by Zoe Helene.
Note: Following the first episode, “The Birth of the Future Human”, featuring the work of Chris Bache in his chapter in How Psychedelics Can Help Save the World: Visionary and Indigenous Voices Speak Out, this is Episode 2.
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Zoe Helene has been a fiercely compassionate and determined advocate for women, for wildlife and wilderness, and for the right to journey with sacred psychoactive and psychedelic plants and fungi—our coevolutionary allies. She founded Cosmic Sister, an environmental feminist collective and creative studio, and originated Psychedelic Feminism to support women of the Psychedelic Renaissance.
In this chapter Zoe demonstrates a deep empathy with the suffering and confusion of both men and women, and an equally clear-eyed understanding of the immense problems created by longstanding historical power imbalance. In her words from her chapter in How Psychedelics Can Help Save the World, “Without a true balance of power across the gender spectrum—globally—humans (and non-humans) will not survive. Thousands of years of patriarchy (a euphemism for male supremacy) has warped the way we evolved as a species and brought us to where we are today: a narcissistic, invasive species on the fast track to global annihilation.”
Strong language of course, but pointing at an essential paradigm shift for the benefit and survival of all the Earth’s inhabitants. The tragic historical misunderstanding and suppression of what author Riane Aisler (The Chalice and the Blade) has called the partnership mentality—as opposed to the dominator mentality—is one and the same with the pervasive spiritual disconnection and separation from nature that has brought us to this precipice. However, in Zoe’s vision of our species, “we are nature” and we’re capable of change.
To be clear, this necessary paradigm shift is by no means about denigrating men. That spiritual disconnection in dominator societies has cast a heavy blanket of confusion and suffering over both genders and wrought untold destruction of bio-diversity. Just in case you’re wondering, we’re also not talking about replacing patriarchy with matriarchy. It’s about balance and natural right relationship to ourselves, other humans, all the creatures of the Earth, the Earth itself, and ultimately an awakening to our true nature as spiritual beings interdependently interwoven into an indescribably intelligent and beautiful web of life.
You might be asking at this point where the psychedelics come in. In Zoe’s words again, “Psychedelics show us how interconnected everything is. They help us understand and empathize with each other’s humanity and see how unequal positioning detrimentally affects everyone . . . These medicines are calling to people all over the world. For many this work is about shifting perspectives [and] breaking through deep social programming…”
Taking the point further, she goes on to say, “I have never seen anything work as effectively as intentional journeying with sacred psychedelic plants and fungi. These medicines are truth serums that can bring clarity, perspective, and freedom from insatiable sorrow, emotional scars, self-doubt, and even self-hatred. In the medicine space, women can explore the inculcations that stunt and silence. We can make sense of them, learn to live with them differently, or purge them altogether.”
And one more from Zoe’s chapter to clarify and summarize the essential role of wisely used psychedelic plants and fungi in the paradigm shift, “We coevolved with psychedelic sacred plants and fungi, and their medicine can help us discover and remove obstacles to health and well-ness, setting the stage for peace, inspiration, revelation, and even full-on metamorphosis. The illusion that we are somehow separate from (and better than) nature dissolves, morphing into visions of interconnectivity and universal kinship. Psychedelics can also help us forgive ourselves and others, enabling us to move forward more freely and productively in the work we do for a brighter future.”
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Next episode in this series:
To Serve the Well-Being of All Life
by Duane Elgin Ph.D.
Author and educator Duane Elgin is a passionate advocate for life altogether and a wise visionary on the current planetary predicament and our potential to create “a mature planetary civilization.”
