Transcript disclaimer: This transcript was generated by computer software and may contain errors, omissions, or minor inaccuracies. Please refer to the audio recording for the most accurate version of the conversation.

[00:00:13] Joe Moore: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Psychedelics Today. Joe Moore here, joined by Mareesa Stertz. How you doing today?

[00:00:22] Mareesa Stertz: So good. So glad to be here.

[00:00:25] Joe Moore: Yeah, excited to have you back. We had you on a few times in the last year, I think, within the last twelve months, maybe even longer than that, too. And we were chatting about the Sphinx Gate project, GPS, the Global Psychedelic Society. Hero's Journey, and more. We want to kind of dive into what's happening for you across all these projects honestly, and you mentioned there's a thread. I'm excited to find out what that is And yeah, so thanks for being here.

[00:04:20] Mareesa Stertz: I have been so deeply impacted by psychedelics after a lifetime of like looking for role models and ways to better heal. And even though I discovered psychedelics at a young age, working with them without guidance had mixed results. And so it wasn't until I found community that helped me understand how to work with psychedelics more intentionally that, um, that I was able to get a lot of productive outcomes. And from this, I realized, oh, I want other people to have access to the lessons that I was learning in community from people who understand how to use psychedelics intentionally. I want other people to have access to what psychedelics teach us. And so I kind of reverse engineered what psychedelics have taught me, which is that we go through a little bit of a Hero's Journey to unpack ourselves. And so I brought that to life with an extraordinary team of humans to Burning Man to kind of create a psychedelic experience without the psychedelics.

[00:05:25] Mareesa Stertz: And yeah, that was what the Sphinx Gate itself is, is a rite of passage, immersive experience that invites people to unlock the riddles within their own mind. and feel them in your body somatically and connect to what are the sensations that happen when you're feeling the feelings of not enoughness or not belonging or whatever root, I'm too much. How can we get more intentional and more nuanced about processing it? What are those micro steps that happen to us in a psychedelic journey and how do we bring it to others? There's more to say on how that all unfolds, but it's been a pretty wild adventure getting to bring it to life and a very juicy one.

[00:06:23] Joe Moore: I don't want to go into detail yet, but let's jump to GPS and we'll kind of go into detail on Sphinx Gate in a moment. What is GPS?

[00:06:35] Mareesa Stertz: And just to even nest it, so I've been working on a bunch of projects. I'm working on Global Psychedelic Society, Sphinx Gate, and I do a lot of work with storytelling. And the thread that all of these things sit on is the fact that I have this ongoing theory that I'm always really interested in feedback. So I'd love your critical pushback if you got some. And viewers, please feel free to chime in here. But my theory is that at the root of most of the world's problems, is that especially the Global North is fairly illiterate when it comes to processing our hard experiences. And that this is sort of like a blockage and that the world doesn't actually need more solutions to problems. We just need a little more clarity, inner clarity and perhaps inner hygiene and more ways of more literacy around how to process the hard experiences, more pathways to doing so.

[00:07:32] Mareesa Stertz: And so I bring that up when you ask about the GPS, because the GPS is the Global Psychedelic Society. And we are a network of psychedelic societies. And for those not super familiar with psychedelic societies, since about 2010, they've been popping up around the world. There's close to three hundred of them. They are autonomous, decentralized. public-facing grassroots communities providing education, harm reduction and integration around psychedelics. We believe that community is the medicine and that when you are on this path in community, there's actually a lot of studies that show this, that the impact of that medicine is so much more powerful. And the integration is just a lot easier when you have others around you who understand what you're going through to help you unpack it versus you kind of going in your normal world to a clinic, learning a few things, unpacking a few things and coming back to your normal world, the impact lasts a lot less.

[00:08:39] Mareesa Stertz: It doesn't, it's not as big as it can be. So, um, yeah, the, the GPS—I've been a co-founder of that and we are really excited because we have the ten-year anniversary coming up of, uh, from when we first started bringing leaders together in 2016 till now. And, uh, there's, there's a lot of celebration. We have a big summit coming up in October with our leaders. We're going to the World Ayahuasca Forum soon with ICEERS and a lot of indigenous leaders. And, um, yeah, there's just a lot underway there. That's super fun to be involved in things

[00:09:21] Joe Moore: That's super fun—to be involved in things like the forum. And ICEERS: do you have a relationship with ICEERS that brought you there?

[00:09:32] Mareesa Stertz: The first time I made my way into the psychedelic space was like I had already gone to a few ayahuasca ceremonies before that but I was on some mailing list and Ben de Loenen of ICEERS was having a fundraising event in Topanga and somehow I got an invite and I didn't know anyone and I didn't have the money to pay for the fundraising ticket, but I was like, I want to be there. And so he was one of the first people I met in this space. I had managed to like volunteer or something and they had me. It was, yeah, it's been beautiful ever since.

[00:10:01] Joe Moore: Yeah, that's so fun. So, um, and then let's do high level on, um, Hero's Journey.

[00:10:14] Mareesa Stertz: So back to that original story of like, yeah, I just, I didn't have a lot of healthy role models when I first discovered psychedelics. And I have a religious background. I was like taught all this, oh, we're all sinners. We're all going to hell unless you accept Jesus, you know, but you need something outside of you to complete you. And I, that version of reality didn't sit well with me. And I already had like kind of lost given up on that version and said, okay, I don't believe in this anymore at a young age. And psychedelics had helped me sort of unpack and make sense of that. But I lived most of my life really wanting a framework to make sense of life. And I had a few decades of making films and doing documentaries and and telling stories in different formats and when I rediscovered psychedelics and folks using them intentionally it was like okay the world needs to know and it was through that lens that I became a way better storyteller I began to one help others tell their psychedelic stories I co-founded Lucid News and started a little series called Adventures of the Psyche where I helped other leaders tell their story and through that process I found the Hero's Journey, of course, you know, there's a little bit of a like, yeah, yeah, yeah, the Hero's Journey, we get it, we get it, we're over it, whatever.

[00:11:41] Mareesa Stertz: And I think a lot of that pushback is because of the part of it where it's like a hero needs to become, you know, be bigger than everyone else and above the community and the individual. And that's not the part that I really want to focus on. I think the underutilized aspect of it is the framework that I feel like I've been wanting for, which is what I like to call the human journey. Or another way of looking at it is actually with Carl Jung's lens of individuation. which is if you take the Hero's Journey and you strip that baby to the core and look at it through the lens of individuation, that in the known world is where we inherit the conditioning of our environment. And the parts of it where we disconnect from trusting ourselves, that is what creates our challenge.

[00:12:29] Mareesa Stertz: So if it's a story of, oh, I'm not wanted, and I was the last sibling, and I just don't feel like I belong, well then your challenge in your life is you're going to recreate that story everywhere. You're going to find it in every encounter over and over until at some point it gets so big and it runs you in the abyss, dark night of the soul, where, where, it eventually, spoiler alert, doesn't kill you, but it teaches you that you're strong enough to survive it. And then it teaches you that maybe that story in the beginning wasn't actually the real deal anyway, and that there's bigger stories outside of that. And you begin to individuate and separate and step into more agency and more sovereignty and figure out who you are outside of that. And that this is a lens that I find is a framework.

[00:13:15] Mareesa Stertz: I have yet to find somebody who's like, no, it doesn't work like that. And after teaching it in, you know, I've developed storytelling. Story is infrastructure for who we are and how we help others understand who we are and the wisdom we carry. I've been teaching that for the last few years and it's been an absolute delight. And it is this sort of meta framework that I'm very excited about bringing further into the collective field so that humanity has that to share and go, oh, when you're recreating this thing, it's not you. This is just a symptom of the conditioning you inherited. There's so much more out there. So yeah, this is like one of my deepest passions. We can get this sort of information out into the world in ways that make it fun to unpack. This circles us back to the Sphinx Gate because that's what the whole experience was built off of.

[00:14:09] Mareesa Stertz: It starts shifting our lens of doing personal work from one of, oh, I feel broken. I have to go fix myself. This is hard. You know, a lot of shame and embarrassment and fifty percent of Americans still think it's shameful to have to go to a therapist. It shifts it into something more like a game where we can say, welcome, humans. You are on a quest. You will be challenged. It will be hard, but that's okay because it is through our challenges that we grow. Do you feel brave and resourced? And it becomes like an education that we can build into everything that just is preventative in a, in a sense as well.

[00:14:50] Joe Moore: So this is fun because it aligns with some work we're doing right now around, um, metaprogramming which is kind of like Tim Leary Robert Anton Wilson kind of thing that's related to storytelling and your inner narratives and things along those lines so curious to see what will unfold there in a little bit uh launching a course and participation in partnership with some creators um next week actually on friday Anyway, let's now that we introduced the concept, let's roll back to Sphinx Gate. So I encountered Sphinx Gate first by talking to you and your partners on the project, and it was astonishing the scale at which you were trying to build this thing or you were building this thing, not trying. And what I didn't pick up on was all the interactive elements you were building with people, your team, to interact with guests and visitors to the piece.

[00:15:57] Joe Moore: And I'll say I was also deeply surprised by the inclusion of mirrors, which I was very into.

[00:16:05] Mareesa Stertz: Why? Say more. Why?

[00:16:07] Joe Moore: Typically, people have an aversion to playing with mirrors around psychedelics. That's typically speaking. Not everybody. um I happen to get a kick out of it um but there's um you know it's just fun to like walk up and have somebody kind of show me with some other friends like hey this is this is what you need to do in this one and do this with your your friend over here it was it was just you know really cleverly designed And I had a great time with it. And so, you know, congratulations and great work. I know it was almost a year ago that you were probably started getting dusty, putting it in place.

[00:16:51] Mareesa Stertz: I've never had kids, but I've had two sphinxes. And like, yeah, it was the most insane thing that I've ever gotten to do. And I just want to name like, none of it would have been possible without my co lead at the burn, which is Tania Abdul, Jason Chase, who is our extraordinary architect who also had the call on his own, we didn't know each other total strangers to bring sphinxes to Burning Man. Melanie Pincus, who actually is a person why we one of the reasons why you and I know

[00:17:23] Joe Moore: Each other. I somehow I don't think I saw her last year, even though she was deeply involved.

[00:17:32] Mareesa Stertz: Somehow with 80,000 people, you guys didn't run into each other. Gee, I wonder how that happened.

[00:17:40] Joe Moore: I think the first time I met her, I'm not 100 percent on this. Melanie can correct me later. Sorry to talk about you out of school, Melanie, but we're deep in playa somewhere on this like pangea forest thing Paradisium Forest like on a rope bridge in the middle of the desert hanging out we just like bump into each other say huh fascinating and we've done a bunch of stuff online together before that but she's always a delight I'm glad she was on your team

[00:18:09] Mareesa Stertz: Yeah. Oh, I mean, there's so many. And I just also want to name Goose Manriquez, who did the 3D modeling, which you saw really beautifully on the heads. And, you know, these things are not complete. There is more to be done here. We have we're hoping to still bring them back in 2027. Also, Evan Paul, who did the wings. Miles Seiden, who did all the graphics and just so many more extraordinary humans, artists, like visionaries, a lot of them who came in in the eleventh hour to build. It was it was just such a huge effort. I think our team was almost 100 people. And yeah, James from Entheos, Trammell, like just so many incredible humans. Yeah. And it's funny, I'm like, I'm really at this beautiful inflection point finally, where I can like rest a little bit because birth them.

[00:19:07] Mareesa Stertz: We brought them to Burning Man. I thought I was ready to talk about them. I was not ready to talk about them because it was just such a, I've never been on overdrive for so long. I think I was on overdrive for about a year and a half. And then recovering from that really took many months of finding what does it mean to stop being on overdrive and let my whole system catch up. And then also cleaning up the mess and then figuring out the next steps into um you know bringing baby sphinxes to life uh and then and then eventually now what has become like can we synthesize and bring the the core essence of what the whole experience is into something where I don't have to schlep a box truck around and uh now actually turned it back into the workshop theatrical ritual that it originally um came from which was a storytelling workshop so Yeah, it's a very nice place to no longer be in piles of things that need sorting and be like, oh, the website's ready and the workshop's ready.

[00:20:13] Mareesa Stertz: And we have the, you know, the mini sphinxes that are ready.

[00:20:17] Joe Moore: Mini sphinxes. Okay, so yeah, say more.

[00:20:26] Mareesa Stertz: You know, those big sphinxes are a pain in the butt to take anywhere. They're massive and they're not finished. We want to finish them before they go out again. And so, I mean, just to ship them anywhere, I think we just spent like five grand to bring them down to San Diego where Jason can finish them on, yeah, out in like just very close to the border. but the there was a question of like what we brought this immersive rite of passage that emulates the psychedelic experience does it work without being on playa does it work when things aren't 34 feet tall and you know can we continue to get data and test this out? Because it's become a way bigger thing than bringing art to playa. That was sort of, it was gorgeous canvas and so much love to Burning Man for entrusting us with what was the largest honor area.

[00:21:25] Mareesa Stertz: And just all the citizens of Black Rock City, there was also so many people that donated to make this possible. It was a real treat and a real honor. But from that place now, How can we continue this mission of celebrating healing and making it fun and making it more accessible? And so there were a couple of smaller sphinxes that had been floating around in our community through Goose and he had worked at a prop shop and he had them. And so we brought these two six, seven foot tall sphinxes out. And we created through the, actually, this was also through a grant from Everywhen, which is a regional burn that did their first bigger off-ply event this spring in Santa Cruz. And they gave us a grant because they were so touched. Matthew, the founder, was just like, the sphinxes are really meaningful to me.

[00:22:18] Mareesa Stertz: I would love for them to come to our first bigger regional. and so they gave us a grant and we built the mini experience stations um and and brought that out there and again it was just it was really lovely to see that even smaller versions were having a big impact and over and over again people were coming and now this time we were prepared to start shooting testimonials and start getting the stories of People were like, oh, I've been like struggling with this heavy thing and it's been stuck in my system and it comes up at festivals and parties. And going through the portals really helped me understand a deeper level of it. And I am feeling so much lighter and everything is so much better. And I'm like, yay, it works. So, yeah. We brought it now to three festivals and three, turns out bringing art again is like just a heavy lift and we're wanting to figure out, can we pack them up so we can put them in a couple of suitcases and take them on a flight and onto one of those fancy cruise ships that's going to Iceland or the Amazon with all the folks who are innovating.

[00:23:26] Mareesa Stertz: Because I'll say that like building these small things, what we're recognizing is we're creating a third space of which the likes don't exist anywhere that we can see in the world right now. And it kind of fills this job of also what churches have been doing, which is providing solace to people who are going through challenges. But instead of it simply being a place where you go and you ask for help, this is a place where you can help yourself and where you can go through these, you know, questions that invite you to look within. And, you know, I'll just paint a little more of a clear picture of how it works. We set the stage, tell people what's, you know, welcome seeker, you're on a quest. Are you feeling brave and resourced to ask yourself deep questions?

[00:24:16] Mareesa Stertz: And there's a lot of tuning in with people and making sure like, are you okay for this? Are you ready? You can walk away at any time. No worries. Like take care of yourself. And then, and then asking that question, what is the riddle of your mind? The hard thought that's keeping you stuck in life that repeats and loops at times. And those examples of I'm not enough. I don't belong are given. And you're invited to write that down on a little tag page. then take that with you out of the portal of the mind and go into the portal of the body where you're invited to connect to that hard thought what are the sensations in your body of tightening of your chest or sinking of your gut and the heaviness of your heart and just start to note what those are and let yourself feel them and let yourself maybe shake them a little and move them and start playing with what does it take to shift the feeling Next was going to the portal of the heart and inviting love in your being to bring that to the table and to bring some of your compassion and your acceptance and your patience to the fact that you have this hard thought and not need to fix it.

[00:25:23] Mareesa Stertz: Just be with it. Just give it a little bit of love and presence. And that's all. And then the last portal is destiny, which is inviting you to honor that the only constant in life is change. Thanks, Heraclitus. And to say, you know, this might just be one chapter of a longer story. And if this is a big spectrum, what's on the other side of the spectrum of my not belongingness? How do I create more belongings? And writing down, I am stepping into belonging on the other side of your tag. And then the whole experience is just saying, look, this is your wisdom. And your greatest challenges are often the gifts of what help us step into who we're meant to be. And let yourself be witnessed by these sphinxes who, you know, that's a whole thing. A piece right there, which, you know, sphinxes show up in all these different cultures throughout different points in history.

[00:26:23] Mareesa Stertz: There's not a lot that is known about them. There's not like a lot of shared threads, with the exception that they are guardians of thresholds. So, you know, things that are sort of right of passage here and keepers of riddles. And many of the sphinxes, they do invite you to look within and deeper into the nature of yourself, but not always. Sometimes they just want to devour you. There's some variations on this, but there's enough instances where they witness thresholds and keeper of riddles. And if you ask me, I can't think of any bigger riddle. than the riddle of our own unconscious material. And that if we can just start framing it like a game that we're all playing and look at it that way, it becomes a lot more fun to play with. And so anyway, our seeker has gone through these portals.

[00:27:16] Mareesa Stertz: They have captured and written down the wisdom of their lived experience. They are now being witnessed by these sphinxes and any community that is within the space. as they go through this rite of passage crossing between the Sphinxes onto the other side, where at Burning Man, they got to go inside one of the Sphinxes and encounter a series of missions. And if they were coming through when we were staffed, we had people staffing different parts of it, the Oracle would invite them to share what their mission was and what their quest was. has encapsulated so far and then give them that mission which you know if you were on that path of feeling excluded and stepping into more belonging which is the most popular theme at every party we've encountered that is like the thing that comes up the most that then um they would be given a mission card for belonging and the mission spoiler alert here is to go take yourself on a date And figure out how you can belong to yourself.

[00:28:17] Mareesa Stertz: How can you bring yourself the love and joy that, you know, you're looking for from others and that that can become, you know, just a new way to like explore that relationship. And again, the gamifying of this process and take it outside of just that container into the default world.

[00:28:37] Joe Moore: Well it's very comprehensive and I love it

[00:28:41] Mareesa Stertz: Yeah for me I'm just like oh I don't belong at this party just that's what's going on in my head like what party no that's not what I think of burning man but you know I've been at some parties where I'm like this one isn't for me yeah in the last month it's been fascinating to watch how like certain cultures will do it

[00:29:02] Joe Moore: Yeah it's it's frustrating and I mean you know like there's some parties I go to where I don't feel like I belong and I'm like well I don't want to belong whatever but there's also parties where I want to belong and like I don't know just enough of my friends are not there and I'm having an introverted time and I don't know how to get out of it um so you know I it's it's an interesting game because I I still struggle with it even though I I thought I was over it So I love the idea of this being a really long art project too. So you've got the mini Sphinxes, you've got the giant Sphinxes, um, multiple events, not just burning man. Um, and, you know, aspirations to bring it to places like, let's just say Summit at Sea, for example, like, y'all got plenty of cash, like you should definitely scoop up these sphinxes.

[00:30:03] Joe Moore: Mareesa will definitely facilitate some really interesting workshops there too. But they're not at Burning Man this year. Is that right?

[00:30:10] Mareesa Stertz: No, they're not a Burning Man. I might go to Burning Man. I'm actually I'm a little late on the game. I was uncertain. I was like, Oh, no, I want to like I wanna continue to catch my breath after everything, but now I'm feeling caught up and I'm like, oh, I would like to bring the ritual. If I can just walk people through the steps. It turns out when you put a beautiful soundtrack and this is actually in development as well to turn it into like full theater, have a few others join me in weaving this like shared container where we're toning and we're inviting the audience to tone with us. And we walk through these steps in this like artful sober ritual that emulates the whole thing um so that that's something I'm wanting to bring uh to burning man might still be a little more on the bare bones side of it but the future version of this will be going to uh I think we're going to be doing this at a beautiful church in south of market um in in the late fall is what it's looking like so there are that is also going but if there's anybody still booking stages at burning man that is the other uh ask since we're we're throwing out ideas into the ether here I would love to offer this uh on stage somewhere it's a little late though

[00:31:25] Joe Moore: It's like, you know, that happens though. I've been thinking about, do I, do I want stage time? I, you know, I probably won't want any stage time this year. Um, but it's always fun to get in front of people. Um, especially at that kind of an event. Right.

[00:31:42] Mareesa Stertz: It's fun. And like, again, just from having, I, you know, I went to burning man. My first one was in. I've been going to Burning Man. This will be like, I kind of lost track. I think I was seventeen, eighteen times now, but not until I found the psychedelic space did I find my people. And every year it was kind of a different crowd. It was different people. And I couldn't find the. people who were really helping, who were telling the stories that could help me find my way to wholeness. And for that reason, I feel like we have a responsibility to get on stage and to kind of share these North Stars so that others can find them and, you know, Not struggle the way I was struggling because it was really hard and I felt really lost for so long and I was like looking I was reading books.

[00:32:33] Mareesa Stertz: I was trying to find therapists I was trying to meditate and none of this was working because it wasn't really getting me into my body the way I needed to and You know anyway, I say that because it's like I liked it I do love to get on stage, but and it feels like it's about me, but I'm really like no no It is a little bit about me But it's also like I want to get this out so that we have more of a shared understanding of I mean, this is something that I've been really sitting on and weaving. I've been pondering. I put out a post on Instagram and Facebook recently where I was like, I'm in a lot of shared communities. And so speaking to you folks that we are in shared communities of psychedelic space and mental health and immersive art that changes the world, do we have a shared vision of the future that we're creating?

[00:33:26] Joe Moore: I'll ask you right now I'll give you a chance to answer that something clear it's clearly not worked out you know what I mean like we might have a high level thing that we align on but there's a lot of you know detail at that scale like a vision like requires a lot of details when we're we're talking about the world we're trying to create I mean sometimes people can do it in five words

[00:33:53] Mareesa Stertz: And that's what I'm, like, wanting. I mean, I do think it's something, like, self-governed, resource-sharing, skill-sharing, like, and where community is the foundation and where we're building a future where humans are taught to trust themselves. Like, this is the future that I… And I am… I've been in conversations with other leaders around and we're like, what if we could create a North Star of a handful of words like that that can begin to bring other communities, like-minded communities together to one shared circle? that we can all at least network with each other and start to orient towards a world where we're all building in service to those shared values um and you know get everyone to throw in their idea of what these shared values would be and maybe we take an AI thing and we sift them out so we can figure out what is the best articulation of whatever comes to the top like I shared my speculative ones but I'm curious what other people's are.

[00:35:01] Mareesa Stertz: And I'll share this quote, actually, that like really got me jazzed. I heard this in a grief circle recently, but it's from a Nobel Prize laureate chemist. His name is Ilya Prigogine. that when a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order. Are you familiar with this?

[00:35:33] Joe Moore: It's really famous—kind of from the Fritjof Capra, Esalen era. It's like system thinkers, like complex systems. And yeah, like very interesting person. I actually just read that quote within the last two weeks in a book.

[00:35:48] Mareesa Stertz: Also, I've been reading it to everyone I can. And I almost want to read it again to those listening just because it's a more when a complex system is far from equilibrium. small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order. And to me, when I heard that, I was just like, oh shit, wait a minute. I think I can see a path forward for humanity where I could never quite make sense of how we were going to get to a beautiful future that our hearts know is possible. It just seems so impossible. And I hear that sort of shrugging our shoulders and going, it's impossible. I'm not even going to try because it's just overwhelming and we're living in way too much of a shit show to even see a vision of how we can get through.

[00:36:38] Mareesa Stertz: And when I heard this, I was like, no, no, no, I see it. Because if I know who I am and I trust who I am and who I am is also informed by my community who is trusting themselves and in service of to a more connected, holistic, integrated, balanced, regenerative, self-governed future, then I see a future that is thriving in my own little island of coherence here and in my own community. And that if these islands of coherence are almost like magnetic poles that can sort of like help help others also co-regulate to our coherence then I see a world where my island of coherence and your island of coherence come together and more and more and others join us and we become continents of coherence where we can start to you know, steer the sea of chaos into more coherence.

[00:37:39] Mareesa Stertz: And that just got me so excited. And so I want to like help us do that. And I want to, I really believe that like at the root of the world's problems is this lack of coherence that we have internally. We don't know how to process our hard feelings. And, you know, the, I believe that some of the leaders in the world that are, you know, stoked to be trillionaires are operating from this deep wounding of not getting enough love as a child and not having enough support around them to help them understand that that's at the root of that hunger, you know, and that unprocessed trauma creates blinders. And all you can see in front of you is what's going to give you relief from your pain or what's going to help you prove your worth. And that until we start to create a more shared understanding collectively around how that's working, that we can't actually start to shift that.

[00:38:34] Mareesa Stertz: And so sometimes I joke, I'm like, I'm kind of just a janitor helping humans process their unprocessed shit. And I'm creating big ass sphinxes that are ridiculously big because this is the most important riddle that I think humankind can wrap our brains around in order to start creating a world of more balance and beauty and connection for all of us. Yeah, I think…

[00:39:00] Joe Moore: My kind of approach is similar and different. Like, obviously there's some Joseph Campbell roots here for me. I can't remember watching the movie, by the way, The NeverEnding Story. I was so young, but I need to watch it again. I'll try to put it on the agenda. Um, but this idea of, um, Realms of the Human Unconscious and The Adventure of Self-Discovery, it's a famous book by Grof and, um, who Campbell actually introduced him to his, um, wife, Christina Grof, who co-developed holotropic breathwork. So the Hero's Journey helped facilitate the holotropic breathwork, which I'm very thankful for. Um, so I try to approach this in a way that yeah communities need to be sorting things out together like there's um this idea of trusting yourself is interesting to me I like you know I'm having like a re when I heard you say it I'm having like a reaction like wait there's people that just don't trust themselves to make decisions and um yeah it's true there are I just I'm a little hermit in the mountains and I don't get exposure to a lot of folks so um yeah it's it's very interesting to me um to think about that and how do we empower them you know getting them together in community and say oh yeah your ideas are good you I mean you're

[00:40:24] Mareesa Stertz: Like, so I do find this is this is where I kind of struggle with religion because there's a lot of like there's a lot of beauty in religion. Like I am I have a deep connection to God who I rediscovered on my psychedelic journeys and God being the creative energetic force driving everything. But also there's it feels like there's some personality there that I'm. But whatever, whatever it is, whether it is a personality driven God or just simply the life force energy of everything. I am also sort of animism oriented personally. But a lot of. religions are teaching us to look outside of ourselves for this validation and approval of a system that we are, you know, like that is controlling us basically. And having been raised in that born-again, Christian really, for me, it was very, when I was born with a very like people, please.

[00:41:26] Mareesa Stertz: And I wasn't born actually. I think that happened after early, my baby brother passed away when I was three and my parents were, wanted to protect me from the grief and I think they went to the other room and they you know tended to themselves thinking oh she doesn't know what's going on you know and she's too young but what I think happened is I think I felt abandoned and I would ham it up a little extra to recreate the dynamic that was normally there between us, but they were in grief. So they couldn't quite give it to me unless I tried really hard and then they tried, you know, whatever. Anyway, so I think a people pleaser was born at that point. And so I'm this little girl who just wants to make everyone happy. And then I'm born-again, Christian learning that we're all sinners.

[00:42:09] Mareesa Stertz: We're all going to hell. And, and I'm awkward. And my parents got there, you know, they're going through their shit and life is hard. They're immigrants also, you know, they're just like, there's a lot of things that are happening. And I, I just felt like nothing I could do was right. And then I was super awkward and, And that everything was wrong all the time. And so it felt very controlling. And basically my own inner compass was completely scrambled. I didn't know who the hell I was. I was trying to fit in more than anything because I just had experienced so much friction in every juncture of my life. I went from private Christian school to public school in the fourth grade and it was super behind and kids cursed and they said my name wrong and everything was just very, very hard.

[00:42:54] Mareesa Stertz: And so anyway, I just didn't know who I was. And my biggest internal compass point was I just want to fit in and I want people to like me. And so I would do anything to get those pieces. And it took me such a long time to finally realize tend to the fragmentation of my inner world and the many ways my will was torn in a bunch of different directions trying to please and get validation and and find ease in myself and so you know I this is the reason why I feel so passionate about bringing these pieces to the table and why I spend a lot of time. I think, you know, some of my community and especially the medicine space is just like, you're so in your mind. Why are you always breaking things down and talking about it like this?

[00:43:42] Mareesa Stertz: And I'm like, for me, this was really helpful. And I think, especially in our world, there are so many of us that are just completely in our heads thinking we can think our way out of the boxes. And there was just no signposts teaching me how to feel. and to be in the body and how our body can process the hard feelings and how our bodies are actually, you know, the storing of all the hypervigilance and adrenaline and cortisol that happens from those stressful experiences, if you're not taught how to process it, that it hardens in you like a shell and numbs you and disconnects you and contributes to those blinders that I was talking about earlier. And then, you know, this is that sort of separation of where I think we just have very disembodied, numbed out, disconnected people who are, with fragmented will, easy to control and become really good consumers, and part of this wave of numb disconnection that constitutes, I think, so much of the imbalance in our world.

[00:44:50] Joe Moore: Sorry. A thing around, um, alienation being our core disease, kind of the core wound for, you know, culture at large. We're so alienated from each other and from the natural world, our place in the cosmos. And how do we, how do we figure that all out? Um, there were a lot of like experimentation, exploration, community containers that are helpful.

[00:45:16] Mareesa Stertz: Right. And so this whole trust, trusting yourself, coming back to that, where you were like, wow, okay, so it doesn't happen. But where it does happen is that community container and the permission to fail, quote unquote, fail. I think fail is a misnomer. I don't think it's a real word, but like, or a truth. Like I think failure is, or maybe I should say, no, okay. If, if, You don't yell at the kid who falls over. What a failure you are. You go, okay, good job. You're trying. Let's try it again. And similar to ourselves, let ourselves mess up. Let ourselves fail so we can learn for ourselves instead of somebody else telling us from the outside how to do it. And that piece is so important. I'll just add, like, that is what has taught me to deeply trust myself.

[00:46:04] Mareesa Stertz: And that is also what's reinforced my internal foundation of, like, I know who I am. And I am strong and I am really capable and I will make big things happen because of that inner conviction that has come from building like one, like taking apart all the pieces of the old systems that I had inherited and building brick by brick, the new, my own internal foundation that allows me to stand strong.

[00:46:32] Joe Moore: Yeah. And it takes time, folks. This is not a, you know, one-weekend workshop in Topanga and you're good. Sorry, Topanga. Malibu, sorry. Sorry, Tulum and Costa Rica. You know, and it's just like, I think this is the one, you know, this is just such an important piece. I saw some AI thing today. Oh my God. we wanna bring AI into this conversation on like, wow, I saw this AI video today about Ayahuasca Airlines and it was weird and it was both awful and it was kind of touching where it was like a bunch of people who will look sick and broken coughing uh get on the airplane and the airplane was you know the animal or the parallel to like we're getting on a psychedelic journey and you're gonna go take a trip and come back and they all come back after one ayahuasca journey and they're all healed and perfect and I'm just like no don't tell that story it took me ten years and I've I've journeyed you know we're over a hundred journeys here um and a lot of deep work to to unpack all of that and to get on the other side I wouldn't have it any other way it was gorgeous but there's no quick fix and not even like a few journeys if you were coming from that level of defrag that I was of course you know if you're if you're not feeling that broken who knows it could go a lot faster Yeah, it's cool to know that people are creating more.

[00:48:25] Joe Moore: These tools have made things easier to make. I get a little kind of grumpy sometimes. put in like ten percent more effort and it would have had a way better result people I know it was three clicks but um you know let's let's try to make the most amazing and beautiful things we can with the resources and constraints we have um you know it's um it's amazing to make art it's amazing to make stickers or gifs or whatever it is but let's you know put in slightly more than like the cheesy AI thing

[00:49:06] Mareesa Stertz: It's so interesting. I mean, it's so interesting, too, because when I first, when I rediscovered psychedelics, I was like, I don't know, I was on the path for a couple, two, three years before I started making documentaries about it, but I was still a total baby. But I had just spent so much of my life feeling lost that I was like, the world needs to know, you know, and I never pretended to be an expert in any way. But, you know, in hindsight, I'm like, oh, I kind of wish I hadn't been so loud yet because I was so new. I was still new on my path and maybe not quite as qualified as I wish I had been at that point. And so it's an interesting thing of content creators who are deeply passionate, but still so green that they don't know.

[00:49:54] Mareesa Stertz: And this is the role of community. This is why we need more community. I was looking for community. I was in rooms where I was like, if anyone would like, if I, if there's anyone who can help me and advise, you know, and, but it's just like, we are living in this, you know, scarcity economy where everyone is stretched so thin that I think we've also lost the ability for people to be mentors. And, and it's similarly the younger people aren't helping taking care of the elders. So the whole system is a little crooked in that way. Right.

[00:50:26] Joe Moore: We got some robots coming, I guess, to help, but is that really all that great?

[00:50:31] Mareesa Stertz: No, I think I just saw studies that are like they've been comparing. They're like, oh, yeah, we thought that when we had AI taking all this BS work off our plates, that it would mean that we would have more leisure time and more off time. But it turns out we just start working harder and faster and more actively, which is is not what we want. And I feel that it's a real challenge. You know, I think that these times in the world right now are actually the AI problem in a way is one of the most perfect problems that humanity has ever faced because the future that, you know, at least the CEOs of the big AI companies out there, they're painting a picture where it's inevitable that super intelligence is going to be here and that we need to have this arms race and that things, you know, they're painting some pretty bleak, and it creates a very like, not that I wanna step into polarity, but I'm like, this is kind of an enemy in a way.

[00:51:33] Mareesa Stertz: We don't want this future. And whenever before have we had something so unifying, I think that most humans don't want. And we're like, actually life on this planet is pretty awesome. And we can fight for that. Let us like more deeply human and step into our humanity as an act of rebellion against something where everything is automated. And by the way, I love AI. It has been an extraordinary tool that has helped me do things a lot better. So I'm not at all against AI, but I am against this inevitable future that is bleak and hardened. And I really believe that this is a juncture point a juncture point where we need to be not only more deeply humaning, but we also need to be paying attention to what's happening out there so that we can speak out loud and create that community peer pressure that says, no, we don't want that.

[00:52:24] Mareesa Stertz: And let's fight against that, which is, it's starting to happen. Thank God.

[00:52:29] Joe Moore: It's coming. And I think Zuckerberg even put out like, oh, my, my hopes for timing or for this is I was way off. So, you know, on one hand, that you know it's a huge vote for humanity on the other hand it's still something we got to stay on top of um don't let it get out of control like uh in the content business like magazines and whatnot thought they were going to be able to get rid of so many people and actually a lot of those businesses are getting caught in a sort of AI purgatory now where their content was so bad for so long that they actually lost a lot of um say share a voice um in the ecosystem it's really complicated so don't over invest appropriately invest folks yeah I mean and the the

[00:53:23] Mareesa Stertz: It is, it is, it is beautiful because in the face of where the AI slop is like taking over now, there is a lot more energy and focus on like, what is deeply human and how do we celebrate that? And so we're starting to, it feels like we're, we're beginning to treasure and value these in-person gatherings and, you know, more human art. And I think there is like, I think, us weighing in and helping steer the ship and believe that we're able, that our voices matter is going to help steer it in those directions. So it's just like kind of coming back to, you had mentioned earlier, not having seen the The NeverEnding Story for a long time. This is the sort of core takeaway of it is that we do matter each and every individual matters and believing you matter is a huge part of that, of making impact.

[00:54:17] Mareesa Stertz: So I just… But go watch the movie and read the book for your own sake. It is a wildly empowering book on behalf of humanity and the nature of what it means to really step into our own voices and our own power.

[00:54:34] Joe Moore: I never remember that it was a book. I think you're the person that told me it was a book.

[00:54:42] Mareesa Stertz: Yeah, it's like four times longer than the movie. And it's extraordinarily psychedelic. And also the Hero's Journey aspect of it is going to tickle you. It's really good. So yeah, highly, highly recommend it.

[00:54:58] Joe Moore: All right. On the list. Now, how do you draw a thread from that into GPS, Global Psychedelic Society? So I'm actually…

[00:55:12] Mareesa Stertz: I'll bring in one other thread to answer that question, which is that whole, at the root cause, all of our unprocessed feelings are causing so much disarray in our systems. I believe that inner hygiene is sort of an answer to that. And that if we bring on more tools of tending to our inner world, the same way we tend to our diets and our homes, we keep things clean. We take care of things. We take care of our physical body. Why aren't we bringing that same energy and focus on taking care of our inner worlds? that psychedelics for me are one of the most meaningful ways of taking care of our inner world. And so this is why I consider myself a psychedelic activist. And I think it's really, really important that this work be done in community, not only because of the reasons I've listed earlier, but because in order for it to get mainstream acceptance, We are now, we're both lucky and the two-edged sword of, you know, having big organizations and corporations coming in to the fold.

[00:56:27] Mareesa Stertz: And for this to not become something that is mitigated by a system of rules that somebody outside of us decided who might never have actually worked with psychedelics. And, you know, we know that big pharma is not necessarily always interested in the betterment of all and has some profit driven motives playing along here. You know, that like in order to counterbalance that and make sure that there's that people can access these tools from many different ways. Community is extraordinarily important. And so the GPS is a way of like, you know, I named sort of what psychedelic societies are doing. We as the GPS are helping those communities not only connect to each other, but connect to the ecosystem where there is a lot of incredible information and tools and methods and all kinds of things, but it's siloed. And it's specialized.

[00:57:20] Mareesa Stertz: And what we're able to do as a GPS is help that information get to our society leaders who are a world facing network with an extraordinarily large reach. And that if psychedelic societies were to step into their potential, like the vision is that there's one in every community and town city center that is helping people learn about psychedelics, not from somebody who's necessarily going to make money off of them. but rather from all different perspectives so that people are able to kind of come from a more well-rounded perspective. And, you know, there's just a lot of that, the value of hearing other stories that can, again, inform us on our journey so that we're making a better informed, I keep using the word journey. It's not the right word for, it gets confusing if you use it too many times, but you're navigating your own personal psychedelic path informed by your community who who understands you and the world you live in and that just feels so much more personal and also able to help you uh integrate it in the long run yeah

[00:58:37] Joe Moore: When I, I don't know if we actually talked about this. Years and years and years ago, I saw a post that there was some sort of conference happening, a conference that looked like a festival happening in Atlanta. And I think it was in around like, maybe, it was related to Reality Sandwich and Evolver at the time. I reached out as soon as I saw that. I said, I need to help build that here in Colorado. Sorry. I was in Boston area at the time. I started producing small, weird, psychedelic salon style events in a rundown anarchist loft in boston's chinatown district I think it was 33 Harrison Avenue at Encuentro 5 and then I was like hey everybody I'm really interested in this are you really interested in this come on out and nobody was doing it really um you know evolve a reality sandwich you're trying to spin this up with this kind of like spores concept if you recall that one and um that's what they were calling their kind of local groups and I was having a good time with it, teaching people how to grow mushrooms and do all this kind of stuff and psychedelic integration work.

[00:59:54] Joe Moore: Um, cause I had all that from holotropic breathwork. And, um, that was, that was kind of how I got my start. So it was to kind of meet this need. I saw that people were doing a reasonable amount of psychedelics, but there was no place to talk about them and help each other.

[01:00:14] Mareesa Stertz: Yeah, I think this idea of where we can help each other is just something that I see so many people struggling with the isolation impact. You know, sure the resources are online, you can find stuff, but it is such a different experience hearing from somebody what it even is like to be on psychedelics and the many different ways they work. Yeah, this community piece, you know, I think one thing that I didn't quite get to share with the Mini Sphinx Portal is that we created this third space. We're a little bit, we're in talks with Zendo to see how we might be able to weave in peer support. as more of a part of it. And the goal here is to bring these mini Sphinx portals into town centers and squares where you can go in, you can unpack what is the riddle of my mind and feel it in your body.

[01:01:07] Mareesa Stertz: But you have people who are trained with the Zendo protocol to validate your experience, to listen to you and to just support you as you move through it on your own. And that like, what if this was, in places where anyone who's struggling with anything can go. And where people who have moved through things and want to help support can learn how to be a good listener and learn these beautiful tools that Zendo have. Because Zendo has done everything they do in the psychedelic space, but those skills are really transferable. They support people through challenging experiences. And I just see that, you know, I think the psychedelic space, we have all these awesome tools contingent on psychedelics. And I'm like, what does it look like if we bring all these things outside of the psychedelic space and bring them to the rest of the world?

[01:01:59] Mareesa Stertz: Because I really feel like I learned about community through the psychedelic space. I really, for the first time in my life, like ten years ago, was like, oh, this is what it feels like to be really authentic and to be seen and to be understood. And this feels so good. Now that I understand that, I want to create that and bring it into the outside world in various ways. And so, yeah, excited to be doing it finally.

[01:02:22] Joe Moore: Yeah, so good. And let's talk a little bit about bringing it into your work and to kind of a more concise, tell your story workshops. Is that what you're calling it right now?

[01:02:35] Mareesa Stertz: You know, I'm literally sitting at this crossroads of like, how do I frame this next iteration of it? So how I frame it is kind of up to be debated right now. I am really liking playing with the idea of unpacking the riddles of our mind. But ultimately… at the heart of it, whatever it gets called, is this idea of story as infrastructure for the soul, for being human. What are the stories we tell ourselves? What are the ones we inherited in our childhood, in our culture, perhaps in our DNA? And which ones do we want to unsubscribe to and let go of? And which ones do we want to know rewrite and and how can we understand that the old ones are actually of service and helping us grow into something new you know there's that whole alchemy transmutation process and it is at the root of pretty much everything I'm doing and I'm just trying to figure out how to um get it out but I have a new you know so in the past it was called uh own your story or you know story work and tell your story um So the name is up for debate, but I'm looking at late fall for the next launch.

[01:03:52] Joe Moore: Great. That's awesome. So do you bring this to communities that invite you?

[01:03:59] Mareesa Stertz: I mean, the mini workshops, yeah. Actually, I'm going to be in Europe, and I'll probably take it on a little tour and go bring it to a few psychedelic societies out there. And that'll be the riddle of the mind and unpacking that as reverse engineering a psychedelic journey so we can do it sober. And that is a one-off. But the longer workshop that I'll be launching in fall will probably be like a two month workshop with smaller cohorts. And we get to work on like identifying, taking inventory of the old stories and unpacking and transmuting them into whatever they want to be to help us live our best, most amazing life.

[01:04:42] Joe Moore: Awesome that's so cool um what did we what did we not hit so far you know other than everything in detail but like what do you want to make sure people kind of walk away with I I

[01:04:58] Mareesa Stertz: Mean I we did we did a pretty good job I'd say this that um I I'm really I really want to just invite everyone to honor that they have wisdom and it comes from their hard parts of life. And that, that when we share them with each other, you know, there's a thing that a lot of people kind of come when they're giving me their devil advocate voice perspective. And they're like, well, come on, who am I? Like my stories aren't that interesting. You know, I even think that about my own stuff sometimes. And I love, you know, let me, but like, your stories are meaningful and who knows what sort of impact they'll have. But as Ram Dass says, we're all walking each other home. Like you have some piece of wisdom that is going to help someone else on their growth.

[01:05:45] Mareesa Stertz: And let us all get better at creating this shared peer support network that can kind of guide each other on our way home, on our way back to wholeness. So tell your story, kids.

[01:05:59] Joe Moore: Right. I'm, I'm fascinated always. You know, but you got to find the right parts to tell, right? It's not like, and then I had to hit the brakes again in traffic. And then again, it's like, oh, well, no, there's so much more spicy material there in your stories that you can isolate and lean on.

[01:06:23] Mareesa Stertz: Yeah. And editing is everything. Kill your darlings is one of the sayings. Get rid of that part. Get rid of that part. We don't need it or it's too long. But, you know, I mean, I guess this comes back to permission to fail. Let yourself get it wrong a few times. Make sure that the person you're sharing your story with has bought into being an audience. That's the other piece. That's not the takeaway, though. But I'm always like, hey, are you available for me to share a story? Do you have time and energy for it? Because if you don't, like, it's not good. You got to get that buy in before you launch into a story. The world has a consent problem. And storytelling is part of that. So, you know, always ask.

[01:07:08] Joe Moore: Always ask that is the one downside of being a person who could like oh they're like oh you like stories I got stories and I'm like not right now no thank you I'm not yet so where where can people find you online, Mareesa?

[01:07:26] Mareesa Stertz: TheSphinxGate.com has all the Sphinx things um Folks, please get involved. There's so much to be done. And I really think we can bring this to a lot of people. So if you're interested, let me know. GlobalPsychedelic.org for finding your local psychedelic society. Or if you're a leader who wants to get connected, please find us. Or if you're another organization who wants to disseminate the amazing things you're doing. And then Your Story Is Everything for any storytelling work. YourStoryIsEverything.com.

[01:08:03] Joe Moore: Mareesa thank you so much for joining again and um yeah hopefully we get some cool attention with all this uh burning man stuff going on including that hbo thing that could be a whole nother podcast um

[01:08:18] Mareesa Stertz: Yeah yeah let's talk about that later yeah

[01:08:21] Joe Moore: Yeah yeah totally um all right well thanks again thank you everybody for tuning in and uh this is joe moore signing off we'll see you next time everybody thank you everyone bye