Be the Medicine
Beyond Protocol; The Sacred Foundations of Plant Medicine Work
A 12-week training for therapists, practitioners and space holders learning to integrate spiritual, relational, and Earth-based wisdom into plant medicine and psychedelic-assisted therapy.​​
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August 26th - November 28th
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12 weeks Online
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Optional 4 day immersion end of December
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Includes two 1:1 sessions with Jeya Lorenz or Kellie Berns
The Calling
The face of psychedelics is changing rapidly, with the rise of psychedelic-assisted therapy reshaping how these medicines are understood and used. While we honour the progress being made in clinical spaces, we also recognise the importance of holding and protecting the older ways — the ceremonial, relational, and spiritual lineages that have kept this work alive for generations.
This course is part of our ongoing commitment to platform voices and wisdom that we believe are vital to the safe, ethical, and soulful continuation of this work.
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While much of the current conversation focuses on protocol and efficacy, we are here to centre the roots, the sacred, spiritual, relational dimensions that have always been at the heart of plant medicine work. We believe the wisdom of Indigenous elders, lineage holders, and those walking this path in quiet integrity is not just relevant, but critical to holding these experiences safely and responsibly, and protecting these sacred medicines from exploitation.
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We are remembering how to carry medicine not just with knowledge, but with reverence. Not just for the self, but for the collective. Not just for healing, but for restoring right relationship - with the Earth, with the unseen, and with each other.
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This course is a space for those who feel that pull. Who are ready to tend to the invisible foundations of this work with humility and care. To walk alongside those who have come before us, so we may carry this forward with grace, integrity, and spirit.
This call is for you - the therapists, guides, artists, dreamers, and protectors- to help shape a future where psychedelic work is not only effective, but sacred.
The Invitation
Is this course for you?
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Therapists, space holders, and facilitators seeking to root their psychedelic practice in spiritual, relational, and Earth-based wisdom
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Those with clinical or professional training (PAT or equivalent) who wish to deepen their understanding of Indigenous worldviews, ceremony, and collective healing
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Anyone called to this work who values integrity, prayer, humility, and the honouring of those who have walked this path before us
The Programme
What Can You Expect?
Overview
Core container
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12x online live sessions with a mix of teaching content, Q&A, exercises and practices
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Including 10 guest teachers and workshops
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Tuesdays 7-9pm BST
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Community platform to connect and collaborate with others
Additional support (included)
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2x one-to-one mentoring calls with Jeya and Kellie
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Weekly readings and teachings
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Abundant and alive online group with resources and opportunity for connection and collaboration
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3-year access to recordings of all the sessions
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Peer-to-peer support groups
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Ongoing alumni community
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Access to further learning with all the teachers on the course
Course details
Chapter 1 - Kellie & Jeya - Introduction and Anchoring --what to expect - building our altar etc
Chapter two - Language of the Sacred with Jill Pettijohn -Understanding how to speak about mystical states without reducing it to ..
Chapter 3 - Humility and Unlearning with Liza Hita Liza will share her journey with cultivating these devoted relationships with humility, patience, and generosity, and how this is intertwined with clinical consciousness and our collective duty to serve. She will explore various processes of unlearning deeply ingrained entitlements that can hinder more profound understandings of plant medicines. Examining and experiencing our collective origin stories can mend generations of extractive practices and redirect and restore medicine sovereignty.
Chapter 4 - Indigenous relationships to land, self and community with Natalia and Gustavo: Natalia and Gustavo By focusing on reciprocity as a way of life, we will explore the ways in which Indigenous people of all times and places have practiced relationship to the land and all the elements that create life. We will also speak about how colonization, displacement and assimilation have and continue to impact these knowledges and livelihoods. We will end by guiding and encouraging land acknowledgement and reconciliation for an aware, ethical and sustainable practice.
Chapter 5 - Ceremony as Safety with Jauni Nam Why ceremony creates the structures we need to practice energetic and psychological safety
Chapter 6 - Bridging Worlds - Alta Begay
Chapter 7 - Cosmovisions with Metsa Nihue
Chapter 8 - Prayer and the Plant Medicine Field with Grandma Margaret Behan In this course, Grandmother Margaret guides participants into the heart of prayer—as structure, as safety, as sacred dialogue with Spirit. Her presence is one of grace, ancestral connection, and gentle power, reminding us that true healing begins when we return to right relationship with our roots, the land, and the great mystery that breathes through all things.
Chapter 9 - Decolonising Psychedelic Care with Alnoor Ladha
Chapter 10 - Grief and Death with Zach Nusbaum This session will explore aspects of the current landscape in which most of us experience our grief and our relationship to death: a prevailingly materialistic and technological overculture that is often characterized by a disconnection from place/land/nature, a loss of intimate exposure to the dying process, and an absence of communal spaces of grieving. In this session we will ask questions such as: What has been lost amidst this ‘modern progress’? How do we support ourselves as facilitators to reestablish and strengthen conscious relationships to nature, death and grief? How can we bring this awakened reverence and deeper experiential knowledge into ceremonial and/or clinical spaces to more powerfully support another’s healing? What role can psychedelics and plant medicines play in preparing us for death and in assisting us in working with grief more holistically? And what do these medicines have to teach us about what is beyond death, and about our relationship to Mystery itself?
Chapter 11 - The practitioners Compass with Natalia Gianelli Through a critical journey of the history of western mental health we will explore ways in which a decolonial perspective can benefit community care and mental health practice. By rising awareness around culture, privilege, diversity, historical trauma and appropriation, we will explore ways to develop a trauma informed practice of allyship, solidarity and appreciation.
Chapter 12 - Integration and Closing Ceremony with Kellie and Jeya
This is not a certification program designed to accelerate your career as such— it’s an invitation into deeper integrity. A place to sit with humility and ask: How do I walk this path in service, not in ownership? What am I willing to unlearn to be in right relationship with this work?
If you're looking for depth over status, resonance over recognition, and a community of practitioners committed to walking gently, responsibly, and soulfully, this course may be for you.
What you'll leave with...
This is not just a training — it’s an initiation. A return to the roots of this work, and an invitation to carry it forward with wisdom, humility, and strength.
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A deeper understanding of psychedelic healing beyond clinical models
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Understanding how ceremony, prayer, and energetic presence creates ethical safety in non-clinical settings.
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Guidance from Indigenous elders and wisdom keepers
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Receive teachings from lineages that have held these medicines for generations, shared with consent, heart, and intention.
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Relational and spiritual skills often left out of mainstream training
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Explore grief, death, cosmology, song, ritual, and Earth connection as essential aspects of integration and holding space.
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Clarity on how to walk this path with integrity; understanding the difference between appropriation and alignment, and how to root your work in reverence rather than replication.
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A community of practitioners who care about walking gently and wisely
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Participate in peer triads, reflective dialogue, and optional in-person immersion with others on the same path.
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Two 1:1 sessions to support your personal integration
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Tailored guidance to help you explore how to apply this work to your life, relationships, and vocation.
Your Teachers
Guest teachers are subject to change
Grandma Margaret Behan
A member of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, Grandmother Margaret is a lifelong ceremonialist, dance leader, artist, poet, and healer. Through her many decades of experience, she has become a powerful voice for ancestral remembrance, cultural revitalization, and the deep medicine of prayer.
Dr. Alta Piechowski-Begay
Founder & Chairperson, Hozho Voices of Healing Center, Inc.
School Psychologist | Counselor | Indigenous Healing Advocate
Dr. Alta Piechowski-Begay is a proud Diné (Navajo) woman of the Zuni Edgewater clan, with ancestral ties to the Red House, Honeycomb, and Towering House clans. A lifelong advocate for Indigenous wellness and education...
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Liza Hita
Dr. Liza Hita relationally explores the sociocultural imaginary as a decolonial and liberatory clinician and scholar committed to ecological care. Her Visayan ancestors and the diwatas of their territory led her to accompany people and systems through deeply experienced life transitions, examining layered, multidimensional grief and intuitive resilience.
Metsa Nihue
Metsa is an internationally known healer who specializes in traditional Amazonian lineages. He trained in the Peruvian Amazon for fifteen years under the guidance of the Quechua-Lamistas, Aguarunas, and the Shipibo indigenous peoples. He has since been in practice leading ayahuasca retreats and plant medicine rituals in South America building awareness for communities from the US, Europe, and Canada for more than ten years.
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Jill Pettijohn
Jill's mission is to inspire change in those prepared to embracethemselves, leveraging her comprehensive blend of professionalexpertise, deep knowledge, and rich life experiences. She is a beacon of transformation in the realm of nutritional health andculinary arts, a celebrated food shaman.
Natalia Gianella
Natalia Gianella was born in Lima, Peru and migrated to New York with a scholarship to complete a Master’s in Human Geography at Syracuse University. She then worked for 22 years as a community organizer, advocate, family counselor and case coordinator in NYC, specializing in immigration, human trafficking and child welfare. ​
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Juan Naum
Juani has been walking the path of plant medicine for over 23 years. His journey began within a spiritual tradition in Brazil, where he was first introduced to the depth and discipline of ceremonial work. During his early travels, he encountered his first teacher in the lineage of Peruvian vegetalismo...
Zachary Nasbaum
Zach Nusbaum is a long-time student of plant medicines, death, grief, and the ways in which these can connect us more deeply to the Mystery of life. His offerings weave together insights from almost two decades as an initiate in an entheogenic religious tradition, 10 years in pediatric palliative care and hospice, and his lived experience...
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Gustavo Fernandez
Gustavo Fernandez was born in Queens, New York as first generation from the caribbean coast of Colombia. Gustavo is a father, husband, artist, culture bearer/maker and community leader. He is a professional chef with over 25 years of experience highlighting and advocating for Indigenous people through food.
Alnoor Ladha
Alnoor Ladha is an activist, writer, strategist, and mystic working at the intersection of political systems, ancestral wisdom, and sacred activism. Born into the Sufi lineage of Ladha, he carries deep roots in spiritual and ritual traditions, which he weaves with systems thinking and decolonial frameworks.
Course costs:
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Early bird (register before June 30): £1550
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Standard bird (register before August 26th): £1700
Payment Plans:
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1. Pay total amount upon registration
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2. Pay £500 upon registration and £200 a month for 6 months from August.
Scholarships:
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We have 2 scholarship spaces @£400 each.
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Applications for this will be open from July 01
Reciprocity
10% of our profits will be given directly to Indigenous communities and groups who are devoted to preserving ancestral plant wisdom, protecting ecosystems, and keeping prayer and ceremony alive for the healing of humanity and the Earth.
These stewards are not only guardians of sacred traditions but also active voices in restoring right relationship between people and planet. By supporting them, we honor the interconnectedness that lies at the heart of our work.