Unburdening the Sacred - Animating the Real Reflections from the Liminal Space

Iya Soro Integration Artwork Post Session

A Return to Ketamine with New Eyes

Last night, I chose to continue my self-study with ketamine—an old companion from my raving days, now returning as a subject of deeper inquiry on the application of therapy. I approach it these days as a psychologist, exploring its use for so-called “treatment-resistant” depression, and for end-of-life support. It’s funny how we use those labels—so absolute, so clinical—but they reflect a system still learning how to listen.

My exploration is layered: I’m studying the clinical research, yes—but also the neurobiological mechanisms, and more importantly, the epistemological structures that shape how we assign meaning to these experiences. This being said, a whole lot of questions result, much more than answers, a whole lot of transition, sensitivity and change in comparison to confidence in mental constructs and identity.  Everyone loves to praise Jung for his self-study, but let’s be honest—it probably wasn’t always pretty. And that’s okay. It’s the nature of inquiry.

In times like these, we need to be both humble and pioneering. We need to be discerning in what we believe, and even more discerning in how we come to believe it.

For example: we often call Bufo “natural” and 5-MeO-DMT “synthetic,” but these are shaky distinctions. 5-MeO-DMT is a pure molecule—found in the toad, yes, but also in plants, in humans, and synthesized in labs. If we continue to assign morality to what is “natural” versus what is “synthetic,” we risk projecting spirituality onto chemistry, and dogma onto direct experience.

The Body’s Wisdom Beyond Belief

So I return to the body. To the breath. To the natural intelligence that exists before ideology. The experience that doesn’t require me to believe—it simply invites me to listen.

The session itself invited me into movement. I used to dance all the time on ketamine as a an adventurous person attending rave after rave—losing myself in sound and sweat—and recently I’d been exploring a more supine approach. Stillness, soft containment, inward listening. That’s been helpful too. But something was ready to shift. I felt the need to integrate the body again.

As I lay back, a wave of nausea moved through—surprisingly familiar. Just like during an ayahuasca journey. Which begged the question: Is it the medicine that creates the felt sense? Or is it our own bodies—our inner maps and symbols—activating these processes? In the end, it might not matter. Maybe the real truth is: you are the medicine.

It only took a small sigh—a spontaneous exhale—and I felt it. A loosening. That reminded me of the soma beyond the psyche the container of the whole process. That sigh became a signal to move, to shake off the stress of the day. As my body moved, I zoomed out from a little storyline I’d been gripping onto: the possibility of losing a rental house we loved. And I laughed. Oh wow! So this is the narrative I was in!

I thought of Ram Dass and his many times presented, map of consciousness—how we can meet people at different levels of awareness. Most people at that moment would be upset. And a part of me was. But another part saw the beauty. That house had already served its purpose—it inspired me and my husband to dream up a sonic dome for sound baths. The gift was already given.

After the movement, the nausea passed. And what remained was breath.

Breath that breathes you.

Breath that doesn’t need your permission.

In that moment, I wasn’t doing breathwork. I was being breathed. And in that realization, I felt the subtle presence of relationship. Not aloneness, but a kind of oneness that isn’t lonely. If we are all one, perhaps we are “alone” in a cosmic sense—but not in isolation. There is rhythm. There is pulse. There is breath. And that is enough.

This is where I diverge from many clinical protocols. I see ketamine clinics emphasizing stillness—supine positioning, blankets, eye masks. And while I understand the logic (containment, safety, comfort), I also wonder if something is being lost: the agency of the animating force. The body’s instinct to move, to vocalize, to explore. If the experience is entirely internalized—restrained within a still, quiet frame—do we miss the very impulse that wants to emerge?

To me, breath and movement are not side effects of the medicine—they are part of the intelligence of the experience. And if we listen, they might show us how to integrate—not through analysis, but through expression.

I found myself thinking of Terence McKenna—how he once said, “Don’t follow gurus, follow plants.” He was famously suspicious of synthetic compounds like ketamine, preferring organic entheogens rooted in traditional lineages. And I get it—his era was grappling with the collapse of institutionalized factory progress, and reaching toward something ancestral, embodied, real. I think his opinion of ketamine was a greater reflection of his personal ethos than the medicine itself. 

Just like Martín Prechtel suggests, any good tradition must adapt to the times. He reminds us that a tradition that cannot evolve loses its vitality. This adaptability ensures that the wisdom remains applicable and alive, rather than becoming a relic of the past. 

“A tradition that cannot adapt to the times is a tradition that has lost its vitality

And  where I sit now, it’s not so clear-cut. The tradition of psychedelics and the waves the third wave, let’s see where the tide takes us. 

Today, I see a different kind of confusion. A collective kink for indigeneity, where longing for spiritual meaning is projected onto tribal peoples, often without relationship, context, or humility. The modern mind, in its desperation for connection, begins to cling to cosmology—but in doing so, it often bypasses the very intimacy it's seeking.

This also reveals something deeper: the economic pressures and projection dynamics that often go unspoken in spiritual consumerism. Sacred adornments, once alive with lineage and ceremony, are increasingly brought into the marketplace—translated into quick income for medical bills or community needs, sometimes at the cost of their relational essence. It’s not blame—it’s a recognition of the systemic conditions that distort authentic exchange.

It also places our Indigenous brothers and sisters into roles shaped by expectation. They become projected experts on how to save the Earth, often held in reverence but also confined by that reverence. It is a pedestal that can be just as confining as invisibility…. This creates asymmetrical roles in healing spaces, where true collaboration is harder to access, and evolution is stalled by performance.

I see spiritual bypassing show up not just in avoidance, but in adornment—in curated altars, feathered accessories, medicine language divorced from its root systems. It's not inherently wrong, but it becomes a problem when it replaces actual presence.

Ketamine’s Quiet Invitation

Maybe part of our liberation is the permission to let go of needing to do it “right.” To stop outsourcing sacredness. To relate to the medicine—and to life—like a baby does: through sensation, breath, vibration. No performance. Just aliveness.

This is where ketamine feels radical.

It doesn’t take you on a tribal mythos adventure.

It doesn’t present you with a cultural framework to worry about appropriating—or performing.

There is no “right” way to sing to it, pray to it, or prepare for it in collective ritual terms. Its lack of narrative is not a limitation—it’s an invitation.

And to be clear: I’m not comparing medicines in terms of power. Ayahuasca will always be a grandmother teacher to me. But even that term—grandmother—carries a relational overlay. A culturally infused projection. And now, in the modern West, ayahuasca is the shining star of healing—but it’s surrounded by expectations, customs, and performative layers that aren’t always essential to its wisdom.

What were once adaptive and intuitive practices—dietas, prayers, protocols—have begun to crystallize into rigid performance. There’s pressure to get it right. To wear the right clothing. To eat the right way. To “honor the lineage” in a way that’s increasingly interpreted through the lens of spiritual capitalism.

In contrast, ketamine is fringe. Unmarketed, unclaimed, unromantic. It arrives without cosmology. It carries no myth. It’s not romanticized by a globalized healing economy. It doesn’t endanger any species or populations through overharvesting And perhaps most importantly: it doesn’t require us to borrow meaning in order to touch the ineffable.

 It’s just here—quietly.

And because it’s so quiet, it can be missed. Or misunderstood. Or dismissed as cold or dissociative. But what if this silence isn’t emptiness—it’s clarity?

Ketamine is not consciousness itself—our ego is still here. But ketamine does invite direct perception. And in that stream of raw, unfiltered noticing—sensation, image, thought, breath—there is often a softening. A loosening of the need to interpret, judge, or organize experience through the old default mode networks.

In this way, it becomes a call to presence.  

Not mystical presence.  

Not culturally mediated presence.  

But simply, this.  

This breath. This body. This now.

It is not a running away. It is not numbing.

It is a severing of what is no longer needed.

And in that severing, there is a strange freedom.

And through that doorway, something trustworthy begins to emerge—not because it’s mythologized, but because it’s lived.

And this is why preparation matters—perhaps more with ketamine than almost any other medicine.

Ketamine as a Path of Inquiry, Not Just Intervention

Because ketamine doesn’t come with a myth, it’s easy for other myths to rush in. Internalized voices. Therapist projections. Unprocessed expectations. Without clear intention and inner anchoring, the space can get filled with other people’s beliefs before we realize it.

It doesn’t have a built-in archetype. No spirit songs. No ceremony structure to lean on.

So the question becomes:

What are you bringing in?

What tone are you setting?

What is your own voice, and what are you still carrying from someone else?

If you’re not prepared, the loudest voice in your psyche might take over.

But if you are—if your breath is the guide—then the experience can open toward something sacred.

Not because you called in a lineage.

But because you met yourself in real time.

For me, breath is that tether.

Breath is what I bring.

Breath is what I trust.

Not as metaphor. Not as spiritual accessory.

But as a living rhythm—a reminder that I am already here. I am already whole enough to listen.

Ketamine teaches without teaching.

It empties without erasing.

It brings me back to breath—and from there, to life.

This is not the spirit of a tradition.

This is the spirit that lives within.

And it is very much alive.