A Glimpse Inside the PMP Community
By Justin Levy
I spend a lot of my time thinking about the bonds that make up our psychedelic communities. In the previous psychedelic boom of the 1960’s, psychedelic communities were bonded by rebellion against “the man” and breaking out of mainstream culture. You could protest the Vietnam War or join the civil rights movement. You could explore your inner freak in a “free love” commune. You could find spirituality in a Buddhist, Hindu or even a hippie Jesus circle. You could join a psychedelic rock band.
Nowadays, most psychedelic communities are not formed around changing the world, but around coming together to heal our traumas. I thought I’d explore this through the community we have right here at Plant Medicine People, and specifically what the obligations are as a facilitator and as a client.
The Origins of Plant Medicine People
Kat Courtney started PMP because she had a message from the plants themselves that they wanted to help humanity grow and heal, and they wanted Kat to be a messenger. I think many of us who have taken psychedelics have received a similar message! And yet most of us don’t go on to start a successful business out of it.
Because it's a business and must function like a business, PMP must straddle two sometimes contradictory questions: What do the plants want, and what does the business want? Any of us working in these spaces have to explore this tension, and I don’t think many facilitators want to.
What Makes PMP Different?
I first read Kat’s writing about a decade ago when I was still in my apprenticeship with my ayahuasca teacher. At that time, I disliked much of what I read online about plant medicine. I found much of it very fluffy, new-agey, “it’s all love!” Conversely, other writing was too technical and too focused on science. When I read Kat, I found something different, something that spoke to me and resonated with me as a shared experience with the plants. She talked about the messy, chaotic, and painful experiences, but she wrote about the tenderness, compassion, and ferocious love.
Her writing stirred something in me, so I started writing to her directly. As we started emailing each other, it turned out we had similar backstories! We knew many of the same teachers and had gone through some very similar painful growths when working with those teachers, notably in the ways that they didn’t own their humanness, their shadow. She and I both internalized their projections as our own, and had to go through a difficult process with our own part in that dynamic.
Facilitator Dynamics: The Real Work Behind the Scenes
And this is the glue that holds all of this together for me, specifically the agreements that Kat and I share around being a facilitator in the community. Psychedelics can give us lots of bells and whistles, lots of healing powers, insights, and clairvoyance. But all of that is nothing compared to the real superpower we need to move up the ladder from client to facilitator. This involves the ability to stay present with a tremendous amount of pain and suffering-- both our own pain and shadow parts that inevitably arise as well as our clients', and sometimes at the same time! The complicated dance of feeling our own pain while being present with someone else’s, and also doing our best to not get caught up in someone else’s projections and not project onto others. This is the ongoing tension that a real psychedelic facilitator must navigate, and none of us gets it right all the time.
But it’s also a dynamic that many leaders in psychedelic communities ignore. It probably feels to many like it's bad for business. Much easier to stay distant from your clients and act like you have all the answers.
What Clients Can Expect at PMP
As a PMP client, you have no obligation to navigate this dynamic. It’s enough to show up for your own healing. But just know that one of the benefits of being a part of PMP is that, as facilitators, we have signed up for this dance. We won’t simply dismiss you if you bring up something uncomfortable to us, but we also won’t accept it as fact. We will do the challenging work (frequently with other facilitators whom we trust will be honest) to explore the complicated shadow realms that affect us all.
And the commitment to that is some of the most meaningful, yet overlooked magic.
If you’re curious about what it feels like to be held in this kind of integrity, come sit with us. Join one of our integration circles or connect with me or another PMP coach to begin your own journey. We’re here for the real work.
About the Author
Justin Levy has spent the majority of his life exploring the intersections of spiritual traditions and Plant Medicine, with a particular focus on kundalini. He started his own spiritual healing and integration practice (called Kundalini Mediumship) in 2009, based on decades of personal work with Ayahuasca and other plants, the spiritual tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, and the martial art of capoeira. His practice incorporates bodywork, movement and dance, and rhythm and song, with a particular emphasis on shadow work and integration. Justin has been teaching this medicine since 2011 and leading ceremonial work since 2020. His focus is on helping each person connect to and embody their own unique gifts and medicine within the context of tradition.
