How Peyote Helped Me Rewire My Scarcity Mindset.

Within the Blazing Fire.

Let me first preface this blog post with a disclaimer: plant medicine is not for everyone. I am not here to promote plant medicine or say I am an expert on any of this. I also do not jump into anything without feeling called to it down to the cells of my body.

If plant medicine is part of your journey, it will find its way to you. You don't need to chase it.

Also, I understand there are a lot of judgments around plant medicine. People are afraid of what they don't know.

Are there people that work with plant medicines that are reckless and abusive? Yes!

But in my experience, the healers I have worked with hold the medicine with the highest integrity, respect, and reverence. That is an essential element when working with any healer and plant medicine.

For a while, I had been asking spirit, "Why is my family the way it is?" I always felt an energy of scarcity and lack lingering throughout my lineage. I really wanted to understand where I came from.

It amazes me how many people could care less about where they come from and their ancestors' story. Yet, the older I get, the more curious I am about discovering my roots.

I believe there is power in our stories. Our lives don't just start with us. We are the product of generations of people that came before us; their experiences, decisions, thoughts, choices, and ways of life shape every part of who we are.

One day, I was in a meditation when spirit's voice whispered to me, "Your family is the way it is because of war." That completely blew my mind into a million pieces, and at the same time, it made total sense.

I didn't go down the rabbit hole entirely, but I went as far back as my two grandfathers, who both served in WWII for the Italian army. One of my grandfathers was even a prisoner of war, captured by the Americans. He didn't return home for eight years. When he returned, he met his son for the first time. My grandmother was pregnant when he left.

I can't even imagine leaving my pregnant wife, not returning for eight years, and meeting my child for the first time. Mind-blowing!

That got me thinking, "What in the world did my grandfathers see during that time? How did their experience shape the entire family? What was life like for my grandmothers? What were they made to suppress?" We never stop and think about the product of war and how that can change an entire lineage, not just for the soldiers but for the whole family.

As I began to ask my family more questions about this, they shared that food and water were scarce during those times. In the little town in Italy where my parents were both born, running water was not always accessible, so saving and conserving was a means of survival.

I wondered what else was scarce during that time. I asked myself where scarcity shows up in my reality and the need to hoard and conserve things out of fear of not having enough or letting go.

Scarcity is the insidious energy that has penetrated the generations in the aftermath of the horrors of war. Two generations removed, and l can still feel it in my bones.

I had heard that peyote was a heart opener and carried powerful masculine energy. Still, I had reservations about sitting with this medicine based on the stories I had heard about it. But like I said earlier, the medicine will call you if and when the time is right, and eventually, I received the call.

I had strong intentions for this ceremony. First, I wanted to heal the wounded masculine energy that penetrated every part of my being, and second, the scarcity mindset that overshadowed me my entire life.

There is absolutely no possible way I could put into words my entire experience in ceremony, and some things are best left unsaid, but this medicine was one of the greatest teachers I could ever have in this lifetime. There are some things you can't learn from a book or even through life experience only because we may not know how to pull the veil down far enough to see the truth. Peyote was like learning from the Grand Master of Life, and the entire great outdoors was his classroom.

Having a fire going the entire night is essential in ceremony. Again, let me reiterate that words will water down this experience, but for the sake of sharing how the fire was an integral part of rewiring and dismantling old beliefs that were not serving my highest self, allow me to share a few lessons.

There was a woman in ceremony, a healer, that became a great teacher to me. As the night progressed, I became mesmerized by her relationship with the fire. It was as if she was in union with the fire, and it was responding to her every command. I couldn't get my eyes off of her. She would twirl her fingers, and the fire mirrored a twirl right back.

After that, I realized I had a lot to learn from the fire, that it was a living, breathing, powerful energy, an energy that I had never paid attention to before.

I stopped what I was focusing on and started giving the fire the attention it deserved. Towards the end of the night (what my mind thought was the end of the night because time does not exist with peyote, and there is no going to sleep), fear started kicking in that the fire would go out because we were running out of wood.

It felt as if the fire was keeping ceremony alive.

Here is where scarcity decided to join my experience. Thoughts started racing in my mind, "We are going to run out of wood, and ceremony will be ruined." Whenever those thoughts overcame me, someone in ceremony would offer a piece of wood to the fire, and the fire would respond, "Do not worry, Marisa, have faith in knowing that you are always provided for."

The fire began to dialogue: " There is no such thing as scarcity. That is the mind playing tricks on you. Everything in the universe has flow; this is a universal law. You give, and you receive. In order to receive, you must give." Is this not the same message Jesus taught?

The fire showed me that every time we gave wood to the fire, even the smallest of twigs, the fire gave light, warmth, and clarity. But, the minute we stopped giving to the fire, the mind took over, and panic kicked in. When we stop giving, we block the flow of life.

Abundance is like the tide of an ocean. The wave comes in and flows back out. It never stops. This goes for everything in creation. So if you want to receive, you must also give; this is reciprocity.

I began to start rewiring the negative programming that I received from war. There is no need to hoard or feed into lack because the universe provides everything I need. I just have to be open and not allow my thoughts to block me from receiving.

The minute the fire went dark, I became very uncomfortable. But is that not true for all of us? Are we not uncomfortable with our dark shadows and feel safer in the light?

I realized that there is only one way to heal the shadow sides of ourselves, those feelings of fear, lack, scarcity, and not-enoughness, which was to go through the dark, to embrace all the gifts it gave me.

We want so badly not to feel those dark emotions and buy into the lies that tell us not to expose those parts of ourselves. So we begin to feel shame and guilt and hide them from everyone, including ourselves. But how would we heal? How would we love and embrace every part of ourselves if we don't stop running from the dark?

Healing the traumas of war was extremely painful, but so was carrying the dead weight of scarcity, fear, and lack. The soul craves to be free, to experience what it truly is, which is love and light, but there was no way for me to get to that place without experiencing the dark.

All it takes is one brave soul in the family to digest and alchemize negative energy passed down the lineage to create a massive ripple effect of healing, and in my heart, I feel like this is what I came here to do.

I am not writing this blog intending to sell anyone on peyote. Peyote is a sacred indigenous medicine that should be respected and treated with the highest reverence. These medicines have helped heal many people and have been protected by the indigenous. I don't take that lightly. I had many conversations with the healer I worked with to ensure that I am worthy of working with this medicine that does not belong to me. I share my story in the hope that you may gain a higher level of awareness of how you got to where you are today.