An Interview with Rio

In early 2023, I was invited to share my perspective in an interview for a psychedelic-focused publication exploring the role of facilitators, ceremony work, and the evolution of psychedelic healing. At the time, I was asked about what inspires me, what I’ve witnessed in ceremony, and how I see this work fitting into a broader landscape of healing.

Several clients have since asked to read this piece, so I’m publishing it here in full. It offers a window into my journey, my approach to facilitation, and the values that continue to guide Brooklyn Psychedelic today.

What inspired you to begin leading psychedelic ceremonies?

“Inspired” is an interesting word here, since starting a psychedelic ceremony space was never part of my plan. The word inspired is from the Latin inspirare, which means “to breathe or blow into” and was originally used in regard to the Divine — a way that God breathes a truth into our innermost being.

Leading ceremonies was something I never thought I would do, much less wanted to do! In fact, I outright rejected it in the beginning as I had a fairly large allergy to “healer/new age/spiritual” types. I ran from this calling, but the universe had other plans. Wherever I ran, there it was—this calling staring me squarely in the face.

So, I surrendered and started taking mushrooms to heal my own mental wounds and trauma. It was incredible to see the difference working with psychedelics had on my mental health and spiritual wellbeing. I never told anyone I was taking mushrooms; for me, it simply worked, and that was all I needed to know.

Later, life quickly changed with a big breakup, and I felt compelled to live in Oaxaca, Mexico to be near indigenous healing communities of the Mazatec and Zapotec. I also traveled to Peru where I learned from a Shipibo Maestro and developed a profound relationship with Ayahuasca.

At some point, people began to just show up in my path and arrive on my doorstep seeking healing and medicine from me. I had a huge hang-up on being a “healer” that I needed to get over, and that took several years. I never took money from people in those days (and still don’t sometimes), but I always had a heart to lead people to the medicine.

My aim then, as it is now, was for people to learn to be their own healers. I enjoy helping others develop their own personal relationship with the medicine through self-administration and self-healing. Eventually, they may even be able to carry the medicine into their own communities and facilitate healing there.

Now, I feel I am being used to guide others in doing this work. For that reason, getting my clients to establish their own personal relationship with the medicine is key. Ultimately, it has become the honor of my life to walk alongside those in search of healing and reflect their own light back to them.

What are the important factors people should consider when selecting a retreat?

When selecting what facilitator to work with, I recommend talking to the person leading the retreat or ceremony. What is their history of healing themselves? What is their history with the medicine? Who are the healers they have studied with? Do they have knowledge of indigenous lineages? Do they have reciprocity practices in place?

And then, when it’s time for you to make a decision, get still, breathe, and listen to your intuition. This is nothing to take lightly or rush into. That said, when you know, you know. So, listen to that inner knowing.

What I seek to know when working with healers is who they’ve worked with, where they’ve traveled, what lineage they are trained in, and whether they are a person of mere “knowledge” or a person of experiential “wisdom.”

Someone can read all the books about psychedelics, take all the Johns Hopkins and MAPS courses, and even write a dissertation on the history and biomolecular structure of psilocybin and DMT. But until they’ve sat with the medicine for a very long time and developed a deep personal relationship with its spirit through ingestion, I can’t be sure they actually know anything. Experience is everything. Wisdom comes from experience.

Further questions you might consider are: Has the person running the retreat had their own inner transformations through the medicine? Are they themselves healed? Are they a person of peace? Are they operating from their soul or from their ego?

Ultimately, there is no rush. You should always let your inner knowing be your guide. The medicine tends to call in this way—through a deep inner intuition. Listen to it.

If you could tell a prospective client one story about an amazing transformation you saw as a result of your ceremony, what would it be?

I have been honored to witness many amazing transformations. In my experience, if a person is properly prepared and their intention is rooted in reverence and respect for the medicine, transformation is very likely.

I regularly see people die to their ego and be reborn into the truth of who they are. I see their conditioning, trauma, and ancestral wounds fall away. I see Light pouring out of them, and they do not leave as the same person who arrived.

As I work with clients through integration, I see them continue to live from a place of deep inner peace by continually cultivating their connection to Source/God/Universe. It is the greatest privilege of my life to witness this.

What inspires you about psychedelics? How have you seen them impact your own life and the lives of others?

Psychedelics put us in touch with our true Self—as in the Soul that exists beyond the ego. In that place, there is no suffering, no noise from our conditioning or traumas. There is no time. There is no form. There is no thought. In the absence of these things, Love and Light shine.

To get in touch with that timeless realm can be incredibly healing—healing at a soul level. Healing that undoes and releases us from years of depression, anxiety, and ancestral wounds. It is healing at the root.

In contrast, the Western medical framework is palliative. It aims to treat symptoms and is far less concerned with getting to the root of the problem. In other words, it is concerned with getting us to feel better, not healing us.

Psychedelics are the opposite: they go to the root of things and release us from what is no longer serving us. When healing happens within, it pours outward into every aspect of our lives.

Put simply, when we drop the things that are keeping us sick, healing naturally occurs.

How do you see the role of psychedelics evolving within the larger healthcare landscape?

Obviously, psychedelics show amazing promise in healing people. There’s a different article or study coming out every day attesting to this. That said, psychedelics are a huge departure from the standard Western Medical Model, and as such, if they are to grow within the larger healthcare landscape, we as a society will require a cognitive shift in how we approach healing.

Western medicine is primarily concerned with managing symptoms, while psychedelics are solely concerned with healing at the source. Because psychedelics work at the source—beyond ego, time, and form—any healing that happens there will begin to heal everything else.

If you let go of some deep trauma you’ve been holding on to for a decade, you might notice that you begin to sleep better, then your headaches dissipate, then your skin clears up, your digestion improves, and you feel lighter, happier, healthier. And so it goes.

With the psychedelic model, there is nothing to do, nothing to learn. Instead, it is an unlearning of conditioning, a dropping of destructive patterns, and allowing the healing process to unfold naturally.

So how will psychedelics evolve in the healthcare landscape? No one knows for sure. I don’t think we even get to decide. The medicine will decide for itself. Our task is simply this: to serve the moment in front of us with reverence and respect—for ourselves, for others, for the indigenous lineages that have been holding it down for thousands of years, and equally, for the medicine itself.

Finally, what are you currently reading?

Constant rotation / yearly required reading

• The Tao Te Ching — Lao Tsu

• The Bhagavad Gita — Stephen Mitchell Translation

• The Power of Now — Eckhart Tolle

Morning devotional

• A Course in Miracles — I typically spend every morning in an hour of meditation and devotion, and this year I am reading through the entirety of A Course in Miracles.

Currently reading

• Wild Seed — Octavia Butler

• The Creative Act: A Way of Being — Rick Rubin

• The Four Agreements — Don Miguel Ruiz

Books I often recommend to clients

• Awareness — Anthony De Mello

• The Untethered Soul — Michael Singer

• Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change — Pema Chödrön

• Loving What Is — Byron Katie

• Autobiography of a Yogi — Paramahansa Yogananda