[MUSIC]
 Okay, welcome back to the show.
 Our guest in this segment is an old school medicine woman,
 Avi Essner in Jolly Old England.
 Avi began learning to facilitate altered states of consciousness in 2010
 with shamanic, tantric practitioner training.
 And she followed that with birth into being facilitation in 2011.
 And then she ran transformative workshops using breath and
 movement to induce trance and trained other practitioners to do that as well.
 Until about 2017, she had used these healing skills and
 knowledge to help prepare women and their partners for childbirth,
 assisting as a doula for women in labor.
 Then interestingly, she began facilitating mushroom ceremonies in 2017
 by request from a group who witnessed her powerful facilitation skills.
 This type of facilitation helped create a more of a calm centered state,
 which is more of a natural childbirth base, a psychedelic sacred rite of passage.
 Since then, she's guided many journeys for people with or without substances.
 And she's researched chemistry and the biology of mechanisms behind the chemistry
 of mushrooms and searched out myths and stories about the old world and
 how this has been used through the ages, then listened to the motifs of
 sacraments including, and especially of late Amanita Muscaria and its medicinal
 allies.
 She understands how to honor the ancients of the land who worked with these
 in theogens alongside the science and ethical practices.
 And she's integrating these into her therapeutic practice and
 looking at how individuals and groups can be supported by their relationship
 with Amanita and nature as a whole.
 Welcome, Abby, to the show.
 Thank you.
 Thank you for having me here.
 Yeah.
 I might mention that we had a chance to meet you in person about two weeks ago
 when you were in Santa Cruz for a little bit.
 We knew Billy Sunshine quite well and had a chance to meet you.
 Thanks to a little dinner party at our beach house.
 Oh, yeah.
 And Billy actually holds us responsible for that meeting with you
 because we happen to be the ones who introduced him to Clubhouse in the first
 place and he's really turned that into a great place for meeting people.
 Oh, wow.
 That's all very beautifully cyclic.
 Cyclic.
 I can't come to get cycled right now.
 Cyclic and synchronic.
 Yeah.
 So there we go.
 A little combination there.
 So you were here for what was called the discovery sessions.
 Could you tell our audience a little bit about what you were here to talk about?
 Sure.
 I flew out to California from the UK to speak on a panel about aminita Muscaria.
 And really the intention behind that was to not only go into why it's a bit of both
 a stigma and an icon, but to really begin to make headway within the psychedelic
 community to take this mushroom seriously because I find that often in conversation,
 the focus is on psilocybin and or LSD and or ketamine, et cetera.
 And that aminita Muscaria is actually sort of poo poo, like as like a fad, which is
 very funny to me because it's actually an older mushroom and has been used in tandem
 and alongside psilocybin and many other entheogenic herbs and medicinal herbs as both a daily
 boost, especially in the northern climates where the sun does not come out so much for
 about three, four months of the year.
 And there's a lot of hard work to do.
 It really helps to fortify those people.
 This mushroom has been used with anthropologically, but able to find evidence of its use
 10,000 plus years.
 Now, these are the mushrooms that are red with white spots on them.
 Yeah, I would say these are the cliche cartoon version of any psychedelic mushroom.
 Very decorative mushroom.
 The aminita Muscaria.
 It's the icon.
 It's a little icon on our phones.
 Yeah.
 Every Christmas, you see them.
 It's the Mario mushroom.
 It's associated with Santa Claus.
 Underland mushroom.
 So any time there is there's this fantasy scene in any of our literature, it's the
 aminita Muscaria.
 And I think that if we were to look at all of our forgotten histories because of
 conquering, we will be able to see a continuity of that, which remains important to us
 following along, even if we've forgotten the origin of why it's important.
 Well, it seems to be present all over the world.
 It's not unique to just one ecosystem.
 And it's not illegal either, right?
 That's an interesting one.
 So it's Northern Hemisphere, although in recent decades, it has been seen in the
 Southern Hemisphere's because of the way that they take trees and move the trees
 like for ornaments and people's gardens.
 So it has begun appearing in the Southern Hemisphere, but it's predominantly in
 Northern Hemisphere mushroom, the whole of the Northern Hemisphere.
 And what was the second question?
 The legality of it.
 Could you tell us a little bit about that?
 The legality.
 Yeah.
 So it's legal most places, but not all places.
 So like, for example, Louisiana, it's illegal everywhere else.
 It's legal.
 The Netherlands has made it illegal.
 Australia has made it illegal.
 And I think Israel has just put moosimal onto its prohibitive list, which would
 then include eminent a Muscaria.
 But I'm telling you for nothing, the guards at customs, they don't know what
 they're looking at and they're like, that's not, you know, it's just confusing to
 them.
 So they just let it pass.
 No, you use the word mucinal.
 Could you describe mucinal and that's the act of ingredients in the mushroom or
 back to chemical?
 Yeah.
 So the two main active alkaloids in eminent a Muscaria are moosimal and
 ibatenic acid.
 And ibatenic acid decarboxylates through pH, they're heat or through acids into
 moosimal.
 And it has an effect on the GABA receptors, my understanding, the GABA and the acetyl
 colon.
 Yeah.
 So the Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, neurotransmitters and the GABA
 receptors.
 And that's significantly different than the psilocybin.
 Correct.
 So all tripped means like psilocybin, LSD, they work on the 5-HT or the serotonin
 and dopamine receptors.
 And so that's a completely different neurotransmitter and protein pathway
 from GABA and acetylcholine.
 And this affects the central nervous system.
 So it can affect the central nervous system, the parasympathetic.
 So GABA receptors affect things like sweat, salivating temperature control kind
 of goes along with sweat.
 It's actually also when you look at your ACC, so that's the area that connects
 your limbic and your cortex.
 It's the area that controls your executive function, your balance.
 It's where the majority of the receptors that are affected by alcohol and
 barbitulates are located.
 There's a lot of crossover between legal substances and the effects of this
 mushroom.
 Although this mushroom, the way that affects the neurotransmitters are not
 depressive, meaning when you take alcohol or barbiturate, you get a depressive
 effect on the system.
 Whereas eminative muscaria can go either way because it's an agonist, which
 just means it activates the neurotransmitter instead of making it go one
 way or the other.
 What I've seen online is that it mostly talks about having a calm effect on the
 nervous system.
 But you're saying only the most small part.
 So I have a tenor acid has an excitatory effect.
 So there's a wonderful book written by Kevin Feeney called Flya Garic, which
 is the common name for eminative muscaria, a compendium of history, pharmacology,
 mythology and exploration.
 And there's a wonderful paper in there written by Mark.
 Mark.
 Can't remember his last name.
 It's a rubbish of me.
 But anyway, he goes into him and Carl go into the eminative muscaria being one,
 if not the main ingredient in what the berserkers used for their incredible
 strength and ability to be such fierce and vicious warriors because I've attended
 acid when you're like, when you're up on a habatanic acid, like you are up, you
 have the strength of ten men and you can walk 20 miles and you could so walk
 more and there's like, oh my God, everything's amazing.
 Let's do this.
 Yes, let's do that.
 I am a king.
 We're kind of super up aspect of the
 epidemic acid part.
 Let's see.
 So that would be more what the berserkers would be into.
 If yeah, so you could prepare a concoction and combination with other
 plants that grow indigenously across Europe that contain adrenaline
 spiking or steroids cortisol.
 It could be anything that
 not just cortisol, but the stimulants.
 So like for ampettamines, that was the word I was looking for.
 When you were here at the discovery sessions, what would you consider some
 of your best takeaways from that session here in San Francisco?
 Oh, so my favorite thing about that experience was actually the
 panel that I was a part of.
 I very much inspired the panel and then felt like I was the glue.
 Like I really sort of rallied everyone and got them excited and
 inspired.
 And as we began to have conversations about what we wanted to present
 and what we found was that there was this very interesting
 cohesiveness and that cohesiveness just grew and grew and it was such a
 phenomenal experience of four individuals who are completely
 different and actually work with this mushroom in different ways,
 all being in agreement, all getting along, all yes, and in each other.
 And it felt like we were the embodiment of the variation
 and unified difference that this mushroom brings into harmony with
 an individual and within the collective.
 And the panel just to be clear was focused exclusively on the
 aminita muscaria or was it more generalized subject?
 Oh, no, so it was aminita muscaria as destigmatizing.
 Well, that was actually the title, destigmatizing aminita muscaria.
 And so we talked about again, why we believe there's a stigma around it,
 why it's so iconic and health like basic dosing parameters, what it can be used
 for because you have this up part, but then you also have this sleepy part.
 So when you decarpoxelate it or when you take it in the evening,
 when your biochemistry is ready to sleep and ready to convert serotonin
 into melatonin, then it can help with those systems.
 So you can take it in the morning and have your up or you can take it in the
 evening and it will help you sleep within sort of 60 to 90 minutes beautifully.
 And it's the same preparation.
 Yeah.
 Do people use it for experiencing states of euphoria?
 In thresholding amounts, and I would say low dose journeys, which we're
 talking sort of eight grams and under.
 And that's like, that's a generous eight grams.
 So, OK, there's a caveat with this mushroom because a bit like the different
 strains of psilocyb.
 I can't say, oh, yeah, big dose of psilocyb is three grams.
 That's a sort of normal journey dose is three to five grams, because if you
 were to have three to five grams of penis envy, that would be completely
 different from three to five grams of like golden teacher.
 So aminita muscariot, even being the same mushroom, not different strains,
 but the same mushroom has similar kinds of factors.
 Like what time of year it was picked, what soil or forest it was growing in,
 how long it's been dried.
 Has it been dried and kept in a sealed airproof container?
 So all of these things are different factors that
 are distributed strength.
 Yeah, exactly.
 Yeah.
 So and when I speak about grams and dosing, I'm speaking about dried
 gram weight, which is very, very, very, very different from fresh weight.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 So yeah, you know, I've noticed that there has been a number of online
 sites now that are offering for sale, dried aminita.
 There's also micro drops and such for the uninitiate.
 What products are coming out around aminita right now?
 And are any that you think are particularly good?
 So you've been able to buy aminita caps for as long as I've known about
 aminita, which is about seven years now.
 Wow.
 They've been around.
 They're just more up until the past sort of year and a half, two years.
 It's been more localized, so you'd have to contact the foragers in the
 sewania or Siberia or wherever for those kind of.
 So there's been an aminita and scary community for a long time.
 I see.
 So it's pretty apparent online then.
 Yeah, there's been this boost.
 So with the whole decriminalization movement in the states and wanting to have
 legal mushrooms and then people realizing that aminita and scaria is
 considered an entheogen, even though it's a delirient and a dissociative at different doses.
 Yeah, it's legal.
 And so they've been using it and making all sorts of stupid weird products from it.
 And some of them are rubbish and some of them have stuff in there that's not even
 aminita and scaria.
 And it's the wild west of silliness.
 Yes.
 How do you how do you sort through that then?
 What would you what do you recommend to people who are curious or interested?
 So what I would say is one look at the website.
 If it looks like it's one of those buy any drug websites, maybe pick a different website.
 I know Andrea over at Michael drops and she's got some great products.
 She sells like a stock with it, which is quite nice.
 And when you're ordering caps, you can't go too far wrong with that because you're
 ordering basically a raw material and you're looking at things like how it was
 dried and all of these factors.
 But then if you just get a caps, it's like, how are you going to prepare it?
 And are you read up on those places to turn to to know how to prepare it?
 And then there's a whole variety of answers.
 And what I say in my way, which suits me and the clients that I work with isn't the way
 that other people do it.
 And I can give like a really quick example of.
 Sure.
 Yeah.
 That's sure.
 So I call my way the way of the nibble because I have a level.
 OK.
 Yeah, it's a book that I'm writing that goes more into the depth of practice and
 connection and is about your personal relationship with this and other
 entheogens as the premise in my mind is that these are very ancient spirits who
 really embody that the flesh really embodies symbiotic relationship because
 that's how they grow in the forest.
 They're actually my horizon mushrooms, which means they only grow with trees.
 And they don't break the skin of the roots.
 They grow next to it and almost like hold hands with the roots.
 And then they give of their overflow and the tree gives of it's overflow of
 sugars.
 And there's this healthy union, which is made, which makes the whole forest
 healthier.
 And that's how they work with us.
 And they're very ancient or older than civil side in according to the
 ethno botanist researchers.
 Symbiosis symbiosis.
 Yes, they are the flesh of symbiosis.
 They teach us symbiosis in the process.
 I do believe so.
 And so with such ancient ancestors who came before us, I feel like the first
 place of meeting is in your mouth and to take a small amount, just enabled,
 and to very slowly chew it and allow your saliva to mix with the flesh of this
 mushroom and really taste it and really feel what you feel.
 Feel how your body responds, feel what emotions come up and you meet this.
 And multiple things are happening when you're doing this.
 One, there's this sort of psychoskeletal thing that's happening physiologically.
 Yet the mucosa lining of your mouth is beginning to absorb the alkaloids in
 that small amount of mushroom.
 And so you're literally aligning your biome to the biome of this mushroom.
 And then when you swallow, you're sending all of that information through
 your digestive system, to your gut and you're sort of taking your temperature
 of how you are in relationship to this mushroom.
 Well, well, and of course that method also follows suit with other mushrooms and
 plants. And the first sort of rule is know what you're putting in your mouth.
 If you're not sure, don't put it in your mouth.
 Yeah. Yeah, interesting.
 Yeah.
 And then from there and from that initial meeting and a lot of people who
 work with me will really actually feel really good.
 And so they follow the way of the nibble up to certain doses and they know what
 our safe doses to physically eat and what could actually cause some stomach upset.
 Well, just to point out how different this is than what I understand of most
 people is that they very much try to mask the flavor of the mushroom through
 some kind of accompaniment, either sweet or savory or something like that.
 And treat it more like it's a like an ingredient in a larger recipe rather than
 just the mushroom itself.
 Well, I agree with you and I love recipes and I love working with this
 mushroom and lots of different recipes.
 And there's so many preparations of not just this mushroom, but there's so many
 recipes. Oh my gosh.
 Well, you mentioned micro calm micro drops and why CRO is one.
 My co micro micro micro drops.
 Yeah.
 And why CRO?
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 They're pretty legit as far as you're concerned.
 Yeah.
 She she's she's a beautiful friend.
 We get along very well.
 We actually created an eminent as professional group on signal for other
 professionals working with eminent and mascara specifically or other
 eminent and mascara professionals.
 Yeah, I say she has focused, grounded and motivated.
 It says three different elixirs.
 Yeah.
 Well, she's got a number of elixirs that don't have their
 iathetic combinations that then can be mixed with so side then or am I need a
 mascara or LSD or whatever the individual wants to mix it with.
 And so this gets into like admixtures and what complements these different
 things, but where are we speaking into is the initial meeting in
 theogenic plant medicine or mushroom and the difference between just meeting
 that mushroom for the first time before you get into all the fun recipes.
 Yeah.
 And then you know your baseline of who you are in meeting and being in
 relationship with this one spirit.
 And how do your customers feel about this advice?
 Do you run into people who are pretty comfortable and used to the idea of
 relating to the personality and the spirit of what they're ingesting or is
 this kind of new territory for them?
 I have a mixed collective of people.
 So anyone who's more interested in the magical performance, enhancing
 magic, enhancing elements of it are happy to follow the way of the nibble.
 But I have a lot of clients who are using it from a dissonant nervous system
 ease, healing, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, depression, ADHD, like
 bliss of things that it can help to ease the symptoms of is actually quite
 extraordinarily long.
 But just to kind of say that there are other people who have those
 conditions who use eminatal mascariat, medicinally, we just take the crushed
 mushroom, put them in capsules and they just take the capsules.
 And I say something slightly rude along the lines of to me, putting the
 mushroom in a capsule is like wearing a condom during sex and why are you
 having sex with somebody you need to wear a condom?
 Can it can it be used for enhancing sexual pleasure?
 Oh, apparently not in a capsule.
 Like I'm blushing.
 You can't even see it, but you're hearing my voice.
 Well, okay.
 How about therapy sessions?
 Can I have a name to be used in a therapy session?
 So there's different dose levels.
 I mean, just like every other thing, right?
 So there's different dose levels and different experiences of those
 dose levels.
 So in low dose levels, which is like I said, kind of up to eight grams
 roughly.
 Yeah, you're looking at a light euphoria.
 It's very social.
 It's a little bit like being drunk, that kind of like joyful, friendly
 social feeling.
 And slightly less inhibited than your normal self, the same DNA.
 Exactly.
 Yeah.
 And so what I say, if you that's where you want to stay, you have to
 watch out for the more more's because it feels so good.
 You're like, Oh, more, more, more.
 But if you follow that more thing, you're going to slide into a medium
 dose and that's definitely a very different experience.
 Oh, what do you get?
 What happens there?
 But you know, the medium dose, you start to get again, like you're drunk,
 you get a bit more wobbly and that can, as your body is decarboxy,
 bleeding, the abs, chin, the gasses, that can get slippery slope really quick,
 where you're discombobulated, uncoordinated.
 The mind is sharp and there's no visual distortion, but there's physical
 distortion and sometimes things that are quite small, they're very big.
 Sometimes things that are like, they're like a doorway, like a big doorway.
 It's like, Oh, I don't know if I can get through that.
 You're like bouncing off the door post.
 Sounds kind of like Alice in Wonderland.
 It's very much like that.
 And then just like with Alice in Wonderland, very mad hatter, emotions can come up
 like the rabbit, whereas suddenly he's sobbing at a poem or laughing hysterically.
 So the emotions want to come up.
 And if one resists the emotions that want to come up,
 that's where ways of nausea or physical discomfort start really coming in quite
 strong, which increases the uncomfortable sensations of the size and the big,
 the small, the time loops, the time loops.
 Yeah, what are the time loops?
 What did you tell me about the time loops?
 Like it's literally like you'll just be in a loop.
 Like you'll say the same thing over and over, but like the pauses in between
 or you'll do the same action over and over.
 And you won't necessarily remember that you've done it until suddenly, like, haven't
 I already like, and then you sort of realize that you've been in this time loop.
 And yeah, yeah.
 That's certainly because it can be positive or negative ice.
 But I know in post traumatic stress syndrome, that kind of repetition of the trauma
 keeps happening sometimes.
 And that you as a therapist, you're trying to stop that from reinforcing the
 negativity.
 So the way that I see it is that the time loops teach you to catch those
 repeating patterns that everybody has.
 And so you get to practice, oh, I got it.
 And then you can forget again and you go, oh, I got it.
 And what I find for myself and for the clients I've been working with for a few
 years now, the ability to catch those looping patterns, even when there's no
 amineeta muskariya around gets easier with the use of amineeta, especially when
 this sort of time loop training happens.
 There was moments where I was with Carla, who is one of the panelists for the
 discovery sessions.
 And we were driving back from the conference and we went around the same weird
 interstate loop, like three times.
 On the third one, both looking to the right, we're looping.
 It's amineeta.
 I was just turned around and really done, got it.
 And then we just came out of the loop.
 And it's literally about training those parts of ourselves that can hold,
 catch, guide and facilitate greater inner harmony with all of our other parts.
 That is really amazing.
 And what I find also really amazing is you expressing that that phenomenon
 comes up along with resistance to your emotions.
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 Well, so the phenomenon comes up with the mushrooms to side.
 The phenomenon wants to come up.
 The physical discomfort, so like waves of nausea or actual vomiting.
 Tommy grumblings, headaches, any of these kinds of what I would call home physical holding patterns.
 So people who tend to get headaches, that's the physical pattern that will come up.
 When they're resisting the emotions that the mushroom is wanting to come up.
 And the thing is with this mushroom, which I say, probably as much as I talk about the more more is
 that the mushroom rewards bravery.
 So if you resist it, the mushroom will put that pressure on you and you will have physical discomfort.
 So the symbiosis process is really surrendering.
 It's relaxing and going with what wants to come up.
 Yes. And if you do that and you're able and you do, you feel supported in facing
 whatever trauma or emotion or grief wants to come up.
 And if you are able to step forward and face it and feel it and feel the support of the mushroom with you,
 then as you move through it, knowing that you will come out the other side,
 it rewards you in the most amazing ways.
 And everybody has these incredible stories of how there's this extra reward that happens when they
 take these courageous actions to really face what's coming up.
 Well, well, as a therapist, do you sit with the patient for the full duration of the trip?
 Yes.
 You charge by the hour.
 No, that would be ridiculous because it's not how long the things will.
 Exactly.
 So it depends on purpose, right?
 So it's like if somebody's coming to me because what they're wanting is to look at trauma patterns
 that are running and they're ready to actually rewire them, which requires facing them,
 yeah, feeling them and then being able and ready to receive the experience that they needed to happen,
 but did not experience.
 So you can be in a receptive state with a therapist when you're on aminita and take feedback.
 Like I said, there's different kinds of journeys with aminita and it depends on your biochemistry
 and it depends on your dose and all of these different factors.
 So I know how to make the preparations for the journeys that the individuals want to take.
 So like really low to medium doses, oftentimes they're quite short because people like the
 deeply intoxicating parts are done and then like within sort of three, four hours.
 And then even though the mushroom is still active in the person, it doesn't inhibit your ability to
 see, it doesn't inhibit your cognitive function as long as you're safe and you feel supported,
 you're free to go.
 Do you have experience in a superpowers or new human awarenesses like telepathy or
 psychic connectivity? Me personally, or like other people?
 I guess, you know, you personally, I would then say it was probably true for other people too,
 but yeah, I'm just wondering if that.
 I've always had abilities and what aminita Muscaria has done for me is help me not be
 afraid of my own power, not be afraid to just name what I see and to be able to know when it's
 appropriate to speak and when it's not appropriate to speak, just because I see it doesn't mean I need
 to talk to it or into it or share what I'm seeing. So when I'm like running a class, for example,
 like I run these full moon self-love classes and during those people in that field of energy
 begin to pop, their trauma just begins to release. And so I know and I can see and I facilitate that
 total strangers and they're like, how do you know? It's like, I see you. How do you know? I see you.
 How did you know that they did that to me? I was like, I see you. It's okay. I've got you.
 And I just have those abilities, but since working with aminita Muscaria, I feel so comfortable in my
 own skin. And so for anybody else who has these kinds of natural abilities, but fear or conditioning
 or shame, for example, shut them down when they were young or whenever, it really helps to face those
 blocks with themselves and allow out your natural evolutionary abilities. Now, can that include
 creativity? Can you write on it? Or, definitely, you can write, you can draw, you can dance, you can
 sing. Oh my gosh, singing and movement, especially on low and low medium doses. It's as good as MDMA
 in my mind. Yeah. What do you see the future would look like with aminita? How would you have
 envisioned it unfolding? What would you like to see? Gosh, well, I have quite a strong opinion
 about the whole of the anti-ogenic movement in that I feel it's a crime against our birthright as
 human beings being born on a planet to make something that grows illegal. And I think that
 there's something very interesting that aminita Muscaria has not been illegal in the majority of
 places. And while we children sort out our silliness, I feel like there is a balance coming in where
 there's a calling forth of real elders. And I don't mean old people, that's not what I say,
 that's not what I mean when I say elders. I mean, people who have a spiritual maturation and are
 able to hold that energy of elder, of wise woman, of wise man, of listening, of lashing at the small
 stuff, of holding the grief and really bringing people back into the center of community. And I
 mean it in the most natural term as opposed to any kind of philosophical concept. Yeah. Yeah,
 bring out the wise elder in all of us ultimately. Exactly. Exactly. So I think that I would like to
 see this continued movement forward in symbiotic relationship in all the pillars of our society.
 And I think that within the psychedelic community and within the healing communities,
 that this other mushrooms and herbs are really beginning to create an environment that invites
 people into more respect of themselves and others and more balance. And I think
 aminita muscaria more so than psilocybin because you can eat as much psilocybin as you want and
 you might have a really intense psychological experience, but it's not going to kill you.
 Whereas if you disrespect aminita muscaria too much or you go too wonky with it, it can kill you.
 Yeah, I think that's a very interesting point because that also has been why it isn't illegal
 because it was considered a poison by some. Yeah, but the doses are pretty.
 Alcohol kills more people than aminita. I promise. Yeah.
 No, it was a fly agaric. No, that name came from thinking of it as a poison, right?
 Yeah, so the fly agaric is just the colloquial name for the aminita muscaria.
 But you have a whole list of indigenous names and in, excuse me, in Germany they call it the
 lucky mushroom. Schimonic uses in Russia, I think, Siberia and Siberian shamans, I think you're
 using it as well. Yeah, they're still using it, but not just even like it's a mixture. It's not
 just the shamans who use it. So indigenous people of Siberia during the winter months, they just
 chew on it, like stick it in their mouth and they get on with their, you know, walking the
 mile to get the water or carrying like all these logs on their head and like really physically hard
 labor and it's cold and there's not a lot of sunlight and they use it to fortify them to give
 them the strength that they need to carry out the tasks that they have to do. And then you have
 these wonderful folk medicine women predominantly. Throughout Eastern Europe in the Slavic countries
 who work with this mushroom and many other traditional old school medicine women, they don't know
 English, I don't even think they care. How do you think it would change geopolitics if our
 statesmen and politicians were aware of these experiences? Do you think that they're not aware
 of these experiences? Well, I think if you start seeing how everything is symbiotic and connected
 to itself and that we are one in a sense with the intelligence of the planet, then we're less
 likely to be lost in nationalistic ideas. And one country fighting another because the whole idea
 will become more aware that we just made all that stuff up. Those boundaries aren't really who we
 are. I'm thinking that some of that how we're interconnected can only help our politicians understand
 how to create a win-win. Well, I like your questions, Eva. Do you really think that they don't
 already take that into consideration? Isn't that my understanding in terms of the cultural
 phenomenon of why drugs were scheduled under Nixon who started the war on drugs and why
 it's so important to make laws regarding their use is literally a form of racism and to associate
 different uses of mind altering substances with different groups and creating laws that disenfranchise
 those groups? I would agree with that. And also, if you have too many of your populace who
 don't want to fight in your wars and don't want to consume your pharmaceuticals, then your
 national security and your national budget is threat. Well, especially if you are a military
 wealth machine and you base your entire model on collecting money around wasting resources in wars.
 Yes. And this is not a new phenomenon. This has been going on for longer than we'd like.
 And I think that when we start having leadership that cares more about people than resources,
 then I think that we'll start seeing different legislation and different types of national
 communities coming together. But as long as the priority is on the bottom line, what kind of
 good we can do or they can do that doesn't affect their income too much. And I understand the
 arguments on both sides because there's like this, well, if we didn't have money, how would we fix
 the roads and the schools and all these kinds of things? But there's more creative solutions when
 the larger corporations that are really contributing to and pulling the strings of the politicians
 have those vested interests. Well, in this arena, yeah, the heart is important, but to bring that
 into Washington would be interesting. I guess in this arena, we were talking about big pharma has
 big influence on Washington. They have all kinds of special interest groups there. And that's how
 the legislation gets through through their influences. What is the relationship of big pharma potentially
 with these kinds of natural substance? Yeah, is there a chance that big pharma might embrace this at
 some point? Or is that some fun facts of history? So the reason why the Muscarinic acetylcholine
 receptors are called that is because one of the very first compounds or substances that they were
 trying to synthesize was then emanate a Muscaria. And they realized that Musamal affects the
 Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. And so actually it got named in our body after this
 mushroom and the Muscarin within it. And what do those receptors control in our body?
 Is it pain receptors? Is it sleep? Oh, everything. So your Muscarin, so you have two main neuro receptors
 that run through your whole body, your muscles, your skin, your organs, your sperm, your ovum. I
 could keep going, but I think we get the point. And that's your nichatinic acetylcholine receptors,
 which turn on, like say, go be active and your Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, which say,
 stop, rest, digest, relax, or like, unflex, depending on what system we're affecting.
 So when the nichatinic, and yes, that's from nicotine, nichatinic acetylcholine receptor is
 activated and turned on, it says go, and you get spontaneous motility or activity of whatever
 that turned on thing is. And then the reverse when the Muscarinic is turned on, the opposite
 happens. Now, when we have things that get stuck in either of those receptors, then we have a
 dysfunction in our regulation, whether that's in our muscles or skin, we're looking at things
 like epilepsy, we're looking at things like painful contractions, Parkinson's, over sweating,
 underswetting, overactive bladder, underactive blood, all of these things are controlled by
 your acetylcholine receptors, your entire autonomic nervous system, and like a whole lot in your
 brain as well. So it's a really important neuro receptor for all of your functionings, which is
 why it's such a medicinal and varied mushroom, especially when you're looking at the microdosing
 to thresholding levels. And just to sort of throw in there that if you are using it for pain management,
 what would be a threshold dose for somebody who's not in any pain would be experienced as a microdose,
 because there's so much pain that you just get the relief of the pain and you don't get the overt
 threshold normal experiences, but you just kind of feel eased and you have like a light sense of
 euphoria with an easing of the pain. Well, that's very interesting because I was going to ask you
 about microdosing aminita. And it sounds like it definitely has its effect on dealing with pain,
 especially anything else on microdosing that you'd benefit from. Oh gosh, mood focus. But I say focus,
 but sometimes it's like if we look at our bodies, not ruled by our minds, but as a foundation of
 community, your body has its own agenda, your emotions have their own agenda, your mind has its
 own agenda. And either those three things as your foundation itself are getting along and
 communicating well, or they're not. So when you take aminita muscaria, it's not going to say,
 oh, well, just because you think the mind's in control, I'm only going to listen to the month.
 No, so it's going to be what you need. So your biochemistry and mixing with the mushroom,
 taking it as a microdosing is going to bring up what you most need. And if that's energy, great,
 if you're not sleeping well, and what you need is just deep sleep, then that's what it's going to do.
 If what you need is to release that emotion that you've been holding on to for X amount of time,
 then that's what's going to happen. And there's no way to cognitize or know what that effect is
 going to be unless you have a very clear and communicative relationship between your mind,
 your emotions, and your body. And then the mushroom will still surprise you because they love surprising.
 Yeah, so it's really all about the communication with them and eat it.
 Oh, golly. Yeah. Yeah, that brings up another thing because you know, a lot of psychedelics
 like LSD is synthetic. It doesn't really have a spirit per se behind it, or at least most people
 don't think so. But in this case, I get to conversations about that. There's a debate that
 jury's still out. Yeah, right. It might be a new one. And nobody's giving the spirits of a.
 Yeah, but the, but the, um, the, um, Anita definitely has a spirit. It's been around a long time.
 And you would say it's a good idea to cultivate a relationship with, with it for the best effects.
 And how do you feel like something that that's that old and yeah, which is sort of looking at
 it affecting a foundational neurotransmitter in our physical bodies. And it being able to control
 time space means that it knows a lot more about me than I know about me in terms of what I am.
 That's the parent. You're the child. And you and you trust us. And you trust its intentions
 towards you. The end. Well, I mean, I've been working with this mushroom for seven years. And
 when I found it, I found it because a you tree told me to find my mushroom teacher. And as I was
 going to pick my kids up from school, I heard my name and I turned around. There was nobody
 there, but just this mushroom. And it was just such a strange way to come into relationship
 with this mushroom that I just kind of was like, okay, I've been asking for a teacher. I was hoping
 it would be a person, but this is what's shown up. And then over the course of about 18 months or so,
 I learned to trust and we worked really slowly and carefully together to build that trust. And then in
 year two, that trust grew. And over the years, the mushroom always sort of pushes me into those
 areas where I'm a little bit afraid or more than a little bit afraid. And always, there's this
 hands on my back that are like, we got you. Do you trust us? And it's like, okay, yeah,
 I feel you and I trust you because so far you've been consistent and you haven't let me down. And
 only when I dishonored you have I been slapped. And I accept that as the learning that it needed
 to be, I corrected my behavior and move back into right relationship. So I do trust this mushroom.
 And even when I'm a little bit nervous, I still lean into that space where as long as I continue
 to honor and respect myself and the mushroom, I know that I'm okay. And that what I'm being asked
 to do, whether that's in a journey or whether that's in my life is leading me toward the direction
 that I want to grow in. Beautiful. Do you find that you're connecting more and more with like-minded
 people, the higher bandwidth connectivity, shall we say, these days? I find that I just connect
 really well with people. And it doesn't matter whether they're salt or the earth and like their
 instant coffee and McDonald's or they're super. Yeah, I can see that. That's a great ability.
 But what about people who are really in alignment with you that have a multi-dimensional connection
 with you? And I've got, yeah, I connect very well with those like the whole spectrum of people.
 I just connect very well with where the clashes happen is sometimes in relationship, the thing
 that wants to come up. So like a jealousy or something that doesn't feel good, that wants to be like,
 go, it'll it'll rumble up and feel challenged. Not because of something unnecessarily sad or
 dumb unless I am being cheeky and I do have my cheeky parts. There's definitely a mischievous
 fairy card or two in here. But most of the time I'm just curious and open and happy to connect.
 And unless it's not nice. And then I'm like, okay, yeah, we tried that. No, thank you, but
 right. And so there's a wonderful mix. And I actually appreciate the variation of people I'm
 in connection with who can really meet me at those deeply spiritual and interconnected ways that I
 love to be in as well as people who, like I said, are very salt of the earth. And actually,
 I really like all of the insights and the genius that comes from all of these different people
 because everybody has their genius, whether they're aware of it or not.
 Yeah. Yeah. So true. When you connect with someone and see that in them, it helps them see it in
 themselves and yeah, it wakens the grid a little bit more of your awareness. Yeah, beautiful. Well,
 well, good. Such a joy talking to you. What is next for you? What are you, what are you planning?
 What you got a book coming out or a movie?
 You have a calendar. People can consult so they know what you're up to. Yeah, how do we reach you?
 Well, so I have a website. I'm very consistent both in my social media and my website. Everything
 is aviester.com or aviester on Instagram or aviester on Facebook. I'm aviester everywhere because
 I'm aviester everywhere. You are aviester. I am aviester. I am writing the way of the nibble.
 I'm also writing in a book of love letters, they're hypnotic erotic love letters. I mean,
 because I just really like writing it and I have a lot of that already written and it's fun to
 compile and to create these kinds of journeys that have these beautiful emotional like somatic
 overtones and undertones. They're nice journeys and the writing, the two books in tandem help
 each other. Beautiful. Yeah. And then there's a number of retreats coming up from October,
 although I might also, because there's a festival here in the UK called All Things Funky that I'll
 be at in September. So the sort of journeys and retreats and foraging workshops will start sort
 of into September-ish and carry on through the beginning of the winter months. I will be flying
 out to Vancouver to run things there. And then there's some people who are exploring having me
 come down to Mexico. And so there's a lot of interest and we're looking at how we can meet all
 the different requests without exhausting me. And online stuff too, no doubt.
 Yeah. So there's often different things at the moment. I've really been enjoying all the in-person
 stuff. So locally in the UK, I run a monthly class that's just really magical. I'm even in awe
 of coming together and the way that I'm facilitating. It's just, it's really beautiful. And then there's
 the local retreats. And of course, I have my beautiful clients who come and find what they're
 looking for and then fly and go and roam. And I love that. So there's always this interesting mix
 of these inspired offerings that range from free on social media to paid, whether that's one to
 one or in group settings, both here in the UK and then I'll be coming out to the West Coast at the
 end of the year. On the planet. Now, I got to ask you, you're officially a British national,
 but you have mostly an American accent. Can I? Yes. Well, so I grew up in Virginia,
 between the Metropolitan Area of Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia. And then I've lived
 in the United Kingdom for about 20 years. So I have like a weird American English, like an
 English-sized American accent, but I actually really enjoy it. Suits me, I think. Yeah, I'm sure
 you can probably put on a good British accent if you want to. It's not too bad. It's not too bad.
 That's good. It's good. So I, by the way, I like your description on your Facebook page,
 your bio, fairy queen, evolutionary catalyst, tantric reburthing, facilitator, medicine woman,
 and grounded dreamer. Yeah, that's great. Well, from that advantage, Avi Esther, could you maybe
 leave us with a little dream, earth-bound, earth-grounded wisdom for people to reflect on as they
 seek their next magical purpose? After hearing you. Well, I think the best bit of grounding wisdom,
 especially during spiritual emergency or psychosis, however you want to view that, is when you feel
 that confusion turn toward nature. The grass, the trees, the sky, the water, whatever nature is
 around, you turn toward it and just listen. Listen with your ears, listen with your eyes,
 listen with your body. Just notice what you're hearing, seeing, feeling, listen through whole
 self, and then something will become clear because in nature, truth lives. Thank you so much, Avi.
 Beautiful. Beautiful talk. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here.
 Thanks. Well, we'll look forward to seeing you again in the unfolding future. Yes.
 I love it. I very much look forward to. Thank you. Thank you. Happy Esther. E-S-T-H-E-R.
 All right. Bye-bye. It's good for now. All right. There we go.
 That was Avi Esther, very Queen, evolutionary catalyst, tantric, reburthing facilitator,
 medicine woman, grounded dreamer on Aminead and Moskaria. Thanks for listening, folks. Have a
 great week. Thanks, Miss Fiju, and thank you, Bob. So, next week.
 ♪ Tariest kalim ♪ ♪ Bye-bye, my darling ♪ ♪ Bye-bye ♪