Good Medicine News: May ‘25

Monthly Newsletter featuring upcoming events at GMC, creative reflections and critical commentary from our Collective members on the front lines of healing and consciousness change work.

May 06, 2025

Dear Friends,

I’d like to share a thought-provoking essay from Good Medicine Collective member and UMASS Sociology Professor, Janice Irvine, titled "Must We Gender The Plants?"

In her writing, Janice examines our tradition of gendering plants (like calling Ayahuasca "Grandmother"). This question feels especially relevant as we collectively reconsider gender in many aspects of our lives.

This tension presents a fascinating paradox: How do we honor indigenous wisdom that often includes gendered relationships with plants while participating in a broader evolution of consciousness that transcends traditional gender frameworks? What voices and perspectives might emerge when we suspend our inherited categorizations?

The question isn't merely academic—it strikes at the heart of how we experience healing itself. When we release one conceptual framework, what previously inaccessible dimensions of experience become available? What if it’s far more vast and liberating than I could ever even imagine?

There's no right answer here, of course. The richness comes in the wondering. At Good Medicine Collective, this spirit of questioning drives our approach to healing- we're all explorers of possibility, curious about what emerges when we step just beyond what feels comfortable and familiar. This energetic of curiosity and wonder underlies many of our offerings, such as the upcoming Expanding the Language of Healing (May 7th), where we’ll be exploring how current clinical & cultural narratives around sexual & erotic energy perpetuate shame and shadow instead of encourage healing (May 7th); and Psychedelic Studio (May 14th) where we’ll be deconstructing "spiritual bypassing" not as failure but as protective intelligence requiring compassionate understanding (May 14th).

Whether through drumming, grieving, dancing, breathing, medicine journeys, sound healing, or movement—we invite you to let go of old stories and experience yourself in a new way. This may be our best form of activism.

With Love,

Liz Strawbridge

May Collective Calendar

Ongoing Donation-Based Community Offerings:

May 14th 6-8pm this Psychedelic Studio features Riverbird therapist, Shauna Sedler and interfaith minister, Annick McIntosh discussing Spiritual Bypassing.

GRACE Circle: Grief Remembered And Communally Embraced is inspired by Francis Weller’s grief work. This monthly circle is co-held by Good Medicine Providers and interfaith minister, Ashley Jansen. Note, for the month of May, Grace Circle will be held on Wednesday May 21st instead of the last Tuesday of the month, 5-6:30pm

Events and Workshops (link to our calendar)

Wednesdays 14th, 21st, 28th, 12-3pm West End Community Acupuncture with Zach Haigney and Justine Wenger.

Wednesday, May 7th 6-8:30pm Expanding the Language of Healing: Sex & Psychedelics with Kellie Ryan and Liz Strawbridge

Thursday, May 8th Ketamine Continuation Group — Riverbird Clinic

Thursday, May 8th at 6:30 - 8:30pm Gong Journeywork draws from the core “trance” elements of Dreamwork, Yoga Nidra, Hypnotherapy and Shamanic journeys, with Reverend Todd Glacy

Friday, May 9th 7- 8:45pm Rhythmic Ritual dance with Sabra Saperstein

Sunday, May 11th, 6- 6:45pm Yoga Nidra and Sound Bath for Social Change with Maddy Riker

Mondays May 12th, 19th 6-8pm Return & Renew with the Sacred Drum with Therese Jornlin; drop in for one or the whole series. No drum or experience needed.

Wednesday, May 14th 6- 8pm Psychedelic Studio featuring Shauna Sedler and Annick McIntosh discussing Spiritual Bypassing

Thursday, May 15th 6-7pm Acupuncture & Sound Bath w/ Zach Haigney and Maddy Riker

Friday/Sat May 16th/17th: Intro to Ketamine for Healers *previously known as 2-day Healing for Healers* — Riverbird Clinic

Friday, May 16th, 7-9pm Mystic Pulse: A Tantric Dance Journey with Amelia Aglow

Saturday, May 17th, 1-3pm Improv for the Heart with Elise Voigt and Andrew Elijah

Tuesday, May 20th 5:30- 6:30pm Monthly Community Breathwork Circle with Tania Zuckerman

Wednesday, May 21st 5-6:30pm Francis Weller-inspired GRACE Circle with Ashley Jansen, David Wright & Liz Strawbridge

Friday, May 23 at 6-7pm Sound Meditation with Vivian Rae

Saturday, May 24 at 6:30-8:00pm Fenderick & Peck Concert featuring Minnesotans Madeline and Brian and their soulful and hopeful harmonies.

Wednesday, May 22nd, 6:30- 8pm Dance with DJ All for Love (Sage Hayes)

Sunday, May 25 at 6:30-8:30pm Portal: A Journey through Sound with Sabra Saperstein, Bodie Roybal, Colin Reid and Caroline Ginsberg

Monday, May 26th at 6-9pm Women's New Moon Circle with Lara and Genell

Friday, May 30th 12-1:15pm Virtual Riverbird Lunch & Learn: Ketamine Assisted Therapy & Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy Workshop with Kathryn Rheem, Ed.D., LMFT

Friday, May 30th 6-7pm Pelvic Steam Ceremony with Vivian Rae

Signs ups are open for the Fall 2025 Alchemical Alignment training happening at Good Medicine. Learn more here.

Notes From the Field

A space to hear the voices from members of the Collective and highlight their work. Therese Jornlin, Selma Holden and Ginny Gill are this month’s featured Good Medicine Collective members. And we’ll close with a poem by Natasha Salvo, who composes a poem after she dances a set, inspired by the songs, albums, singers, etc. This one is aptly entitled for May, A Lover’s Prayer.

Therese, what is inspiring you right now? Thank you S☀️N! I’m also inspired by getting to know 3 ‘grand-beings’ that have arrived earth-side as my grands☀️ns! This mother-heart gets to continue to expand.

What has been fundamental on your path to becoming who you are? There are many answers to this question! Without some primary teachers who taught me philosophies and embodied practices, I’d be lost. Of the many things I could say, I think I’d choose my own daily practice and my relational “soul-ships” as essential to my path into deeper experiences of being. Some important truths born out of my embodied study that now also serve as guides include: Breath. Like earth, the breath cycle holds all the teachings. I was stunned when I experienced that the answers were all inside my nose! Also - knowing that everything i have experienced is of my making and for my awakening to the inescapable, irrefutable, undeniable fact that love is the fuel, the source, the beginning and end of who I am and who we are. I could go on…but will close with this seminal ah-ha: There is no end. Wherever I still believe in death as an end, I can find the root cause of all my confusions, distortions and sufferings. That awareness has offered a ‘quickening’ on my path.

Dare I close with: Fun and play are necessary antidotes to taking this whole thing too seriously. A good romcom can help too!

Upcoming Offerings:

Sacred Drum Workshop Mondays, May 5th, 12th and 19th (no drum needed and you can come to one or the whole series)

Learn more about Therese here.

Selma, what was your path like on becoming a psychedelic therapist? I became an integrative family physician because it was the most holistic specialty I could find within the conventional medical system. This path allowed me to hold onto the hopeful spark of becoming a psychedelic therapist during a time when the emerging modality was either confined to elite academic institutions or practiced in underground settings. I kept my interest in psychedelics and personal animistic practices within the Massachusetts neopagan community private, striving to be seen as “legitimate” according to conventional norms of achievement. Good Medicine has become a sanctuary where I can fully embody my true self—a holistic healer deeply committed to systems change.

What’s inspiring you right now? I’m inspired by how The Telepathy Tapes podcast is making the heady philosophical discussions around the Bayesian Self and Predictive Processing more accessible. The stories of non-speaking autistic children, their families, and teachers are artfully woven into a critique of the assumptions made by conventional society. The podcast invites listeners to consider a non-materialistic worldview—one that opens the possibility that consciousness is not an output of matter, but rather the framework within which matter appears. This perspective also resonates with the ideas behind Hermetic Alchemy.

Upcoming Offerings:

She’s giving a talk on the “Alchemical Playlist” at Maine Fungi Fest Saturday, May 31st 9-10:15am
May & June Riverbird continuation groups: May 8th/9th and June 13th/14th

Learn more about Selma Holden (she/they) here.

Ginny has also been a veterinary oncologist since 2008. I’m curious, can you share with me the connection between your work as a vet and a Breathwork practitioner? I was drawn to treating cancer in pets because it allows me to deeply connect with clients and pets moving through very challenging experiences and transitions. I have always been drawn to being with people in the depths, emphasis on the being with, which shows up now in my work as a Breathwork Practitioner and guide. I’m deeply inspired by transformation - continuously in awe and wonder of my clients as I witness them committing to and moving through their healing journey.

What prompted you to become a Breathwork practitioner? My own healing journey was largely catalyzed by both conscious, connected Breathwork and work in plant medicine spaces. My first Breathwork session was with Tania Zuckerman of Spiraldance shortly after returning from a retreat in Costa Rica. I was blown away by what I accessed by connecting with my breath. I still remember so much about that first session - what I was wearing, how I felt before and after the session, the touching into emotion that was buried pretty deep. When the opportunity to join the first cohort of Tania’s facilitator training arose, I jumped at the chance!

Ginny, what’s inspiring you right now? Mel Robbins and her book, The Let Them Theory, is everywhere right now. I particularly enjoyed this episode of the Rich Roll podcast where he dives deep with Mel exploring the suffering we create when we try to control what is uncontrollable. I found the second hour to be richer, so take the time for a full listen if you can.

I have also been enjoying the book, Liber 420: Cannabis, Magikal Herbs and the Occult. It explores the role of cannabis in ritual and ceremony, and as a potent plant ally, historically. I am apprenticing with ceremonial cannabis currently, and I have been wildly inspired by the potentiality of sitting with cannabis in healing spaces.

Upcoming offerings:

Ginny + Tessy Seward’s second Community Plant Practice, exploring St John’s Wort, will align with the Summer Solstice. Community Plant Practice weaves the exploration of historical, medicinal and spiritual uses of a particular plant with movement, meditation and conscious, connected Breathwork.
Ginny will be offering a Rose Ceremony, an evening devoted to the diva of the Rose, in June or July. This offering will include a rose tea ceremony, a conscious, connected Breathwork session and time being with and meeting the spirit of Rose. Stay tuned for registration details for both offerings.

Learn more about Ginny (she/her) here.

A Lover’s Prayer

A poem by Natasha Salvo: Each time I put together a dance set, I create a poem using the song titles, artist names and albums, which I recite to the group at our closing circle and then give away as an offering. At our last slow movement dance, I added to the magic by passing around a little notepad from the 1970s that I found the day before while cleaning out my uncle's barn. On each page I wrote a phrase from the poem, chosen at random, as a reminder of our experience on the dance floor and of our belonging, to ourselves and to the collective.

Good Movement @ Good Medicine 4/20/25