Howdy, hello.
Time for a personal update. It’s been a while, and with so many new readers tagging along for the ride, I figured I’d reintroduce myself through what I’m up to. Every once in a while, I send out a WWWW digest—a personal note plus links worth your time.
Think of it as my public confessional booth. If you dig it, please hit that heart button and/or comment. I love to connect with people on the internet and my dopamine-starved ADHD brain will thank you for your contribution to dopamine production.
Without further ado…
This summer I helped transform Talaysay Tours. I rebuilt their website, internal communication, and brand identity. I also learned ethnobotany and forest bathing from Skwxwú7mesh, Shíshálh and Lil’wat elders. I then taught ethnobotany and guided forest bathing tours to tourists in Vancouver and Whistler. I never envisioned myself doing anything like this, but, it makes sense considering my psychedelic and ecological medicine studies and research at the University of Ottawa. It all connects.
Learning from the land’s traditional stewards is humbling—especially for a white guy grappling with colonizer guilt and shame. It’s been eye-opening, transformative, and a real good reminder that real wisdom doesn’t always come from the ivory towers.
Meanwhile, I’ve been knee-deep in grad studies, spinning theories about psychedelics and planetary intelligence, and mapping LSD experiences onto St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul and Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrices. New essays coming soon. I’ve got a hunch we’re about to witness a mainstream explosion in talk about the biological basis of spirituality—and maybe the spiritual basis of biology—once interdisciplinary, multicultural psychedelic research really kicks into high gear.
The plants and mushrooms know things we don’t.
2025 is rearing its head y’all. The astrologers are saying Pluto’s up to no good, heralding revolutions on par with Copernicus or the French and American kind. Something’s cooking. I feel the tension crackling in the air like hot oil at a greasy roadside diner.
On that note, I discovered Cosmos & Psyche by Richard Tarnas and it’s warping my brain in all the right ways. I’ve long suspected these “cosmic” level patterns, ever since the mushrooms whispered their secret codes into my teenage skull a decade ago. Only now I’m letting my intellect catch up though. Sure, I still get a pinch of anxiety about what my rationalist, science-worshipping peers will say—will they scoff at my heresies? Maybe. But honestly, I’m starting to care less. Let em’ be wrong.
Speaking of cosmic ventures, we hosted our first Woven retreat this summer. Five men—CEOs, coders, fathers, artists—joined Jack and I in a quiet corner of Pemberton, BC. We sandwiched a high-dose mushroom ceremony between meditation, yoga, breathwork, council and wilderness immersion. It was a men’s retreat because my business partner and I are men, and that’s the terrain we know best. Someday we’ll open it up to everyone, but first we need a solid footing. It was beautiful, raw, vulnerable and honest—no snakeoil bullshit, just real soul-level exploration and work.
What’s more? I printed Psygaia flyers and handed them out around Vancouver’s many mushroom dispensaries. They look good and they educate people on Psygaia—planetary consciousness. Small steps to a bigger vision.
Speaking of which, I connected with a South American psychedelic therapy professor from UVic and Psygaia might now dive into co-building a planetary healing/ayahuasca retreat center in Peru. It’s tentative but it aligns perfectly with Psygaia’s “planetary health community” ethos—think Esalen or a vipassana retreat, but different. A place people can actually afford to (re)visit. A place where you don’t just drink ayahuasca and leap back into the rat race. A place to plant trees, dig in the garden, pick up trash in the surrounding land, reclaim your role in the living tapestry and all the stuff we should have been doing since time immemorial, except we got distracted by the shiny objects of capitalism. Who needs the Kardashians or Instagram when you’re whole?
Imagine a place that you can visit every once in a while for a not-so-ridiculous-price. At this wonderful place, you can participate in ceremonies with psychedelic plant and fungi teachers. You can attend workshops on relevant topics, meditation retreats, or breathwork retreats. Or, you can learn to vision quest safely, tend a garden, cook healthy and whole foods, live sustainably and regeneratively. Or you can particiapte in pollution clean-up initiatives post-ayahuasca ceremony as part of integration.
Why a planetary healing centre? Because when I was seventeen, the ancient and wise mushroom teachers shared a vision so clear and sharp and true it’s basically etched into my frontal cortex until the day I die. Now my entire life revolves around making that vision real. It’s the best way I can think of to spend my human life—especially after watching Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy on Netflix. While I’ve been anti-consumption ever since the mushrooms began infiltrating my soul, this doc kicked that sentiment into high gear. I’m making 2025 the year of anti-consumption.
So, instead of swigging a cup of jungle brew and then bolting back to the American Dream of endless consumption; you plant trees, sweat in the garden, scoop trash out of rivers, learn to live sustainably and regeneratively, and remember you’re part of a highly intelligent, complex living system—a divine and creative whole.
Also, we’re not just building a physical place; we’re developing a methodology based on the Psygaia hypothesis and Indigenous knowledge systems—something that taps into planetary consciousness and collective healing, not just personal “leveling up” for max corporate productivity and healing from healing. It’s about returning to the root and helping others do the same, forging a center that reconnects humans to Mother Earth for everyone’s benefit (including non-human beings).
Ambitious? Sure. But what’s the alternative—work a 9 to 5 and watch the world burn?
I’ll take my chances.
I’ll be heading to Brazil in January to remote work, surf and recon Brazil as a potential long-term home. Then, Ecuador in February to drink ayahuasca with a professor and a handful of fellow peers from the University of Ottawa. Then I’m off to Peru in March to visit the retreat land, meet the shamans and assess the vibe. Meanwhile, Psygaia’s putting on another AFTERGLOW in Denver for Psychedelic Science 2025. We’ve also got two more Woven retreats for men in April and September. Know some guys who might dig meditation, council, breathwork, psychedelics, spirituality, or rewilding? Please send ‘em our way.
I also started offering more 1:1 mindfulness meditation and conscious connected breathwork coaching in the last few months and I’ve been enjoying it thoroughly. If you are interested in either or both of these transformative practices, reach out.
That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
If not, I’m sorry—not offering refunds on your time.
PS: Here’s a ridiclous AI generated video and a new Frank Ocean track.
Please feel free to leave a comment or connect with me in any way.
Peace and love.
It sounds like you're doing some amazing work. Excited to follow along with your journey and discoveries.
Fascinating: "we’re about to witness a mainstream explosion in talk about the biological basis of spirituality—and maybe the spiritual basis of biology—once interdisciplinary, multicultural psychedelic research really kicks into high gear."