Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The way we do it is really dedicated to decentralized spirituality, and we believe that every single person has their own connection and you have your own guidance, your own wisdom, and what comes through you. It's like a disco ball when we all put our perspectives together, we get these little tiny facets of truth, and then we create something quite complete.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Welcome to Supernormalize, the podcast, where we challenge the conventional break boundaries and normalize the seemingly supernatural. Join me, CJ Barnaby, in the liminalist space to explore less charted realms of existence and to unravel the mysteries of life. Experience. Each episode I'm blessed with the opportunity to talk to regular people from across the world where they openly share their understanding and wisdom, insight, service to others. If you're looking to upgrade your life, you've come to the right place. Be sure to like and subscribe, and I'll bring you great transforming conversations each week. My treasured viewers and listeners, if you have a life story or healing modality, or you need knowledge that you'd love to share, reach out to me at supernormalizedroton me. Let's together embrace acceptance of the supernatural and unusual. What it really is completely normal. Today on supernormalize we have Susanna Rose Stokes.
She is a ex Marine Corps officer who did two tours of Afghanistan, and as a part of that story, she went through a lot of experiences that actually transformed her and transmuted her into a new being. The alchemy that actually came from those experiences and also from her earlier life. And actually being touched by spirituality, which the first sort of stage was christian, enabled her to actually walk into a new way of being. And she did some experimentation recreationally with plant medicines and got touched in such a beautiful way that her life changed forever.
So this is her story today, and it's a big story. And her understanding of the connectedness and the interconnectedness of all of us is expressed so openly and well.
I know you're going to love this show.
We talk about plant medicines and consciousness from all sorts of angles, and I'm sure you'll enjoy. So, on with the show.
Welcome to super normalized Susannah Rose Stokes. Susanna, you've actually had a massive life transformation. You actually were in the Marine Corps and had an alternate life where you did two combat tours in Afghanistan, and you probably had a lot of intense action happen there and that transformed you into a new being. What happened?
Welcome to the show.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: That's my absolute favorite introductory question ever.
What happened? Yes.
Oh my goodness. Honestly, it was the disillusionment of my entire reality and the dissolving of what I saw to be the Matrix around me. Because so many of us grow up learning the way of the world, right. And then we see it through the filter of our parents or the people around us. And then at some point, sometimes, not always, I'm learning. Not everybody goes through this, but at some point, you may go through this period where something very tragic or very intense, very traumatic happens, and then the reality that you thought you knew starts to deconstruct. And I imagine that that is. That's a big piece of what you talk about here, is that understanding of what's behind that. And that's what happened during those tours.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's like a.
Would you even call it like a personality? Dismemberment and reconstruction, like a shamanic death.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: 1000%. It was an existential crisis that led to multiple types of death and some that involved near death experience, others that were more of, like you said, a dismemberment, disillusion of everything that I thought I was. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: And how long ago was that?
[00:05:23] Speaker A: So, let's see. I joined the military right out of college. I went to the naval academy in the United States. So that is a military institution. So I kind of joined when I was 18. And then upon graduation, I was an officer in the Marine Corps, and I ended up being one of the first from my class to end up going to Afghanistan and to basically straight into combat. Now, as a woman, I wasn't in the firefight in the same way that some of our guys are out there. So I deeply honor the difference. And also, during my very first deployment, our base was attacked. So I was exposed to, at a very early state, the realities of what war can bring. And so that was in 2011 that I graduated. And then 2012 was when I went to Afghanistan for my first tour. And interestingly enough, several of your country folk were there, too, because we were an embedded unit with the NATO forces and with the RAF, with the Royal Air Force. So we had several of the different countries there together.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Right, right. What drew you to the military in the first place?
[00:06:52] Speaker A: This was the internal struggle that I don't think I realized how much of an internal struggle it was until quite recently. But I remember growing up, and my father was in the Marine Corps, and every man in my family was affiliated with or had done some enlistment in the military, whether during a time of war or during times of peace. And it was a family legacy in a lot of ways. Right. There was an expectation that at least the boys, the men would join. And I always tended to be a little bit on the competitive side. And I was like, well, if you can do it, obviously I should do it.
But there was this other part of me that had a really deep consideration of service, like the Peace Corps and some of these more humanitarian services.
And I remember having a bit of an internal struggle between those. But ultimately, my bloodline, my lineage, my family system won out, and that was the path I took.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Okay, so you've had some extreme experiences that changed you dramatically.
How did that change unfold for you? I mean, what can you take us through the steps of how that happened?
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Yeah. In that first deployment, I had actually just come out of a six month training. When you. When you join the military, the Marine Corps, specifically as an officer, everyone goes through what's called the basic school. Pretty fundamental, the basic school. And it's the basics of how to be an infantry, an infantry officer, even if you end up not going into the infantry. And, of course, at that time, it was not open to women. You still have to learn the basics of it. So we're all kind of on the same playing field. And my first experience with a leader there was that he had a fundamental challenge with women being in leadership. And so that was my first experience of facing, like, discrimination, essentially of, like. Of something that I couldn't even control. Yeah.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that's hard.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: It was a weird experience because I'd grown up. Both my parents actually work in the sort of anti discrimination realm, so I learned about equality and equanimity and include an inclusion. And.
And so I had lived, to some extent, a bit of a protected life from that kind of treatment. And it was the first time that I realized outside of my little bubble growing up, that there was this tendency for people to have hatred or intolerance for others. And so that was the first, like, crack in my matrix. Right? That was, like, created that little crack. And then from there, being sent to Afghanistan so quickly, I immediately felt sort of sidelined and separated and isolated from the guys in my unit because I was the only female officer. And so there was this isolation that I started to go through. And I think that in the spiritual awakening process or the process of dissolving you, you typically go through periods of time where you're a bit of like a hermit and you start to go inward. Right. And that was the first time where I wasn't surrounded by people that I felt like I belonged in. And so that lack of belonging led to this, like, deep internal process, and that sort of bled into my second deployment, and then.
And then I had gotten married during that period of time. And as I was getting out of the Marine Corps, my. My husband left me, and we. Our whole relationship broke down, which is also, to some extent, pretty standard in the military.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's rough. I mean, because you're going through a massive transformation of yourself, and then to find that you get pretty much rugged on your whole relationship at the same time, it's like what?
[00:11:16] Speaker A: You know, I keep going through, CJ, I keep calling in these moments of transformation, and I just have to. I'm learning now that's the best way to praise it. Yeah.
I'm learning now to not hold on too tightly to those parts that are being dissolved or destroyed or, you know, those parts of my reality that are. That are melting away, because usually what's on the other side, every time what's on the other side is so much better, so much more beautiful, so much more aligned. But that very first one was incredibly hard. And. And I would say that the combination of being in war and seeing that there was something greater, that I had grown up in a system of spiritual belief, thinking there was a God that obviously would not let these awful things happen, and then seeing these awful things happening firsthand and seeing us kill each other as humans, and then starting to question that, and then having my own life. Like you said, the rug kind of pulled. Pulled out from under me.
And these days, I take a lot more ownership for my piece in the divorce. It wasn't just him leaving.
I was not an easy partner. But ultimately, all of that basically imploded my whole life. And what I thought was real and what I thought was successful.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: So a part of that is like, all of that sort of poison of change is something you had to transmute. How did you do it? What did you do?
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. Transmutation is now one of my powers. Thank goodness.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: I was going to say, you've got the name of metamorphosis for your organization. So there's got to be transmutation in this.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: There better be transmutation involved. And alchemy, plenty of it. I am a big believer in change, and partially because I've gone through these massive shifts. So when I started to get out of the military, realized that that was maybe not the place I should stay for a lifetime, that I immediately went toward my next sort of mission, which was the corporate world. And I got a job at Facebook. Now meta and totally surreal. The universe, like, dropped it in my path. I had no intention of going into the corporate tech industry.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: The universe has been very much on my side in this lifetime.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: You're being poked in the right direction all the time.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: Yes. Like, the yellow brick road keeps appearing in front of me if I pay attention, you know, if I follow the little. Yes, it is. So I ended up going into the corporate world, working for some of the top leadership at Facebook, having these surreal experiences of just like, witnessing one of the top companies hosting world leaders and things like that, and just kind of being in this world that I was not expecting to ever be in. And then also being physically in the Bay area where plant medicines are worked with more recreationally. Right. By the burning man community, by more of like, the rave and festival culture. And as a sort of straight edge good girl from southern Georgia. From Georgia in the southern United States, I had always been taught to be afraid of these types of medicines, what I called drugs at the time.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So it sounds like you had actually had to have another thing that was revealed before you. That is not being true too. Right?
[00:15:22] Speaker A: For sure. And I had to witness people who I trusted working with them and seeing them, like, seeing how their life was being affected by what I now know to be medicine and being like, oh, okay, well, I remember hearing that LSD bonds to your DNA and they can find it in your DNA 20 years after you're dead, and it changes, changes you forever.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: And, wow, the negative marketing campaign works well, doesn't it?
[00:15:56] Speaker A: What's interesting is now I'm like CJ, actually. I want it to bond to my DNA and be there forever.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: I think what it does, it probably does, but it doesn't actually leave those traces like they say.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: I doubt it. But of course, the government and I. I talk about this in my thesis work, in my research work, but the government really went on a huge campaign during the, at least the United States government, and I would imagine others as well, that I haven't studied the full earth spectrum of our war against drugs, but they went on a pretty solid campaign to really eradicate things like LSD and psilocybin because they were impacting, at least in our country, Vietnam war effort. And especially those of us who were in the military were exposed to some of the old propaganda videos that showed people going crazy and showed the, you know, the people jumping out of windows because they were on mushrooms, which is just in my world. I don't think that's actually true at all.
Yeah, I don't think that's ever happened.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: It's just a negative market, negative marketing campaign. That's all it is, really. I mean, it's fine if they're actually using them on experimentations on people secretly, but, hey, we don't talk about that.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: And the government actually did use LSD for attempted torture, right? They thought it would be like a truth serum, and they thought they would scare things out of people. And what they started to find was that it healed all of their, like, prisoners of war, and they're like, this is not a good torture mechanism. This isn't working.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Abandoned.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: That's what we've discovered, you know? And so seeing people work with these, these medicines and then have these altered states of consciousness completely shifted my view. And I became more comfortable with the idea of experimenting. And then I from there, that was the sort of rebuilding, that was the beginning of the rebuilding of my reality. So once it had started to dissolve and come completely apart, I began more recreationally with things like MDMA than I had my first experience with LSD. And when I sat with LSD, when I had this more recreational experience at a festival, I was on a mountain, and I was looking across at the other side, and I watched the trees breathe, like, with my eyes.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: I've seen that, too. It's cool.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
And I was like, the trees are alive, which, of course, we know, we know the trees are alive, but it was an I, an incredibly visceral experience of their aliveness. And not just the trees, but the whole earth being alive. Yeah, yeah. And it all being interconnected with me, you know, like this feeling of oneness, which is one of the main reasons why altered states of consciousness caused by entheogens, or psychedelics, I call it entheogenerated altered states of consciousness.
Those experiences, one of the big characteristics that creates change is the feeling of interconnectedness, and that's what I felt when I first engaged.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: So it sounds like you had a profound shift in your personal cosmology and your belief in the world. And it sounds almost like you're stepping into, like, an animistic sort of perspective.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Would you say that 1000%. I love that you offered that terminology, because I remember one time my father trying to figure out what my belief system is, and he was like, well, you're not that, and you're not that. He was trying to create words around it, and the closest he could get was like, you're a metaphysician. You're a metaphysician. And I was like, okay, yeah, I can. I can get down with that. I can get down with metaphysician, but I think the mystic really is where. Where I land in this lifetime.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: And how does that play out with you now? I mean, so you've been through these experiences, first of all, recreationally. Did you actually start to find your own sacred path with that? I mean, were you taught by the medicines themselves?
[00:20:43] Speaker A: I did, and that's a wonderful way of describing it because I was then guided, actually, even in that very first ceremony, what happened was there was a remembering within my soul, of my soul memory, right. So the LSD was able to begin to unlock some of these memories that I had hidden away under masks and filters and things like that. And essentially it told me, I remember it kind of whispering in my ear and saying, because I'm clairaudient.
And it said, susannah, like, you know, that this is play, this is recreation. And also, there's a lot more here. There's so much more here. It's not just for recreation. This is also for healing and deep work. And I heard the medicine say that, and I started to kind of say that to other people, and they were like, yeah, yeah. Like, we're just dancing.
Leave us alone.
And.
And what that led me to very soon after was to have some guided ceremonial experiences that ultimately turned into mentorships. And then studying the plants, both by working with the plants and personally in my own. In my own work, and then also with people who did hold containers and had some frameworks around how to do that, because I knew. I just felt called, and there was no real logical explanation for it. It certainly wasn't what my family had in mind for me in my future, but I could just feel and hear this little calling in the back that said, this is what you're here for.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: So would you say there were, like, helpful spirits that were actually coming in and having a whisper in your ear?
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Absolutely. And there are now there's a whole team that I know by name, and we talk regularly. But the first one that came in was, I work sometimes with angels, and Archangel Zadkiel came in and sort of landed some things in my system. And the way it landed was I actually asked. At the time I was practicing, let's see, in the military, I was practicing Methodism because that was what I grew up with and more like contemporary Christianity and that my grandfather was a bishop in the Methodist church. So I was very steeped in our family. So I was at church, or it was like the day before church, and I asked God to give me a sign of what my next tattoo would be, wow. I was like, what's my next tattoo, God? And I asked, and I went to church in this little church that my parents go to down in Pensacola, Florida, which is like back country kind of beach town. And I. The entire sermon was on chesed. And chesed is a hebrew term that describes godly love between humans. It's like mercy. It's this deep charity kind of love, like, I love you just because. Full, selfless love. And I was like, well, that's the answer. And I was guided to put it on my right rib and fast forward many, many years later, probably a decade later, I found out that chesed is on the right rib of the kabbalah, and is the word and the energy of archangel Zadkiel. And that was in my first psilocybin journey.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: Wild.
That's cool.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: Yes. So Zagiel was like, present.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Oh, wow. That's really cool. That's really cool, I gotta say. My first solar Sodom experience was actually in Thailand, and I ran into a practicing witch that was going down to the islands, and she said, I'm going down for.
I can't remember which of the weekend events it was. And she said, I'm going to take some mushrooms. You want to come down? I said, yeah, sure.
You know, I was very naive. I was 21 years old. I had no idea what I was doing. But I really wanted to experience those mushrooms because I'd been reading Terence McKenna, and he said, you know, the thai ones are the best. And I was like, okay, I'm there for that. Let's just find out. And I went down and we got our own hearts and ended up having a mushroom omelet that was provided by the locals and went after our own little spaces. And I had the most amazing journey that just connected me to the magic of the world and my understanding of the beauty of absolutely everything. It was just so ecstatic and so connective.
And at the end of it, I had this vision of this symbol, and it was this, you know, this symbol that's like, I can't draw, but it's the symbol for de egg or Degas, which is a rune sign. And I didn't know it. Like, I had no idea what a room was at that stage. So I went and talked to her the next day, and I said, look, this is what come up for me. And she said, oh, that's Degas. And she pulls out a book, and, you know, her books were in German, so she read it to me. I was like, oh, wow, it's about new beginnings. And I'm like, how perfect is that? Right? And they had indicated to me that that was my tattoo. And then I found out later on it was actually also the sign for Gemini, for in the runes. I was like, what?
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: And I'm a Gemini. And I was like, how cool.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: And you're a Gemini?
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it all tied together in that really beautiful sort of way. And, uh, yeah. The way. The way the spirits give you gifts like that is just so encouraging. Um, when. When you're in the right space, I mean, obviously you can actually use these things and hurt yourself too. But, yes, if you do things consciously and sacredly, that's when positive change happens.
And that's a metamorphosis, which is pretty much what you do now with people. Is that right?
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Yes. That I love that story for just. Just to say and also a reflection is. One of the first goddesses that came through to me was Freya. Oh, really?
Yeah. And the runes were really, really powerful for me. And I'd be curious to know at some point what your lineage is, because, of course, those of us with germanic backgrounds do tend to connect with that and then to connect a little bit with the Valkyrie and things like that. So they have been guides. Both Odin and Freya have been guides for me as well in this journey. And you're right about a lot of it is about listening and watching and being really present, because you will miss the signs if you don't tune in to the subtle things and you were just receptive to it. Right. And probably an older soul that has some experience in remembering these little signs that the universe is giving us the patterns.
So, to answer your question around metamorphosis, the later after the psilocybin journey, and then I sat with buffo, which is five meo DMT.
And that was a difficult journey.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: I got kind of.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: Shot out of my body, like with a cannon, you know?
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: But two weeks later, I was sitting with LSD again. And that has been a really powerful activating medicine for me. And I was meditating, and I had a vortex of energy, what I could describe as a combination of a Kundalini awakening and a moment of enlightenment where I completely dissolved. It was ego death, but it was a more gentle ego death than what five meo typically facilitates.
And I completely became everything, and everything was me. And there was a voice that said, you know, susannah, you're doing all these great things in the world, but actually your work is around healing and activation, and that's what you're here to do, so you probably should just stop doing all this other stuff.
And then it showed me the perfection of my bloodlines and why I am who I am and why I am related to all the ancestors who. Who birthed, who created me and how perfect, like, that plan was.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: Wow. So basically, you had your whole path revealed to you by lineage, and you were like, okay, now I have to step up.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: It was just.
It seems so simple too, right? It seems so, like, obvious when I saw it. I was like, oh, yes, of course. Like, obviously, all of these humans perfectly came together to procreate and create this other human, this other that then created me. And I have exactly the right tools and resources to do this particular thing. But then the path forward from that was like, well, shit. Like, what do I do with that information?
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: I work in tech. I am, like, in the corporate world. Like, what do I do with this idea? And that was about one year later, I think, that metamorphosis was born, and it just started to flow because people started to come to me and say, you seem like the person I'd like to take me on my first psychedelic journey. And I was like, me? Are you sure about that?
[00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Right?
[00:31:07] Speaker A: And those synchronicities just sort of stacked up. It was like one person after the other. I literally had someone call me and be like, I'm looking for a guided journey. And I was told that you might do this. And I had just been starting to sort of tune into being a facilitator. And so people just came out of the woodwork, and it was quite incredible to see that happen and see that magnetized because I was beginning to activate into my purpose. And we held. We ended up holding a retreat in, like, February, I think it was February of 2021. So just, you know, still kind of in Covid. And we're like, we're building something. And it was my two, one of my business partners, and then we brought in the second one, and these are the two sisters that I run metamorphosis with Jenna and Ashley. And we had, I think it was nine people at that first container. And it was so powerful and so groundbreaking that everyone there was like, well, this can't stop. Like, you can't just do one of these.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: Wow, that's cool.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And it birthed. It was birthed into the world. And we actually had, like, a, like, a blackout blizzard that weekend where we were, and it was, you know, pipes burst, and it was like, it could have been a complete disaster, but it was so beautiful, because we were all together in this little womb of this place in the mountains, and that then the reality of what metamorphosis was started to reveal itself, because it's not really something we're creating. It's definitely something that's being birthed and created through us.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: Okay, so what shape does it take now? Because, I mean, I do understand that you have a unique strain of psilocybin that you call trinity.
How did that come about?
[00:33:12] Speaker A: That's a whole story we started. That particular strain came to us as we were completing a relationship with a previous strain that was known as 42 and 42, as those of you who've read the hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy know is the answer to the universe in all things.
And both one of my business partners and I had had the same mentor, and she had birthed this strain, 42, into the world. And so we began to work with that medicine. It was very beautiful, a golden teacher blend, very light, very expansive, really gave you access to angelic. The angelic realm.
And then things started to change with that medicine and with the relationship with that mentor, as they sometimes do. Right. As we sometimes kind of outgrow these containers. And we realized that 42 was no longer being. We were no longer being called to work with that particular medicine.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: Even though it's still very beautiful.
And the same grower who was growing that medicine, who was also, you know, connected to us, and our team said, well, I have this other strain, and it's called Trinity.
And we were like, well, there's three of us, and two of us grew up. Grew up. One of us grew up in the Mormon church, the other one grew up in the Methodist church. And, you know, and, like, the Holy Trinity is such a powerful symbol to us, even if it isn't necessarily, you know, Father, son, and the Holy Spirit. I see it more as, like, mother, father, God, and then, you know, the. The Holy Spirit or the creation of those two together.
And Trinity just resonated so deeply. And then when we learned that actually, so we didn't name Trinity, we also didn't create it ourselves. We just now cultivate it. It is, we cultivate a very particular kind of version of it that our community has both birthed and also cares for. And it's a sub genetic blend of three strains of psilocybin. And what I love about it, I lived in China for a period of time, and I speak Chinese just, you know, just in case. And so I've studied a lot of eastern medicine and how the energy flows in the body. And in chinese medicine, there is such a thing as the Dan Tians, and there's the lower, the middle, and the upper Dan Tian, which basically mirrors some of the chakra system that we know in hindu faith. And Trinity is made of pe six, which is penis, and v six, which governs the lower Dan Tian tidal wave, which is really like a solar plexus heart energy, like a very wavy energy that governs the middle Dan Tian, and then aztec God, which is that upper Dan Tian third eye crown, that kind of energy. And what's so beautiful about it is we, our church that we've established, which allows us to serve this medicine legally to our members in the United States, is called house of embodied metamorphosis. And we believe that the embodiment piece is really, really critical because we have a lot of tools and techniques for how to dissociate and leave the body. But actually, it's in the embodiment, in this human experience, where we find the magic. And Trinity does that so beautifully, because Trinity is.
Is this magnificent medicine that actually kind of holds you in your physical body a little more, rather than leaving or escaping or moving out into the cosmos. And what happens is you end up integrating the experience a lot more fully and the changes embody in you. And for our work in particular, it is perfect. Quite perfect, actually.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: Wow, that sounds amazing. I think I'm going to have to join your church.
I'm totally amazed by this and that you're doing this work. I mean, obviously, you've had a lot of really positive results and great change with people. Can you give any examples of that, where people have moved through things and had such positive change? Obviously, if you could do so with anonymizing those people as well, that'd be really good.
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Yes, of course.
One story I'll share will not be anonymous, because she's given me permission to share her story. And it's my sister.
My sister went through a very difficult time, and she was one of the inspirations for the founding of metamorphosis because she drew my attention to the health and wellness and sort of holistic, integrative approaches to medicine. I was looking for something to help her heal, and what I found was healing for myself, for my family, and for everybody. But she was actively trying to kill herself over the course of, let's five or six years after having experienced a sexual assault, and she'd been put on. I think the number is 22 different medications, many of them way over prescribed. That actually caused a lot of damage in her system and caused her to be off center.
And so she had managed to stop her heart a couple of times in those attempts and become addicted to alcohol and different pain medications and things. And we did two ceremonies together. And after the second ceremony where we actually did a, what the Catholic Church might call an exorcism, but a clearing is what we call it.
She. A couple months later, she looked at me and said, I choose life.
That's it. I'm done. And she stopped trying to harm herself. Everything, all of the addictive, destructive tendencies ceased.
And now she's quite literally living her best life. Got her dream job, got her an amazing partner living in the. The home of her dreams. So. And she calls me often and says, you know, I love you. And that's just a totally different experience of where she was before.
So I've watched this medicine and this work, the particular method that we use, which is called the metamorphosis method of preparation, experience, and then integration because we believe in holding people throughout the entire process of it, right. Which is not something that's been widely done in the psychedelic world, but we've seen people, everything from a woman last, I just found out that there was a woman who came to our retreat last year that lost 25 pounds within like six months of the retreat. Like, wasn't even trying, just fell off. And we've seen people quit their jobs and, you know, move to the country that they've wanted to go to Orlando or live nomadically, like, completely chase their dreams and overcome scarcity consciousness. My business partner helped a family member move through stage four cancer to have zero cancer in their system with this, with the energy of this work.
So we've seen it heal cancer, anxiety, depression, addiction.
I mean, insomnia. Like, it ranges from.
From the simple things which really aren't so simple, to the really deeply fracturing kind of life threatening issues. And that's one reason why it's been even kind of hard for us to identify who do we work with? Because so many people can benefit from this work and so many different kinds of souls end up coming to us with different challenges, but ultimately they all walk away having completed a very intense and big pattern in their lives.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: Wow.
I understand also that you did a research study called enthusiast. Can you talk about that?
[00:41:56] Speaker A: Yes.
I'm a big believer in the blending of science and spirituality because I do believe that there are just two languages for probably the same thing. I think Einstein knew that. And so I'm committed to also covering this kind of work from the scientific lens and speaking it in the language of science. And so that is the first research study which we will be building on, because metamorphosis is also building a research, research and development arm. But that one is both a literary review of all of so many different studies. There have been dozens of studies on psilocybin.
And basically it asked the question, how do these entheogenerated, altered states of consciousness create individual, like, complete individual, and then social change? Because I believe that when the individual changes, the collective changes.
And I came up with three themes that were present in the existing research.
And the first one is acceptance of tough emotions, that we just accept more of ourselves when we're working with this medicine, partially because of the neuroplasticity that they offer. And basically, we forgive ourselves for having these emotions or these shadows.
The second is interconnectedness and interconnection. It's that deep sense of oneness and belonging that all of us want, that unity and that sense that I am actually part of everything. So there's no need to ever feel lonely. And the number one issue of depression is loneliness. It's the feeling of separation.
And then the third is mystical experience or direct experience with God.
And these, as you've, you know, experienced yourself, whatever version of God or whatever version of something bigger you believe in. These types of altered states of consciousness give you access to have a direct experience, which is often direct contradiction to a lot of what our religions have taught, which is that you have to go through a priest or some intermediary to meet God and to talk to God. And.
And I'm a big believer that we have a direct connection with God. And these plants do that. They facilitate that. So that's what that research is about.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: Wow, that's cool. Excellent. Excellent. So you.
You started off with a faith which was like a christian based faith. It also sounds like now that you still have sort of like a christian based faith, but it's expanded, like, exponentially.
Can you talk about that now? I mean, where are you at?
Because God's everywhere, right?
[00:45:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
Well, I was going to mention, you know, the direct experience with God is an interesting thing because that is in my lineage. The very last book my grandfather, who was a bishop in the methodist church, wrote was called person to person, lowercase p to capital p. And it was a book about having a direct connection with God through prayer.
And his lens was, of course, a little more biblical. It was a little more on the traditional christian side. But he basically was suggesting that you can talk to God through prayer and what other people might call meditation. Right. Or just, like, receive information from this bigger entity that really is you.
And it was highly controversial because he also, many, many years before, wrote the textbook on major united methodist beliefs.
So it tickled some nerves. And he dedicated that book. Of all of his 18 books, he wrote a to me.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: Wow, that's lovely.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So I got the message, I understood the assignment. And I would say that now I work in the Isis Sophia lineage, which then trickled into the rosicrucian lineage and that of the Essenes and the holy grail lineage. And running through that is the concept of Christ consciousness, which is, quote unquote, what the christian church is based in. And my experience of the modern christian church is quite far away from the original message of Christ and the energy and the frequency of Christ consciousness. So I do work in that lineage and in that work, and I am in sort of a Judeo christian lineage, especially with metamorphosis. But the way we do it is really dedicated to decentralized spirituality. And we believe that every single person has their own connection, and you have your own guidance, your own wisdom, and what comes through you. It's like a disco ball. When we all put our perspectives together, we get these little tiny facets of truth, and then we create something quite complete, but no one person has all the answers for it.
[00:47:37] Speaker B: I like that idea of decentralized spirituality.
Yeah. And it enables a deeper connection for anyone, really.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, you're not giving away any power to anyone else, right? You're not relying on another person to speak to you in Latin or a language that you don't speak, so that you can fully have that direct experience of God, which I personally believe lives within us, that we are. That I am God, that you are God, or whatever universal essence you want to label that as.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I think that's what the world needs to hear right now, because we've had so many distractions which keep us from that understanding, and that's caused so much, what would you call it? Like, dissonance in the flow of reality and people being in accord with the universe. And that's how you see the world being destroyed, basically, by all this misunderstanding of goddess.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: It's been so fascinating to see the prophets that came and the ascended masters that came during different periods of time. And of course, there were many, many more before Buddha and Christ and Muhammad and all these other teachers. But then the dissonance that has arrived at trying to describe their message and being like, no, I'm more right than you are. And to me, a lot of this stems from the idea, the duality consciousness of there is a right and there is a wrong, there is a good and an evil. And the more I deconstruct. Talk about deconstruction. I'm deconstructing and deprogramming myself to shift out of duality into as much non duality as my little human self can handle. And to really understand that there is no one right way or the way, it simply is your way.
And that's okay.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: That's a great message.
Okay, so, three perspective. How do you view the importance of creating spaces for healing, growth, and heart centered living in today's society?
Everyone's caught up in the news cycle, social media, all that kerfuffle, which is pretty much a distraction from the connectedness.
How do you view the importance of creating those spaces?
[00:50:27] Speaker A: They definitely can be distractions. Like anything, I believe we can use it how we want to. Right. We have the potential of using these spaces like social media, the networks we've built. We have the potential of using them as spaces of connection. And also what we are learning through our. I think of humanity like little toddlers with our new toys. You know, we've got. We're like, oh, my God, this is the coolest thing.
Don't take it away from me.
We're very, very excited about these new technological things. But we're learning quickly that virtual spaces don't facilitate the type of energetic bonding and belonging that being physically together in person live and being able to smell the other person and touch their skin really, really is how powerful that is.
And that's why. That's one of the reasons why metamorphosis, while we have a virtual community, we have a lot of virtual offerings, and we keep those going.
We are moving more and more and more toward. And we started with in person gatherings, and that was the only offering we offered. Then we expanded into virtual, and we realized, well, we definitely can't stay here. That can be an element of it, but we actually need to find more ways to get people physically in person. And the future of metamorphosis is all about physical spaces in person, where we can actually heal and grow together. And the reason for that is while energy. I'm also a neuro Reiki practitioner, which is our signature form of energy healing at metamorphosis. And while energy doesn't know space or time, and I can send you energy healing right now if I want to, right. And it will reach you.
There is another level of activation of both the brain, the DNA, the nervous system, when we have a. When we have physical contact with each other and when I can hear your voice in analog versus through a digital interpretation of my voice. Right. And technology is doing a great job to try to translate this, but right now, it's not at that place where we can fully feel each other. And I'm a big believer, one of my sort of main senses in human design, there's, like, senses that you. That are, like your power minus touch. And I realize how isolated and depressed I feel when I'm nothing physically touched in soft and gentle and loving ways. So one of the benefits of being at, like, a metamorphosis retreat, because while we have, we have these virtual courses, which are awesome. I love those, too. But we always try to blend an on site event. And when you come to those, there is a lot of gentle, safe touch that happens both for energy healing purposes as well as bodywork and hugging and connecting with other people, especially people who seem to be, quote, strangers, because there is a coming together that touch. When I shake hands with somebody, when I hug somebody, when my heart energy interacts with theirs directly, there's nothing like it. It's priceless.
[00:54:18] Speaker B: Yeah, right, right. Because it adds for a deeper connection. It's more real. It's more real. Like you're saying this, the interface that we have, which is bringing us together, but it also still is a separate sort of thing, does work to a degree. But like you say, the in person connection changes everything. I mean, you know, the universe is.
[00:54:40] Speaker A: The piece of that also is like, eye contact.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:54:45] Speaker A: Like, you and I, we can look at each other here, and we can feel really close. And I know your soul family because we found each other. But that said, if you and I sat across from each other and I could look directly into your eyes, then I can see into your soul a little more deeply. Yeah, that's the difference.
Yeah.
[00:55:09] Speaker B: Would you say that magic has been brought back into your life through all of this?
[00:55:15] Speaker A: Say that one last little bit at the end. Again.
[00:55:18] Speaker B: Would you say that magic has been brought back into your life through all of this work?
[00:55:29] Speaker A: A thousand times, yes.
I mean, the way that I look and move through the world is magical now and so much more magical than it was. I will say that I was pretty magical when I was growing up on a farm, barefoot, being raised by dogs. That was a magical time.
That sure was. And I got back to that girl who really believed in magic, who had three imaginary friends and were, like, really tight with those friends, not at all I learned later, they were not imaginary, but that's what they were to me in that moment. And the magic has returned. So now I have all of these, quote, imaginary friends, my whole spirit team that are not imaginary at all, but they are always around me, and they are always guiding me. And so everywhere I look nowadays, my vision has changed, and I actually see energy. I see, like, little lights. And, you know, a doctor might tell me I have a brain tumor, but, yeah. But I see the fabric of reality. I see the binary code, which is, of course, made of sacred geometry. And I can see a little, little bits of that. And I can feel energy on the palms of my hands and on my body when I am near someone. And it's like being superhuman and how completely magical this particular planet is. It's breathtaking.
[00:57:13] Speaker B: That's what no one is.
That's the message I want to get to everyone. That's what normal is. So normal.
[00:57:23] Speaker A: That's it. Yeah. It's funny. I have a lot of clients, and I had a client call me today and say, is this normal?
And I said, girl, welcome to the new normal.
[00:57:35] Speaker B: 5D is coming right now. Watch out.
[00:57:39] Speaker A: It's so good. This is the new normal, and I'm so here for it.
[00:57:43] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. For sure.
So, Susanna, we're coming to the end of the show. You want to drop some links so how people can find you and do work with you?
[00:57:53] Speaker A: Yes, I would love that.
The first link is just to visit our website, which is www. Dot metamorphosis dot ventures. If you don't know how to spell metamorphosis, type it into Google. It'll help you out. And then follow us on Instagram. Embodied metamorphosis.
You can also follow me personally. I am just about to be releasing quite a bit of content in the coming weeks and monthsusannaroses on Instagram as well.
And I would just say, yeah, we have some launches that are coming up, and we are always doing courses and retreats and events both in the United States and in Central America. We also train facilitators. We have a whole facilitator initiation program, and we would love to host you at any of those.
[00:58:50] Speaker B: Wow, that would be really cool. And I'm sure a lot of people will actually take up those opportunities. So thank you very much for your time, Susanna, and being so open and revealing the truth of your experience. It's been beautiful. I love what you've shared. Thank you.
[00:59:07] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure.
[00:59:10] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. All right, I'll just say goodbye to listeners.
Well, that was truly awesome. And I had such a great connection with Susanna and her experiences and understanding of the world, and I'm certain that all of my listeners, you have enjoyed it as well as much as I did. She was so clear in her understanding of change and the agents of change and how decentralized spirituality can pretty much heal the whole world. And I think she's going to be a big thought leader and change agent. It's going to help a lot of people. So all power to her. If you've enjoyed today's show, please reach out to Susannah.
I'll drop all the links into the show notes. And if you've enjoyed today's show too, also remember to like and subscribe. If you're on YouTube and if you're in your podcast app and you think somebody else needs to hear this, please reach out to your friend and send this podcast to them too. Just one person actually helps to boost my listenership for one thing, but also introduce others to great conversations. Well, I believe they're great and I I'm still doing it now after 100 episodes, so it's got to be good. I'm enjoying this. This is fun and I hope you are enjoying it too. So thank you very much for listening and until next episode, it's bye for now.
