• Monthly Columns

    My Ogham Journey to the Beach

    This journeying experience was from a lesson in Lora O’Brien’s Ogham Journeys class at the Irish Pagan School. I can’t recommend their courses highly enough, and have found some genuine authentic connections to various important aspects of my Irish Celtic spirituality through both their free and paid courses.   The space behind my eyelids was red, not black. I expected a darkness, black and soft like velvet, but instead I was in a swirling maelstrom of blood-red chaos. This space had been easy to access but I bounced around alarmingly rather than floating easily; my movements were frenetic and uncontrollable as I first tried to get to grips with this…

  • Monthly Columns

    The Transformative Power of Telling Your Story

    (artwork by: Francene Hart)   We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. That’s what I want–to hear you erupting. You Mount St. Helenses who don’t know that power in you–I want to hear you…If we don’t tell our truth, who will? -Ursula K. Le Guin   Folks often tell me they don’t know how or why I share such personal things in my writing with the wide world. Aren’t I scared of being judged? Aren’t I afraid my heart will get squashed by the insensitive people of the world if I tell my story? The honest answer to…

  • Reviews

    Book Review – Consciousness Medicine: Indigenous Wisdom, Entheogens, and Expanded States of Consciousness for Healing and Growth by Francoise Bourzat with Kristina Hunter

    Book Review Consciousness Medicine: Indigenous Wisdom, Entheogens, and Expanded States of Consciousness for Healing and Growth by Francoise Bourzat with Kristina Hunter 270 Pages     In a market increasingly saturated by books espousing the virtues of psychedelic and alternative therapies, Françoise Bourzat’s “Consciousness Medicine” stands apart in its focused dedication to psychedelic therapy as a method of self-directed healing and growth. While other tomes contain more information about the chemical and neurological effects of psychedelic use, this book focuses on time-tested methods of preparation such as talk therapy and journaling, the psychological experience of journeying, and — one of the most overlooked and important aspects of psychedelic therapy —…