A Non-Indigenous Person in a Traditional Ceremony: What I Got Wrong First

I want to be careful about how I tell this story because it involves something that doesn't belong to me, and I want to tell it in a way that doesn't appropriate what I was a guest in.

I went to Oaxaca with genuine respect for Mazatec tradition and years of reading about the history of Maria Sabina and the mushrooms' traditional use. I thought my preparation was sufficient. What I found in the actual ceremony was that intellectual understanding of a tradition is qualitatively different from being present in it.

What I got wrong first: I was approaching the experience as a consumer. Even with good intentions, with genuine respect, I was there to receive something. What the ceremony asked of me was participation in something I couldn't fully understand, surrender to a context I didn't control, and trust in a healer whose practice I could only partially see.

What changed during the ceremony: the framework I had brought from my own culture became unavailable. I couldn't process what was happening through a therapeutic or neurochemical lens. I was in someone else's context, and the only option was to be fully in it or to fight it. I stopped fighting relatively early, which may be the most important thing I did.

What I came back with: respect of a different quality than I had before. The tradition is sophisticated and complete in ways that western therapeutic frameworks haven't caught up to. I am grateful I was received and I am more careful now about the difference between appreciation and appropriation.