Oaxaca Mexico and Psilocybin Mushrooms

In May of 2021 my mother, at age 59, passed away. My family and I knew her passing was coming to a certain degree. She had a bitter outlook on life and could not let go of cigarettes or alcohol despite being on oxygen, having COPD, and a variety of other grueling health conditions. My mother made the tough decision to put herself into hospice care and she died a few days after. She left the world the same way she lived in it, like a rockstar. While under the influence of hospice provided morphine, the oxygen tubes fed into her nose ignited from the cigarette she was smoking. Smoking literally killed her. The image of her face was ingrained into my memory and it further upheaved my post lockdown COVID depression.

Like many others after COVID I was struggling to get my bearings. Selling my mother’s estate strained my relationships with my younger siblings and extended family. I felt very alone, angry, sad, and not sure what my purpose in life was. Depression, anxiety, and trauma had a strong hold on me.

I had tried talk therapy, which I believe could have helped more if existing therapists weren’t so over booked and could spend more time comprehensively understanding their clients. Alas, talk therapy did nothing but frustrate me further. Prescriptions helped me find a baseline but left me uninterested in everything about life, I felt like I was living without emotion at all.

As an expert in finding medical solutions online (that is sarcasm, I should have died a long time ago according to the internet), I came across oodles of anecdotal stories, medical research, and documentaries on how psilocybin mushrooms have had positive, strong, lasting effects for people with treatment resistant depression. I was reluctant to try something illegal that I would have to acquire from an underground source. After more research, however, this truly began to feel like something that could help me.

Through that research references to a woman named Maria Sabina routinely appeared. Maria was a Mazatec curandera (a Latin American healer or shaman), who had become famous for introducing psilocybin mushrooms to the Western world. She lived from 1894 to 1985 and resided in an extremely small town called Huautla de Jiménez in Oaxaca, Mexico. This town became famous after a Life Magazine writer and ethnomycologist, R. Gordon Wassan, visited Maria and partook in an indigenous Mexican ritual with entheogenic mushrooms. R. Gordon Wassan wrote an article about this experience for Life Magazine in 1957 and the town of Huautla de Jiménez became overrun with hippies and celebrities from all over the world. During Maria’s lifetime she was scorned by her community for the damage transient visitors had done to the small town and the defamation of their sacred Mazatec rituals. Maria died poor and alone.

I then had what felt like a calling to travel! I wanted to see what this town and her story was all about! My wife and I booked a flight in December of 2021, six months after my mothers passing, in hopes of learning about the culture surrounding these magical mushrooms and to maybe find some healing for me as well. I was not expecting such a rich experience from this journey.

We started in the city of Oaxaca, a colorful, vibrant, comfortable, walking friendly city. There is so much I can say about Oaxaca but for the sake of this story I will keep it short. We reached out to https://www.instagram.com/oaxacking/ on Instagram and were set up with a partner of his to be shown the food and culture of Oaxaca. He took us to Oaxacan food hot spots, to a farm that produced Mezcal, introduced us to backstrap weavers, and a place where we watched artists in the process of making famous Oaxacan Alebrijes (very colorful lightweight wooden sculptures). This was an incredible way to experience Oaxaca and I’d suggest it to anyone.

Various pictures in and around Oaxaca | Oaxaca, Mexico | © Untethered 4 Life

The real meat and potatoes of this trip came when we first arrived at Huautla de Jiménez. After a very sketchy six hour drive through twisty turns on narrow, pothole laden roads through the western Oaxaca mountains we found the small 6 room inn we were planning to stay in during our visit. While we were crossing our fingers that they had space for us it turned out we were the only guests there! This was when we met Josephina. 

Josephina was an older widowed woman running a six room inn with her daughter. While there was an absolute language barrier issue we felt immediately at ease when we met her with her strong yet soft and caring presence. She welcomed us with a meal which consisted of food grown entirely from her own garden on the property. She gave us a tour of the garden which consisted of chickens, lemons, coffee beans, chayote, nopal and a bunch of others we couldn’t identify. We quickly bonded with Josephina and were able to communicate with her via translation services on our phone. 

Here is a link to her cozy inn if you need arangements during your visit: Casa Cejota.

Josephina gave us a book with a list of the services she offered. Granted it was all in Spanish, so back to our phones to translate everything for us. The book offered two indigenous rituals, a mushroom healing ceremony and a Temazcal ritual. While I had traveled to Oaxaca to learn of the history and culture around hallucinogenic mushrooms I was not particularly interested in trying them at that particular moment. On the other hand, a Temazcal ritual, a traditional Mexican steam bath, I was ready to try. Or so I thought…

A Temazcal ritual consists of getting completely naked and crawling into a small dome like cement structure through an opening on one end (older Temazcal baths were made of stone and mud). The structure was just big enough for two people to lay down in with very hot coals, a basket of water to increase the steam as needed, and a small hole for airflow was on the opposite end of the entrance. We prepared for the late morning Temazcal bath by eating a light warm soup and drinking only water for hydration. Very awkwardly and somewhat comically Josephina layed on the ground to demonstrate how my wife and I were to pat each other with bundles of eucalyptus leaves to aid in the releasing of toxins through our pores during the experience.

So our time came to get in, Josephina turned around and my wife and I got completely naked and crawled into the Temazcal dome. Josephina covered the entrance with large blankets leaving it pitch dark minus the embers from the coal at the bottom of our feet. Leaving our keys, wallet, and clothes in the wide open while in this structure with absolutely 0 recourse if taken left me extremely nervous. Josaphina’s soothing voice (even though I had no clue what she was saying) put me at ease rather quickly though as the heat of the chamber quickly became the only thing that I could really focus on. It was so incredibly hot. Sweat was beading off every bit of my body. When I had to move to carry out the ritualistic patting I had to do so deliberately slower as moving too fast made me dizzy and disoriented. 

At the beginning it was almost painful and all I could think about was the heat… until I decided to just LET GO. The moment I let go, everything before that moment completely left my mind, all I could do, and focus on, was intentionally breathing. Every muscle in my body was completely flaccid and disconnected from my mind (maybe this was what an “out of body” experience felt like). Not only was I not moving, even the thought of moving was more effort than I wanted to muster. My wife and I lasted 37 minutes. We literally crawled out of the Temazcal onto a series of beds 2 feet away from the Temazcal. I was met with a sharp brisk cold air, even though it was easily 80° Fahrenheit outside. Josephina rapidly covered us in multiple thick wool blankets and we needed to lay still and covered for at least an hour as our body re-adjusted to the cooler temperature. 

I anticipated this cool down period would be boring and procedural…I was mistaken. Waves of powerful emotions overtook me as I laid there. Despite my mom just passing away, the relationships with siblings and extended family strained, and the stress of holidays and work during those difficult times I felt completely different. I felt a deep and intrinsic sense of gratitude, gratefulness, appreciation, beauty, hope, and warmth. I peacefully cried, not in pain or sadness but in utter awe of how beautiful being alive in that moment was. It is one of two times in my life that I felt completely connected spiritually and I will be forever grateful for Josephina’s trust, guidance, and warmth even though we rarely understood each other linguistically. I immediately developed a new powerful appreciation and curiosity for ancient spiritual healing practices.

Shortly after that we arrived at Maria Sabina’s family property on the top of the hill overlooking Huautla de Jiménez. Aside from a spattering of murals depicting Maria Sabina, mushrooms, and visionary scenes the home and surrounding area was rather unassuming. No one was around or present when we arrived. Josephina banged on a nearby metal gate yelling in Spanish. Shortly after Josaphina was greeted by an older man with a slight hunch and a hardened wrinkled face. They conversed in Spanish until a boy, no older than 15, approached us and began speaking in English! Based on Maria Sabina’s history, I presume they were used to Americans visiting Maria’s property.

Dedication to Maria Sabina | Huautla de Jiménez, Mexico | © Untethered 4 Life

Next door from the entrance to the Sabina family property they opened a set of doors to a small market-like building, stocked with just a handful of bottled waters and various snacks. We bought some water, really just to show support for the family, and the young boy invited us onto the property while giving us its history. We squeezed between two buildings into what became a central yard surrounded by five 200 sq ft, box-like buildings made from stone and clay. One of the buildings was simply lined with a bench around its perimeter, a wide opening right in the middle of the building, and roughly 10 or so indigenous Mazatapec people sitting along its perimeter. They appeared rather somber and calm. Unlike elsewhere in Huautla de Jiménez, the folks in these buildings seemed to not even notice we were there, it was kind of eerie. We were introduced to a middle aged man by the young boy. At this point the young boy also filled us in on their family heritage. Everyone we had been speaking to thus far were in some way descendants of Maria Sabina. 

Based on my experience that same day with the Temazcal bath I could only imagine the power of the spiritual experiences that had occurred within this space over the last century. And to know that John Lennon, Albert Hoffman, and Walt Disney visited Maria was a crazy feeling too. Apparently Walt Disney visited six times to partake in rituals with Maria Sabina, which in my opinion, may explain his weird cartoons. The visit ended with a blessing from the middle aged man. It carried on with the cadence of a traditional catholic ritual but was spoken in a combination of Spanish and their indigenous Mazatec language. After the blessing we bowed and shook hands with the various people that welcomed us. We departed, walking down the hill a longer way than we had come up; parched, tired, and in awe with the experience of the day as the sun set on the beautiful Oaxacan mountains. 

I will forever remember the power of the Temazcal bath ritual, the history of Maria Sabina, and the difficulties her family had faced as a result of introducing mushrooms to the Western world. That day I was at peace. Even though I didn’t partake in a mushroom ritual in particular, I finished that day feeling more spiritually connected, healed and rejuvenated than I would have ever anticipated.