The powerful frequency of words, the gift of Fiona's wisdom, and unexpected passings...with a touch of psychedelic mushroom energy and a smattering of cacao
"You know, Terra. Trust yourself."
“You know, Terra. Trust yourself.”
My friend, Fiona, gazed across the table at me.
I had asked her questions. Questions like these:
“Fiona, I am not a fan of diagnosing people as crazy. Shamans would be considered crazy just because they can talk to subtle beings. People who talk to angels would be called psychotic by modern psychiatry. Most of my spiritual teachers would probably be diagnosed as schizophrenic because they worked with energy and talked to invisible beings. But Fiona…” and I paused here, because my actual question and my desire for an answer came from a deep place in my heart and soul, “I have this person I love, and they feel unstable to me. So what do you think? How do I discern? It all seems so confusing. I don’t want to call anyone crazy.”
I didn’t stop there as I hadn’t quite gotten to my actual question yet. Sometimes it takes a lot of words to get where I am trying to go.
I often think of Hemmingway and his book, The Old Man and the Sea, filled with carefully chosen words and short sentences. My high school English teacher told us it took skill to distill thoughts into just a few words that expressed the essence of what one wants to say. Hemmingway was an artist when it came to brevity.
And that’s not quite the way words work for me.
In my case, words are more like water and I use their flow and frequencies to feel things, like a blind man groping around a room trying to find his way through touch. I let sentences flow through me and as I speak them, I notice if they resonate or not. I feel what happens as they emerge and ripple through the field of energy around me.
Words, like people, are like musical notes. If you listen and you feel the energy of them, you can learn things.
It is not about getting the words “right”. It is just as much about getting things “wrong” and noticing when you do. Then you can adjust.
A friend of mine recently asked me for advice. She was struggling in her relationship and she left me messages describing the situation.
In one of the voice texts, she gave an example to demonstrate why her partner was just not right for her. She said, “Terra, when I came home after getting my nails done, he told me, ‘the color is all wrong and you should get it taken off!’…”
Now, I am sure it is easy for you to feel how the energy of those words resonate in the invisible space of the world.
If words and people are music, my fashion designer friend would have walked in the door with her new manicure, happy and glowing. And her partner’s comment would have sounded like a dissonant chord. The whole energetic symphony changes, you see?
Now, if he was feeling his words and the energy in the room, it would be fairly easy to realize that the words he chose didn’t land well. It wouldn’t be too hard to realize that something about them, did not carry a frequency of love and care.
He may not have been intending them to.
He may have been angry.
He may have intentionally, yet subconsciously, said those words so he would feel less unhappy. Sometimes, people try to make other people feel small so they feel less alone in their misery.
Honestly, I have no idea as I wasn’t there.
But it is a good illustration of how words are powerful things.
That childhood saying: “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me,” is a two sided coin. If you don’t take what someone says personally, if you don’t resonate with the dissonant frequency of their comments and continue to hold your own tone, it is likely their words won’t affect you much. I think one needs to believe words for them to truly create a longer term issue in one’s energetic body. But harsh tones still feel harsh to me, and I find discordant music unpleasant.
Words carry energy and the clarity of the energy field in which I am in, does affect how I feel and how much I enjoy myself.
Constant attacks from other people’s “pain bodies,” as Eckhart Tolle likes to say, still challenge me. He seems to stay pretty calm in his workshops as he works with people and their so-called “pain bodies” and I am still working on my skill set.
The Bible says a few words started everything:
“God said, Let there be light: and there was light."
I threw a lot of words at my friend, Fiona, that day in the restaurant as I grasped for help.
We sat outside on the shady patio. It was a pretty restaurant my driver, Juan, had mentioned he thought I might like. Someone who studied spiritual things had started it years ago and he thought it might have the kind of organic, healthy food I enjoyed. Fiona liked that kind of food too and she was happy to come try the place.
She ordered soup and I remember she was excited to see it on the menu. I have no idea what sat on the plate in front of me. Usually that would matter. Often, I take photos of my meals as I delight in the beauty of what sits there. But that day, my conversation with her was taking all of my attention.
If I used a Hemmingway technique, I would have said:
“I don’t know what to do.”
And if she was using Hemmingway as well, she would have responded:
“Trust yourself, you know what to do.”
Eventually, that is the place we came to. But all the words and the journey to get there mattered a lot. And I learned from her through them. What I learned was conveyed by both words, and the energy they carried as she delivered them to me through compassionate waves of nonjudgemental suggestions, insights, and observations.
For me, it helps a lot to notice words and sentences and to feel them and their effect as I or others, speak.
I know when I say the so-called “wrong” thing to someone. I can feel it, just like a chord played out of key.
Sometimes, I am surprised, as things my mind tells me are going to sound harsh, are not jarring at all like I think they will be. If they are true, if they are useful, even if they upset someone…I can feel when they are not “off” after all.
Fiona knows a lot of this. Or she did.
But I sense what we know stays with us even after we pass, and in this moment, I see her in my mind’s eye, smiling at me. Fiona has an incredible smile that lights up a room.
We sat over lunch that day and I looked at her and the wisdom I knew she had, which included a big dose of compassion, as her kind eyes gazed back at me.
I paused for a moment and took a breath before I continued. She let me.
“What I want to know, Fiona, is if you think microdosing mushrooms could help someone I love…whose brain has been through a lot…of substance use…and whose thinking process feels off to me? Do you think they would make things worse or would they help?”
Now, of course, I knew there were resources at my fingertips to look up information about microdosing. I knew that research on psychedelics had been paused in the 60s and is reemerging. I knew there were things out there I could read. But I knew something more. Subjective experiences matter. Scientific research only goes so far. It does not yet go much into quantum things. At least not in the mainstream. And psychedelic mushrooms, for me, are a living, conscious energy that are more quantum and less linear than the mainstream might want them to be.
My friend Louis, who is currently getting a Masters Degree in psychedelic studies, had told me about his extensive experimentation and a “bad trip” that had led him on a journey of exploration and discovery. It wasn’t easy.
I have never had a bad trip.
I have had intentional experiences that felt like prayers.
And Fiona?
Well, Fiona had offered me support.
When I learned she not only taught yoga and made cacao with a huge amount of intention and love, but also had a similar reverence for psychedelic mushrooms, I asked her to be my back up when I planned a personal mushroom quest to facilitate one of my discussions with God.
Fiona agreed.
I never needed to call for her help.
But it felt like care to know she was there for me and good that I allowed myself to receive care, and to create a caring container for my journey.
With psychedelic mushrooms, people often talk about “set” and “setting.” You want to be in the right mindset and prepare yourself for what you are doing. You also want a conducive setting for the experience.
I knew about both those things and they mattered to me.
I only asked her to be my back up twice, as I rarely take transformational doses of psychedelic mushrooms.
“Sure, I would be happy to. Let me make sure I will not be teaching.”
Although she had clients she worked with on line, she never interacted with me like a teacher or an expert. Fiona and I were on a level playing field when it came to life. Our friendship and mutual interest in discovering things came so naturally, I didn’t even notice at the time. I didn’t see how rare it was…well, until it was gone.
I am certified as an integration coach. So, I have studied how to help people who have had spiritual and/or psychedelic experiences and want support in discerning, digesting, applying, and integrating their journey.
But I seem to have an allergy to coaching people which is probably related to a similar allergy to psychotherapy.
Don’t get me wrong.
Both can be really useful.
But it is easy, in my experience, for the person who happens to be calling themselves the coach or therapist, to be a bit distanced and often, “above” the client in certain ways that I find quite unappealing.
I have a painful memory of this. I was sitting in front of an attorney I was supposedly interviewing, to see if I wanted him to represent me. He sat in a large chair behind a large desk. I was offered a low chair which faced him from a distance.
He gazed at me without emotion or compassion as he flipped though some papers on his desk.
“So, have there been any affairs?” he asked, like a man reading from a checklist preparing for an inquisition.
“No…” I responded, as I wondered why he was asking the question in the no-fault state in which I lived, where affairs had no bearing on divorce.
Needless to say, I, and my already shaky nervous system left and found someone else. He was too much like the man I was divorcing.
Things were different with Fiona.
Even though I never asked for help on those quests with the mushrooms, she would text me the next day and ask how things went and to make sure I was feeling ok?
Her text never felt intrusive. I knew she was authentically interested in both my well being and in hearing what the mushrooms taught me.
As I scroll through our messages with one another, I realize I didn’t take any photos of our lunch meeting that day. And I see messages like these…
“Hey lovely how are you?…I’ve been caught up in my world of knees and classes. How are your insides and outsides?”
That last bit says a lot.
Most people don’t ask about insides and outsides. Most people just see manicures.
When it came to mushroom journeys, she wasn’t trying to help me “integrate” something.
She wanted to know because she cared about and respected me and believed in the reality of the subtle realms and valued what the mushrooms had to teach.
It was nice to talk to her and our friendship felt easy.
In addition to personal experience with psychedelic mushrooms, at some point, Fiona mentioned she used to work with people with substance use and mental health issues.
So, at lunch that day, she seemed like the perfect resource for the question I had been sitting with for weeks as I considered the loved one whose life journey had been so entangled over the years with my own.
I was planning a visit with them soon and I was worried about the trip. A part of me was afraid to go, yet my inner compass told me that it was a good idea.
“I don’t think microdosing would have a harmful effect, Terra. I think they would be healing. They help create new pathways in the brain you know.”
“But what about mental illness, Fiona? My ex-husband’s mother was diagnosed with some sort of mental illness and put on medications for life after something his family called a “nervous breakdown” put her in the hospital. She had five children, all born nine months apart. I know her childhood was terrible. She was one of seventeen kids and her father was an abusive alcoholic. Eventually some people came and found some of her younger siblings who were still babies alive, but under the kitchen sink. That’s when they put her and her twin sister in foster care. She was only about four years old. And she told me she didn’t like the foster parents. She was an abusive woman, Fiona, and highly medicated. But is that mental illness?” I asked. “Or is it trauma? It’s all so confusing.”
Fiona gazed at me across the table over her soup. She had been working with a knee injury and told me she had just finished a cleanse. Soup was just the thing, she said.
Words with Fiona were easy. I didn’t have to be so careful of what they might do. It was like friendship, where there is a place for things. She listened to me and she felt their frequencies.
I had no idea it would be the last time.
“I think I will leave El Salvador soon Terra. I have a nomadic spirit and I have been here a long time. I just need to heal this knee. Then I want to go to some places in Guatemala. I have an uncle in England who wants to see me. He’s older and I feel like he needs some support. That seems to be something I do,” she laughed, “support people in need. I’ll probably never settle down.”
We talked about going to Guatemala together, but I planned to go to the US and Mexico to see family, and Fiona needed time to get ready.
Her face softened when I mentioned Mexico.
“I love it there,” she reminisced. “The people are so wonderful. I think you will have a great time.”
For now, it seemed our mutual travel adventures would have to wait. It was December then. In February she texted that her knee was getting better and we touched in about our travel plans.
“It’s good thanks. I’ve still got a goal of heading to the volcano in April but it sounds like you may be on the move…”
“I would still love to meet you there,” I said. But she was right. I was soon on the move and by April, I had left Central America.
In December, over lunch, she took in my words. Maybe she sifted them in her mind down to their essence.
Hemmingway would probably have put it all like this:
I am going to visit someone I love.
They have substance use issues.
I don’t know if they are mentally ill.
I don’t know if mental illness is real.
I want to know if microdosing psychedelic mushrooms might help their brain.
I imagine Hemmingway would have taken all that and distilled it even further into this:
I am worried. I don’t know what to do. Please help me.
I think in the end, Fiona and Hemmingway had something in common. She distilled things and also felt the confusion, anguish, and love that is often part of relationships that involve substance use.
“Terra, you know,” she told me.
“You know. Trust yourself.”
She knew I didn’t need to ask for her guidance or her wisdom. She knew my discernment and inner compass were working just fine and that I could listen to my own wisdom and trust it, moment by moment. She knew addiction wasn’t about “tough love” or “a lack of willpower” or “mental illness”. She also knew what I was concerned about was hard for me to tackle.
There was a lot of compassion in her eyes when she said those words to me.
“Terra, you know. Trust yourself.”
It helped to hear it.
“Thank you Fiona.”
I knew she was struggling a bit for money and yet, felt her inner trust that things would work out. That everything would be ok.
When we finished lunch that day, I weighed how much to offer to help her as I could feel the financial struggle and also her capacity to handle things.
We went up to the register to pay.
Something on the counter caught her eye.
“I would love to get that for you,” I said. I wanted to support my friend and I wasn’t quite sure how.
“Thank you,” she smiled at me kindly, I think sensing my desire to help. “I’m fine. I don’t need that and I’ll be traveling soon.”
I followed her to the parking lot and we hugged goodbye. “You know how the traffic gets Terra. I better go before it gets any worse.”
“Ok Fiona. I hope to see you soon.”
“Of course,” she smiled. “We’ll keep in touch!”
A few months later, after visiting my parents in California, I traveled to Mexico. I trusted my compass and it’s guidance. As I faced challenges, she and her words came back to me.
“Terra, you know. Trust yourself.”
At one point, I made a comment and the words landed very badly with my companion. They had come to me to say. I don’t know that I feel they were “wrong” as they triggered something and triggers are not always bad. They can instigate change. Sometimes, the change is not what one expects.
We had been together for one day, and they threatened to leave.
I have grown and learned a lot since my divorce in 2012 and I am not afraid to be on my own, and usually not as afraid of other people’s anger, as I used to be.
I thought of my lunch with Fiona again and her wise words to me.
“Trust yourself. You know.”
I thought of how the world often views things as black and white. When it comes to addiction, some people say “tough love” is what people need. Black or white. Like a coin one flips.
I wanted to find the edge of the coin as I listened to Fiona’s words sing inside me.
I thought of them over the next few days, as I navigated things.
Soon after, while I was still there, I got a text.
“Hi Terra. Perhaps you have already heard that Fiona passed away recently.”
I hadn’t heard.
The words stunned me. And they were a gift as well.
I learned Fiona was on a tour bus late at night, headed to the pyramids we had talked of seeing together. At 1:30 am, the tired driver who had mentioned his desire to stop for some coffee, hit a rock and the bus went off the road. Another friend, Dr. Luis, told me he thought Fiona was the only one who didn’t survive the crash.
She was just a few years older than me.
I lost the physical presence of a friend who I felt I could be myself around and who saw me and my capacity through eyes of love. Such friends are rare and the true value of our connection washed over me.
It had been four months since we had met and she had gifted me with wisdom that I think, we all need.
“You know. Trust yourself.”
I don’t always keep in close touch with people. I just knew Fiona and I would meet again, somewhere. That sense of knowing comforted me.
As I read the text, tears welled in my eyes and I saw her face, smiling at me.
I knew she was not gone.
I knew death was a transition and that she was still with me.
And in that moment, I missed her terribly.
The next day, my companion headed off for sushi and I stayed in the park. They were frequently dissatisfied with what we were doing and thankfully, most of the time, I have learned to not make other people’s feelings my responsibility.
I declined going to sushi and went to tour a castle on a hill instead. Later, tired and hungry, I took an uber to a restaurant I had been wanting to try that didn’t appeal to my companion.
It was also the day Fiona’s friends in El Salvador would be honoring her with a cacao ceremony.
I had put the time and date on my calendar so I would be thinking of her then.
When I arrived, I saw that the restaurant had cacao on the menu. It was special they said. From Mexico, grown locally. The kind of cacao Fiona would have loved I think.
Cacao is said to open the heart.
The waitress brought it to me in a small mug and I noticed it was almost exactly 5pm, the time of the ceremony.
Tears came to my eyes as I saw her image so clearly. In my imagination which was real I think, she took her hand and sprinkled tiny golden sparkles that looked like glitter over the cacao in my mug. A blessing.
As I spent time with my at-times challenging companion, I saw her smiling at me. That same sparkle of kindness in her eyes.
Often, in El Salvador, I bought the cacao she prepared and sold at the local Bitcoin Farmer’s Market. I also ordered cacao from a cooperative that delivered organic produce to me.
Once, she came to visit and saw the foil wrapped cacao I had purchased from the cooperative on my shelf.
Fiona wrinkled her nose a bit without losing the sparkle in her eyes which had tightened up a bit in the corners.
“I know it is organic Terra, but they grow it right next to a pig farm. Whenever I drink it, I taste pig,” she told me, laughing. “The smell from that farm is terrible and I taste it in the cacao.”
“Pig? Really?” (The cacao was cheap and I drank copious amounts of it each morning as I was on a quest for more heart opening. I had never tasted pig in it myself, but I am not as discerning when it comes to cacao beans as Fiona.)
She gazed back at me, not about to drink any of my pig-infused cacao.
“I get the beans I use from a particular place and it is not next to a pig farm.”
She, a cacao sommelier, was clearly, much more discerning than me.
Fiona used to go to Mexico to a place called Mazunte, where she participated in lengthy meditation retreats. Sometimes, she told me, she spent days in darkness, exploring subtle, spiritual realms. It was odd to me that it was the same place my friend from Sedona, who taught a silent meditation retreat in Costa Rica I attended on New Years, had gone. There must be something magical about it there to have attracted two of my friends from such different parts of the world.
Fiona had studied yoga in India and spoke of her time there fondly. Over lunch, she said she hoped to go back sometime…maybe after she went to the pyramids in Guatemala and visited her elderly uncle who was struggling with some health issues.
She knew she was leaving. I just don’t think she knew that it would be the physical plane of the Earth.
I miss her deeply even though I know she is not truly gone.
I keep seeing her smiling face looking at me and I don’t believe it is my imagination. I believe she is talking to me, and with me, as a friend offering care and camaraderie.
“Trust yourself, Terra. You know.”
I don’t think those words apply just to me.
We all know.
And we all live in times when trusting in one’s inner wisdom is key.
In the end, I believe it is the intention and energy of our choices that matters most.
I remember singing to a spiritual teacher once from my heart. I had a mystical experience that night that I have never forgotten. Later, I learned things about the teacher that were not so positive. But I had sung with devotion and that, regardless of who I directed it towards, was what was real and what mattered.
Mushrooms taught me, that only love is real.
My mentor, Sean Stephenson, taught me that things happen for me and not to me.
And for many years now, I think: “Terra, if this was your last day, is this what you would be doing?” The answer usually is, “Yes.”
It isn’t what we do, but how we live that matters.
“It is either love or it isn’t.”
My friend has moved on. I wanted to be on that trip with her, but it wasn’t the right time for me.
A few days ago, I left Mexico with a sense of calm. It was a challenging trip and I did trust myself. I can’t quite explain what the result of it is. I don’t feel, when it comes to my loved one, that I have to decide anything. Rather, I feel my discernment has been honed. I feel more clarity after going, and more able to allow them their journey without feeling it is my responsibility.
That feels like love to me.
It feels like Fiona, pointing out my capacity, which I believe, she could only see because of her own inner discernment, depth, and beauty.
What if this was your last day? Are you doing what feels aligned for you? Can you trust yourself, and listen inwardly?
The world is full of chaotic energy. But that doesn’t mean that we have to be.
Cacao Gathering in Honor of Fiona @lifesploring
This gathering is to celebrate the life of our dear friend, teacher, and soul sister — Fiona.
Please arrive at 4:30 PM. We will begin promptly at 5:00 PM.
This Wednesday April 16th, we’ll gather in ceremony to honor Fiona — through cacao, offerings, stories, photos, and shared presence.
“The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die. It simply passes on, untouched by death, like a flame moving from one candle to the next.”
— Inspired by the Bhagavad Gita
Fiona lived the path of yoga wholeheartedly and unwaveringly.
Everything she touched was infused with love, generosity, and a deep commitment to healing. Her life was a living practice — of mantra, of service, of devotion to people and to the planet. She was a citizen of the world, a bright light, a true teacher.
She was also lovingly known by her spiritual name, Aruni Devi — “the shining one”, a name that speaks to her radiant spirit and divine feminine essence.
We are heartbroken and grateful all at once. To have known Fiona is to have known someone who believed fiercely in humanity, in the power of connection, in the wisdom of the ancients, and in something far greater than this earthly life.
This gathering is open to the public.
Please RSVP and bring your own cup for cacao.
A live video stream and visual record will be available for those joining from afar.
Come and join us in celebrating Fiona’s radiant spirit with love and intention.
Her teachings live on in all of us. May we carry her light forward, together.
#HonoringFiona
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The opinions and information presented on this blog are solely the author’s and do not constitute professional advice in any field, including psychology, metaphysics, finance, or psychedelics. The author is not a licensed therapist, counselor, financial advisor, or medical professional, and any advice or guidance provided is based on personal research and experience. Readers should consult qualified professionals in each respective field for personalized guidance.
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Any discussions of psychological or metaphysical topics are based on the author’s personal exploration and understanding, and should not be taken as a substitute for professional therapy or counseling.
Nothing spoken of is intended as financial advice and recommendations are not provided. Readers should consult qualified financial advisors before making investment or financial decisions.
Discussions of psychedelics and their potential uses are based on the author’s research and personal experience, and should not be taken as medical advice or a substitute for professional medical treatment.
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Love the picture of you and I think you nailed it about honoring your discernment rather than prematurely forcing clarity.