that I use in place of integration, because integration feels a bit intangible of like, well, what does that mean? I use embodiment because it means that whatever came through feels like it's grounded into our beingness. It's embodied. Because if we don't involve our tangible, beautiful vessels, it remains mental fluff. It's not really necessarily impacting our lives. So the most important things to me to do in the integration is the things that allow it to become tangible. So, and that typically it involves the body, it involves movement, but it involves being overdoing. You know, so people ask me, what's the most important thing I can do in this process of integration? I'm like, well, have a spiritual practice that you show up for yourself every single day. And you ask the way I start every day is, how you feeling kiddo? Really what's going on? You know, just being with the truth of how we feel and what's coming through and allowing that to be valid and being curious about it. It sounds so simple, but how many of us really do that every day? Just go, how am I feeling? What do I need right now? What do I need to express? Oh, sometimes I need to cry. Sometimes I need to journal and throw it to the fire. Sometimes I'm great. I'm like, thanks for checking in. Everything's awesome. Not often, but sometimes, you know, asking that question, having the willingness to be. Ayahuasca calls this the doobie doobie doobie dance that we are doing and being. Most of us just do, do, do, do. Yeah. She's clever. Yeah. And that's easy to remember. Like, right? Like doobie doobie, like checking in and being with ourselves and like listening for internal voices instead of just to -do list all day long and next thing and next thing. So that's the fundamental like foundation for me and integration is that willingness to check in and to really be present to what we're experiencing. 
Oh, I love that. Um, I would, that kind of led me to, sorry, Jen, what were you going to say? 
No, no, go for it. You go. 
Okay. Um, I was going to say for me in that check -in thing, that thing that you show up for every day, the modality that I use is meditation and now yoga. Are there things that you specifically do or that you recommend that people do in this embodiment period, which I love so much more than integration. Thank you. That's so much better. So good. It makes more sense. Right?
Oh, yeah, for me, it's feminine too. That's, that's what I like about it. That feels more right. Like this should be an embodiment. Like maybe integration is right for something else, but embodiment feels more like no, we're going deep and we're staying deep. I love that. I love that. 
Owning it and yeah, our daily life. So yeah, so of course, yoga, meditation, I love Qigong, Tai Chi movement that is very intentional, right, which is what yoga can be being really present to what our body is releasing. I always want to involve nature though, in one way or another, just even if we spend 10 minutes just going for a walk or being in the sun or I like to go outside and talk to the trees and just like, cause they're always present. Nature is always present. So it's an invitation to be in that space. Cause that's what it's about is presence, which most of us are always in our heads. So it's really whatever practice gets you out of being stuck in the mental space. And I think involving the body is really important because the body is always present. And when we're doing yoga or we're even meditating. I love the meditation that involves like body scans and being really present to the sensation that I did Vipassana. So I love that. But again, it's personal, just it's not mental. That's the only thing I'll say is that you can't just stay stuck in your head of sitting and pondering integration and embodiment. That isn't it. So it's whatever gets you into your heart and your body and connection to the present moment. 
That's perfect, amazing. 
Wow, that's great. So I hope that this question isn't way too off piste but what if you what if so I think the thing that Lisa and I are struggling with as we kind of reinvent or re or just evolve, I think that's a much better word, Lisa, as we evolve our work, our social justice, civil rights kind of fight and work away from that place of anger and division to a place that's like showing up as love and kind of transmuting. How I feel like, you know, I'm very called to work with domestic violence victims and the LGBTQ+ community and that fight and where I live in Charlotte is very tumultuous for anyone that needs help.
And so I have found that in my journey of seeking healing and being in a more balanced place, I have a really hard time with the anger and the just the hate and the hardness on both sides. And I'm really struggling with how, and I'm going to use this word because I feel like it fits here. Like I'm really struggling with how to integrate that back into my life in a way that works with my so hippie dippy, my current like vibration. 
So what Ayahuasca has taught me to do again, working with anger in particular is of course honoring it and feeling it. But this is what she taught me about shadow work is that when we're willing to go into something like anger to first be aware of where it is that we're moving to. So when I work with people around this and they're saying, okay, I'm really angry. I'm like, well, what to you is the opposite of anger. For me, it's passion. Fire is either creative or destructive and fire is beautiful regardless, right? Fire doesn't have an agenda. It just knows when it's time to destroy or when it's time to create. So knowing that, okay, if I'm really angry right now, for me, the opposite of that is passion. Then I know I'm moving towards something, not recycling over and over again the thing that feels painful and icky. So I make it this game of like, right now I'm angry. How do I get to passion? How do I get there? And I don't know mentally the way, but my soul knows the way. And when I start to work with it, it's like, you know, around the fire or whatever it is. And like, I am angry and these are the things I'm angry about and feeling and processing it when I know I'm moving to passion, it starts to happen that I'll start to get ideas of, well, you know, here's how I could show up as a passionate person that's creating balance in the world from the ickiness that I'm upset about. It just creates this intuitive pole that we're moving towards something instead of recycling something. And I think that's where we get stuck is we just recycle anger and over and over again without having a GPS of where it is that we're heading. So that practice of being intentional, because I would say the core of shamanism, there's one thing I've learned more than anything else, intentionality matters. Be intentional. So yes, feel your anger, but where is it that you are heading that creates that sense of balance? Because otherwise we don't know to make that a journey so that has helped me tremendously in my shadow work is I know where I'm going. And so I'm willing to do the uncomfortable thing because it's worth it to get to the thing that feels so yummy.
Does that help? That is a great answer. It's amazing. That's a great answer. Thank you, Aya. And how do you handle like coming into spaces where the general population has a lot of anger? Like, how do youwhen you're doing this work, I found that a lot of the communities on both sides are very angry, and it's as someone who's more sensitive to that and probably even more so now. I understand the intentionality of like how you're gonna tell, like the ideas that you'll have as you kind of enter that space, but kind of how do you deflect and not absorb? Or is the point to absorb? 
Ah, good question. Well, for me, no, I got enough anger. I don't need to absorb anybody else. But first and foremost, what I do for other people is give them full permission to be angry because anger needs conflict in order to get stronger, right? This is something else I see the masculine way of working with ceremony with medicines create more conflict because they try to control it. So if somebody gets angry and then they start to act out, it's like, you know, and that's what we typically do. I do the opposite. Ayahuasca taught me to do the opposite of just sit with it. Like, come on, give it to me. You're safe here. Feel it. Nobody wants to hurt me when I'm fully allowing them to be angry. It's completely safe. And the interesting thing is the anger doesn't have any conflict to engage with. So it starts to dissipate. So I say, do it, feel it. Like it's the one thing that we don't do, which is fully feel it. And I'll ask, we'll bring that to the surface and I'll come sit with somebody of like, you have every right to be angry. Tell me what you're feeling. And then it starts to soften. And then we can play the game of where are you headed to? Where does this take you to? Ooh, I think it's bringing me to more joy or whatever it is. And it's a blast but it's when we try to control it or we shame people or we tell them you're not allowed to feel that, that's when we really lose it. And that's what the patriarchy does to us, right? You're a hysterical female. Like you don't have a right to feel this. It's like, oh, really? I'm really going to show you what I'm feeling now. Think of if that's what they did for us. It's like, come on women, of course you should be angry. Tell us what you're feeling. This would be a different world, but it's not what we get. 
Oh man, that's amazing. Like that alone, we could just base an entire series of books on it. It's incredible. I love that. Thank you so much for that spin because that is so much of the work with plant medicine is surrender, right? And that is surrendering into the moment of being like, this moment is that it's an angry moment and we're feeling that anger and that anger is fine. We're not denying its need. We're not denying its right to exist. And it does dissipate. It's the same thing we get with fear in these plant medicine spaces, right? People say, I'm so fearful about what's gonna happen and am I gonna die? And what's the, like all that stuff. And Jen, I remember this as you were driving down, you were saying,  I'm worried about this. And the second you said it, you'd go, oh no, I'm not. Oh no, I'm not. It's almost like the second you give it a voice, that spirit, that divine, universal wisdom goes, no, you're not speaks up through you and says, you're not that you're this, you think that you're afraid, but that's monkey mind going, you need to be afraid because ego death and loss of the constant critic and loss of the constant voice that tells you you're never enough and you're never this and you're never that. But that universal loving, compassionate wisdom that is like a wellspring in all of us, that always says, We are not this. We can feel this in the moment, but ultimately we are not that. So that is so beautiful. Thank you so much. 
I love it. Oh my gosh. And we just gotta feel it. We gotta be with it. We gotta allow it to, it's a loop. We gotta allow it to close the loop. And that's where we as a culture, we get lost. We shut down. We shame each other, cause we're scared of this energy. But if we let it close, then that's no longer true for us. Sometimes it is going to get out loud or just feeling it or, ah, you know, good old scream or whatever it is. And then we can move to what you're describing with what is our true space of consciousness, which is acceptance and peace and joy. But we have to close all these loops of programming and trauma and all the things that we've been through and do that thinking about it, right? We got to feel it. Right. And if we don't close the loop, then it just continues to escalate. So that's a bigger problem. It's become cyclical, right? Like the snake that bites its own tail, it just keeps going. It has no end. It just keeps rolling and rolling and becoming bigger. And one, I think one of the things that I love about this conversation and that I love about what I feel like this will open up is the fact that we really got stuck. Jen and I got really stuck about how can we do what we are called, like we feel like we're called to do, which is talk about these things. How can we get people more engaged and involved in understanding the injustices that we've talked about and also the injustices that we're involved in, but also those that we're just sort of, we can't speak to because it's not a personal experience, but we want to amplify and make sure that like we're just sort of acting as a, like a loud speaker for people that don't always get enough volume or they are speaking really loudly, but get muted in the background for whatever reason is we need to be able to find a way to do this not without anger, but for people to engage with the work in a safe, loving, compassionate way. And that is exactly it. It's not saying you have to get rid of all of your anger. No, we'll work through it. We'll work through it. We'll acknowledge it. And that will roll into this next thing. So that really, for me, closes the loop of how that works. Because I couldn't quite see how those things could be connected. So that is amazing. And I hope that people listening to this will feel that loop as well of just not denying, still engaging, not getting exhausted by and backing out or falling away from engaging with social justice issues, but recognizing the anger, validating that anger, and then watching that anger become purpose in a way that doesn't drain them and doesn't take from them. Because I think so many people are so drained, not healing with their own trauma, not finding ways to exist in community, because we are so shut off. We don't have the communities that we used to have. And being so afraid, so much fear, like just hopefully this loop of engagement and validation will move to that embodiment that you're talking about, which is so beautiful.
Beautifully said, you're reminding me of in my 20s, I was an activist. I remember being at a peace rally, realizing that I was pissed off. And I was preaching about peace. I was like, wait a second, what the heck do I know about peace? Like, I make sense. And that was one of the big aha's. The first big aha's consciously of like, maybe I have to find out a relationship with peace in order to teach other people what peaceful looks like. The last piece of this that I think is so important is this accountability of like, if I'm out there trying to, you know, make a difference around the patriarchy, am I contributing to it in some ways? Where am I accountable? And always looking at how I can continue my own healing journey, my own space of integrity, because it works better when we are all examples of what it is that we're trying to create more of rather than just preaching.
Right? There's the embodiment again of like, I'm actually showing up and walking the walk. And I catch myself all the time of like, oh, I'm preaching. I'm not actually doing that. Okay. Which is fine. We're human, but owning that, having the capacity to be, you know, accountable and to say, ah, I need to change the things in me that I'm upset about rather than just tell the world to do it. And then that's way more effective, you know, that it starts with us. We know that.
So I would love to hear more about your work at Plant Medicine People, what you do, how people can connect with you, anything else that you want to share about anything at all that you'd like to share about your work. 
Oh, thank you for asking. Yeah, right now I've actually just kind of pivoted my role in the world and I'm focused more on retreats, you know, which I do about four times a year. I, of course, working primarily with ayahuasca, but also huachuma, sacred tobacco, you know, some of the other plants, and also teaching some classes around shamanism, specifically about how to communicate with plant spirits, about how to be in dialogue with nature, how to create a sense of spiritual protection. These things that were taught to me because I do ceremony work, I think are way more universal. And I think everybody deserves, if they want to rediscover that capacity to go, to have a real communication with trees, nature, then it's available. So I have something called the Plant Medicine Mystery School that I've been teaching for some time that is kind of where my heart is right now. I wrote a book called that as well on Amazon, which is really my way of taking years of training and sharing it with the masses of saying like this, this is our birthright to be consciously connecting to nature like this. And it makes my life so much better. So I am keen on sharing that with more people because I think it also makes the world a better place that we rediscover this capacity to not be alone, to be connected to spirit and to nature. So that's my current focus.
That's wonderful. And so is plant medicine people.
Lisa, did you have anything? Well, I mean, other than I mean, this is like, there's so many more things I want to ask, but I also want to be respectful of 100%. And I just want to say to you, Kat, thank you so much for your time and forgiving so much of your wisdom and your experience in this space. Because it's been such a wonderful conversation. It's explained so many things that personally, I think Jen and I really appreciate, and I know that there's a lot of universal components to it. So this has been one of my most favorite conversations ever. So thank you again for your time. And I can't wait for more people to just get connected with your work because it's so beautiful. 
Oh, thank you. I so appreciate that. Thank you for having me. This is one of my favorite conversations too. I think we did. We set out, we honored the anger, the situation that we're in, and also the responsibility in giving tangible ways in which we can continue to move towards what we want. So high fives. 
Absolutely. And we made some really powerful healing, hopefully accessible for people that are feeling called and just kind of didn't know what to do next. So thank you so much for your wisdom.

Okay, well, hopefully you loved listening to that Conversation as much as we enjoyed having it should be pretty clear from the end that we couldn't didn't want to stop talking to Kat but We made I want to say goodbye Goodbye finally just had to do it Yeah, yeah, what a great conversation really hope that you all took as much away from it as I know that Jen and I did. We'd love to hear what you thought about it if you've got any questions. Kat let us know after we finished recording that plant medicine people runs a scholarship program within their ceremony space. So if you were feeling like you wanted to get involved in one of Kat's retreats, they do it quarterly where they open up scholarship applications and we'll make sure we include that within the bio link for the episode and it would be amazing what an amazing experience to be a part of yeah because we do understand that these types of retreats i think we talked we touched on it in the episode are you know they're an investment. 
Yeah, yeah. They're an investment, but also a lot of people can barely feed their family. So we want to acknowledge that, that it's a huge luxury. And so hopefully if you're feeling called and you don't have those resources, you can utilize her. And there are others as well. So we'll try to find those, stick those up and throw those in our link tree. But we'd love to hear from you. We're going to be doing, we're kind of taking a big step back from social media. So we're going to be checking Instagram kind of sporadically. But if you want to get a hold of us, patriarchypod@gmail.com is probably the best way. And, we just look forward to hearing what you think. And we look forward to seeing how this evolution of our work pans out because it's feeling pretty, it's feeling a lot better.
Amen to that. But I'm still going to say to you, love and light. 
Good night.
Bye!