Laura Dawn, M.Sc, makes it her mission to weave science with ancient wisdom. As the host of The Psychedelic Leadership Podcast, she examines the intersections between psychedelics and plant medicines with neuroscience, creativity, business and entrepreneurship, and much more. Through her signature Mastermind Programs and Plant Medicine Retreats, Dawn teaches thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and creative professionals to explore psychedelics in mindful ways so they can be used as the powerful visionary tools they are. Utilizing psychedelics for inner transformation will help unlock emotional resiliency and unleash one’s creative potential.
Laura Dawn And Grow Medicine: Supporting Indigenous And Plant Medicine Cultures Through The Psychedelic Community
Dawn is also the founder of Grow Medicine, a project of the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund. Grow Medicine provides easily accessible pathways for the psychedelic and medicine communities to make donations to Indigenous-led organizations, which in turn aim to strengthen Indigenous communities by preserving keystone plant medicines and traditional knowledge they rely on for their healing and cultural survival.
The benefits of Grow Medicine’s donation-based platform are emblematic of what Dawn sees as the practice of “Right Relationship.” This means a relationship in which the psychedelic community is empowered to make choices that respect and aid in honoring the very ecologies and cultures that make the plant medicine experience possible. Additionally, Grow Medicine seeks to educate psychonauts and the psychedelic-curious through a variety of initiatives. Grow Medicine works to raise awareness of biodiversity and conservation efforts, the ecological impact of the public’s choices around plant medicine consumption, and best practices. Ultimately, the idea is to inspire the community to shift from an extractive, reductionistic mentality to a more whole-systems approach to plant medicine conservation that understands the symbiotic relationship between plants, land, culture and communities.
All content shared through Grow Medicine is approved by the IMC Education Committee, an advisory council consisting of Indigenous representatives from each of the keystone medicines and allies. The all-female advisory board includes women from Dine (Navajo), Yaqui, Menominee and Oneida, Andean and other cultures, based in locations around the world. In partnership with the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund, Grow Medicine looks to build a new paradigm between Indigenous and broader psychedelic communities, and to advance the realization and recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights while amplifying their voices.
Laura Dawn's Psychedelic-Inspired, Women-Powered Weedsday Playlist
For a different take on Weedsday, Laura Dawn decided to share a psychedelic-inspired playlist that facilitates all the processes she holds dear - empowering listeners to begin their journey of inner transformation.
“I chose this playlist because each of these songs resonate at the frequency of inspiration,” Dawn says. “As we face these times of great change, we have a responsibility to come together and use our voices to sing our prayers for collective healing. I also chose all female artists because right now we are going through a collective recalibration where we need more women to step forward to lead through this time of change and bring more feminine qualities of leadership to the forefront so we can collectively find more balance and harmony in our lives. I’m grateful to all the musicians who have inspired me to remember why I came here and fuel my soul's mission with strength and resilience. May we all come together to find our voices, and stand in our truth and have the courage to lead from the heart.”
Rising Appalachia - "Resilient"
I listened to this song on repeat after Noah (my ex husband) and I went through the volcanic eruption and were displaced from our land and home on the Big Island of Hawaii for many months. This song reminds me to never forget the resilience of the human spirit and that each of us comes from a long line of ancestors that embodied this resilience. After experiencing the trauma of the eruption, there were so many moments where I felt like I was drowning in the depths of grief. This song, along with a powerful prayer, was like a pinhole of light at the end of a very dark tunnel. I’ll always be grateful for this song.
Click here to play on Spotify!
Ksenia Luki - "Dreams"
I went through a phase where I was obsessed with this song, listening to it every single morning during my morning microdosing flows. I would listen to this song with noise-canceling headphones and I would dance and sing the prayers of my visions and dreams. I’m currently still in the process of anchoring some of the visions that came out of that time, including Grow Medicine. We all need to remind ourselves that our prayers are powerful and to be clear about what we are praying for.
Click here to play on Spotify!
Aea Luz - "Human Kind"
This song has played a pivotal role in my healing in quite a few ceremonies. This song is all about learning to forgive ourselves. I think we all have a lot to learn about the power of self-forgiveness. So much of our collective healing starts by planting a seed of forgiveness in our own hearts and minds. Self-forgiveness is a way of stepping into right relationship first and foremost with our Selves, and from here, this is how we step towards being in right relationship with all of our relations. It takes a lot of courage to forgive ourselves for all the ways we’ve blundered, flailed and face planted, but this is how we pick ourselves back up again. This is how we come back into balance and make peace with who we are. This is when the healing begins.
Click here to play on Spotify!
Annie May - "I'm Onto You"
I love this song. Annie May is a very dear sister of mine and sometimes I feel like she writes her music specifically for my healing. This song is all about aligning with your Truth - with a capital T. It’s all about having the courage to make a prayer for your life and take a stand for who you are and what you believe in. There’s a truth that lives within each of us, a truth that resonates within the temple of our hearts. If we slow down enough to listen, we can hear that truth speaking to us loud and clear. Sacred plant medicines lend a hand in this process. They are inviting us to close our eyes, turn our attention inwards and listen to the truth guiding our path forward. We don’t have to have all the answers or have it all figured out, but we can trust the process and trust that the next step we take will be illuminated before our feet. If you’re unclear about your truth, a good starting point is to ask yourself: what do I value? And what do I truly care about in this life?
Click here to play on Spotify!
Adrian Freeman - "Astral Dawn"
This song is an incredibly powerful prayer and it’s one of those songs that really grows on you. I also listen to this one on repeat, with noise-canceling headphones, and I sing this song out loud while I’m moving during my microdosing morning flows. I sing it as a prayer for my life - for all our lives. It’s all about offering your life up to Spirit to be of service, and there’s nothing more powerful than that. The lyrics are asking Spirit to make me a channel for peace and make me a channel for truth and for love. I feel it so deeply on a cellular level that it just puts me into this ecstatic state where I can really tap into flow.
Click here to play on Spotify!
For more about Laura Dawn, visit lauradawn.co or growmedicine.com.
What are your favorite Weedsday tracks? Tell us about them - reach out at @honeysucklemagazine on Instagram and @HoneysuckleMag on Twitter!
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Laura Dawn
Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund
Zoe Wilder
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Featured image: Laura Dawn, founder of Grow Medicine; courtesy of Laura Dawn.
