The Everyday Trippers Podcast Episode 2: Bee

Bee - In this episode Brian reminisces with good friend, Metis filmmaker Bee about her reflections on how psychedelics have shaped her over the years.

Music by Howard Goldbach.

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Welcome everybody to the Everyday Trippers Podcast. My name is Brian, and I'm coming to you from the Pacific West Coast, the ancestral lands of the Lakwangan speaking peoples, the deep forests, thick moss, and endless coastline, the land of the mushroom. I'm so thankful to live my days in this little bit of paradise. The Everyday Trippers Podcast is a place of conversation where I talk with everyday people about the psychedelic journeys they've taken, why they went, and what they brought back. Today I'm talking with my good friend and sister on the psychedelic task, AT filmmaker Bee. Bee, anything you want to mention about yourself a way of introduction? Thank you. So just so that the listener has some contact. You and I go back 21 years. And I know that because we got to know each other when you moved into our house. It was a pivotal time in both of our lives. You were starting your education, maybe one year into your degree, and we had just had a baby.

Speaker 1 1:07

I think I came to live with you guys in your my third year.

Speaker 1:10

Oh, in third year.

Speaker 1 1:11

Was it third year? Or was it Yeah, because I lived in dorms the first year, in Fernwood with my friend the second year. And then I needed a place to live. And I was haunting a coffee shop as a young university student does, and saw this really creatively beautiful, beautifully made poster with a little cherub angel baby with like little feather wings, a picture of your son, probably seven. I was like, oh my god, that's the cutest baby I've ever seen. And it's like, come live in our purple room. I'm like, a purple room with a baby who looks like an angel. Like, that sounds like a great idea. And then I came, took the room, and then left. I was like, this is crazy. I can't live with a family with a baby. I don't even know these people. Like, what the heck? And I went back to be tell you I changed my mind.

Speaker 2:01

I remember now. I had forgotten all about that.

Speaker 1 2:03

And I was so nervous about it. I was like, oh my god, I have to go tell in person. Like, if we had text back then, we didn't really have text.

Speaker 2 2:10

Yeah. Oh, we didn't.

Speaker 1 2:12

I would have just texted you. Like, I would have been like, sorry, yeah, no, but no, I had to like go and tell you. And you're like, well, Bee, I actually think you really are a good fit and you really should live here.

Speaker 2:24

It can be persuasive.

Speaker 1 2:27

And I left. I remember being like, I can't believe I'm moving in there. How did that happen? Like, like, buddy made a good point.

Speaker 2:34

I think I was right.

Speaker 1 2:36

You were right. I I think you were right too. And I think you convinced me. I was like, yeah, no, he he makes good points. He makes good points. I can admit when someone's right. I don't have a problem with that. I find it a relief actually to like be like totally right?

Speaker 2:50

Yeah. Remove the veil.

Speaker 1 2:52

Yes.

Speaker 2:53

Just find the truth wherever it's coming from.

Speaker 1 2:56

Exactly.

Speaker 2:57

Yeah.

Speaker 1 2:58

And I remember, since we are talking about tripping here, I remember you used to have this like jar of really like nice cannabis. It was like your jar. And then you had a nice bong up there on like a mantle. And you're like, yeah, I smoke pot. I love pot.

Speaker 3:17

Yeah, it's true. Um I have similar shells to this day. But it's a new world. Uh you know, we're 20, 20 years in the future now, and nobody even said cannabis 20 years ago, but now we have a whole economy around it.

Speaker 1 3:31

And um doing land acknowledgements 20 years ago.

Speaker 3:34

That's true. And even the culture around psychedelics has uh really shifted and changed and emerged much more into the public eye. Now I don't know what it's like in Calgary, but uh in Vancouver and apparently somewhere on Vancouver Island, oh I haven't been there yet, uh there are stores that you can go into to purchase mushrooms and it's a different world.

Speaker 1 4:00

Love that.

Speaker 4:02

Totally.

Speaker 1 4:02

I think especially one thing that was not happening for us growing up in the 90s is fentanyl.

Speaker 4:08

Definitely.

Speaker 1 4:09

Like you could go to a rave and people could sell you a drug, and you weren't thinking there's a good chance I could die tonight, which I think the kids today, the kids today, you know, that's a factor. Um, and whereas if you could get mushrooms or something, that's that is not going to be mixed with fentanyl. It's not it's it's especially if you can buy it from a store.

unknown 4:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1 4:30

It's just so so important.

Speaker 4:31

Yeah. I would say we'll get into this, but where I was hoping that we could start Bee, I'm trying to like create little segments of the podcast. I don't know why I'm stuck on that. I'm having a little fun with it though. So the first segment of our conversation I'm calling chicken or egg. And really, it's just a way of um getting to know you a little bit uh before your first psychedelic journey. So I don't know when that was when your first psychedelic journey is. You'll be able to tell us about that. But I'm curious to know how you remember yourself as a child and whether or not uh there's something that makes sense about who you were then becoming the person who embraced psychedelics and who found uh a use for it in your life.

Speaker 1 5:23

I think that I was a very instinctual child, and that that was supported by both my father and my mother. I think from my mother's perspective, she'd grown up the youngest child in a very sort of discipline-heavy family, and so she grew up feeling like it was hard to speak out, so she really raised me to say, like, say what you think, stand up for yourself, be tough. Um, sort of these like subtle, I guess, feminist teachings, but she didn't really call it that way. And also, she was raised Roman Catholic and also raised me Roman Catholic without telling me, also, so I did not understand that I was like, Well, this is good and this is evil, like and then from my dad, I think he because he was a drummer and just a real rock and roller, he was very like rock and roll, like rock and roll, dance. I think they fell in love on the disco floor, like they disco'd like mad during their courtship. So I think dance and music and expression and just being free, especially my dad who's Metis, it's like that's everything, just to be who you are and be free. And like people who are are oppressing you in any way, he wouldn't have used those words, but that he'd just be like, fuck it, fuck them, fuck them, like and say that to them, fuck you, fuck you. Like, I'm doing this, like let me be. I think that they did instill just a tr for me to entrust my own experience, which is ironic because yeah, I think it is a good thing. I am really appreciative of that, definitely.

Speaker 6:54

I mean, I know just a little bit about your journey um with your family and getting to know your dad more uh as a as an adult, and I just think it's beautiful that you've recognized how their influences were coming from different places, but both have uh left their mark on you in in ways that you're both exhibiting and really benefiting from.

Speaker 1 7:19

Yeah, thank you. I think it is true, and I think there's a reason they got together, even though it would be impossible to imagine them together as adults, or as I'm an adult and they divorced when I was about five. But I think that they're both really smart people. I think wherever you are, there's always a way you can see things, like whatever your the dominant culture is saying and doing, there's always people who choose to just see what they see and not fight what they see just to and to find other people who let them feel that. So yeah. And I think just growing up to uh for the those first formative years, until I was six, until my parents divorced and we moved to Calgary. I lived on an acreage. We lived a very what I understood later to be like a very like Métis way of life. It was just like my mom was working, so she's a doctor, so she would be working and finishing her degree. So I was with my dad most of the time. But I just remember we were like driving everywhere, we'd go see this guy. This guy has like some plants. Go get this plants from this guy, give him this, you hang out, you chat, then you go do this, then you go here, then we travel up here. We were always just like kind of like going and just trading things, is how I when I think back on it, it was, and it was very social. Like it was very like my dad was a very social person, and his family had been in that area for a very long time, so it's like there were just so many people that we knew of all different types. Oh, that Ukrainian guy, he's crazy, go get him this, or like go to the res and we're hanging out with this girl, and like they're so funny, or you know, like there was always just people in that area who were funny characters and who just went way back. So I think there's a freedom in that. I wonder what drugs my dad did, actually. I've never really talked to him about drugs. I'd be curious.

Speaker 9:02

Yeah, well, I guess there's a few words that you used both in describing sort of your the imprint, I guess, from each of your parents that I'm hoping we'll dive a little bit into more as the conversation continues, but that notion of being taught to be instinctual and tough but also free. And I think that um the the toughness I I relate to courage. I've seen you as somebody who's quite courageous just in really just in your decision to be creative and to put yourself out there. Uh as a as a professional in the creative arts, I think it's uh as a creator within that, it's it's very courageous.

Speaker 1 9:51

Especially because I am bougie AF on another side. So I would have loved to have just coasted into a career that could have given me like all the security that I love, but it wasn't for me. Yeah.

Speaker 10:04

And you come from you come from both sides of your family.

Speaker 1 10:08

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 10:10

So that's a little bit about who you are and where you come from.

Speaker 1 10:13

Yeah.

Speaker 10:14

Do you do you recall when you first experienced psychedelics and kind of like what you knew of them or what you thought you were getting into?

Speaker 1 10:25

You know, I think the first time I tried them, I was 14, but I was like drinking coolers. Remember, I don't know if people outside of Alberta did this, but they were like these two-liter fruity coolers.

Speaker 10:36

Of course. California coolers, is that what they were called?

Speaker 1 10:41

Something like that.

Speaker 10:42

In Ontario, I can tell you they were there.

Speaker 1 10:43

Yeah, yeah, California was like peach or like these flavors. Remember, I was hanging out with these skaters who I didn't know super well, drinking these coolers, and they were like, Oh, here's some mushrooms. So I remember I was like, I don't really know, because I do appreciate from my mom, she did tell me, like, hey, just so you know, like, I have patients who did LSD, and if they have a mental illness or propensity for that, it can really fuck their lives over. Like, I have a guy, he did it once, he keeps having flashbacks now. Like it just like triggered a mental illness for him. So she kind of let me know, like, no one knows if they are the ones who are gonna get affected that way. And then your brain is fried for your whole life. Like, don't mess with that stuff until like for her mind at that time, she's like, never mess with it. I think what I'll teach my son is like, we don't want you don't do that stuff until your brain is grown. Like, I want and you to know your brain, and let's figure out your brain. And then there's this amazing world, but that's probably 25 years old, which is a bit old. Mushrooms, you can I would I would take him through ceremonial, like forced medicines, maybe, but anyway, just she really put that in my mind that like drugs that she and she told me from a sincere place, not a manipulative, like, I'm gonna tell you this story so you don't do it. But she'd be like, Listen, I've seen these people in my practice, just other drugs too. Like, she when meth was happening, she told me like what was happening with her patients who were on meth. And these were patients who like it was like this one was a lawyer, this one was a you know, a mom. Like these, she's like, it's all people, and I've seen crystals like literally like come out of their skin, and I'm like, they have these sores because this drug is like coming out of their skin. Wow, and I'm I'm helping them with these sores at my office. That's what I did today. What did you do today? So I I feel like with drugs, I was very much like aware I wasn't supposed to do them and that they could be really serious. So I was so yeah, I remember doing drugs, doing these mushrooms, and I so I didn't do like very many, but I remember somehow I had like chunkies in the cooler, but I was like, these chunkies aren't mine, and that's just gross. So then I was not into it. But I remember I think we were listening to like 36 Chambers by Wu Tang. I just remember being like, hang up with these like skater boys, 90, 94, 95, listening to Wu Tang, be like, okay, I guess this is like life.

Speaker 13:04

Life of 14.

Speaker 1 13:06

Life of 14. Um, and then the next time I really remember doing them was graduation, one of the grad parties. We did mushrooms again, mixing it with drinking, which I feel like as a molder, I'd be like, you don't need to do that, don't do that. You want to be hydrated, you want to take care of yourself. Um, and I remember just hanging out with my high school friends who weren't really great friends. I mean, I had my best friend, she was, but she wasn't there that night. And I remember going into the bathroom and just like looking in the mirror and having this inner voice. And the inner voice was like, Why do you hang out with these people? You don't even like them. And I was like, Whoa, I don't like them. And then I ended up like I just stayed in the bathroom for a long time. A lot went on in the bathroom for me, and then I went back to the minivan where people were hanging out, and ended up talking with this girl who I was like, Oh, I've never been able to talk to her before. But I actually really like her. We had a nice conversation, so I felt like that experience was just the first to say it's bringing a voice to mind that I like and that feels like I miss this voice. It's always here with me, but I can't always feel it or hear it.

Speaker 14:23

Yeah, yeah, you're 18.

Speaker 1 14:25

I was about 18. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sure.

Speaker 14:28

What did you just say though? I missed that.

Speaker 1 14:30

That was when I was 18, or like 17. That was 17, and then that summer I was like, I want to do that again. And I remember going to my cabin up at True Shop and doing mushrooms and just like laying on a floaty and then looking at the hill, and I could see so many faces, and I was going through a lot of like emotions, a sort of uh breakup and romances, and it was just very overwhelming. I felt like it let me kind of feel how much how intense that felt.

Speaker 2 15:01

Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:02

And I remember just like for a while, just kind of like rocking and rocking for so long. I was like, what is this? And I realized, oh, I'd been blown to shore, and I was just like, the waves were lapping me on shore, but I thought I was out still. I was just laying there being like, what am I hitting here? It's the beach.

Speaker 15:20

It's time to go home.

Speaker 1 15:22

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 15:23

You know, I think of um when I was young, uh especially, I would say that I was open to different experiences. I was curious. My mother was not a doctor, but I certainly was warned about drugs, you know, with air quotes around them, drugs, and there was no education around what was different. So I think that it's a benefit to you that your mom looked out for you and had enough experience of her own to be able to kind of forewarn you. But some drugs are really there just to have fun with. People get used to them, people get addicted to it because it's fun, it's exhilarating. And while I think that uh certainly there's a good time to be had with psychedelics, and some of the uh words that people would use to describe their experiences would include euphoric, but there was also always something, uh, especially when I was young with psychedelics, uh, that made it a big experience that maybe it was not entirely defined by euphoria, but maybe included those moments like you described where you find yourself in front of a mirror or something, and all of a sudden it's like you're kind of experiencing layers of yourself. It's a voice that's always there with you, but you have access to it. It can be surprising, it can be uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 16:54

Yeah, I think that's the thing with instinct is that it's not always convenient, it can really get in your way of your plans, but every time we don't listen to our instincts, it's always a mistake. And I think being on psychedelics amplifies that instinctual voice and minimizes the sort of logical social voice. So you have time with just what you actually think. But I think what we think is always there, and when we're repressing it, then you just feel a bad feeling in your heart, or you feel depressed, or you don't know what it is. But it's really, even still today, even though I have the lesson, listen to my instincts. A lot of times I'm like, it's just not possible. Like, I just can't, like, I've chosen this other way, I have to go against it. Which I think then you're like, Well, I'll pay for that on my deathbed, I will you know, like, and that's what they say when people are on their deathbeds. The regrets that they have are always to me. I'm like, Yeah, I bet you had the instinct in the moment.

Speaker 17:53

Yeah, it's a tough one though. Uh I know that uh at least for myself, I have what I consider to be instinctual thoughts. And in like um, I guess there's different scales of living. So I have instinctual thoughts about ways that I should be spending my time to take care of myself, and then there's things that I have to be doing in the moment to play the role that I play in my family's life or my professional life, and uh we've lived really interestingly unparalleled lives in that when we got to know each other, I had just had a child.

Speaker 1 18:36

Oh, you're 24?

Speaker 18:38

I was 25 and wasn't doing anything in a typical fashion. So had our children, then got married, then went back to school to get degrees. And I speak for my wife as well, obviously, because we came together with a similar lack of direction and then found a lot of direction really quickly, but it took time to get there, and a lot of that was a uh mixture of acting out intuition and having like a surprising lack of intent and direction. Um, and then you're somebody who, when we got to know each other, you were getting your education and then managed to uh really bring together uh a continued pursuit of education with amazing adventures to Toronto and New York, started to define yourself professionally, and then had a child, and now you have a child.

Speaker 2 19:37

Yeah.

Speaker 19:39

And something that's happening to me now is my children are older, my time is a little bit more my own. And after years and years and years of not spending time with psychedelics, that that time's opening up again, and I can start. It's not hard for me. I'm not trying to like shoehorn something in. Um and it's in hindsight, like there was a lot of growth for me in my 20s uh that I credit to having semi-regular, well-intentioned trips. And you you brought up uh eating for the first time when you were 14 and like things being just what they were. You were hanging out with people and coolers, and something that's funny in the interviews or conversations that I've been having is everyone I know seems to have like a suburban reality, and I can picture what you're describing because it really mirrors growing up in suburbia myself. There was nowhere to be other than the park with coolers, like uh I mean, even when you're that age, where are you gonna go?

Speaker 1 20:51

Like, I would say, I mean, my neighborhood that I grew up in was I guess you could say it was suburban, but it also was inner city, like for Calgary. So, but all of Calgary is suburban in a way, you know what I mean? But it was like we would take the train around, but where are you gonna go? Like, that's why raves were kind of cool, I think, at that era, because it was like, oh, we have this hockey arena, but tonight it's a dance place. Yeah, you're gonna meet these people, and then you'll drive to the park or the river or these places where there's these little like free spaces. But um, you know, yeah, there's just you you're you just don't have any money, you can't pay your way in anywhere. There's not a lot of places to be social in that age where you're like, but we are social, where like once you're 13, even 12, if you're mature kind of 12 or hanging out with older people, you're gonna be looking for your own spaces.

Speaker 21:45

Yeah. And when you by the time you're 18, you have likely more resources, likely more independence, and more awareness. Of self. So instead of eating mushrooms without understanding what's coming, and you're hanging out with people that may or may not be good friends, and now at 18 you can take yourself to nature to recognize like the best place to be in this whole thing is like pursuing that freeness, I think.

Speaker 1 22:25

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very good. That's my preferred method. I actually the last time that I did mushrooms was with a group who does like forest medicine in the Shuswab area.

Speaker 2 22:40

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 22:41

Really incredible people. And um it was a I was with a friend of mine, and it was funny. I actually got pregnant like two weeks after this.

Speaker 2 22:50

Wow.

Speaker 1 22:50

So I haven't done anything since then. I feel like it just feels very intense to I don't quite feel ready to feel psychedelics and start thinking about my son. It just feels like a little bit, I'm just too in it right now. Um, but at that time it we like the ceremony's done in a room, it's done at nighttime, it's not with a group of people, and you are allowed to do there's no like you're no one's not allowed to do anything, like you're the but there's sort of parameters that they set for the group, and one is like you can go outside, but like you kind of need to come back in because the group leaders are gonna be wondering where you are. And I was like, This is bullshit, man. Like on a deep level, I was like, I just want to like I could actually just sit beneath this tree. This is where I think the best place for me to be would would be. But I was corralled, I came back in, and it was good. You know, I experienced what I needed to there, but I do really feel like being outside and yeah, connected to the earth. Did I ever tell you about this like crazy healing experience I had?

Speaker 23:56

No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 23:58

Well, as you know, I have arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, yeah, which is like very well managed and in remission, but I still have it. And so when I moved back to Calgary from New York, I was getting a really bad flare because I was typing so much on my computer and it was really like just flaring my thumb and my hand. So I was my hand on my left side was like hurting so much. Sometimes I was holding it like it was like a baby. Like I'd like had to hold up my hand because it was just so painful to like have the weight of it just dangling. I was like, oh, this is so upsetting. I don't want to have this like hand that hurts all the time this badly, like this so bad. And then I went with my husband and we did mushrooms out in the uh Cypress Hills, or was it Cypress Hills? No, it was neat year, like if you're driving from Calgary to Kimberly, kind of in the middle, like southern, southeastern BC. Okay, really amazing place. And we was like, We're going, going, going, and then mushrooms just like hit us really hard. I was like, I need to lay down. And so he was like, No, Bee, you're like laying in the sun. Like he dragged me kind of to come into some shade because he's so sweet. And I just like kind of fell asleep, but I was like dreaming, sleeping, not sleeping, and just but I was like splayed out on the ground. And then eventually we like rested and got up and had this like really amazing afternoon, but that time on the ground, it totally cured my hand.

Speaker 2 25:27

Wow.

Speaker 1 25:28

Yeah, I got up, I was like, oh my gosh, my hand's not hurting, and it didn't hurt like that, it's never hurt like that as badly again. I honestly felt like a battery that had been depleted, and I just went on my rechargeable pad and it just charged me. It's like I actually just need to lay down and like not move for three hours on the ground. And it was not easy, I'd be like falling, laughing, like I'm thinking of things I'd done wrong and that were hurtful. Then I'd be like, but that's funny how I'm being that way about it, and then laughing, crying, laughing, crying. I think too that just release.

Speaker 2 26:05

Yeah.

Speaker 1 26:06

So healing, like physically, physiologically made a difference.

Speaker 26:10

That is amazing. Like I I think like one of the things that I missed in the let's say first 15 years of being a parent where I really wasn't eating mushrooms at all were these rehabilitating, replenishing, recharging moments. I've never thought about the it's not that I've never thought. I haven't really, I don't carry around with me that the there's a physical impact to the just living life, dealing with all of the stresses, dealing with supporting people, carrying people through, you know, as we've been dealing for the past five to ten years in our house with uh parents aging and children aging, and because of just the differences, like you're going to be dealing with that now too. Like you've obviously I you've experienced your parents' age and your dad's gone now, if I'm right. Um but there's a lot that we ask of ourselves in being in that role between your parents and your children. So I relate to the feeling of having like really knowing your responsibility and knowing that instinctually this may not be the right time to be getting psychedelic because I need to be I need to be able to be on my A game at any moment. But I also in hindsight see that it would have been valuable for me to mix in a few more to find that time. Not necessarily when your son is one or two, but as they grow older and relying on Ian and um and your family, like finding those times for for moments uh to recharge you and uh give you back some of that energy.

Speaker 1 28:13

Yeah, I can really see that too for both of us, and maybe to do as a couple as well, to say, like, yeah, go and babysit with the grandparents this weekend. This is important, it's something that we both know is important, um, and is incredible. It's medicine, it really is medicine. It's plant medicine. I mean, no secret there. Yeah, um, and I think there's different paths. Like I have um an elder that I work with, and I did I ever send you the documentary I did with her, the Cree Elder, Doreen Spence, about vision quests. No, she runs vision quests, and I work a lot with Maria Campbell. I'm adapting her book Half Breed with her. She yeah, and so she she was leading vision quests as well for a very long time. She's older now, so she doesn't do it because it's very taxing for the elders when they're doing that. But Doreen is kind of saying, like, like she's tried ayahuasca, she's done mushrooms, and she's like, Oh, yeah, it's like the same as like what I get when I am doing vision quest. Like, you have to pick a path, pick your path and stick on that path. That's what she says. I'm of the mind of like, well, I could go some on this path, I'd also like to go on that path. Um, and I'll just see how I feel each when I get to the end of that path. Where does it branch? Does it stay here? Um, but I do think that, yeah, I like that there are these different avenues for people to kind of get the same effect. And what she says very much with the with the vision quest, it's like it's about slowing down because you're four days, four nights with no food, no water, no paper, no pen. You'll attract every fear and issue you have, and you deal with it then. But the land, you're on the land, so it's helping you. And in the documentary, it was really amazing because um we really ended up focusing on this one woman, Michelle Scott, who's an incredible person. Um, and in her interview before her first vision quest, she's like, I'm really afraid of bears. Like, that's one thing I'm I'm really afraid of being out there. And bears. Because there's a lot of bears out there, and they smell you, and they, you know. Um, and then of course, during her vision quest, she was in her tent and she heard hears like oof, oof, and then like and a bear came and sat down right outside her tent. And then so she's talking to Doreen after, and she's like, Well, what did you fear most? She's like, the bear. She's like, So what did you attract? She's like, the bear.

Speaker 2 30:36

Yeah. Totally.

Speaker 1 30:38

So I think these things, yeah, it's really amazing that you have these different paths. And I do I do think it's important. I love that we have guides and people and community, but maybe back to the idea of like freedom and independence. I also think it's really important to like as long as you have a safe way of sourcing the psychedelic that you're taking, that you have the power. You don't need somebody else. Like you can just be you and that moment where you are on earth. And if you want to make it easier for yourself, be with like a good person or a couple of good people who make your soul feel good, and you can be in the daytime and be on the land or just be outside, those things will make it, I think, more healing. There's that, you know, you could be, I think to do it alone in your room. Who was I talking to? Someone like, oh, I did ayahuasca and I got it, and I was like alone in this hotel room in the dark. I was like, that just that's just not right.

Speaker 31:41

Like I wouldn't feel comfortable with that, that's for sure. But some of it is like ayahuasca is still a completely foreign substance to me, and I've I haven't pursued it. There's a lot of psychedelics that I've just chosen to not pursue because they don't seem indigenous to where I happen to be right now.

Speaker 1 32:02

Um they're not. The smuggling that has to happen for us in North America to get ayahuasca, it's a network of people who are all putting themselves at great risk. And you know, maybe we have to go down. Would you come, would you go down to Peru? I know a person who I think I really trust. I'd really like to go.

Speaker 32:23

Well, I really trust you. So if we find our way to Peru together, uh, I would definitely you can sign me up. I've been reluctant to step into ceremonies here, and I think it's related to a lot uh of what you've been saying. For me, I have enough experience now to know that if I'm alone inside and it's a beautiful space that I feel safe in, it can be a beautiful thing. I can just lie down for three hours and essentially meditate. Uh often, and I'm not a meditator, like in life, I don't like spend time really meditating, um, but I have gotten in the habit of like throwing on a Grateful Dead Show, which is three hours of music and giving myself that time. And sometimes I can't help it, and I get up and I'm dancing all by myself, and other times I'm just lying on my back, letting it all letting it all go through, and uh they have a way about them that they manage to pull out good things. And other than that, eating mushrooms has always been about connecting with people, either people that I already love, or instinctually understanding when you meet someone that this can be good, we can do this together, uh, and just being connected to the earth. My most recent experience, I was so grateful. I really haven't had a lot of chances to be out in nature uh of late. Like often for me to get to nature involves a car and this and that, and those don't mix for me. So um, but most recently I had a chance to walk up Mount Doug with a friend and just uh just fit atop the mountain as the mushrooms came into our system and did a little more of a walk around and found this other viewpoint of the city. We just sat and experienced the vibrant colors and the bird song, everything though, even beyond nature, even the human sound, the traffic, which was muted because it was so far away, uh a helicopter that never got too close, but was just a sound in the background, like it was all it was all beautiful, it was all healing and connecting. And sharing that kind of experience with a friend, uh with a loved one, with a stranger that you instinctually know, I feel like the relationship is never the same again. You move forward, and the next time you see each other, there was something that you come back to, whether you ever talk about it again or not.

Speaker 1 35:18

It's like a spiritual fist bump.

Speaker 35:20

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 35:21

And like, I get you. Like we're you're good, we're good.

Speaker 35:27

But I have been reluctant to sign up to other people's rules. Somebody telling me that I should be inside, they'd have to definitely be the right person for me to be like, I'm turning myself over to you right now.

Speaker 1 35:41

Yeah, yeah. And I really do trust these people who were guiding it, and I was like, okay, even I'll work with this with with the mushrooms, you know. And I also didn't take like the craziest dose. What I think is interesting is doing it in a group like that is there were people who I think like took a lot, or you know, I remember someone who just seemed really needy, like that would be my judgment and my opinion of of her. Um, she was just like, uh a teacher, kind of, or like I need your help. What about this? And I was kind of like, girl, you just gotta like be with it. And then I was like, Well, why do I have to judge like that? Am I why am I I have to maybe this more for me to look at why I'm so independent? Why do I have to like am I I don't know? It's just sort of I think there's always something to work with, and it's just one way you can have your other ways as well. But when it's truly a good led by a good group, it's like okay, there's there's things to bring in. But what I want to say more is if Mount Doug could talk, like if Mount Doug, like that would be a great web series or just like trippers through the years on Mount Doug. Because I used to go there to trip because first year of university, I don't know how many times it did mushrooms, like once a month at least. I'd say maybe, maybe not that much, but like six or seven times during the year. Yeah. And and I'd go to Mount Doug, and that just makes me think how important it is to leave spaces as wild spaces in urban places.

Speaker 2 37:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1 37:14

I'm in Calgary now and just seeing how they're developing. And I there's all these beautiful ponds and little lakes, wetlands, birds, there's all these ecosystems. It's flat plate prairie to the east of Calgary. They're just like developing it, developing it. This is not good. Um, because people need places to go where they can be free, like Mount Doug. Can I tell you two quick experiences I had there?

Speaker 2 37:39

Please do.

Speaker 1 37:41

Okay, so one I went I went by myself. I remember kind of having this experience, had a few different experiences, but at the end of end of the mushroom trip, I was like, oh, there's garbage in the forest. I was like, I need to pick it up. I need to pick it up to say thank you to this place. Like I can't leave it this way. So I was like picking up garbage, finding even like plastic bags in the forest so that I could put more garbage into the bag. And I was cleaning for so long, and I was like, gosh, why do I have to keep cleaning? I was like, no, you do, because this garbage needs to get out of here. And so I really wanted to quit though. And then I decided not to quit. And I picked up a piece of garbage and I saw this like glint of silver, and it was a silver ring under this garbage. And you know what it was? It is a CTR. Choose the right.

Speaker 2 38:35

What?

Speaker 1 38:36

The Mormon ring. It's the Mormon ring, choose the right. They have these rings they weigh. Ctr. It means choose the right.

Speaker 38:44

And you were familiar with that before you found it?

Speaker 1 38:48

I can't remember if I was or not. I think I was. I think I was, because yeah, I had my best friend grew up Mormon, so I I knew things anyway. But I literally was like hovering over this like potato bag, chip bag. It's like, I don't want to pick up one more. I'm done. I was like, no, just do the right thing. Picked up the potato bag and then found this ring. Choose the right. On mushroom so I was like, wah.

Speaker 2 39:15

Oh my god.

Speaker 1 39:16

And then another one, another time, I was on like sort of the back side, you know, where there's like the road, and you can go on the back side. Yeah, I was there. And I don't know, I was just really struggling like to be alone. I didn't want to be alone. It was not, it I wouldn't say it was like a bad trip, um, but it was a really hard trip. Like, I was like, my mind is not my friend right now. I'm just feeling pain, but I don't know what it is. I can't, like, I'm like, oh. And I just see this like dogs like running through the forest. I'm like, what? And then this pit bull like leaps up and clamps his jaw onto a branch.

Speaker 2 39:50

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 39:51

And then it was just swinging, like it wouldn't let go. It was just swinging, holding on, and I was like, What? I was like, is this like my mind? Like, I'm like, pit bull, like what the heck? And then this woman came up, and she was just so cool. And I didn't tell her I was tripping, but looking back, she must have known. But she was just so accepting, and she was like, Yeah, I rescue dogs, like dogs that people want to euthanize because they're so aggressive. I rescue them and I bring them here, and like that guy's still swinging over there.

Speaker 2 40:27

Like hilarious.

Speaker 1 40:29

I was one of them, and she had this pack of I don't know, there was like eight to ten. And she was just the most beautiful person. I'm like, if we had met in the city, I would not know what to say to you. Like, we would pass each other, you wouldn't look at me, I wouldn't look at you. We would just be like, eh.

Speaker 2 40:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1 40:43

She was just like, and she just appreciated I could see her, she saw me, and we just had this amazing time, and I was like, I love her. And then many years later, I was telling that story to someone, they're like, Oh, I know who that is. Like, she she she's like, you know, has this band and she has all these dogs that she rescues, and they got in an accident. Oh no, yeah, so I think it was like a bad car accident, but I think like she ended up being okay, and a lot of the dogs were okay, but I don't think all of them were, but it was just like, wow. Just when you meet meet people like that, they'll never just forget that dog like swinging in the sunlight.

Speaker 41:21

Oh my gosh, for sure not. Yeah, it's I love the I mean, those are both great stories. I love the story of finding the ring, it really reveals like the the layer of thought inside our head and the dialogue that we have. And there's the ability when you're it's an ability, sometimes it's something you have to kind of move past, but like you have layers of thought where you consider something, and then that judgment comes in. Why do I always have to be doing this? And then another voice comes in that says, You're picking up garbage right now, like you're you're just cleaning the mountain. Why do you have to be tough on yourself? And then the universe takes over and provides you with some mysterious gem that there is no explanation for, uh, and gives you the opportunity again. Like some people find that ring and it means nothing to them. Some people find that ring and it prompts some curiosity and Mormonism. Some people find the ring and it doesn't matter, like it uh its connection to Mormonism or anything else, it's just like a three-word sentence that uh anybody can think about for a little bit. That's one of those stories you'll remember forever, and I'll probably remember it forever too now.

Speaker 1 42:39

Yeah, I hope so. Next time you're at Mount Doug, because what when you you're there, it's it's very like there's a lot of stuff on the ground. It's very hard to find something like a ring.

Speaker 42:49

Oh, if you went looking, you'd never find it.

Speaker 1 42:51

Oh my gosh. I'm reading a Jennifer Egan book right now, The Candy House. I'm like, in the Jennifer Egan story, next chapter would be like the Mormon who like slipped off that ring because they were getting laid there on the forest floor. They didn't want to see that be reminded of that ring.

Speaker 43:05

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 43:05

They slipped it off and like their whole story.

Speaker 43:09

Totally. At least that's why they thought they slipped it off, but it was just taken off for you to find it.

Speaker 1 43:14

So maybe both were right. They were supposed to be there taking off the ring, having some hanky tanky, and I was meant to find it. And when those things happen, it's just like, of course, yes. So much there's so much release of just thinking, I don't have to fight doing the right thing. This is back to the instinct. Don't fight what is right. Like it's hard, it's not always easy, but every time we can just like do what we should be doing, don't fight the burden of it. Don't see it as a burden. Just like just go through whatever it takes. It always does the right thing. It leads you to this next there's I really do believe that, and I've seen that, that there's always like little clues or rewards or little like in Zelda. You're like, Oh, there's like a shiny pineapple.

Speaker 44:00

It reminds you, I think that those unexplainably magic little occurrences help me feel like I'm not alone.

Speaker 1 44:09

Yeah.

Speaker 44:11

There's something greater happening here. And I think that one of the one of the things that psychedelics has really helped me with is humility, keeping myself feeling relatively unimportant in the huge scope of things, but at the same time so incredibly important. Because why would the whole universe conspire to hide this one thing for me to find in this moment? That's what I hear in your story for sure. It's like and I think that that was when when you were relaying those feelings of feeling alone, it was your other story that you were talking about. But in the same thing, you know, you're feeling alone and and appears this stranger, some ridiculous thing that you would never expect to see, a dog hanging from its jaw and swinging like a pendulum, and stranger, and the opportunity to talk and feel a oneness with a person that you would never have that you would have walked past and they would have walked past you.

Speaker 1 45:16

Yeah. And even thinking of all those dogs, what their experience was alone in a shelter, literally, we're going to kill you. We'll we'll kill you because you are an angry dog who what happened to them to make them angry that way. It's very rare a dog will be that way. Like there are dogs who are just that way, I do think. But I also think there's most are not that way. They're made that way. And that there's this human out there, this beautiful person who just was like, I'm gonna save you. I'll wear a weird arm sleeve thing. She had like something she could slip on so they could like bite her.

Speaker 45:52

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 45:54

You know, it's like cause these dogs like, but then they just she let them find their pack.

Speaker 2 45:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1 46:00

She brought them into a pack and let them not be lonely and they were safe and fed. That's why it kind of breaks my heart to think she was in that accident. Yeah. But that is also life.

Speaker 46:11

Part of the mystery for sure.

Speaker 1 46:12

Yeah.

Speaker 46:12

You've already really like brought up so much uh in the way of lessons that you've learned uh kind of throughout your journeys. But I'm curious, are there other things that you think we haven't spoken about yet that are uh really like I I think of you, Bee, as a really heart-centered person and as a creator, somebody who is actively being creative? Like you have a flow, uh, there's a continuous, and certainly that's my choice, my commitment to yourself, uh, but also just I think who you are. And I'm wondering, are there ways that you think your psychedelic journeys have prepared you for who you are uh in this in this way in the world as a creative person?

Speaker 1 47:03

As you're saying that, I think one of the hardest or most intimidating psychedelics I did was ayahuasca. Because it was a month of the dieta, which is like a diet that you take before you do it, which is like no alcohol, no caffeine, no meat, and then in the 48 hours before, it's like no carbs, you know, it's like it's very intense, and I really love the freedom of eating whatever I want. So that was sort of, you know, a preparation, and then just hearing people say you'll throw up, yeah, projectile vomiting, all these things. I felt like, oh, I know what it feels like to have like twisted stomach and stomach pains, and I'm not looking forward to that. So I think of how I kind of approach psychedelics. I'm like, oh I can see that's or ayahuasca, my awaasca when I did it, and I'm like, I think that is instructive to how I also make work and make like creative work in film, um, which is what how I do now. And it's just so all-encompassing that I don't do anything else, really. Like I have two paintings I want to make as gifts, and I'm just like, when will I do them? Like I won't do them. I just have so many things that are in film just through and there's so many processes in film, like you've got your you've gotta write the script, or working on scripts that come to me, and then working with those people, and then getting money, and then like it's just like it's so all-encompassing when I'm not doing that and not taking care of Cullen and not working out, which I'm trying to get back into and eat well. And like, there's just no time to go do these other things that I love. But with ayahuasca, I remember she's just sort of told us like everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end. So just remember that everything has a beginning, middle, and end. So she kind of opened the ceremony, this is the beginning. And she said, This is the start of a relationship. Ayahuasca, in the cultures that it's from, you would take it even as I think like uh prepubescent.

Speaker 2 49:05

Wow.

Speaker 1 49:06

Pregnant women take it, elderly people take it. It's something that you it's part of your life. A ceremonial part of your life. So this isn't like the be all end all, it's it's mostly like your first experience with the grandmother. And it's a serpent grandmother. And so I feel like I was like, okay. Um, my friend who I went and did this ceremony with, um, it ended up just being the two of us because the other people um canceled um or just weren't able to come. And she was like, I'm here for some big healing, and if that big stuff I want a lot. Like she just took a huge dose, and she's a petite woman. And I was like, I feel like if this is my introduction to the grandmother, and this is maybe a lifetime lifelong relationship I'll have with her, I'm just good to like start slow. Mm-hmm and like ease my way in and feel it through because I want to be able to feel what I need to feel. And then throughout that, I do think that experience, and somewhat mushrooms too. I think when you take mushrooms, there's that time where it's like your stomach can hurt, or I can feel like a wave of anxiety, or like, oh, you've left let go of choice. You're going in now. You can't you can't get out. And that's an uncomfortable feeling. And I think that that feeling is very connected to the creative feeling. Like you kind of have to just commit. You just need to go. This is what you're doing. And it can bring up all of those things. Yeah, I think that that really came to mind. And with ayahuasca, what it felt like for me when I when it started, I was sitting there and you're like, you know, ingesting it orally, so it takes a while. So I was like, am I feeling something? Am I feeling something? I don't know what it is. And then I was just sort of sitting there, and I honestly felt just like a snake, like slowly curling up my body. But it wasn't a scary, but I felt like it could be scary if I thought it was scary. It was more like just this grandmother snake just kind of winding around me, being like, like its little tongue licking at like flicking sometimes, being like, What are you? I'm here to help. You've summoned me. What are you? I'm like, I don't know, you tell me. I'm not gonna tell the grandmother anything.

Speaker 2 51:18

Yeah.

Speaker 1 51:18

And then I had this very like how I would feel like with a big snake if I saw. Like, just like try to be cool, like don't don't fight the big snake. Just try to work with it. And with filmmaking, there's so many other people involved, and they're all coming with their own baggage, and it's a very exploitative industry, and it's a lot of creativity and a lot of ego. So there's like your grandmothers and your amazing people, and people who are tough, but they're amazing, and then there's people who are just really damaged, and they're not like very nice, and they're really like manipulative. There's just so many different types to deal with, and I find that's that's a hard thing about working in that this industry. There's a lot of healing I can see sometimes. I'm like, I wish if we could all on a film set do psychedelics together before we started shooting, and in the middle of the shoot, we'd be good.

Speaker 52:11

Yeah. Beginning, middle, and end.

Speaker 1 52:15

Right? Beginning, middle, and end, just like a story.

Speaker 52:20

I've really appreciated this. We've uh been talking for a nice long while here and kind of getting to the end. I don't think we've shared a trip before, so I'm really excited for that opportunity one day.

Speaker 1 52:33

Yeah.

Speaker 52:34

Are there are there any other trips of yours that uh come to mind that you'd be interested in telling or little little insights that you'd want to share before we wrap up?

Speaker 1 52:48

No, I I think I think just in general, I think it's just this keeps coming back to this idea is if it's working for you and you're feeling benefits to really trust that. Regardless of what other people say or what the opinion is or legalities. It's like if you have a safe source and you do psychedelics and you have a benefit in your life, yeah. To trust that, that this is a part of something bigger. I think these things have evolved with us. And there's a really incredible intelligence that you're partaking in all the time, and this is helping us to understand that.

Speaker 53:32

Yeah. It gives me the opportunity to say something that I haven't really voiced uh today, definitely, and I don't think on the other conversations I've had, which is I I'm not trying to convince anybody that this is the right thing for them. I'm interested in talking to people, talking with people though who have uh found that this works without medicine that's good for us. I think we all need different medicines. Some of us need the same medicines, but we all need to find the medicines the right for us. Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. Well, sir, you've made it three to the end of another great conversation on the Everyday Purpose podcast. These conversations are meant to be informative and psychedelics as a personal choice and not for everyone. I encourage you to think carefully about whether micro, LSD, or any of the other five opening and all three substances that we spoke about if this episode and both tasks are right for you. If you are considering it and you have a doctor of trust and open-minded, I suggest speaking to them. That may be hard to find, but hopefully you can connect with a friend or loved one with experiences they're home to share. And if not, please keep coming back to hear from our guests and let our stories help you decide. If you're interested in being a guest on a future episode, or if you've something friendly and constructive to share, please send me a note at the everydaytripper at gmail.com. Much love listeners. Till the next time.