Deconstruction

Dr. Ido Cohen, a Jungian psychologist and psychedelic practitioner, joins Rachael for an insightful dialogue on trauma and emotional healing. They discuss the delicate balance of personal and collective pain and highlight the power of community in fostering vulnerability and authenticity. The conversation navigates the transformative nature of self-acceptance, emphasizing how grief and celebration coexist. Ultimately, they explore the sacred work of intimacy and reconnection in a culture often driven by disconnection.

In this episode, I sit down with Mackenzie Amara for a rich and reverent conversation about the mother wound—how it lives in our bodies, our culture, and our ancestral lines. We explore grief as a spiritual excavator, the path to existential secure attachment, and what it means to surrender to love even when loss is inevitable.Mackenzie brings the rawness of new motherhood, the insight of depth psychology, and a deep relationship to archetypal energies. Together we speak of shape-shifting in service, calling in help, and the chaos within the mother complex. This conversation is a threshold—a remembering of the mother within, and a call to grieve, to feel, and to belong again.Mackenzie Amara is a depth-oriented psychologist, writer, Jungian analyst-in-training, and doctoral student in Clinical Psychology. She’s also a 5Rhythms® teacher, a mystic, a new mother, and someone devoted to healing the psychic wounds that keep us from inhabiting our wholeness. Her work lives at the intersection of the mythic and the clinical, the sacred and the irreverent, the rational and the unknowable.This episode is for those apprenticing to the long dark. For those learning to love without grasping. And for anyone who suspects the mother within may be the one who’s been here all along.Connect with Mackenzie Amara:InstagramSubstackWebsiteLearn more: ⁠⁠Alchemy⁠⁠ &⁠⁠ Rachael ⁠

In this conversation, Radha and Rachael explore the themes of transformation, self-awareness, and the importance of personal responsibility in navigating both individual and collective challenges. They discuss the role of relationships in self-discovery, the significance of open-mindedness, and the impact of the nervous system on our ability to feel safe and present. The conversation also delves into the complexities of dissociation, trauma healing, and the necessity of metabolizing past experiences to reclaim one's life force energy. Ultimately, they emphasize the importance of self-inquiry and compassion in the journey of personal growth. In this conversation, Rachael Spyker and Radha explore the themes of sensuality, pleasure, and conscious living. They discuss the importance of community and eldership in personal and collective transformation, as well as the relationship with Mother Earth and the necessity of feeling pain to facilitate healing. The dialogue emphasizes the balance between enjoyment and awareness, the role of pleasure as activism, and the alchemical process of destruction leading to new creation.Questions for Self Inquiry:What are my distraction techniques or my dissociation techniques?When do those happen?What are my unconscious patterns?Why am I doing this pattern?How am I trying to hyper control or hyper manage?Talked about in the episode:Ram Dass Legacy Retreat: The Art of Living, Blue Ridge MountainsJoanna Macy’s work on Earth grief and collective transformationEmbodied Practice for nervous system regulationFind more about their work here:⁠Radha's Website⁠⁠Love Service Wisdom Podcast⁠⁠Guidance meditation ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠East Forest's Music Learn more: ⁠Alchemy⁠ &⁠ Rachael

Dr. Ido Cohen, a clinical psychologist and founder of The Integration Circle, shares his unique insights on psychological healing and transformation after losing his home in a fire. He discusses the power of relational healing and the importance of play in emotional recovery. Ido emphasizes integration as a journey of individuation, where personal growth emerges from grief and transformation. He advocates for community connection and embraces the playful elements of life, presenting a fresh perspective on resilience and self-acceptance.

A guided somatic journey into your body and into the body of the Earth.In this bonus episode from the Treehouse Project, Rachael shares a short, potent commentary on the origins of this guided meditation—created during a time of deep personal and political upheaval. Originally made to regulate her own nervous system while navigating a wave of collective reactivity, the meditation was recorded in real time from a jungle treehouse.This episode almost didn’t get released. It emerged from a charged moment inside the psychedelic therapy world, entangled with systems Rachael cares deeply about. And after returning home, a painful moment of creative misattunement nearly kept it buried.But this piece is being shared now—not because it needs to be heard, but because it no longer needs to be understood.The guided meditation begins at 10:45.Offered in devotion to the Earth, to the trees, and to the body as belonging.May it hold you as you return. On this Earth Day, may your body remember it belongs to something vast, rooted, and alive.For the best experience, I recommend listening with headphones, in a quiet, comfortable space with soft or low lighting. Let this be a moment just for you.Find the Complete Treehouse Project hereLearn More: Alchemy & Rachael

What happens when spiritual awakening meets a collapsing world?In this pivotal episode, Rachael sits down with psychedelic therapist and spiritual activist Marisa Radha Weppner for a soul-deep conversation on truth, discernment, and sacred responsibility. Together, they name what many are afraid to: the commodification of psychedelics, the seductive trap of spiritual bypass, and the crisis of conscience in wellness spaces gone silent.This is a conversation about what it really means to integrate—not just your journey, but your place in the world. Radha speaks from the frontlines of embodied activism, weaving decades of experience with grief for the Earth, anger at injustice, and love for what’s still possible.They explore:Spiritual disillusionment and the myth of psychedelic salvation.Why discernment—not transcendence—is the medicine we need.Environmental grief and the psychic cost of extractive culture. Activism as a nervous system responseHow to return to the sacred in a time of collapseThis episode is a mirror for those ready to reckon with complexity and reclaim clarity. It’s for the ones who can’t look away—and won’t.Find more about their work here:Radha's WebsiteLove Service Wisdom PodcastGuidance meditation Instagram East Forest's Music Episode Commentary: Architecture of ProgrammingLearn more: Alchemy & Rachael

In this episode of Deconstruction, I’m joined by Simon Yugler—depth psychotherapist, psychedelic guide, and author of Psychedelics and the Soul: A Mythic Guide to Psychedelic Healing, Depth Psychology, and Cultural Repair. Together, we spiral into the terrain of mythopoetics as a lens for meaning-making in times of upheaval and unknowing.We explore how story becomes a map—for navigating life, altered states, for integration, for grief. We speak of animism, the de-souled world, and what it means to come back into right relationship with the Earth—and with soul. Simon offers reflections on ontological addiction, facilitator integrity, and the cost of chasing peak experiences without myth or community.This conversation is a living invitation:to heal through story,to reweave our world with meaning,to remember that transformation—like myth—moves in spirals.Find more about Simon Here:SubstackWebsiteInstagramBookLearn More: Alchemy & Rachael

This final meditation in the Treehouse Project is a tender homecoming!Created as a sanctuary for the moments when big emotions rise—when you recognize the feeling isn’t just about now, but something from long ago. This is a guided journey into the safe forest within you, where your inner child awaits your presence. Here, you’re invited to tend gently to whatever is present with care, curiosity, and love.🌲 PreparationTo receive this meditation fully, I recommend:• Finding a quiet, private space where you won’t be interrupted• Using headphones for an immersive experience• Bringing a blanket, pillow, or comfort item• Lighting a candle or dimming the lights to create a soft atmosphere• Placing a few meaningful objects nearby—stones, totems, photos, or anything that feels comforting or grounding• Giving yourself time afterwards to journal, rest, or simply beThis is a space to slow down and listen. A moment to return to yourself.This offering is a love letter to the child within, and to the living Earth who reminds us how to root, how to be, how to belong.Thank you for being part of the Treehouse Project—a living, breathing exhibit devoted to presence and protection.To support forest conservation efforts, visit: Jaguar Rescue CentreLearn More: Alchemy & Rachael

The Fourth episode of the Treehouse Project, this guided meditation invites you into the depths of your own body, where sensations hold stories and fear is simply courage waiting to unfold.Born from a deeply attuned therapeutic relationship, this meditation was originally created for someone who had spent years building resilience, learning to meet their panic with compassion. Through accompaniment and somatic presence, they discovered the power of moving toward rather than away from the energy locked in their nervous system. With time and care, they found their own ability to hold what once felt unbearable.Now, this meditation exists as a bridge, for them and for you. A resource to accompany you as you turn toward the sensations within, knowing you are not alone.With gentle guidance, we will:• Locate the places inside holding tension or emotion• Meet them with presence instead of avoidance• Offer them care, breath, and attunement• Move with what arises, trusting your body’s wisdomThis is a space of deep listening—to your body, to your inner child, and to the wisdom that unfolds when we allow ourselves to stay.For the best experience, I recommend listening with headphones, in a quiet, comfortable space with soft or low lighting. Let this be a moment just for you.Integration and Self-CareAfter this meditation, you will find guidance on how to care for yourself after deep inner work, along with practical integration support. Drink water, journal, move, rest, or seek connection. However you choose to tend to yourself, know that you are worthy of it.*Trying to capture a deeply attuned dyadic intervention in a meditation was something I had never done before. There are things I would tweak next time, but this is the original offering for the Treehouse Project exhibition. It was meaningful to create, and I look forward to developing this skill further*In celebration of this release, donations have been made to the Irish Wildlife Trust, an offering back to the land that holds us. And in honour of the one and only Hozier, whose artistry reminds us that music, activism, and reverence for nature are deeply intertwined.Take your time. You are held.Alchemy & Rachael

This meditation was the first one I recorded for the Treehouse Project! Though I almost did not release it. I avoided listening to it. But when I finally sat down to listen, I saw something I had not expected. I saw nervousness.I saw nervousness, but I also saw courage. I was stepping into something unknown, offering something deeply personal. And that kind of expression does not come without weight.Relating to it as art softened that.This meditation is an invitation into process. Into the state we so often enter before we begin. A state of hesitation, contraction, and the choice to move through.For the best experience, I recommend listening with headphones, in a quiet, comfortable space with soft or low lighting. Let this be a moment just for you.This episode includes: • Commentary on my initial resistance, perfectionism, and the unexpected layers of nervousness I encountered in the recording process. I share how this meditation became a mirror for my own growth and how I learned to soften control and surrender to the process of art. • Body Scan Meditation (begins at 9:06), raw, untouched. A practice of slowing down, meeting yourself where you are, and arriving fully in and through the noise of life.The Treehouse Project is not about perfection. It is about presence. | A Living Exhibition of Consciousness, The Treehouse project is a series of six guided meditations designed to root people into their bodies, to restore the relationship between Self and Body, Us and Land. I recorded these meditations in a treehouse surrounded by the living, breathing Jungle. This is about activating relationship through an immersive experience of the living world moving through human consciousness. They are meant as medicine.To bring you back into your own House of Belonging.This meditation was the first one I recorded and the third to be released. It carries something essential. As always, this offering is in service to the Trees. With this release, I donated to the Jane Goodall Canada Institute.