Rooting Psychedelics: A Learning Journey on the Healing Systems of Sacred Entheogenic Plant Medicine

ABOUT THE LEARNING JOURNEY

This 4-month online learning journey has been designed and will be taught by Venus Rodriguez, an indigenous healer, herbalist, and ceremonialist from Oaxaca, Mexico, as an immersive educational offering to be shared with care and reverence. Participants will be guided by an indigenous worldview on individual and planetary wellbeing through a comprehensive deep dive into the intelligent healing systems and bio-cultural cosmovision of four sacred entheogenic plant medicines: psilocybin mushrooms, cacao, tobacco, and peyote.

At the heart of this learning journey is an invitation to awaken to and develop the capacity to consider the profound and holistic wisdom of diverse bio-cultural worldviews that recognize our relational interdependence with the natural world as being rooted in complex and mutual exchanges that strengthen the health, healing capacity, and evolutionary potential of bio-cultural systems. The intelligence of entheogens and their bio-cultural significance can be profound pathways of exploration towards re-rooting our modern relationship to the potential of plant medicine in supporting systems of healing and wellbeing so they may regenerate themselves and create the conditions for a thriving, resilient, and abundant future for all life.

Join the learning journey from July 6th-October 26th,  via the Comuna Exchange platform
(Live sessions will be recorded and made available)

Each element of this course has been co-created and facilitated in relationship with indigenous plant medicine experts from Oaxaca, Mexico, through a shared vision of building collaborative bridges that foster the preservation, revitalization, and ethical and equitable transfer of traditional knowledge. The group container of this learning journey will be guided towards an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the bio-cultural systems of entheogenic plant medicine in Mesoamerican cosmovision, and their potential in supporting resilient whole systems healing and wellbeing in a modern world.

WHO THIS LEARNING JOURNEY IS INTENDED FOR

This learning journey has been designed as an immersive educational offering with the intention of opening a collective container of curiosity and inquiry towards expanding one's capacity to hold and consider bio-culturally diverse worldviews on healing and wellbeing. Guided by the intelligent living systems and Whole Systems Healing capacities present in entheogenic plant medicine and indigenous Mesoamerican cosmovision.
It is not a requirement to have had any previous personal experiences or current knowledge of entheogenic plant medicine to receive the wisdom within this learning journey. If you do have or have had a relationship exploring plant medicine in any capacity, this course is an invitation to receive an ancestral perspective that can further root, support, and expand the evolution of your relationship with, and foundational understanding of the Whole Systems Healing capacities of plant medicine.

This learning journey has been co-created with you in mind if you:

• Have a curiosity about humanity’s ancestral inheritance of plant medicine and the sacred practices, wisdom, and cosmovisions of indigenous peoples that have safeguarded these medicines for millennia.

• Are motivated to analyze current developments within the mainstream ecosystem and culture of psychedelic science, medicine, and commercialization, through the lens of a holistic, integrated, and regenerative indigenous worldview on Whole Systems Healing.

• Have an interest in broadening and deepening your perspective on how the intelligence of plant medicine can continue to be received and integrated into an evolving mainstream context of healing and wellbeing through respectful, reciprocal, ethical, equitable, and generative right relationship.

• Feel called to critically analyze the appropriation of plant medicines, how Indigenous Knowledge Systems are being co-opted by globalization, and the critical need for the decolonization of plant medicines.

WHAT THIS LEARNING JOURNEY IS NOT INTENDED FOR

This learning journey is not intended to provide participants with the capacity to consume entheogenic plant medicine or to facilitate participants’ personal use or therapy with plant medicine. It is also not intended to provide you with the capacity to facilitate plant medicine therapy or ceremonies for others.

LEARNING JOURNEY FORMAT

Rooting Psychedelics will be held online in a 4-month-long group container and will include:

• 10 Live Sessions (2 hours each, 20 hours total)

• Pre-recorded videos for self-paced learning (6 hours total)

• Home-care exercises and rituals, resources, and guidance in between sessions through the Comuna Exchange online community platform.

• Facilitation of course is primarily in English, with secondary facilitation in Spanish and translated.

The 4-month learning journey has been designed from an indigenous Mesoamerican worldview of cyclical time, the 4 cardinal directions as a pathway to explore 4 sacred entheogenic plant medicines of Mesoamerica (Psilocybin Mushrooms, Cacao, Tobacco, and Peyote) and how they coincide with the 4 stages of life.

LEARNING JOURNEY CALENDAR

Live sessions will be held on Thursdays from 10am-12pm CST (Mexico City) please check the time in your local timezone

• July 6th - Opening of Container and Introduction of Rooting Psychedelics

• July 20th & 27th - Psilocybin Mushrooms Deep Dive (childhood)

• August 17th & 24th - Cacao Deep Dive (adolescence)

• September 7th & 21st - Tobacco Deep Dive (adulthood)

• October 5th & 12th - Peyote Deep Dive (elder)

• October 26th - Integration of Rooting Psychedelics and Closing of Container

LEARNING JOURNEY OUTCOMES

At the end of the learning journey, participants will be better resourced to…

• Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of 4 sacred entheogenic plant medicines of Mesoamerica (psilocybin mushrooms, cacao, tobacco, and peyote), how they correspond with the 4 stages of life (childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and eldership), and the 4 directions as cornerstones of non-linear time

• Discuss the current systems of health and wellbeing in modern society and current approaches to seeking individual, cultural, and planetary healing and wellbeing

• Demonstrate an understanding of the potential shortcomings of modern scientific research on entheogenic plant medicines and identify the gaps where indigenous scientific knowledge could provide a deeper and more expansive collective wisdom

• Demonstrate an understanding of indigenous insights on whole systems healing (individual, societal, and environmental aspects of a system; Mind, body, and spirit in individuals, and social justice, environmental health, and prosperity in communities)

• Analyze how indigenous cosmovisions and worldviews have been integral in preserving, stewarding, and continuing to inform the evolutionary relationship and knowledge of entheogenic plant medicines over millennia

• Describe the basics of biology and ecology of the 4 entheogenic plant medicines and the energetic components of their place-based origins

• Explain the basic biochemical and neurological pathways associated with the 4 entheogenic plant medicines

• Demonstrate the relationship between land, living systems, entheogenic plants, healing, and wellbeing

• Create ritual pathways that reconnect the Self to the regenerative healing systems of entheogenic plant medicine

• Develop an embodied understanding of how humanity has co-evolved with plant medicine and how to enter into right relationship with entheogenic plants

• Develop an understanding of the relationship between humans and plants, communing with Spirit, and the guided ceremonial and ritual container that is foundational to entheogenic plant medicine use from an indigenous perspective

• Critically consider the global mainstream expansion and commodification of entheogenic plant medicine and the relationships being established through different interest groups, commercial industries, and capitalist systems

• Critically analyze the appropriation of entheogenic plant medicines, how Indigenous Knowledge Systems are being co-opted by globalization, and the critical need for the decolonization of psychedelic science, medicine, and wellbeing

• Analyze the harmful ongoing impacts of colonization on the ancestral practices of indigenous people as the wisdom keepers of entheogenic plant medicine

• Develop the capacity to envision possible regenerative cultures through an indigenous worldview of whole systems healing and wellbeing

COST ACCESSIBILITY

• The sliding scale for this 4-month-long learning journey is $600 CAD (30+ hours of facilitated learning). Fairly valuing the inputs of time, presence, and expertise in co-creating and facilitating the course container by our generous teachers and contributors, and allowing us the ability to continue creating meaningful offerings into the future.
  In other words, $20/hour or the cost of a yoga class.
  Price is in CANADIAN Dollars. To check prices in your preferred currency, we offer the resource to this conversion calculator.

• We are motivated to make these course offerings as financially accessible as possible while sustaining and honouring the work. Therefore, if you are feeling called to participate in this learning journey and feel you could benefit from financial support, please utilize the Sliding Scale registration option. This payment system has been created so that those with more access to wealth can contribute to covering the costs of those with less access to wealth. We trust in your discernment of knowing how you personally fit into the context of global economic privilege.

• If you would like to become a Seed Supporter of our bursary fund and sliding scale, so that we may offer more access to those experiencing financial constraints, we would be honoured if you considered choosing “Seed Supporter” when confirming your participation.

  Profits from this course are shared between contributors and help us to continue to create meaningful offerings into the future.

FAQ

• The live online sessions will be held on Thursdays from 10am-12pm CST (Please check the calendar above)

• Please check the time of this course in your local time zone.

• Live sessions will be recorded and made available to watch afterward if for any reason you are not able to be present for the live gathering, find yourself in a different timezone, or can only join a portion of it. The recording links will be shared the same day and you will have access to the recording and course materials via the Comuna Exchange community platform after the learning journey has ended.

Root Teacher: Venus Rodriguez

Venus is an indigenous healer and servant of light born and raised in Oaxaca, with ancestral origins from the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca and Tamaulipas of Northern Mexico. Her first direct inheritance of ancestral wisdom was receiving the Zapotec Tonalpohualli count from her father as a young girl (sacred Mesoamerican calendar system). She is a Traditional Medicine Practitioner and Herbalist, with specialization in women’s health, temazcal, energy healing, acupuncture, and other healing arts that are in service to the mind, body, and spirit. Venus continues to be based in the territory of Oaxaca in service to the land and her community while continuing the tradition of passing down the ancestral inheritance of her lineage’s wisdom to her children and other students.

Bridge Facilitator: Ioana Todosia

Creator of Comuna and facilitator of bio-cultural residencies and regenerative education for cultural wellbeing

Ioana is a rooted futurist bridging people, place, and paradigms through cross-cultural exchanges that contribute to shared living and healing systems of wellbeing. As the Creator of the Comuna.Earth platform, she facilitates regenerative education, bio-cultural residencies, and transformative experiences for cultural wellbeing. When resting, she’s feeding her inner fire creating bio-art, being moved through dance, connecting to underground culture through music, and learning about bio-cultural plant medicine systems.

Care Facilitator: Sara Dubeau

Natural Healthcare Practitioner with Dynamic Medicine + Co-Creator of Comuna Ceremonia Sessions

An eternal curiosity to understand what nourishes a vital, connected, and spirit-filled life led Sara to seek profound, enriching experiences under the apprenticeship of a number of wise teachers. What began as a desire to learn about natural therapeutics as a holistic healthcare practitioner, has evolved into an intimate relationship with Mother Earth and our more-than-human relations, and highlighted the importance of being in integrity with oneself, one another, our ancestral healing wisdom and medicines, and our ecosystems. As a co-creator and facilitator of the Comuna Ceremonia Sessions, Sara brings her knowledge and experience of natural, holistic therapies, embodiment practices, and the integration of healing experiences to collaborative offerings in the spirit of co-creation and kinship.

Join the learning journey from July 6th-October 26th,  via the Comuna Exchange platform
(Live sessions will be recorded and made available)

Contemplative reading from the Discovery Journal: