About Us | Earthlings Institute

Who We Are

We are Earthlings—a community of compassionate and kind facilitators, educators, cooks, sanctuary keepers, and bodyworkers coming together on a Pacific Northwest island to bring you the space to heal, grow, and be well.

We have a community-first approach—we prioritize the wellbeing of ourselves and our team, then extend that love, abundance, and care to our greater communities and clients. We are highly educated and multi-talented, thorough and detail-oriented, hardworking and adaptable. It would be a privilege to be of service to you, as it allows us to fulfill our purpose and give meaning to our life's work.

Our Impact

We have put on over a dozen small group Self Contact Retreats with our powerful, legal psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT for 80+ journeyers from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Oceania. We have organized a 5-MeO-DMT facilitation training retreat and supported 5-MeO-DMT education workshops across the country. Co-founders Sagan and Helena have facilitated 100+ private Personal Passage Retreats for journeyers from Canada, the United States, China, Australia, and Singapore.

We have made our work more accessible through introducing our low-dose 5-MeO-DMT sound baths to our local community, which has attracted sound bathers flying in from the United States and other parts of Canada. Over 20 facilitators, space stewards, and volunteers were involved in supporting us serve 5-MeO-DMT in smoked and snuffed forms to 400+ sound bathers over 40 sessions.

Sagan and Helena have also hosted 50+ psychedelic integration support circles and psychedelic facilitator circles.

Mission & Values

Mission

To cultivate love, healing, and wellbeing with our sacrament, 5-MeO-DMT.

Values

Integrity
We are in integrity in ourselves and our practice.

Love
We work from a place of love.

Respect
We respect ourselves, others, and our planet.

Compassion
We have compassion for ourselves and others.

Balance
We live and work in balance.

"It takes love to create love."

Our Founders

Helena Zhu 朱晓逸 and Sagan Bolliger

Co-founders, Co-directors
Facilitators, Sanctuary Keepers, Cooks

Unconditional love is our leadership. We–Sagan Bolliger and Helena Zhu, Founders and Directors of Earthlings Institute–are here to share love in some of its highest and purest forms: compassion, acceptance, non-judgment, trust, and devotion.

We come back to our medicine for our own personal work and learn from all of our teachers: nature, colleagues, our journeyers, and our families and communities.

In Earthly forms, Helena draws from her mother's managerial experience as the first hire who hired the inaugural team when American tech company IBM launched in Western China as an icon of modernization and globalization in 1990s Communist China. Helena has learned from her mother how to treat people fairly and well, and when to protect the integrity of the professional environment. Helena's father has been a lifelong and tireless entrepreneur–She honours him and learns from his passion for creating and loving life.

Sagan, the son of a healer and a scholar, has led a life of introspection, deep feeling, spiritual inquiry, and personal growth. He has had a lifelong dedication to healing his personal and ancestral trauma and transforming it into gifts of insight and strength. In 2020 he received a vision to step into service in serving Earth medicine to support the world's healing—a vision that has grown into the Earthlings Institute. He continues to steward the Earthlngs' vision rooted in heart and integrity, while building a life and community filled with love and purpose.

We are adventurers—skiers, rock climbers, paddlers, scuba divers, yogis, and travellers. We enjoy gardening, cooking, cleaning, reading, dancing, saunaing, and ocean plunging.

Sagan is a Community Leader with local psychedelic community The Flying Sage, and Helena co-hosted Vancouver Women in Psychedelics events and led its integration circles.

Education & Training

Education

Master of Arts in Economics, The University of British Columbia (Helena)
Bachelor of Arts, Double Major in International Relations and Economics, The University of British Columbia (Helena)
Master of Science in Computer Science, University of Toronto (Sagan)
Honours Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Philosophy, University of Toronto (Sagan)

Training

Toad School with Dr. Trina Nguyen and Lucy Everylove
Phoenix Academy Psychedelic Therapy Training with Bradley Foster, Linda Nicholls, and Liz Razanson
Internal Family Systems The I in the Storm workshop with Dr. Richard Schwartz at Esalen Institute
Opening to Grace Relational Somatic Therapy Certification with J. Mariah Moser
Numa Somatics Breathwork Immersion with Trevor Yelich
Crisis Centre BC
First Aid Training

Website @earthlings.play.here

"Find that place where your deepest joy, your deepest passion, your deepest gladness, and the world's hunger meets."

Our Team

We present our colleagues and dear friends:

Facilitation

Brendon

Facilitator

Brendon completed Toad School with Helena, Sagan, and Kai in 2022. His facilitation blends quiet strength with deep attunement, offering a grounding presence that helps people feel safe in their most vulnerable moments. He incorporates field recordings of waves, streams, and birds as a backdrop for immersive guided meditations, yoga, and sound-bath experiences.

Brendon led the volunteer team that launched the first season of the MAPS Canada podcast in 2020–2021 and later helped launch and edit The Flying Sage Podcast in 2022. He has sat and served at Vipassana meditation centres and is continually drawn to the intersections of psychology, sound, art, spirituality, consciousness, and culture that psychedelics encompass.

Alongside his work with Earthlings, Brendon also offers 1:1 personalized 5-MeO-DMT ceremonies and small-group experiences through Cosmic Otter Offerings, based in Victoria, BC, Canada.

Website @cosmicotterofferings

Kai

Facilitator

Kai has 17 years of facilitation experience in multiple modalities, including 5-MeO-DMT, ayahuasca, and simple yet effective practices like humming and drumming. Kai brings centred awareness to ceremony and offers patient, grounded, and intuitive guidance in preparation and integration.

From mantras and chants to his collection of didgeridoos, clear quartz singing bowls, and drums, he uses tools and instruments to tune the body, shift vibrations, and cleanse energy. In the integration process, Kai brings awareness to patterns and provides guidance on shifting thoughts and behaviours that no longer serve.

Born and raised in Kitsilano, Vancouver, Kai lives with his wife and dog and takes care of the house he grew up in. A true salt of the earth, he embodies humour and playfulness in his grit and steadfastness. His favourite medicine is his daily beach walk with his dog, Polly.

[email protected]

Linda Tran

Facilitator, Bodyworker

Linda Tran is a Reiki Master, bodyworker, sound healer, and intuitive guide.

Her healing practice built and refined over the last 10 years has been designed to help others attune to the rhythms of nature. Harnessing sound frequency to treat areas of dissonance in a client's energy field creates targeted and immediate relaxation that can bring resolution to a wide variety of ailments.

The introduction of coherent frequency through the use of tuning forks on and around the body, energy work, and gentle bodywork modalities helps the whole body generate a sense of restoration. Receiving support in this way helps with regulating the nervous system, grounding, integration, and rest after a transformative journey.

Website [email protected] @lindalovies

Food

Jiawen

Cook

Jiawen cooks from a place of balance and wholeness, where art and food as medicine meet. Influenced by her upbringing between Shanghai and Vancouver, she weaves together Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, and intuitive artistry to create deeply nourishing culinary experiences.

Having overcome an eating disorder and negative self-image, Jiawen, a Harvard-educated landscape architect, understands how one's environment can greatly impact both physical and mental health. She believes what we eat and how we eat can have the power to heal. By combining ancient wisdom with modern science, her meals support the gut-brain connection and nervous system for an overall sense of wellbeing.

Website @anniejliang

Andrew

Cook

Andrew is a foodie turned personal chef. Raised in a multicultural home by loving parents of Chinese and German ancestry in their adopted country of Canada, he grew up eating a medley of Asian and European home cooking, and from an early age, developed an insatiable curiosity for food.

Andrew's food is inspired by the art and culture surrounding his home in Vancouver's Historic Chinatown, home to traditional, independent, and Michelin restaurants. His culinary creations aim to excite the senses while comforting the soul.

Andrew has a stunning knife collection that he brings to everywhere he cooks and loves to source fresh ingredients from local grocers and fishmongers. His cooking business is named after his beloved labrador, Hera.

[email protected] @heras.feast

Integration Bodywork

Beata Konieczka

Bodyworker

Beata is a Registered Massage Therapist (RMT), Registered Therapeutic Counsellor (RTC), 500-hour certified breathwork teacher, and certified yoga teacher. A practitioner of healing arts for 16+ years, Beata is fascinated with human resilience and our healing abilities, especially when we are placed in the hands of supportive, loving individuals who remind us of our own self-healing powers.

Her favourite massage to practice is Hawaiian Lomi Lomi temple bodywork, known as "loving hands" in its tradition. This rhythmic, fluid treatment uses continuous flowing strokes with the forearms and hands to help the body release old patterns and behaviours that can get stuck in the tissues. She also weaves in some reflexology, craniosacral, breathwork, Swedish, and deep tissue into her massages.

She looks forward to adding to your self-loving practice.

[email protected]

Linda Tran

Bodyworker, Facilitator

Linda Tran is a Reiki Master, bodyworker, sound healer, and intuitive guide.

Website [email protected] @lindalovies

Safety & Space

Dr. Trina Nguyen

Pharmacology Consultant

Dr. Trina Nguyen brings two decades of formal pharmacy education (Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy, University of Winnipeg; Doctor of Pharmacy, University of Washington) and experience to advance emerging psychedelic therapies.

Trina works as a pharmacology consultant for psychedelic practitioners and the general public alike, specializing in the interaction between medications and the safety and intended use of psychedelics. She developed a contraindications and interactions guide for pharmaceuticals and psychedelics, which is published in the Manual for Psychedelic Guides. A respected authority in psychedelic pharmacology, Trina reviews journeyers’ medications and informs protocols for safety and therapeutic effectiveness.

Trina is the co-founder and leader of Toad School, a foundational training workshop on working with 5-MeO-DMT. Toad School is a community, resource, and a rite of passage for many 5-MeO-DMT facilitators.

Website Interaction Guide Toad School @the_dharmacist

Eva

Sanctuary Keeper

Eva is a Sanctuary Keeper and house healer, caring for space, energy, and atmosphere with presence and intention. She listens closely to what a space needs, attending to it with gentleness and respect.

Her approach is intuitive and heart-led. Trained in house healing, she works with the energy of a space to support balance and ease. Through simple rituals, thoughtful touches, and a sense of calm, she weaves intention into everyday moments. She believes that spaces hold energy and soul, like everything alive, and when cared for with love, they can support rest, reflection, and reconnection.

@eva_inner_

Work With Us

We invite you to work with us and allow our community and land to take care of you on your journey of self-discovery and transformation.

Portraits by Valentyna Gabinyetova @valentyna.gabineytova