“GROWING CORN” WITH A PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE USING ART & CEREMONY

Set, Setting and Integration

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Jennifer Allen, LMFT, ATR-BC

www.boneknowing.com

boneknowing@gmail.com

CEREMONY

LSD: 60’S RITE OF PASSAGE

SET, SETTING AND INTEGRATION = WESTERN CULTURE’S CEREMONY

• MAPS, NYU, Johns Hopkins, UCSF, UCLA, are all using models of Psychedelic assisted therapy to research psychedelics as medicine for things like:
• PTSD, end-of life anxiety, treatment resistant depression, OCD, social anxiety
• Studies have had excellent results to date.
• Set, setting and integration are key.

SET, SETTING AND INTEGRATION

The experience itself is the contents held together by the bread of SS&I.

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Art and ceremony are especially useful in the pre/Set and post/Integration of the experience.

CREATIVITY + INTENTION = CEREMONY�

• Ceremony as a Non-Ordinary State (NOS) helps orient to the Psychedelic experience.

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• Ceremony cultivates right relationship.

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• Ceremony is an act of sincerity, intention and creativity.

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• You don’t have to be religious to experience ceremony.

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• You can make your own ceremonies.

WHY ART?

• Spacial Matrix
• Ineffable quality of PE
• Imagery/symbol pre-language
• Creative source + PE source – same?
• Container – holds experience
• Externalizes and reflects PE
• Unfolds PE further
• Familiar bridge to and from psychedelic experience (PE)

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SET =MINDSET

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• Intention

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• Right relationship

SET = PREPARATION

• Intention may determine which medicine to use:
• Empathogen
• Entheogen

SET: STRENGTHEN YOUR KITE STRING

Practices with other non-ordinary states and resources help strengthen your kite string, so you are free to fly.

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SET = ORIENTATION

• Do you have practices that help ground you? (yoga, meditation, prayer,)
• Have you navigated other non-ordinary states you can source from? (ceremony, meditation, shamanic journey, lucid dreaming)

SET: OTHER NOS AS NAVIGATION

Learning to navigate the inner landscape with other non-ordinary state experiences.

NON-ORDINARY STATES

SET: RESOURCE WITH ART

• Create collage cards/mandalas of different internal/external resources like:
• Being loved, family, your spiritual path, feeling embodied, wisdom sources, connection to nature, etc
• Make them part of the “Setting”

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SET: KNOW & WELCOME YOUR DEMONS

• This might be an emotion, a memory, a void, etc.
• Externalize them with art. Begin the dialog. You may meet them in the experience.
• They come as part of your healing.
• Have a plan to face them. Be curious.
• What we resist, persists.
• Like a river- keep it flowing.

SET =PREPARATION/SAFETY

• Know the safety profile of the psychedelic and its drug interactions.
• Erowid
• Tripsit
• Dancesafe

SET = PREPARATION/SAFETY

• The nature of most psychedelics is to be non-toxic and non-addictive, despite being on Schedule I by the FDA …and still, know the drug’s profile and test it.

SETTING

• Plan to be in a safe place.
• With a “sitter”/ experienced journeyers.
• Layered comfortable clothes.
• Water bottle, blankets and pad to lay on.
• Know what to avoid ahead (drug/foods).
• Easy access to bathroom.
• Eye shades & earplugs
• Playlist – that follow arc of medicine.
• Access to nature is a bonus.
• Open sacred space – in way that suites you.

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SETTING: CREATING ALTARS

Create a personal altar with special photos and items. Make it meaningful.

SETTING

� INTEGRATION = GROWING CORN

ART AS A BRIDGE

• Creative process is a non-ordinary state we are familiar with.

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• We can learn to navigate NOS via creative process pre-PE

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• It serves as a pre-language bridge for ineffable experiences post PE

ART FOR ACCESS

Unfolding the experience and gathering the gems by:

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Diving down into NOS with a NOS Shamanic drum journey

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Rapid intuitive image making from the depths 3x90, 1x15

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Returning slowly to the surface with Free Association and Stream of Consciousness writing.

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Sharing the gems & a life practice

INTEGRATION

The Felt Sense

INTEGRATION

Group Synergy

INTEGRATION

Ceremony

INTEGRATION

• Walking Integration

Walking

Integration

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Nature

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Sacred Witness

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INTEGRATION

Life Practice

OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTEGRATION

Jennifer offers monthly NOS/psychedelic Integration groups and workshops.

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Next Integration Workshop 12/7/19

New group starting 1/2020

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Art for Access workshops 2020

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For more info./registration go to www.boneknowng.com or contact her at boneknowing@gmail.com