Preparing for Wonder
Inside Constellation: A Licensed Psilocybin Experience in the Colorado Mountains
The ceremony begins long before the medicine…
and its meaning continues to unfold long after the mountains are behind us.
When people hear that I facilitate legal psilocybin experiences in Colorado, the first question is often, “What’s it actually like?”
It’s an understandable question. Psychedelic experiences have received tremendous attention in recent years, yet most people have never seen what a thoughtfully facilitated experience actually looks like. They imagine the medicine, but not everything that surrounds it.
Magic Nights: Constellation was designed around a simple belief: the medicine is just one part of the experience. Preparation, environment, relationships, nourishment, and integration all shape what unfolds. By the time participants arrive, the ceremony has already begun.
This summer, ten women gathered on a secluded mountain property at nearly 9,000 feet above sea level. Aspen groves surrounded the ceremony space, and the Milky Way would later stretch overhead without the interruption of city lights. Colorado is one of the few places in the United States where licensed facilitators may legally guide psilocybin experiences, and both my co-facilitator, Tisha Leslie, and I are licensed through the state.
What follows is a glimpse into how Constellation was intentionally designed.
The Experience Begins Weeks Before Anyone Arrives
The experience begins long before anyone even so much as books a flight or packs their sleeping bag.
Every participant completed an extensive preparation questionnaire that invited her to reflect on far more than just their medical history. Together, we explored significant relationships, formative experiences, places of joy and grief, identity, resilience, and the questions she had been carrying into this season of life.
Each woman then met individually with either Tisha or me for a preparatory conversation. We reviewed each participant’s health history and medications, answered practical questions about psilocybin, discussed dosage options, and explored the intention they hoped to carry into the experience. Those conversations often became the beginning of the work itself. Long before anyone arrived in Colorado, participants were already noticing old patterns, clarifying hopes, and reconnecting with the parts of themselves they wanted to better understand.
One aspect of our preparation often surprises people. Although Tisha and I came to know each participant well through these conversations, the other participants knew very little about one another before they all arrived in Colorado.
That boundary served an important purpose.
For some, this would be their first psychedelic experience, and they wanted the freedom to decide later whether they wished to share that part of their lives with their friends, family, or colleagues. Protecting their privacy honored that choice.
It also supported something we hoped every participant would experience. Many of us—women, especially—become so accustomed to anticipating other people’s needs that we lose the ability to really listen to our own. If everyone had already arrived knowing one another’s histories, it would have been natural to wonder how someone else was doing, rather than to remain present with their own experiences.
Constellation was designed to create permission for something many people rarely practice: giving themselves their full attention. Each woman built her own nest, chose the object she wanted beside her on the altar, determined the dose that felt right for her, decided whether to accept a booster, and shared only what felt appropriate during integration. Each of those choices reinforced the same invitation: to listen to herself.
The sense of community that developed over the weekend grew naturally. Conversations unfolded over dinner, around the fire, and at breakfast the following morning, with participants sharing their stories as they felt ready. Friendships formed without anyone being asked to reveal more than they wished, allowing connections to develop with the same care and intention that shaped every other aspect of the experience.
Preparing the Space
Preparation for the experience also extended beyond the participants.
At sunrise on the morning everyone was due to arrive, I walked the property alone. The evening before, as Tisha and I drove through the mountains admiring the wildflowers that lined the roadsides, we came upon an open hillside where mountain sage was growing in abundance. We pulled over, gathered a small amount with gratitude, and I bundled it into a pair of simple smudge sticks to use the following morning.
It reminded me of another time, years earlier, when my family traveled on a Cherokee pilgrimage. During that journey, I gathered herbs and leaves from places that held special meaning and made my own smudge sticks by hand. Since then, creating them from plants that belong to the land where a ceremony will take place has become part of my own practice, whenever it’s possible.
As the sun rose over the mountains, I carried that mountain sage throughout the ceremony space, the gathering areas, and the paths we would walk together over the next two days, offering a simple smoke blessing with gratitude for the land and for the women who would soon arrive. It was a way of preparing the space with the same care and intention we had devoted to each participant’s individual preparation.
By the time the first cars wound their way up the mountain that afternoon, both the people and the place were ready to receive the experience.
Arriving in the Mountains
On the afternoon of the ceremony, the participants followed our gracious host, Sandy Graves, in a caravan through the mountains to a secluded property tucked among towering aspens.
Before gathering as a group, everyone created her own journey space.
Some carefully arranged blankets and pillows into comfortable nests beneath the open sky where they planned to sleep after the ceremony. Others prepared small tents nearby. Every nest reflected the person who created it, becoming a familiar place to return to throughout the day.
The group then gathered at the cabin, where Chef Sophie from Riverside Café in Steamboat Springs welcomed everyone with refreshments designed to nourish and hydrate before the journey ahead. Bowls of cardamom vanilla chia pudding, topped with fresh fruit, sat beside vibrant watermelon salads. Honey-lemon electrolytes, Women’s Balance herbal iced tea, and plenty of water helped everyone acclimate to Colorado’s dry mountain air.
Conversation unfolded easily. Participants talked through their final dosage considerations, asked practical questions, admired the setting, and settled into the slower rhythm of the afternoon. The atmosphere felt less like checking into an event and more like arriving at a place where they could finally exhale.
Building the Container
Together, we walked down a winding path into the ceremony space nestled among the aspens. Waiting there was the circle we had prepared together, surrounded by towering white trunks and filtered mountain light.
Before the ceremony began, every participant took a few moments to write down her intention on a small card. We also confirmed each participant’s individualized dose and, if she wished, a preplanned booster that could be offered later in the experience. Making those decisions beforehand is a simple but important part of our preparation process. Once the medicine began to unfold, we wanted participants to have as few practical decisions to make as possible, allowing their intention to remain with the experience itself.
Ground psilocybin mushrooms were then prepared individually and blended into fresh lemonade according to each participant’s chosen dose. Before anyone lifted a cup, we gathered once more in a circle.
One by one, each woman introduced herself and shared whatever she wished about the object she had brought for the community altar. There were childhood photographs, family heirlooms, handwritten notes, small sculptures, treasured stones gathered during meaningful moments, and keepsakes that carried deep personal significance. Together they transformed a simple altar into a reflection of the lives gathered there.
Each participant then shared the intention she hoped would accompany her through the experience. Some spoke about healing old wounds, others about reconnecting with joy and trusting themselves more fully, or about stepping into a new chapter of life. None of the intentions sought to control what would happen. Instead, they served as gentle companions, offering direction while leaving space for the experience to unfold in its own way.
When the circle felt complete, the participants lifted their cups and drank their individually prepared medicine.
Turning Inward
As we settled back into the circle, I invited everyone into an adaptation of the Native practice of calling to the Seven Directions, a tradition that has become part of my own ceremonial work over many years. Together, we turned to each direction in sequence, acknowledging the gifts each one offers: new beginnings, wisdom, growth, perspective, the steady support of the earth beneath our feet, the openness of the sky above us, and the shared breath that connects all living things.
Standing together beneath the aspens, there was a sense that we were crossing a threshold. The conversations of the afternoon gave way to stillness as every participant returned to the nest she had created earlier that day, settling beneath a blanket and preparing to turn inward. When the first notes of the music filled the grove, the ceremony had truly begun.
For the next five hours, we settled into a different rhythm. Most participants wore eye shades for much of the experience, occasionally lifting them to watch the changing light as it filtered through the aspens before closing their eyes again. As afternoon drifted toward evening, the grove became its own quiet measure of time, the white trunks catching the last warmth of the sun before giving way to twilight.
Throughout the experience, Tisha and I remained close, offering reassurance, helping people to the restroom, bringing water or light nourishment, adjusting blankets, and tending to whatever was needed so everyone could remain immersed in their own experience. About an hour into the journey, we met individually with each participant to revisit the booster plan she had already considered during the preparation. Some chose to deepen the experience, while others felt complete with the dose they had already received. Every decision was respected, reinforcing the intention that had guided the weekend from the beginning: creating a space where each participant could practice listening to herself.
Although we shared the same music, the same mountains, and the same ceremony, every experience unfolded differently. Each woman brought her own history, intentions, questions, and hopes into the circle, and each one returned carrying something uniquely her own.
Gathering Again
As participants gradually emerged from their experiences, they made their way to a long communal table nestled beneath the aspens. Chef Sophie had prepared a generous Mediterranean-inspired meal that was as nourishing as it was beautiful: Greek pasta salad, Persian dolmeh, creamy hummus with warm pita, grounding kitchari stew, and tart cherry lemonade to support a restful night’s sleep.
Meals after a psychedelic experience have their own rhythm. Some people arrive eager to describe what they’ve seen or felt, while others are content to sit with a warm meal until language catches up to the experience. Around this table, silence and conversation felt equally welcome.
As stories began to emerge, participants spoke about encounters with loved ones who had died, unexpected moments of forgiveness, profound gratitude, and insights that had surprised them. Others simply smiled, acknowledging that what they had experienced still lived beyond words. Plates were passed from hand to hand, someone reached to refill a neighbor’s glass, and conversations meandered as naturally as the evening itself. There was no pressure to explain or interpret. Listening became as meaningful as speaking.
The community that formed around that table wasn’t created through introductions or icebreakers. It grew from sharing a meaningful day together, honoring one another’s privacy, and allowing relationships to develop at their own pace. By the time dinner gave way to conversation around the fire, strangers had become familiar companions.
As the evening drew to a close, everyone settled in where they felt most at home. Some returned to the nests they had built beneath the stars, others climbed into nearby tents, and a few chose the comfort of the cabin. Like so many moments throughout the weekend, that final choice belonged entirely to each participant.
Beginning Integration
Morning arrived with cool mountain air and sunlight filtering through the aspens. The aroma of freshly brewed Riverside Café coffee drifted through the camp as participants gradually made their way back to the communal table, wrapped in sweaters and blankets, still carrying pieces of the previous day’s experience.
Chef Sophie welcomed the day with another nourishing family-style meal: kuku sabzi, sweet potato hash, Hayden Fresh breakfast sausages, sautéed kale, Henry’s sourdough toast, cast-iron fireside eggs, and a fragrant lemongrass chicken sipping broth. As plates were passed and coffee cups refilled, the conversations naturally turned toward reflection. The excitement of trying to describe the experience had settled, making room for quieter observations, lingering questions, and the first glimpses of how the previous day’s insights might find a place in everyday life.
Together, we worked through a series of guided integration prompts. Rather than searching for definitive interpretations of every image or emotion, we invited participants to notice what continued to resonate. Which moments still felt alive? What surprised them? What did they want to carry home, and how might they honor those insights once they returned to the rhythms of ordinary life?
Integration is often spoken about as something that begins after a psychedelic experience has ended. We see it differently. It begins while people are still together, while the experience is still fresh enough to share, yet spacious enough to continue unfolding. The conversations around the breakfast table are just as much a part of the ceremony as those that take place beneath an eye shade.
After breakfast, we walked together to a nearby clearing for one final gathering. Once again, we turned to the Seven Directions, this time offering gratitude rather than invitation. We gave thanks for the mountains that had held us, for the medicine, for one another, for the courage to look inward, and for the opportunity to carry what had been discovered back into our families, friendships, and everyday lives.
What We Carried Home
As everyone packed their blankets, folded tents, hugged goodbye, and began the drive down the mountain, I found myself thinking about the lives these women were returning to. Families, friendships, work, communities, and all of the ordinary moments that make up a life would be waiting for them. Those are the places where the experience continues to unfold.
Throughout the weekend, every part of Constellation had been designed with intention. Participants prepared for weeks before arriving. They built their own nests beneath the aspens, chose the objects they wanted beside them on the altar, determined the dose that felt right for them, decided whether to accept a booster, and shared only as much of their story as they wished. Each choice invited them to practice listening to themselves. Over time, those small acts become something much larger: the confidence to trust your own inner voice.
When I think back on that weekend, I remember the warmth and the dinner table, the laughter around the fire, the morning light moving through the aspens, and the friendships that began to take shape as people shared their stories in their own time. I think about ten women who arrived carrying different questions…but left carrying their own insights home with them.
My hope is that the memories of the Colorado mountains remain vivid for years to come. Even more than that, I hope each woman remembers how it felt to give herself her full attention, to listen with curiosity instead of judgement, and to recognize that the wisdom she was seeking had been within her all along.
