Sacred Medicine

Psychedelic medicine is not new.

Our understanding of it is.

For thousands of years, cultures around the world have worked with particular plants and fungi as medicines, teachers, sacraments, and companions in ceremony. 

Long before we had brain scans, receptor maps, or the language of neuroplasticity, people were observing something profound: that certain medicines could alter perception insect a way that loosens habitual stuck patterns of thought, deep spiritual connection with self.

And may provide therapeutic potential for depression, PTSD, and substance use disorders (Agin-Liebes, G., Haas, T. F., et al., 2021). 

Today, modern science is beginning to catch up with some of what those traditions have long understood.

I use the term sacred medicine deliberately. These medicines are also psychedelics. The two words are not contradictory.

Psychedelic describes something about the nature of the experience and the way these compounds interact with the brain. Sacred speaks to how we approach the experience — with respect, preparation, intention, discernment, and care. Both can be true.

A lineage older than modern medicine.

The history of psychedelic medicine reaches far beyond the current renaissance in Western research.

Mushroom traditions have deep roots throughout Mexico and Central America. San Pedro, also known in Quechua as Huachuma, is a mescaline-containing cactus indigenous to South America, with a 5,700-year history of ritual use (Bruhn, J. G., De Smet, P. A et al., 2002)

 Other plant medicines have their own lineages, protocols, languages, and cultural contexts.

These traditions were not the invention of an isolated mystic or a lone person experimenting in the wilderness. They were bodies of knowledge held within communities and carried across generations — through healers, elders, ceremony, story, observation, and lived experience.

That history matters.

It reminds us that the modern psychedelic renaissance did not begin in a laboratory. The laboratory is simply giving us a new language with which to investigate something human beings have been exploring for a very long time.

There are also medicines that are not part of my work here — including ayahuasca, iboga, and some of the more powerful visionary compounds. They have their own traditions, purposes, risks, and containers. They deserve to be understood on their own terms rather than folded indiscriminately into one category called “psychedelics.”

My work is considerably narrower.

What is happening in the brain?

The Classic psychedelics — including psilocybin and LSD — primarily act on the brain’s serotonin system, particularly the 5-HT2A receptor.

That matters because serotonin signalling is involved in far more than mood. It participates in perception, cognition, learning, emotional processing, and the way the brain constructs meaning from experience.

Psychedelics appear to temporarily alter the way these systems communicate.

And this is where the science becomes particularly interesting.

One of the brain networks researchers study in psychedelic states is the Default Mode Network (DMN) — a collection of interconnected regions involved in self-referential thinking, autobiographical memory, mental time travel, and the ongoing construction of the story we call “me.”

The DMN is not a problem. We need it.

It helps us remember who we are, anticipate what might happen, make sense of our lives, and navigate the world.

But a brain that has spent decades becoming exceptionally good at being itself can also become exceptionally good at repeating itself.

The same assumptions.

The same emotional responses.

The same predictions.

The same well-worn pathways.

Psychedelic states appear to temporarily loosen some of that habitual organization. Brain networks that normally operate in relatively predictable patterns can become more dynamically connected. Researchers sometimes describe this as increased neural flexibility — a brain that is, for a period of time, less constrained by its usual architecture.

And that matters because a brain that can move differently can potentially imagine, perceive, and respond differently.

The possibility of neuroplasticity

This is one of the most compelling areas of psychedelic research.

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s capacity to change — to form and strengthen connections, reorganize pathways, and respond to experience across the lifespan.

We once carried a much more limited idea of the adult brain: that development happened primarily when we were young and that, with age, our neurological possibilities narrowed.

We know better now.

The brain remains responsive to experience throughout life.

Some psychedelic compounds appear to promote processes associated with neuroplasticity, both during the psychedelic experience and in the period that follows. Researchers are investigating changes at multiple levels — from neural connectivity and dendritic growth to shifts in how people learn, process emotion, and relate to long-standing patterns.

The question is no longer simply:

“Can an older brain change?”

It is:

“What becomes possible when we understand that it can?”

For women in midlife and beyond, I find that question especially compelling.

We spend enormous portions of our lives adapting — raising children, caring for others, building careers, navigating relationships, surviving loss, accumulating experience, becoming extraordinarily capable.

Capability is a gift.

But sometimes the very adaptations that helped us survive or succeed can become patterns we no longer need.

Psychedelic research is beginning to ask whether, under the right conditions, the brain can become more flexible precisely when we have assumed it should be becoming less so.

That is a very different story about ageing.

Three families of medicine

Not every psychedelic or psychedelic-adjacent medicine works in the same way. They belong to different pharmacological families and can produce profoundly different experiences.

The Reset

Classic psychedelics — such as psilocybin and LSD.

These medicines can alter perception, loosen habitual patterns of thought, and temporarily change the way different brain networks communicate.

Psilocybin is being studied extensively for depression, anxiety associated with serious illness, addiction, and other conditions.

LSD belongs to the same classic psychedelic family. At very low doses, it has also become the subject of research and public interest around microdosing — taking an amount intended to remain below the threshold of a noticeable psychedelic experience. 

The science around microdosing is still developing, and many of the claims made about it publicly are considerably ahead of the evidence.

The important distinction is this: a full psychedelic experience and a microdose are not the same intervention, nor should they be approached as though they are.

The Heart-Openers

Empathogens — such as San Pedro (Mescaline) and MDMA.

MDMA is pharmacologically distinct from classic psychedelics. It does not produce the same kind of psychedelic experience, but it can profoundly affect emotional processing, empathy, trust, and the sense of interpersonal safety.

The possibility here is different from the classic psychedelic experience: rather than primarily disrupting habitual perception, MDMA may create a  window in which difficult emotions can be approached gently with greater capacity for connection.

The Circuit-Breakers

Dissociatives —  such as Ketamine.

Ketamine has a different mechanism of action than Classics and Empathogens, primarily involving the brain’s glutamate system rather than serotonin.

It has become an important area of research in depression and other mental-health applications, spawning life changing realizations and in part facilitating mind-body connection.

I think of it less as a psychedelic doorway and more as a circuit interruption — a temporary departure from a nervous system that has become deeply locked into a particular pattern.

Different medicines.

Different mechanisms.

Different experiences.

Different reasons for using them.

That distinction matters.

What the science cannot tell us yet

There is tremendous excitement around psychedelic research — and rightly so.

Institutions including Johns Hopkins and Imperial College London- Centre fro Psychedelic research have built significant research programs around psychedelics, alongside many other universities and research centres around the world.

But excitement is not the same thing as proof.

The field is young. Some findings are remarkably promising; others are preliminary or still being replicated. Headlines often move considerably faster than the science.

There is also something the research is making increasingly difficult to ignore:

The molecule is only one part of the equation.

Preparation with a trained, experienced Guide,

before you engage with a psychedelic substance can have a colossal impact on the outcome of your experience.

Your health and wellness and medical clearance matters.

Your intention as a guiding light of your experience matters.

The physical and psychological setting and safety matters.

The relationship with the person holding the experience matters.

The purity, quality, identity, testing and dosing of the medicine matters.

What happens afterwards matters.

And perhaps most importantly, the meaning a person makes of the experience matters.

A psychedelic experience is not a magic eraser. It is not a guaranteed cure. It does not remove the need for discernment, support, integration, or — where appropriate — conventional medical and psychological care.

The medicine may open a door.

What happens when the door opens is deeply personal.

Why this work interests me

I am particularly interested in what becomes possible when we stop thinking of these medicines simply as something that does something to us.

The more interesting question is what happens when the brain is given a temporary opportunity to become less predictable.

What if an old emotional pattern is not as permanent as it feels?

What if the story we have been carrying about ourselves is not the only story available?

What if ageing does not mean narrowing, but can include a new kind of neurological freedom?

These are not questions with simple answers.

They are questions worth exploring.

And they deserve more than hype, fear, or mythology.

They deserve curiosity, rigorous science, ancient knowledge, thoughtful preparation, and respect for the complexity of the human being sitting in the middle of it all.

The Ways In

There are four ways to enter this work. 

Each offers a different depth and rhythm, and each includes preparation, careful holding, and integration — the process of bringing what you discover back into the texture of your everyday life.

🌑 Full Moon Gathering → Learn More

A ceremonial circle held each full moon in a sacred and intimate setting.

A gentle HUG-dose experience designed for women who are curious, called, or ready to begin.

A beautiful place to explore, remember, and reconnect.  

🌒 Private Gatherings → Learn More

An intimate group ceremony offered throughout the year and during select travel dates.

Held at a similar HUG-dose depth, these gatherings provide flexibility for women who desire a different schedule, location, or group experience. 

🌕 Between Tides → Learn More

A deeper sacred medicine journey for women ready to explore what lies beneath the surface.

Preparation, ceremony, and integration woven together in a carefully held experience.

For those who feel called to go further and return with greater clarity, connection, and self-trust.

🌟 Private 1:1 Sacred Medicine Journeys → Inquire

A bespoke experience designed around your unique intentions, circumstances, and needs.

Held privately and created through a private conversation with you.

Available for individuals, couples, sisters, and best friends.

I believe

I believe there is a sacredness to this work.

I believe the body holds an intelligence far deeper than any chart can capture.

I believe that consciousness is more fluid than we sometimes imagine.

I believe the brain is capable of change for far longer than we were once taught.

I believe the door these medicines can open is a profound one — and that how we approach that door matters as much as what waits on the other side.

I call it sacred medicine because it is.

That it is also psychedelic, takes nothing from its reverence.

It simply gives us another language for understanding the doorway.

With Love,

MaryFrances

Sacred Medicine Guide · Holistic Registered Nurse · Transformational Mentor

WhatsApp: +52 322 353 0461

Note: This is information only. It is not medical behavioural and/or mental health care.