Hello, and welcome to Home to Her, the podcast that's dedicated to reclaiming the lost and stolen wisdom of the sacred feminine. I'm your host, Liz Kelley, and on each episode, we explore her stories and myths, her spiritual principles, and most importantly, what this wisdom has to offer us right now. Thanks for being here. Let's get started. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Hey, everybody, and welcome to the show. This is Liz, joining you as usual from central Virginia and the unceded lands of the Monacan Nation, and I am so glad that you are here with me again, five years into the show, and we're still doing it. It's pretty great. As always, if you want to know whose native lands you might be residing on, go to native land. ca. You can check it out. They've got a map of the whole world. It's especially helpful for North America, other, other places too, but I know for sure for North America. And if you want to learn about the sacred feminine, there's so many different ways that you can do that. If you want to learn from me. You can listen to all the episodes of this podcast. There's a whole lot of them at this point. And you can also go to home to her. com. You'll find articles, you find links to the podcast. There's going to be some on demand courses coming. And I know I've said that before, but I really truly mean it this time. Y'all it's going to happen. 2025 is the year, hopefully sooner rather than later. So keep an eye out for that. And I'll put all this in the show notes. If if you forget that you don't have to remember. Okay, so I met today's guest earlier this year, the very, very beginning, very beginning of the year, like, like day one, I think, or day two while I was on vacation in Costa Rica, which was such a magical and Ammazing experience. And I was just so moved by her incredible grounded presence, her relationship with the land that she was on, and her commitment to stewarding and nurturing the land. And I was. Oh my gosh, I gotta see if she'll come on the show. So I'm so happy that she is here. So let me go ahead and introduce her to you now. Ixchel Munay's work with living wisdom is born from the embodied wisdom that she has gathered in 20 plus years of walking the path of plant medicine, conscious living, and supporting thousands of people around the world in her immersions and sessions to come home to themselves. She is committed to radical presence and deep intuitive listening to see what is alive and needed in the moment and draws upon her initiations with yoga, meditation, Tantra, shAmmanism, magic, somatic therapy, dance, breath work, neurolinguistic programming, nonviolent communication, permaculture, natural medicine, neuroscience, and And more. Ixchel is the mother of a passionate 18 year old artist who has been raised with inspiration by a village in the community she co founded with his father 18 years ago. And she's spent nearly the past 20 years of her life based in Bali, the mystical land of her father's ancestors. For the past four years, she's been spending half the year in Costa Rica, devoted to creating YacumAmma, a regenerative community land project that hosts transformational experiences, including one that I got to be a part of. It's pretty great. And she's joining us today from YacumAmma in Ojochal in Costa Rica. Ixchel, welcome. I'm so excited to see you again. Thank you for being here.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's great to see you again as well.

Yes, and I was just thinking as I was preparing this morning for our conversation that when I was with you, you were, you were facilitating a retreat experience for us. And so I'm just super excited to be able to listen to you talk and to get to know a little bit more of your story and be in dialogue with you. So. This is quite delightful. I usually start with my guest asking about their spiritual background and what it was like growing up. And the reason I do that is I'm just curious, first of all. I like to hear these details, but I also really love to hear what that trajectory has been like for you. And if the parts that were supportive, maybe the parts that you had to leave behind. So I'd love to start there, if that's okay with you.

Yeah, sure. Well, I grew up with a Balinese father who, you know, in Bali, our spiritual tradition is so deep and so alive. And he was wanting to be American and, you know, didn't share as much of his spiritual life with me as, as I would have hoped. He did always listen to a little cassette of the Gayatri Mantra every single day. And so I have that programmed into me on such a deep level. And the Gayatri Mantra is an ancient Sanskrit mantra that is essentially praying for the awakening and the liberation of all beings. And, you know, mantras, they, they just have a profound, deep resonance that, you know, that from, from an ancient language that brings that meaning in that prayer so powerfully, even if you don't understand it with your mind. And, you know, I always felt like there was, growing up in the US without. much spirit. I always felt deeply connected to nature and that's where I found my spiritual connection. And I found the teachings of yoga I was a teenager, so 30 years or so ago, and I feel like that's when I started dropping deeper into, you know, what is beyond this 3D dimension, the deeper energetics of my body and how I could connect to spirits and how I could connect to life, you know, through the portal of my body. You know, which is interesting because that's still really one of the most powerful ways that I find I can connect to spirit is. starting to lose the mind by, you know, downs and accessing those other levels of reality. And yeah, as you shared in my bio, I've been working with plant medicines for about 20 years and psychedelics way before that. I, you know, was fortunate enough to start to experiment with psychedelics when I was a teenager as well. And so I feel that, you know, that was really my introduction to spirituality to, you know, piercing the veil of illusion and, and getting to experience more of what's really available and what's really happening. In the multi dimensional reality that we live in. And so, yeah, from then, you know, going into deeper into, you know, shAmmanic work with plant medicines about 20 years ago, that was Really a grand opening into my spiritual path.

Okay, I'm going to put a little pin on that because I want to go back to that and talk about that a little bit more. Love to ask you too about your understanding of the divine feminine, the sacred feminine, whatever. language you like to use around that. But how you, how you know that particular energy and if there was a particular moment in time when you became more of aware of the presence of divinity in that, in that female form, feminine form.

Yeah. I'd say there's two profound experiences in my life that really tapped me into what the divine feminine is. And one of those was meeting Amma. Amma, who is also known as the Hugging Saint. Yes,

I've met her twice. Oh, well, I've gotten hugs from her twice. I don't know if I get to say I met her, but yes.

That's, that's a meeting. That's definitely how she's Darshan. And that's a powerful meeting. And yeah, the first time that I met her I was a little bit skeptical of the energy of the guru in the ashram. And, you know, that, Those judgments of my mind were washed away immediately as soon as I came into, I would say a few hundred feet of her, the energy of the divine feminine completely overtook me and I was flooded in tears and shaking and there was, there was an undeniable presence of the divine feminine, the feminine aspect of what we would call God. And I've never felt it as powerful in any other being that I've encountered. In a body. And when she took me in her arms and held me with the love of the Divine Mother, I completely left my body. I, you know, it happens to quite a few people who received Darshan from her. I passed out. I fainted. The energy was just so strong. And in that moment you know, they ask you if you want to take her as your guru and receive a mantra. And I did, and my entire life changed in that moment. And you're not supposed to tell anybody what your mantra is about, but mine was about service to the earth. And many magical things happened as soon as I, I took that devotion. As soon as I took that commitment on. And Amma sits on my altar to this day, and my prayer in my work is to be able to hold that level of pure, unconditional love that she holds for everybody that I work with. And in a lot of what I do in my immersions and my ceremonies and my retreats. Is hold people and, you know, there's something about the somatic experience of being held by a feminine presence that is holding just pure love that can reprogram us on a cellular level. I can reprogram our nervous systems to feel safe in the world. And so that was my first true experience. of the Divine Feminine and I'll pause there before I share the second part of initiation I have if you want to share anything about your experience with Amma.

I do, I love hearing about yours and I so yeah, I saw her the first time in California, and I was in a really different place. I had just gone through my own awakening experience, and so, it, it was, The whole experience was a little overwhelming for me as someone who grew up in a Christian household. Like the, the experience of it and the, the music and the, the crowds and all of it. I was like, wow, what is, what, this is wild. But yeah, I, I had a very physical, I didn't leave my body, but I had a very physical reaction. To being in her presence and my ear, you know, was ringing for at least an hour after she spoke in it. I went home and had a whole bunch of physical sensations moving up and down my spine. It was quite wild. And then the second time that I saw her was actually this summer in D. C. And I was with a friend. And the friend went ahead of me and got her hug. And then it was my turn. And, you know, right before I went up, I They, they actually said Before you got the hug that you know, hold your prayers in your heart, but Amma really appreciates prayers for others. And at the time, I remember a little bit of thing in me. I was just getting divorced and I'm like, I don't want to pray for somebody else. I want to pray for myself, you know, like this very like spoiled child impulse in me. And then I sat with it and then I started thinking about all the people that had supported me through this really difficult transition and process. And then it wasn't hard at all. I'm like, Oh gosh, I want to, I want to dedicate my prayer to them. And so, coming up to Amma, I was also just so aware of what a challenging assignment she's taken on in this lifetime. And none of us have to say yes, right? We can say no. Like, we're not required, I don't think, to do anything. And so, I was just full of gratitude that she had said yes to this assignment and that she's doing this beautiful thing, which is so taxing on the body, I think. We don't think about it that way, but just hugging thousands of people, many of whom are desperate and Really, really searching for healing. It's a huge, huge life mission that she's taken on. So, I was sending her gratitude for that, and then when I got my hug, I was awash in the scent of roses. Like, awash. And it stayed on me. It was, it was just everywhere. Every time I inhaled, all I could smell was roses. And it lasted all day and all night. And about an hour after that, we, I was sitting with my friend in the little cafeteria eating and I'm like, oh my, the smell of roses is so strong. And she's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, Amma, she, she, she reeks of roses. My friend's like, I, I didn't smell that. I don't smell anything. She's like, well, maybe my sense of smell. And I'm like, no, this is like, I can't breathe in without smelling the roses. And it was on me. It was on me through the end of the night. So it was just, it was Ammazing.

Yeah. Yeah. There's so much magic. She gives you know, part of her Prasad, like a little offering of, of sacred food. At one time she gave little Hershey's kisses and I opened one up and it was flowers. It was not a normal Hershey's kiss. It was full of roses and just divine feminine essence. Yeah. There's so much magic.

I love it. And I, I'll just mention quickly too, for those who are interested, because I do understand for Westerners, a lot of Westerners, the concept of the guru feels incompatible to divine feminine exploration. And I have a really good episode that was the beginning of last year with a woman named Arundhati Subramaniam, who wrote a beautiful book called Women Who Wear Only Themselves. And we talked about this in, in quite detail. In a lot of detail. So I'll put that in the show notes.

Yeah. And I think, you know, just to give a little bit of a frame around it, the way that I see it is that, you know, it's not giving your power away to some, you know, guru who's higher than you, but it's. It's being around somebody who is embodying a frequency that simply by being in their presence awakens that which is already inside of you.

Yeah, beautifully said. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, you know, what you shared is actually a perfect segue into my second initiations with the, the sacred feminine energy. And it was, gosh, I think it was about 15 years ago in Bali, there was a tantric teacher that came into town and just ignited all the women. And there were some very simple but profound practices of breathwork and tantric movements that were, that were just awakening these massive experiences of Kundalini awakenings and just all of us really opening to the Shakti that, you know, for many women is latent inside of us. There's not a safe space for us to be experiencing that much feminine power and energy. And of course, you know, it's actually been quite suppressed because it is so powerful. And So I started circles with some of the women that had experienced these activations with this tantric master. And that is what opened up a whole other realm of being able to tap into life force energy, being able to tap into Shakti. And one, I'm not exactly sure the timing, but. A came to me at one point and shared an activation with me and it's how I have been able to create so much in my life without getting depleted. You know, you just shared the mission that she's taking taken on. It can seem exhausting. You know, she sits there. Many times for 24 hours without getting up without food, and just gives and gives and gives. And of course, you know, this can be the out of balance feminine, this can be when we come into that energy of the martyr. And I think, you know, especially us mothers have all experienced this energy where, you know, we put ourselves last and we just give to our children. First, we give to our families, and then we start getting Dry and brittle and resentful and depleted. And the way that Amma gives is she steps out of the way completely. It is not her human form that is given at all. She taps into the Endless wellspring of Shakti that is in the earth and that is all around us. And when we're tapped into that place, we can create anything. We can move mountains. We can give so much love because it's the energy of the divine mother that's giving. It's not this human body in this human form. And so that is. The way that I've remembered to take care of myself to fill my cup first, you know, it's that when we get on a plane, they say, put your own oxygen mask on before taking care of your children or anybody else, because we can only take care of other people. We can only be in service to humanity and we can only live our fullest missions. When we are doing our practices first of filling up our cups and tapping into. That wellspring of Shakti. So those that time in my life of going really deep into the tantric practices as well as Amma coming to me and and giving me that transmission were really the way that I found feminine spirituality. Not in any kind of any kind of mental understanding, but an actual transmission and energetic and physical transmission of what it feels like

to be

to the feminine.

Yes, I love that and I can relate to that so much and I think you're, we're already speaking around, but what was my next question? So let's keep doing it. Is this idea of, I've been thinking a lot of I'm always interested in the practical application of this particular thing that we call the sacred feminine. If it's a conceptual thing, that doesn't feel that useful to me. So what is it really teaching us about how we show up in the world differently? And one of the things that I've been really curious about and playing with in my own life is what it teaches about the idea of power. Outside of the way we have traditionally thought about and understood power in patriarchal constructs, you know, power really, if we look around the world, the greatest expressions of it are in the ability to create death through war the ability to control via hierarchy and, and the ability to hoard resources, right? Like those are, that's really, if you think about what, what we, how we see power traditionally reflected back to us, it's, it's those ways. I'm curious about, like, what, when we tap into this sacred feminine and this Low of the feminine. What does that teach us about power and different ways to understand power and different ways to relate to it? And I, I feel like you've already spoken to that a little bit, like the endless well of tapping into something that's larger than yourself, the aspect of embodiment and how we find power beyond mental constructs. But I wonder if you could maybe just riff on that a little bit more and how you've seen that in your life.

well, you know, all of those things you spoke about in the patriarchy are in some way a response to the patriarchal fear of the power of a woman that she has to give life. That is the most primordial potent power that exists in humanity. And, you know, for all of us who've been through the initiation of giving birth. You know, for me, that was one of the most. Psychedelic experiences of my life and one of the most powerful initiations of my life of surrendering to the flow of life moving through me and surrendering to the biology of my body being built to create life and to bring life through. And so when we are surrendered into feminine power. There is an experience of letting go of my will and my desires and what I feel that I want to create and truly tapping into the divine will. And when we're aligned in such a way that we are creating and that power is coming through our alignment and our connection to divine will, then there's no limit to what can happen. Can actually be created, And when we can tap into the river of life in that way, then we're, we're tapped into that, that power that is truly so far beyond our limited desires or the limited power that we have as humanity.

Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking of the idea of the co creative process of it all, you know, like my own experience of childbirth, like I'm, I'm the portal, I'm the vessel through which this life is moving through, and it, it can't, it, well, that particular aspect of life can't get, get here without me, but really my job Up to assert. Well, I have a job, right? But then when the actual life is getting here, my, my biggest job is to get out of the way and to just let that higher intelligence do what it knows how to do. Which is so hard for us from an ego perspective, right? To actually step back like that. And it's scary, but yeah, the whole co creative nature of that is, is also what, what came to mind as you were speaking.

And, I had a completely natural childbirth. And that is something that is taken away from the majority of women, in the Western world, because, it's it's it's part of the patriarchy suppression of. the raw feminine power that, is so feared, you know, when women are able to tap into that raw feminine power that comes through birth or that comes through being tapped into our sexuality and our life force energy and our bodies. There's just a, I would say a misunderstanding of the patriarchy. A misunderstanding that creates fear from the masculine. And, it's led to, you know, numbing women in their childbirth, numbing women through birth control, numbing women, through education and, and all the systems of oppression that we are currently living in. And so when you asked how to bring it back to a practical way, coming into our bodies and coming into the natural rhythm of our bodies. I was just having a conversation with an incredible anthropologist that I met in the Ammazon jungle. I just came back from the Ammazon jungle. It was at the indigenous ayahuasca conference in the Yawanawa village. And there was a beautiful anthropologist that I met and one of her. One of the books that she wrote was on, women's power in relation to our reproductive freedom. And, the level of manipulation and suppression and control just hit me on a whole other level. When you think about how the, all the different forms of birth control that we have. Take us away from our true power, numb our emotions, and just how many women are on birth control from such a young age that they don't even know themselves. They don't even know their feminine power. And so, what I would say to women, I was actually on birth control for a very short time. Period of time, a year or two when I was a teenager, and I remember coming off of birth control and just feeling like I had woken up from a dream, like I'd come out of a deep fog, and I was like, Whoa, what was that? Who was that? I was completely taken out of myself into a whole other personality and coming back into my true essence. It was like waking up from being sedated and, most women don't realize that that's actually how birth control affects us. And so I'd say coming back into our natural rhythms is one of the most simple and, and empowering ways that we can take our power back. And of course, eating natural foods and, connecting to the earth. But really coming back into our bodies, you know, through embodiment practices, through dance, through yoga, through just being outside in nature, swimming in the ocean, swimming in the rivers. So that is really my prayer for all women, that we can just come back into our natural cycles and experience what it feels like.

Yeah. And as you were talking, I was also thinking about something you said sort of towards the beginning of this line of dialogue about the level of misunderstanding patriarchal misunderstanding of feminine power and what that's done. And I know for me, sometimes I feel, especially right now with the political climate in the United States, I feel really Overwhelmed at the mountain that we are facing and like, wow, how do we even to the point where sometimes it's I find it challenging to even talk about. These concepts, like for example, if I, I'm actually working on a proposal right now for a workshop around these ideas of feminine power. And the automatic assumption is that it's for women only, whereas we can have women learning from men repeatedly. There's no question. We just assume that the male is the norm. So we don't say male power, but we have to put. Feminine power on it, you know, to indicate that it's something different that we haven't had before and then automatically that drops out 50 percent of the population and how What a what a bind that is and how frustrating it is as women to be caught that way And then as you were speaking I want to share something that I experienced at Yacumama because I thought it was so beautiful and maybe we can kind of riff on that a bit but, One of the things that we had the opportunity to do while I was there was to sing with the band Curawaka, and I will put a link to them if you don't know their music. It's just, oh, it's next level. So incredible. And we were being led by the woman named Anna is leading us in singing in a practice she calls weaving, where we are weaving our voices together. She starts us off, and then it's a very intuitive practice where everybody's weaving their voices together. And there were overwhelmingly more women than men participating in this experience, but there were about five men that were there, I think. And Dustin, who is a co land steward of Yacumama, I, I don't know his official title, but he holds that, that. that space with you made the comment that how healing it felt for him just to be held in these feminine voices and how he couldn't even he couldn't even hear the men because the women were just so it was just it was just the women and he said i want to lay down in the middle of this circle and have the women sing and so we ended up putting all the men in the middle of the circle these five men with their heads you know in towards each other their feet out and we did the weaving and then they shared about their experience and it was so Beautiful and simple. Like sometimes I get in my head about how do we unwind these systems? And rah, it's gotta be hard. And what it really looked like in that moment was men just laying down and surrendering to allow the women to lead in something that we intuitively. Really already knew how to do and for them to just put, put down their egos or whatever is stopping them and receive it. And it was so beautiful and so magical. And I kind of don't know where I'm going with that, except I, I don't know. I wonder what

inspires me to share.

Yeah. What comes up for you?

The first is that, you know, what we're dedicated to at Yacumama is to. Regenerate not only the land with permaculture practices, but regenerate the human spirit. And the ways that we do this is through, you know, we bring a lot of indigenous leaders to Yacumama to share their culture and their medicine, which of course supports them. But it helps us to remember, because primarily what we're doing is singing and dancing. And that's what humans have done for millennia. It's what brings us together. It's what unites us, and it's what helps us to remember who we truly are. And so, your experience of that is, it shows you that once we drop into a place in circle, in community, we don't need to know what to do. It's naturally inside of us. And, then we can be informed by the energy of the moment, and that for me is divine feminine leadership. There's no plan. There's no preconceived notion or projection on what is going to be needed in the moment. There's a listening, a listening, not only with the ears, but with the body to everybody else's nervous systems to the field that is alive. And that's what informs how we lead as women and what we create, it's, it's alive and it's in the moment, and it's surrendered. And that's interesting that you're having that experience. about putting together this, how to explain what a workshop is. Because I just had a very similar experience with a co creation that I'm doing with a dear friend and it's, it's quite interesting because the, the both of us, I work with a lot of powerful men, I haven't shared that much about my path, but, from these first experiences that I had with the tantric practices and with Amma, I started guiding women's retreats, and women's circles, and it was only working with women for, a certain period of time. And what life has brought me right now is working with a lot of powerful men. And, not because I've intended it that way, but it's because of, the men that I work with just refer me to more CEOs and founders and friends of theirs. And so that's primarily who I'm working with right now in my sessions and in my, in my private ceremonies. And so the two of us working with men. And seeing how deeply they need to bring more feminine leadership into their work, we're looking at how can we explain it beyond the duality of masculine and feminine, that just creates, it creates a lot of polarity and misunderstanding. And so we're, looking at it and how can we, explain what is going to be. Created in these situations in these workshops in this, in this retreat, and, it is really that feeling of surrendered leadership and devotion to something that is greater than us, and coming into, Our communities are companies with a way that we are listening to everybody else that's involved and listening to what's needed, as well as putting the devotion to something that is. Much higher than our individual desires or needs at the priority at the forefront and so you know how we can translate that into companies. It's like we look at what is the mission of the company and no matter what happens inside of the processes of decision making, we always have that, at the forefront of our awareness. And when we can listen from that space, then, things open up, ways, pathways forward that we would have never even imagined present themselves, that are so far beyond. the strategic thinking of the mind. We actually get into the flow state, that the feminine is the flow state. It's what all the top athletes experience. It's what, people who are truly tapping into their, their, their genius experience, it's surrendered leadership. Feminine leadership is truly the ultimate flow state.

I think of it as the like the principle of emergence to and allowing like just what you said, like, it's okay to not have a plan or to go in and have a very loose plan and understand that if we are really tapped into the energy, it's going to point us where we need to go. And It's funny because I will find myself getting, there's certain things I get really stubborn around and one of them is this dance of like, to your point, we're really, you know, when we look at this at a certain way, we're not like masculine and feminine themselves begin to limit us, it's not really about that. And yet I think sometimes my own stubbornness comes in because we have not been able to name the feminine specifically, or when we do, there's a reaction that it is lesser or less important. And so the stubborn part of me wants to put down my foot and be No, we're going to fix that too. We're going to, we're going to shine the light on where you're holding that bias because that's part of the healing process as well. And I don't know how you feel about that or like that kind of navigational thing. It's a, it's like a little fiery thing that I notice in myself that I sometimes I get a little stuck on.

Yeah. The divine feminine has many faces. And sometimes I feel that energy, which, I feel is the energy of Kali. It's like the roar, like, we are going to chop off these heads of illusion and ego and separation and suppression of the feminine. And, there's a time for that. There's a time for that, like raw, fierce, primordial feminine power, mAmma bear energy. However, I feel for us to make the quantum leaps that are necessary in this time and to really make change that it's important that we're not coming from a place of resistance, that we're not coming from a place of. reaction. And, when we are fighting the patriarchy, what you resist persists. We're actually feeding that energy. And so, what I feel is so much more powerful is like coming into our surrendered feminine power that is so magnetic that it just, it has the power to shift everything around it. Without needing to resist or push or name anything. And those who are ready to feel it. They will feel it. And, there's we're in such an interesting time on planet Earth right now. And, I truly feel that it's so much less about creating change in resistance to the structures of oppression that exist in the government and, that is how The revolution is happening. It is happening. It's so easy to, look at the news and look at what's happening on the planet. Look at what's happening in the United States and feel incredibly hopeless. But, when we see what is happening around the world, there are so many beautiful movements that are gaining momentum. And the way that I've seen it is that it's like, It's a shift in frequency, like when we look at quantum physics, we see that everything is energy, everything is frequency, and there is a mass that is developing right now of harmony of truth. And as more and more people come back to our deep inner truth, and creating harmony and beauty and structures of truth. regeneration, then there's going to be this critical mass that's, that's achieved and the frequency will just shift And I've seen that I've been shown that and that's what I am choosing to put my energy towards rather than resistance.

I love that reflection. Thank you for that. And as you were saying that I was, my mind was again, going back to seeing these five men laying down in this circle and the women singing around them and how soft it It was just an emergent experience that wasn't planned, and they sit up at the end of it and they all look transformed. And in the moment I remember thinking like, oh my god, what if it really is that simple? And of course it is and it isn't, right? Like, it is that simple, and then, you know, you magnify it on a much bigger scale, but it can be. It can be. So thank you for that. I want to ask about your experience with psychedelics and plant medicine, especially how you see that dovetailing with the sacred feminine. That's actually a topic I've been wanting to approach on the show for a long time. So I would, I'd love to hear you say a little bit about that and your experience with them.

Yeah. We're living in a psychedelic renaissance on planet earth right now. And it's a very beautiful thing. And it's also, can be quite a scary thing because there's a lot happening with psychedelics and plant medicines that is not happening in the best way. And, there's also the beautiful side of it where, human consciousness is evolving. Collective human consciousness is evolving, thanks to the plants. And I really feel that, this is a time where the plants have devoted and offer themselves in service to the expansion and reawakening of human consciousness. And when we are tapped in to universal consciousness, we're naturally tapped into. No, without needing to go into the polarity of masculine and feminine, what we could say is, the divine feminine energy is in service to life. It is in service to life, to crystalline pure waters that give life to everything on planet Earth. It is in service to the forest and the jungle that give life, that give us the air to breathe. And, from being inside of the plant medicine space for 20 years and doing my own anthropological study of seeing what people receive in ceremony. One of the most universal themes is dissolving the illusion. Illusion of separation, that we are separate from life, that we are separate from nature, and coming and having a visceral experience of oneness. beyond that concept that many spiritual traditions. share that, we are one with all of creation. There's something that happens when people experience plant medicine and they have a visceral, tangible experience of actually feeling one with the waters and the trees and the insects that are crawling upon them and all of the animals in the forest. And what's perhaps even more important Is all of the different colors of humanity. And when we have that experience of oneness, it awakens something inside of us that, one, allows us to, the only way that we've gotten to where we are on planet Earth is because of that disconnection. You know, when we, when we're disconnected from the waters and the Earth, we're able to pollute. We're able to rape and pillage and destroy the sacred earth, and we're also able to pollute our bodies just with the, the chemicals and the toxins and the, the foods that people are eating right now. And so there is this remembrance. Of connection that changes our relationship to our bodies ourselves and our, and the earth as our body. And, I wish I could say that people having, one profound experience of remembrance and oneness and connection is enough to change our behaviors. For many people, that process is gradual, but our behaviors are changing slowly. And one of the reasons that I am so passionate about integration is that I feel like there's, there's a link that's missing between having these experiences of, dissolving separation and coming back into oneness with psychedelics and with plant medicine to actually embodying oneness and making those changes in our lives. And so, there's, there's some really beautiful steps that are being taken right now. And there's a lot more that needs to happen with integration for us to embody that, that oneness with how we're living in our families or relationships with how we treat our parents and our children and our loved ones. With how we are treating the earth.

And I wonder if you have any thoughts that you could share on how to be in relationship with these plants in integrity and in intention, because I, that's another thing that I am curious about and I certainly hear much more about psychedelics than, you know, I did. And it could just be this point in my life and people that are in my life, but much more than I did 10 years ago. And this is also really powerful medicine. And I think here in the U. S., I don't see many examples of existing ritual ceremony moving into relationship with anything with deep intention, which I would think would be a big part of working with this medicine. So I wonder if you could, you could speak to that a little bit.

I'll do my best, this is an enormous topic and there's so much to share and I'm really deeply passionate about this topic. And so what I could say is that it is really important to come into a relationship. Because, it is truly a relationship and even the concept of that is something that is, is not understood, to be able to. receive and commune with the spirits of the plants. It is a relationship that is necessary to be, to be cultivated. Listening is such a huge part, of course, it's important to tune into our why, you know, to, to really look at our intentions, and it's, it's important that we are not, coming to the plants, or the psychedelics, just to have a peak experience. But to have a deeper intentionality To get to know ourselves on a deeper level. And to get to understand and know the nature of reality on a deeper level to be able to be better humans, better stewards of this planet and of this earth. And, I think it's really important that people are understanding that there's a level of safety that's required to be able to to work with these very, very powerful. Substances like psychedelics or plant medicine teachers and that there's, that they're looking at who they're engaging in these ceremonies or these experiences with and that they're there with people that are properly trained and that have integrity and that are able to navigate. The, the realms that are opened up when we are, it's, it's not a game when we're opening up this multidimensional reality. And so I think that that's, that's really important. And it's, it's important, I think, for people to start slowly with that, with this relationship that's being cultivated.

Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. I would love to hear you too. I want to give space for you to talk a little bit about the vision of Yacumama. I felt so privileged to be able to experience it. And if there's anything that you've got coming up that you would like to share about as well. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the vision for it and how it's evolved over the last four years.

Well, in being true to divine feminine leadership, it is evolving and changing as we listen as we listen to the land as we, create, I think that there's one thing that you know that we touched on before is that when we're tapped into that endless wellspring of Shakti, it's, it's really easy to create. And, it takes quite a lot to sustain these creations. And so, we have to sustain our, our feminine practices and those things that nurture us to be able to sustain projects and, this, this project stewarding almost a hundred acres of land in the jungle has been very humbling, but it's taken so much to be able to sustain this project and. Our vision has always been to live as an eco village and community. And the way that we started was, creating a cultural center. And, it's, we have a place now that we're able to welcome about 30 people on the land. And we bring a lot of our indigenous communities. plant medicine teachers here to hold immersions, to share their culture, to share their wisdom. So in many ways, it's a dream, that we're able to create this bridge to bring people here to receive their teachings. And, to, to support their culture to, to, to continue to thrive and, support their communities. So we're functioning as a nonprofit cultural center that is really devoted to regenerating the land and regenerating culture. And as I shared, regenerating the human spirit. And so what we've been focusing on these past four years has been planting thousands of trees. the land was about half forest which, is incredible to be able to, come into a place with so much biodiversity. We're only about two hours away from the Osa Peninsula, which is the fifth most biodiverse place on the planet. there's so much life here. We actually just saw sloths on the land for the first time the other day, which is incredible. Such a gift. And, the other part of the land had been completely stripped or cattle. And so we've been in a process of regenerating that part of the land, letting, the, the indigenous species, just take over planting thousands of trees. And so, that has been a very beautiful process seeing how much life has come back over the past four years. And, our our vision is to keep bringing, indigenous leaders here and to grow the eco village part of the project. And so that's kind of the next step that we're taking. And we have so many beautiful cultural immersions coming up. I'm sure there'll be a link to our website. And yeah, that's, it feels like, it feels like truly, a spirit mission. This was a vision that I had seen. In ceremony, for many, many years, and, devoting ourselves to creating this and bringing this forth feels like a spirit mission, it's, if I would have known how much work it would have been, I probably would not have said yes, from my mind, but it's just like, it's kind of like the river of life, it's like the river of life has just taken us, and, we've just been responding to, to everything that has been, been needed to bring this forth.

I love it. And I will definitely put a link in the show notes so that people can check out what you've got coming up. And I, so relate, I've kind of joked you know, since I kind of had my own calling to the divine feminine, I, I left my business career, I left my home in California, my marriage has ended. I'm like, if somebody had told me I was going to have to give all this up 10 years ago, I think I would have said, no, thanks. So I'm profoundly grateful that it's. You know, it's just been revealed, it just, it's a calling and then we follow and we see where we're going. And it's all been, it's all been fine, as it's evolved, so. This feels like a good place to stop. I want to thank you so much for your time, and your energy, and your heart, and for those of you who are interested, do check out the links in the show notes. It was really a privilege to be able to be on the land and experience it, so I would encourage you to go check it out. Thank you so much. It's been wonderful to be with you.

Yes. Thank you so much for your devotion to the feminine and yeah, I'm just congratulating you on five years of this podcast and all the people whose lives you've touched and the profound ripple that impact that you've had through this podcast. And so, yeah, for everybody listening, I think the, the final thing that I feel to share is that. when we're making the transition from, the way that we've been conditioned to live in the patriarchal systems that we've inherited to more of the feminine way, just like what you shared about leaving everything behind and whatever I've experienced in my own life. What I feel like is the most important and powerful piece is trust. When we're devoting ourselves to something that's greater than us. We can trust that we are going to be taken care of when we don't see the way forward, when we're in that field of emergence and it's not quite clear. We can trust that it will be revealed and it will be so much more magnificent than we could have ever imagined. And that is truly my experience of living in surrender to the feminine and being in service to the feminine in this way.

I love it. Yes. Here's to trust and stepping into the flow of life. Thank you. And yeah, thanks to all of you for listening as always. This is, I thank you for the excuse to have these amazing conversations. It makes it easier for people to come and talk to me if I can say that you're out there listening. So thank you for joining. And as always, if you like the show, there's a few things you can do. You can subscribe, you can leave a favorable review, you can tell all your friends about it, you can do all those three things. And until next time, take really good care of yourselves, and I'll be with you again soon. Home to Her is hosted by me, Liz Kelley. You can visit me online at hometoher. com, where you can find show notes and other episodes. You can read articles about the Sacred Feminine, and you'll also find a link to join the Home to Her Facebook group for lots more discussion and exploration of Her. You can also follow me on Instagram, at home to her, to keep up to date with the latest episodes. Thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you back here soon.