Episode 95. Valeria McCarroll, PhD: Somadelics

Valeria McCarroll

TRT 49:05

[MUSIC]

DAVID:

Hello, and welcome to Mindful U at Naropa. A podcast presented by Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I’m your host, David Devine. And it’s a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions — Naropa is the birthplace of the modern mindfulness movement.

DAVID:

Hello everyone and welcome to another Mindful U Podcast. Today we have a very special guest with us, Valeria McCarroll. Valeria is virtually tuning in to share some of her wisdom and knowledge with us. She has a master’s degree in Integral Counseling Psychology, and a doctorate in East West Psychology. She’s also studied for multiple lineages like Shiva tantra, shamanic and psychedelic medicine, somatic psychology, visionary cosmology, and taro of the spirit. She currently teaches in the Integral and Transpersonal Psychology department at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and serves as the Embodied Wisdom advisor for the Synthesis — Synthesis Institute in their psychedelic practitioner training program. Welcome to the podcast. How are you today?

Valeria McCarroll:

I’m doing really well, I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

DAVID:

I was struggling with that word for some reason. So I appreciate you joining us today. So while researching you, I’ve noticed you’ve had a very unique educational path. There was a lot of stuff, I was reading your bio. And it seemed very interesting and like, you know, it’s not like you’re, oh, I study literature. I studied history. I studied math, it was very interesting. And I’m wondering, where did you get inspired to study such topics? And like, did you plan on this? And how do they work together? And how do — how do you like use them?

Valeria McCarroll:

Great question. I mean, it’s funny, because, you know, in my undergrad, I — I majored in government and biology. So that’s — pretty norm.

DAVID:

It’s a little different. 

Valeria McCarroll:

You know, I found my way into all of this in my early 20s, I guess. I was having a — an existential crisis, for lack of a better word —

DAVID:

In your 20s? No?

Valeria McCarroll:

Oh, definitely. Definitely. Yeah, yeah. Trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and was looking at grad schools and actually looked at Naropa. But I — I don’t like the cold so much. And I was scared of the winters. And so I ultimately ended up at CIS for my Master’s, in Counseling Psychology and sort of fell in love with a transpersonal understanding of what psychology is. And at the same time, as I was in that program, began to really bump up against my perceptions of the limitations of traditional talk therapy, where it’s — even though CIS is a very unusual place, it’s still situated within the — the Western framework of understanding that divides mind from body and mind. And I was working with a somatic therapist and doing a lot of personal work. And in this place in myself, where I felt like I was running into a block of you know, I have all these wonderful concepts, and how do I translate them down into how I live my life. And because it’s CIS, and it’s a magical place, and people are doing all sorts of interesting things, I ultimately found my way into some intentional psychedelic work. And that was incredibly transformative for me. It — it really helped me take these concepts that had felt very head centered, and start to live them in a different way, and really actualize a lot of the work that I had been chewing on and digesting and kind of thinking through intellectually. Which is how I fell in love with psychedelics, the potential of psychedelics I should say. Simultaneously, when I moved out to the Bay Area, I also found my way into a school of Shakti Shiva Tantra, which is very similar to Vajrayana Buddhism. It’s a close cousin, I would say and just found the cosmology and the understanding of how the world works to be incredibly beautiful and empowering, a very different way of thinking about I think a lot of phenomena that are — that are denigrated in the traditional Western paradigm. So the — the place of the body — the body is a vehicle for awakening and the role of desire. Desire is a salvific tool, right? It’s not something to shun or deny, but to actually embrace in the path towards the opening of consciousness. And — and so I have all these sort of, you know, interests that are somewhat separate. And then in my own life I — I like being a well integrated human being. So a lot of my work has been trying to figure out what where’s — you know, where’s the Vesica Pisces of all of these various interests? Where, you know, what’s the intersection of all of that, and that’s still an active — active process for me. But you know and work is very much a synthesis.

DAVID:

Feels like the Western model has like here and here and then, you know, Eastern models, they have a relationship of like living in spirit and how you integrate life. So it was really cool hearing that. So you said something about, like, when you found psychedelics, it really changed your way of thinking and how to like pursue life and some of the healing things that you came across after that. What about that moment was impactful? Like, what kind of insights were you having when you had that insight of like, oh, you know, there’s something else out there that I’d like to discover or investigate more of?

Valeria McCarroll:

Well, I should be clear, I think, for me, there was a difference between playing with psychedelics as a recreational phenomenon and using them with the intention of healing my own wounds. Not to say that recreational use isn’t valuable, because I think it can be and it can open up a lot. But the — that pivot point for me was really working with psychedelics in an intentional way, versus like, oh, this is really interesting, I’d like to see a purple tree. You know, and so for me, it’s — what I think is so interesting about psychedelic medicine, or one of the places that I think there’s a lot of potency is the difference between sitting in a room with a therapist, right, this person who is external to you and having a conversation with them, you know, where you can always find something to argue with, with a therapist. You can always figure out a way that they’re wrong, or make them an other or whatever it is. But it’s really different when — when you’re working with a psychedelic medicine, and you bring this as a, you know, one perspective is you’re inviting that spirit inside of you. And so you’re — you’re communing with a being or a phenomenon. Or you know you can take the neurobiological and talk about what it’s doing on your serotonin H2A receptors or whatever that is.

DAVID:

Yeah, you get all scientifical about it.

Valeria McCarroll:

Which is fascinating. You know, I love thinking about how that translates. But for me, there’s something about, this is all happening inside of me. And the immediacy of the experience being much harder to argue with. There’s also something about, you know, say — say ayahuasca, for example, she’ll hold your feet to the fire, right? Until you’re like, okay, I heard you, like I’m listening. It’s a very different way of experiencing. And I would say 30% of the work is what happens during the journey. And then 70% is what happens afterwards, right? So for — for me, it — it became an inquiry of, you know, here are these profound embodied experiences that feel so different, that are maybe offering to me a doorway into a different way of being that feels more exciting, that feels more pleasurable, that feels more generative. And then the work of integration becomes okay I had that experience, and how can I vision in my life, a path that brings me closer to that — that integrates that feeling, that takes that transcendent experience, or that expanded state, and works to ground it in the every day. That like, you go on retreat, and then you come back and you say your mantra as you’re doing the dishes kind of thing.

DAVID:

Talking about like phenomenon. In every day, there’s — there’s like such a long distance between the two. And when you have a phenomenal experience, if that’s a word, you try to bring it with you and you try to utilize it in your life because it was so impactful. And you in you kind of see this, like, different version of how you could be, how you can respond, how you feel. And it’s really interesting. So you were kind of just talking about like, talk therapy, and I came across this funny meme and someone — someone calls it like a drama doctor. And I thought that was kind of funny. So you’re talking about how your experiences and where you came from and all this. And at the moment you’re teaching at CIIS. And so I’m actually curious, what do you teach? What are the topics you teach? Like, you know, maybe give me a couple class names so you can get an idea of what it is you teach, and also maybe a little bit of the content. So what are some of the things some of the students will come across in your class.

Valeria McCarroll:

So I teach in the integral and transpersonal psychology department which is a non clinical doctorate program. I’ve taught a bunch of different classes there at this point. Some somatic psychology, but recently I’ve been focusing on psychedelics as a topic, not necessarily from a clinical standpoint right. I’m not training anyone within that department to be a psychedelic guide or psychedelic assisted therapist, but it’s become really clear to me as psychedelic medicine is sort of erupting into the mainstream, that there’s an enormous amount of energy and focus on the training of guide, and not much else. And so there’s a critical inquiry or sort of discerning thought to the nature of the field and how it’s emerging and how it’s being shaped and who are the players? And what is happening and what are we — you know how are we training guides? And is that the best practice? And are we in conversation with indigenous practitioners as we’re using these medicines that have long lineages of practice? So this fall, I’ve been teaching a class called, Defining Psychedelics, that is very much in the vein of what we’ve just been — have just been naming. You what — what are psychedelics? Is there a field that’s cohesive? Would the practitioners of psychedelic assisted therapy really consider themselves to be doing the same work as….working in the Shipibo lineage in the jungle? So really asking my students to think about — think about the nature of the field and if it can be defined, and who are the major players? Who’s visible? Who’s not visible, but also a force? You know, what — what is happening here, really just being in that, like what’s happening here, which has been wonderful to be teaching. And then this coming spring, I will be teaching another class on psychedelics, on trauma and ethics. So looking at what is trauma from the transpersonal perspective? What’s the relationship between trauma and psychedelic medicine? Where — where can psychedelic medicine help us to heal trauma? Where can it recapitulate trauma? And understanding the relationship between trauma and an ethical stance? How does one’s trauma inform how it sees the world or engages with the world? And what’s the relationship between doing deep work on one’s own wounds and the development of an ethical seat, which I think is important, regardless of whether or not one is a psychedelic assisted therapist or just interested in the field? That’s my personal bias that everyone would do well to have a working understanding of trauma and what it is and how its operating — so prevalent in our society.

DAVID:

Yeah, and how you said, how psychedelics can bring up trauma, what I find interesting is there — there could be a moment where you’re just like out with some friends, and you’re doing the thing, you know, that someone’s like, hey, let’s try this. And then you have a moment of trauma that you didn’t even know you had come up. And — and so it can, it can bring back some memories that you’ve kind of stored away in a place that you never really go to. So it’s really interesting to see that, but it’s also super healing. I feel like it’s like one of the fastest ways to confront and deal with trauma, because of your ego getting out of the way. And you — you look at — you look at like actually what’s going on, you look at like how you feel, how it affects you, how it affects others. And it’s like a way of visioning something that you weren’t able to before, you know, and — and I guess like people try and do it, emulate it with therapy settings, and or just trying to work with it in your mind, but like psychedelics just like, they get you there. And sometimes it’s not very pleasant. Sometimes it’s very raw, and it hurts, but there’s always like, oh, like, if you learn how to digest it in a certain way, there’s a lot of growth that can happen from that.

Valeria McCarroll:

Totally. And if the container is strong enough to hold it, you know, you articulated it really well, right? It’s the lightning path, in the same way that Vajrayana Buddhism is considered the lightning path, right. And, in any path that attempts to move that quickly, there’s a lot of emphasis on the preparation and the container and the relationship between disciple and the divine or disciple and teacher. And — and that all weaves a very strong field around what happens when a spiritual experience is potentiated or mystical encounter with the divine. And I think the same thing could be said for psychedelics, right. They — they can be extremely efficacious. And that’s where the sort of the thin line is, is they can also potentiate psychosis, right? If — if not held well, or they can send someone into very difficult experiences that then they don’t have the container to support them in processing and metabolizing. So you know, for me, it’s — it’s not necessarily that psychedelics are better than talk therapy, that’s — it’s for whom and when, right and that level of discernment to sort out. Therapy is very gentle. And I think one of the reasons that psychedelics worked so well for me was that I spent, whatever it was five or six years just really in my own weekly process before I engaged in an intentional way. And so I was prime. And I think talk therapy can be extremely helpful also in the integration, right? All of these things happen and then — and then what do you do with that. You know, in traditional society, we had a village to come back to who would hold us and receive us and mirror us after a big transformative experience. But we don’t — we don’t have that now. So who — who can really understand that we’ve been through a big transformation and — and receive that and — and help us see ourselves on the other side? I think that’s where integration therapy is incredibly useful. And traditional talk therapy can be very useful as well. 

DAVID:

Yeah. And you know, you said this earlier, but like set and setting. So it’s very important, like intention and who you’re around and what’s going on, and like the experience the other people have, or you might have. So you’ve mentioned a couple times Vajrayana, I think there’s like three Mahayana, Vajrayana, and what is the other one?

Valeria McCarroll:

Theravada.

DAVID:

Theravada. And then we’re also talking about psychedelics. When I was going to Naropa, I actually got a degree in — in Buddhism, but in my studies, I’ve never actually came across any Buddhists using psychedelics. So from your experience, how do you see these two things that are kind of different, you know, like, we have spiritual thing, and then we have spiritual slash biological, and emotionally based things like how do you bring them together? And how did you originally take the two and work with them together?

Valeria McCarroll:

Well, I would say that I’m definitely not the first person to hypothesize that there’s a relationship between psychedelics and spiritual practice. 

DAVID:

It was you, wasn’t it?!

Valeria McCarroll:

Yeah, it was me. It’s all me. No, Gordon Wasson wrote the Wonderous Mushroom. And there are — there’s a long lineage of folks who are suspicious that actually spiritual practice or religious phenomena in general have emerged from altered states, right, that that’s really where this all started to come out.

DAVID:

I mean, yeah, like seeing a burning bush, like, you’re not in the right mind, you know?

Valeria McCarroll:

Sure. Well, and is that because you’ve been fasting in the desert for however long? Or is it because you ate…bush or who knows what it is, but we can say that it was an altered state, but it seems like pretty easy to assume. So my own personal interest in all of — all of this emerged, because I had a kundalini awakening during a psychedelic journey. So I’ve been, you know, training in this lineage of Shakti Shiva Tantra. And — and in that tradition, you know one of the goals of spiritual practice is to awaken the seed of the divine and human form, which is said to be Kundalini, right, and then that moves through the channels of the body. And according to the traditional texts, you merge with the absolute and it’s amazing, and bliss, and love and light and all that. And I had been very dedicated in the school, and then ultimately left, because the teacher and I disagreed about the place of psychedelics and spiritual practice. And I had come to him and sort of named some of the experiences that I was having in this intentional psychedelic work. And he was very kindly like, that sounds fabulous. I’m so glad you’re growing. And you can’t — you can’t be an initiated student in my school and do that work, because these are two different things. I’m like, okay, well, thanks so much. Like, I feel really clear, I gotta go this way. But to me, they don’t feel like two different things. I understand that they’re different traditions, but they feel quite synchronous and supportive of each other. And so that sort of sparked a whole research project of sorts. You know, there’s — I think, today, folks who I think about who are really holding the baton for that, are someone like Mike Crowley, right, who’s a llama. He’s a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism and wrote a book called The Secret Drugs of Buddhism, that is a very deep analysis of texts. And —

DAVID:

You said, Mike Crowley.

Valeria McCarroll:

Yeah. Mike Crowley.

DAVID:

He’s my vibe.

Valeria McCarroll:

Yeah, he’s an interesting guy. He should come on your podcast. 

DAVID:

Yeah, I’d love that. 

Valeria McCarroll:

But you know, there — there are a lot of people who are looking at that — the historical emergence of that thread, you know, and the tantrics drink soma, which seems like was probably a psychedelic mushroom or brew of some kind.

DAVID:

Amanita, right? 

Valeria McCarroll:

Yeah. Yeah. So for me, you know, I have an interest in the historical, but I’m actually much more interested in the experiential, if that makes sense of what is it when I take these concepts that are very interesting to me about the cosmology of the world and its ontological unfolding and — and bring them into an expanded state? What happens in my consciousness when I explore those places, those maps. I have found that to be profoundly interesting and impactful. The synergy of the two, I think, of psychedelic medicine and sort of non dual ontologies. I guess we could classify all of that — has opened up a whole world of mystical experience. And it’s an interesting place for me because I — I think the Western paradigm of how you study a phenomenon or how you look at something sort of demands that you don’t go looking for answers, right. That like confirmation bias. Or if you’re looking for something, that’s what you end up getting, and I totally get that, you know, so I can hold — hold my experience with a grain of sand. LAUGHS. And then there are these other ways of engaging in study or process, right, a hermeneutic engagement, where you’re spiraling in on the text, where it’s more of a self reflexive process. And, you know, there’s a beautiful origin story of — in tantra, where you know everything has consciousness, and then — and then consciousness decides it wants to come to know itself. So it — as a field, it starts to fold back and spiral in on itself. And so there’s this, in order to see itself, right, we have to turn and look at ourselves. The action of turning back with the intention of self recognition, I think, is a very interesting mechanism that can kind of be applied out in — in lots of places, you know, I’m in this writing a lot about compassion right now. I’m like, well, what would it be? You know, what would it be if we studied the mechanisms of action of compassion? By engaging with compassion? You know, how do you — how do you sort of turn something on its own head, so to speak? 

DAVID:

I mean, I’ve come across this thing where people say, reality is meeting consciousness. So it needs like a conscious observer for reality to exist. And what I was hearing was when you’re talking about how, like, here’s consciousness, and it has to, like, turn around to look back on itself. And that’s kind of what I feel like is going on is, is reality is consciousness, looking at itself, trying to be like, what’s going on over here?

Valeria McCarroll:

The Tantrics would agree with you. 

DAVID:

Sweet. I’m wondering, like, there’s so many different types of therapy, psychological approaches to healing and self development. And I’m wondering, when does someone — is it like a practitioner? Is it patient? Is it therapists? Like, when does someone decide to use an assisted psychedelic therapy instead of like Union psychology, or transpersonal, or somatic or anything like that? And when do you not use it? Is there a moment when you’re just like, okay, I don’t know, if this is for you. Maybe you should just go to, you know, some traditional therapy and not, you know, a ketamine assisted therapy session. Like, when do you use it? When do you not? Who decides? And how does that work? Because I know, there’s a lot of different answers in there. But I’m just wondering, from your perspective,

Valeria McCarroll:

It’s a great question. I think it’s a complicated one. Because it’s individual, right, for whom and when, is sort of, that’s the — the adage, and for some people, something can be a medicine and for other people it can be a poison, right. And it’s so dependent on individual circumstance. And we’re at, I would say, in — in Western society, an interesting moment, where we’re gathering a lot of information about these medicines, and what they can do and how they work and very much looking at them on sort of the bio physiological level or the bio psycho social level. But you’re pointing out to me one of the really interesting questions of how do you know when someone would benefit from an experience like this? And then the trickier layer of like, how do you — I was just listening to a talk yesterday on informed consent and why it’s so difficult for — to work with in psychedelic experience, you know, how do you help someone who might be psychedelic naive consent to an experience that you can never possibly describe in words? 

DAVID:

Yeah.

Valeria McCarroll:

You know —

DAVID:

We’ve made it so taboo and like, illegal. 

Valeria McCarroll:

Well, yeah, then — then there’s the legalities. You know, right now, psychedelic medicine is only legally available through — through trials or through ketamine assisted therapy, or cannabis.

DAVID:

And I think mushrooms here, right? I think mushrooms are coming — 

Valeria McCarroll:

Mushrooms are — will be available in Oregon, in 2023. And in Colorado.

DAVID:

We just passed the law like three days ago.

Valeria McCarroll:

Which is such a complicated, I don’t need to go down the rabbit hole of the politics of how these things emerge. It’s complicated. So, you know, how do you equip someone with the discernment to know whether or not something is right for them? And then how do you equip them with a sense of agency? You know that’s — I think that’s such a crucial place. And that’s where something like talk therapy and really good preparation is helping a person really understand their agency in the experience. before, during and after.

DAVID:

Yeah, and I think that’s important, agency. Because it — because you don’t want someone to do that type of therapy when they’re kind of like I don’t know about this and the doctor’s like, yeah, it’s great. Just do it. 

Valeria McCarroll:

Oh, yeah, no, that would not — that’s where an experience becomes very traumatizing, right is if — if a person abdicates their sense of agency, because they’re in a power dynamic where someone is in a power over situation and thinks it’s a good idea. So to me, that impulse really needs to come from inside. Heard people talk a lot about like, ayahuasca calls you when — when she wants you to come, you know, and it’s better not to go like hunting for something that may or may not benefit you until you have a really clear knowing that you have a yes for that. You know, Joseph Campbell would call that the call to adventure, right? When does that place that’s like, oh, I’m — I’m ready to step out of my comfort zone to potentially let go of, you know, all these ways of being or senses of self that have a lot of safety, even if they’re not serving me very well, and decompose and reconstruct myself, you know, that that’s a big — that’s a big piece of work. And — and I think there’s a lot happening in psychedelic medicine, where it’s — it’s being understood as sort of a magic pill. So there’s also the managing of expectations of, as you said, this isn’t always pleasant, right. And in fact, a lot of the times it’s quite unpleasant, you know, it was sort of baffling to me, when I started working with Ayahuasca, it took me several encounters before I really went anywhere. And why are these people torturing themselves? You know, this is miserable.

DAVID:

And Ayahuasca is one of the — one of the ones that will like turn you upside down, you know, physically?

Valeria McCarroll:

Yeah, I mean, I think — I think a lot of them — a lot of the organics will, in my experience. Yeah, so it’s, you know, how do you know, when someone is ready? I think only a person inside can know that they’re ready. And — and the work of those supporting is to really help them clarify their knowing and find a depth of it that isn’t just a — yeah, I want to do this, but I like — my full being has a yes for this.

DAVID:

Okay. So, you know, we kind of just discussed like, when it’s a good option, when it’s not a good option. So, you know, say for the people that it is a good option, then within saying yes to wanting to step forward with that type of therapy — within that type of therapy, there’s a lot of different avenues you can go down like ayahuasca, mushrooms, MDMA, ketamine, DMT, if that’s on the table, peyote, ibogaine. There’s so many out there, and is there a way to discover which is the one — or a certain type of medicine, that like MDMA helps relationship and relating to a loved one or a person or yourself? You know, like, is there a certain type of medicine that helps with certain types of psychological problems that people want to address?

Valeria McCarroll:

That’s another good question. Another one that I don’t think there’s necessarily a direct answer to because, well, first, let me sort of tag on to the other question. I think there are also some really good reasons to not engage in deep work with medicine, right. That have to do with stability, level of support in the system, recent psychosis, history of psychosis, bipolar, right there — there’s some significant contraindications, that I think are worth paying attention to when one is considering doing this kind of work, but just want to tag those. You know, it’s — it’s an interesting thing we’re here in the West, where there’s the one level of like, right now legally, the only way to access these medicines is through trials, or ketamine assisted therapy, or cannabis until 2023, then — then psilocybin will be legal — legal in a couple of states. So that’s one layer. And then the next layer to me is somewhat about being in right relationship where I think there’s — there’s such an eagerness, which is understandable, because we all want to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. 

DAVID:

This we all have in common. 

Valeria McCarroll:

Yeah, it’s a universal phenomenon, you know. And then, for those of us who have grown up in the West, I think there’s a level of sort of unconscious, white entitlement of like, well, I should have access to all of this, right, like, I should be able to just go do this. That I — I want to check a little bit of like, well, you know, the organic medicines are all very much place based, and have long lineages of practice and ways of working and a whole ontology of how the world works, that, you know, the question of what does it mean to be in right relationship with something like — like one of those medicines? So maybe a step forward is to be in curiosity about what these are and where they’ve come from and — and to do a little research of you know what — what really understood — back to the informed consent, what am I getting myself into here? You know?

DAVID:

Yeah. And that’s important to be educated about something that is gonna wipe the slate clean in some sense. It really like takes you somewhere that you can’t really go unless you are ingesting certain substances to get there.

Valeria McCarroll:

Yeah, it’s a unique — well, I don’t know, maybe meditators who can get there.

DAVID:

Yeah. You know, like a 12 hour, like, rhythmic drumming session might get you there or like some breathwork or —

Valeria McCarroll:

Sure. Yeah, yeah, vision — vision fast. You know, there are technologies of the sacred that allow us to access those states. And so — and I think that’s important, because there are people for whom psychedelics will never be a good idea. Right? So it’s — I think it’s important for people to be able to relax back into, this isn’t my only way of getting there. And then there’s sort of the body of research that’s emerging about how these medicines work on our brain and our bodies and what can shift and — and I think that’s where sort of this question you posed about, are there different medicines that are appropriate for different things? That’s one place where that question will start to be answered more fully is — is understanding, okay, so this medicine is a serotonin agonist or antagonist once again, I’m not a neurobiologist. You know, MDMA, increases levels of prolactin in the body. So it’s good for bonding and pro social experiences, these kinds of things. So that’s sort of one way of looking at them. And then I think the other — the other way is — or one other way is from these lineages of practice and framework of understanding of, in the Mazatec lineage of psilocybin practice, the psilocybin mushrooms are the Nino Santos, they’re the Holy children, and there seem to be emissaries of The Goddess. So when you take them into your body, eat them with your two front teeth as a sacrament, right, like a Holy — Holy Spirit. And they are decomposers, you know, by their very nature. They — they grow up on fecal matter, and they are decomposing that which no longer serves. So we could think about them energetically, when you’re bringing them into your system of you know what is no longer serving you, what needs to be cleared out? Look at Ayahuasca, which is a whole lineage of practice that I’m not as familiar with, but here are these, usually two, but sometimes sort of a mix of plants that are cooked over a fire. So there’s a very fiery aspects to the nature of that spirit that will consume the things. You know that’s the nature of fires, it consumes fuel, or it burns out. And so I think that’s another way to think about, or look at how these medicines work and think about what’s happening inside oneself. And what would serve, you know, I’m — I — somewhat have the mindset that — I’m always of the mindset that the person in need of healing is always the authority on what they need, right? Like they over everyone else, have the knowing. It’s their body, their experience, and — and so you know, how to help them be in conversation and gather the information that they need to make an informed decision, is really a part of that process to me.

DAVID:

When I was asking that question, I kind of knew there’s not like a specific answer. But I just, you know, I’m just kind of curious and I think it’s important to realize, like, you can get benefits from all of them. And there’s like, certain from some, and, you know, I think you did a really good job explaining it all to us. I was just usually curious about it. But another thing I think about is recently, I’ve actually talked to a lot of psychedelic assisted therapy people. And when I talk to some of them, I’ve noticed like, their path is more of a, I’m interested in something, I study it, but less of I take it, and there might be legislation, laws, regulations, you know, it’s like you can administer it. But you know, it’s like illegal if you just recreationally use it. So I’ve noticed some people that facilitate the medicine spaces aren’t necessarily people that take the medicine very often. And then I’ve also noticed, there’s a lot of people who do take the medicine a lot, and also administer it. And I’m wondering, how important is it for the practitioner to be in relationship with the medicine that they use on patients or, you know, in therapeutic settings?

Valeria McCarroll:

I can come at it from all different angles. You know — like on one level, I think it’s important that someone who is facilitating those spaces has an understanding of the potency of them. And so that comes back to like, you don’t have to take necessarily psychedelics to have an understanding of what an expanded space is. There are so many other ways of going in there, and when we’re in this moment where legalities of massive consideration or perhaps a barrier, how to give people experience of — experiences of expanded or transcendent spaces, and experiences of frameworks — you know frameworks of understanding of what that space is, what it can potentiate, and how to work with it skillfully. That’s very important. I’m also of the mindset back to being in right relationship, if you’re going to be in a white body holding space for people with a medicine that has a lineage of indigenous practice, then you need to do your homework. And if you are particularly going to profit and make money off of that, you know, you should be in a deep consideration of how you’re supporting the people and the places and spaces who have suffered at the hands of colonialism and preserved that medicine. So — and that’s individual, right, that’s individual for everyone. I know for myself, I have a relationship with the Mazatec lineage and — and I’m in an ongoing inquiry of how I’m in right relationship to that. You know I don’t hold space for people using the mushroom. So I’m not profiting off of that. But I am teaching. I’m talking about it, right, there’s a way in which my income streams are related to my knowledge of that tradition. And — and so how am I in reciprocity with it in an ongoing way, not just, you know, I made this one time donation. And so now I’m good. You know, how — how do I understand that it’s an exchange that’s living, it’s a living entity. I’m receiving something and so what am I giving? And it doesn’t always have to be tit for tat. I don’t think, you know, but how am I in service? You know, as that medicine has been in service to me, how am I in service to — to it? To how it moves in the world?

DAVID:

Yeah, and different lineages move differently in the world. So studying, being knowledgeable, and also, you know, being an advocate for representing the cultures is really important, because it doesn’t feel authentic, if you just take, you know, oh, it looks like it’s working over there. I’m just gonna, you know, just implemented over here, copy, paste, and that can do some damage. 

Valeria McCarroll:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, can’t just take another person’s tradition and assume that it’ll work for us, because we’re divorcing it from time and place and space. And — and what is — what does it mean to be in right relationship, you know, if you’re, you know, learn and study and educate yourself, be in a living relationship with a tradition? What’s the line that’s not appropriative, but also honors and acknowledges, how you’ve been influenced and where your learning has come from?

DAVID:

I’m like thinking about this right now is Colorado just passed a law that we’re going to start looking into mushrooms, we’re going to deregulate them in a way that is more therapeutical settings that we can investigate further information about it. But I mean, as you’re talking about this and like, honoring lineages, I feel like there’s a sense of like, the legislation should also be honoring the lineages and I’m wondering, like, does that look a certain way, you know, other than just saying like, you know, you get your gavel and (bang, bang) it passed, just go ahead and do it. I feel like, there should be some sort of like system and where we can, like, honor the people who started the practice, within the laws or something like that, just like some sort of recognizing that it’s sacred, you know, there’s many sacred things that we have in our life, but like, we hold it really high. Like the Bible — the Bible is very sacred, like, there’s certain things you don’t do with it. There’s certain things you do with it. I’m wondering, like, what do you think that would look like if legislation kind of wrote in a little bit of honoring indigenous cultures, with the medicines that we use?

Valeria McCarroll:

Well, I mean, it’s interesting that you bring up the Colorado legislation, my understanding is that there was quite a bit of controversy. And, you know, people who are supportive of medicine work and psychedelic medicine, indigenous, you know, local — local communities in Colorado who opposed that legislation, because of the way it was worded. And because it wasn’t created with the inclusion and consent and language of the people, some of the people of Colorado, right, particularly First Nations people and so that, I think you’re — you’re pointing at it, you know, it’s legislation, it seems so easily becomes this, like, well, it’s for your own good, and you may not like it, but it’ll actually help you in that kind of white savior complex that it is — seems so problematic. And, you know, I mean and then we start to get down a whole rabbit hole of the problems of our legislative system and the fact that you know most of our legislation is based on sort of punitive understandings of justice and — and the massive transformation that’s necessary, you know, to move towards a restorative and a reparative understanding of what justice is  and how we scaffold our legislation and what would it be to build laws that really were emergent? You know, this Adrian Marie Brown’s emergent strategy, how do you — how do you see what’s actually in the field of the people who it’s going to affect and — and bring them into participation in its creation, is such a — such a big question. And I think one of the places where psychedelic medicine has such potential, I am deeply curious about, you know, there’s now studies that are emerging, or that have been emerging around using psychedelics to heal racial trauma and using psychedelics to address the impact of injustice in our society. I am particularly curious about because I like taking these frameworks and bringing them inside, what would it be to — to take principles and understandings of restorative justice and — and transformative justice and scaffold bodies of work so that people can do that work internally so that they can transform the parts of themselves that oppress and have been oppressed into right relationships so we can be in right relationship inside ourselves? Because I think that’s really, you know, if we sort of look at all of what’s happening in the world is the play of consciousness coming to know itself, we’re just projecting our own undigested stuff around power out there. And so if we can do that work internally, then maybe we can do that with other people in a good way.

DAVID:

Yeah. And I mean, you know, it’s hard to get stuff passed. So I wonder if people are just like, oh, don’t worry about the wording. It’s just great that it’s even being discussed and on the bill, like, let’s just plow it through, and then we’ll figure it out on the back end or something

Valeria McCarroll:

Totally well, and I can understand that. And I also know that that sense of urgency of like, we have to do this now — that’s a trauma response, you know, that that rushing or that leaving what’s actually happening? For most people, urgency is a trauma response.

DAVID:

Yeah, it’s a trauma of not getting something in a hurry. And we’re just like, oh, no, we need it. Because if we don’t, we’re never gonna get it.

Valeria McCarroll:

Yeah. Well, it’s all kinds of, you know, the ancestors start to — to speak up of like, all the reasons that we had to rush in the past and —

DAVID:

Okay, so I just got one more question for you. But I’m thinking like, you know, when you enter a space of psychedelics, you want to have an intention, you want to have clear, you know, ideas of like, what you’re working on, what’s going on, in what you’re doing, and be respectful to the medicine and your healing and yourself. And I’m wondering, how important is it to set an intention? And then also, like, what does an intention look like in those settings? Not only like, oh, yeah, it’s very important, you know, do that, but like, how do you do that?

Valeria McCarroll:

It is very important to set an intention. That’s the — yeah, yes. 

DAVID:

I thought you’d say that. 

Valeria McCarroll:

For me, for me. 

DAVID:

Yeah. Okay. 

Valeria McCarroll:

I can only speak to my own experience. Ralph Metzner used to talk about — and I may not phrase it exactly right. Your — your intention directs your attention, right. And your attention is where your energy flows, sort of that idea of like what we pay attention to grows in us, which is true in our life, but particularly in an expanded state where we’re so porous, and we’re so open. So for me, the process of clarifying my intention is really thinking about what’s my wish, what’s my desire? You know, if — if I could shake a magic wand and change one thing, what would it be? And sometimes it’s a very clear something, and then sometimes, you know, my life is in whatever state it’s in. And I don’t have a clear intention. And that’s usually, for me a moment to turn to the medicine and be like, my intention is to be open to what you think I need to know — what you have to show me. 

DAVID:

Yeah.

Valeria McCarroll:

Because this is a relationship, right? It’s not always about me. So if I don’t know maybe the other person does.

DAVID:

And it’s okay not to know. There’s — there’s nothing wrong with not knowing and I think honoring the, I don’t know what’s going on, but willing to hear a message. I think that’s very impactful as well.

Valeria McCarroll:

Totally. Exactly. So for me intention, you know, attention is very much about desire, and how am I in relationship with my own desire, not necessarily just erotic desire, but desire as the things I want. Right now we’re circling — full circle back to Shiva Tantra where desire isn’t a problem. Desire isn’t something to deny or repress or try to extinguish, desire is actually a sign that you are not completely emerged with absolute consciousness. Right? You’re — that you’re — you have not recognized the fullness of your own being because you have desire. So obviously, there’s something out there that isn’t complete. So desire is in the tantric understanding, desire is a vehicle. So if I take that and I translate that over to psychedelic experience, and I — I use my desire as sort of a guiding light of my intention, it’s a through line, it helps me navigate in that space. You know, what was my intention? What did I want to do? Right, oh, I wanted to work on compassion. You know, it’s — it’s a place to return to that can help when it becomes a very expanded, you know, world of multiple universes out there. You know what really matters here? What am I paying attention to? You know what — what’s my prayer?

DAVID:

Yeah, one thing I like to do is — I agree with you with desire, like desire can be useful and it can be detrimental, but like, what is the quality of the desire? And also where does the desire come from? Is it coming from here, here, you know, your head, your heart. So I think it depends and tapping into yourself, and learning how to have those inner dialogues will help you realize the quality of it, and maybe amplify it or maybe help guide where it is coming from. You know, I really appreciate our conversation. And I love diving into these more psychedelic scholarly psychedelic conversations. Like I’m all about this. I love hearing people who have done their homework, who are emotionally sound and physically sound and they just like really have it together. And they’re doing the good work, because I think there’s a lot of — I think we demonized and made it taboo to do some of these things. What’s interesting is like, they really have some super healing potentials. And it’s really beautiful just to hear you talk about that. And I really appreciate you talking about that. But before we go, do you want to just like shout out your social medias? I know, you have two websites. So you know, you can — you can tell like, if you want this, go here, if you want that go here. So I just wanna give a highlight to honor you and maybe say something that you feel like you haven’t said you want to say?

Valeria McCarroll:

Sure. Well, yeah, I mean, I love staying connected with people. And I love being in these conversations. So it’s really wonderful to be here with you and ways folks can — can stay connected with me are on Instagram at Somadelics — SOMA or somadelics.com. That’s sort of my — my body of offerings of prayer that I’m unfolding, or at ValeriaMcCarroll.com. That’s my — that’s me. Still in that inquiry of like, how many websites is too many? So you can find me there. I offer programs — transformational programs and classes and you can find them both places, but —

DAVID:

Awesome. And so you — you offer programs on your websites, along with your CIIS courses as well. 

Valeria McCarroll:

Yeah, so I teach a program called, Cultivating the Seat of The Guide or I facilitate a program, it’s a 10 month transformational journey, not — again, not teaching anyone how to work with psychedelics, but really in that inquiry of how expanded spaces, transformational spaces can engender or potentiate awakening. So really using the expanded space of a powerful group field of personal work. So each month, we’re in a different inquiry around a certain kind of power. You know, we’ve been in desire and we’re in creativity this month.

DAVID:

That sounds cool. 

Valeria McCarroll:

It’s — it’s awesome. It’s super fun.

DAVID:

Yeah, the Seat of Authenticship. Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you, sharing your wisdom and knowledge and just your time with us. And thank you so much.

Valeria McCarroll:

Thank you for having me.

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On behalf of the Naropa community, thank you for listening to Mindful U. The official podcast of Naropa University. Check us out at www.naropa.edu or follow us on social media for more updates.