Jessica DiRuzza - Understanding the Psychedelic Experience with Astrology
Release Date: 03/17/2020
PT506 – Decolonization, Difficult Conversations, and the Challenge of Merging Spirituality and Science, with Philip Wolf
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Philip Wolf: writer, member of Rolling Stone's Culture Council, founder of Cultivating Spirits (the first company in the U.S. to offer legal culinary cannabis experiences), and founder of CashoM, an education company offering a certificate in cannabis stewardship. He discusses his recent Rolling Stone article about the need to divorce ourselves from the colonial mindset that pervades the psychedelic movement, and he talks about the difficult conversation that came about when he asked a very critical group of psychedelic leaders how they felt about the article,...
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PT505 – Bicycle day Reflections, Quantum Mechanics, and the Value in Studying Philosophy to Understand Psychedelic Experiences, with Lenny Gibson, Ph.D.
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe and Kyle interview Lenny Gibson, Ph.D.: philosopher, Grof-certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator, 20-year professor of transpersonal psychology at Burlington College, and the reason Joe and Kyle met many years ago. He talks about his early LSD experiences and how his interest in the philosophy of Plato and Alfred North Whitehead provided a framework and language for understanding a new mystical world where time and space were abstractions. He believes that while culture sees the benefits of psychedelics in economic terms, the biggest takeaway from non-ordinary...
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PT504 – Rethinking Drug Education: From D.A.R.E. Scare Tactics to an Evidence-Based Approach, with Joey Lichter, Ph.D.
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Joey Lichter, Ph.D.: professor in the Chemistry & Biochemistry department at Miami’s Florida International University, and one of the few professors in the U.S. teaching a course about psychedelics at the collegiate level. He talks about his path towards the course, the challenge of creating a curriculum that covers everything in a few months, and the importance of teaching young minds about psychedelics the right away; shifting drug education from the “Just say no!” D.A.R.E. model to a more balanced, honest, and evidence-based approach. He aims for...
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PT503 – Updates from MAPS: Current Initiatives, Psychedelic Science 2025, and Music as a Bridge, with Devon Phillips
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In this episode, Joe interviews Devon Phillips: community & partnerships officer for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). Phillips works on strategies to tackle the questions: How do we responsibly mainstream psychedelics? And how do we get culture engaged? He's focusing on being the bridge to psychedelics outside of research, facilitating workshops and psychedelic coming-out stories at music festivals and conferences. He talks about harm reduction and drug checking at festivals, the concept of training big names to become trustworthy resources, the differences...
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PT502 – Preserving Psychedelic Legacies: Shulgin Farm and the Shulgin Archive Project, with Keeper Trout
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Keeper Trout: archivist, author, photographer, co-founder of the Cactus Conservation Institute, and creator of Trout’s Notes, a website compiling personal research and collected data to help ethnobotanical researchers. From an interest in cactus taxonomy, Sasha Shulgin urged Trout to go through his files, resulting in a friendship, and eventually, an 8-year project of digitizing all of these files into the ever-evolving Shulgin Archive. Trout discusses: His relationship with Sasha and The Shulgin Farm project, which aims to make the farm a community resource...
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PT501 – Women and Psychedelics, Microdosing, and the Challenges of Psychedelic Parenthood, with April Pride
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Alexa interviews April Pride: creative entrepreneur, veteran of the cannabis space, and now, founder of SetSet, an educational platform and podcast (picking up where The High Guide left off) for women curious about psychedelics. With Alexa about to embark on the journey of motherhood, she asks many of the questions parents working with psychedelics have to consider: How do you overcome the stigmas of being a psychedelic parent? How do you talk to your children about drugs? How do you know if a substance is ok to use during pregnancy? Pride discusses: Being dubbed “the weed...
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PT500 – Shulgin Farm and the Future of Psychedelic Drug Development, with Paul F. Daley, Ph.D.
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Paul F. Daley, Ph.D., who worked with Sasha Shulgin in his lab for the last seven years of his life, helping him finish (and co-authoring) "The Shulgin Index, Volume One: Psychedelic Phenethylamines and Related Compounds." He is now the co-founder, Chief Science Officer, and Director of Analytical Science at the Alexander Shulgin Research Institute (ASRI), focusing on the discovery and development of novel psychedelic compounds. While Sasha was passionate about self-experimentation, the Institute is aiming for the next step for these drugs: FDA approval. ...
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PT499 – Osiris González Romero – Mesoamerican Psychedelics, Decolonization, and the Concept of an Ontological Turn
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, David interviews Osiris González Romero: philosopher and Postdoctoral researcher on cognitive freedom and psychedelic humanities at the University of Saskatchewan. Romero believes that our weakest point of research is our knowledge of Indigenous languages, and is focused on highlighting different cultural uses of psychedelics to better inform future drug policy. He’s currently studying more than 100 documents (including one over 400 years old) to establish an honest understanding of why peyote was ever banned. He discusses: Mesoamerican psychedelics and their relevance to...
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PT498 – Maria Mangini, Ph.D., FNP – Traversing the Psychedelic Landscape: From Esalen and Millbrook to the Future of Shulgin Farm
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, Joe interviews Maria Mangini, Ph.D., FNP: researcher, educator, and midwife who has worked closely with many psychedelic innovators and was part of the original social network at Shulgin Farm – where this episode was recorded. She traces her journey from the influence of pioneers like the Wassons, Shulgins, and Grofs, and historic places like Esalen and Millbrook. She discusses: Her early experiences with the Grofs at Esalen and how she met the Shulgins Gregory Bateson guiding her to become a midwife The similarities between midwifery and psychedelic facilitation The unsung...
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PT497 – Wendy Tucker – Reflections from Shulgin Farm: Psychedelics, Legacy, and the Spirit of Discovery
Psychedelics Today
In this episode, released on Ann Shulgin’s birthday, Joe interviews Wendy Tucker: daughter of Ann and stepdaughter to Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin. Recorded in Sasha’s old office, she recounts her formative years, giving an insider’s look into her Mother’s openness about psychedelics, working with Sasha in the lab, how the Shulgins made a perfect team, and watching a close-knit circle of self-experimenters start to form at Shulgin Farm – and keep coming back over the years. She talks about the energy infused into the property from the decades of research and gatherings, and how she...
info_outlineIn this episode, Kyle interviews Jessica DiRuzza, Psychotherapist, Astrologer and Teacher. In the show they talk about how astrology can be used as a tool and framework for navigating and understanding psychedelic experiences.
3 Key Points:
- Astrology can be used as an integrative tool for psychedelic and other exceptional experiences.
- The planets are emitting some type of force that are letting us behave a certain way. Astrology is the one thing we have agreed upon across millennia and era.
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A Saturn Return transit can be a difficult but transformative time in one's life. This transit happens around age 28-31. During this time, we face crises in our life as we take on greater responsibility. It can feel like death and a rebirth. It can correlate to Grof's Perinatal Birth Matrix II (“No Exit” and "Cosmic Engulfment").
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Navigating Psychedelics
Show Notes
About Jessica
- She is a Psychotherapist
- She teaches and practices Astrology
- She uses Astrology to help put meaning and understanding to what happens in visionary states
- She received her bachelors at CIIS and studied and taught with Stan Grof and Richard Tarnes in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness Program
- Since the 70’s, Stan Grof was following his transits and all the transits of his clients
- Richard Tarnas and Stan Grof studied astrology as a diagnostic tool for those who would do psychedelics
- They studied transit astrology
- By looking at these transits, what they found were archetypal similarities
- “Our solar system is an extension of our ecosystem here on earth.” - Jessica\
- “For millennia, the one thing that human beings have agreed upon across cultures and eras, are the meaning of the planets” - Jessica
- Astrology is the original science
Free Will vs. Determinism
- The planets are emitting some type of force that are letting us behave a certain way
- They are reflective, what is happening in the sky is indicative of what's happening here
- Astrology is like a clock, a clock does not make it be a certain time, it just helps us tell the time
Interest in Astrology
- Psychedelics brought Jessica to Astrology
- Jessica went to her first Burning Man at 20 years old
- She received an astrology reading there and said it broke her open
- She went to CA to see the reader that gave her the initial reading
- She did a high dose LSD session
- She re-lived her birth experience, and gave birth to her new self
- The person who gave her the reading was teaching with Stan Grof and Richard Tarnas at CIIS
- She dropped out of college and moved to attend CIIS
- She was in a Uranus conjunct Ascendant transit
- Through these experiences she uprooted her entire life
Astrology Lingo
- Sun represents our sense of self, our identity in the world, egoic consciousness
- Moon represents our relational matrix, our early childhood experiences, our emotions and experiences, and a deep sense of belonging
- Rising represents who we are from moment to moment, how we initially meet existence
- Zodiac means belt of life
- Each aspect carries a different quality
- Conjunct means new moon, representing a new beginning
- A full moon represents when the sun is opposite than the moon, a blossoming or fruition.
- Astrology is a language, the language of the stars
- There are so many ways to speak this language, and so many schools of thought
- What really matters is the cosmology that goes behind the description
- “Both astrology and psychedelics are a tools for self reflection, that hopefully we are using to become more kind and more caring” - Jessica
- “Astrology provides a world view or a cosmology to hold what happens in those visionary states, it's a grounding place to integrate and make meaning of what's happening” - Jessica
Saturn Return
- Saturn return happens from age 28-31
- During our Saturn Return, we face crises in our life and take on greater responsibility
- It can feel like a death, but also like a birth
- “The greater the death, the greater the rebirth” - Jessica
- The 4 bpms correspond to the four outer planets
- It's not just in entheogenic spaces that this is applicable
- “Working with the resistance consciously, actually helps us move into what the divine or the universe wants us to step into our life, karmically, what we are here to do” - Jessica
Astrology and Psychedelics
- Kyle asks about using astrology to pick a time of when to do psychedelics
- Jessica responds saying that if you have a strong calling to do so for healing and balance, and you have all the components for proper integration, then it's a good time
- Then, astrology can be used to help find themes and help dissect the experience
- Your Saturn transits contain a difference component in each person
- The sense of responsibility grows in you
- “My deepest calling in this life is to bring Astrology and Psychology together in one unified field” - Jessica
Final Thoughts
- Jessica is so proud of the honest integrity that people are bringing to this work
- She send best wishes in the great reckoning, and the great becoming
Links
About Jessica
Jessica is a licensed psychotherapist, astrologer, and teacher. Her life is guided by a passion for engaging with people, understanding relationships, and staying connected to the larger world around us. This passion and curiosity led her into the healing profession as a counselor in 2007. For over a decade she has worked collaboratively with individuals, couples, and groups on their transformative journeys. Helping people on their path of exploration and healing is the privilege of a lifetime. Jessica received her Master’s in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She completed her undergraduate degree at California Institute of Integral Studies, where she studied and taught archetypal astrology and transpersonal psychology. Her greatest joy is working in sacred and revolutionary ways with people in psychotherapy, teaching, and astrological consultations. She also shares her work through podcasts and writing on her site.
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