The other day, a friend told me she no longer feels permission to keep walking with the plants. The doors feel closed, she said. Nothing seems supportive anymore. And at the same time, she couldn’t imagine what else she would do.
I know this place well. I, too, have met those moments when the medicine path feels too heavy, when I feel powerless and not enough. In fact, as I write these words, I am just emerging from one of those spirals — where fear stories pull me under and make me question everything.
And yet… there are moments when the truth feels undeniable. When I witness magic unfolding before my eyes as someone journeys through their healing. When I receive messages of gratitude, or when I see the quiet transformation rippling through their life over time. In those moments, I remember why I am here.
When the Shadows Surface
The moments of breaking free from old entrapments are rarely graceful. They can be dark, painful, messy, and confusing — full of emotions we’d rather not feel, full of the fear of failure. And why wouldn’t they be? What we have swallowed must eventually return to the light, asking to be seen and released.
We live in a culture that teaches us to fear discomfort, to turn away from anything that isn’t polished and beautiful. Perhaps this is why some reject the medicine path altogether, calling Ayahuasca diabolical or shamanism the work of the devil. I’ve witnessed friends who once walked with the plants turn instead to Christianity, often with harsh judgments toward the path I continue to walk. These types of messages echo online too, arriving in my feed as reminders.
I don’t wish to judge anyone’s way. Every path has its own shining allure and its own shadows. Though I carried heavy judgement toward Christianity earlier in my life, I am learning to meet it differently now — to hold it with more softness, and to receive the teachings that resonate as true for me, while leaving the rest.
The Rawness of Life Revealed
The world often lures us with promises of something better out there. We are tempted into fantasies — believing that if we just reach this goal, meet that person, or achieve that dream, our discomfort will vanish.
But eventually the bubble bursts. The illusion crumbles, and we find ourselves back in the raw simplicity of life — naked, vulnerable, alone.
I have been there many times. Like when I believed I had met the love of my life, just weeks before my journey with Rua Inu began. Or when I poured myself into work, only to be met with betrayal and attack. In those moments, who wouldn’t want to give it all up? The humiliation, the resentment, the ache of disappointment. Our first instinct is often to escape, to look for someone to blame. A natural reflex of self-preservation.
But is it really danger we are facing? Or is it simply the truth of life revealing itself? The truth that we live in a dual world — where beauty and pain, love and loss, light and shadow exist side by side.
Perhaps once we accept this, we touch a deeper peace. A place where we can breathe with the mess of it all — the challenges, the struggles, the heartbreaks — without needing them to mean that we are lost or condemned.
And maybe what we call riches, fame, or success are simply diversions. Ways we keep ourselves running, rather than surrendering to the mysterious gift of being alive right here, in all its rawness.
After all, isn’t this what many of us seek in ceremony — the intensity, the edge, the confrontation with life in its most unfiltered form? And yet, the medicine of rawness is not confined to the ceremony space. It is here, woven through our everyday lives. Every heartbreak, every burst bubble, every vulnerable truth is its own kind of ceremony — if we dare to meet it that way.
Fear as a Sacred Threshold
Fear and resistance do not always mean stop. Nor do they mean push harder. More often, they are an invitation to pause and to reframe how we are walking with the challenge.
I remember a time when I was terrified of what I was witnessing in medicine circles. I wanted to close the door completely, to walk away from it all. But just then, I encountered the work of Atira Tan on Trauma-Informed Plant Medicine Facilitation. Instead of quitting, I chose to learn. To explore new ways of holding the medicines with greater safety and reverence.
Through that doorway I came face to face with my own history of developmental trauma. I entered a long journey of meeting the isolation, pain, and darkness I had carried within me. And slowly, I began to see that fear was not a condemnation. It was an initiation. A threshold into deeper growth.
When fear rises, life is showing me where to look more closely. Sometimes it asks me to slow down. To create more safety in my body. To move with more gentleness. At other times it asks me to seek support, to deepen my skills, or to be more discerning about where I give and where I receive.
This is not a race. The rush to serve others, to guide ceremonies, or to monetize the work too soon is often just another trauma pattern — the same drive that keeps our culture speeding forward. The medicine, like life itself, teaches another rhythm: patience, humility, discernment.
To walk in that rhythm is its own ceremony. To choose slowness when the world pushes us to rush, to choose humility when the ego craves recognition — this is initiation too. This is how fear becomes a sacred threshold rather than a dead end.
The Nervous System and the Shadows of the Medicine Path
When ceremonies turn chaotic or destabilizing, it is easy to blame the plants. But the medicine itself is not the problem. What often creates distortion is how we — as humans — hold, or fail to hold, the space around it.
The field of plant medicine in the Western world is still young, and with that comes both beauty and shadow. I have seen how unintegrated trauma shapes our spaces: the rushing to serve or guide before one is ready, the offering of too much medicine too soon, the rescuing and pleasing of others, the addiction to intensity, the projection of our own wounds into the circle. These patterns are not unique to plant medicine. They are the same trauma responses that drive our wider culture — striving, fixing, performing, bypassing — only amplified inside a ceremonial container.
And yet, even these distortions are not mistakes. The chaos, the fragmentation, the intensity — they, too, are part of the teaching. They show us where the work is. They transform us, even when it feels ugly or confusing. There is no shame in being caught in these patterns. They are simply the places where life is still inviting us to grow.
This is why the nervous system matters. Without a felt sense of safety in the body, it is easy to get swept into loops of fear, survival, and fragmentation. With grounding, however, something different becomes possible. We can stay present with discomfort. We can discern when an energy is truly dangerous and when it is simply unfamiliar. We can meet shadow without collapsing into it.
The medicine invites us back into relationship with nature’s rhythm: slow, humble, patient, alive. To embody this is itself a ceremony — not just in the ceremony space, but in the way we live, love, and walk through daily life. Each time we choose to breathe, to slow down, to stay with what is real rather than chase intensity, we are honoring the initiation.
This is the heart of the path I wish to walk — and the path I wish to share. A way of working with the plants that centers safety, discernment, sovereignty, and service. A way that honors both the shadow and the light, while rooting us in our own embodied presence.
Walking Forward with Gentleness
Each of us walks this path in our own way. For some, the call is to step toward new allies. For others, it is to go deeper into relationship with the forces of nature. For many, it is simply to slow down, reframe, and walk more gently.
The forces of nature do not rush us, nor do they condemn us. They are here to teach us. To reveal what is unhealed. To remind us that even the mess, even the fragmentation, even the darkest moments are part of the ceremony. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is outside of the teaching.
Life itself is the great ceremony. Every heartbreak, every initiation, every moment of joy and despair is part of the same mysterious weave. The plants simply mirror what is already here, amplifying the rawness and showing us how to meet it with more presence, humility, and compassion.
This is the path I choose to walk. Not because it is always easy, but because again and again I feel the deep calling of my soul to stay with it — even through fear, resistance, and the temptations to turn away.
And it is from this place of choice that I long to share. To support those who also feel the calling — and who may be questioning, doubting, or afraid. To walk together in a way that is rooted in safety, discernment, sovereignty, and service.
In this spirit, I am slowly and organically shaping the Sacred Plant Medicine Journey online course — a way of walking with the plants that is embodied, grounded, and deeply respectful of the forces of nature. Alongside it, I am also creating a community space, Siriani’s Sanctuary, where we can gather, share, and support one another in weaving these teachings into our lives.
If you feel called, I invite you to join my newsletter. This is where I will share when the course and community are ready to open.
✨ If you find yourself walking through a difficult passage — meeting resistance, facing an obstacle, or simply longing for a steady hand beside you — I offer one-on-one sessions where I hold space with care and presence. These sessions are a place to pause, breathe, and be supported as you navigate your own unique journey.
If this speaks to you, you can learn more here: link to private sessions.
May we continue to walk gently, remembering that the rawness of life is not an obstacle — it is the very medicine we came here to receive.