Meet Merryn Spence

We recently connected with Merryn Spence and have shared our conversation below.

Merryn, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

I should start by sharing that creativity is not “mine.” I am a channel for creative energy and action, and my intention is to keep that channel open, connected, and attuned to what is actually present. For me, the flow comes from being, not doing.

Creativity, for me, feels like a pulse of curiosity. It is a spark that warms me just enough to stay present in the moment. To tend to this connection, I spend a lot of time outside, moving my body, and exploring altered states of consciousness.

Whether I am walking and foraging along the moss trails behind my home barefoot, climbing pine trees to hear the birds more clearly, or floating in local lakes and rivers, my senses are tuned in. I wonder about the warm rock beneath me and the salamander that crawls by. I feel a gust of wind and let it travel through me. The goldenrod and milkweed dance in the breeze and I find myself dancing with them. I experience this way of being as a deep exploration of my relationship with the more-than-human realm.

My exploration of altered states includes breathwork, connecting with herbs like stinging nettle and passionflower, and working intentionally with mushrooms such as Amanita Muscaria.

When I don’t tend to these relationships and I spend too much time on screens or inside, I can feel my creative channel shrivel up and lose perspective.

While much of this continual practice feels natural and intuitive, as I have been doing so since I was a young girl, this way of being to support my creative flow was affirmed through living and studying with several indigenous teachers, medicine people, and elders.

These are not just practices or techniques. It is a way of being that I love to share with the people I work alongside, both within and outside of altered states, to support access to true embodiment as creative expression.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My journey in the psychedelic realm began at the ripe age of 15, when I ate mushrooms in a park I love. That connection felt like a remembrance or a coming home. After several experiences, I recognized -and experienced- harms that could have easily been avoided with preparation, proper education, and someone present who I could trust. I vowed to be the support I wish I had during challenging times. It led me to co-create curriculums, train space-holders, and offer attuned care in the psychedelic space. I then founded Entheogration, where I offer trauma-responsive, somatic-based, and spirit-led entheogenic preparation, ceremony, and integration support for individuals, couples, and small groups navigating altered states of consciousness. At the core of this work is the remembrance that every thing is alive and connected and the continual remembrance that we are of the earth, we are the elements, and anything that happens to the earth happens to us as humans. Liberation from the oppressive thoughts and behaviors taught by violence systems is our birthright.

My work weaves together:
• Somatics + nervous system care
• Yoga + breathwork
• Energy + sound medicine
• Trauma release exercises
• Bodywork and self massage
• Ancestral and lineage connection and healing through prayer, alter care, and offerings
• Reciprocal relationship building (and sustaining) with plant, fungi, and animal medicines (and other more-than-human kin)
• Harm and risk reduction
• Psychedelic preparation and integration
• Ceremony-informed ethics
• Art and creative expression
• Parts work
• Cycle and body systems literacy and care
• Holding space for deep transformation
• Decolonizing the mind, body, and soul

What excites me most is supporting people as they translate (and transmute) mystical, challenging, and blissful experiences into grounded, sustainable being and change without bypassing the shadow work that real integration requires.

I’m currently expanding:
• retreat offerings
• my integration program
• workshops
• consultations with organizations around harm reduction, reciprocity, and ethics
• grants and funding to offer free services and support
• all ceremonies, now including wedding/divine union ceremonies!

In this space, my work and care stands out to those who are ready to remember on a cellular level their light being as their current human being.

Outside of this work that I adore, I also co-founded Three Rivers Psychedelic Society, am the Community Engagement Manager for Fireside Project, and coordinate the Drug Education Program for Students for Sensible Drug Policy. I’m also a grad student at University of Exeter focusing on psychedelic research. My life is dedicated to being a bridge for spirit and science; the art of being a multidimensional human.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The 3 most impactful areas of knowledge in my journey were and are:
1. Body systems and cycle literacy: This is the foundation for how I know myself, care for myself, and heal myself. Nervous system care is not simply to “regulate” but to deeply know and validate my responses and reactions. Lymphatic care and literacy is knowing how to massage and care for my body’s cleansing system and what herbal allies may support this. Cycle care is knowing what day of my cycle I am on, what foods and activities best support the energy of the phase I am in. This is the also the crux of learning what it means to be regenerative by nature.
2. Cross-cultural humility: Over the years, I’ve lived on and traveled to every continent except Antarctica (yet!). I learned to be a witness to the great, mysterious unfolding. I learned to listen more than I speak. And that to be of service to others through my presence and action is the first step. The earth is vast as it is diverse, and requires us to continually be a curious student.
3. Devotion to reciprocity: Service over ego, community over extraction, relational care and repair over leaving and moving on. Roots and wings are possible. To learn the art of giving and receiving as it ebbs and flows through the seasons requires intention, presence, and a willingness to be uncomfortable. Here’s to it!

My most basic advice:
• Slow down.
• Build from embodiment, not performance.
• Learn from people, conversations, and service not just books and theories.
• Stay in relationship with the land, anyway you can. Conversations, presences, and offerings are the foundation.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

Collaboration is how we strengthen the mycelial web! I welcome collaboration with:
• organizations committed to ethical psychedelic practice
• indigenous and First Nation people and orgs
• retreat centers and retreat leaders
• educators of all ages, trainers, and curriculum developers
• regenerative community projects
• investors who believe in and wish to protect the sacred
• trauma-attuned facilitators and caregivers
• somatic therapists
• ethics councils
• people working at the intersection of ecology, ceremony, and healing
• harm and risk reductionists
• you!

Please, reach out to me through my website or socials, entheogration.com or @entheogration.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://entheogration.com
• Instagram: @entheogration
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merryn-spence-a67947129/

Image Credits

Valentina Catenacci
Sofia Garcia Sanchez
Julianne Helfrich