Dear friends and colleagues,
It was inspiring to have our catalytic community at the Psychedelics for Climate Action (PSYCA) launch! Together, we can mushroom a movement of people expanding and raising consciousness to discover pathways forward through our climate crisis. Thanks to everyone who rooted with us, and if you missed it, leaf through the recap and video below!
Next, RSVP to our PSYCA Summer Solstice Social, Thursday 6/20, 6-8:30 PM, at Nushama Psychedelic Wellness in Midtown Manhattan. We are founders, change makers, psychonauts, creatives, philanthropists, authors, doctors, scientists, and more. Join us to:
Make friends and allies, and hear about our mycelial membership & fall plans!
dig differently will reveal their upcoming modern biology event.
Make psychedelic history! Part of the largest study of its kind, Bennet Zelner will discuss the opportunity to join an IRB-approved mushroom research cohort to test the effects of psychedelics on decision-making.
If you’re free tomorrow night 6/13, DJ Spooky invites you to The Future of Sound+Science, 6-9 PM at Civic Hall on 14th St., an engaging conversation at the intersection of physics and music, with live performances from Grammy-winning artists and a special demonstration from their Young Investigators.
Our Launch — a Packed House, Big Thanks to the Psychedelic Assembly & Host Committee
Together we explored the question, “If infinite climate solutions are available, why are we in a climate crisis?” Panelists included Nocturnal Medicine Founding Directors Larissa Belcic and Michelle Shofet, Connected Leadership’s Bennet Zelner, and Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky. PSYCA Founder Marissa Feinberg moderated.
We questioned what it means to raise or expand consciousness, with or without psychedelics. What are the benefits of meditation for climate consciousness? What is the role of sound in consciousness-expanding experiences? What is attunement, and how can it support climate action?
Here are our findings, to name a few:
“It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism,” said Paul Miller. “Capitalism has created the limitation of choice to maximize value. For climate action, half the battle is the narrative, giving people a sense of being a stakeholder and change to reclaim their decisions. Psychedelics enable a disassociated context where you get a chance to rethink your relationship with these systems. Creatively, we can access two infinite sources: the universe and human imagination.”
“Fungi are a tool to reengage our sense of looking at deeper, older systems that have sustained time,” continued Miller. “Paul Stamets’ premise is that fungi was the first Internet; they had the sense of sharing the root systems of all resources far and advanced into our civilization—for 1.3 billion years, fungi have been there earlier than us. We're in the middle of the sixth great extinction of species, losing multiple ones per day at this point. One could argue we have lost the ability to imagine that sense of being a stakeholder in the future of the planet. The planet will be here, but we might not be.”
“While infinite climate solutions exist, we're still living in a state of disconnection with the natural world,” said Michelle Shofet. “Capitalism necessitates a state of disconnection from the natural world in order to exploit and degrade it. To harm, you need to be in a state of disconnection. If our economic system or culture were more rooted in connection to nature, it wouldn't be possible to behave this way.”
“Emotionally, what’s happening is overwhelming,” said Shofet. “Creating spaces, places, rituals, means for us to sit with our feelings, process them, work through them, and come out on the other side where we can function and put our work towards something substantive is crucial.”
“New technologies, policies, and business practices are necessary, but they address the symptoms of the problem, not the systemic roots,” said Bennet Zelner. “Though it seems monolithic, we created this system and we continue to recreate it every day. With inner work, we can shift our own attunement from a disconnected attunement to a connected attunement, in which we recognize (or remember) our intrinsic interconnectedness to all things and beings, and the mutuality of the relationships that support life. We have very intelligent people at global corporations; the problem isn’t lack of brain power or technology, it’s the attunement.”
“For example, your heart pumps blood and doesn't withhold from your fingers and your toes or other organs; it pumps to all the organs, and it's not doing that just to be nice,” continued Zelner. “All the organs have to be healthy for the system to survive. This pattern exists at every level in your body, so it's about remembering this interconnectedness, which psychedelics and consciousness-raising experiences facilitate.”
“This is a multi-generational, centuries-long, systemic inheritance—to shift is not easy,” said Larissa Belcic. “It's about a shedding of things that no longer serve us. That is what is so exciting and powerful about the potential of psychedelics or meditation to come into this work to have that transformative experience that reconfigures and reconnects us.
“There's a theory of education, which speaks to the three orders of education, and the third level of learning is the transformative experience,” continued Belcic. “An example of this is experienced by astronauts; they leave Earth and see the planet for the first time. People who have seen this have just reported an entire shift in the way they understand themselves in relationship to existence. And that's what we need.”
To dive deeper on consciousness, sound, attunement, and more, watch the entire program! As always, there are numerous ways to support our community. We value your ideas, feedback, and most importantly, your involvement. If you have suggestions or want to contribute, please reply to me directly!
Gratefully, Marissa
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Marissa Feinberg
Founder, Chief Storyteller
Triple Bottom Why
LinkedIn / Instagram