Marcheshvan - Digesting and integrating our second Shuva ketamine retreat
Rebbe Nachman writes of non-linear progress in mystical apprehension, “When one seeks to move from one level of Divine consciousness to the next, higher level of Divine consciousness, one first needs to experience a descent before the ascent, for the descent is the ultimate ascent. And this is [what our Sages teach (Shabbat 120a)]: “‘Let this stumbling block be under your hand’ (Isaiah 3:6) —these are the words of Torah. A person does not have a clear grasp on them unless they stumbled in them [first]’.”(LM 1:22) With our second ketamine behind us, I can confidently and proudly say I have gracefully stumbled on some of the finer aspects of running a psychedelic retreat. Yet, with these two powerful points firmly established, we have begun to create a lineage.
After our first retreat in June, we got excellent feedback from our participants and facilitators, and immediately began planning the next with it all in mind. Definitely more Jewish music in the playlist! Of course we can add more Jewish learning as part of the preparation stage! People seemed to tolerate the moderate dosages pretty well…maybe they could be slightly increased? Let’s make the schedule a little tighter in the second half of the day so participants can stay with the experience without wondering when the next moment will begin. Overall, much of the retreat arc was improved. With longer preparation sessions, more time was made for people to get to share about themselves in breakout rooms over Zoom. Yet, by the end of the retreat, some people felt like they didn’t get to know others as well as they might like. How can we create more moments of connectivity between participants throughout the entire experience so they feel excited to keep in touch and continue to create Jewish psychedelic community with each other, or find it when they return home?
Our dosing protocol for the first retreat divided doses into two intramuscular injections, about ten minutes apart, which elongated the entire experience overall, but participants seemed to resolve or metabolize much more quickly than expected. This time around, one injection at slightly higher doses for this very experienced cohort did produce longer sustained journeys, yet the “tail,” the dreamy-like period after the most acute effects of ketamine have ended, was much longer for several participants. Having built the schedule in response to feedback from the first retreat, a moment of stumbling block Torah started to be revealed to me: the variables of the dosing, the delivery, and the schedule for the rest of the retreat are much more closely linked than I originally thought. Once we began moving the dials of dosage and delivery, the rest of the day moved as well, and the retreat schedule I had redesigned was for the previous protocol, not the one that was currently unfolding. The ultimate ascent, indeed.
Thankfully, I was working with an immaculate team and a gracious cohort—we moved through our day of lunch, open studio artistic response, and closing ceremony. Our integration sessions were well-attended, and from the feedback of this retreat, we mostly met or exceeded participants’ expectations, with some notable places of improvement. Here are some areas we can continue to build upon:
More Torah!: What an wonderful request from any Jew. We did some midday learning sessions online before the retreat, but it was not accessible for most folks during the work day. Early evening could be better attended so people don’t feel like they missed out on something.
More ritual!: Perhaps solving for the “resolution gap” of different participants being done with their journeys at different times, as well as bringing more and more Spirit into what we are doing, is by incorporating more ritual, newly designed or adapted, in the ceremony space. This can be an opportunity for people to connect with each other, to work with and open up the insights or encounters of their journeys in a supportive way, and continue to explictly ground what we are doing in ancestral wisdom.
More supportive space!: People are coming to our retreats for healing, for connection, for self-exploration. We have a schedule, but what about more space for individuals to find what they’re looking for? Given the “day-long” premise, are we rushing the process? Should we consider an overnight? Our first cannabis retreat was two nights! Breathwork, prayer, learning, connecting, making food together, deepening into the experience together without needing to rush off before dinner time could solve for so many of these issues, yet may be less accessible to more people. This needs consideration.
I stumbled into this work, and will continue to stumble upward to create and provide the best experience for our community to grow and heal together.
May this Marcheshvan be the moment of refinement for all of our most precious dreams before they come to life.
Z
