One month from today, Women in the Wild opens its next season. When the final gathering in the first series closed last May, I decided to pause on designing the next iteration of these small-group gatherings. With the onset of summer, I supported my creativity by allowing time for play - AFK! - and focused on three intentions: say yes more, expand my world, and be present (no future tripping!).
Saying yes more led me to begin working 1:1 with clients for psilocybin experiences, and this decision alone expanded my world while simultaneously demanding that I ground myself to provide an exceptional container. Showing up for others has been more effective at nudging me to show up for myself better than any bribe I broker internally. As a witness to another’s curiosity, fear, willingness, resistance, I’m flooded with gratitude for being entrusted with this honor–a breathtaking exercise in reciprocity.
My five-year exploration of designing creative, connected, and conscientious containers to hold psychedelic experiences climaxed this summer with these intimate sessions. As I began to reflect on how to weave the best of all I’ve learned, I wanted to put the lessons in writing and share with those who’ve been following along the whole time or just getting to know my work in Seattle and beyond. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the three types of containers I design specifically for women changing their minds: education, experience, and integration.
The first psychedelic container I created in 2021 was education-focused. The High Guide, an audio-first platform with five distinct seasons, launched as I was embarking on more than a new show. I was also moving through divorce, less time with my boys, and moving out of our family home. It’s in these episodes that I share what I’m learning and experiencing as my very personal understanding of psychedelics as a therapeutic modality deepened.
Season 1: Post-Modern Cannabis: High-Potency THC 101 [most popular episode here]
Season 2: Music for Psychedelics: The Making of Psyched Audio [most popular episode here]
Bonus Series: Entheogen Shorts: MDMA, LSD, Aya, and More [most popular episode here]
Season 3: Psychedelic Integration: 3 Women, 2 grams of Golden Teacher, and 1 Facilitator [most popular episode here]
Season 4: Ketamine for Divorce, Depression and Dependency [most popular episode here]
Season 5: Shroom Strains: How to Start Taking Psilocybin Mushrooms, including Descriptions, Dosing, Trip Reports [most popular episode here]
As my work in this space continued, it became clear that the name The High Guide betrayed an emerging category that was moving toward the mainstream and the medical more rapidly than most realized. More than this, though, I wanted what I was hearing and seeing from my audience to be better represented: people wanted to change their binary relationship with drugs – high or higher – to be more nuanced and intentional yet remain outside of a clinical setting.
Psychedelic Salon at Town Hall Seattle begins October 8th.
To best support listeners engaging with psychedelics on their own, I felt I needed my own lab - so to speak - and be hands-on with the medicine to offer real-world guidance. In 2022, my early career in interior design took a psychedelic turn when I began serving mushroom tea in my sexy AF, double-decker post-divorce pad at “The Tower,” with one friend, then several, and always in the spirit of experimentation. I quickly learned that people appreciate receiving a psilocybin gift in a show-stopping space. The intention of these teas was to play this Psychedelic Card Game and enjoy a low-dose social journey in mixed company, but no mixing with alcohol or cannabis–no polypharmacy as far as I was aware. It was with these teas that I began merging my passion for curating a space with my interest in doing so for psychedelic experiences, and creating a second type of container to hold people engaged with the medicine. A container for the psychedelic experience.
The next year, I started Psychedelic Salon at Capitol Hill’s Cloud Room Coworking space, and by 2025, the Salon moved to Town Hall Seattle, which remains the Salon’s co-producer, and collectively, the Salon, Substack, and my podcast on YouTube and Spotify are the education container I’ve created to share evidence-based psychedelic harm-reduction information through the lens of women’s health, particularly women in midlife.
As I stated earlier, the container for psychedelic experiences has been refined to include 1:1 psilocybin sessions with women, I’ll continue hosting Women in the Wild, small-group micro- to low-dose psilocybin gatherings. However, the format of Women in the Wild has changed since the inaugural gathering in February. Rather than 10 women, the number of guests will be capped at 6, and what was once a 3-hour commitment is now five hours. A third and final change in these gatherings is the addition of a “silent disco,” a two-hour audio journey that provides time for internal self-exploration before reconvening in a supportive group setting. I curate the audio journey for each season and work with the team that manufacturers the medicine I serve at the gatherings to develop a limited-edition seasonal blend to work in concert with the audio.
The medicine offered at Women in the Wild is available only in Seattle and is unique as a full-spectrum extract of whole-fruit-body psilocybin mushrooms. The result is a concentrated, water-soluble powder available in capsule and tincture forms that the manufacturer categorizes as medical-grade for its consistent potency, and, also, the water-soluble nature of the powder has been my solution to work with women on GLP-1s, which delayed gastric emptying also delays the onset of psilocybin and other psychedelics when consumed gastrointestinally. I am available for a free 20-minute consult to learn more about this medicine and Micro-Psyched, the microdosing protocol I developed with licensed psychotherapist and Master Coach Kendra Bloom. Please find time on my calendar here.
The third type of container I offer is for psychedelic integration. The education container was created to emphasize the critical role of integration in maximizing our psychedelic experience, but knowing how to integrate is different than doing the work. An intentional container for integration provides accountability, encouragement, and companionship as you navigate personal transformation. From the moment you begin wondering then wandering, and through to your becoming, I’ve created a container to hold you, in gratitude.
Take care,
April
Sunday Service with PSYCHOPOMP
Looking for an experience to merge the psychedelic and the spiritual? Consider joining PSYCHOPOMP for Sunday Service, an very Seattle take on “church,” including exceptional artists, poetry, film, singing, candles, and a big ol’ beautiful organ. Think church meets party, everyone welcome, and those who come “enhanced” (so to speak) will have a beautiful, soft, an encouraging experience.
Sunday, Aug 23, 7pm at Kenyon Hall
Tickets as cheap as $15 or as much as $200. All ticket profits go to the West Seattle Food Bank.
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