35: Shadows, Light, and Responsibility w/Mee Ok Icaro
Manage episode 491486498 series 3430954
Mee Ok shares her powerful personal story of healing from chronic illness through Ayahuasca and her deep relationships with Shipibo teachers in the Amazon. As a queer, transracial adoptee and survivor, her lens is uniquely attuned to the intersections of identity, power, and healing, and how those dynamics show up, often unconsciously, in psychedelic spaces.
Together, they unpack the uncomfortable but necessary themes of spiritual superiority, cultural appropriation, unconscious harm, and the ongoing impact of colonial mindsets—especially in Western facilitation of sacred plant medicines.
This episode is for:
- Facilitators and space-holders who are willing to reflect on how harm, even with good intentions, can still be present in healing spaces—and what humility, feedback, and reparations might look like in practice.
- Journeyers and medicine seekers who want to engage more responsibly with the traditions they benefit from, make conscious choices about who they sit with, and understand their role in the larger ecosystem of healing.
**THEMES**
- Shadows and light in sacred spaces
- Why Mee Ok believes Westerners should not be serving sacred plant medicines
- What “reparations and sacrifice” mean in a healing context
- Cultural and spiritual contamination vs. sacred exchange
- How feedback is an act of love and a pathway to integrity
- The danger of pedestal culture in spiritual work
- Indigenous sovereignty and supporting lineage-led healing
- Ways to be in right relationship with sacred traditions
This is a conversation about truth-telling, leaning into challenging topics, and healing as a relational, not personal, path. It’s about becoming the kind of people—and the kind of community—the medicine has been asking us to be all along.
**CONNECT**
Book a 1:1 session with Mee Ok: https://www.nectara.co/guides/mee-ok-icaro
Join Mee Ok's BIPOC circles on Nectara: https://www.nectara.co/membership
Explore her private offerings: https://www.HoldingCompassionate.space
Mee Ok's Substack: https://meeok.substack.com/
35 episodes