Today on Supernormalized, we welcome Tina Kat Courtney, an 18-year veteran of plant medicines and a traditionally trained Ayahuascera and Huachumera. Kat carries deep indigenous lineages, blending her shamanic wisdom with over two decades of experience guiding people safely through sacred medicines and ceremonies. As the co-founder and CEO of Plant Medicine People and author of “Plant Medicine Mystery School Volume 1,” she invites us to meet plants as sentient allies with healing superpowers .
Kat’s work extends to supporting seekers with reverence, integration coaching, and her unique role as a certified death doula and afterlife coach . She offers profound insights on ceremony, plant consciousness, spiritual safety, and embracing transformation with compassion. A core aspect of her guidance involves helping people craft intentions based on solutions rather than problems. For example, instead of focusing on “I don’t want to be scared,” she encourages intentions like “teach me how not to be afraid” or “how can I feel more empowered” . This positive framing helps maximize the experience, as what one carries into a journey often gets magnified .
Preparation for a plant medicine journey is crucial. Kat provides simple tools to deal with intensity, such as using a smile when things get challenging . She emphasizes that participants must come with a genuine desire to heal and do the work, not just for “fun times on drugs.” She personally interviews everyone to ensure they are willing to process deep traumas, which is vital for the safety of the entire group .
Learning this sacred work, Kat explains, happens organically. She allows the medicines to bring people to her, often through retreats, rather than seeking apprentices through traditional means like resumes. This organic approach builds the deep trust necessary for sharing alter space .
Integration is another vital component of the healing journey. Kat stresses the importance of self-care and checking in with oneself daily. Asking “How am I doing today, kiddo?” helps individuals understand their current state, what has shifted after an experience, and what they wish to change over time . Dream analysis and subconscious work are directly related to plant medicine, as the plants access our subconscious. Kat advises paying attention to dreams as a rich source of information for continuing the journey .
Ethical practice is fundamental to Kat’s approach. She highlights the importance of reciprocity, urging groups providing plant medicine services to demonstrate their contribution to charities, plant trees, and support Indigenous people. Talk is cheap; evidence of contribution to this infinite loop of reciprocity is essential . Kat also stresses that while perfection safety is impossible, genuine interest in hearing feedback when safety hasn’t been perfectly created is paramount for learning and growth .
To connect with Kat’s work, visit Plantmedicinepeople.com or find her on Instagram @plantmedicinepeople, where she shares daily content. Her book, “Plant Medicine Mystery School Volume 1,” is available on Amazon
Chapters
0:00 Welcome Kat Courtney
6:09 Allowing Truth
12:50 Preparing for Plant Journeys
20:15 Healing Intent
31:38 Integration Through Self-Care
34:50 Dream Analysis
42:34 Connecting with Kat Courtney
Transcript
CeeJay (00:00)
Today on Supernormalized, I welcome Tina Kat Courtney, an 18-year veteran of plant medicines and traditionally trained Ayahuascera and Huachumera. Kat carries deep indigenous lineages and blends her shamanic wisdom with over two decades of experience guiding people safely through sacred medicines and ceremonies. As the co-founder and CEO of
Plant medicine people and the author of Plant Medicine Mystery School Volume 1. She invites us to meet plants as sentient allies with healing superpowers. Today you’ll hear how Kat supports seekers of with reverence, integration coaching, and her unique role as a certified death dueler. Listen in for granted insights on ceremony, plant consciousness, spiritual safety, and embracing transformation with compassion. Visit afterlife.coach and
Plantmedicinepeople.com to connect with Kat’s work. Kat Courtney, Bridger of Many Worlds and Retriever of Souls, welcome to Super Normalized.
Kat Courtney (00:56)
So happy to be here. All that sounds like fun things to talk about, especially with you.
CeeJay (01:00)
Excellent. Yeah, for sure.
Well let’s let’s get into it. Now, you’ve got a f like a big foundation there in a lineage that you work from. How did your traditional training with Shipibo, Conibo, Quecha, Lamista and Chavin lineages shape your approach to plant medicine?
Kat Courtney (01:17)
Wow, that’s a big question. I think, you know, having the privilege of being a Westerner that has trained with indigenous traditions, it’s normalized, actually, the fact that magic is real. Because to these people, they’ve been in relationship with spirit, plant consciousness since most of them birth. It’s not this new concept. They’re born into a world where that’s all accepted. I wasn’t.
I was born into a world where I was considered mentally unstable to think these things existed. You know? So it was right I and still at risk of being labelled as such and yet I don’t care anymore because getting to train with traditions that embrace the magic, it just made me realize I wasn’t crazy. It’s crazy to think the magic isn’t real, actually. Yeah.
CeeJay (02:04)
Yeah,
I think so. We’re in the paradigm of magic now, according to Charles Fort. And this is the time when people take a step back from all of the societal programming and conditioning that doesn’t help us anymore. We’re all we’re all like getting the wool taken off our eyes and going, wait a minute, wait a minute. You can talk to trees in nature and that’s normal. Yeah. So
Kat Courtney (02:24)
Yeah. And actually
I would say it’s not only normal, it’s part of our birthright. Like this
CeeJay (02:30)
Yes. Yeah.
Kat Courtney (02:31)
is where we are and it’s so healing and it’s so v it’s all of the things. So yay for normalizing that.
CeeJay (02:35)
Yeah.
Exactly, exactly. What does it mean to you to hold the responsibility of these indigenous traditions today?
Kat Courtney (02:44)
Well, I mean it’s a really big deal being a western, like you know, that clearly my body doesn’t reflect an indigenous being, and so I have the responsibility of giving credit where credit is due, first of all, but also to bring it to my communities to reawaken them to this this like opportunity to have relationship with spirit.
which is why like my indigenous teacher was like, yeah, more Westerners should understand this because we need to bring it to our people, because we’re suffering. Like humanity is like obviously going through a lot. And part of the awakening from suffering is is remembering that we are connected to spirit, we are connected to nature, like we’re we’ve never been disconnected. We just got lost into thinking we were separate.
CeeJay (03:26)
Yeah, yeah. The only time I’ve ever had trouble in my life is when I forget that, you know, and get caught up in my own crazy loops, you know. What lessons from your apprenticeship still guide your work most strongly today?
Kat Courtney (03:39)
Whoa, the first thing that comes in when you ask that is that death is safe, that our experience of of being a spirit is the thing that that my teachers taught me is that we’ve got it backwards as humans, that it’s birth that’s hard, coming into the world.
That’s like the original
CeeJay (03:56)
Exactly.
Kat Courtney (03:57)
trauma. Yeah. Once I started really embracing and figuring that out, everything else became so much more fun. So that’s kind of the heart as a death doula, as a facilitator of plant medicines, all of it is like, hey, don’t fall for this like idea that that, it’s so serious here and we only have our 80 years or whatever it is. It’s like, yeah, I I take life very seriously, but I also know death is safe. So that’s
CeeJay (04:21)
Yes.
Kat Courtney (04:22)
probably the most important thing that I got to remember.
CeeJay (04:25)
Mm, yeah, yeah. Once you’ve been through to the other side multiple times, it just becomes like, well, I I know that’s gonna happen. That’s total totally okay. And, you know, if you look at any of the NDA v NDE videos or anything on YouTube and and get a whole raft of those under your belt, you can actually realise pretty quickly that it’s not the end, you know, and in fact it’s just the beginning of something bigger.
Kat Courtney (04:49)
Every ending b creates a beginning in our lives in terms of an ended relationship facilitates a new opportunity for relationships. So why why do we think it’s not the same for our lives? It’s just fear. That’s all it is. Yeah.
CeeJay (05:01)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And then, you know, I I I try to help people to understand that when somebody cross crossed over, it doesn’t mean they’re gone. They’re they’ve just changed like a way of you know, their frequency and the way they’re resonating. And sometimes you can tune into them and you know, it’s nice to make your own little home altar to them to honor them and when and the life that you experience with them and they’ll come and visit and they will show up and they’ll do
little weird things around the house like, you know, flicker your lights or play a song that you like, you know, that you both shared as a as a shared loved experience. Things like this. And it’s normal for this. You know, we live in a in in a soup of spirits but that we can’t see unless we tune into it.
Kat Courtney (05:47)
Yeah, it reminds me of a teaching I had early on of, you know, sometimes when a loved one has crossed over, we will have an experience or a thought of like, that’s that’s what my dad would say.
And my teacher was like, that is your dad. That
CeeJay (06:01)
Yeah.
Kat Courtney (06:01)
is the frequency of your dad. It’s not just a coincidence of daddy would say that. It’s like that’s literally him conveying that message. And if we just allow
CeeJay (06:08)
Exactly.
Kat Courtney (06:09)
that to be true, everything
CeeJay (06:11)
Yes.
Kat Courtney (06:11)
becomes so much more magical of realizing it’s not just in our head. These things are real, but we have to hold them to be real. But once that allowance happens, man, life gets better. Just so much richer.
CeeJay (06:22)
It does. It does. We
actually live a spiritual life, but blind to it most of the time. But these things open us again to that greater connection. Now you describe plants as sentient and playful beings in your book. How do you personally experience their consciousness during ceremonies?
Kat Courtney (06:41)
Well the c
Consciousness of the plants during ceremonies to me is so obvious when you actually bring them into your bodies. I’ve even had the biggest skeptics of like plants don’t have consciousness, and then they come out of an ayahuasca journey and they’re like, my god, she was talking to me. Like, yeah, you know? Again, it’s it’s the the plants in particular are really good at breaking down the barriers that we have in terms of like this isn’t real and and they they just that especially the entheogens, the psychedelic plants, they are s much more powerful than our egos.
Thank goodness.
And so my job as a facilitator, I really feel like, you know, it’s my job to embody the energy of the plants I’m working with and to let it be their show. If I don’t drink and consume the medicine, then it’s the cat show. And the cat show is interesting, but the ayahuasca show is far more interesting. Which was why in my training we take the medicine that we are serving to others so that we can be in relationships, so we can allow our bodies to be vessels for that medicine to come through, to sing, to work the energies, and that it’s coming from that connection.
with the plant, not just my own limited mind.
CeeJay (07:46)
Mm, yeah, exactly. Got to get out of the ways ’cause the plants know better. Now, can you
Kat Courtney (07:49)
Exactly.
CeeJay (07:49)
share how the merging of plant and human consciousness creates healing?
Kat Courtney (07:54)
Well, it’s back to what we just named around coming home to the memory that we are nature too. So we’re from this same amazing source of endless creativity that nature is. And so when we reconnect with plants, it’s like I don’t think the plants heal us. They remind us how to heal ourselves. That we have this capacity, which in my definition, healing is just coming back to wholeness. It’s not necessarily curing the fact that I have headaches or whatever it might be. It’s like it’s coming back to
Like, I’m supposed to have these processes. Nothing’s wrong coming back into wholeness. So plants, because they’re in unity consciousness, they don’t forget that. We do, because we experience separateness in duality. So that’s why I think plants are so wildly effective at helping us wake up to these things because they don’t deal with egos. They don’t deal with this experience of separateness. So when we merge with them again, we can remember what is true for us too. We’re just doing the hard work of
being of making things that are unconscious conscious. That’s why they help us as humans are doing hard work, but they don’t forget that death is safe and that everything is interconnected so they can help us remember too.
CeeJay (09:06)
Mm. What practices help people cultivate respect and reverence for plants beyond seeing them as tools?
Kat Courtney (09:12)
The practices that I think really
Actually, our most effective CJ are the most simple ones. Yeah, you can go sit with ayahuasca and ceremony. You can go have a big experience with a master plant dieta, something like that. But even just a simple practice of saying, I’m gonna put my feet in the ground for five minutes every day. Just get out and ground and connect. Or I’m going to have a cup of tea with intention to talk to the plant, to connect with the plant, just do simple things. Basically anything where we’re
treating those beings as sentient, as conscious, where we’re curious of like, does my cup of rose tea have anything to teach me?
Yeah, if you ask, if you open up. And in shamanism, the core of everything I learned is about intention, is about what I bring to it. The curiosity, the openness, the the willingness to connect, the awe, you know, the spaciousness of knowing I don’t know everything. And in that curiosity, with that intention, when I work with any aspect of nature, amazing things can be reflected. But it it
CeeJay (10:20)
Mm.
Kat Courtney (10:21)
I think the most powerful practices are the most simple ones in that regard, and they’re always available.
To us. We don’t have to wait
CeeJay (10:27)
Mm.
Kat Courtney (10:28)
for a ceremony. Like, even if we don’t have a backyard, talk to your houseplant. There’s always an opportunity.
CeeJay (10:32)
Yeah. I
look I’m at the point now when I mow the lawn I actually apologize to the grass and all the plants that are in the grass for what I have to do. So so you know, I’ve got to ask for forgiveness because it’s just something I have to do because of Western
If we didn’t have to do that, I wouldn’t do it, I can tell you. what are the most important elements for creating safe and sacred ceremony spaces?
Kat Courtney (10:54)
safety, we could talk for days about safety. But I mean, some of the things that come up that I think are really essential is first of all, we can’t support anybody in any experience of their shadow that we haven’t experienced ourselves in our own way. That’s like saying, Hey, I’m gonna be a tour guide for you in Vietnam, but I haven’t been there, but trust me, I’ll figure it out. It’s like
No, you want to have a commitment to your own depths of shadow, own humanity, you know, in order to create safety for other people to do the same thing. And that’s like lived experience. It’s not something that I can convey through words of what that’s like, right? So we develop safety by learning to guide ourselves through crisis, you know, through to navigate our own relationship with shadow. And I think we also develop safety in these spaces with transparency and
and and integrity. For example, like I don’t have everything figured out. Doesn’t matter how many years that I do this work, I still have my humanness and shadow. And like the guru syndrome that happens a lot in these spaces of you know, the facilitator knows everything and has the answers, I think that’s really dangerous. Because we’re giving our power away to someone who is just as human as we are. And to allow for that, like the fact that everyone’s got a shadow. And so as a facilitator, I can’t guarantee safety for everyone.
But I can guarantee that my intention is that. And that if you bring it to me that I haven’t created safety for you, I want to hear it. Tell me what happened. Let me hear what I can’t see myself. And that that in itself is safe. It’s not perfection. I can’t be perfect at creating safety, but I can be genuinely interested in hearing when I haven’t done it perfectly and learn from that. And it’s safe to just have somebody be honest in that way.
CeeJay (12:43)
Hmm. What do you do to help participants prepare mentally and spiritually before a plant medicine journey?
Kat Courtney (12:50)
preparation. Well
First of all, depending on which plant they’re working with, to give them tools to deal with the intensity. Should it become intense? It may or may not be. But I have lots of of simple tools to deal with the intensity. One of my biggest superpowers is the smile. If things get crazy and out of control, grin, smile, instead of crouching down and, you know, like saying, God, I can’t wait for this to be over. Like we have so many ways to help ourselves through experiences with these medicines, but I give a lot of tools
And preparation to people around that. But I think the heart of preparation in in in regards to beyond doing the homework around what you’re about to do is intentions, is back to intentions. And what I help people do is to craft intentions based on solutions instead of problems. So let’s say,
CeeJay (13:39)
Exactly.
Kat Courtney (13:40)
yeah, I deal with a lot of fear is not to come in going, I don’t want to be scared, I don’t want to deal with fear, don’t take me to the scary place, and instead go, teach me how not to be afraid.
How can I feel more empowered? You know, focusing on what we’re moving towards rather than what it is that we don’t want to duplicate, because you know how the mind is, say don’t think of a pink elephant, that’s what we do. So crafting intentions that feel really vulnerable, really meaningful, but are based on solutions instead of problems. That’s where I spend a lot of time is helping people maximize these experiences in the preparation.
CeeJay (14:13)
Mm. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve found that if you whatever you carry in gets magnified. So it’s good to actually work towards the positive.
Kat Courtney (14:20)
Exactly.
CeeJay (14:21)
What
are some common challenges people face after ceremonies and how do you support their integration?
Kat Courtney (14:26)
That’s a tough question because every conceivable challenge is available after ceremony. I mean it’s it’s I maybe one of the biggest challenges is accepting that, you know, you probably aren’t just gonna feel amazing, that healing is complicated. And I a lot of us, especially in the beginning of our journey in healing, we just want something to make it all go away. The pain, the suffering, and that doesn’t exist. So instead, what the medicines often do is give us homework, give us
Experiences where we know that states of consciousness like true genuine joy, they exist, but it’s not like they put us there in a permanent way. So helping people to truly integrate the experiences they have with the medicine, which means make changes most of the time. Which means like, okay, if you’ve noticed that through an experience with a medicine, you learned more about your relationship to suffering, cool. What do you need to do in your daily life to change so that maybe you suffer less?
That there’s gotta be a proactiveness. And that’s hard for us humans. We want to take something and have it just kind of make us feel better and move on with our lives. But typically the aftermath, the integration involves very strategic, very personal commitments to changing how we’re interacting with our loved ones, how we’re interacting with ourselves. And so that’s the main thing in integration is helping people figure out what those things are that the experience brought them to and to help them stay accountable.
CeeJay (15:53)
Let’s talk about plant medicine people and community. What inspired you to co found Plant Medicine People and what vision drives the company?
Kat Courtney (16:01)
I love that. Nobody ever asked me that. And that’s actually a very profound question for me because previous to founding plant medicine people, I left the medicine space because I was really upset by the abuse of power. And I felt like I’m no different than any of my amazing teachers and that I’m human who says I’m not going to abuse my power. And it just came to me that actually the way to make sure I don’t abuse my power is to be in community, to have people that I trust that are my peers, that do this work with me, that have full
Permission to reflect when I’m coming from my ego or my shadow. So I was like, plant medicine people, that’s what I want. Not plant medicine person, plant medicine people. And it I was like, there’s no way that’s available because it felt so just kind of obvious, and it was available. Nobody had created this company yet. So I just kind of did it from that impulse is this is how I’m going to come back into this space and stay accountable and stay confident that
I’m gonna stay in my heart. I’m gonna use the power the medicine gives me to to help facilitate healing. And I do that because I have people around me that I trust that keep me in light. And and I do the same for them.
CeeJay (17:11)
That’s
beautiful. How do you identify and uplift gifted tribe members within the plant medicine community?
Kat Courtney (17:17)
To identify an uplift, yeah. Well that happens organically.
That happens. So people reach out all the time of like, can we volunteer in the space and how can I apprentice to learn this work? And really what I found is most just potent in the work that I do is to let the medicines bring me these people. And so often with you know, I do like five retreats a year. And it’s usually through those retreats I’m like, you’re interesting. You seem like you’re really committed to this path. You want to come sit next to us and start like learning. And just to sort of
It’s how I found my teacher is I sat in his space and said, Hey, I’d love to learn from you. And he eventually said yes. And it just kind of organically happens. It’s funny sometimes people send in their CVs, their resumes, and I’m like, it doesn’t work that way, but thank you. You know, that’s the old way of trying to get a job. We do it organically, because obviously really intimate work too, of sharing that alter space, of like really trusting each other in that way. So I kind of just let things materialize like through the experience of them rather than
Then go seeking people.
CeeJay (18:23)
Yeah, yeah. The space is pretty littered with people that are a bit like you said, a bit egomaniac driven. And what advice would you have for people who are seeking trustworthy guides or sacred places for their actual healing journeys?
Kat Courtney (18:38)
Yeah, that’s another big question because we really gotta be careful and discerning with who we trust because the space has grown so quickly that there’s a lot of even well-meaning people that just don’t have the maturity that I mentioned earlier to guide people through. And you gotta assume it’s very possible these plant medicines are gonna take people through one of the hardest things they’ve ever been through in processing traumas and whatnot. So you wanna do that with somebody that that has that maturity. So how do we know? Well, ask a lot of questions of the facilitator that you’re sitting with.
What is their training? What’s the hardest things they’ve been through, their rites of passage? What do they do in the event of an emergency? What is the protocol to handle something that is a medical crisis, a spiritual crisis, an emotional crisis? And what have they dealt with already? If you get some answers of, yeah, we’ve had all these things happen, and here’s our emergency protocol, and there’s a sense of confidence of people that have been around the block, well, that feels really like validating. But if there is a
dismissal of like, those things don’t happen or no sense of what to do if they they do occur. I don’t feel safe with any of that. You’re looking for people that have been around the block enough to know we gotta have this foundation of safety and and that are willing to share their stories of some of the things that they’ve been through because that’s the credibility that makes me personally feel safe.
CeeJay (19:58)
Mm. How do you deal with people who are doing the medicine for for tourism?
Kat Courtney (20:02)
Well, I try not to deal with them.
You know.
CeeJay (20:05)
But then eventually they
turn up, right? They’re like, Yeah.
Kat Courtney (20:07)
they definitely turn
up. But I interview myself everybody that comes through that wants to sit in our ayahuasca space. So I do
CeeJay (20:15)
Yes.
Kat Courtney (20:15)
make sure that people are coming because they want to heal, not because they saw it on Joe Rogan and this seems interesting. Like really because they want to do the work, right? And and that’s
CeeJay (20:24)
Yeah.
Kat Courtney (20:25)
it’s important for the safety of the whole container that everybody be willing because if it’s if they’re just looking for fun times on drugs, it’s not going to be that. And that can be really disruptive.
And you know, just knowing that that’s such a problem with the space as a whole, that a lot of it is based in tourism. that’s why I personally interview everybody is to make sure that we’re on the same page. Like, not to shame anybody for whatever is their reason for wanting to do this, but I want to work with people that are willing to get down and dirty and to process some deep traumas and to do the work, not just to get high, because that’s not what I’m doing.
CeeJay (21:01)
Exactly.
So let’s talk about your work as an afterlife coach and death dueler. How does your work as a certified death dueler connect with your plant medicine practice?
Kat Courtney (21:11)
I think it’s almost the same in terms of the the the the tools that I need, the way that I show up, which is why I became a certified death dualist. I’m like, I’m kind of doing this anyway. And I’ve always had a had a meaningful relationship with death, just a trusting relationship. The word ayahuasca means vine of the dead.
She loves to bring people to this awareness of what death is and what death isn’t. So that’s where it felt like, as I get older and people in the community get to face their mortality through knowing their terminal or losing loved ones, whatever it is. It’s really helpful to have this as a tool in my toolkit that it it and my deepest passion with it, CJ, is to help people make death a ceremony again. It can be sacred, it is sacred, but to treat it as such, very much the
same way that I treat ceremony as sacred. If anything, death is the most sacred ceremony that we get to experience, but we don’t often treat it that way, and I think that’s a big heartbreak in our culture. So that’s part of my mission is to bring back that that sacred reverence to that process.
CeeJay (22:18)
Mm.
What insights about life and death do plant medicines offer that might ease people’s fears around mortality?
Kat Courtney (22:26)
Will you get to have that experience we’re talking about of being conscious outside of just your mind or the limits of your body? To really to not have to take even the word of somebody who’s had a near-death experience that you’ve seen on YouTube, but to have your own experience of, wait a second, there is more to my consciousness than what just exists between my ears. and not to to to belittle our beautiful minds in any way, but that’s not the totality of who we are. So because plant
Medicines are experiential.
they really get our attention because that’s really I think how most of us learn in really deep and profound ways. So they can help us just like see the bigger picture and to know, you know, that things aren’t what they seem. Our bank accounts don’t mean nearly as much as we think they should. aging is actually a beautiful privilege, not something to fight and deny and fear. Like all these things our culture tries to brainwash into thinking is the truth of our existence.
Plant medicines are amazing at unraveling that and going absolutely not that you don’t have to suffer around that.
CeeJay (23:34)
Yeah,
unfortunately, a lot of the cultural norms are just ways to make money at the expense
Kat Courtney (23:38)
Exactly.
CeeJay (23:39)
of our happiness, really. So it’s it’s good to to turn that on its head and realise this is not the full truth of us.
Kat Courtney (23:46)
Well ask anybody that’s extremely wealthy if that is the key to being happy. I pour medicine for a lot of those people that are like, I’m miserable and yet I have everything. I’m like, you don’t have everything. You don’t have everything. You just think you do on paper and that’s not what is meaningful. So the plant medicines help us to get back into touch with what really is meaningful, what really does matter about our lives.
CeeJay (24:08)
Can
you describe how addressing death and transformation can deepen spiritual growth during psychedelic work?
Kat Courtney (24:14)
Yummy. Well, relationship with death across the board deepens our experience as conscious beings in regular life and in portals with plant medicines. Because that is the number one primal fear down deep is the unknown of death. But if we explore what we feel is true about death with and without plant medicines, even just
I’m looking out my window at my garden. My garden is showing me the truth about death all the time. All the time. You know? Nature is so in flow with birth and death, constantly just showing us these examples. I saw a dead bird in my yard yesterday. It was like, you know, circle of life. If we if we just pay attention to all these beautiful cues, what I think starts to become apparent is that while something is dying, something is also being born.
And that’s the question I always ask my Dath Dula clients is okay, I I really honor the just pain of the body shutting down. But what’s being born? What do you feel? And my the clients I have normally love this question because their loved ones aren’t going to ask that. And the hospital staff isn’t going to ask that. But that’s the best question of all of like, well, yeah, okay, my body’s shutting down, but my spirit feels stronger. I am connecting with my loved ones that died years ago. Like
There’s usually some amazing stuff to explore. We don’t have to wait until we know we’re terminal for us to go, all right, what is being born when I go through death? And I think exploring that makes life so much richer too. Then we can enjoy the ride here because we’re not in this primal fear of what’s coming. If anything, we can welcome it, welcome it all. I mean, that’s what the plants teach me, is like all of it is a privilege to be conscious.
CeeJay (26:07)
Mm. Yeah, treating life as an adventure. For sure.
Kat Courtney (26:11)
The biggest adventure of all, yeah. Yes. Yeah.
CeeJay (26:16)
So
what motivated you to write Plant Medicine Mystery School volume?
Kat Courtney (26:20)
My love of the plants and that book is really about celebrating the antheogens as conscious beings. Because I saw a lot of literature, I think it came out about five years ago, and at that point there was a lot of interesting books coming out about the the science and the you know, the neurochemistry that happens when we take, you know, Ibegaine, ayahuasca, all of it. But there weren’t a lot of especially from a white
Westerner books about celebrating the consciousness.
the personalities, the sentience of these plants. And that’s how I know them as like so colorful and and playful and just like they’re my friends and I’m so lucky. And I am not the likely person to become the plant whisperer. I couldn’t keep a houseplant alive before I drank ayahuasca the first time. I wasn’t out in my garden talking to my plants. This wasn’t this is a shock to me still. How did this happen? But I’m so grateful for it. And so I feel like if I can tap into having these
beautiful relationships with these beings. It’s available for anyone, because I wasn’t raised that way. I didn’t see that coming. So that book is really all about a celebration of the fact that I discovered these these amazing beings are my friends and they can be yours too.
CeeJay (27:38)
Wonderful. How do you balance scientific information with spiritual tour storytelling in your writing?
Kat Courtney (27:45)
I love the balance of scientific information and spiritual storytelling. I I I mean, I maybe it’s because I’m a Gemini and I identify with like duality in that way. But I think it is so cool that we live in an age where science can validate what spiritual beings have always known.
through this sort of tangible storytelling of look under a microscope and actually we can see how ayahuasca helps to facilitate the healing of trauma as an example. So I love being able to cite
The research and I have a dear mentor, Dr. Deborah Mash, who’s like the foremost authority on Ibogaine, who understands medicines in a scientific way better than anyone I’ve ever met. And I love learning. Like she told me the other day that there are more neurons in our brain than there are stars in the galaxy. What?
You know, I mean I goosebumps every time I think about that of whoa, you know. So things like that woven into the spiritual insights that the plants give me, that makes it feel as though all of us can find our space in believing in the magic.
because there’s plenty of evidence that science is now presenting that this isn’t crazy, that they can they can actually show us. And not that I need that validation, but it’s wonderful when it comes in and it is especially
CeeJay (29:07)
Mm.
Kat Courtney (29:07)
helpful for people who are, you know, skeptics, which helps
CeeJay (29:10)
Yeah, I was yeah, I was gonna say that.
It’s a good bridge. Good bridge for the people that are normal still. So
Kat Courtney (29:15)
Yeah, a lot of people need that. I respect that. And I I don’t need it, but I love it. I love that it’s available more and more. It’s c one of the cool things about the movement of the plant medicine space is that more studies are being done and they’re coming through going, wow, you know, it it cracks me up when you see the headline of ayahuasca helps with trauma. I’m like, well, yes, we’ve been saying that literally for thousands of years, but thank you for, you know, jumping on the bandwagon.
CeeJay (29:38)
Yeah.
Kat Courtney (29:38)
At the same time, it’s neat to see the tangible explanation for these things. I welcome it.
CeeJay (29:44)
What key messages do you hope readers take away from your book?
Kat Courtney (29:47)
Well the the availability of this relationship with nature and I want people to feel in awe of the natural world that we’re part of again, to not look at a tree as this inanimate object, but a conscious, intelligent being.
That we can communicate with, connect with, learn from, heal with, even be friends with. Like just really to get people to open up more to the natural world. Because I feel like it’s a wound of our Western world that we’re disconnected from nature. I feel like that’s a deep pain point. All these people that live in cities and they very rarely even put their feet, bare feet on the earth. I think that causes illness and pain over time. It’s not our natural way of being. So it’s not to say you can’t be healthy.
And have a wonderful life in the city, but prioritize that connection with the natural world. And again, you can do it with a house plant, like it’s it’s available to all of us. So that’s kind of my mission in general, is reconnecting humans and plants and putting those relationships back in a conscious way because it’s just it’s so ridiculously rewarding.
CeeJay (30:55)
Hmm. Let’s talk about practical tools in daily life. How can someone integrate the lessons from plant medicine journeys into everyday life without losing connection to that expanded state?
Kat Courtney (31:06)
Great question. That lies in, I think, a commitment to a daily practice that I call a spiritual practice, but you can even just be showing up for yourselves every day. And mine involves in the morning, at the bare minimum, a very simple but very important question. How you doing today, kiddo? Like really.
What’s going on? How crazy is it that we don’t ask ourselves that? And then you know, I go get a sandwich and somebody puts too much mayonnaise on it and I lose my mind of like, wah and right. And then there but there’s
CeeJay (31:38)
Yeah.
Kat Courtney (31:38)
obviously a lot of rage and emotion that was waiting to be felt and processed and I wasn’t paying attention. So to integrate means to me to show up first and foremost and be like, okay, how am I feeling? What’s different after this experience? What’s what’s the same? What
What do I want to shift and change over time? And and it takes being curious about our current state and what the experience with the plants brought us in order for the roadmap to sort of materialize. But I don’t know how to help anybody integrate if they’re not showing up for themselves and checking in and prioritizing some level of self-care. Because without that effort, nothing’s gonna change. And that’s the heart of integration. We gotta show up for ourselves.
CeeJay (32:24)
Exactly. What growing practices do you recommend to people after intense psychedelic experiences?
Kat Courtney (32:30)
Well, you said the magic word that we’ve got to ground ourselves again. Yeah. because that can be such a a cosmic experience. I I have the expression that sometimes I’m still I still have sp space dust in my mouth. I’m like, I need to come back in. So anything that creates that tangible reconnection with the physical body. For me, it’s a warm bath after a big retreat. I need a warm salt bath.
to just like and some breathing exercises to just come back home to my body. Also, of course, anything to do with the earth, going for a walk, laying under a tree, just letting ourselves ground in that way. But it’s it’s somatic practices. It’s not about making meaning. It’s not about dissecting what did it all you know symbolize. We have to come home and get grounded in. And I would also say it’s a a a prioritization around our nervous systems, slowing things down.
those experiences with the plants can be really intense and overwhelm. So then we also have to like slow it down, not make decisions from that place of urgency if we don’t have to, and just find ways to kind of like slow down the energies and then we can figure out what we’re integrating and what we want to change, but not when we’re still, you know, like out in the galaxy somewhere. Yeah.
CeeJay (33:49)
Mm,
exactly. Yeah. One of the things I’ve learned is to yeah, just take your time. It’s like you you get all these ideas about change, but you don’t have to make them all immediately. Just take your time about it because that’s all part of the integration too. Yeah.
Kat Courtney (34:02)
It
is, it is. And ayahuasca has an expression she said to me once around trauma or sorry, urgency being a trauma response. That most of us when we’re acting from
CeeJay (34:10)
interesting. Yeah.
Kat Courtney (34:11)
urgency, that’s trauma. Unless you’re standing in traffic or you’re in like an actual life threatening situation, urgency isn’t needed. And that urgency itself is a reflection of the trauma and the only way to combat that is to slow down.
Slow down. And that can be the hardest thing for the nervous system that’s used to being sped up. But it is the most important thing. Is whoa slow down.
CeeJay (34:34)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
no, we’re all forced into this idea of productivity as a life path. Like
keep on going. Yeah, go
Kat Courtney (34:41)
We’re addicted to it. Yeah.
CeeJay (34:42)
fast. Go fast as possible. Okay. So how do dream analysis and subconscious work fit into your coaching and healing approach?
Kat Courtney (34:50)
Dream analysis, subconscious work, is directly related to plant medicine work because the plant medicines access our subconscious.
So when people ask me, what can I do to continue this like journey I’ve had with the plants of like, pay attention to your dreams. Because that is the rich like place where this information is available. And for people that are like, I can’t remember my dreams, it’s like, all right, well, then start making a mission to create a relationship with that space. You know, have a mantra at night is my will and intention to remember my dreams. Make sure you’re not doing the things that inhibit that, like eating right before going to bed, or like, there’s all kinds of things we can do to support creating more.
of a conscious relationship with what’s happening in the dream space. But that is the continuation of of what the plants unearth anyway. So might as well have a committed relationship. And I also caution people to use things like Chat GPT and whatnot to decipher what it is that their dream world, the symbolism means because it’s a generalization and sometimes it’s accurate, but it it really we kind of got to do the work of defining it ourselves. More based
CeeJay (35:52)
Exactly.
Kat Courtney (35:53)
on how we feel in those experiences and less on what,
CeeJay (35:55)
Mm.
Kat Courtney (35:56)
you know,
Google says it means, but it it but it is work to decipher the language of the subconscious, but it’s it’s unbelievably rewarding. I think that’s the heart of self-discovery, because that’s most of what we are are programmed by is what lives in the subconscious. So dream work just goes hand in hand with plant medicine work.
CeeJay (36:15)
Yeah, dream journaling is is absolutely key. And then you get to learn your own alphabet of the meanings.
Kat Courtney (36:22)
Exactly. That’s a beautiful way to put it. Yes, if you pay attention, document, and start learning that language, your personal language of the dream space, which by the way, then makes deciphering what happens with plant medicine so much easier because you’ve been speaking the language of your own subconscious for some time, wanting to understand that.
CeeJay (36:41)
Exactly. What are your thoughts on the growing corporate interest in psychedelics and its impact on indigenous rights and plant medicine culture?
Kat Courtney (36:50)
You are asking questions we could spend all day talking about. So that one is is is is complicated because it’s kind of it speaks to the heart of the colonization of the plant medicine space, which many people engage in without even realizing. Because the corporate world embodies, of course, capitalism in all its glory and shadow. And that world tends to use things as products rather than sacraments.
to look at things as as transactional instead of like sacred deep healing work. And so those are, you know, challenging spaces when I’ve been brought in to pour for Silicon Valley people, you know, because they’re they’re just they’re they often can’t help but to take the world that they live in and bring it into an ayahuasca space and it’s doesn’t fit, right? And yet they don’t know better.
And sometimes it’s sitting with plant medicines that makes them realize, my gosh, like I am not treating my life in a sacred way. Everything’s about money, money, money and identity. but they also can be very difficult in holding space for when that bubble kind of pops. When they recognize maybe they’ve been placing meaning, colonizing things without knowing it, you know, taking credit for indigenous wisdoms, all of these things. but
So on the one hand, it’s a complicated space to work in. On the other hand, these are the people that have the most access to resources. These are the people when they do wake up can make a tremendous impact in treating things sacraments differently, in in being more generous with sharing wealth, you know, all of the things that can create more balance in our world. So it’s a double edged sword that question.
’cause some of part of me recoils around being in the old capitalism model and the other part knows that if I don’t go there and work with these people, nothing’s gonna change in the greater systems that we’re all dealing with.
CeeJay (38:52)
How can we care for both the plants and indigenous communities in this shifting landscape?
Kat Courtney (38:58)
Yay. That’s a perfect question to ask on the heels of talking about basically the colonizing model. well, I’m gonna go back to first and foremost, we have to prioritize ourselves. We have to truly care for ourselves. Because if we’re not coming from a place of prioritizing what is most important, our own bodies, our own energy spaces, we’re not really credible to then try to take care of the planet. We are the planet.
And if we’re not in alignment, if we’re not well, if we’re mentally overwhelmed, etc., that doesn’t help her at all, nor does it help indigenous communities. So when we start to build a foundation of feeling better in ourselves, then I think that’s a very personal thing in terms of how we can give back. But you know, in the tradition that I studied, the word sacrament actually embodies not only the thing that we consume, but the thing that we do to give back. It’s baked into it. There’s a word named Aini.
in Quechua that means sacred reciprocity. So it’s this knowledge that, yeah, you’re gonna go have these experiences and ask for deep healing and the secrets of the universe and all of these things, you better intend to give back. Because that’s the infinite flow of the universe. You receive and then you give. So
You asked a bit ago of integration. How do I help people prioritize that? I also make sure that they are prioritizing the commitments to giving back. So that all of this beautiful give and take can continue to be like in reciprocity. And so if you sat in a Shepeebo tradition, give back to the Shipebo. There’s lots of different ways to do that. or if you’re just madly in love with eboga, make sure you’re helping to replant iboga. Eboga in particular is near extinction. Just like
making sure you do something to give back a little bit of what you receive to the people and the plants that are responsible for the fact that we get to have this movement at all. It’s just so
CeeJay (40:52)
Mm
Kat Courtney (40:53)
important that we not just talk about it, we actually engage in reciprocity.
CeeJay (40:57)
Yeah. What actions can listeners take to support ethical use and protection of sacred plant medicines today?
Kat Courtney (41:04)
In that list of questions we were talking about a little bit ago of how to be discerning, also ask what the people you sit with do for reciprocity. Like find out if they are also prioritizing replanting, prioritizing taking care of the tribes. If we don’t take care of the indigenous people as Westerners, they’re going to be left out of this movement. That’s part of what colonization does. It just claims it all for itself.
And so we, the ones with the privilege, have to then prioritize making sure that they are not left out.
So that’s like the heart of reciprocity is to use our privilege to share it with those that don’t necessarily have it. So when if you really prioritize that, make sure the circles that you’re sitting with can give you tangible evidence of the fact that they are doing that. I don’t know very many CJ that are. Everybody’s talking about it right now because it’s the PC thing to do. But show me, show me the evidence that you are contributing to charities, that you are planting plants, that you are supporting the Indigenous people. Because otherwise talk is cheap.
And so I think that’s really important that when we pay a group to provide this service, we’re making sure that they are a part of that infinite loop of reciprocity.
CeeJay (42:17)
Mm-hmm. So Kat, is there any questions that may have been brewing inside you that I didn’t ask?
Kat Courtney (42:24)
CJ, you asked some really big, deep, yummy questions. no, nothing else comes up that we didn’t at least scratch the surface on. Yeah.
CeeJay (42:34)
Nice. How can people find you then and learn more about your services?
Kat Courtney (42:39)
Plantmedicinepeople.com is my website and then on Instagram is my my main social media platform. We’re plant medicine people there too. I do content every day on that platform, so that’s the best place to engage.
CeeJay (42:52)
Excellent. And how can people find your book as well?
Kat Courtney (42:54)
The book is on Amazon. Yeah, the book is on Amazon. Plant medicine mystery school. Yeah.
CeeJay (43:00)
Excellent. So I’ll provide links to all those down below. And thank you so much for your time and your sharing of your wisdom and understanding and obviously ethical methods towards connecting people to the plants again.
Kat Courtney (43:12)
Thank you for having me.
CeeJay (43:19)
What a great talk with Kat. the the deep ethics that she expounds in her understanding and her wisdom of her experience, lived experience of being an Awashgaro and Watch a matter. it really came through there with you know, it she
Really brings it back to the understanding that we do need to reconnect to the plants and in doing so erase the conditioning, which actually stops us from being more integrated and more expansive individuals. If you’ve enjoyed today’s show, reach out to Kat and say thank you. That’d be really appreciated. And if you’re on YouTube, remember to like and subscribe. And if you’re on a podcast app, say a nice comment.
Nice too. And if you’re on YouTube, say something nice down below too. Thank you so much for listening and also watching. And till next episode, you want to enjoy these ones.
