Cannabis tricked me into having a relationship with her. Back in about 2006, I was at a gathering of sister alums from my grad school at which hash brownies were served. I ate a small piece of the chocolatey confection. Nothing happened. I ate more. Big mistake. Or maybe the best thing that has ever happened to me.
I was on a long hiatus from psychoactive plant medicine after having had several… let’s say, strenuous… experiences using mushrooms seven years before. I didn’t realize that cannabis could bring me into a similar uncanny place, but there I was.
I made my way home in my car “by braille,” somehow finding street signs pointing me toward the freeway. My already challenged sense of direction had gone totally out the window.
When I arrived at my apartment, in quite the out-of-body state, my partner began to run me a bath. I instinctively knew this fine attempt to soothe me would impede what needed to happen.
I lay down and said to him: Persephone wants me to go into the Underworld. He nodded knowingly.
I gripped on, resisting, but finally surrendered. YES! I said. With that, I was catapulted by what felt like some kind of spaceship through an endless tunnel of swirling light. I said: Please slow it down so I can manage it!
That began a sixteen-year sojourn with this sacred medicine, also known as Santa Maria, a name that’s emerged from Latin America. One story says that a shaman who worked with the plant experienced a vision of her as a woman that he identified with Mother Mary… but a Mary who is essentially Mother Earth herself.
Over the years, this wispy-leafed devic ally has been a great teacher to me about the cosmos, the mysteries, and, my seeming specialty, the Underworld realms. So yes, for me it is fitting that she would be connected with the Goddess in her various guises.
It’s never taken me more than a few puffs to enter the realms. In the early years, I would shake and hiss. My body/mind/spirit was apparently adjusting to the new vibration. Or maybe I was recalling my lifetimes as a Delphic Pythia.
These journeys have informed my understanding of the nature of reality, so it’s natural that they have informed writings and my teachings. Santa Maria has also shown me things that are uncomfortable to know and speak about, things that are ahead of what most people can presently accept. Being this kind of Oracle is a mixed bag.
In 2012, I had the ovaries to surreptitiously breathe in some Santa Maria before my first big coming out as a priestess for the first of many Seven Sisters Mystery School winter solstice ceremonies. I sat up on stage, flanked by two women who helped guardian me, holding a scepter with a snake wound around it that I’d had commissioned. And I provided oracular answers to audience questions.
It felt risky, both energetically and, of course, legally, to do something like this ten years ago. I went back to being solo with my Santa Maria ceremonies, sometimes poking above the radar just a bit to offer special Zoom sessions for my Dove Oracle students.
Then, in 2020, I got the clear message: Stop altogether. I no longer wanted to take Underworld residue from my trips back with me, and the astral plane suddenly felt too unsafe to be traversing as the world grappled with figuring out what the heck the “health crisis” was really all about. Too much afoot, too much afloat in the inter-dimensional domain ~ where the battle was largely being carried out.
It wasn’t until this past fall that I felt the call to reengage with cannabis again. When I did, my session was more Santa Maria than ever… in fact, all the work I’d done to connect with Mother Mary and cultivate the Sacred Heart had altered what I was receiving and focusing on in ceremony. I also felt more capable of directing the journey, rather than being at its mercy.
This re-engagment has prompted me to serve as the Santa Maria oracle publicly once more. It seemed fitting that the occasion be my Co-Creating the New Earth with the Subtle Realms & the Fae show on YouTube. So that’s where you’ll find me, live, on December 30. We warmly welcome you to join us HERE at 8:30 am Pacific, 11:30 am Eastern, and 4:30 pm UK. Bring your curiosity, your questions, and your passion for knowing more. This should be fun, fascinating, and fulfilling!