How Psychedelics Can Help Save the World
Zoe Helene contributed “Psychedelic Feminism—When My Heart Hurts,” to the upcoming Inner Traditions anthology, How Psychedelics Can Help Save the World: Visionary and Indigenous Voices Speak Out, edited by Stephen Gray.
(This title was released November, 22, 2022)
Psychedelic Feminism—When My Heart Hurts (Excerpt)
Without a true balance of power across the gender spectrum—globally—humans (and non-humans) will not survive. Thousands of years of patriarchy, a euphemism for male supremacy, has warped the way we evolved as a species and brought us to where we are today: a narcissistic, invasive species on the fast track to global annihilation. Violent misogyny is on the rise globally, and we’re witnessing the human-caused Age of Extinction.
If we don’t see a collective paradigm shift, we will render Earth uninhabitable for ourselves and all the other living beings we share this planet with. We need rapid evolution.
Rapid evolution is when a species evolves much faster than normal to survive drastic environmental change that will likely lead to its extinction. Male-dominated science emphasizes physical change, typical patriarchal reductionism that misses the issue at hand. Humans don't need rapid physical evolution; our bodies are not the problem. Whatever big threat to the planet you look at, human behavior is the problem. We need rapid cultural evolution.
Psychedelic Feminism promotes rapid cultural evolution from within, starting with women.
How Psychedelics Can Help Save the World: Visionary and Indigenous Voices Speak Out
With contributions from Christopher Bache, Zoe Helene, Dennis McKenna, Martina Hoffmann, The Dank Duchess, Jamie Wheal, Grandmother Maria Alice, and others.
Explores the immense healing intelligence of nature, the wisdom of ancient indigenous prophecies and shamanic practices, the importance of the Divine Feminine for environmental regeneration, and the crucial role of psychedelic and entheogenic plants in initiating transformations of consciousness
Exploring the way forward for humanity in the face of unprecedented crisis, more than 25 contributors show how the wisdom of indigenous peoples and the power of psychedelics can help us enact the radical shift in consciousness necessary to navigate the collapse of the old world order and the birth of a new consciousness centered on awakened-heart interconnectedness.
We hear from psychedelic visionaries Christopher Bache, Zoe Helene, Wade Davis, Chris Kilham, Laurel Sugden, Francoise Bourzat, and others on the promise of psychedelic medicines for spiritual and healing work. We learn about indigenous stories to support our transformation from Native American leader Solana Booth, ancestral memory from Grandmother Maria Alice Campos Freire, cannabis’s role in world building from Minelli Eustàcio-Costa, the ritual roots of talking plants from Michael Stuart Ani, and alchemy across the arc of time from shaman Ya’Acov Darling Khan. We also hear from cannabis grower The Dank Duchess, Bruce Damer, former NASA scientist turned mystic; Tyson Yunkaporta, Australian Aboriginal artist and scholar; visionary artist Martina Hoffmann; professor of religious studies G. William Barnard; activist Duane Elgin; Kohenet Rachel Kann, ordained Jewish priestess and ceremonialist; and several other wise leaders for our time.
Throughout these profound, inspiring, and ultimately hopeful essays we are reminded of the immense healing intelligence of nature and our plant allies, of the wisdom of ancient indigenous prophecies and shamanic practices, of the importance of the Divine Feminine for environmental regeneration, and of the crucial role of psychedelic and entheogenic plants in initiating transformations of consciousness and healing our world’s collective disconnection from spirit.