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Charlotte James on The Dojo Upstate

Transcript

- [aja monet] Hello listeners. I hope you all are doing well in these very challenging times. I want to personally thank you for joining me in The Sound Bath and extend the same question that I ask all of our guests to you. So click the link in the show notes to leave me a voice message and let me know, what sounds bring you a sense of calm or wellbeing? What does care mean to you and what kind of care are you exploring right now? We can't wait to hear from you. And don't forget to like or follow us and leave us a review wherever you find your podcasts.

- [Charlotte James] If we all begin to build these chains back to understanding our own ancestry, that one, there will be less desire to appropriate from other traditions because we'll be rooted in our own and bringing the beauty and the gifts of those traditions to the forefront. But it will also help in sort of peeling back these layers of oppression in understanding that the way that the world functions right now is not how it is meant to continue. It's not what will be sustainable and bring us into the future. What will be sustainable is returning back to being in greater balance with ourselves, with each other, and being greater stewards of the land that we occupy.

- [aja monet] Greetings, listeners. This is The Sound Bath, and my name is aja monet. This show is brought to you by Lush Cosmetics. I'm really looking forward to today's conversation. Today, we are speaking with Charlotte James, who works with The Ancestor Project. The Ancestor Project integrates ancestral sacred earth medicine wisdom into the modern journeyers' experience to reduce harm and expand consciousness. They facilitate online and in-person opportunities for learning that support radical self-transformation in the name of collective liberation. Charlotte has been a harm reductionist and psychedelic explorer for over 10 years. She is fascinated by communication and has a real love of language and is captivated by the power of human connection. Charlotte uses her skills as a digital strategist, coach, and space holder to build and engage a community focused on pursuing equitable liberation. Let's dive in. I am so, so, so, so very excited to be having this conversation today with none other than Charlotte James who works with The Ancestor Project. Charlotte, how are you today? How are you feeling? How's your body feeling? How are you feeling today? How's your spirit?

- [Charlotte James] I am doing wonderfully. I actually took some time before we started to have a little ritual with my husband and get settled into the space that I'm in. So yeah, I'm doing really great. How are you doing?

- [aja monet] Thanks for asking. I am good. I did a talk with someone yesterday who used the term emotional fatigue.

- [Charlotte James] Mm.

- [aja monet] And I feel that. I think that that resonates with me. I be feeling things. I'm just so sensitive. It's part of what makes I do as a writer so good, but also such a challenge as a human being in the world trying to function day to day.

- [Charlotte James] Yep, I get that.

- [aja monet] Yeah, so it is really a pleasure to be in conversation with you because part of my practice is rooted and grounded in the work that you do. I want to first give you the opportunity to introduce yourself as you identify and as you would like the world to be introduced to you. So please share with our listeners how you see the work that you do in the world and how you identify.

- [Charlotte James] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that opening. You know, before we get really into the conversation, I just wanna take a moment and thank our ancestors and our spirit guides that have brought us to this moment and ask them to guide our hearts and our tongues as we share. How do I identify? I'm a Medicine Woman. I'm really like stepping into that knowing of purpose and continuing in that path. I am a community steward. I am a visionary designer. And I am a human being in training. I'm also a sensitive being so I feel you on that. I, a few months ago, took a little bit of a step back from some of the work to just sort of recalibrate and take some time to do my own healing and come back to that journey, and am feeling really re-energized in the last few months. So I very much advocate for all the sensitive beings and all the humans taking lots of rest time as well.

- [aja monet] Yeah, I think that part of what I try to be conscientious of is, while I have a relationship to building deeper relationships to folks on the continent, is also not romanticizing rest in this way that kind of can feel just disconnected from like the lack of access to work that people have all over the world. And not just work in the terms of factory work, but meaningful, working relationships and jobs that feel fulfilling, et cetera. It's about balance, I think, right? So I'm learning to kind of hold space around the balance of rest and play and work and feeling like you're just included, a part of society, you know? Which is part of what I wanted to get into with you today. You know, I think that sacred medicine and work with sacred medicine is so crucial and so important. But before we get into the nitty gritty of that, I wanted to ask about setting intentions in ceremony, whether they be with sacred medicine or just meditation, prayer, conjuring of energies and spirits. I would like to know, how do you set intentions? For a listener who wants to even begin their journey with sacred medicine or spiritual practice and relationship to their ancestors, what ways have you offered or have you learned the power of setting intention? And what advice could you offer to someone that has never really set intention before?

- [Charlotte James] Hmm. I mean, intentions serve as a guidepost and a guiding light as you move. Especially through journey space, you can be setting intention for meditation. You can be setting intention for your day. If you're working on a project, you could set an intention for that project. So it's really a way of being more present to your desired outcome, sort of, in life, I think. I'll offer a question that we always ask people in our preparation sessions for ceremony. And the question that we ask people is, what beliefs, behaviors, or narratives are you excited to release that no longer serve you? And what beliefs, behaviors, and narratives are you excited to allow into your life? So I think that setting intention frequently is framed as something of like release, release what doesn't serve you, let go, surrender, that you hear in the ceremonial space, sort of in the western ceremonial space. But I feel like that leads people to this place of feeling like they have to void out themselves and continue this sort of emptying process. And really for us, it's about coming into greater wholeness or fullness. So not just what are you letting go of, but really what are you moving to make space for everything that you envision for your life, all of the desires that you have, that you want to welcome in. And so thinking about setting intention from this more opening standpoint instead of it being another place to judge yourself or shame yourself or shun parts of yourself. It's, "what am I really opening up to. What layers do I want to peel back to get back to my true self?"

- [aja monet] Yeah, I also think a lot about, you know, for me, I sat with many sacred medicines, and I was sitting with stuff before it was popular. And so I never thought I'd live to see the day where conversations around ayahuasca and mushrooms and all these things are common day. They're more popular than ever before. And I remember my first experience with some of these medicines and being like, "Man, if only we could get Black people to sit with these medicines." I just remember thinking like how much healing it would serve. And that was a dream. It was like not just Black people, but just oppressed folks. It was always this big, big dream that I had. And then I find out about you all. And it was so exciting and so inspiring to find the work that you're doing with The Ancestor Project because I think it's really revolutionary. And I wanted to give an opportunity to probably speak about your first experience with sacred medicine and what led you to doing this work now with our communities. Like what was your initiation into this work?

- [Charlotte James] So when the medicine first found me, I will say, 12 years ago, I also was like, "Oof, more people need this. So many more people need this." But I will say the first eight years of my path were predominantly in a celebratory setting and going to raves or being out in nature and communing with medicine in that space. I would say my true initiation into recognizing my purpose and role in community as a Medicine Woman was with Kambo. So Kambo is a sacred earth medicine from the Amazon region. It's a frog medicine and it's a non-psychedelic. So it's actually a medic medicine or a purgative. It causes you to have a really deep physical, mental, energetic, spiritual purge. And in plainer terms, it makes you vomit. And I also describe it as a path opening medicine. I think it's really powerful for clearing out some of the cobwebs that sit within us from years of built up and unrecognized trauma and allows us to really step into our path. And I say that because I met my co-creator, Dre, through Kambo. He was my facilitator, my guide. And soon after that, we started The Ancestor Project in February of 2020. And in the last two years, we've just been on an ancestral comet-like rocket ship because there is such deep need for this work in our communities. And there's like a craving for it, too. I think we see that. Many people have been interested for a long time, but unable to find a space in which they felt safe exploring themselves to that depths and communing with spirit in that way. And after my first set of three ceremonies over a 28-day lunar cycle, Dre invited me to begin assisting him in ceremonies. And I did that for 18 months or two years before ever serving the medicine myself. And now, we serve side by side, which is a really beautiful practice that I'm immensely grateful for. But yeah, we can definitely talk more about iboga. Yeah, it just got back two weeks ago from my first journey with iboga.

- [aja monet] Oh wow.

- [Charlotte James] Yeah.

- [aja monet] Iboga, for those of you who don't know, is a sacred medicine that is indigenous to a country in the continent called Gabon. And it's a root medicine. It comes from the ground. It has been quoted to be the Mount Everest of sacred medicines. I think it's one of the only that people have actually died. Right?

- [Charlotte James] Yeah.

- [aja monet] And not because of the medicine. I think it's like they didn't listen to the preparation and they were taking other medicines or something else.

- [Charlotte James] And I think mainly that's, all these, it's really interesting. All these medicines have their ancestral Indigenous spiritual context, and then a lot of them are being put into the medical model now and used in a clinical way. And so ibogaine is what most people have heard of. And when people go on retreats, it's very frequently ibogaine retreats because that extracted alkaloid has been really, really successful in addiction interruption, specifically opioid addiction interruption. It is absolutely a medicine to be very careful with. I think the majority of cases in which fatality occurred was because people did not disclose what medications they were taking, what non-prescription drugs they were taking. And that the interaction of the ibogaine or the iboga with those substances led to fatality.

- [aja monet] Yeah, I think that one of the things I wanted to touch on was the connection to bringing us back to Indigenous practices and also respecting those spaces, those medicines and people's access to them who are from there and their ability to regulate and control how their medicine is being used, you know? I think everyone should know about these medicines. However, I don't know that everyone is necessarily prepared to do the work that it takes to be initiated.

- [Charlotte James] No.

- [aja monet] Right? I don't know about you, but we had to prepare a week before. We had to do these baths. And you're sitting there with the iboga plants, like the leaves that come from the plants around them, and you're supposed to be like, basically speaking to this plant, preparing yourself for this journey. And by the end of the bath, the shaman can read the bath water and reveal a lot about what they see, you know? But it was a whole thing. It was like there's certain music that's played. That music, whoo girl! That music is intense.

- [Charlotte James] Yo, that music.

- [aja monet] And I remember, one of the people in my ceremony was like freaking out about the music. They were like, "Turn it off. Turn it off." And my shaman was like, "What? This is the work." And then you find out that the music which was so interesting, talk about the power of music as sacred.

- [Charlotte James] The break-your-head music?

- [aja monet] Yeah.

- [Charlotte James] The Chisler.

- [aja monet] Oh my God, the music. It's whole purpose is so that the shaman can read you, can read how the medicine is working with you. So that the people who have an aversion to it or people who have like a very weird reaction to it, like that helps them know what is spiritually being released or what is spiritually working on. How was that experience for you? Have you sat in other ceremonies where music and culture were a big part of the healing practice in sitting with the sacred medicine?

- [Charlotte James] Yeah. You know I think, so what's really interesting for me was that in the retreat, so my husband and I went together, and then there were two other people who had sat with the medicine before, one who had gone to Gabon, one who was going right after this retreat. And the facilitators made some comment about like, "Well, we know all of you are on your paths, and sometimes we have people, they're so annoyed by the music, but no one here is gonna ask us to turn the music off" because there was this understanding that the music is part of the technology.

- [aja monet] Mm-hmm.

- [Charlotte James] And I feel like that kept me in line because there was a point where I wanted to throw my pillow across the room and be like, "Turn it off. For the love of God, gimme signs." Because I think in many other traditions, music is important. And also, silence is important. If you think about a lot of Amazonian traditions, for example, Shipibo tradition, which is in present day Peru, is a lot of the roots of ayahuasca practice in that region. And so the Shipibo tradition works with ikaros as the songs of the ceremony and part of the technology, it's like the medicine. The ayahuasca teaches you these songs to support and guide people in their journey. And similarly, to clean people to be able to see where they need support, how the medicine is working with them. And in that tradition, quiet is also a big part of it, like having time for silent contemplation. And so I remember at some point in the iboga ceremony, there would be these gaps in the music sometimes because they played the same seven songs in a loop for six hours. But there would be these gaps in the same place. For whatever reason, my mind would be like, "Ah, okay, this is the time that it's not gonna start playing again." And then it'd be like, aning-ning-ning-ning. Like the crazy harp and the magongo and all of that going. So I grew an appreciation for it. Recently, I've been listening back to it outside of ceremony and I actually like it. It has sort of a dream-like quality to it. And music is such a huge part of, the music, the frequencies really helps you to work with the medicine, helps the medicine to work with you. So sound is, I mean, you all know. The Sound Bath, you know? The frequencies, it's so important for supporting that healing process.

- [aja monet] You're listening to The Sound Bath, brought to you by Lush Cosmetics. And my name is aja monet. I'm currently in conversation with Charlotte James, a harm reductionist, psychedelic explorer, and co-founder of The Ancestor Project. Next up, I wanna talk to her about the role that sacred medicine plays in confronting our biases and prejudices. But first ... What I think people don't understand truly when you're doing plant medicine, it is a cleansing of the frequencies and the vibrations. What I learned through iboga is that if you don't cleanse yourself, the medicine needs to work harder to cleanse you before it can get you to ascend. So it's actually really deep because then it really did change my relationship to my diet when I went back home. I was way more conscientious of trying to be vegan or eat more plant-based foods because I understood the connection clearly between what one puts in one's body and then how that allows you to download quicker or elevate and ascend. So it's interesting to think about ourselves as beings of sound. That sounds are a big part of how we connect and that that sound and that frequency, which is really about vibration, that that vibration can be channeled and tuned based off of how you ingest plants in your relationship to plants. And not just plant medicine, but plants in general. So I wanted to ask you, what role has diet and food played in the medicine work that you do? How do you incorporate these into the sacred medicine practices that you've had?

- [Charlotte James] Mm-hmm, the preparation of mind, body, spirit, but also community and environment is so incredibly important. And before this iboga journey, there were certain dietary requirements, but then I also had to, like for two weeks, no cannabis, no rapé, no cacao, also like no social media. So there are behavioral things as well. I would say the preparation and the diet is really about consumption in general and thinking about all of the ways in which we nourish ourselves not just with food, but with everything that we consume. So whether that's social media, news, the relationships we're in, the conversations we're having, the food that we're consuming, the medicines that we're consuming, all of this is important in the preparation phase. When we welcome folks into ceremony, we have a list of suggested restrictions. Depending on the medicine you work with, those will change. But we have general ones like asking folks to really be more cognizant of salt and sugar intake, eating processed foods, consuming dairy, red meat. And then we also ask people to take a break from some of those behaviors that are not serving them. And the passive consumption that many of us engage in. For me personally, food and body has been a huge part of my journey in general. And I'm definitely more plant-based than I used to be. I do still consume meat, mainly chicken and fish. But the big shift has been more so around my relationship to judgment and food and the body than it has been around being restrictive about certain categories of foods. So I try to take that approach, which is just important for my own trauma experience around the body. And learning to be just softer and kinder with myself as I learn. And it's always about doing your best and being patient and gentle and kind with yourself while you do it. We've had people like come to ceremony and they're like really beating themselves up because they ate a cookie three days before they sat and you're like, "It's okay." It's not gonna ruin your journey.

- [aja monet] No.

- [Charlotte James] Or mean that you can't be here.

- [aja monet] No, no, no, no. But it can affect things 'cause I remember I got so hungry one of the days, I had a little nutri-grain bar and we were supposed to fast and not eat none of that stuff. And that sure did come up when the ceremony came through, I was like, "Okay." Here I am thinking, "I'm clean. I didn't eat nothing in two weeks. I'm gonna be fine. This one little bar is gonna do nothing." Then the medicine will reveal yourself to you. That's all I'll say. Physically.

- [Charlotte James] Absolutely.

- [aja monet] Mentally, spiritually. And the one thing I will say is that, yes, don't judge yourself, be compassionate with yourself, but also know that we try to overemphasize, in terms of wellness and care circles, this idea that care or wellness has to be always soft and kind and gentle and tender. And I think that some of the lessons that we need to learn will come stubbornly. Will come with resistance and challenge and actually that we must invite some of those moments of deep confrontation and conflict so that we can really heal. And this is partly going into my next question around sacred medicine and psychedelics and the role that they play in really addressing and confronting our biases and our prejudices and our issues with one another, specifically around racism, sexism, classism, all these things. How have you seen sacred medicine being a strategic agent of change in encouraging and even inviting the difficult to be expressed and the difficult conflict to be communicated and addressed?

- [Charlotte James] I definitely agree with you. I feel like there's frequently an aversion to conflict. It's like the Tik Tok-ification of mental health and what trauma is and what triggers are and to never touch them and not look at them as opposed to like how can we move through and process through cycles of trauma so that we can not move on in a bypassing way or a way of forgetting, but in a way of allowing ourselves to move into the next part of our life. And a lot of the ayahuasca traditions have this very strict dieta or diet around how you prepare yourself. And then there are some traditions that have literally no dieta. There is no restriction around foods or even behaviors. And so it was really, really interesting to think about how narrative also impacts how we show up to the medicine. And I think this loops back nicely to the conversation around intention, right? And setting intention and then also making space for what is. And maybe you needed to eat that nutri-grain bar and have the medicine tell you about yourself in that way. You know? And for other people, it may be important to set that intention and then to be gentle with themselves because for their entire lives they've been incredibly harsh with themselves, specifically around food, or have had an unhealthy relationship with restrictive eating. And so having to go back into a pattern of restrictive eating can be triggering, which is important, like it helps to bring out what is the root of that wound and that pain. But also to be able to have the space to be loving with self about that and to be able to set a new narrative around old behaviors. On this question around the medicine and collective liberation and how it intersects with social justice movements, I feel like what is really beautiful and impactful about the medicine is seeing the ways in which all of us have internalized oppression and oppress ourselves. And then how we use that to project out onto others. And this isn't to create a hierarchy of oppression or who is being more actively oppressed by contemporary systems and structures, but just to recognize that we are all participating in some way in the continuation of these patterns. And as people who come from groups that oppress, right, that have greater power. Like how they internalize it to justify how the world is and then how us folks who are members of oppressed groups internalize the negative messages about ourselves to say that keep us in a place of disempowerment. Thinking about that internalized oppression, I think is so, so important for starting at the foundational and base level and then being able to use that language to move into the interpersonal, the institutional, and the ideological forms of oppression that really rule our world. One of the things that we talk a lot about at The Ancestor Project is obviously returning to your lineage and your ancestry. And that that is something that all peoples need to do. Because if we go far enough back in history, everyone practiced animist traditions and were parts of Indigenous communities, whether that was to present day Africa to the continent, or present day Europe, or present day South America, when you start to look at global traditions, there are so many more things that connect us than that separate us. And if we all begin to build these chains back to understanding our own ancestry, that one, there will be less desire to appropriate from other traditions because we'll be rooted in our own and bringing the beauty and the gifts of those traditions to the forefront. But it will also help in sort of peeling back these layers of oppression in understanding that the way that the world functions right now is not how it is meant to continue. It's not what will be sustainable and will bring us into the future. What will be sustainable is returning back to being in greater balance with ourselves, with each other, and being greater stewards of the land that we occupy.

- [aja monet] Hmm, yeah. Thank you for that. I wanted to guess, ask a little bit about, before we close out, what would be the beginner's journey? Or how would you invite someone to begin their journey with sacred medicine in a holistic way, but in a respectful way to Indigenous communities that steward kind of these medicines? How would one go about the beginning of that journey?

- [Charlotte James] I feel like in this conversation, what I always want to start with is not rushing the process and losing discernment in the process of rushing the process. So you'll see people make really questionable choices about who to sit with or what retreats to go to because it's just like they want to get to the medicine. They've heard about other people. They've read sensationalized articles and think it's gonna be a magic pill that's gonna fix their entire lives and throw discernment out the window. And that's when people end up in unsafe situations with untrained facilitators and guides. And when I say untrained, I don't mean like they don't hold a certificate or a piece of paper, but they're not connected to lineage or elders or safe practice. So I think starting to set intention on a regular basis, starting to have a meditation practice, building a simple altar, and beginning to sit, and call in your ancestors and your spirit guides and the medicine is an incredibly important energetic piece of the puzzle. Like opening yourself up to that possibility and also being aware of the signs and symbols that are showing up on a regular basis that are guiding you on your path and guiding you to what is the right first step. I think also taking like a personal inventory, like thinking about what are these shifts that you are wanting to make, what is it that you are looking to welcome into and allow into your life? And beginning to do some curious research, like not reading every article and watching every YouTube video about other people's experience with the medicine, but just being open and curious to the spirits of the different medicines that may want to come in and be your ally in your healing process and in your healing journey. And also, it's so not a prescriptive thing. There's no way to say this is a medicine to start with or this is, but more so about that being open. And the more open and vulnerable that you are with people, you'll be surprised by how quickly the connections start to unfold that are leading you to your medicine.

- [aja monet] They usually say the medicine chooses you. You don't choose it.

- [Charlotte James] Exactly, and the medicine will always bring you what you need, but not necessarily what you want. So also get in a mindset and space where that is okay. This is a process. You said this about learning that you actually don't know anything and there are many things that you will never know, and that is okay. And so really being open to, you know you might ask the medicine a question and you want one answer and it gives you a completely different response, right? And then you have to integrate that. And so you have to be ready and willing to accept truths that may be uncomfortable or frightening or force you to look at memories that you've tucked deep, deep in a basement box in the corner of your mind and your soul. And to be open to that. And that's okay.

- [aja monet] Hmm, yeah.

- [Charlotte James] It's not all rainbows and glitter unicorns. It's a lot of, it can be a lot of deep, dark work.

- [aja monet] Yeah. I have one final question for you. I wanted to ask you about sounds, a sound that deeply resonates with you as you think about the work you do with The Ancestor Project and sacred medicine. Maybe it's not the sounds from the Bwiti tribe, but what is a sound or sounds that you love or you return to that bring you a sense of peace, calm, wholeness, and yeah, feeling grounded?

- [Charlotte James] Hmm. I mean, I was gonna say Bwiti. Just 'cause I feel like people should you know, experience that for a moment. I would say a rattle and a flute. I have a rattle that I've had since I was a child. The ones that you can find in West Africa that are like a hollowed out gourd with netted beads around the outside. And I have a two chamber Mayan drone flute that I really, really love, anything Carlos Nakai. I love that. It's like lullabies for adults. I'd say those are two. And then always drums. I mean, that'll take you on a journey by themselves. You don't need medicine.

- [aja monet] Oh yeah. Well, thank you so much. That's beautiful. Those sounds very much resonate. Thank you for your presence and your voice here with us today. And I'm so, so grateful for the work you do in the world and I hope that more people can be privy to that work and continue to support it. So thank you.

- [Charlotte James] Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been a beautiful conversation.

- [aja monet] Awesome.