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Patrick Fishley is the medical director at Ibogasoul retreat center in Canada. He is a critical care & ICU registered nurse who has overseen over 500 iboga & ibogaine treatments. Here we talk about the medical safety issues for microdosing iboga & ibogaine. Be sure to also check out our first interview on iboga & ibogaine medical safety.


YOU WILL LEARN:

• What makes iboga & ibogaine different from other entheogenic (psychedelic) medicines with regards to microdosing.

• What types of medical issues can arise with microdosing iboga & ibogaine.

• Why mail ordering iboga & ibogaine can be unethical, dangerous, and even deadly.

• What types of situations might be appropriate for microdosing the medicine.

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Patrick Fishley is the medical director at Ibogasoul retreat center in Canada. He is a critical care & ICU registered nurse who has overseen over 500 iboga & ibogaine treatments. He is a treasure trove of wisdom about the medical safety aspects of these unique sacred medicines! He also happens to be a super nice guy!


YOU WILL LEARN:

• Why appropriate medical screening and medical support is vital for all iboga & ibogaine treatments.

• What kind of medical emergencies one may need to be prepared for in both psycho-spiritual and drug detox treatments.

• What unique qualifications are required for medical professionals who supervise iboga & ibogaine treatments.

The MEDICINE might manifest as yoga or prayer or sacred visionary plants or martial arts or AA or artistic expression... 

The medicine path is the path motivated by love rather than by fear.

Sometimes the medicine is a straight shot to the moon. Other times the medicine is a winding path that crosses volcanoes & raging rivers.

Medicine can be messy and work in mysterious ways that become clear over time.

Medicine flows from the divine intelligence that is beyond the human intellect.

No matter the terrain, we can choose to be devoted to the medicine path.

Once you truly speak with your own soul, there is no turning back.

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LOVE, e.

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One year ago exactly, my beloved friend Psalm Isadora took her own life. 

It has taken me this long to share these words. I knew I had to—eventually. As with many who loved her, her death presented a journey into the belly of darkness and back, all laced with hard questions and deep wounds. These words did not come immediately; they formed through seasons, cycles, and earthly forces. Grief, like death, is a process.
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Psalm was a teacher of yoga, tantra, sacred sexuality, and source of inspiration for many. Psalm was a powerhouse of a woman, an advocate of health and empowerment, an passionate activist, and a prolific creator.

​As a community, we were all left asking: How did this strong, driven woman come to that point?

She left us with only shards to sort through… I know that she would want us to look at these shards, tell the truth, and learn something from her tragic departure. She would appreciate the REAL TALK.

​I first encountered Psalm as she was just emerging into the seat of the teacher. She was fresh from India, activated, and in love with the path of yoga and tantra. She was just taking root in her own practices and integrating her profound transformational experiences. Still, as green as she was, she was on a mission to heal the sexual trauma of the world, like a juggernaut.

I hosted her at my yoga studio and attended one of her early retreats. She shared sweet practices that were accessible to rushing Americans. She brought in the drums and the Kali chants, she lifted the spirits and provoked the bravery of many beings. She held a potent space for presence, connection, warmth, beauty, and ritual. She taught hatha yoga to sex workers in the slums of India. She founded a non-profit called Courage to Rise, dedicated to women’s empowerment with programs in India and America. She raised awareness about our culture of sex-shaming. She was willing to reveal herself so fully to the world as a sexual-spiritual being. She was not a scholar; she was a lightning rod for Shakti, the dynamic primordial creative embodied energy.

Psalm seemed to be an unstoppable force of productivity. I often pondered how she summoned the force to produce as much as she did: events, projects, photos, writing, media. 

In that early Women’s Leadership retreat that I attended, I remember her playing a motivational video of a male athlete training like a beast, encouraging us to generate that kind of relentless drive and momentum. “You can sleep when you’re dead!” she was famous for saying, preaching a regimen of scant rest and long work hours. She was ambitious and wanted to reach the masses. When I asked her about honoring the menstrual cycle, she felt it was something to push through rather than a ceremony to surrender to. 

As a facilitator and educator, Psalm’s personal approach was not sustainable for my body, mind, or soul. It left me feeling depleted and disconnected. I needed eight hours of sleep a night if I was to be naturally functional. I needed to retreat into an intentional moon lodge with my menstrual cycle. I valued spaces of silence, hermitage, and non-doing. I decided that I’d rather have a good quality of life than break myself in efforts to produce more than felt organic for me. 

Though I remained friends with Psalm and appreciated all that she was, I did not continue to attend her events during the last few years. I followed the intuitive, quiet call of my soul in other directions. I watched from the distance via our connections on social media: her professional output remained remarkable, her beautiful photos were increasingly polished and business professional, and her marketing was ever sleeker, boasting all the answers to sexual fulfillment, financial abundance, and personal empowerment.

​However lovely her new persona, I missed that barefoot yogini that I first met, drunk on devotion with wild hair always on the verge of dreadlocks....
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Then one day, when she appeared to be on the fast track to all she had desired, I received the shocking news. She had committed suicide. Psalm? It seemed impossible.

Very slowly, I gathered the shards… bits of information from those closest to her in the final days.

I learned that Psalm had at some point started taking Adderall, a highly addictive form of pharmaceutical speed, for productivity during the day. And then to sleep at night, she would take Xanax, a benzodiazepine.

Apparently this pharmaceutical recipe was inspired by other “high functioning” professionals. She took these drugs without professional medical supervision, and began to harm herself all under the banner of serving others.

Taken on a daily basis, each of those drugs have serious side effects, even more so in that combination. The dangers are magnified with the addition of the alcohol, which she regularly had in the mix. Even greater risks are present for people with bipolar disorder; Psalm had been open about her distant past struggles with mental health.

Then one day, she decided to quit all the drugs cold turkey. She was advised against this. She flatly refused professional medical supervision to help with a safe weaning process. Adderrall withdrawal alone can cause suicidal thoughts, anxiety, depression, violent behavior, extreme fatigue, and insomnia. Benzodiazepine withdrawal can also cause suicidal ideation, extreme anxiety, depression, abnormal sensory perception, panic attacks, hallucinations, seizures, psychosis, loss of memory, irritability, sleep disturbance, physical pain, tremors, headaches, palpitations, confusion, and more. 

Psalm was up against the perfect storm. 
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Yes, we can blame it on the Xanax & Adderall. But what led to the drugs in the first place? Let's look at the shards.

“It’s not about me,” she’d often say. She had put herself on a drug induced cross.

Maybe it DID need to be about her, first and foremost.

How do we as facilitators, creators, and women too often over-give, over-work, and sacrifice ourselves to the point of self destruction?

We cannot truly serve others if we are in pain and poisoned. It's essential to have a healthy, grounded, nourished, clear self in order to show up for other beings on the earth plane in a sustainable and genuinely visionary way.

To offer the fruit of wisdom, we must grow it from wise roots... from a balance of giving and receiving. 

Psalm’s life seemed to express a microcosm of what's happening on the macrocosm for the feminine—and the earth.

“She stopped practicing,” observed one close friend of Psalm’s. When her personal spiritual practice no longer existed, she had become a symbol of tantra—rather than a vessel. 
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How can we as healers, guides, and educators put our personal practice first?

A strong personal practice is where all the gold comes from.

The moment that our marketing becomes more important than our morning ritual, we are loosing the essence of what we offer.

“I eat people’s pain. Not many people can do that,” Psalm said on a video toward the end. I wonder where this conclusion came from. 

She was known to binge on alcohol at times to the point of purging, and she would say this was her way of processing people's pain. This was a dangerous method.

As facilitators, can we really "eat" anyone's pain?

In truth, we can only create opportunities for people to digest their own pain. We cannot save anyone, we can only create opportunities for people to save themselves. We cannot do the work for people, but we can remain present next to people as they go through the fire. All the while, we cultivate our own spiritual immunity—and continually cleanse. We need healthy ways of composting and releasing the energies and stories of other people.
​

"This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from the mud.... My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse." 
—Russell Brand

This book is not just for people struggling with hard addictions! Though it could be especially helpful in such cases. This book is for any being that happens to be human. At some point, every human will face some form of addiction—and grapple that tendency to satiate the insatiable.  It is the human condition: endless and wandering craving, grasping, and attachment, all fired up by fear. However, the opportunity to transmute addiction is also part of the human condition, and Russell Brand serves as an inspiring and seasoned way shower.

With his classic ruthless honesty, reckless humor, colorful analogies, skinned-alive humility, philosopher's perspective, oracular tongue, familiarity with non-dual states, artful cussing, and grandiose vocabulary, Russell entertains as he educates about the 12 step program and his journey of recovery. By the way, you've never heard the 12 steps quite this before. Even seasoned 12 steppers will enjoy Russell's radical rendition of the process. He shares that he's been sober for 14 years—and confesses to still taking it one day at a time. That's all he can grasp. 

Raw, intimate personal stories are woven through the exploration of the steps.  Brand himself has experienced multiple addictions: heroin, other hard drugs, alcohol, caffeine, sex, work, fame, digital media, fame, chocolate, and even overusing his professional taxi account. He reaches beyond his personal specifics and speaks to all forms of addiction with compassion and clarity. 

12 step groups may not be right for everyone, due to a slew of various reasons. This 12 step guide is accessible to anyone, whether inside or outside of AA, NA, everything A, and especially to cynics, the impossibly misunderstood, and those who consider themselves to be worse than anyone. Whoever you are, you will find some solace and resonance reading this, and that heavy, armored shell might start to crack a little.  

12 step work can be a wonderful compliment for integrating entheogenic medicine journeys, with the right mentor and community. In my experience, good integration work and ongoing self-reflection can help one to receive all the long-lasting benefits of entheogenic medicine work, and this book could be helpful for that process.

Brand freely offers comprehensive program materials on his website. Right alongside a mantra addressed to divine power, supreme truth, and love, you'll find each of the 12 steps laced with the "F" word, starting with Step 1: Are you a bit f*****?

This book is a radical act of courage and another gem in the growing culture of transparency. Cheers to the the journey of recovery and infinite personal development. 

If you experience the audiobook, you will get to hear Brand's delightful Estuary English accent.

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Since rising to fame in 2003, Russell Brand has established himself as one of one of the world’s most celebrated stand-up comedians. Aside from stand-up, Russell is also a successful author, broadcaster, actor, podcaster, columnist, political commentator and mental health & drug rehabilitation activist. He has 2 cats, a dog, a wife, a baby, 10 chickens and 60 thousand bees, in spite of being vegan curious.

"...I think that the drug industry -- the manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and chain drugstores -- have an influence over Congress that has never been seen before. And these people came in with their influence and their money and got a whole statute changed because they didn't like it." 
- JOE RANNAZZISI


There you go. A whole fleet of DEA agent whistleblowers state that the DEA—and congress—is now pretty much owned by the pharmaceutical opioid industry. Never mind the 200,000 people who have died in two decades in this opioid epidemic (of abusive practices), right?

And oh... A new bill, introduced in the House by Pennsylvania Congressman Tom Marino and Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, makes it "nearly impossible" for the DEA to prosecute criminal practices of the pharmaceutical opioid  industry.

The cherry on top? ...Tom Marino was Trump's pick to be Drug Czar!

Surprised? Sigh.

I am not a fan of the DEA and their treatment of sacred medicines as Schedule 1 drugs, despite clear scientific research demonstrating the evidence of their value when held skillfully—and eons of indigenous traditions. However, I do appreciate the ethics and backbone demonstrated by the whistleblowers here, going after the real criminals.

My 2 cents: The answer here is not solely in granting the DEA the power they need to go after these greed-riddled companies. That's just a part of it. Let's ask: What got us into this opioid epidemic in the first place, in retrospect? How are doctor's educations and protocols influenced by the interests of pharmaceutical drug companies? What measures can we take to address the root issues that lead people to abuse drugs? And how can we all be more empowered with our own health care to begin with?

READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON CBS NEWS

She opened her lips... and children suddenly became quiet, guests took a deep breath and forgot their names (and everything else outside of the present moment), heartbreak revealed its sweet side, fairies smiled somewhere, and portals opened to celestial realms. I will never forget that first time I heard the music of Marya Stark. She is a divine siren and wise woman, who's songs spark awakening, love, prayer, peace, magic, myth, dreams, and everything beautiful about human life. That was over a decade ago, and since then, I have watched in awe as she evolves, deepens, and expands in the realms of music, performance, sound healing, addiction recovery support, and teaching...

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How did you come to understand that music could be a healing modality?
 
I think a part of me always knew intuitively. When i was young I would sing to my pains, I would sing to ease the children I worked with. I would have moments of ecstatic singing where I would feel to myself "wow, there is a multi-dimensional gate opening to the mystery," and I could feel myself remembering codes of sound. I could feel the power of music in the choirs I sang in to move us all to tears when it hit just right. Even as I began writing songs as a part of my own developmental journey, I could feel like something mysterious was going on that was profound, but it wasn’t defined for me until I took my first class in music therapy. That was a game changer.
 

What was your inspiration for pursuing a degree in music therapy?
 
You know, I think it was more kismet than anything particularly inspired. The only thing I had really been into was music. I knew Chapman University had a music therapy program, and I think on some level my soul knew before I did that I was going to do it. I chose to take the class once I was there cause I was curious about the relationship between music and spirituality—and that seemed like the gateway. Once I landed in that field, everything shifted in my worldview, and it felt more like I was coming back to something I had always known
 

How would you say that music can be a vehicle for self-realization?
 
I can speak to my own process. Once I got into writing songs for my healing, I kept a close chronological track record of them. I now have access to hundreds of songs from the last 20 years of life, and I have realized much about myself through both the process of writing these songs, how they come in, and looking back and seeing bigger cycles of emotions and themes that run through. I think of songs as time-capsules, as tools for my own souls embodiment. Having powerful experiences with music, getting to reflect and be able to tap into different states of being and stages of development has been incredibly insightful as I’ve come to know my psyche a bit more. Sometimes I have written songs, and it takes me years for my nervous system to integrate the energies carried through those muses. Those songs feel like gifts to my future self, that carry codes that help me open to deeper states of presence. Also, just from an emotional integration perspective, I can’t tell you where I’d be without the formative songs of my youth. Hearing songs from older songwriters who could articulate my felt experience helped me to go to deeper layers of understanding and feeling, mourning, and expansion. Its like we pull through clues for each others process, and can then journey together back home to where ever it is this awakening train is guiding us. 
 

​Did you have any reference for a "coming of age" stories, songs, or ceremonies before writing your own?
 
Not at that time. Receiving those songs on the Fork In The Road felt like a special initiation into learning about the hero’s journey. I only had a reference for that in hindsight, and then began seeking out other "coming of age" stories, learning about the architecture of mythology. It emerged spontaneously.
 

Did you ever come up against the limitations of classical music as you were discovering yourself as a musician? 

The main limitation I found in studying classical music was the relationship I had to "performing," and, as a child, it wasn’t an issue. I found classical training to be amazing and helped me to learn music faster, but in a music conservatory environment, I could intuit the inherited structures of our value being our ability. By that time I was having a complete existential breakdown, and had no capacity to find myself within the hierarchy of the opera reality—so the muse grabbed me by the hair and life became my master teacher. I find myself now coming back to classical training, but from an intuitive embodied perspective. Classical structures are like good yoga teaching: once the body is flexible, movement is easy.
 

What are “song lines”?
 
What I call song lines are energetic threads I envision run through our souls. People talk about the earth having lay lines, an energetic grid; it is the same with humans, we have channels where energy moves through. There are times when I vision songs coming through us, traveling on similar lines of energy—from other dimensions, star systems, universes, timelines, multi-dimensional star light passage ways where universal poetry and magic comes in like some potent alchemical force. I like to picture myself as a vessel, standing at the center point of a constellation of these lines catching songs through my being.
 

Could you tell us more about "Scarlet Moon" and the archetype of the shadow feminine? 

When I was in college, and receiving many of the visions I still hold today as part of my life's work, Scarlet Moon was an archetype that kept coming in. I knew that I would be going within to learn about the feminine mythos. I think our culture really elevates a few versions of the feminine: the beautiful one and the kind, gentle, loving one. The raw, angry, wrathful rage filled one, not so much. She is demonized, and so there is a whole spectrum of emotional range and nuance that goes under ground. This is one small piece of the pie on this conversation—and Scarlet Moon is where she comes alive in me to dance and find her voice.
 
 
Who is Magdalene, to you? 

I have come to embrace Magdalene just recently in my life. There is a potent narrative I've come across where "Mary Magdalene" is spoken of as a female counter part to Jeshua, one who holds the keys of the lineage of sexuality that she and Christ held together. I appreciate the ways that the remembrance of this aspect of her archetypal fits into the grid of what is emergent right now within the collective reweaving around sacred sexuality and feminine empowerment. So, I've been aware of these perspectives, and considering where that energy lives within me. Many folks come up to me with dreams that I am of the "Magdalene lineage." And I love the energy that I experience when feeling into those dimensions.

In recent years I have gone deeper into healing my womb stories, activating the energetic creative blueprints of the womb, and opening the possibilities of a greater collective story at work within my psyche. I wrote the song Child of Magdalene after watching the film Magdalene Sisters about the Magdalene Laundries, which is a totally wonky piece of recent European history. Seeing how the name of the feminine was dragged through the mud in the religious structure I grew up in burned something raw in me. I could feel the historical oppression of female sexuality carved in my bones, and this song came as an apology and honoring of that aspect of the Mother, the one who went underground, into the shadow with her magic. I keep finding this story over and over. Claiming Magdalene now, poetically speaking, is reclaiming my own sexuality as sacred, rather than the prostitution-sin situation that we need as women to spend the rest of our lives apologizing for.
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MARYA-STARK.COM

VOICE OF MY WOMB
Online course starting Nov 7, 2017

ANCIENT VOICES RETREAT
Feb 15-20, 2018

We are in the midst of a global opiate addiction and overdose epidemic. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in its 2017 World Drug Report, “Opioids were the most harmful drug type and accounted for 70 per cent of the negative health impact associated with drug use disorders worldwide.”
One of the most promising opioid addiction therapies involves treatment derived from a powerful psychedelic plant medicine from Africa – iboga. Iboga and ibogaine, a psychoactive alkaloid derived from iboga, are being used as an alternative medication-based treatment for addiction in some countries and they have seen high success rates in cutting drug cravings and supporting drug abstinence. However, iboga and ibogaine-based therapies are not a magic bullet; they require sincere intentions and quality aftercare.

In general, iboga and ibogaine can be administered safely and without incident, especially when done with proper medical screening and qualified supervision. However, ibogaine treatment can be fatal when complicated by additional factors: contraindicated medical conditions (insufficient medical screening), contraindicated drugs or medications, improper dosing, inexperienced providers, self administration, or adulterated medicine.
If you are considering using iboga or ibogaine for addiction therapy, here are some important safety tips... (CONTINUED)

With global opioid abuse reaching record levels, opiate users are turning to an ancient and powerful plant medicine, that some say is many times stronger than ayahuasca in ceremonial doses, for healing.

Iboga is a visionary medicine held sacred by the indigenous people of Central West Africa. The name generally refers to the Tabernanthe iboga plant as well a broader group of perennial shrubs belonging to the Apocynaceae family, found in the tropical forests of Gabon, Cameroon, and the Republic of Congo. Seven common varieties of iboga are known throughout Gabon, where it is most abundant, though some findings suggest that many more varieties could exist in the highly biodiverse environment.

...Iboga and ibogaine are both known for spiritual exploration, psychotherapeutic healing, rapid physical detoxification, and addiction recovery. Promising results have also appeared in the treatment of a number of other conditions including Parkinson’s disease. The two medicines share some similarities, but there are distinct differences in both content and context.

There are actually three forms of the medicine to consider: iboga root bark, total alkaloid iboga extract, and ibogaine... (CONTINUED)