Meeting the Medicine Halfway
No matter the medicine ~ be it mushrooms, breath, sound, plant allies, sacred molecules or even a moment of stillness ~ there’s a truth I return to again and again:
The work begins long before the ceremony.
Healing is not something that happens to us, passively. It’s something we actively participate in. Medicine, in all its forms, meets us in the space we create for it. It responds to our openness, our curiosity, our willingness to lean in and listen. It asks us to meet it halfway.
That meeting begins with intention. Not always a neatly worded one, sometimes we can get hung up on this… but a felt sense of why you’re showing up. An inner knowing, a nudge from your soul that says yes to the unknown. You don’t need to have all the answers, simply the willingness to ask the questions.
We prepare by tending our bodies and minds. By noticing what we’re consuming - not just in our diets, but in our media, our conversations, our inner narratives. By creating physical and energetic space to welcome something new. We build altars, we light candles, burn incense. We hold talismans or mementos to open our space, but not out of superstition, but because ritual reminds the psyche: this is sacred.
Meeting the medicine halfway means approaching the experience not as a transaction, but as a collaboration. I had a teacher once say, “Ask not what the mushrooms can do for you, but what you can do for the mushrooms.” It’s silly, and I can’t help but hear it in a Kennedy-esque voice. But the message remains clear. The medicine brings its wisdom. We bring our presence. The more we clear the noise, the more we can hear what it’s trying to say.
And the invitation doesn’t end with the ceremony. Integration is how we honor what we’ve received. It’s how we translate insight into embodiment. A practice of staying open, even when the lesson is inconvenient or slow to reveal itself.
It’s not about doing it perfectly. It’s about doing it consciously. Doing it with reverence, with curiosity, with devotion. That’s what turns a moment into a portal. That’s what deepens the magic.
You are not here to be fixed and transformed, even though that’s how psychedelics are being sold these days. You are here to be met - fully, honestly, and lovingly. And when you meet the medicine with that same energy, it will meet you right back.
