Our three-day, two-night Self Contact Retreat provides a powerful container for letting go and diving into to your most tender self. In a cedar house nestled between the ocean and the forest on a quaint island close to Vancouver, BC, we host four small group earth medicine ceremonies: a sharing of heartwarming cacao, and three 5-MeO-DMT ceremonies: a light smoked ceremony, and medium-depth insufflated (intranasal) ceremony, and deep smoked ceremony, also known as the full-release. You will be supported by us, our helpers, and our cook, who will prepare nourishing homemade meals. We share circles for preparation and integration and rejuvenate our bodies and spirit through our cedar barrel sauna and hot tub under the cedar trees. [learn more]
Now registering: December 6th to 8th, 2024 (Friday to Sunday)Welcome
Hello fellow earthlings (beings home to planet Earth), we are two down-to-earth beings who feel called to serve as ground control for fellow humans who are interested in journeying with 5-MeO-DMT. We facilitate the powerful, legal psychedelic in and near Vancouver, BC, Canada with an approach that is gradual, supportive, and based on informed consent. We run group retreats, individual & couples sessions, low-dose sound baths, and community circles. We welcome you to explore our website and feel free to reach out to us.
About Us
Sagan Bolliger
I grew up close to nature on a farm in Nova Scotia. My early memories are filled with rich solitude sitting by the river in the forest or under the willow tree by the pond. Since my early teens I have been drawn to existential questions of life and death and to the path of introspection. In my 20s I did a bachelor’s in psychology and philosophy and a master’s in artificial intelligence at the University of Toronto. After studying the mind objectively for a number of years, I felt called to return my focus to the inner realm of being wherein rests the soul. Having stepped into the role of facilitating the inner work of others as a profession, I feel as though I am stepping in through the door of the house of my belonging.
I share my life with my partner, Helena, and together we have created a life filled with joy, love, and balance through our work, both inner and outer, and our shared love of nature, adventure, and freedom.
Helena Zhu
I spent my childhood between a quaint university campus, where my grandfather was a professor, and a rural home in the mountains in Sichuan, China. I have since spent a lot of my life on beautiful university campuses and in the mountains, both as a rock climber and a skier.
I come from an academic background in social sciences (Bachelor and Master of Arts from the University of British Columbia) and work experiences in journalism, policy, and international development, all of which help me understand humans in their contexts across time and space. I am fascinated by humans and in awe of the human capacity to heal, grow, forgive, and love. I find this line of work meaningful and rewarding for its ability to connect human beings to who they really are and what feels the most authentic to each individual. I intend to share my presence, compassion, and acceptance with our clients and colleagues. I appreciate living in reciprocity with other humans, earth, and life itself, sharing what I would want reflected back at me.
Training
- Toad School with Trina Nguyen and Lucy Everylove (for 5-MeO-DMT facilitation)
- Phoenix Academy Psychedelic Therapy training with Bradley Foster, Linda Nicholls, and Liz Razanson
- Vancouver Crisis Centre (for comfort with crisis intervention and suicide prevention)
- Internal Family Systems The I in the Storm workshop with Dick Schwartz at Esalen Institute
- Opening to Grace Relational Somatic Therapy Certification with J. Mariah Moser
- Numa Somatics Breathwork Immersion with Trevor Yelich
- Giving the Wound Air grief poetry workshop with Susan Musgrave at Hollyhock (Helena)
- Radiant Heart singing retreat and song circle with Julie Blue (Helena)
Kafka
I am a gentle, soft tabby cat of a ripe age with wise whiskers. I weave in and out of facilitation, offering grounding company, playful headbutts, and distinctive purrs when they are needed the most.
About the Medicine
5-MeO-DMT is a powerful, legal cousin of what is commonly known as DMT (more precisely N,N-DMT), both of which can be found in the Amazonian brew ayahuasca. As its nickname “the toad” suggests, 5-MeO-DMT is extracted from the venom of the Incilius (formerly Bufo) alverius toad, also known as the Sonoran Desert toad and Colorado River toad. They spend most of their lives hibernating in underground burrows, only coming out to feed and mate at night in the summer rainy season. We use synthetic, or what we call vegan 5-MeO-DMT, for the purity of the substance and to not harvest venom from the toads, which leaves them without defence. We have found no conclusive historical evidence for the indigenous use of these toads for their psychoactive properties prior to the 20th century, though 5-MeO-DMT is also found in low concentrations in a variety of plants, which indigenous peoples of South America have used for thousands of years.
5-MeO-DMT is likely produced endogenously in humans, as it has been detected in blood, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid. Humans have reported 5-MeO-DMT-like experiences in darkness retreats and in near death experiences. In our work with 5-MeO-DMT both as facilitators and journeyers, we have encountered profound themes of life, such as love and death. When a human surrenders to life, they also surrender to death, and what takes up the space that the journeyer surrenders is immense light and unconditional love. Not everybody has this experience on 5-MeO-DMT, but we trust that everybody gets the experience that serves them and their intention for the journey.
The healing work can also manifest in the body, with sensations of the medicine pushing through blockages within the body. Journeyers can feel more flow and lightness in their bodies, including expansiveness and freshness in their breathing. When in a safe enough space, it can also facilitate healing from trauma, namely re-opening a traumatic experience, but giving space for what is needed for wholeness, be it understanding it, recontextualizing it, or rewriting it. The medicine also has the potential to facilitate spiritual awakenings, whatever spirituality could mean for an individual.
Unlike many other psychedelics, the 5-MeO-DMT experience is relatively brief, lasting under 30 minutes. For many people, the short duration of the experience provides a sense of comfort in knowing that whatever happens, they will be back in the physical world soon enough. This in turn can lead to a greater feeling of trust in the medicine, which allows the journeyer to delve deeper into the experience.
Have a look at our 5-MeO-DMT resources page for some of our favorite books, articles, films, podcasts, and scientific studies about the medicine.
Our Services
For those preferring a private tailored experience with just Sagan and Helena, we offer individual and couples ceremonies by appointment in our city space in Vancouver, B.C. Our offering consists of four sessions, including an initial consultation to discuss fit and suitability of the medicine; an in-person preparation session, where we dive deep into exploring intention and give you tools that can help you navigate the medicine space; the journey day, during which offer a series of increasing doses building up to the full-release dose with preparation and integration in between doses; and an integration session in the week following your journey. In addition to the four sessions, we also offer at-home exercises and resources to assist with your preparation and integration, and referrals to complementary practitioners to assist the integration of your experience when appropriate.
Testimonials
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Community
We create a safe and inspiring space for our journeyers, friends, psychedelic enthusiasts, and ourselves to come together to share our own experiences with 5-MeO-DMT and other psychedelics. We have found the power and magic of resonating with another human being on our psychedelic and lived experiences and the fun of discussing our respective understandings of our experiences. In our circle, we believe in respect and confidentiality. Everybody can make their own decision on whether to share, how much to share, and whether to be witnessed or receive reflections and feedback from the group. We ask that everybody take their own experiences and stories with them, but leave others’ experiences and stories for others to share themselves. We generally open our home for another hour after the circle for optional informal exchanges over tea and snacks. Our circles meet in Vancouver’s Chinatown on or near full moons and function on participant-generated circle agreements and donations.
Next circle: Sunday, December 1, 2024 @ 1:30 p.m.
Community and accountability are important values for us in this work. We create a space to come together with fellow psychedelic facilitators to discuss what has been working for each of us, what we are exploring, ethics, self-care, and any cases that we would like to touch base on. We organize these circles once a month on or near the new moon, a time for reflection. We start with a formal circle for the first two hours, followed by an hour of informal social. The circle functions on participant-generated agreements and donations.
Next circle: TBD
In these community sound baths we offer a low dose of the medicine, what we call a meditative dose, to an accompaniment of live instruments. We offer these as an accessible way to get a taste of the medicine in a three-hour container. These can be a good starting point for those new to 5-MeO-DMT to develop familiarity and trust with the medicine, and can also be a gentle way of re-accessing and integrating the places we've been to on higher doses.
God Molecule Sound Bath
In the God Molecule Sound Bath, we offer gentle doses of the medicine in its smoked form. The smoked form of the medicine has a quicker onset, coming on in about 10 seconds, with a total duration of around 15 minutes. We offer mulitple doses within the sound bath container.
Next sound bath: Friday, November 29th, 2024 @ 6:00 pm
Gentle Jaguar Sound Bath
In the Gentle Jaguar Sound Bath, we offer the medicine in its snuffed (intranasal) form using handcrafted arbutus wood snuffers. Snuffing the medicine produces a slower, gentler experience, with a longer come on of around 10 minutes, and a total duration of nearly an hour.
Next sound bath: Saturday, November 23rd, 2024 @ 6:00 pm
On a magical island some salt water away from Vancouver in spring 2022, we organized a Toad School, a foundational training for 5-MeO-DMT facilitation. We gathered four other 5 facilitators with diverse background and training and together created a holistic experience for learning, exploration, and growth. We included a ceremony roleplay, a facilitation practice with a mini dose, yoga, ocean plunge, healthy home-cooked meals, and training on integration, ethics, and trauma-informed care between crashing waves in the ocean and whistling needles of the forest. Together with 10 participants, we created a new community of toadies.
Read a trip report by one of the participants.
Our Mission and Values
Mission
To create space for the human capability and capacity to heal, transform, and grow.
Values
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Vancouver, BC, Canada