I wasn’t always someone who believed in this work. I grew up in San Francisco, the son of parents who came from Spain. I trained as a social psychologist, earned an MA in social psychology and an MBA in marketing and international business, worked inside a large pharmaceutical company, and spent most of my adult life running the family bakery in San Francisco. I was a committed materialist. If science hadn’t confirmed it, I dismissed it.
By most outward measures, my life was going well: a business, two kids, every soccer game, a full family calendar. There was no depth in it, and I couldn’t have told you what was missing.
Peru
In February 2016, at 42, I went to Peru on my own and sat in my first plant medicine ceremony, in a dark room with about fifteen people, lying on a mat that wasn’t very comfortable.
The first two hours were terrifying, and not for any reason I could point to. Nothing monstrous happened. I recognized that the experience was far bigger than me and far outside my control. When I gave up trying to control it and let it be what it was, it turned into the most beautiful thing I had ever felt: a connection with something much greater than myself.
That night changed how I see nearly everything. I became more compassionate and a lot more grateful for my life, and I stopped treating spirituality as nonsense. I still read and question everything, almost academically. The difference is that I now take my own experience seriously too.
How I came to guide
I went back to Peru a few times. On the third trip, the facilitator invited me to return as a volunteer. She told me I had a way of making people feel comfortable in what can be a very uncomfortable situation.
I hadn’t thought of myself that way. It hit me in the heart. I wasn’t trying to do anything; it was just how I am. That feedback is what started me looking for training.
Training and teachers
The most important preparation I’ve done for this work is the work I’ve done on myself: years in a men’s process group, years of individual therapy, and more than a decade of my own expanded states experiences.
During COVID I trained with the School of Consciousness Medicine in a year-long program on facilitation, preparation and integration, and trauma-informed practice for expanded states.
My main teacher was Marcela Pantigozo, an indigenous medicine woman from Peru. I sat in ceremonies she led, trained with her, and worked beside her on retreats. Marcela never played a role; she was herself. Her understanding of people was so well structured that she could answer a question she’d never heard before and stay consistent with everything else she taught. She died three years ago, and no one has shaped how I work more. From my friends in Peru I also learned that life is a ceremony, rather than ceremony being something you set aside for special occasions.
For several years I’ve been an active member of the Psychedelic Guide Network, a professional community for guides who take ethical practice seriously, where I take part in an InnerEthics Wisdom Circle, a structured peer consultation group. My ethics training includes Ethics 101, 102, and 103 with Kylea Taylor, author of The Ethics of Caring, along with her InnerEthics training for Wisdom Circles.
My master’s is in social psychology: how relationships, groups, and expectations shape what people believe and do. Expanded states happen inside a relationship and a set of expectations too, so that training shows up in every session.
My work today
I’ve been guiding people for about seven years and have sat with a couple hundred people, one-on-one and on retreats. One-on-one work happens in my private office in San Rafael, with careful preparation before and integration after every journey. I also offer integration sessions for people who have had expanded states experiences elsewhere.
With my friend Yoni Havana, I co-founded the Universal Awareness Fellowship, a nonprofit that runs our retreats and the community that continues after them. I’m also a co-founder of Men of Integrity, the men’s program at the center of that work.
I think of my role as an Integrated Guardian. I set the conditions, I stay with you the whole way, and you do the work. The goal is for you to leave with your own tools, so you don’t need me.
Charmaine and charged
My partner, Charmaine, is probably my biggest teacher. What I’ve learned from her, from how she grows and how we support each other, became the heart of my book, CHARGED: Masculine, Feminine, and the Spark That Keeps Love Alive, along with years of teaching relationships at our retreats. The book is dedicated to her and comes out in 2027.
Why I do this
There’s an old story about a girl on a beach covered with stranded starfish, throwing them back into the sea one at a time. A man tells her she can’t possibly make a difference. She throws another one back and says, “It mattered to that one.”
That’s how this work feels to me. I’m not going to change the world by myself. When I watch someone go through a hard process and come out the other side, and realize the things that used to bother them don’t have to anymore, it brings a deep settling to my heart. They’re the ones who did the work.
If any of this resonates, I’d love to talk.