January 16, 2025 • 47 mins
Hello Starseeds and magical friends and welcome to this episode all about becoming an Earth Warrior and creating freedom; and our birthright as it comes to our relationship with Nature.
On this episode I have a very special guest; Larry from an amazing organization called Decriminalize Nature @DecriminalizeNature to talk about all of the woo and about protecting our relationship to nature as well as out own consciousness.
For more about Larry: Larry Norris, PhD, studied biopsychology and cognitive science as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, and defended his doctoral dissertation at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. His dissertation reviewed archived ayahuasca experience reports to identify transformational archetypes and insights that could help inform developing models of integration (meaning-making). Larry is the co-founder and executive director of Entheogenic Research, Integration, and Education (ERIE) a 501(c)(3) nonprofit located in the San Francisco Bay Area. ERIE is dedicated to the development of community education, research, and integration models related to entheogens. Larry is also a co-founder and board member of Decriminalize Nature (DN), which sprouted from Oakland in 2019. He advocates for the unalienable right to develop one’s own relationship with Nature and aims to support efforts to decriminalize entheogenic plants and fungi (e.g., ayahuasca, iboga, cacti, mushrooms). Larry is DN’s national outreach director, and supports many cities and states across the USA and internationally who are seeking to propose similar legislation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello star seeds and magical friends and welcome back to the truth beauty freedom and love show
(00:05):
Welcome to the show. I am your host Rachel Z and I'm here with a very special guest Larry from decriminalized nature
We are going to go into stories of being I'm going to call it like earth warrior stories
That just came to the top of my head and also stories that have influenced you and
Your childhood past lives anything across the board because stories those who tell the stories do rule the world and so
(00:29):
Let's take the power back in our stories and that's what this show is all about
So Larry is
The astro stack right now that we have because as you guys know, I relate our astrology blueprint to what our superhero
Identity is in this realm. So Larry's a Scorpio, which I find quite fitting with a Libra moon
(00:51):
Also fitting I think as well because we are in Libra season and we having we're having a sense of justice
I think activated in all of us right now, but Larry you're gonna have that close to your emotional state of like having
justice and truth at the core of everything and being an Aries rising it means that
You're kind of born here to be a warrior and you know initiate things
(01:11):
So that's a great astro stack to have so I will throw it to you Larry to give us your
introduction
As you see it so far welcome
Thank you Rachel. Thanks for inviting me on. It's always a pleasure to chat with you
And so I imagine this conversation is going to be wonderful. You always bring in the fun magical
Oh, yes, let's go into the room
(01:32):
Exactly
Per my Scorpio, I'll get into the mystery and the depths with no problems. So let's dive in and go deep
Love love conversations around consciousness. I'm originally from Michigan area
Not too far outside of where you're at
outside the trade area. You know spent a lot of time there. I did a lot of you know, Michigan is
(01:55):
Not well known for all of its nature and natural beauty
But surrounded by lakes and it has lots of forests and all these different types of things
So I really spent a lot of time in nature around the water and I was younger which was great
you know helping me sort of
Learn about life so to speak and then went to school at the University of Michigan
Um, we actually studied neuroscience or it was called biosecology and cognitive science at the time for neuroscience technically existed
(02:18):
So that's kind of how how young we are still in this realm, which is kind of amazing
Was having some mushroom experiences at the same time and was very
Frustrated that I was going to this, you know
So-called prestigious university and then didn't know anything about the inner experience
You know it talked about what's going on in the brain. It talks about the neuroscience
But when you talk about like hey, I had this very strange and profound otherworldly multi-dimensional spiritual
(02:43):
Whatever you want to call a type experience sacred experience. There was no there's no context for that
It was always drugs of abuse brain and behavior or let's do this animal researcher
Let's count these dots or let's do this fmri and all that kind of stuff
But it wasn't really about these inner experiences
So I had sort of a a little bit of a crisis of identity so to speak and
How old were you when that when that happened?
(03:03):
It's about 17, 18, 19, 20 years old around that time frame, you know, okay?
And so this is like 94 to 98 basically
So
Yeah, and then I had to do some animal research for my classes, but I'm also doing my mushroom experiences
So, you know, I would go do some mushroom experiences the next morning. I have to quote unquote, you know
I'm calling it torturing, but you know, they would say it's science, right? But do that in the morning
(03:28):
It was just kind of a hard thing and realizing like oh, I'm not
Yeah, the psyche of all that and having to play yeah
So so I got really interested in like, you know, kind of the inner experience of qualitative nature
Obviously in my second electric experiences were pretty profound. I did a long road trip around the us actually went to
Visit a bunch of professors and other people around the us that were doing this research
(03:50):
But they were kind of hiding it behind other research
So I was like, okay, I'm gonna take a little break and move to Hawaii
So it's been about 11 years of Hawaii and Maui, which is really great
I didn't know that
Yeah, yeah, so it's nice to go from Detroit area, which was very much even though there's a lot of nature
Still industry and still kind of car town and kind of like
Forget that you have a body
(04:12):
Yeah, exactly, you're perfectly covered up and going to Hawaii where all of a sudden like, oh, okay
I can be in the water all time. There's you know, then before there's these craters
You swim with dolphins and swim with whales and like, oh, yeah
Wait, I have this thing that's connected to the earth in a different kind of way
Then just like think about a scene and observing it but actually feeling and being a part of it
And so that was really really profound for me, you know
Those 11 years were very I think important in my sort of development as well
(04:36):
Unfortunately the town that I lived in burdened down a few years ago behind us
I was there by year and a half ago now. So that was pretty pretty sad a lot of folks throughout there
You know, I know some folks that lost a lot of their stuff had to you know
Figure something out and you know all the places that I lived all the places I worked at all the places that I knew
Or gone now. So it was a different kind of grieving when that happens
(04:58):
It's nice like you can grieve a person you can grieve it on a timeline
But when you're grieving a place the timeline is like all over the place like oh, I remember doing this thing over here
And so I was trying to watch myself capture moments in time
Thinking that they would slip away because that I can't go back to that location and reaccess those memories. So
So yeah, so that was a little bit of a bummer that that happened and of course, you know, it wasn't well
(05:19):
We'll take the care of I'm sure Oprah and the rock. Oh my gosh, that was a lot of money
nobody
Exactly. So unfortunately, that's the people there still hurting and suffering but uh, but yeah, I
eventually moved back from the from Hawaii to the mainland in 2009
(05:41):
You know, I was there I was you know came across ayahuasca, which is very interesting to me
Went on the brazil a few times to study that and then I was like, yeah, I'm very fascinated by this
experience who is different than my mushroom experiences which I was able to sort of say my mushroom experiences are at least
Coming from a neuroscience mind or a cognitive psych mind. I was able to say oh, this is just my higher consciousness
(06:02):
But we still don't know what it is. It's still beyond everything we're talking about but it's part of me on a different level
uh, ayahuasca and I've said this on a few other podcasts ayahuasca forced me to have to recognize or
uh, at least address
the idea or the sensation of
A plant teacher plant guide plant spirit that this is a conversation. I'm having it's not just my higher self
(06:24):
It's that I'm in a relationship with this plant and what does that mean?
What are the kind what is what is that?
What are the implications of that for understanding of consciousness of understanding the nature of reality of our understanding of what plants are
And animals are humans are anyway, you know, so so that was really fascinating. Um, I went back to
Sorry to
Sorry to break into like just to ask a quick question about how your ayahuasca experience
(06:47):
Differed from your mushroom experience because I consider both of those uh
those to be like, you know of the earth, right but
Uh, what you've said about ayah is uh, it's similar to like you have like almost like that jungle earthy
consciousness self, uh, and you would you say mushy's are more of almost like
Like could you explain like maybe the differentiation between those two?
(07:09):
Yeah
Yeah, totally. Um
And you know, this has been kind of a back and forth
uh, the the mushrooms feel
more playful and
They know where your edges are and they'll take you to it and maybe they're a little trickstery and maybe they're you know
(07:29):
Um, they're they're decomposers, you know, so they're gonna decompose stuff
How sometimes you're not going to be out and about doing stuff, but you know either with ayahuasca either
Um, but like that was kind of my sense playful childlike, you know, but you know, and
Yeah, exactly. But you know still, you know, very visual for me and very very interesting and like I said, uh,
You know really expanded my understanding of consciousness, which you know pre my mushroom experiences was that consciousness exists right in this little area
(07:55):
So I'm so happy. I don't think that anymore. I think about that all with the policy. How many people live their lives?
thinking that it's just like
That's just it right here, you know and like just just that alone
Forget all the mental health get everything else just that alone the idea that there is more to consciousness
And we have the right to be able to explore that is is you know
(08:17):
Feeling aside, that's an important human right, you know, just to understand what it's like to be human being with consciousness
So anyway, so that's that's mushrooms and when it came to ayahuasca ayahuasca was like
much deeper
Had a I don't want to say more wisdom because I don't want to like try and compare in that part
but it felt like there was more of like a
Little less playful and more like hey, you got to do some work here, you know, like I had one of my I think my fourth
(08:40):
ayahuasca experience was this beautiful
You know, I always think about this is like, you know this beautiful crystalline
transparent castle where like all the elders and the teachers were
huge festival
And then like the experience was over and it's like, okay now you've seen it now get to work and then it was just like
for the next like 20 or 30 experiences like deep
(09:01):
Deep deep work and just grinding and grinding and grinding, you know and going to all these spaces and
That vision though you have of like a party like a really like awesome the most amazing etheric party
That's like waiting for you if we can just like figure out everything is
I've had that one
Yeah, sure. I think it's like I think that's like the uh the draw to keep doing your work because you're like, oh, I want to go back there
(09:24):
Yeah, so yeah
hard work now, okay, so
But one thing about the ayahuasca was that it definitely like it definitely was it felt like there was like I said this
Things that I never gonna imagine were coming into my mind places and visions that could never even expect to have
Expected were coming up. So there's like the sense of like, okay. I'm in this dialogue now
What's interesting and now we're going a little bit more about mushrooms. It's not surprising because mushrooms are
(09:50):
Chemically like a little ayahuasca factory while they have I mean, I like that description
I like that description. Yeah a minor amount because they have a the tryptomines and they have the beta carveline
So that's what with uh ayahuasca. You have the dnt and the mao is so you have the same sort of system
Again, it's not quite as pronounced as it is with ayahuasca. But what I found with my mushroom experiences now is that
(10:13):
Remember I said before they kind of know where your edges are. Yes. Yeah, they know you so it's kind of like
ayahuasca
blows out your edges
You know, it's like you have no more edges or the edges are like way out there now, right?
And so now the mushrooms are like, oh
You know about that spot. All right, let's go. So sometimes my mushroom experiences now
Are like am I having an ayahuasca experience super practically super otherworldly super out there?
(10:36):
You know things that I wouldn't have expected
For my previous mushroom experiences if I hadn't had the ayahuasca. It's almost like I uh, like I have pushed out your uh
Your etheric map more, right?
And so much is like, oh like now you have like that like groundwork now
I can like take you on the path on some like
Some journeys and submissions in these terra terrains now that you've discovered
Exactly little side quests things like that. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so that's kind of that's kind of was really fascinating to me
(11:03):
And watching people have these like, you know sudden ships of you know personality
The paradigm of narrative that type of thing. Um, and so uh, so I went to california and student for a study to do some more research
We got the parent's scholarship at some point in time, which was uh, you know doing entheogenic research
So I went down to brazil and I was working with we said about a Luna who's done a lot of work with poppo moringo and
(11:23):
terms mckinnon and up those folks back in the day
I'm still doing a lot of good work down there as a consciousness center down there and so he um, you know
He and I worked together and we just basically went through these like, you know
hundreds of experience reports and trying to figure out what types of experiences people are are sort of engaging in
And um, and that was really fascinating to me
Just kind of get a sense because I also do integration work
(11:43):
Which is like helping people back when they have a big strong paradigm shattering experience. What do you do with it?
How do you deal with that information? How do you handle it? How do you rebuild a new paradigm?
Those are super important questions. Larry. I think I like that just for these like we're also in a paradigm shattering cultural moment right now
And so I think those two are useful across the board
(12:03):
Because what do you do when you no longer everything you believed in is gone?
Or everything you knew was a lie or every story you've been told has been some sort of agenda or it's
True is really really hard sometimes
Yeah, exactly. So sometimes it's good just like figure out. Okay. Where do you start? Where do you start when there's no more ground?
Where do you start when you're flailing, you know, and that's kind of what I was trying to focus on there
(12:25):
Also in that time I created an organization called theogenic research integration and education
Which is doing like peer integration circles, which is basically like storytelling narrative building sharing your experiences
It's such a beautiful profound experience for me because it's like, you know, if we believe that what people are sharing in their stories is their
Snapshot of consciousness
Then we're constantly getting a larger again expanding our view of what is out there. What's possible
(12:50):
I mean, and if we believe that there is something as a
unit of consciousness or a
Collective unconscious if you will or an accessible area archetypes
Then we should be able to all go to the same places and if we figure out how to sort of
Navigate then we can help each other find our way around the space that seems
Unnavigable right now. Yeah. No, you are. Oh my gosh. You're like that the sharing of stories thing is so is so key
(13:16):
I'm so like happy that you
So do you still have those those those sharing circles?
Yeah, we do. I mean, uh, once cove would happen
We were doing a more online because we lost the space that we're, you know, doing them here
Um, but yeah, we still do those, you know monthly and and then I still do one at one stop
And then we're just looking at a spot around here to do it in person
(13:37):
It's much easier to do in person than online
Anyway, because there's so much stuff with tech, you know, it's nice that we can connect from Toronto to the Bay Area
But at the same time I would much rather be in person and you get to feel the person differently
You get to see oh, they're tapping their foot. Maybe they're uncomfortable or this, you know
All the different cues that you don't see in this little box two-dimensional box that we're in right now come more clear
(13:57):
We can create these circles
But people are coming out of those things and you know when we were doing this in 2011, you know
You know, it's still kind of poot a little bit like oh, that's just people's egos talking
But I watched so many people come together
Connect with each other and friendships built off of this and you know, then I started to help do
Uh workshop and train people all around just trying to be pure integration circles
So now you see pure integration circles everywhere
(14:17):
You see integration is like a major component to our policy and everything like that which is great
And then in 2019, uh, I co-funded Declinlized Nature with a bunch of other folks
And then from there, you know, we passed in Oakland, California in 2019 and since then I think
26 or 27 cities and counties across the u.s
(14:37):
Have passed similar policy
We had a pretty strong influence on all that including influence with some of the statewide policy
We're going to be trying to help out in canada and if any of your listeners out there want to do anything or varying
Come join us come join the site. Yeah
Yeah, we'd love to help out and you know the large the larger our community is the better it is because you know
There's a lot of folks out there that are ally adjacent
(15:00):
Like they want to really go on a hardcore medicalization framework. Okay. Well medicalization
$22,000 price tag or it means you have to sit with a doctor in a doctor's office while they're taking notes and recording you
And you're getting that information as kept on file and you know, who wants to have their trip on file with state?
You know, like I'm sorry. Yeah, no, that's for me. Oh my gosh. Okay. You just you just open the door into like a wonderful topic because
(15:25):
Like I am in canada, right? And like as you can see, I love mushrooms. They're they're my background. I
Oh, the meshes a lot. I was in the corporate world for a very long time. My husband is
Is my shaman we do like epic heroic dose mushroom trips and uh in there I discovered that like
You know, you as you said the shattering of your paradigm, right?
(15:45):
And then working in the corporate world and being like, I literally can't do this anymore
Like you just you can't you can't pretend and the mask
Doesn't fit me more because I can't do this anymore. But in canada, uh, I wanted to talk about the
The languaging of things and when I first reached out to you to uh to work with you for decriminal nature is that
the big thing that resonated with me was
(16:08):
uh
Using words like entheogen the concept of decriminalizing nature as opposed to legalizing
Because in canada we have legalized marijuana. But what that's done
Is actually I feel like it's it's it's become worse
Because it's sound like
I literally on my street have three government weed shops and I go to none of them. I go to the unlicensed ones
(16:33):
Because they don't they they have um dosing limits, right? So the edibles can't be more than uh
10 milligrams I think for serving
And so it's just kind of like so people the the nuance between legalization and decriminalization
Can you explain that a little bit in terms of how uh, yeah, sure how you came to it?
Yeah, so, uh, so there's a couple things uh, we'll go enthegens negadelic
(16:57):
Then we'll go decrim and legalization. Yes before you go into that
I want to touch on something that I've been seeing going around twitter. I don't know twitter x whatever
whatever that is
I think it's hilarious because it taps into exactly what you're talking about
Uh moment ago about paradigm shattering and being in one sort of situation and then realizing like oh, yeah
I gotta figure something out here
(17:17):
It's funny because it's again, here's two different paradigms seeing exactly the same thing in two different two different ways
So the the response was there was a whole bunch of venture capitalists right now who are like
Oh, my venture capitalist friend went into ayahuasca and they realized what they were doing wasn't in integrity
And then they stopped doing what bc work and now they're just like taking them to their mind being lazy and taking time off
(17:40):
And being with themselves and so you had the same story which is like bc person quits bc job because of ayahuasca
Psychedelic and enthegenic people are like yes, it's doing what it's supposed to be doing the bc person is like no
This is horrible. This is the worst thing
Activity we're not what's going on
Productivity is going down no no
So it's really funny to see this dynamic where you have again two paradigms talking about the same thing and their view of it
(18:06):
Is totally different, you know
What's happening and we're talking about mental health what they're actually doing is taking care of their mental health in a lot of these situations
You know the reason that
And the other person's like no mental health, you know, we just got to do the bc thing
We got to you know, I don't even know the the jargon of the terms for that
But you know do our thing or whatever that is, you know, so so just kind of funny to see that but
(18:26):
But that was just kind of a little side note because I think as we're going into this space where there's a lot of
you know, there's this
This guy named geppser king geppser was out of a
Placifer out of germany and he talks about these mutations of consciousness over time
So it's not an evolution of consciousness because we don't know if the next one's going to be better or worse
Than the previous one so we can't say this we're coming into is going to be this is the best version because it's you know closer to where we are now
(18:52):
But he does say it's a mutation. There's a shift in consciousness. So he goes through he kind of mapped it over time
He's like in there's a kick mutation of consciousness, which is like you are the one
Then there's a magic mutation of consciousness, which is like you're engaging with nature to make magical things happen
Right, then there's the mythic layer of consciousness, which is you're telling stories
(19:14):
About the magical person who does things that make sure to make things happen that are magical
Then you have the mental stage of consciousness, which is where we're at right now, which is we have to measure
The myth or the magic and if it doesn't measure it doesn't exist, right?
And then now he's saying we're going into this integral state where all these different
Mutations of consciousness will come together in one space and try and figure out how to commingle and so that's kind of where we're at right now
(19:37):
We're in this very interesting space
That's the way that you explain that
I'm sure you're a chronomical dream
The way you explain that is like I love that that just like that resonated hard
Yeah
Yeah, totally. Yeah, and so and then we're in this trend, you know
Astralomically we're in this very unusual time very similar to from what I understand the counterculture of the 60s and civil rights movement
(19:58):
Everything else is kind of the same stars in the sky and everything that's going on etc etc
You know the word better than I do in that but from what I understand
Including the fall of Rome, right? Fall of Rome is also we're also in that same kind of cosmological like
Yeah
Some meme out there is something like oh uh when somebody said how are you preparing for fall?
(20:20):
I thought the amount of civilization in that autumn
How are you preparing for the fall?
The fall
No, no the fall, you know, it's the fall
But it's uh, yeah, no, but like it's it's crazy how you mentioned the idea of
uh, almost like these like spheres of
Because everything's a model, right? Um, I feel like that's where sometimes
(20:45):
People can sometimes get caught up and that's why I love like your whole like peer-sharing circles because
You know in archetypes in symbolism in like story
We're able to talk about ineffable things
Because like I can't make a powerpoint presentation to show you like the dimensions of reality and how those actually
Are like seen and how you would traverse them
(21:07):
So uh going back to uh, I guess the the difference in like languageing right between like when you created uh, when you
How long has decrypt nature been around?
Yeah, so we started in 2019 and and you know, we had a really
lot, I mean technically we started 2018 but 2019 was when we were like kind of you know, it was december 2018 january 2019
(21:28):
But we had a lot of conversation around exactly we were saying narratives words
Realizing that language creates reality
How are we planning on creating our reality?
You know, even I'm hearing people say things like oh, is this protected by law? Like it's not no, it's not
We're not asking any law to protect us. We're asking for our rights and our human rights to be human being
We don't need any protection of law. We need them to stop arresting, right?
(21:51):
So anyway, so we had a lot of conversations around the language and what to use
Um one thing we decided upon was talking about entheogen versus psychedelic
Yeah psychedelic which kind of scoped to this like era of time the 1960s 1970s
Um, you know, it was culture and music and art
But you really wouldn't call an ayahuasca ceremony or a bogus ceremony psychedelic
So there's a group of anthropologists named rough other folks that came up with this other term
(22:15):
Which is really meant to sort of speak to this larger continuum of these experiences that wasn't so western
San Francisco Bay Area
60s cultural counter movement that type of thing. So as they came up with the word entheogen
Which you know, there's a lot of people that are describing it
But basically and base level means generating the divine within or possessed by inspiration
(22:37):
Or enthusiasm like all these are kind of from the same idea that
Thing that's coming from the inside that we can sort of tap into or this inner experience
Oftentimes it also speaks to the idea of plants and mushrooms more so than synthetics
That there's anything necessarily wrong and you can make some good arguments that synthetics are also entheogenic
(22:57):
But typically entheogen means comes with a history of practice
Yeah, it comes with traditions that have been worked out for you have your DMTs
You have your snuffs you have your ayahuasca's you have your kakdai you have your mushrooms and these different types of things
Your bogus those are kind of all entheogenic plants and fungi as far as how we see it
So initially I was like, you know, my other organization is called the entheogenic research integration education
(23:18):
People don't know what the word means really, you know, people are going to stumble over
If something comes to wrong, you know, I'm coming from 10 years of baggage of having to like try and bring this word out in the world
And you know, try to make entheogen happen
Perfect, but now now everyone is like, no, let's do it because and rightly so, you know
I'd rather spend two minutes redefining what entheogen means than spend all the time it takes to unpack 60 years of baggage that comes with psychedelic
(23:45):
There's no matter what, no matter who you are, if you hear the term psychedelic, an image pops up
A vision of something pops up, you have a maybe it's good, maybe it's bad, whatever it is, there's something there
So we wanted a chance to like start from scratch
I love that
Most people didn't know what entheogen means, now it's kind of funny to see like in, you know, public policy all over the U.S.
(24:07):
Newscasters talking about it, city council members talking about it, law enforcement talking about it
You've made it real
Spirit of the heart, I mean, it was real, but now it's like it's coming out, you know
And to even see, for example, and I know like I was saying earlier people have sometimes trouble pronouncing it like, oh, they read it wrong
Ethno, ethno, ethno
(24:27):
Ethno, etude
So even, yeah, exactly, so, but even like newscasters and I think for me it's like, oh, it's psychedelic is trying to come out of their mouth
But they're forced to say this new word and they stumble on it because it's not really that difficult to a word but get all of a sudden it's
like, you know, you're stumble, I always think, okay, that's the baggage of psychedelic trying to think it's without so
So that's what entheogen and psychedelic on the decrymen legalization
(24:49):
That's a whole other thing too and you make a good point which is like, you know
You know, a lot of people say that legalization is basically prohibition life
is like if you
state for your license fees and you're within this box
You're okay, but if you're doing it any other way, you're growing your own at home. No, that's not allowed
We can't have that we need you to go through this authority for why do I need a license?
(25:09):
Why do I need to go to this authority figure to grow a plant?
We've been growing plants for the beginning since the beginning time or mushrooms since the beginning time like
Why all of a sudden now do I have to be okayed by you in order to partake in my human rights?
So so we said, hey, let's let's really get a face level here
You know, all that stuff's gonna happen those people with all the money you're gonna try to make things legalized
They're gonna try and do whatever they're gonna do, you know, as we see in Oregon
(25:30):
We see in you know, um,
I'm Colorado Oregon model is way expensive the Colorado legalization model the car model is great there the Colorado
You know legal or legalization models also going to be expensive, you know, that's three to five thousand dollars for a single experience
Think about how much of a mushroom you could buy or grow with
And then the MDMA trials that didn't make it through
FDA with maps that was going to be twenty two thousand dollars for an experience
(25:52):
Like imagine how much MDMA
To me, how do you come up with those numbers though? Like how does that how does one determine the value of I mean like
It's it's you can't
So for
Right. Yeah. So for Oregon, it's like based upon, you know
hourly
(26:12):
Plus things
Licensing fees plus registration. Oh, you know, all that kind of stuff on the medical level is probably the same thing on 22 grand
But now you're having to deal with two doctors or to have a higher per hour and you're looking at the level rate for each of us
hours plus free and
You know, they're on it's like tap on every different possibility to make you say, oh, yeah
We need to pay more. We need to pay more, you know, but at the end of the day, it's like it's taking it away from people
(26:36):
You know, who's gonna who even insurance who's gonna charge you 22 grand?
You have to have like a very strong treatment resistant situation for insurance to be thrown out of 22 grand
Price tag for an eight hour session. Basically, right? So
So, yeah, so uh, so we were like, hey, okay, let's do something different. Let's remove the criminal penalties
Let's make sure that people are able to engage in their own and we talked about that too is like nature can be patented
(26:59):
So, you know while they're trying to patent these synthetic chemicals and things like that
You probably know this from pharmaceutical world. You're in, you know, you can't really patent nature
So we're like, okay
Well, how do we get ahead of these companies that are already trying to patent things and you know
Some companies were even going as far as like throwing spaghetti on the wall and saying, okay
If you're holding hands, that's part of our claim if you're on a couch that's part of the claim if you use music
That's part of the claims like wow
(27:20):
There's one person that like actually did patented. I think it actually went through mixing cannabis and mushrooms
It's like wow, there's there's no prior to that. I'm sure like you've been doing that for a century. You know what I mean?
So, uh, so anyway, so so that's the problem when it comes to anything that's publicly traded
You got to have your ip you got to do all that kind of stuff and then what you start doing that
It's to the whims of you know, the capitalist system and you know, you know, the
(27:44):
The person tries to do things that are good at people but not necessarily for the good of healing
They could get dropped off because you know, their shareholders want profit, etc. etc. investors want profit
So that becomes problematic. So anyway, that's going to be delayed for a while because the FDA trials didn't make it
Um for a variety of reasons including the fact that the FDA naturally can't measure these things and so
You know, there's always going to be placebo issues. There's always going to be expectancy issues
(28:07):
The issues are on variability with therapists may use them to things so but in the meantime, we know for thousands and thousands of years
You know, people have been doing these safe. Yes. Yes. I'm responsible
I think I think the ran report there's some ran corporation did a report and they said I think close to 8 million people had a mushroom experience last year
And of those people 50 of them
(28:28):
Uh, didn't pay for it at all or they grew for their own, you know
So so from the perspective of people who are like, oh, I'm gonna roll in here and make my cannabis billions
It's not going to happen
Especially because now everyone's learning how to grow and now there's probably you know
10,000 more people that are doing mushrooms in Oakland than ever were before and that's triples out because one person can grow
Way more than you can ingest in here, you know that you want to you know
(28:50):
One's no one's eating two ounces of mushrooms a year or three ounces of mushrooms or whatever does the answer
If you're doing it right and you're having these big experiences, you're gonna take a little
You need to take time in between the heroic journeys. You definitely do integration like real like and like sifting through all of that
right and so I feel like uh
All the medical model stuff doesn't deal as you were saying like the mystical stuff though the woo-woo stuff the magical things like um
(29:14):
I read a book once that basically talked about how you know like in all of our fictional tales and all of our mythos is a truth
Right, so it's how we can speak about real truths without
you know flagging
The powers that are in that's what I call it in terms of that but I feel like uh
When we're talking about legalization versus decriminalization, it's like we don't want to be punished for exploring our own consciousness
(29:40):
and so uh
Here in Canada, I feel like it's a little bit of a tricky situation when we talk about the medical model because I used to work in the hospital
I used to work with pharma and
It's just it's like if you aren't licensed and you're not doing it in our way
We will punish you for it
Even though you're trying to like it so it's it's just very um
(30:05):
It's it's tough right so but then at the same time you don't want necessarily people
Uh doing heroic doses of mushrooms
Uh without being aware of what they could be in for
Right, uh, I think and things coming up and like the idea of a bad trip and all of those kinds of things
Have you seen that in terms of like your peer stories of people doing um
(30:25):
Really epic doses and then like having a really hard time coming back to real life
I mean, I think that's what's interesting about this is that you know, there are more people at at some
rock concert or festival
This weekend
Then there were all the people that have done the clinical trials. Yeah, and yet we're all concerned about somebody having a bad trip
(30:51):
Millions eight million people at the great point at a mushroom trip
And maybe three had I mean, I hand us. Okay. Yeah bad trips happen
Or challenging trips or everyone across but but at the same time like, you know, how we all learn, you know
There's no there's no true informed consent with us. We're talking about a
Reload to this we're talking about an expansion that you can't be aware of without knowing and having had it, you know
(31:13):
so, you know, you know millions and millions and millions and millions of people have kind of just
Okay, I'm gonna try it out, you know, and so yes, go low go slow figure your way out, you know
But I and other friends of mine have been like, oh, well the dose is a bag
So whatever's in that bag is one dose and I have friends that has seven gram quarter bag
And they're like, oh, because they think it's one dose or yeah, so those different types of things. Yeah
(31:34):
We're gonna have a good experience but but you know
I think in terms of like difficult or challenging trips, that's where integration really comes into play
You can't you know, anyone can have no matter how prepared you are. Yeah, anyone can have a different
You know
But the idea is like, okay, how do I breathe in this while I'm having it realizing this will be over in a few hours
And that who do I get to support me afterwards or help me out afterwards during the experience, you know in a way
(32:00):
You know while there's a lot of people who are like, oh, I want to sit for somebody, you know, all that kind of thing
And that's good, you know, and maybe you know, I really I'm kind of lesse faire in terms of my my sitting approach
You know, I'm saying like I'm more of a sitter as in like I'm you needing water. How's the music don't bump your head
Light okay, you're good and I'm out of it. You know and that person's having their own experience with that
(32:24):
You have these other people who are like, oh, we need to do psychotherapy with the person while they're doing this is like, no
What's this going through you take a note at the wrong time or you say a word the wrong way that person's gonna spin out
because you are inside
And influence it that's where this whole thing my first suggestibility comes in
You look at all the weird stuff that went on with the CIA and I'm Pia Littro and all that kind of stuff for their kind of
(32:49):
Tapping into this hyper suggestibility issue saying, oh, can we do this for rain washing or other different types of things like that?
Like of course they weren't able to find much results without luckily
They were fine that didn't really help soldiers too much, you know, they wanted to hug trees instead of shooting people
the PCs
This is the worst
It's making me turning people into peaceful hippies
You know what that brings up a good question that I thought about just uh, what is your thought on
(33:12):
Uh, the idea of like when you solo trip versus like when you're doing a group trip
Because uh, like myself and my husband do we trip together, right?
And so like we've actually you travel to those same realms together and then like you experience things like telepathy and like what that means and so I mean
That being said though
You don't think people have different
Let's call them belts
(33:33):
Like in theo jag or like psychedelic belts in terms of how far you've gone have gone and so um, I feel like sometimes
in like a group setting
Uh, if you have people of different levels
Partaking in like and they don't know where their thresholds are like you can have like a group like the
Yeah, yeah, just go with that like uh, what would you how do you feel in terms like solo tripping versus like group tripping and like uh, do you have any uh
(33:58):
Thoughts in terms of like you prefer one way or another. I guess like everything has its place. I think ultimately but yeah thoughts on that group tripping versus solo tripping. Yeah, yeah definitely. I mean and there's different levels of groups too, you know, so
100% yeah
I personally because this is how I learned my own self
(34:19):
Uh, very much into a solo trip or one other person trip. I was very lucky to have my my first uh
trip
Person was I don't know how she was you know, I'm 19 years old and you know, she also 19 and
She just knew about the inner world everyone else. I knew that was doing mushroom was out. Oh, let's go to this thing
(34:40):
Let's go to this thing. She's like no no no you sit and you close your eyes
Like what you do what like just sit and close your eyes and her name was phoenix, which is a great name for a person
That's really showing you how to do your inner she could
Oh, I love that
That's like that's literally that's like your superhero origin story. Clary like
Thanks if you're out there listening
(35:04):
Yeah, so that so that was really great and I think for me really a good way to sort of tap into sort of this these initial experiences, but um
But you know, uh, you know, we would have strange experiences the two of us
Or you know, just doing by myself the same sort of thing
You know, it's like you have a different more sort of intimate, you know, sort of experience and I've had some really really powerful and profound
(35:25):
Like you say telepathy or yeah, I had one partner one time that we we were doing
We were journeying and we were having like as a tail end of our journey. We were doing an eye gazing thing
And so while we were doing this
We it was like for me and as she said this too for her like
Here's my shirt saying
(35:46):
Yeah, I know it's perfect like you're telling the story actually, right? So
Right, so uh, so we're looking at each other and on each side of her head
The environment we would like you feel like a drop in my belly and then the environment would shift
And it'd be like, oh, this is us doing the same thing in this other world
And then you guys are like dimension jumping and you had like a little bubble
(36:07):
Infinite
Yeah, exactly exactly. So what what is going on when we're exploring that is that possible?
Like what's what's happening there? And you know and people a lot of the folks out of Detroit the clingy ee community
They do a lot of work with really large doses of mushrooms, but they do it for astral travel
They do it for reading ancient sacred texts
He believed that the hieroglyphics were not supposed to be seen with two dimensional eyes
(36:27):
They're meant to see through mushroom eyes, you know or other type of sort of
Antigenic, you know vision on visionary eyes so to speak
So yeah, so that's
All the things we can do when you can focus on consciousness and exploration that type of thing now
That's kind of on a smaller group. So then there's like the sort of medium group size, which is like, okay
you have you know a handful of folks and
You know, those would be maybe you know
(36:48):
Fun for like, you know, sometimes many journeys, you know by mushrooms or sometimes by ayahuasca
You usually have these sort of smaller groups, you know tend some people or usually in a dark room
with mushroom journeys, you know, sometimes I find that
You know
It doesn't quite flow as well as with the ayahuasca journey that think because there's just like a there's such a
Ritual that's usually set up around the ayahuasca
(37:12):
The drumming and all the saplatos are all the things that happen with that. But but I tell you what
The first time for me one of the biggest things about group setting in that regard was okay
Yeah, you know, I wasn't so worried about like, you know, quote unquote going too far, you know
Because it's like, okay, it's dark and I can just lay on my mattress. I've you know had enough experiences where I know how to do that
(37:34):
Right. Yeah, for me the hardest part was um navigating the nausea
Oh
And I'm not supposed to be thrown up or getting sick, you know the kind of stories against stories that we tell ourselves, right?
Like I can't be the one to be
Of course, then you'll get sick as a result of that right sure or or what happened
No, I thought was that I would like um leave the room to go to the restroom
(37:58):
To take care of what I need to do and then come back
Well, what happens when we do that is it breaks your trip?
You know, you're journeying you're on a journey. You have to open your eyes find your way to the bathroom
Do your thing find your way back and where your eye is gone?
The first time I actually you know purged, you know in in the group setting was super powerful
Because I was able to really kind of go like use that nausea to kind of like take me further and further out into the
(38:23):
Sort of the realms, right?
And I'd have to leave and interrupt it so I could kind of get right up to the edge there
Um and also just the sense of relief and the release that happens and feeling like everyone in the room is like, it's okay
You know, we're all here
Somebody else on the other side of the room that's purging and feeling like okay. Wow. They really got through something there
You know this sense of purge
(38:45):
shame right you're purging out like the shame of doing that in front of people and so like for that to be accepted
It's just like hey, it's it's actually okay. It's like we're human beings. So
Exactly so yeah, so that's
That's like a mid set mid range group setting which I think is you know good and has some value to it
I mean, obviously is with anything, you know, you might have somebody that's having a difficult journey
(39:08):
Or some that's having a really difficult journey
And so that's gonna like and need into your journey
But again, then you really see it as like everyone's healing together and there's more camaraderie
I can't tell you how many I was cause experiences I've been to where you don't know anybody
And you come out of it best friends like you know, or you know, it's like what happened right?
It's like what happened right? Right exactly
(39:29):
And then you have some more of the kind of the church style settings
Yeah, I haven't really been to official official church, but I have been into a lot of like, you know, kind of adjacent settings
to that or you know
40 people 50 people type things and that's that's a little bit more
I mean, I don't mind it because again almost you have this sort of value back to being anonymous again because there's so many people there that
(39:51):
You know, you can do your thing and no one's really probably notice it
But the energy of the circle is different and you can find yourself caught in like little vortexes in the corner
And all of a sudden you're dealing with like 40 people stuff
You know because you just happen to be in the wrong space in the room and also be like, wow, this is
big
Like big waves or if people are all taking whatever you're taking right so I look as like each of the substances are almost like
(40:15):
They're keys to different universes, right? So you have like almost like all of these kind of
worlds bumping into each other and so it can be a bit hectic what you said about like mini vortexes
I was like, that's a great way to describe it, right? Because we're mini universes and so as we like
Collide with others it can create like I think it's not not to say you want to control everything but uh, it's very difficult to have
(40:40):
Uh, I feel like a large large setting like that unless it's like ritualized perhaps like I think some of those like are
Were some of them like Santo Daime at all or uh, I mean there uh one was uh, uh
Santo Daime adjacent, you know what I'm saying? They weren't Santo Daime but they were doing something similar
That's not official church or something
(41:01):
For a decent ritual, right? Or right, yeah
Um, so yeah, so yeah, I agree in terms of raves or festivals, you know, I mean coming outside Detroit
There's a lot of pretty amazing parties in that industry. Yeah, Detroit for technical is a big part of that
in my uh my younger years as well. So, you know a lot of like we you know
Detroit parties where no one you know you get there and it's so different than here in the Bay Area, right?
(41:23):
In Detroit you wore like a black hoodie and
You got a base and then you dance all over here
Here's like colorful flamboyant everyone's got all this stuff going on
I was like no one to do that in Detroit because they're just like all right get to the party
And then we're gonna you know and then and then no one to leave the party at night because no one
Want to be walking around Detroit at three four in the morning
So everyone would stay till sunrise. So that was kind of my situation. Uh, but you know
(41:44):
Yeah, I definitely agree like some places like Burning Man
I mean that's a lot of people to be having a journey at the same time
But everyone's doing at different places and that type of thing and I had some really strange trips about
strange strange trips at Burning Man 2 where almost like I'd like visualize it as like uh
Like the spiral and like every walk around
You never
You know
(42:08):
That's a quite a bit so uh, so yeah, so that's like a whole new level 80,000 people versus you know
Just you yourself there's gonna be some differences, of course, but oh, yeah, I you know if I had a choice
It would be myself or maybe with one of the person
Um, you know to to have a journey that's kind of my preference. Yeah, definitely
I realized that we are almost at time of this show Mary
(42:29):
I'm gonna have you on the show again for a follow-up
I think actually because I've been doing a lot of reorganization of all my
podcasts and shows and things like that and so um
I would like for you to just like let my viewers know
Where they can find anything having to do with decriminator and uh, I know that a lot of my people are in Canada
(42:50):
But I do have a lot of um folks who uh
Deal with ceremonies. So we have a we have a place here in Ontario called uh, thunder mountain and uh, we have a lot of like
Manitou Island. So there's a lot of Aboriginal um
story and entrenched ceremonies here and vision quests and all of that kind of stuff. Um, and so
(43:12):
Let's anyone know where they can like find you and maybe we can like have more of our like a Canadian like arm of
Decriminator, but before you
Before you do that actually wanted to uh, you're asked to a chart like I tell you like your superpower is in like uh
Last night I did a little talk about like vision quests and animals that you see in your visions that are like that function as like companions or guides
(43:35):
Uh in any of your journeys have have any animals or uh, even plants or like any kind of spirit guides
Have they appear to you in any of those visions or dreams?
Um, you know, I mean
Cat-like characters bear like characters probably, you know, I don't know why platypus is always somewhere
Or it's so crazy you brought up platypus because someone brought up platypus on the live last night to him like who brings up
(43:59):
Pallat what is like that must mean something
That means something. Yeah, it must be yeah, it's it's like a mixture of worlds basically. Yeah. Yeah
Because the last thing about lava I really love lava because it's fire. It's water
Oh, you're a scorpio. That's definitely it right because think about scor- scorpio is a unique sign because uh
its ancient ruler is mars
(44:21):
because Pluto Pluto rules Scorpio and Pluto wasn't discovered till 19
Regardless if you think Pluto's a planet or not. It wasn't discovered till
Uh 1930 something or so and so there's this concept too of um, scorpio feeling fiery even though it's a water sign
So if you think about that like what lava is it's like liquid
(44:42):
Like and also under the surface
Yeah under the surface
So that I feel like that would be part of your superpowers in some sort of form like activating the earth underneath it. I mean
Uh, when I paint I paint and I sign it lava because a lot of my friends used to call me lava when I was a boy
It's a good superhero name. It's probably definitely something. It's a good
Larry lava and and
(45:03):
Yeah, right and for your uh, your what's great about this podcast is that we didn't talk about policy barely at all
It's fantastic
That's true. So so but
But but but if you do want to do policy, definitely I can help you out on that
You know, that's definitely something we're gonna maybe talk about on another podcast
But I much prefer these types of podcasts anyway because it's much more interesting and it's something that we can all sort of
(45:26):
Speculate on together, which is what is this thing called consciousness? Yeah, it's beautiful. So, um, yeah, if you want to change policy
That's what we do. We passed in, you know, 26 cities now across the US 27 cities and counties
It's really easy process. We'll help out in Canada. You have some folks going on there
Um, and then, um, you know how to actively engage with your city council, which is really important
(45:47):
If you want to do any integration work, you definitely, you know, if anyone needs to do any integration work, please give us a contact
For decriminalized nature, you can find us at decriminalized nature.org
We're going to be putting out a new website probably the next or an updated website in the next month probably our goals have
It done pretty soon. Uh, and then um, or decriminalized nature on instagram
Decriminalized nature on twitter. If you want to find us for integration work or myself and integration work, you can go
(46:12):
URI, Enthusiastic Research Integration Education. It's URI vision
E-R-I-E-V-I-S-I-O-N dot org or on instagram or facebook
And then for me and my personal pages on instagram lary norris phd
So that's a good way to contact and love to talk to anyone about all the things we talked about plus also
Learning how to do policy and really at the end of the day, you know, I said this the other day it's somebody that you know, it's our
(46:35):
It's our duty to protect consciousness and there's not anyone else out there that's going to do it for us. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah
Get together, grab your community
This is no time better than now when we're in this sort of fluctuation of paradigms that we're in
To be able to say, hey, you know what this corner consciousness that we need to really stand up for and I think that's what's really important here
Especially when it comes to relationships with plants and mushrooms that type of thing. So, uh, yeah
(46:58):
It's been really great chatting with you and I look forward to more
Ah, that was a great sign off larry lava your superhero name
um, and uh, yes, we will definitely come have you back on and we'll talk a little bit more about policy
I think also like legalese and like that whole language would be really fun to like dive into of of that because
(47:19):
Everything is just like language and narratives and storytelling and even as we talk about like the mystical realms
I love that we talked more about like your stories. I learned so much about you and I love I love that because
Uh, you do embody a lot of um that energy in how you've like organized the crime nature like the calls that we have
Is you you're a great um leader for that
(47:39):
Kind of stuff and so like truly a warrior of the earth and so since so great having you on the show
I'm going to log off. I'm gonna stop streaming going live and then I'll say goodbye to you on
Our little chat chat. All right. Bye everybody until next time
Hello star seeds and magical friends and welcome back to the truth beauty freedom and love show
(00:05):
Welcome to the show. I am your host Rachel Z and I'm here with a very special guest Larry from decriminalized nature
We are going to go into stories of being I'm going to call it like earth warrior stories
That just came to the top of my head and also stories that have influenced you and
Your childhood past lives anything across the board because stories those who tell the stories do rule the world and so
(00:29):
Let's take the power back in our stories and that's what this show is all about
So Larry is
The astro stack right now that we have because as you guys know, I relate our astrology blueprint to what our superhero
Identity is in this realm. So Larry's a Scorpio, which I find quite fitting with a Libra moon
(00:51):
Also fitting I think as well because we are in Libra season and we having we're having a sense of justice
I think activated in all of us right now, but Larry you're gonna have that close to your emotional state of like having
justice and truth at the core of everything and being an Aries rising it means that
You're kind of born here to be a warrior and you know initiate things
(01:11):
So that's a great astro stack to have so I will throw it to you Larry to give us your
introduction
As you see it so far welcome
Thank you Rachel. Thanks for inviting me on. It's always a pleasure to chat with you
And so I imagine this conversation is going to be wonderful. You always bring in the fun magical
Oh, yes, let's go into the room
(01:32):
Exactly
Per my Scorpio, I'll get into the mystery and the depths with no problems. So let's dive in and go deep
Love love conversations around consciousness. I'm originally from Michigan area
Not too far outside of where you're at
outside the trade area. You know spent a lot of time there. I did a lot of you know, Michigan is
(01:55):
Not well known for all of its nature and natural beauty
But surrounded by lakes and it has lots of forests and all these different types of things
So I really spent a lot of time in nature around the water and I was younger which was great
you know helping me sort of
Learn about life so to speak and then went to school at the University of Michigan
Um, we actually studied neuroscience or it was called biosecology and cognitive science at the time for neuroscience technically existed
(02:18):
So that's kind of how how young we are still in this realm, which is kind of amazing
Was having some mushroom experiences at the same time and was very
Frustrated that I was going to this, you know
So-called prestigious university and then didn't know anything about the inner experience
You know it talked about what's going on in the brain. It talks about the neuroscience
But when you talk about like hey, I had this very strange and profound otherworldly multi-dimensional spiritual
(02:43):
Whatever you want to call a type experience sacred experience. There was no there's no context for that
It was always drugs of abuse brain and behavior or let's do this animal researcher
Let's count these dots or let's do this fmri and all that kind of stuff
But it wasn't really about these inner experiences
So I had sort of a a little bit of a crisis of identity so to speak and
How old were you when that when that happened?
(03:03):
It's about 17, 18, 19, 20 years old around that time frame, you know, okay?
And so this is like 94 to 98 basically
So
Yeah, and then I had to do some animal research for my classes, but I'm also doing my mushroom experiences
So, you know, I would go do some mushroom experiences the next morning. I have to quote unquote, you know
I'm calling it torturing, but you know, they would say it's science, right? But do that in the morning
(03:28):
It was just kind of a hard thing and realizing like oh, I'm not
Yeah, the psyche of all that and having to play yeah
So so I got really interested in like, you know, kind of the inner experience of qualitative nature
Obviously in my second electric experiences were pretty profound. I did a long road trip around the us actually went to
Visit a bunch of professors and other people around the us that were doing this research
(03:50):
But they were kind of hiding it behind other research
So I was like, okay, I'm gonna take a little break and move to Hawaii
So it's been about 11 years of Hawaii and Maui, which is really great
I didn't know that
Yeah, yeah, so it's nice to go from Detroit area, which was very much even though there's a lot of nature
Still industry and still kind of car town and kind of like
Forget that you have a body
(04:12):
Yeah, exactly, you're perfectly covered up and going to Hawaii where all of a sudden like, oh, okay
I can be in the water all time. There's you know, then before there's these craters
You swim with dolphins and swim with whales and like, oh, yeah
Wait, I have this thing that's connected to the earth in a different kind of way
Then just like think about a scene and observing it but actually feeling and being a part of it
And so that was really really profound for me, you know
Those 11 years were very I think important in my sort of development as well
(04:36):
Unfortunately the town that I lived in burdened down a few years ago behind us
I was there by year and a half ago now. So that was pretty pretty sad a lot of folks throughout there
You know, I know some folks that lost a lot of their stuff had to you know
Figure something out and you know all the places that I lived all the places I worked at all the places that I knew
Or gone now. So it was a different kind of grieving when that happens
(04:58):
It's nice like you can grieve a person you can grieve it on a timeline
But when you're grieving a place the timeline is like all over the place like oh, I remember doing this thing over here
And so I was trying to watch myself capture moments in time
Thinking that they would slip away because that I can't go back to that location and reaccess those memories. So
So yeah, so that was a little bit of a bummer that that happened and of course, you know, it wasn't well
(05:19):
We'll take the care of I'm sure Oprah and the rock. Oh my gosh, that was a lot of money
nobody
Exactly. So unfortunately, that's the people there still hurting and suffering but uh, but yeah, I
eventually moved back from the from Hawaii to the mainland in 2009
(05:41):
You know, I was there I was you know came across ayahuasca, which is very interesting to me
Went on the brazil a few times to study that and then I was like, yeah, I'm very fascinated by this
experience who is different than my mushroom experiences which I was able to sort of say my mushroom experiences are at least
Coming from a neuroscience mind or a cognitive psych mind. I was able to say oh, this is just my higher consciousness
(06:02):
But we still don't know what it is. It's still beyond everything we're talking about but it's part of me on a different level
uh, ayahuasca and I've said this on a few other podcasts ayahuasca forced me to have to recognize or
uh, at least address
the idea or the sensation of
A plant teacher plant guide plant spirit that this is a conversation. I'm having it's not just my higher self
(06:24):
It's that I'm in a relationship with this plant and what does that mean?
What are the kind what is what is that?
What are the implications of that for understanding of consciousness of understanding the nature of reality of our understanding of what plants are
And animals are humans are anyway, you know, so so that was really fascinating. Um, I went back to
Sorry to
Sorry to break into like just to ask a quick question about how your ayahuasca experience
(06:47):
Differed from your mushroom experience because I consider both of those uh
those to be like, you know of the earth, right but
Uh, what you've said about ayah is uh, it's similar to like you have like almost like that jungle earthy
consciousness self, uh, and you would you say mushy's are more of almost like
Like could you explain like maybe the differentiation between those two?
(07:09):
Yeah
Yeah, totally. Um
And you know, this has been kind of a back and forth
uh, the the mushrooms feel
more playful and
They know where your edges are and they'll take you to it and maybe they're a little trickstery and maybe they're you know
(07:29):
Um, they're they're decomposers, you know, so they're gonna decompose stuff
How sometimes you're not going to be out and about doing stuff, but you know either with ayahuasca either
Um, but like that was kind of my sense playful childlike, you know, but you know, and
Yeah, exactly. But you know still, you know, very visual for me and very very interesting and like I said, uh,
You know really expanded my understanding of consciousness, which you know pre my mushroom experiences was that consciousness exists right in this little area
(07:55):
So I'm so happy. I don't think that anymore. I think about that all with the policy. How many people live their lives?
thinking that it's just like
That's just it right here, you know and like just just that alone
Forget all the mental health get everything else just that alone the idea that there is more to consciousness
And we have the right to be able to explore that is is you know
(08:17):
Feeling aside, that's an important human right, you know, just to understand what it's like to be human being with consciousness
So anyway, so that's that's mushrooms and when it came to ayahuasca ayahuasca was like
much deeper
Had a I don't want to say more wisdom because I don't want to like try and compare in that part
but it felt like there was more of like a
Little less playful and more like hey, you got to do some work here, you know, like I had one of my I think my fourth
(08:40):
ayahuasca experience was this beautiful
You know, I always think about this is like, you know this beautiful crystalline
transparent castle where like all the elders and the teachers were
huge festival
And then like the experience was over and it's like, okay now you've seen it now get to work and then it was just like
for the next like 20 or 30 experiences like deep
(09:01):
Deep deep work and just grinding and grinding and grinding, you know and going to all these spaces and
That vision though you have of like a party like a really like awesome the most amazing etheric party
That's like waiting for you if we can just like figure out everything is
I've had that one
Yeah, sure. I think it's like I think that's like the uh the draw to keep doing your work because you're like, oh, I want to go back there
(09:24):
Yeah, so yeah
hard work now, okay, so
But one thing about the ayahuasca was that it definitely like it definitely was it felt like there was like I said this
Things that I never gonna imagine were coming into my mind places and visions that could never even expect to have
Expected were coming up. So there's like the sense of like, okay. I'm in this dialogue now
What's interesting and now we're going a little bit more about mushrooms. It's not surprising because mushrooms are
(09:50):
Chemically like a little ayahuasca factory while they have I mean, I like that description
I like that description. Yeah a minor amount because they have a the tryptomines and they have the beta carveline
So that's what with uh ayahuasca. You have the dnt and the mao is so you have the same sort of system
Again, it's not quite as pronounced as it is with ayahuasca. But what I found with my mushroom experiences now is that
(10:13):
Remember I said before they kind of know where your edges are. Yes. Yeah, they know you so it's kind of like
ayahuasca
blows out your edges
You know, it's like you have no more edges or the edges are like way out there now, right?
And so now the mushrooms are like, oh
You know about that spot. All right, let's go. So sometimes my mushroom experiences now
Are like am I having an ayahuasca experience super practically super otherworldly super out there?
(10:36):
You know things that I wouldn't have expected
For my previous mushroom experiences if I hadn't had the ayahuasca. It's almost like I uh, like I have pushed out your uh
Your etheric map more, right?
And so much is like, oh like now you have like that like groundwork now
I can like take you on the path on some like
Some journeys and submissions in these terra terrains now that you've discovered
Exactly little side quests things like that. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so that's kind of that's kind of was really fascinating to me
(11:03):
And watching people have these like, you know sudden ships of you know personality
The paradigm of narrative that type of thing. Um, and so uh, so I went to california and student for a study to do some more research
We got the parent's scholarship at some point in time, which was uh, you know doing entheogenic research
So I went down to brazil and I was working with we said about a Luna who's done a lot of work with poppo moringo and
(11:23):
terms mckinnon and up those folks back in the day
I'm still doing a lot of good work down there as a consciousness center down there and so he um, you know
He and I worked together and we just basically went through these like, you know
hundreds of experience reports and trying to figure out what types of experiences people are are sort of engaging in
And um, and that was really fascinating to me
Just kind of get a sense because I also do integration work
(11:43):
Which is like helping people back when they have a big strong paradigm shattering experience. What do you do with it?
How do you deal with that information? How do you handle it? How do you rebuild a new paradigm?
Those are super important questions. Larry. I think I like that just for these like we're also in a paradigm shattering cultural moment right now
And so I think those two are useful across the board
(12:03):
Because what do you do when you no longer everything you believed in is gone?
Or everything you knew was a lie or every story you've been told has been some sort of agenda or it's
True is really really hard sometimes
Yeah, exactly. So sometimes it's good just like figure out. Okay. Where do you start? Where do you start when there's no more ground?
Where do you start when you're flailing, you know, and that's kind of what I was trying to focus on there
(12:25):
Also in that time I created an organization called theogenic research integration and education
Which is doing like peer integration circles, which is basically like storytelling narrative building sharing your experiences
It's such a beautiful profound experience for me because it's like, you know, if we believe that what people are sharing in their stories is their
Snapshot of consciousness
Then we're constantly getting a larger again expanding our view of what is out there. What's possible
(12:50):
I mean, and if we believe that there is something as a
unit of consciousness or a
Collective unconscious if you will or an accessible area archetypes
Then we should be able to all go to the same places and if we figure out how to sort of
Navigate then we can help each other find our way around the space that seems
Unnavigable right now. Yeah. No, you are. Oh my gosh. You're like that the sharing of stories thing is so is so key
(13:16):
I'm so like happy that you
So do you still have those those those sharing circles?
Yeah, we do. I mean, uh, once cove would happen
We were doing a more online because we lost the space that we're, you know, doing them here
Um, but yeah, we still do those, you know monthly and and then I still do one at one stop
And then we're just looking at a spot around here to do it in person
(13:37):
It's much easier to do in person than online
Anyway, because there's so much stuff with tech, you know, it's nice that we can connect from Toronto to the Bay Area
But at the same time I would much rather be in person and you get to feel the person differently
You get to see oh, they're tapping their foot. Maybe they're uncomfortable or this, you know
All the different cues that you don't see in this little box two-dimensional box that we're in right now come more clear
(13:57):
We can create these circles
But people are coming out of those things and you know when we were doing this in 2011, you know
You know, it's still kind of poot a little bit like oh, that's just people's egos talking
But I watched so many people come together
Connect with each other and friendships built off of this and you know, then I started to help do
Uh workshop and train people all around just trying to be pure integration circles
So now you see pure integration circles everywhere
(14:17):
You see integration is like a major component to our policy and everything like that which is great
And then in 2019, uh, I co-funded Declinlized Nature with a bunch of other folks
And then from there, you know, we passed in Oakland, California in 2019 and since then I think
26 or 27 cities and counties across the u.s
(14:37):
Have passed similar policy
We had a pretty strong influence on all that including influence with some of the statewide policy
We're going to be trying to help out in canada and if any of your listeners out there want to do anything or varying
Come join us come join the site. Yeah
Yeah, we'd love to help out and you know the large the larger our community is the better it is because you know
There's a lot of folks out there that are ally adjacent
(15:00):
Like they want to really go on a hardcore medicalization framework. Okay. Well medicalization
$22,000 price tag or it means you have to sit with a doctor in a doctor's office while they're taking notes and recording you
And you're getting that information as kept on file and you know, who wants to have their trip on file with state?
You know, like I'm sorry. Yeah, no, that's for me. Oh my gosh. Okay. You just you just open the door into like a wonderful topic because
(15:25):
Like I am in canada, right? And like as you can see, I love mushrooms. They're they're my background. I
Oh, the meshes a lot. I was in the corporate world for a very long time. My husband is
Is my shaman we do like epic heroic dose mushroom trips and uh in there I discovered that like
You know, you as you said the shattering of your paradigm, right?
(15:45):
And then working in the corporate world and being like, I literally can't do this anymore
Like you just you can't you can't pretend and the mask
Doesn't fit me more because I can't do this anymore. But in canada, uh, I wanted to talk about the
The languaging of things and when I first reached out to you to uh to work with you for decriminal nature is that
the big thing that resonated with me was
(16:08):
uh
Using words like entheogen the concept of decriminalizing nature as opposed to legalizing
Because in canada we have legalized marijuana. But what that's done
Is actually I feel like it's it's it's become worse
Because it's sound like
I literally on my street have three government weed shops and I go to none of them. I go to the unlicensed ones
(16:33):
Because they don't they they have um dosing limits, right? So the edibles can't be more than uh
10 milligrams I think for serving
And so it's just kind of like so people the the nuance between legalization and decriminalization
Can you explain that a little bit in terms of how uh, yeah, sure how you came to it?
Yeah, so, uh, so there's a couple things uh, we'll go enthegens negadelic
(16:57):
Then we'll go decrim and legalization. Yes before you go into that
I want to touch on something that I've been seeing going around twitter. I don't know twitter x whatever
whatever that is
I think it's hilarious because it taps into exactly what you're talking about
Uh moment ago about paradigm shattering and being in one sort of situation and then realizing like oh, yeah
I gotta figure something out here
(17:17):
It's funny because it's again, here's two different paradigms seeing exactly the same thing in two different two different ways
So the the response was there was a whole bunch of venture capitalists right now who are like
Oh, my venture capitalist friend went into ayahuasca and they realized what they were doing wasn't in integrity
And then they stopped doing what bc work and now they're just like taking them to their mind being lazy and taking time off
(17:40):
And being with themselves and so you had the same story which is like bc person quits bc job because of ayahuasca
Psychedelic and enthegenic people are like yes, it's doing what it's supposed to be doing the bc person is like no
This is horrible. This is the worst thing
Activity we're not what's going on
Productivity is going down no no
So it's really funny to see this dynamic where you have again two paradigms talking about the same thing and their view of it
(18:06):
Is totally different, you know
What's happening and we're talking about mental health what they're actually doing is taking care of their mental health in a lot of these situations
You know the reason that
And the other person's like no mental health, you know, we just got to do the bc thing
We got to you know, I don't even know the the jargon of the terms for that
But you know do our thing or whatever that is, you know, so so just kind of funny to see that but
(18:26):
But that was just kind of a little side note because I think as we're going into this space where there's a lot of
you know, there's this
This guy named geppser king geppser was out of a
Placifer out of germany and he talks about these mutations of consciousness over time
So it's not an evolution of consciousness because we don't know if the next one's going to be better or worse
Than the previous one so we can't say this we're coming into is going to be this is the best version because it's you know closer to where we are now
(18:52):
But he does say it's a mutation. There's a shift in consciousness. So he goes through he kind of mapped it over time
He's like in there's a kick mutation of consciousness, which is like you are the one
Then there's a magic mutation of consciousness, which is like you're engaging with nature to make magical things happen
Right, then there's the mythic layer of consciousness, which is you're telling stories
(19:14):
About the magical person who does things that make sure to make things happen that are magical
Then you have the mental stage of consciousness, which is where we're at right now, which is we have to measure
The myth or the magic and if it doesn't measure it doesn't exist, right?
And then now he's saying we're going into this integral state where all these different
Mutations of consciousness will come together in one space and try and figure out how to commingle and so that's kind of where we're at right now
(19:37):
We're in this very interesting space
That's the way that you explain that
I'm sure you're a chronomical dream
The way you explain that is like I love that that just like that resonated hard
Yeah
Yeah, totally. Yeah, and so and then we're in this trend, you know
Astralomically we're in this very unusual time very similar to from what I understand the counterculture of the 60s and civil rights movement
(19:58):
Everything else is kind of the same stars in the sky and everything that's going on etc etc
You know the word better than I do in that but from what I understand
Including the fall of Rome, right? Fall of Rome is also we're also in that same kind of cosmological like
Yeah
Some meme out there is something like oh uh when somebody said how are you preparing for fall?
(20:20):
I thought the amount of civilization in that autumn
How are you preparing for the fall?
The fall
No, no the fall, you know, it's the fall
But it's uh, yeah, no, but like it's it's crazy how you mentioned the idea of
uh, almost like these like spheres of
Because everything's a model, right? Um, I feel like that's where sometimes
(20:45):
People can sometimes get caught up and that's why I love like your whole like peer-sharing circles because
You know in archetypes in symbolism in like story
We're able to talk about ineffable things
Because like I can't make a powerpoint presentation to show you like the dimensions of reality and how those actually
Are like seen and how you would traverse them
(21:07):
So uh going back to uh, I guess the the difference in like languageing right between like when you created uh, when you
How long has decrypt nature been around?
Yeah, so we started in 2019 and and you know, we had a really
lot, I mean technically we started 2018 but 2019 was when we were like kind of you know, it was december 2018 january 2019
(21:28):
But we had a lot of conversation around exactly we were saying narratives words
Realizing that language creates reality
How are we planning on creating our reality?
You know, even I'm hearing people say things like oh, is this protected by law? Like it's not no, it's not
We're not asking any law to protect us. We're asking for our rights and our human rights to be human being
We don't need any protection of law. We need them to stop arresting, right?
(21:51):
So anyway, so we had a lot of conversations around the language and what to use
Um one thing we decided upon was talking about entheogen versus psychedelic
Yeah psychedelic which kind of scoped to this like era of time the 1960s 1970s
Um, you know, it was culture and music and art
But you really wouldn't call an ayahuasca ceremony or a bogus ceremony psychedelic
So there's a group of anthropologists named rough other folks that came up with this other term
(22:15):
Which is really meant to sort of speak to this larger continuum of these experiences that wasn't so western
San Francisco Bay Area
60s cultural counter movement that type of thing. So as they came up with the word entheogen
Which you know, there's a lot of people that are describing it
But basically and base level means generating the divine within or possessed by inspiration
(22:37):
Or enthusiasm like all these are kind of from the same idea that
Thing that's coming from the inside that we can sort of tap into or this inner experience
Oftentimes it also speaks to the idea of plants and mushrooms more so than synthetics
That there's anything necessarily wrong and you can make some good arguments that synthetics are also entheogenic
(22:57):
But typically entheogen means comes with a history of practice
Yeah, it comes with traditions that have been worked out for you have your DMTs
You have your snuffs you have your ayahuasca's you have your kakdai you have your mushrooms and these different types of things
Your bogus those are kind of all entheogenic plants and fungi as far as how we see it
So initially I was like, you know, my other organization is called the entheogenic research integration education
(23:18):
People don't know what the word means really, you know, people are going to stumble over
If something comes to wrong, you know, I'm coming from 10 years of baggage of having to like try and bring this word out in the world
And you know, try to make entheogen happen
Perfect, but now now everyone is like, no, let's do it because and rightly so, you know
I'd rather spend two minutes redefining what entheogen means than spend all the time it takes to unpack 60 years of baggage that comes with psychedelic
(23:45):
There's no matter what, no matter who you are, if you hear the term psychedelic, an image pops up
A vision of something pops up, you have a maybe it's good, maybe it's bad, whatever it is, there's something there
So we wanted a chance to like start from scratch
I love that
Most people didn't know what entheogen means, now it's kind of funny to see like in, you know, public policy all over the U.S.
(24:07):
Newscasters talking about it, city council members talking about it, law enforcement talking about it
You've made it real
Spirit of the heart, I mean, it was real, but now it's like it's coming out, you know
And to even see, for example, and I know like I was saying earlier people have sometimes trouble pronouncing it like, oh, they read it wrong
Ethno, ethno, ethno
(24:27):
Ethno, etude
So even, yeah, exactly, so, but even like newscasters and I think for me it's like, oh, it's psychedelic is trying to come out of their mouth
But they're forced to say this new word and they stumble on it because it's not really that difficult to a word but get all of a sudden it's
like, you know, you're stumble, I always think, okay, that's the baggage of psychedelic trying to think it's without so
So that's what entheogen and psychedelic on the decrymen legalization
(24:49):
That's a whole other thing too and you make a good point which is like, you know
You know, a lot of people say that legalization is basically prohibition life
is like if you
state for your license fees and you're within this box
You're okay, but if you're doing it any other way, you're growing your own at home. No, that's not allowed
We can't have that we need you to go through this authority for why do I need a license?
(25:09):
Why do I need to go to this authority figure to grow a plant?
We've been growing plants for the beginning since the beginning time or mushrooms since the beginning time like
Why all of a sudden now do I have to be okayed by you in order to partake in my human rights?
So so we said, hey, let's let's really get a face level here
You know, all that stuff's gonna happen those people with all the money you're gonna try to make things legalized
They're gonna try and do whatever they're gonna do, you know, as we see in Oregon
(25:30):
We see in you know, um,
I'm Colorado Oregon model is way expensive the Colorado legalization model the car model is great there the Colorado
You know legal or legalization models also going to be expensive, you know, that's three to five thousand dollars for a single experience
Think about how much of a mushroom you could buy or grow with
And then the MDMA trials that didn't make it through
FDA with maps that was going to be twenty two thousand dollars for an experience
(25:52):
Like imagine how much MDMA
To me, how do you come up with those numbers though? Like how does that how does one determine the value of I mean like
It's it's you can't
So for
Right. Yeah. So for Oregon, it's like based upon, you know
hourly
(26:12):
Plus things
Licensing fees plus registration. Oh, you know, all that kind of stuff on the medical level is probably the same thing on 22 grand
But now you're having to deal with two doctors or to have a higher per hour and you're looking at the level rate for each of us
hours plus free and
You know, they're on it's like tap on every different possibility to make you say, oh, yeah
We need to pay more. We need to pay more, you know, but at the end of the day, it's like it's taking it away from people
(26:36):
You know, who's gonna who even insurance who's gonna charge you 22 grand?
You have to have like a very strong treatment resistant situation for insurance to be thrown out of 22 grand
Price tag for an eight hour session. Basically, right? So
So, yeah, so uh, so we were like, hey, okay, let's do something different. Let's remove the criminal penalties
Let's make sure that people are able to engage in their own and we talked about that too is like nature can be patented
(26:59):
So, you know while they're trying to patent these synthetic chemicals and things like that
You probably know this from pharmaceutical world. You're in, you know, you can't really patent nature
So we're like, okay
Well, how do we get ahead of these companies that are already trying to patent things and you know
Some companies were even going as far as like throwing spaghetti on the wall and saying, okay
If you're holding hands, that's part of our claim if you're on a couch that's part of the claim if you use music
That's part of the claims like wow
(27:20):
There's one person that like actually did patented. I think it actually went through mixing cannabis and mushrooms
It's like wow, there's there's no prior to that. I'm sure like you've been doing that for a century. You know what I mean?
So, uh, so anyway, so so that's the problem when it comes to anything that's publicly traded
You got to have your ip you got to do all that kind of stuff and then what you start doing that
It's to the whims of you know, the capitalist system and you know, you know, the
(27:44):
The person tries to do things that are good at people but not necessarily for the good of healing
They could get dropped off because you know, their shareholders want profit, etc. etc. investors want profit
So that becomes problematic. So anyway, that's going to be delayed for a while because the FDA trials didn't make it
Um for a variety of reasons including the fact that the FDA naturally can't measure these things and so
You know, there's always going to be placebo issues. There's always going to be expectancy issues
(28:07):
The issues are on variability with therapists may use them to things so but in the meantime, we know for thousands and thousands of years
You know, people have been doing these safe. Yes. Yes. I'm responsible
I think I think the ran report there's some ran corporation did a report and they said I think close to 8 million people had a mushroom experience last year
And of those people 50 of them
(28:28):
Uh, didn't pay for it at all or they grew for their own, you know
So so from the perspective of people who are like, oh, I'm gonna roll in here and make my cannabis billions
It's not going to happen
Especially because now everyone's learning how to grow and now there's probably you know
10,000 more people that are doing mushrooms in Oakland than ever were before and that's triples out because one person can grow
Way more than you can ingest in here, you know that you want to you know
(28:50):
One's no one's eating two ounces of mushrooms a year or three ounces of mushrooms or whatever does the answer
If you're doing it right and you're having these big experiences, you're gonna take a little
You need to take time in between the heroic journeys. You definitely do integration like real like and like sifting through all of that
right and so I feel like uh
All the medical model stuff doesn't deal as you were saying like the mystical stuff though the woo-woo stuff the magical things like um
(29:14):
I read a book once that basically talked about how you know like in all of our fictional tales and all of our mythos is a truth
Right, so it's how we can speak about real truths without
you know flagging
The powers that are in that's what I call it in terms of that but I feel like uh
When we're talking about legalization versus decriminalization, it's like we don't want to be punished for exploring our own consciousness
(29:40):
and so uh
Here in Canada, I feel like it's a little bit of a tricky situation when we talk about the medical model because I used to work in the hospital
I used to work with pharma and
It's just it's like if you aren't licensed and you're not doing it in our way
We will punish you for it
Even though you're trying to like it so it's it's just very um
(30:05):
It's it's tough right so but then at the same time you don't want necessarily people
Uh doing heroic doses of mushrooms
Uh without being aware of what they could be in for
Right, uh, I think and things coming up and like the idea of a bad trip and all of those kinds of things
Have you seen that in terms of like your peer stories of people doing um
(30:25):
Really epic doses and then like having a really hard time coming back to real life
I mean, I think that's what's interesting about this is that you know, there are more people at at some
rock concert or festival
This weekend
Then there were all the people that have done the clinical trials. Yeah, and yet we're all concerned about somebody having a bad trip
(30:51):
Millions eight million people at the great point at a mushroom trip
And maybe three had I mean, I hand us. Okay. Yeah bad trips happen
Or challenging trips or everyone across but but at the same time like, you know, how we all learn, you know
There's no there's no true informed consent with us. We're talking about a
Reload to this we're talking about an expansion that you can't be aware of without knowing and having had it, you know
(31:13):
so, you know, you know millions and millions and millions and millions of people have kind of just
Okay, I'm gonna try it out, you know, and so yes, go low go slow figure your way out, you know
But I and other friends of mine have been like, oh, well the dose is a bag
So whatever's in that bag is one dose and I have friends that has seven gram quarter bag
And they're like, oh, because they think it's one dose or yeah, so those different types of things. Yeah
(31:34):
We're gonna have a good experience but but you know
I think in terms of like difficult or challenging trips, that's where integration really comes into play
You can't you know, anyone can have no matter how prepared you are. Yeah, anyone can have a different
You know
But the idea is like, okay, how do I breathe in this while I'm having it realizing this will be over in a few hours
And that who do I get to support me afterwards or help me out afterwards during the experience, you know in a way
(32:00):
You know while there's a lot of people who are like, oh, I want to sit for somebody, you know, all that kind of thing
And that's good, you know, and maybe you know, I really I'm kind of lesse faire in terms of my my sitting approach
You know, I'm saying like I'm more of a sitter as in like I'm you needing water. How's the music don't bump your head
Light okay, you're good and I'm out of it. You know and that person's having their own experience with that
(32:24):
You have these other people who are like, oh, we need to do psychotherapy with the person while they're doing this is like, no
What's this going through you take a note at the wrong time or you say a word the wrong way that person's gonna spin out
because you are inside
And influence it that's where this whole thing my first suggestibility comes in
You look at all the weird stuff that went on with the CIA and I'm Pia Littro and all that kind of stuff for their kind of
(32:49):
Tapping into this hyper suggestibility issue saying, oh, can we do this for rain washing or other different types of things like that?
Like of course they weren't able to find much results without luckily
They were fine that didn't really help soldiers too much, you know, they wanted to hug trees instead of shooting people
the PCs
This is the worst
It's making me turning people into peaceful hippies
You know what that brings up a good question that I thought about just uh, what is your thought on
(33:12):
Uh, the idea of like when you solo trip versus like when you're doing a group trip
Because uh, like myself and my husband do we trip together, right?
And so like we've actually you travel to those same realms together and then like you experience things like telepathy and like what that means and so I mean
That being said though
You don't think people have different
Let's call them belts
(33:33):
Like in theo jag or like psychedelic belts in terms of how far you've gone have gone and so um, I feel like sometimes
in like a group setting
Uh, if you have people of different levels
Partaking in like and they don't know where their thresholds are like you can have like a group like the
Yeah, yeah, just go with that like uh, what would you how do you feel in terms like solo tripping versus like group tripping and like uh, do you have any uh
(33:58):
Thoughts in terms of like you prefer one way or another. I guess like everything has its place. I think ultimately but yeah thoughts on that group tripping versus solo tripping. Yeah, yeah definitely. I mean and there's different levels of groups too, you know, so
100% yeah
I personally because this is how I learned my own self
(34:19):
Uh, very much into a solo trip or one other person trip. I was very lucky to have my my first uh
trip
Person was I don't know how she was you know, I'm 19 years old and you know, she also 19 and
She just knew about the inner world everyone else. I knew that was doing mushroom was out. Oh, let's go to this thing
(34:40):
Let's go to this thing. She's like no no no you sit and you close your eyes
Like what you do what like just sit and close your eyes and her name was phoenix, which is a great name for a person
That's really showing you how to do your inner she could
Oh, I love that
That's like that's literally that's like your superhero origin story. Clary like
Thanks if you're out there listening
(35:04):
Yeah, so that so that was really great and I think for me really a good way to sort of tap into sort of this these initial experiences, but um
But you know, uh, you know, we would have strange experiences the two of us
Or you know, just doing by myself the same sort of thing
You know, it's like you have a different more sort of intimate, you know, sort of experience and I've had some really really powerful and profound
(35:25):
Like you say telepathy or yeah, I had one partner one time that we we were doing
We were journeying and we were having like as a tail end of our journey. We were doing an eye gazing thing
And so while we were doing this
We it was like for me and as she said this too for her like
Here's my shirt saying
(35:46):
Yeah, I know it's perfect like you're telling the story actually, right? So
Right, so uh, so we're looking at each other and on each side of her head
The environment we would like you feel like a drop in my belly and then the environment would shift
And it'd be like, oh, this is us doing the same thing in this other world
And then you guys are like dimension jumping and you had like a little bubble
(36:07):
Infinite
Yeah, exactly exactly. So what what is going on when we're exploring that is that possible?
Like what's what's happening there? And you know and people a lot of the folks out of Detroit the clingy ee community
They do a lot of work with really large doses of mushrooms, but they do it for astral travel
They do it for reading ancient sacred texts
He believed that the hieroglyphics were not supposed to be seen with two dimensional eyes
(36:27):
They're meant to see through mushroom eyes, you know or other type of sort of
Antigenic, you know vision on visionary eyes so to speak
So yeah, so that's
All the things we can do when you can focus on consciousness and exploration that type of thing now
That's kind of on a smaller group. So then there's like the sort of medium group size, which is like, okay
you have you know a handful of folks and
You know, those would be maybe you know
(36:48):
Fun for like, you know, sometimes many journeys, you know by mushrooms or sometimes by ayahuasca
You usually have these sort of smaller groups, you know tend some people or usually in a dark room
with mushroom journeys, you know, sometimes I find that
You know
It doesn't quite flow as well as with the ayahuasca journey that think because there's just like a there's such a
Ritual that's usually set up around the ayahuasca
(37:12):
The drumming and all the saplatos are all the things that happen with that. But but I tell you what
The first time for me one of the biggest things about group setting in that regard was okay
Yeah, you know, I wasn't so worried about like, you know, quote unquote going too far, you know
Because it's like, okay, it's dark and I can just lay on my mattress. I've you know had enough experiences where I know how to do that
(37:34):
Right. Yeah, for me the hardest part was um navigating the nausea
Oh
And I'm not supposed to be thrown up or getting sick, you know the kind of stories against stories that we tell ourselves, right?
Like I can't be the one to be
Of course, then you'll get sick as a result of that right sure or or what happened
No, I thought was that I would like um leave the room to go to the restroom
(37:58):
To take care of what I need to do and then come back
Well, what happens when we do that is it breaks your trip?
You know, you're journeying you're on a journey. You have to open your eyes find your way to the bathroom
Do your thing find your way back and where your eye is gone?
The first time I actually you know purged, you know in in the group setting was super powerful
Because I was able to really kind of go like use that nausea to kind of like take me further and further out into the
(38:23):
Sort of the realms, right?
And I'd have to leave and interrupt it so I could kind of get right up to the edge there
Um and also just the sense of relief and the release that happens and feeling like everyone in the room is like, it's okay
You know, we're all here
Somebody else on the other side of the room that's purging and feeling like okay. Wow. They really got through something there
You know this sense of purge
(38:45):
shame right you're purging out like the shame of doing that in front of people and so like for that to be accepted
It's just like hey, it's it's actually okay. It's like we're human beings. So
Exactly so yeah, so that's
That's like a mid set mid range group setting which I think is you know good and has some value to it
I mean, obviously is with anything, you know, you might have somebody that's having a difficult journey
(39:08):
Or some that's having a really difficult journey
And so that's gonna like and need into your journey
But again, then you really see it as like everyone's healing together and there's more camaraderie
I can't tell you how many I was cause experiences I've been to where you don't know anybody
And you come out of it best friends like you know, or you know, it's like what happened right?
It's like what happened right? Right exactly
(39:29):
And then you have some more of the kind of the church style settings
Yeah, I haven't really been to official official church, but I have been into a lot of like, you know, kind of adjacent settings
to that or you know
40 people 50 people type things and that's that's a little bit more
I mean, I don't mind it because again almost you have this sort of value back to being anonymous again because there's so many people there that
(39:51):
You know, you can do your thing and no one's really probably notice it
But the energy of the circle is different and you can find yourself caught in like little vortexes in the corner
And all of a sudden you're dealing with like 40 people stuff
You know because you just happen to be in the wrong space in the room and also be like, wow, this is
big
Like big waves or if people are all taking whatever you're taking right so I look as like each of the substances are almost like
(40:15):
They're keys to different universes, right? So you have like almost like all of these kind of
worlds bumping into each other and so it can be a bit hectic what you said about like mini vortexes
I was like, that's a great way to describe it, right? Because we're mini universes and so as we like
Collide with others it can create like I think it's not not to say you want to control everything but uh, it's very difficult to have
(40:40):
Uh, I feel like a large large setting like that unless it's like ritualized perhaps like I think some of those like are
Were some of them like Santo Daime at all or uh, I mean there uh one was uh, uh
Santo Daime adjacent, you know what I'm saying? They weren't Santo Daime but they were doing something similar
That's not official church or something
(41:01):
For a decent ritual, right? Or right, yeah
Um, so yeah, so yeah, I agree in terms of raves or festivals, you know, I mean coming outside Detroit
There's a lot of pretty amazing parties in that industry. Yeah, Detroit for technical is a big part of that
in my uh my younger years as well. So, you know a lot of like we you know
Detroit parties where no one you know you get there and it's so different than here in the Bay Area, right?
(41:23):
In Detroit you wore like a black hoodie and
You got a base and then you dance all over here
Here's like colorful flamboyant everyone's got all this stuff going on
I was like no one to do that in Detroit because they're just like all right get to the party
And then we're gonna you know and then and then no one to leave the party at night because no one
Want to be walking around Detroit at three four in the morning
So everyone would stay till sunrise. So that was kind of my situation. Uh, but you know
(41:44):
Yeah, I definitely agree like some places like Burning Man
I mean that's a lot of people to be having a journey at the same time
But everyone's doing at different places and that type of thing and I had some really strange trips about
strange strange trips at Burning Man 2 where almost like I'd like visualize it as like uh
Like the spiral and like every walk around
You never
You know
(42:08):
That's a quite a bit so uh, so yeah, so that's like a whole new level 80,000 people versus you know
Just you yourself there's gonna be some differences, of course, but oh, yeah, I you know if I had a choice
It would be myself or maybe with one of the person
Um, you know to to have a journey that's kind of my preference. Yeah, definitely
I realized that we are almost at time of this show Mary
(42:29):
I'm gonna have you on the show again for a follow-up
I think actually because I've been doing a lot of reorganization of all my
podcasts and shows and things like that and so um
I would like for you to just like let my viewers know
Where they can find anything having to do with decriminator and uh, I know that a lot of my people are in Canada
(42:50):
But I do have a lot of um folks who uh
Deal with ceremonies. So we have a we have a place here in Ontario called uh, thunder mountain and uh, we have a lot of like
Manitou Island. So there's a lot of Aboriginal um
story and entrenched ceremonies here and vision quests and all of that kind of stuff. Um, and so
(43:12):
Let's anyone know where they can like find you and maybe we can like have more of our like a Canadian like arm of
Decriminator, but before you
Before you do that actually wanted to uh, you're asked to a chart like I tell you like your superpower is in like uh
Last night I did a little talk about like vision quests and animals that you see in your visions that are like that function as like companions or guides
(43:35):
Uh in any of your journeys have have any animals or uh, even plants or like any kind of spirit guides
Have they appear to you in any of those visions or dreams?
Um, you know, I mean
Cat-like characters bear like characters probably, you know, I don't know why platypus is always somewhere
Or it's so crazy you brought up platypus because someone brought up platypus on the live last night to him like who brings up
(43:59):
Pallat what is like that must mean something
That means something. Yeah, it must be yeah, it's it's like a mixture of worlds basically. Yeah. Yeah
Because the last thing about lava I really love lava because it's fire. It's water
Oh, you're a scorpio. That's definitely it right because think about scor- scorpio is a unique sign because uh
its ancient ruler is mars
(44:21):
because Pluto Pluto rules Scorpio and Pluto wasn't discovered till 19
Regardless if you think Pluto's a planet or not. It wasn't discovered till
Uh 1930 something or so and so there's this concept too of um, scorpio feeling fiery even though it's a water sign
So if you think about that like what lava is it's like liquid
(44:42):
Like and also under the surface
Yeah under the surface
So that I feel like that would be part of your superpowers in some sort of form like activating the earth underneath it. I mean
Uh, when I paint I paint and I sign it lava because a lot of my friends used to call me lava when I was a boy
It's a good superhero name. It's probably definitely something. It's a good
Larry lava and and
(45:03):
Yeah, right and for your uh, your what's great about this podcast is that we didn't talk about policy barely at all
It's fantastic
That's true. So so but
But but but if you do want to do policy, definitely I can help you out on that
You know, that's definitely something we're gonna maybe talk about on another podcast
But I much prefer these types of podcasts anyway because it's much more interesting and it's something that we can all sort of
(45:26):
Speculate on together, which is what is this thing called consciousness? Yeah, it's beautiful. So, um, yeah, if you want to change policy
That's what we do. We passed in, you know, 26 cities now across the US 27 cities and counties
It's really easy process. We'll help out in Canada. You have some folks going on there
Um, and then, um, you know how to actively engage with your city council, which is really important
(45:47):
If you want to do any integration work, you definitely, you know, if anyone needs to do any integration work, please give us a contact
For decriminalized nature, you can find us at decriminalized nature.org
We're going to be putting out a new website probably the next or an updated website in the next month probably our goals have
It done pretty soon. Uh, and then um, or decriminalized nature on instagram
Decriminalized nature on twitter. If you want to find us for integration work or myself and integration work, you can go
(46:12):
URI, Enthusiastic Research Integration Education. It's URI vision
E-R-I-E-V-I-S-I-O-N dot org or on instagram or facebook
And then for me and my personal pages on instagram lary norris phd
So that's a good way to contact and love to talk to anyone about all the things we talked about plus also
Learning how to do policy and really at the end of the day, you know, I said this the other day it's somebody that you know, it's our
(46:35):
It's our duty to protect consciousness and there's not anyone else out there that's going to do it for us. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah
Get together, grab your community
This is no time better than now when we're in this sort of fluctuation of paradigms that we're in
To be able to say, hey, you know what this corner consciousness that we need to really stand up for and I think that's what's really important here
Especially when it comes to relationships with plants and mushrooms that type of thing. So, uh, yeah
(46:58):
It's been really great chatting with you and I look forward to more
Ah, that was a great sign off larry lava your superhero name
um, and uh, yes, we will definitely come have you back on and we'll talk a little bit more about policy
I think also like legalese and like that whole language would be really fun to like dive into of of that because
(47:19):
Everything is just like language and narratives and storytelling and even as we talk about like the mystical realms
I love that we talked more about like your stories. I learned so much about you and I love I love that because
Uh, you do embody a lot of um that energy in how you've like organized the crime nature like the calls that we have
Is you you're a great um leader for that
(47:39):
Kind of stuff and so like truly a warrior of the earth and so since so great having you on the show
I'm going to log off. I'm gonna stop streaming going live and then I'll say goodbye to you on
Our little chat chat. All right. Bye everybody until next time
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