Geral Blanchard, LPC, is a psychotherapist who is university trained in psychology and anthropology. Formerly of Wyoming and currently residing in Iowa, Geral travels the world in search of ancient secrets that can augment the art and science of healing. From Western neuroscience to Amazonian shamanism, he has developed an understanding of how to combine old and new healing strategies to optimize recovery, whether from psychological or physical maladies.
MDMA and Healing Animals
Geral T. Blanchard • April 23, 2023
Animals can be powerful guardians and healers. They may show this in mystical forms and visions, or their presence may be as guileless as a puppy anchoring a patient’s heart while sitting at the end of the bed during an MDMA treatment.
After an intensive treatment, readjusting to the world might be aided again and again by the steady, reliable, and affectionate presence of an animal friend. Patients have shared photos and stories of their feline companions with me. I can’t help but wonder if critters are every bit as beneficial as psychotherapists.
Being friendly with wolves I was drawn to Wisdom of Wolves by Jim and Jamie Dutcher of Idaho who lived intimately with four-generations of gray wolves. They concluded that some of the best life instructions for humans arose from their time with these much maligned animals. From watching their four-legged teachers relating to each other, Dutchers drew many lessons about relational living:
- Having a family is important
- Trust must be earned
- Always lead with kindness
- One [is] for all
- Never stop playing
- Mentor the young, respect the elders
- Stay curious
- Find your compassion
- Cherish one another
From Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I have also been informed by Susan Cernak McElroy who wrote Heart in the Wild: A Journey of Self-Discovery with Animals of the Wilderness and Animals, and Teachers, & Healers. Susan talks about dreaming and other ways to enlarge perspectives. She quoted a psychiatrist, Carl Hammerschlag, who said, “Whenever you see something important, you can see is from another perspective if you step out of the ordinary and look again.” But her words are also important, especially when considering the ruptured social relationships many MDMA patients have endured and the bigger homecoming that awaits them. Susan wrote: “The Aborigines admonish us to step softly, because just under the earth are the faces of our unborn children, waiting to sprout from the living body of the infinite. To hold Earth as a living, sentient, whole mind-body is a vision that can usher us into the realms of relationship and up out of detachment into homecoming.”
Susan also notes the importance of rituals for many reasons, but especially how they can take us to an altered state, a bigger way of seeing. And in an MDMA ceremony infused with guiding rituals, I concur with her that a sacred and extended time is created, a time when we address important questions and await extraordinary possibilities.
After healing from a serious illness, with the help of rituals and animal guides, Susan discovered a safe and mysterious ground beneath her; she now sees the world “through softer, more trusting eyes.”
Soul, in Gaelic, means “the house of my belonging.” When we connect with our animal relatives in Nature, we become double souled and are at home. Living in the high country of Wyoming, Susan concludes, “You cannot live here and not feel the presence of Grizzly, Wolf, Deer, and Buffalo as strongly as you would feel the press of human flesh in a city mall. It is not that there are so many animals left here. It is just that their soul in this place is very, very strong.” She goes on, “My animal companions [including Owl, Dog, Cat, Elk, Chicken, etc.] remind me daily of the joy in simple things, and to give thanks to the universe for the unending bounty in my life.”
Ted Andrews, author of Animal-Speak, has written, “Every animal is a gateway to the phenomenal world of the human spirit. What most fail to realize is that what they think of animals reflects the way they think of themselves.” Said another way, there may be an optimism residing within us that can work to strengthen relationships. Often animals mirror ourselves back to us, they lift our spirit to its highest expression and exalted faith.
Tristan Gooley, writing in The Nature Instinct, speaks to our cranial and heart brains. He said that when we receive the message, “Something’s not right here,” this is the emotional vocabulary of our primitive limbic system. But I contend the wiser heartbrain asks, ‘What unites us, as people and as animals?’”
Sometimes the East Window rattlesnake is a harbinger of danger, but also of transformation. Susan Chernak McElroy again, without mentioning empathogen medicinal healing from trauma, concluded, “Rattlesnake venom, although poisonous and deadly, is also used a potent medicine. Rattlesnakes teach us how to turn something poisonous into something good.” Ever had a snake leave its skin at your door? It may hold a message from a relative about things we can safely leave behind.
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“Simply deciding that other animals can’t have any emotions that humans feel is a cheap way to get a monopoly on all the world’s feelings and motivations. People who’ve systematically watched or known animals realize the absurdity of this.”
- Carl Safina in
Beyond Words, What Animals Think and Feel
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Other Topics
Basics of MDMA
Rituals and Ceremony
Brain and MDMA
Trauma
Heart
Energy Movement
Quantum Physics
Native Cosmologies
Nature
Spirituality/Enlightenment
Kogi Tribe
Books written by Geral T. Blanchard
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