[00:00:12] Pascal: Hello. Welcome to One Degree Shifts. I am your host, Pascal Tremblay, and I'm the cofounder of Nektar. We're a psychedelic support And today, we're talking to the lovely and amazing Marcy Moberg. She's a psychedelic integration guide, an Nektar guide, and a wonderful human that I've really been enjoying getting to know over the last year or so as we've started collaborating together.
And Yeah. Just a lovely, compassionate person doing lovely work in the world, and really honored to be able to have a podcast with her today. Hi, Marcy.
[00:00:43] Marci: Hi, Pascal. Thank you so much for that beautiful intro, and it's such a pleasure to be here with you.
[00:00:50] Pascal: Likewise. Awesome. They were talking about something that is really interesting to me, and we're talking about relationship to medicine, specifically, psychedelic medicines. When we spoke about this podcast, you talked about how passionate you are about centering on relationship with our medicines. Can you tell us a bit more about what that means to you?
[00:01:13] Marci: Yeah. This is probably maybe one of the central issues that I'm most passionate about.
I feel like it's a a missing piece for a lot of people when they're going through a plant medicine experiences and psychedelic experiences. And that is this understanding in this sense, an opportunity to understand the medicine that you're sitting with as a consciousness in and of itself, as a teacher, as having spirit. And in that way, Developing a very intentional relationship, with that medicine, understanding that inside of a relational field, not only I feel yields different results from those experiences, but More importantly, creates different opportunities and deeper layers of meaning that can emerge for people. And if anyone going into a plant medicine experience has a history where their relationships, have been ruptured in the past. Maybe in their family of origin, relationship was very difficult.
Then also relating to the medicine through a relational way can also be Quite healing to have an experience with a consciousness, a spirit, a teacher that is actually Good. That is nourishing. That connects us to our truth can also be quite profound.
[00:02:45] Pascal: Mhmm. And you talked about before, and I really that term is rightsizing ourselves from ego to eco.
Essentially, widening the lens of our relationship by imbibing the medicine in such a way and developing a relationship to the medicine over time. In that way, really yields a lot of richer results is what I'm hearing from you. Why else is this important for you to center our medicine in relationship. I
[00:03:14] Marci: think it's important to name that this latest quote, unquote movement of psychedelics and growth in people working with psychedelics and plant medicines, is not really new. This we're standing on on a long history of peoples around the world who protected, relationship with these medicines, who sometimes gave their lives, who went through persecution.
And there's a lot of wisdom in these traditions primarily now held by indigenous communities in different parts of the world, Where this relational, nature to the medicine is centered in the process. I think there's a lot of There's wisdom there. It's not by accident that we find that over and over again. So for me, it's not about a sense of cultural appropriation and trying to recreate something from a culture that is not our Culture of origin, but rather recognizing that there's some deeper wisdom there in that understanding that there's that we're sitting with something greater than ourselves. We're sitting with some essence, some spirit that has wisdom.
And the right sizedness, I think, is important because, I mean, I think anyone inevitably on the path, if they Go through enough ceremonies. You will have those experiences where you are really humbled. You're really humbled and in a beautiful way where you can really locate yourself within the web of life. And I do feel like that relational nature with the medicine helps do that because I would also say, at least from where I am based in the United States, people tend to be quite human centric and sometimes even that in the relational field is not rich and is not healthy, and have that relationship with nature and recognize that when we're working with these medicines, when we're sitting with them we're not sitting with just, a molecule. We're actually sitting with a part of nature, which we are also a part of.
I also find that over time, that brings us into a deeper sense of connection meaning, a sense of being a part of something greater, a sense of belonging which can be so nourishing and healing because that's inherent to How all of our ancestors really experienced life before and relate it to Earth. It's this is like a very modern thing to be very just human centered and very, I would even say, mind centered, They're not even engaging in our in the relationship with the our whole
[00:06:09] Pascal: self. Mhmm. And what does it mean for someone to and I would say The word interbeing comes up in terms of kinda defining what that means is you're part of the we and not just part of the you, and that's get really wide including the entire cosmos as well. And what does that mean for someone then who's Maybe you've been approaching psychedelics in the way that I'm just popping a medicine.
I'm taking a dose which that relationship can feel, very practical or very like I'm using a tool and I'm just using it. But what does it mean for someone to shift that relationship then to that interbeing, to exploring those wider relationships in a practical way. What would you recommend for people that are wanting to experiment with this a little bit more?
[00:06:58] Marci: Yeah. I would I wanna say two things.
I love the interbeing framework. I that feels so spot on to me. So so right. It's just this understanding that the life around us is animate. And I think as a starting point, it's just being open to the possibility that maybe you're not Using something, but maybe the that actually there's something greater unfolding there.
And, Mhmm. How how much of you is really leading this process versus how much is it more of A we happening. I think anytime anyone sits with the medicine, it's very common for people to have an idea of what they think is going to happen, And then what unfolds is very different. Another way of saying that I always tell people is you will receive what you need from the medicine.
It might not always be what you want, but it will be exactly what you need. So I think just number one, opening up to the possibility that there can there that could be a possibility, that there could be a teacher, a consciousness, a spirit, however whatever someone's framework is that resonates with them, that there can that can exist and that they could have a relationship, and they can have a personal relationship with that medicine that they're sitting with. And then from that place, I would say in their preparation process, whatever that looks like for them being open to being in dialogue with that medicine from the beginning. Because also my experience is once you say yes, The ceremony already begins. It's already started.
It's not really just about the day where we sit there. So I think those are maybe it's just some it's some starting with tiny shift in our perception and a tiny shift in our receptivity, openness to the possibility, and then seeing what happens. And, of course, there are more intentional practices that can be built in from there for sure.
[00:09:05] Pascal: Yeah. It reminds me of the when I think about this from a visual perspective, because I'm a visual person, I can imagine three types of relationship where one is the person taking the medicine from a very egocentric perspective of I'm using this pill.
I'm using this dose. I'm using this medicine to empower myself, and I just have this very narrow vision of what that relationship looks like. And on the other side might be, oh, there's this higher force out there that's I'm subjecting myself to it, and I need to surrender to it. And it's this omnipotent force in the universe where the relationship is kinda top down heavy. When you're relating to it in like an inferior way of I'm not part of this, and I'm just being subjected to this thing.
I hear the word surrendering a lot. But, Sherry, Our director of integration talks all about the word cocreation as well, which is what I think you're referring to in this relationship of side by side of collaboration, of cocreation with the medicine and how that perspective can really help open up entirely different avenues of insights.
[00:10:10] Marci: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah. I agree. Again, it's about rightsizeness. Right?
It's not about, inflating our inflating the ego so much that there's nothing else besides us. And it's not about diminishing ourselves either Because, really, they come from the same root. Right? They come from the same kind of unhealthy coping mechanism of our relationship worth and our self esteem. So finding that right size that healthy right sizeness and and, relating in a way to the medicine where we maintain our agency, and then we're in that cocreation place.
We're in that conversation place. Right. We're in that conversation place, which I think can be Mhmm. Really beautiful because then the medicine can become like a dear teacher in the sense that Consciousness is very old. Right?
I mean, we just look at biology. Plants and fungi are have existed on planet Earth way, longer than humans, so there's So in that way, they all are
[00:11:12] Pascal: mycelial overlords is what I like to say because I there are books out there that talk about the history of fungi, and I forgot the name of the book, but it talks about how trees actually exist because they weren't able to grow roots before. And so the fungi would act as their roots as they were coming into Earth. And I am I'm just fascinated by the amount of intelligence that's part of that system of life, which is the largest organic living being in the world.
[00:11:42] Marci: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Well said, and a beautiful example. Right?
And so they are our ancestors. And I also generally find that the plants when we come into this relational field there's a beautiful response to that. Right? I mean, it's like that in nature. In nature, We see that reflection of interbeing in everything, the way that an ecosystem operates.
Nothing operates in isolation. And When there is that interbeing that happens, which is just organically happens by nature out in an ecosystem like I live in the forest here none of the trees have to say I'm in isolation separate from you, other tree species, or you, mushrooms, or whatever that is that they're all interconnected, then then there's a there's something beautiful that can unfold there can't unfold when that ecosystem is not happening. So it's like we're when we develop that relationship, we're operating in more of a of an ecosystem rather than an isolation. And then in that ecosystem, there's so much more richness that can come through In our ceremony journeys, in our integration process, think we open ourselves up to more possibilities. And for folks who are Also interested in experiencing, more like transpersonal states.
I also think it opens the nature for that because you're already Relating in a transpersonal way from the beginning of the process by having a relationship with the medicine. It's having that experience outside of Just yourself.
[00:13:18] Pascal: Yeah. And we talked about rightsizing our ego earlier, But this relationship approach also right sizes our own issues. Mhmm.
So my background in mental health was essentially years of depression really dark depression where I felt like my reality was like a pinhole, and I was, like, in the box, and my whole reality was just very, narrow channel. And as I was able to do and have the privilege to do more work on myself, that pinhole has greatly expanded, to a larger ecosystem. And my issues don't seem so big anymore. It really feels a lot more peaceful and easier to hold as well when I'm holding the scope of The whole planet and beyond when I'm on my good days. And so I think rightsizing our own issues really is another benefit of approaching our medicine as a relationship.
[00:14:15] Marci: Yeah. I completely agree. Rightsizing issues is completely right, And there can be a rightsizing of issues that happens. This happens, I feel a lot with people with in a relationship with their, For example, their family of origin. It's quite common that people in the plant medicine experience might, for example, be processing some of their Trauma imprints, and they have insights about their caretakers maybe the experiences that their caretakers went through, and then maybe further insight into The ancestral layers of what's carrying there.
And there's a different kind of compassion that unfolds there and holding for that person's Individual suffering that they experience is a natural impact, but then also locating that within a bigger system of having an understanding of of the what unfolded in their household in a different way. In addition to then what you're talking about those kind of concentric circles of understanding that there's always going to be you know, by the nature of life, there's always going to be someone suffering more. There's always gonna be someone suffering less. The nature of suffering and how that unfolds, I feel like when we go through these kind of plant medicine experiences and we relate to the medicine, In that way, we can definitely have those insights of that kind of rightsizing, of our problems and our challenges. But then there's also the other piece too of having rightsizing of resources.
If we have a relationship with something beyond just ourselves, the medicine. Maybe we have experiences of our ancestors. We have experiences of the consciousness of Earth, or We live in a forest, and we feel the animate nature of the forest around us. Then we also have an ability to have our system be resourced in a different way to have to feel like we have backing, we have meaning, we have support. People will often describe in plant medicine experiences when they have this more Relationship, more of a relationship with the plant medicine that they might feel like, gosh.
I have this ally now in my life that I can feel is guiding me and supporting me. And that also can be really supportive to feel that To feel held within a different container.
[00:16:32] Pascal: Yes. And then the question is, am I able to receive all of that support? Can I say yes and lean into it?
That's been my challenge is the awareness of those things and their resources and also having A very strong brain protector that's no. I got this. I can do it by myself. And I think there's a thread there for me as well around having been brought up in a family why I had to use my brain a lot to thrive or to survive even was this resistance to a greater Or a different level of intelligence that is out there that is trying to communicate, that is real. And I had to spend some time on that one of this is when I was feeling into my first ceremonies of Ayahuasca, I was like, It is real, and it is here, and it is around to hold us and love us.
But can I accept it that it's there in the first place, but also accept it in my system? That to me has been a big part of my healing path is just saying yes to all of that because we do live in a society that doesn't honor those relationships. We live in a violent extractive oppressive system that wants us to be small and in silos. so I think that this relationship aspect to medicine is really tying into a larger global, growth stage of us really honoring those relationships and honoring the intelligences that are beyond the human. And so can you speak a bit more about that honoring of the different types of intelligence?
We can call it spiritual intelligence, but There's also fungi intelligence. There's grandmother Ayahuasca jungle intelligence. And Yeah. I'd love to hear more of what your story's been around that.
[00:18:15] Marci: Yeah.
So many. I love your reflection about, yeah, The different intelligences, I can say definitely, I have had some very profound that were quite moving for me. One I can think of in a plant medicine experience that was you know, that I was in myself, where I experienced the living consciousness of earth. And those kind of moments are very hard to put into words, but it was really, touching to me, and it felt like a connection that something very deep inside of me, always knew somehow, but had never directly experienced. And it also was really healing for me, I would say, around eco anxiety, in a sense of feeling like, Okay.
There is some intelligence here. There is a consciousness to this being. And it also gave me a different kind of sense of stewardship towards the Earth. And I feel like I already felt connected to the Earth, but in a very, A different way. Having that kind of direct encounter with the consciousness that is earth and then developing Continuing to deepen my relationship with that and having that inform basic decisions from recycling to purchasing choices to all sorts of different things like that, has a different meaning has a different meaning.
So and it relieved some of my eco anxiety not to the sense of There's no problem. It's not it wasn't that. It was it's hard to put into words. It's I could clearly feel the problem. I could clearly feel The grief of the Earth.
I clearly feel the sense of wow. Humans went really sideways as a species And feeling that impact but then also still a sense of hope. There I guess, the feeling I had was, like, feeling I received was that there was, like, a forgiveness of this. There was not a Hopelessness. There was a sense of thing things can shift.
Things can still be unfold in a way that can be positive If human consciousness can start to wake up and being just one tiny point in that giant web, There's also a little bit of a release of pressure. So it helped me then start to look at instead of holding all the grief, And because I kinda felt that in that experience, what was what that was like. Somehow, it shifted me to them being able to say, okay. Let me Acknowledge my own grief and then let me make choices accordingly also still with hope. I think something else I wanted to name Connected with what you were saying is that also culturally, so many of us are very hyper independent.
Right? It's baked into us that piece around not being able receive or even integrate those encounters. Maybe we can have an encounter like that, in a ceremony, we can have a sense of a relationship with the plants that we're sitting with or the Earth or a tree We're a planet or the cosmos. And a lot of times, we as a is our system might be organized in that kind of sense of feeling very hyper independent because maybe that's how we had to survive in our home ecosystem, Then, yeah, it can take time to learn how to orient the system and make sure it's it wasn't just a momentary experience. It wasn't just a idea that you take out of it, but rather that it's something that goes a little bit deeper and that shifts your soma, your body, your feelings so that as you open up more to that, then you it opens up other layers.
It opens up a deeper relationship with yourself. It opens up a deeper relationship with your partner, with your kids, with your loved ones or some there's, like, all these ripple effects that happen in that interbeing,
[00:22:26] Pascal: plane. Yeah. And I thank you so much for sharing because I really, related to your echo anxiety story because I've also dealt with that for many years before I had this experience of, yeah, being taken around the earth and being shown the ecosystems, and then mother earth telling me, don't worry. I'll be fine.
And a gentle, compassionate tap on the shoulder and a hug. And it really changed my relationship to my eco anxiety and climate change in general. I think climate change is not spoken enough about in general. But what it brings up to me well, first of all, it anticipated my echo anxiety to know that there's a greater intelligence that is beyond our understanding, that is beyond ourselves, and that is extremely, wise and also at peace with what is because not being at peace with what is a very human thing that we apply to Gaia, I think. At least I did.
I would feel the grief and the longing and the loss, but also really applying human feelings to a collective global level intelligence and consciousness that I think there's a lot more to it than just that, And that gave me a lot of peace. And it also reduced the question was, who's in really in control of this, and do we need to be? And in that moment, I let go of a lot of the same shouldering that you were doing around. I it's a lot for me to hold, and I need to hold it. And I think that's a very sort of individualistic, ego driven perspective on this.
No. We don't have to hold all of it. Mhmm. And it's very humbling Also to be in the presence of something that's much greater than what who we are and being a part of it is so it gives me so much peace to know that we're part of this living, beautiful planetary consciousness. It relieved a lot of my stress.
Let's just say that.
[00:24:23] Marci: Yeah. It's that right sizedness again. Right? Because the word that comes up for me is context.
I think a lot of times what unfolds in this relational nature with medicine is it opens up more opportunity for contextualization. Right. So having the context of, oh, yeah. There's cons there's a consciousness that is behind this planet, and this planet is not carrying the same framework, perception, context that I am. There's something very different.
And then locating you know, being able to that and locate myself within that different context is so healing, and that can happen around lots of different topics. But it's Contextualization, that different contextualization and contextualization in a way that it you know, At least for me, it's always like it would never have occurred to me otherwise, which is why I think there's the beauty of that relational nature This there's no way that I would have, come up with some of the insights that come through for me On my own in ceremonies, there's something greater and more beautiful and multilayered at work there, that I'm in contact with, and that helps me contextualize my personal and global challenges in a very different way.
[00:25:45] Pascal: Mhmm. I heard that the Massotec people have the saying, go consult the mushrooms. Go have sacred counsel of the mushrooms bringing up specific questions to plants and fungi around what's challenging you and sit with it and actually bring the question up to the council.
And so you've been in a relationship with plants and fungi for quite a while. What are they wanting to teach us? And What did they think of us, and, like, how's it how's your experience been of consulting them? I'm just really curious about
[00:26:18] Marci: that. Well, Well, I love that you brought that example because I would say that's been my framework with the plants from the beginning is seeing them as elders and councils and As friends and as beloveds on the path of life that have more experience than me. Yeah. I've sat with lots of different plants, everything from an ordinary plant you would find in your grocery store like chamomile to, More of a master teacher like psilocybin, Norbachuma. And I feel like over and over again, I'm just constantly blown away by how Generous they are, how loving they are, and how willing they are, To teach, to share, to guide to support, to help. And I think Part of the let's say, the currency, because I do think there's always a reciprocity cycle in there. I think part of the currency of the reciprocity cycle Is is that part of the currency is being in relationship because know, it would be rude to To show up to someone's house and just take from them.
Right? Just either food and leave and have no relationship with that. Do you just show up at their I'm like, hey. Do you have dinner? Thanks.
Bye. That's not acceptable in the human plane, so it's not acceptable in the plant plane. So I do find that there is a Reciprocal nature. I do find that sometimes plants have requests for me. Sometimes The request is to integrate something that's been shared with me before they will share more.
I remember I had a dream over the last couple of months where I was in A classroom, and it was very clear it was a teacher that I've a plant that I've been sitting with on and off for a couple years now. And and the plant was you haven't done your homework. You have to do your homework, in the dream, and I knew exactly what they were talking about. And it was a sense of in that time in my life, I had my mind was getting really occupied with other things. My attention had gotten drawn away from what I was taught and what I was being invited to integrate a new way of being and a shift in a very important pattern in my life and how I showed up.
And and I took that, and that's also part of the relational nature is that kind of that a good friend, a good teacher, a good elder does that, that a loving guidance of, hey. By the way, I shared this thing, and I'm waiting for you to do something with it. That's part of the agreement. Yeah.
And I think that also part of my sense is part of why there is this relational nature And why the plants are so open to that is also part of this greater dynamic of bringing humans back into relationship with nature and Gaia. It feels For me, that feels very clear, and it always comes through time and time again regardless of what plant I'm sitting with. That has happened so many times That it's a sense of we're here. We're sharing because we're here to try to wake humans back up into this relationship that was always there that has somehow gotten severed Over time.
[00:29:38] Pascal: Yeah.
I think and I love what you brought up around chamomile. And I think my favorite practices for spiritual growth have been. done five, I think, now. I did cedar, douglas fir, lavender, tobacco, And I'm forgetting one, but they've been very powerful for me. And they're not psychedelic per se, but by approaching it if no one if someone out there hasn't heard about plant yet as you basically take the plant every day and you have practices of meditation connecting with the plant spirit for long periods of time, sometimes up to a year or two years.
You develop a very strong relationship to that specific plant, and they all have very unique signatures, very different unique ways of relating. They all have different things to teach you. And they don't have to be from the jungle in Peru. They can be something that's available locally. It might even be better if it's local because you can collect it locally.
You can have it from the land you live on. There's a deeper relationship there. Can you Talk more about that idea of, and I think it speaks to the equal mind as well and the excitement around Ecos psychedelics and plant medicine is that you need to go somewhere different. You need to have this big transformative experience that's gonna blow your mind and bring into the unicorn realms. But actually, you can just have a plant dietas with parsley if you wanted to and develop some parsley medicine for yourself.
And some people might think I'm joking, but it's true. You can totally develop a relationship to Parsley and learn from Parsley's spirit. And I am fascinated by what's possible with dietas and how much they've changed me and my family. They're quite powerful. They
[00:31:20] Marci: are so powerful.
I love dietas. I also have done many dietas over the years. My experience with plant medicines has been a little bit like the opposite, let's say, direction of where most people go, which is A lot of people in this who are on the plant medicine path, many will have started with maybe, master plants, like sitting with psilocybin or wachuma or ayahuasca, and then maybe, eventually, they might explore other plants. And for me, it was the opposite. I spent a lot of time with plants locally around me and plan doing dieta.
And then I continued that practice in my own way many times after that. And, Yeah. Sometimes the most subtle things can be the most profound. Sometimes it's those experiences that are very Subtle can give us the greatest insight, can create the biggest shift. love dietas.
I think they're a beautiful medicine. I love Relating to plants locally in that way orienting towards the subtle because I think that's also very important medicine in this time where people are trying to move fast, are trying to push transformation bigger, better, faster, trying to short short circuit, let's say, as a process of their own healing and, know, Relating to these other plants can really orient us towards the subtle. All that being said, though, some big experiences I've had in different ways have been with ordinary plants, one of the most profound experiences I've had is with the plant yarrow, which grows native I am in a lot of places. And that plant taught me many things, and that plant was one of the first bridges to helping me understand you know, plant consciousness. So I think it's powerful, and it also helps us develop a deeper relationship with the land.
Then it's not so distant. If you have a relationship with a plant that grows locally with you, you can go out. can observe it. You can learn about how it grows.
There's so much medicine and even just watching how a plant grows learning about its ecosystem. There's a lot of insight that you can learn from that process, the conditions that and how it grows The signature and how the flowers are shaped to the color you can sit directly with the plant on the ground next to it. There's so many layers of Relationship that can become really, deep when we work with plants that are around us locally. then it's you know, it doesn't feel like something so distant. It's like it's always there for us.
It's always as a resource.
[00:34:07] Pascal: Yeah. My first dieta was douglas fir, which is a western North American tree that has a very, strong bark that is actually fire resistant. And when I started working with Douglas fir, my I was a very airy person very ungrounded seeking all over the place, kinda being a bit of a forest fairy a little bit. And I did my first dieta with this.
This is the bark of that tree. This is a eight hundred year old tree in North Vancouver, they call it grandfather capillano. It's this massive tree. It's absolutely wonderful, and it's part of this group of elders in that forest called the sentinels. And I did my first dieta with this massive tree, and I hold this bark in my hand doing podcasts to keep me grounded and to keep me, yeah, connected to the that experience of the Douglas fir.
And one One of the things that the Douglas fir taught me was that the plants speak a different language. I mean, do they speak the language of the heart? And that was a practice for me of helping myself go down to my heart more and relating with the plant spirit from your heart, it really opens up the gates of communication is what I found for myself. And I think that's another part of the antidote of relating with our medicines in this way is opening up our heart more and speaking a different language with the plants.
[00:35:31] Marci: Yeah.
I agree. They there's different channels of perception that we have, And many of us operate from just the channel perception of just our mind or analytical rational mind, but it's such a limited aspect of who we are. There's so much more there underneath the surface. And so I agree. I find that the plants have, over time, they have opened up my channels of Perception and understanding, information from them and then also just from myself.
Access as I have opened into deeper channels like my heart you know my body as a Person who was born female into my womb space. There's a lot of information there for me that's not is not in my head. So it is a very different way of being. It's a shift into more of a listening and receiving versus a thinking and figuring out. And that also shift in how we just operate, opens us up to different possibilities.
So I agree. The plants do speak in different ways. And if we're If we're focused on opening up to the possibility of being in relationship, it widens the aperture of what perceptions we can access. Right. But if instead we're focusing in kind of more of a narrow allopathic way I take this to have this happen, and that's what you're looking for, but, actually, the Plant is working with you on an entirely different in an entirely different way.
And for example I don't know. Let's say you're saying I'm taking this to try to get more calm, and then you're take you're working with that plant, fungi, whatever, And you notice that, actually, what's happening is the opposite. You might think to yourself, well, it's not working. But, actually, maybe the plant is bringing a lot of material to the surface for you, a lot of inner content so that you can see what's blocking you from experiencing calm and inner peace. So it's a quite a big paradigm shift to be able to see that.
And if we can relate in a relational way, we open ourselves up and we don't miss that, and we don't think to ourselves, oh, Kind of this. I was supposed to take this for that, and it's not happening so then nothing's happening. But there's just likely so much happening, but we have to open ourselves up to
[00:37:52] Pascal: that. Yeah. And you mentioned different channels and made me think of probably the most powerful dream I've ever had was during my theater with Cedar.
And I was having an issue with my partner and an entanglement of some sort. I was really stuck, and I just I didn't know how to logic find my way out of it, and I was having a lot of challenges. And in that dream, I saw the cedar spirit approached me and just scream in my ear literally scream. I've never felt such a powerful force in a dream before. And it the spirit said she is you.
Basically bring me back into this connection of everything between myself and the rest of the world. And that I won't share the issue that was there, but just the that insight just dissipated the whole thing. And so dream world is another place where the plants can come in and, really, the larger world really come in. The spirit world come in and help guide us and teach us if we're listening and if we're tuning to it. And I like what you said about the dream wall, you said it's a continuation of the ceremony.
And it ties really well into the relationship piece. I'd love to talk a bit more about, about dream work and the dream world and how it's so underappreciated and how it can be useful. And you do dream work. So I'd love to hear your relationship to dreams.
[00:39:17] Marci: Yeah.
I thank you for sharing that dream. It's What a beautiful, profound dream, and what a great example of what happens when we open to relationship with the plants. So many times people will say to me well, I don't have dreams like you. And my thought is like, well, yeah, you're not me. We're both different.
We're going to have a different metaphorical inbox, for that world. And, also if we tend to the relationship enough, then something unfolds, it will unfold in its old way. And also so many times people will say that, but then when we look at their dreams, there's actually a lot there. do feel like dreams are really underappreciated. They're so rich.
I do see them as a continuation of the ceremony space. I do see them as the same place that we're accessing when we're in plant medicine, the same place that people sometimes access in very deep meditation, In shamanic journeying, sometimes in sound healings, there is this place that we can shift into where our perceptions are wider than just the concrete, and we open up to more of the subtle. And the dream space is really powerful. The thing I love about dreams is that we're out of our own way. And I find that's so Powerful.
There's something about that then the ego system relaxes in a way that it allows us to have sometimes unconscious material that we need to work with to come forward, and other times, different support to come in like that dream that you had with cedar. I know that I've had plenty of my own Dreams like that with dream with plants. Before my first psilocybin ceremony, I actually, in build had been building relationship with psilocybin for a very long time through microdosing, and doing that in a very intentional way And inviting the medicine into my dream space and one of the things I when I started feeling this call towards sitting in a ceremony Was I asked for permission, and I asked for clarity from the medicine around Whether I was reading the situation it just my ego, or was I being called? And that night was such a powerful dream for me in response.
I had this beautiful dream where I experienced what they called themselves the council of fungi. And in that council of fungi, psilocybin stepped forward and told me, you say yes to us, we say yes to you. we say yes to you, you have to say yes to us. And it was this understanding that there's an invitation, and there's also an change that's happening here. And what you're signing up for is maybe not what you think you're signing up for, which, of course, later was this kind of contract I have with them for this work, which I didn't know I was saying fully yes to.
But but I you know, it's just an example that also it can happen outside of ceremony. Right? I hadn't even sat with them in ceremony yet, and that relationship was there. Why? Because there was this consistent tending, this openness, this invitation, inviting them into the dream space, wanting to genuinely, know, learn from that.
And why could that come in? Because my ego was not in the way filtering that. But in the same way, we can also get Stern messages. I've received plenty of stern messages from plants inviting me into waking up about something. Why I had a dream one time with a plant.
It was very clear it was a plant spirit, and it stopped me in my tracks while I was walking on my path, and it said, stop being so small. Stop it. It shook me in the dream.
[00:43:09] Pascal: Nice coaching. Tobacco.
Yeah. All tobacco is yeah, it can get pretty stern. Yeah.
[00:43:16] Marci: Yeah. Yeah. the yeah. So the dream space is beautiful. It's open, and it can start by whether you've already done a ceremony, I think the beautiful thing is that it can be a a place where you can continue that Relationship, you can continue to sit with the medicine. You can receive additional clarity and insights around what came through in your ceremony, and it can just be this continuation of those experiences so that each night is almost like a mini ceremony for yourself even though you're not imbibing the Plants are fungi.
[00:43:49] Pascal: Right.
And every plan we talked about earlier has their own signature. Tobacco for me was very stern and very hard to connect with at first, but very grandfatherly love and wisdom. And Douglas fir, for me, was all about grounding and community and strength. And Seeder was about balance and the harmony and laughter as well and love and compassion. And Lavender was just Exactly what you would expect it.
Very sweet and very yeah, very beautiful energy to it. And so When you pick a specific plan to work with, and, again, it could be something just around your garden there's an intention there, I think, in the relationship building in terms of every plan, bringing something new your to your, life. And for me, I relate to it as I have an a team behind me now. I've got my team of plants with me, and I can call on them whenever I want. And so it's a very powerful practice, and that can help bridge into the dream world as well.
And for me, the dream world is has always been a source of interest, but I also don't know that much about it. It's How do people relate to their dreams, and how do they actually work with their dreams to move them forward on their path?
[00:45:04] Marci: Mhmm. Yeah. So I always as a place to start, I always encourage people to start documenting their dreams.
It's like the number one thing that People generally don't do because of time and all sorts of things. Sometimes it's because people decide that dream is not worth documenting, and I can't say enough the number of times that I have, Done dream work sessions with people, and I'll never forget this one time where someone came to me and said, I'm having these dreams, but I don't really think they mean anything. They're quite random. And I know they have some people from my past, and then this is about my work, I don't really see a connection. So I said to this client the same thing I usually tell every person let's start documenting them.
Write them down. Hand write them down. When you recall them, if handwriting them down feels laborious, you can always audio record them on your phone. You could always type notes whatever that is. Handwriting is nice because it accesses a different Part of the your brain, and I find that's a little bit stronger for recall.
And particularly documenting them in present tense is very important because when you document in present tense, it's as if you take your system back into the field of the dream, and you are able to actually pull back a lot more details. That's really important. So in this case, with this client, after they did that that couple weeks later, we got back together. And sure enough, what they noticed is that even though the dream seemed like they were reading metaphorically completely different books, what was linking all of them together was the feeling of feeling And once they figured out that, it started helping them recognize what was that what were those dreams trying to say in many different ways and inviting them into to see and to resolve. Mhmm.
So documenting is the first thing I think, to be able to even notice it because, also, there's dreams that are, There are teachers in and of themselves, like that beautiful dream you shared about Cedar. Right? And then there are dreams that are more like I tell people intuition. You can call it intuition, spirit, intelligence, consciousness, whatever that framework is for you. It speaks in long sentences.
So sometimes, insight, the wisdom, the message, the invitation a dream is strung over many dreams, and that's the other reason why it's important to document them. Because Then if you notice that, you might go back and notice that there's been an evolution of a dream or a theme, or there's been a slow message Kind of unfolding in your dream space. And without having documented them, you might not have caught it. You might have thrown it away as Well, I had this random dream about my kindergarten friend, and I don't know why they're there. But in again, within context, within greater context, You're able to see more clearly what's unfolding.
[00:48:14] Pascal: you think there's been a bit of a societal of strong relationship or healthy relationship to dreams. Because for me, when I was growing up, I was being taught that dreams are just A mental construct that just random stuff. Your brain is doing garbage dumping, essentially, shoot out the night. And That's still true, but indigenous people in many cultures see dreams as vehicles for spirits to come in. Do you think our relationship to our dreams is just a straight up reflection of our own relationship to ego, eco, and our own sort of addiction to our logical brain?
[00:48:50] Marci: Absolutely. Yeah. Very well said. I think it mirrors a lot of what's unfolded and what we've been talking about a lack of relationship with plants, The eco you know, Earth plant medicines, it shows up in the same way in dreams. And it is this disconnect, hyper independence, isolation from the animate world that we live within and are a part of. I find that people, when they come to me over the years, I've heard the same story so many times Where people tell me that when they were a child that they would have you know, maybe they might have important dreams, and they weren't quite sure what they meant, But they have a significant feeling to them, or they might have had scary dreams, and they had this feeling, this intuitive sense that there was, like, a an unwell energy That was, like, in their space that they needed some support to clear. the same messaging is pretty common, and the dream the message is always but it was just a dream. Right. So I think as children, are taught to dismiss their dreams and not to explore them. And then we're taught that, yes, it's like a brain jump Dump, something that I think a lot of people hear is oh, it's just your random neurons firing. for me, I've had the absolute pleasure and honor of being able to have the experience of working with Clients where, you know, multiple family members, for example, after a family member transitions, multiple family members have a dream on the same night where they encounter the spirit of their loved one in the same way. And how do we explain that? How can that be neuro inspiring, randomly? those kind of experiences, I have found, happen a lot for people. It's just that we don't talk about them.
We don't have a framework for them, especially around death. This is something that happens quite a lot for people. They will have these unexplainable encounters with their loved one after they transition. And and something deep inside of them knows That they have had an encounter with spirit, with the spirit of their ancestor and their loved one, an encounter with the spirit world. It feels like different in quality than other dreams that they've had, but then don't feel like they have a context or framework for which kind of hang that on.
So agree. I think we we relate to them too narrowly. And then in cases where People are open to exploring the dream. Sometimes it's still too narrow in the sense that everything becomes psychologized everything is a symbol or everything is an archetype. And, again, my experience is, if you look at that, if I have someone who comes to me and tells me that they feel like they have had a very direct encounter with a family member who passed.
And then I Tell them that is you know, if I were to take on that framework and try to diminish that and tell them, oh, that's just a part of yourself, etcetera. It's so damaging to something that is so beyond words as a as an encounter. And it's very common for people to have at least one of these kind of dreams throughout their life where there is something that feels Greater than them. Unexplainable. They feel like they visited some place or something visited them. and think the more that we're open to that as a possibility, more of that animate framework, more of that kind of shamanic spiritual lens, whatever you want to call that, of this possibility that the dream space can also be an encounter with the realm with other realms, with things beyond ourselves then there's more of an opening for possibility for that to unfold.
[00:52:33] Pascal: Yeah. There's a lot more richness when you approach things that way. And today, we talked about relationship, plants and medicines. And by the way, I wanna touch on that really quickly.
When we talk about relationship to medicine, it's not just The literal plants and fungi. There's also a relationship you can have with MDMA, for example, or ketamine or LSD. It's not the same type of relationship, but there is a relationship to the intention of the medicine and its representation in physical form. There is energy and a relationship be had there. Can you touch on this that really briefly?
Because I think it's important.
[00:53:11] Marci: I see this come up a lot with my colleagues who, Particularly those who work with MDMA, where that's something that then unfolds for them, where there is a sense. And there's a sense of, a different palpity of a different kind of energy in the room and that people are feeling in the field of that.
So so, yeah, that's absolutely, case. So, absolutely, there can that's case. I would say that people often describe that they feel that there's a different energy with them when they're in, for example, the field of something like MDMA. And certainly, Relating in to the medicine that you're imbibing with intention with a sense of relationship, with a sense of openness something beyond yourself. Always can only produce greater, I would say, therapeutic and beyond outcomes for people.
So it's really beneficial to do that. And, yes, it's different. also let's not forget that some of these molecules that have been synthesized originally originated in plants.
[00:54:27] Pascal: So Mhmm. There's that piece too.
Yeah. I love that you're stating the invitation for everyone who's listening around today or this week. Like, how can you widen your relationships and widen your relationship to those relationships in a way that can bring more intention and ceremony, really and see what comes up and see what happens when you develop that, larger network around you. And it's a beautiful journey, a lifetime journey, really, of expanding what's what how much we can hold and how much we can relate to in a good way. And yeah, it's a beautiful journey as well.
Thank you, Marcy, for sharing your insights today. And If people are interested in developing deeper relationships with the medicines and the plants, they can work with you as well with Dreamwork, and we're launching some programs as well with you in the new year. I'm really excited about that. And Yeah. Thank you so much.
[00:55:21] Marci: Yeah. Thank you so much For having me, Pascal. It's been a rich conversation, and I hope people enjoy it as much as we have together.
[00:55:29] Pascal: Yeah. Thank you so much.
Be well, and take care.
