2024 Maria Sabína Day Reflection

A graphic with a photo of Maria Sabína, an older Mazatec woman. Text on the graphic read “The legacy of Maria Sabina must not be forgotten. Learn the truth. Get involved. Push back on dominant norms. Make an impact.”

By: Soma Phoenix, Board President of POC Psychedelic Collective

Maria Sabina's legacy means a lot to me. I've had the pleasure and honor of visiting Huatula de Jimenez, Oaxaca, Mexico, and the home where Maria held ceremonies, the places she called community, and her sacred burial site. Her story is intriguing and a constant reminder of how cultural aspects of fungi medicine usage are valuable in understanding intention and reverence's role in our ever-evolving communion with these sacred sacraments. 

The most significant aspect of her story is how it demystifies the idea of toxic spirituality, and the approach modern-day Western culture has taken in the current psychedelic Renaissance. So much of Maria's practice was a response to the trauma she experienced and the traumatic environment where she lived. Working with sacred medicine was indeed a tool for addressing illness, grief, and the fragility of the human condition. Sacred mushroom work was so far removed from the modern-day interpretations of it being a panacea and a magic pill to cure societal woes.

That application and expectation couldn't be further from reality. I am thankful for her example of what it means to be a medicine woman - to be a wounded healer, to be so familiar with pain, loss, struggle, and trauma, and to have an intimate understanding of how sacred mushrooms work on a metaphysical level. The idea of using mushrooms to achieve levels of perfectionism and to meet unrealistic standards of purity, detachment, and escapism is not what the actual essence of medicine work embodies- a facing of the ugly, the dark, and the unspoken are the natural medicine work - this is when and where healing happens, in the dark, between the cries and wails, in the silence.

The work is done privately and experienced, not broadcasted and exploited. Maria Sabina was an example of this work and how mushrooms are a tool, not a toy.