The post-psychedelic era
a personal update
When I started this publication nearly six years ago, I was deeply immersed in the world of psychedelics, spirituality, and root cause healing. This newsletter became a space to integrate, synthesize, and educate. To share the personal narratives I felt lacking in a space that, at the time, consisted mostly of clinical research and trip reports.
A lot has happened since. 40+ intentional journeys with mushrooms, ayahuasca, huachuma, 5-MeO-DMT, LSD, MDMA, ibogaine, and eventually Iboga. Hundreds of therapy sessions. Silent retreats. Several trainings in therapeutic modalities. Guiding and facilitating. Years of integration. A roller coaster of ups and downs.
Now, it feels like an era is coming to an end. My life looks very different these days. Healing and self development, at large, are no longer the focal point of my life. I can’t remember the last time I read self-help. I’m not in therapy. I haven’t meditated in ages. I had a little LSD microdose a few months ago and it felt… redundant?
This work has gifted me more than I could have hoped for. Most days, I already feel like I’m on a microdose. The world is all sparkly again. I’ve Benjamin Buttoned my way back to the free-spirited child that is once again enchanted with the simple wonders of the world. Emotions flow through easily, too easily you could say. Nothing seems to be lingering beneath the surface, clogging up the system. Is this what untroubled people feel like? Either way, it’s marvelous.
Maybe one day I will feel adventurous again and hit the DMT vape that’s been sitting in my pantry, unopened, to check in with the machine elves. But for now, my appetite to transcend 3D reality has waned. I just want to roll in the grass and stare at the trees and lay in the sun and write poems that are prayers and grow a garden and wear outfits that bring me joy and eat delicious foods and experience art and cuddle the humans and animals I love. I don’t want to endlessly contemplate the unseen but be so utterly present with the things I can sense that my mind dissolves into the present for split seconds at a time, time after time. Which is transcendent in its own ways.
Someone once said that eventually the spiritual path will lead you back to the material world because the ultimate meaning of being awake is to create and play in physical reality.
I feel this very deeply. And I got here thanks to one medicine in particular—Iboga. Iboga has woken me up to the rich realms of the senses and the transcendent bliss found in direct experience of the often mundane. It has woken me up to the miracle that is life to which the only appropriate response is utter gratitude. The Bwiti only have one prayer: Thank you for this day.
A year into my integration, this truth has landed in my soul. Most days, I wake up thrilled to be alive which is in stark contrast to where I was seven years ago before I started this journey, which was…. well, the opposite. I owe all of this to plant medicines, and that awareness is constant and omnipresent. It is why any and all nature fills my heart with pure joy.
This gratitude is accompanied by a piercing awareness of how limited our time on earth really is, and that we honor the gift of life by choosing how we spend our time. I’m still figuring out what that means. Still learning to lean into my sensitivity and design a life that feels full, even if it looks different. To express my authenticity and create not just from wounding but from essence.
The psychedelic path has brought me home but sometimes it feels like this home is a little island I share with just a few people, far away from the hustle and bustle of big cities, cluttered digital spaces, boozy social settings, and corporate America. I don’t mind it.
When I sit with the question of what wants to come through, I only get one answer: joy.
Joy! Joy! Joy!
I have absolutely no idea what that means.
When you spend so much of your time and energy on inner work and get to a place where it fades into the background, it leaves a void. Old identities are dying but new ones haven’t been born yet. For now, I’m simply called to lean into joy. All else shall flow from there. I wish to be of service, but I’m still unsure what that will look like. So instead of forcing it, I will wait for guidance.
The Journey is having somewhat of an identity crisis, too. I built this space to explore consciousness and the inner realms—so now what? Of course, the path from the mind to the heart will forever be a guiding force in my life, and there is always more work to do, but my interest in these topics, for the first time in a decade, has dried up. Maybe it’s just a phase, maybe it’s the new normal—who knows. Only time will tell.
In an age where any information can be delivered and tailored to you via AI, I also question the role of non-fiction online writing. Tim Ferriss just wrote about how AI is impacting self-help authors. The one thing AI can’t replace is our stories, but my desire to just write about myself is limited. I have several personal essays sitting in my drafts but none of them feel essential to share. Maybe I just had to write them for myself. The flood of AI content continues to push me to detach from creative outputs and anchor into the process as the primary purpose. Which doesn’t come naturally.
What’s next? As unsettling as the liminality is, I trust that my creative callings will return if I give things some space. I’ve decided to take a little break from writing as I figure out what’s next. (Paid subscriptions are paused for now.)
Wherever you are in your process—I’m curious: What have been the biggest obstacles? What do you need (and perhaps struggle to find)? What topics are most on your mind? Feel free to comment or respond to this email directly. I still wish to share what’s genuinely helpful however I can. I so appreciate your readership.
Gratefully,
More from my universe
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I think it's wonderful what you are doing, Julia. To me, you seemed like someone whose search was reaching feverish levels, always looking for something more, and I worried you might be heading to extremes that risked everything. But instead, you've reached the opposite outcome; giving it all up and living in the moment. As a fellow lifelong searcher, I've come to a similar revelation. Life isn't so much a pursuit of being more, it's about being less. To live life simply, close to the earth itself, and to feel and cherish the everyday. To live like an animal. I wish you well.
First, it is WILDLY cool to have followed you since the very beginning. I’ve enjoyed seeing the Journey’s journey :)
I’m having trouble articulating this, so if a seed of it seems interesting I’d love to set up a call, but:
I’d love to hear your thoughts on what this experience has done to your desire to help others / “impact” other people in the world?
I know that some of our altruism can be coming from an ego/selfish place, but I also know, personally, that I’m better at freely giving when I’m operating out of my highest self.
Like, what does it mean to help fellow humans from a place of joy versus a place of pressure or responsibility?
And a primarily rhetorical question I’m slightly ashamed to ask: is love/joy-led altruism/activism as “effective” in the short term as ego-led altruism/activism?