Future Primitive

Bill Pfeiffer aka «Sky Otter» is the founder of Sacred Earth Network  which  implemented leading edge visions for almost 20 years. In that time, Bill made Russia a “second home” having traveled there 42 times – -giving him a rare cross-cultural perspective. He has 25 years of experience in Re-evaluation Counseling and Vipassana meditation, and has undergone extensive training with Siberian shamans as well as with Joanna Macy and John Perkins. He has also spent much time in the US Southwest learning about Native medicine ways and the crucial importance of the petroglyphs and pictographs.
Bill brings to all his work a dynamic mixture of open heartedness, sensitivity, and a fierce determination for a peaceful, sustainable future. He has been living in the forests of Nichewaug (Petersham) Massachusetts for 18 years.

He is the author of the forthcoming book “Wild Earth, Wild Soul: A Manual for Ecstatic Culture”.

http://billpfeiffer.org/

Bill speaks with Joanna about the attunement to planetary intelligence; “ancient future perception”; creating ecstatic culture together; experiencing our greater body; micelia and dendrites; a neuro-holographic miracle; travels in Siberia; honoring the elders; ecstatic kindness; petroglyphs, a cosmic language…

”I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik
http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

Christopher M. Bache has been a professor of Religious Studies at Youngstown State University for almost 30 years as well as an intermittent adjunct faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies. From 2000-2002 he was Director of Transformative Learning at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He is an award winning teacher, international speaker, and author of “The Living Classroom”, “Dark Night Early Dawn”, and “Lifecycles”. Chris’ work explores the deeper dimensions of human psychology, including collective consciousness, reincarnation theory and philosophical implications of transpersonal states of awareness. He has degrees from the University of Notre Dame, Cambridge University, and Brown University.

http://web.ysu.edu/gen/class/Dr._Bache_m635.html

Chris speaks with Joanna about the collective death/rebirth process of humankind; an absolute choice point for the survival of the species; twenty years of experience working with non ordinary states of consciousness; the need for a strong spiritual practice when working with the deep psyche; direct experience as initiation in this research; the terror and ecstasy of navigating the soul realms; waking up to the Cosmic Lovers; we are the midwifes of the future human…

”I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik
http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

A pioneer in the field of spiritual emergence, Paul Levy is a healer in private practice, assisting others who are also awakening to the dreamlike nature of reality. He is the author of the upcoming book “Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil”(North Atlantic Books, release date Jan. 15, 2013). He is also the author of “The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis”. An artist, he is deeply steeped in the work of C. G. Jung, and has been a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner for over thirty years.
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/wordpress/

Paul speaks with Joanna about what is transpersonal evil; the process of shadow projection; the daimon: peril & promise; the response-ability of awakening in the dream; “dispelling wetiko”; agents of awareness; inner change/outer change…

original music by Evarusnik

http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

A talk by Joanna Harcourt-Smith at the Women’s Visionary Congress at the IONS Retreat Center, Petaluma, California (July 27-29, 2012).

The Women’s Visionary Congress (WVC) is a gathering of visionary women healers, scholars, activists and artists who study consciousness and altered states. The WVC supports the transfer of knowledge among women who apply the insights of their research and spiritual path. We gather annually on beautiful land in Northern California to renew our community of adventurers and visionaries, and hold one-day salons in many places.
http://visionarycongress.org/
Joanna talks about her escape from a repressive environment; her life-changing encounter and love relationship with Timothy Leary; her struggle to free Leary from prison; her healing journey towards sanity/wholeness; sanity is relationship; “I’m here to connect”; LSD, spirituality, beauty…; “I belong with you and you belong with me”…

Simon G. Powell is a writer, film-maker, and musician. He is the author of “The Psilocybin Solution” (2011), and his latest book, “Darwin’s Unfinished Business” (2012).He also wrote and presented the experimental documentary films “Manna” (2003) and “Metanoia: A New Vision of Nature” (2007).
Simon is currently working on a new book entitled “In Love With Gaia” chiefly about his remarkable psilocybin experiences over the last few decades.

http://www.simongpowell.com/index.html

Simon speaks with Joanna about a new relationship with nature; “natural intelligence”; “the survival of that which makes sense”; natural and cultural self-organization; human cortex: a focal lens for the field of information of the Earh…?; we are Nature becoming aware of itself; loving and celebrating the biosphere…

music: “Sygyt” (from “Chöömej – Throat Singing From The Center Of Asia”) by Ondar Mongun-Ool
photo: Nicolas De Jesus

The Fairy & Human Relations Congress is an annual event in the North Central Cascades in Washington State, dedicated to promoting communication and co-creation with the Intelligence of Nature.
www.fairycongress.com

Matthew Sherrill was our special correspondant at the 2012 Fairy & Human Relations Congress. Matthew is a transpersonal spiritual guide and Energy healer.

Orion Foxwood is a conjurer in the Southern folk tradition, a traditional witch and a founding elder of the Foxwood Temple of the Old religion in Maryland, and the founder of a Faery Seership apprenticeship program. For over 20 years, he has lectured extensively on magical practices and spiritual development. He is the author of The Faery Teachings and The Tree of Enchantment. His most recent book A Candle and the Crossroads: A Book of Appalachian Conjure and Southern-Rootwork will be published in Nov’ 12.
www.orionfoxwood.com

Orion speaks with Matthew about “re-naturing” ourselves; the web that shapes us; the intelligent rhythms of life….

Moss Magill is an award winning playwright and poet, as well as an Ovate student in the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. He is also the co-founder of the Circle of Coll Druidic Seed Group in Seattle. Moss spends his time between Seattle and Port Townsend, Washington where he is a professional trainer, writer, and artist.
circleofcoll.org

Moss speaks with Matthew about the “tree walks”: practical inspirations for peace; “slow down, we can’t hear you;” finding peace inside the conflict; the heart connection…

Morgan Brent (MT Xen) has a PhD in anthropology, however he left academia after engagements with herbal healing traditions clued him into a vast Gaian intelligence, with which he became conversant, and soon allied with its purposes. He now specializes in the prescriptive teachings (Gaian dharma) of medicinal plants, aka ‘Nature’s plan to save the humans’. In service to this guidance, he writes articles and essays, births, collects, and strings together songs into malas of embodied story telling, and makes medicines of all kinds, among them events both large (Singing Alive Gatherings, now in their 6th year), and small (Creation-Song circles). These events are all about sharing songs (and prayers, chants, blessings, and song om) of personal and planetary renewal ~ which he considers food for a spiritually hungry world.
www.tribesofcreation.com

Morgan speaks with Matthew about entheogens; the “Gaian immune system;” ayahuasca and planetary awakening; cultural midwifes and the deeper, transpersonal levels of imagination…

Requa Tolbert is a psychiatric nurse, psychedelic researcher and medicine artist who lives in the desert Southwest with her beloved, George. From 1980 to 1985, George Greer and his wife, Requa Tolbert, conducted over 100 MDMA therapeutic sessions for 80 individuals; this is the largest published study of the use of MDMA in a therapeutic setting.

www.stormridercards.com

Requa speaks with Joanna about the card deck and the book she has created – “The Stormrider Calling Cards;” “the medicine of the moment”; water as the blood of life; “healer, heal thyself;” the alchemical medicines; ceremony, community and the divine feminine…

Music: “Soso Soso” (from “Mushroom Ceremonies of the Mazatec Indians“) by María Sabina

Joan Halifax is a Zen Buddhist Roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, hospice caregiver, and the author of several books on Buddhism and Spirituality. She currently serves as abbot and guiding teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a Zen Peacemaker community which she founded in 1990. In the 1970s she collaborated on LSD research projects with her ex-husband Stanislav Grof, in addition to other collaborative efforts with Joseph Campbell and Alan Lomax. She is founder of the Ojai Foundation in California, which she led from 1979 to 1989. As a socially engaged Buddhist, Halifax has done extensive work with the dying through her Project on Being with Dying (which she founded). She is on the board of directors of the Mind and Life Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated in exploring the relationship of science and Buddhism.

Roshi Joan speaks with Joanna about aging and death, engaged Buddhism and systemic activism, personal and social transformation, the historic significance of LSD as a Dharma door, embodied compassion with dying people, speaking truth to power…

Music: “Song without words to Bohdana Pivnenko, I.-Elegy”  (from Fleeting Melodies) by Valentin Silvestrov {Bohdana Pivnenko (violin) and Valeriy Matiukhin (piano) }

Geoff Oelsner has built a following as a performer both of his own songs and of poems which he sometimes sets to music or chants and recites to the accompaniment of guitar, harmonica, dulcimer, autoharp, harmonium, and the shruti box (a drone instrument from India). He has released 2 CD’s of original songs, Morning Branches and Ordinary Mystery with musician friends, including Kelly Mulhollan and Leslie. Geoff has published a collection of his poetry, Native Joy: poems songs visions dreams (1963-2003) (2003, Trafford) and his work has been featured in several other books, including Writing Poetry from the Inside Out by Sandford Lyne (Sourcebooks Inc., 2007). His new book, A Country Where All Colors Are Sacred and Alive, A Memoir of Non-Ordinary Experience and Collaboration with Nature (2012) is now available from Lorian Press.

A Buddhist meditator since 1974, Geoff founded the Buddhist Meditation and Spiritual Support Group in 1995. As a licensed certified social worker in private practice of psychotherapy in Arkansas since 1982, Geoff also utilizes poetry therapy with selected clients in psychotherapy. He is committed to sharing the healing and inspirational power of poetry, music, and story with the community.

A long time environmental activist and researcher, Geoff co-authored a book titled Fighting Radiation and Chemical Pollutants with Foods, Herbs,and Vitamins (1992). He is presently involved in several environmental initiatives, including the Psi-Sci Alliance project, which brings together established climate scientists with highly qualified intuitives to innovate new approaches to addressing and ameliorating climate change.

www.geoffoelsner.com

Geoff Oelsner speaks with Joanna about his deep love and connection with the natural world, transpersonal experiences in Nature, the emergence of a spiritual form of environmental activism…

Music: “The Sacred Hoop” (from Morning Branches) by Geoff Oelsner.

Joan Halifax is a Zen Buddhist Roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, hospice caregiver, and the author of several books on Buddhism and Spirituality. She currently serves as abbot and guiding teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a Zen Peacemaker community which she founded in 1990. In the 1970s she collaborated on LSD research projects with her ex-husband Stanislav Grof, in addition to other collaborative efforts with Joseph Campbell and Alan Lomax. She is founder of the Ojai Foundation in California, which she led from 1979 to 1989. As a socially engaged Buddhist, Halifax has done extensive work with the dying through her Project on Being with Dying (which she founded). She is on the board of directors of the Mind and Life Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated in exploring the relationship of science and Buddhism.

Roshi Joan speaks with Joanna about aging and death, engaged Buddhism and systemic activism, personal and social transformation, the historic significance of LSD as a Dharma door, embodied compassion with dying people, speaking truth to power…

Music: “Song without words to Bohdana Pivnenko, I.-Elegy”  (from Fleeting Melodies) by Valentin Silvestrov {Bohdana Pivnenko (violin) and Valeriy Matiukhin (piano) }

Dennis McKenna is an American ethnobotanist and ethnopharmacologist. He has authored numerous scientific articles and books, among them - The Invisible Landscape – with his brother Terence McKenna.

Dennis has spent a number of years as a senior lecturer for the Center for Spirituality and Healing, part of the Academic Health Center at the University of Minessota. He is now a senior research scientist for the Natural Health Products Research Group at the British Columbia Istitute of Technology in the Vancouver area.  He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute and serves on the advisory board of non-profit organizations in the fields of ethnobotany and botanical medicines. He recently completed a project, funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute, to investigate Amazonian ethnomedicines for the treatment of schizophrenia and cognitive deficits. At the Heffter Research Institute, he continues his focus on the therapeutic uses of psychoactive medicines derived from nature and used in indigenous ethnomedical practices.

http://www.heffter.org/board-mckenna.htm

Dennis’ kickstarter.com Project: The Brotherhood of  The Screaming Abyss

Dennis speaks with Joanna about the KickStarter project of writing a memoir of his experiences with his brother Terence McKenna as a collective effort, the noetic experiment at La Chorrera, teonanacatl and primordial language, following the call of the Mystery…

Music: “Tejido de sueños (Tissue of dreams)” from Nierika, by Jorge Reyes

Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist specializing in psychospiritual development and resistance to change.

Dr. Goldsmith applies innovative techniques drawn from many schools of thought and traditional practices, such as Psychosynthesis, Imago Relationship Therapy, regressive psychotherapies, Rogerian client-centered counseling, yoga psychology, and other humanistic, transpersonal and eastern traditions.  He facilitates deep life review, awakening to personal history, and life planning, with a special focus on existential and midlife crisis and with young adults suffering from lack of direction or substance abuse.  Dr. Goldsmith is particularly helpful with couples – many feeling “in-love” again after years of vicious cycles.

Author of dozens of popular and scholarly articles, Dr. Goldsmith is a frequent speaker on spiritual emergence, resistance to change, transpersonal psychology, drug policy reform and the post-modern future of society.  He is the author of  Psychedelic Healing – The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development.

www.nealgoldsmith.com

Neal speaks with Joanna about his book Psychedelic Healing, life-changing experiences with the entheogens,  the soul as the “original self”, the psychedelic renaissance, keys of therapeutic change, the reunification between mind-body/ancestral-postmodern/spiritual-scientific…

Music: “Every Person Is One Life” (from How Much Is Yours)  by Arto Tunçboyaciyan & Armenian Navy Band

Stanislav Grof, M.D., is a psychiatrist with over fifty years experience researching non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Grof is one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analysing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche. Being the founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (founded in 1977), he went on to become distinguished adjunct faculty member of the Department of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a position he remains in today.

He has published extensively in professional journals and has written many books including  LSD: Doorway to the Numinous: The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into Realms of the Human Unconscious, Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research (SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology), When the Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-ordinary Reality, Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy, The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration (SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology). Click here for the full list of his books.

At the 25th Anniversary Convocation of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology (ATP), held in August 1993 at Asilomar, California, Stanislav Grof received an Honorary Award for major contributions to and development of the field of Transpersonal Psychology. Grof received the VISION 97 award granted by the Foundation of Dagmar and Václav Havel in Prague on October 5, 2007.

www.stanislavgrof.com

www.holotropic.com

Stan speaks with Joanna about his relationship with Nature, the unified worldview emerging from the study of holotropic states of consciousness, working with the archetypes, entheogens and holotropic breathwork as powerful means of transformation, personal experiences versus belief systems, the perils and evolutionary potential of humankind…

Music: Galileo, (from En Concert) by Claire Pelletier

Eliot Cowan is the author of Plant Spirit Medicine, and a fully initiated Tsaurirrikame (shaman) in the Huichol (Wixárika) Indian tradition.  Eliot is the founder of the the Blue Deer Center and is a member of the Council of Elders for the Temple of Sacred Fire Healing. As a provider at the Blue Deer Center, Eliot Cowan offers Plant Spirit Medicine^SM practitioner training courses, continuing education for PSM practitioners, healing camps based on traditional Huichol shamanic healing, and animal totem courses.

www.bluedeer.org

Eliot speaks with Joanna about the experience of awe, the aliveness of Nature, retrieving our indigenous soul, our relationship with the ancestors and the appropriate conditions in which to engage with the teacher plants…

Music: “Japeru” (from Piercing The Veil) by William Parker & Hamid Drake

Julieta Casimiro es una sanadora mazateca. Además de su labor como sanadora indígena, Julieta ha ganado reconocimiento internacional como miembro del Concejo Internacional de las Trece Abuelas Indígenas – un grupo de maestras espirituales, mujeres medicinales y guardianas de sabiduria, desde su fundación en 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julieta_Casimiro

Dona Julieta y sus hijas Lourdes y Eugenia hablan con Joanna sobre su trabajo como sanadoras con los hongos Teonanacatl. Ellas se refiere a los hongos como “los niños santos.”

NOTE: Please click here for the English translation of this interview by Joanna.

Music: Stars of the Morning Sky (from “Ars Moriendi”) by Jonas Hellborg & Glen Velez

Julieta Casimiro is a Mazatec Healer. As well as her work as an indigenous healer, Julieta has gained international recognition as a member of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers – a group of spiritual elders, medicine women and wisdom keepers since its founding in 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julieta_Casimiro

Joanna speaks with Doña Julieta (and her daughters Lourdes and Eugenia) about her work as a healer with the Teonanacatl mushrooms. Julieta refers to them as niños santos (little saints).

NOTE: This is the English translation by Joanna. For the original Spanish version please click here.

Music: Stars of the Morning Sky (from “Ars Moriendi”) by Jonas Hellborg & Glen Velez

This is the 2nd part of the interview with Tim: Tim speaks with Joanna about his experience with entheogens, shamans  as a primal force of spirituality, the paradox of polarities, the co-evolution of mind and matter…

Click here for an UPDATED version of Part 1 of the interview.

http://www.timothyfreke.com/

Music: Tarahumara Matachin Music

Fantuzzi is a world-class musical star who is charismatic, funny, sensual, and highly-energized and will definitely get you moving!  Meet the man that Newsweek Magazine featured on its cover to symbolize the gathering of the original 1969 Woodstock Concert. A continuous world traveler to over 50 countries throughout the past 35 years, Fantuzzi has performed on every continent at thousands of events including those at Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, Rio De Janeiro Earth Summit, as well as at all 3 Woodstocks, 3 Khumba Melas, 29 Rainbow Gatherings, multiple Cannabis Cups, European Festivals, Bali Festivals, Australian Festivals, Harmony Festivals, Bhakti Festivals, Mystic Garden Parties, and Raw Spirit Festivals.  He has played with Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Stephen Stills, Billy Preston, Richie Havens, Babatunde Olatunji, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, Cedella Marley Booker (Bob Marley’s Mother),Taj     Mahal, and Joe Higgs. He opened for “Third World”, and is friends with Ram Dass and the late Timothy Leary, and many other fascinating leaders. http://fantuzzimusic.com/

Fantuzzi speaks with Joanna about  his lifetime experience as an ecstatic, expressing the transformation happening today,  and as a Global Troubadour who continues to perform at tribal and musical gatherings around the world.

Music: “Shiva como Shango” (from Tribal Revival), Fantuzzi

This is a part two of our interview with Richard Doyle.

Click here to listen to part one of this interview.

Richard Doyle earned his Ph.D. in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley. He was the Mellon Post Doctoral Fellow in History and Social Science of the Life Sciences at MIT in 1993. Professor of Rhetoric, Doyle holds appointments in English, Science Technology & Society and the College of Information Science and Technology at Penn State University and was Visiting Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, Department of Rhetoric in 2003.

Doyle teaches courses in the history and rhetoric of emerging technosciences – sustainability, space colonization, biotechnology, nanotechnology, psychedelic science, information technologies, biometrics – and the cultural and literary contexts from which they sprout. Professor Doyle has published two books: On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences (Stanford, 1997) and Wetwares:Experiments in PostVital Living( Minnesota, 2003) – in a putative trilogy about emerging transhuman knowledges. These knowledges and practices, linked to molecular biology, artificial life, nanotechnology, psychedelic and information technologies render the experiential distinctions between living systems and machines frequently dubious and often indiscernible. This excited and confused rhetorical membrane between humans and an informational universe nonetheless broadcasts a clear message: humans, in co-evolution with the technical matrices transforming the planet, find themselves in an evolutionary ecology that is as urgent as it is experimental.

Continuing his collaborative work on the “transhuman imperative”, Doyle ( aka mobius) has now completed the trilogy with a scholarly book about archaic and contemporary psychedelic media technologies and the evolution of mind: The Ecodelic Hypothesis: Plants, Rhetoric and the Evolution of The Noösphere, currently in press with University of Washington. Other current projects include a book, Admixtures: Dialogues After Genomics with Anthropologist Mark Shriver. The Admixtures Project has grown The Penn State Center for Altered Consciousness, currently investigating the genetics and phenomenology of legally altered consciousness with the help of a flotation tank.

Doyle directed the Penn State Composition Program from 2004-2006, and serves as Expert, Wetwares and Human/Machine interaction for international organizations and a volunteer to the Penn State Center for Sustainability. More about mobius’ work and teaching can be found by browsing his web site.

Richard speaks with Joanna about language and the ecstasy of creativity, ego-death as a revelatory practice, eco-humility, Timothy Leary, freedom & Imagination…

Introductory music: “Amazon Beginnings” (At Play In The Fields Of The Lord, soundtrack) by Zbigniew Preisner

You can listen to PART TWO of this interview here.

Jennifer Palmer is the news editor of Reality Sandwich and Community Director of Evolver – two dream jobs merged into one.  She is a writer, DJ and internet philosopher who goes by the name TRUE online. Her blog, BRANDTRUEBOY http://www.brandtrueboy.com, started as an art experiment in 2002, in which she posted as three fictitious characters that she passed off as “real” people who emailed, commented and chatted with other bloggers. Her current projects include willing the (r)evolution with love, writing a novel, honing her Twitter stream skills and building the dopest vinyl based beat library in NYC.

Jennifer speaks with Joanna about the co-creation of reality, opening to interconectedeness, love as the strongest psychedelic, Gaia and the conciousness shift… among other topics

Dr. Rick Strassman is a medical doctor specialized in psychiatry with a fellowship in clinical psychopharmacology research. Dr. Strassman was the first person in the United States after twenty years of intermission to embark in human research with psychedelic, or entheogenic substances.

rickstrassman.com

Part 2 of an interview with Rick Doblin, founder and president of MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies). The second interview is about the Psychedelics and Ecology MAPS Bulletin, volume 19, number 1, edited by David Jay Brown.

Rick Doblin studied with Stan Grof, M.D., and was in the first group to become certified as holotropic breathwork practitioners. His dissertation was on “The Regulation of the Medical Use of Psychedelics and Marijuana,” and his master’s thesis focused on the attitudes and experiences of oncologists concerning the medical use of marijuana. His undergraduate thesis was a twenty-five year follow-up to the classic Good Friday Experiment, which evaluated the potential of psychedelic drugs to catalyze religious experiences. He has also conducted a thirty-four year follow-up study to Tim Leary’s Concord Prison experiment.

In 1986, Rick founded MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies). His professional goal is to help develop legal contexts for the beneficial uses of psychedelics and marijuana, primarily as prescription medicines but also for personal growth for otherwise “healthy” people, and to also become a legally licensed psychedelic therapist.

Margaret De Wys is a professor at Bard College, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts as well as a composer and sound installation artist.
A dramatic shift in her life set her on a pilgrimage to Ecuador and to becoming a world traveler and explorer dedicated to the preservation and transmission of traditional wisdom in the modern world. She has recently been published, her book came out in January 2009: Black Smoke: A Woman’s Journey of Healing, Wild Love and Transformation in the Amazon which chronicles her encounter with a Shuar master of medicina milenaria who guided her into a world of potent visionary plants, harrowing initiations and ritual purification.

Stephen Harrod Buhner is an Earth poet and the award-winning author of ten books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal
medicine. He lectures yearly throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, the intelligence of Nature, and the states of mind necessary for successful habitation of Earth. His website Gaian Studies is a non-profit organization exploring – and participating with – the non-linear intelligence of nature. Stephen’s work has been widely published in North America and Europe and his most recent works are entitled The Secret Teaching of Plants: The Intelligence of Heart in Direct Perception of Nature and Healing Lyme: Natural Healing and Prevention of Lyme Borrelosis and its related Co-infections.

Rocky Caravelli is the primary facilitator and founder of Awakening in the Dream house, an innovative treatment and rehabilitation center near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that uses ibogaine, an entheogenic alkaloid of the iboga plant. He worked at the Ibogaine Association for 1 year and has run the Dream House for 2 1/2 years. He also spent 2 years providing treatments in the underground US community.

Jodie Evans has worked on behalf of community, social-justice, environmental, and political causes for more than thirty years. As Director of Administration in former California Governor Jerry Brown’s cabinet and staff, Jodie championed environmental causes, resulting in breakthroughs in wind and solar technology and worked to bring historic diversity into the staff and appointments. As Manager of Governor Brown’s 1992 Presidential Campaign, Jodie instituted a cap on financial contributions of $100, resulting in a stronger push for campaign finance standards. Jodie has traveled extensively on behalf of global peace. Since the start of the Iraq war, Jodie has traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Jordan on several occasions. She is the co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace, a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement which has an international membership of 150,000.

Also known as Mountain Girl, Carolyn was a Merry Prankster and the wife of Jerry Garcia. In 1964 she met Neal Cassady who introduced her to Ken Kesey and his friends, one of whom gave her the name “Mountain Girl”. She quickly joined the inner circle of Pranksters and was romantically involved with Kesey. She later met and married Jerry Garcia.

Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl and advocate of the use of psychedelic substances for enriching people’s intellectual, psychological and spiritual beliefs through the psychedelic experience.
John Lash is the author of Not in His Image and Quest for the Zodiac, co-founder and principal author of the Metahistory.org and one of the foremost exponents of the power of myth to direct and shape an individual’s life, as well as history itself.

Kajuyali Tsamani (COL) – Shaman, initiated by Bernardo Moscote, Master Shaman of the Kogi Nation, indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia.

Stanislave Grof is one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of altered states of consciousness for purposes of healing, growth, and insight. Grof received the VISION 97 award granted by the Foundation of Dagmar and Vaclav Havel in Prague on October 5, 2007. He developed a form of psychotherapy called Holotropic Breathwork believed to allow access to nonordinary states of consciousness.

Jeremy Narby is anthropologist and writer who spent several years living with the Ashaninca in the Peruvian Amazon cataloging indigenous uses of rainforest resources to help combat ecological destruction. Narby has written three books, as well as sponsored an expedition to the rainforest for biologists and other scientists to examine indigenous knowledge systems and the utility of Ayahuasca in gaining knowledge. Since 1989, Narby has been working as the Amazonian projects director for the Swiss NGO, Nouvelle Planete.

Psychotherapist, writer and researcher who has been involved in the study of transformations of consciousness since graduate school when he worked with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass) on the Harvard Psilocybin Projects. He co-wrote The Psychedelic Experience, and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. He is the co-founder and president of the Green Earth Foundation, an educational and research organization dedicated to the healing and harmonizing of the relationships between humanity and the Earth.

Dieter Hagenbach is the president and founder of the Gaia Media Foundation, a non profit organization founded in 1993 and based in Basel, Switzerland, which conveys a holistic and up to date understanding of the potential of the human consciousness.