Personal & Cultural
Exploration Programs
Programs
Groundwork:
An exploration for healing arts and collective practice in these times
The purpose of our Groundwork program is to offer those who are interested in, intending to, or currently facilitating psychedelic healing modalities or other non-ordinary or potentially transformational states, an opportunity to do inner exploration work related to the qualities we feel are important in a guide: presence, self-awareness, awareness of social and cultural systems and their relationship to power, compassion for self and others, humility, capacity to be with complex situations or others presentations, and a strong sense of ethics and responsibility, to name a few. Within the program, participants will experience their own personal work with psychedelics in a ceremonially held context.
We believe true integrity toward helping others means accepting the current state of one’s own capacity to help and respecting the pace at which one’s readiness to help becomes embodied.
Who is this program intended for?
This program may be of interest to:
- Those who are in serious consideration of becoming a guide providing services with psychedelics.
- Practitioners, guides or those stewarding any non-ordinary or potentially transformational states such as transpersonal therapy or ecotherapy approaches, facilitators of social change work, those facilitating rites of passage ritual or accompaniment, Chaplains or other clergy, midwives and doulas, death doulas or hospice workers, or holders of rituals of various kinds.
- Those interested in becoming a guide through Gather Wells Psychedelic Guide Apprenticeship Program. The Groundwork program is a prerequisite.
- Those who are already guiding in psychedelics or in other kinds of transformational work and who would benefit from exploration and embodied capacity growth in their ability to stay present to the cultural, social, and ecological reality that one lives within and co-creates. This program will benefit them personally and their practice with clients.
This program offers
- Facilitated exercises, discussions, interpersonal process, learnings, and ritual practices related to the qualities we feel are important in a guide or practitioner of transformational work, such as- presence, self-awareness, awareness of social and cultural systems, and their relationship to power, compassion for self and others, humility, capacity to be with complex situations or others presentations, a strong sense of ethics and responsibility.
- An exploration of one’s participation in the interrelating systems that weave the cultural, social, and ecological fabric that one lives within and co-creates. Opportunity to gauge one’s current embodied capacity to remain present to this complexity, both the wounds and the wonders, and to grow in capacity alongside peers within a mutually supportive and encouraging space.
- Opportunity to actually experience work with psychedelics (psilocybin containing mushrooms) in a ceremonial group context.
- Opportunities for participants to inquire deeply and learn from experts and from each other.
Format
Further details on this program and enrollment information to be updated June 2023
(Program format is subject to change)
The program is comprised of 2 parts, each lasting 4 months. Each 4-month segment will consist of online facilitated exercises, hearing from experts, group dialogues, processes, and ritual practices. At times participants will facilitate processes with cohort peers or meet in peer-only contexts. Each 4-month part will consist of an in-person long-weekend retreat consisting of a group ceremony with psilocybin containing mushrooms with individual as well as group preparation and integration processes around it.
Those enrolling into the program will enter into affinity group-based cohorts. During the first 4-month part of the program, participants will engage in the majority of their activity in the program within these groups of 8-12 people. When experts are invited to speak, all cohorts will be present. In the second 4 month part of the program, the cohorts will integrate into mixed cohorts of 10-15. With this model, we hope to engage a tiered approach to addressing identity and the nuances that exist between differently identifying individuals. Affinity groups will be supported to continue meeting for personal processing during the later part of the program as they determine is supportive to them.
**Any engagement with psychedelics are conducted in jurisdiction in which it is legal to do so (for example Oregon or Jamaica). See further disclaimers.
Logistics
Further details on this program and enrollment information to be updated June 2023