27 - Journeying Through Grief Tending and Trauma with Cami
01/16/24 • 54 min
Truth Fairy and Dr. T welcome Cami Barton, author and practitioner dedicated to social change through embodied practices, to the show. Truth Fairy reads a poem on pain by Kahlil Gibran that emphasizes the intertwining of pain and joy, suggesting that embracing pain can lead to a deeper understanding of life, which highlights many of the themes of Cami’s work.
Cami discusses their work in psychedelic therapy, grief, pleasure, and drug policy, rooted in black feminism and harm reduction. They share personal experiences, including an abortion in 2017 that sparked the project for their upcoming book, "Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community". The book explores grief and healing rituals, drawing from Cami's journey and broader societal patterns.
The conversation delves into Cami's work in designing a master's program, teaching psychedelic therapy, and collaborating with MAPS to ensure accessibility to MDMA psychotherapy for marginalized communities. Truth Fairy and Dr. T discuss various aspects of Cami's expertise and personal journey, including childhood trauma and the surfacing of dissociated memories during their healing process. It is a meditation on grief and healing that holds deep insight to benefit all listeners.
“And so the Dagara people are indigenous to what we now call Burkina Faso in West Africa. And they have a very specific relationship to communal grief tending, where everyone in the community is expected to tend their grief in the communal ritual once a month because there's an understanding in their cosmology that unattended grief will actually become harm in the society. So rather than being taboo as it is in the West to grieve publicly and be with that, it's actually taboo to avoid your grief in the Dagara context.” - Cami
Resources discussed in this episode:
- On Pain by Kahlil Gibran
- “Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community” by Camille Sapara Barton
- Website: CamilleSaparaBarton.com
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Truth Fairy and Dr. T welcome Cami Barton, author and practitioner dedicated to social change through embodied practices, to the show. Truth Fairy reads a poem on pain by Kahlil Gibran that emphasizes the intertwining of pain and joy, suggesting that embracing pain can lead to a deeper understanding of life, which highlights many of the themes of Cami’s work.
Cami discusses their work in psychedelic therapy, grief, pleasure, and drug policy, rooted in black feminism and harm reduction. They share personal experiences, including an abortion in 2017 that sparked the project for their upcoming book, "Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community". The book explores grief and healing rituals, drawing from Cami's journey and broader societal patterns.
The conversation delves into Cami's work in designing a master's program, teaching psychedelic therapy, and collaborating with MAPS to ensure accessibility to MDMA psychotherapy for marginalized communities. Truth Fairy and Dr. T discuss various aspects of Cami's expertise and personal journey, including childhood trauma and the surfacing of dissociated memories during their healing process. It is a meditation on grief and healing that holds deep insight to benefit all listeners.
“And so the Dagara people are indigenous to what we now call Burkina Faso in West Africa. And they have a very specific relationship to communal grief tending, where everyone in the community is expected to tend their grief in the communal ritual once a month because there's an understanding in their cosmology that unattended grief will actually become harm in the society. So rather than being taboo as it is in the West to grieve publicly and be with that, it's actually taboo to avoid your grief in the Dagara context.” - Cami
Resources discussed in this episode:
- On Pain by Kahlil Gibran
- “Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community” by Camille Sapara Barton
- Website: CamilleSaparaBarton.com
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Previous Episode
26 - Sapha on Ayahuasca
Dr. T and Truth Fairy welcome guest Sapha to the show to talk about healing through ayahuasca. When Sapha reached out via email, Truth Fairy realized she has friends in common with him, and, being touched by his email and story, invited him to be on the show. The details of his advocacy and journey are inspiring to hear.
Sapha shares his father's story of emigrating to Canada from Tehran, Iran, during the Islamic Revolution. Pain, abandonment, and confusion that went with Sapha’s story led to a need for escapism through substance abuse. The addiction lasted through Sapha’s career in the oil and gas industry until age 29 when he realized he needed help. But after being denied assistance from the BC government, Sapha’s salvation came from an aunt who connected him with the Leipzig Serenity Retreat, a holistic recovery centre in Saskatchewan.
Dr. T and Truth Fairy talk with Sapha about how he found ayahuasca and his early psychedelic experiences, the need to really heal the underlying causes of addiction and not simply the addiction itself, and the benefits of small group work that Sapha embarked upon. Sapha also addresses how he now does a lot of work with men who have suffered at the hands of the patriarchal system and through the expectations placed on men. This episode reveals a lot about the benefits of working with ayahuasca and the healing possibilities of being on a psychedelic-assisted recovery journey.
“And that's a big part of the teaching here with what we do and the way that we work with men, it's like ayahuasca is a tool. You know, psychedelics are tools. They're not a cure for addiction. They're an opportunity to get a really close look from a different lens. How to uncover and unravel this bundle of emotions and these layers of pain that as men or as people we've been born with,” - Sapha
Resources discussed in this episode:
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Next Episode
28 - Stepping Into the Light of Psychedelic Healing with Brett
Truth Fairy and Dr. T welcome Brett to the podcast to talk about his journey in “coming out from under the rocks”, which is to say emerging from the underground. Brett has studied, refined, and used a broad range of substances and practices and he helps people find a framework for holding their experience in both the mind and body. Dr. T, Truth Fairy, and Brett have a very open discussion about the path of a psychedelic therapist.
Brett shares how he approaches working with a client and what medicines he recommends to open their journey with a calm headspace and a clear mind. He encourages time in nature during the treatment and describes walking close to a beautiful river. He has spent almost twenty years, ten of which have been with his wife and partner, developing a framework for working with various medicines that is uniquely suited to each client's needs. This methodical yet flexible approach allows for slowing thoughts down and opening consciousness to true understanding.
The conversation includes breaking down the different consciousness states, child consciousness, adult consciousness, and somatic consciousness, how to translate experiences had on medicine into daily non-medicated life, and how to stabilize clients. Brett approaches his psychedelic therapy practices from a Buddhist-influenced perspective with a focus on sourcing his own medicines. Truth Fairy, Dr. T and Brett connect in very real ways over shared theories and beliefs about healing.
“I have actually asked [my trusted peers] if this gets off the rails, if I look like I'm not being authentic and acting with integrity, I expect you to tell me. I think there's a chance if you don't have that structure, that safety net, then it can get weird. We can create ideas that are just not helpful for ourselves and our clients. I think that there's a real opportunity when we're self-taught and self-directed to cultivate our own personal strengths and really to find that approach, that unique gift that we bring to the table.” - Brett
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