My Psychedelic Roots

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Podcast by Amy Bartlett

My Psychedelic Roots

My Psychedelic Roots shares stories from people from a broad swath of lived experience to explore their psychedelic beginnings, or roots: what motivated them to start using psychedelics, what those early experiences were like, and how those roots have impacted their understanding of themselves and the world around them. My goal in these conversations is to give voice to the unique, transpersonal and human side of psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness--- allowing guests to talk about their personal stories, not just their professional ones. I hope that listeners of the podcast will have an opportunity to gain insight into the lived reality of psychedelic experiencing (both the shadow and the light), hear about how people found their way into the psychedelic space, and to have an opportunity to get curious about the resonance, contrasts and connections between the podcast guests experience and their own psychedelic roots.

Latest episodes

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08 September 2026

Ep36: Jamie Steel on his safe and grounded childhood, and experiencing life's exploration as a receiving

Jamie Steel is an award-winning educator, music presenter, artist manager and community builder based in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. Jamie has a background in Environmental Studies and Geography, and joined the local Huntsman Marine Science Centre in 1986 as Director of Education Programs. There, he developed experiential programs for students and teachers and created marine education resources used in Canada and internationally. His contributions were recognized with a New Brunswick Merit Award for environmental education and the Gulf of Maine Council’s inaugural Visionary Award. Jamie later carried that love of experiential learning into the arts, and has helped to build a vibrant arts community in St. Andrews and the broader region. He co-founded Paddlefest and founded the Winter Warmer Festival, both of which bring musicians and audiences together through intimate, community-rooted experiences. Named Music Industry Professional of the Year by Music·Musique NB in 2010, Jamie also received the East Coast Music Association’s Industry Builder Award in 2021. Across science, education and music, his work reflects his passion for bringing people together through creativity, community and shared experience—all of which is shared in our conversation together. In it, we talk about Jamie’s grounded childhood, which helped establish a solid base for his sense of exploration. We talk about how this admiration for explorers is connected to his psychedelic roots, the seed of which began on a train between Vancouver and Edmonton, and how those roots have supported his life’s many unfoldings and way of seeing the world—whether in a non-ordinary state of consciousness or not.

Shownotes

Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay

#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport

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26 August 2026

EP35: Rainbow Valentine on growing up in the counterculture, and staying connected to the magic of her childhood home

Thessaly Storm Lerner aka Rainbow Valentine is a multi-media artist, storyteller and accidental counterculture historian. Along with producing narrative podcasts about hippie heroes with the “Psychedelic Women” podcast, Lerner shares her talents as a musical comedian known as The Ukulady, a voiceover actress best known for the cult videogames “Silent Hill” and “The Sims 2”, as well as a writer, producer, director, improviser, creator, and promoter of “the Downfall of Evil”. Thessaly adopted her childhood moniker Rainbow Valentine as her podcast alias while also making the popular podcast “Disorganized Crime: Smuggler’s Daughter” about her childhood growing up with pot-smuggling counterculture parents, which we talk about a bit in our conversation together. In tracing Thessaly’s psychedelic roots, we also explore the relativity of understanding oneself in childhood, we talk about the role magic played and continues to play in her life’s unfolding, and the role of safety and home in her first – and subsequent—psychedelic experiences.

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Rainbow Valentine's website: https://www.rainbowvalentine.com/

Psychedelic Women podcast: https://psychedelicwomenstories.com/

Disorganized Crime podcast: https://www.rainbowvalentine.com/disorganized_crime.html

Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay

#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport

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15 July 2026

Ep34: Ona Praderas on expression, creativity and whimsy in childhood, and her first supported experience in Oaxaca, Mexico

Ona Praderas is an art therapy student (Toronto Art Therapy Institute), embodiment wellness coach, clinic administrator at FlowState Therapy, facilitator at ACER Integration, and board member of the Psychedelic Puppet Show. Previously, she co-led Synthesis Retreats, guiding participants through transformative experiences. Ona holds safe spaces for people to reclaim their bodies, pleasure, and power, and to reconnect with their creativity and inner wisdom. With over a decade of experience integrating movement, breath, creativity, and Gestalt Therapy–Informed Practices into the preparation, facilitation, and integration of psychedelic experiences, she supports personal growth, self-awareness, and empowerment, and proudly serves LGBTQ+ communities and non-traditional relationships. In our conversation, Ona describes her early childhood moving from Spain to Mexico, and finding comfort in the different languages and cultures in which she was immersed. She talks about how art and creativity helped her feel grounded and connected throughout her unfolding, and after some recreational experiences, she walks us through her first supported experience with friends at a retreat in Oaxaca Mexico. Ona also shares about the role that art and expression can play in psychedelic meaning making, and her own experiences of healing and transformation with creativity

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Ona’s personal website: https://www.onapraderas.com/

Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay

#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport

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02 July 2026

Ep33: Kenneth Tupper on his foundation-forming first experiences, and the importance of equity in psychedelic regulation

Kenneth Tupper is a Canadian policy consultant, scholar and educator who provides guidance on public health and transformative education, with a particular focus on mental health, substance use and psychedelic research. In our conversation together, Ken takes us through his childhood of embracing science while being surrounded by awe-inspiring nature in the west coast of Canada. He walks us through some of his early experiences with LSD where the seeds were planted for his interest in psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness, as well as planting seeds for some of his more fulfilling and nourishing threads in adulthood, including his passion for playing music and caretaking of his body and health. Ken also shares about how his experiences with psychedelics helped shape his academic and professional choices, and we end the conversation talking a bit about what the present—and future—of Canadian drug policy is grappling with as we aim to work towards the equitable and sustainable unfolding of the legal and regulatory space in Canada.

Shownotes

Ken's website: https://kennethtupper.ca/

Ken's research & publications: https://kennethtupper.ca/publications

Ken's podcast, "Intonicated" - YouTube video channel (also available in audio-only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.): https://www.youtube.com/@Intonicated-1

Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay

#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport

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15 June 2026

Ep32: Scott Wright on a harrowing first encounter, rekindling curiosity much later in life, and learning to connect with others and himself

Scott Wright is a filmmaker and producer who is on the cusp of premiering his new film The Next Chapter - Psychedelics, Healing, and the Second Half of Life: a documentary following adults over 55 as they have a shared psychedelic experience in a facilitated group setting. Through intimate, story-driven portraits, his film looks beyond the science to the human experience pf psychedelic experiencing — what it means to reflect, heal, and begin again in the later years of life. In our conversation together, Scott shares about what led him to make this film, and the rich and varied life that led him to his first supported psychedelic experience in his late 60s. Scott spent 25 years of his life on the radio, rising from his high-school station in suburban Chicago to become America’s most-listened-to DJ throughout the 1980s on Z-100 in New York and his nationally syndicated show “Hitline USA” (listeners knew him as “Shadow Steele” or simply “The Shadow”). He turned later in his career to film, and his latest offering was inspired by his transformative psilocybin experience in Mexico over three years ago. In our conversation, we hear about his spiritual experiences with music, his harrowing and unexpected first experience with LSD when he was 16, and staying away from psychedelics until he picked up Michael Pollan’s book in 2018 and rekindled his curiosity about the healing potential of these experiences—eventually leading to his profound experience of connection and compassion, and transforming into what he calls “Scott 2.0”

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Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay

#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport

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06 June 2026

Ep31: Ariel Fuenzalida on his childhood of tumult, finding flow and presence, and coming to the threshold of what is

Ariel Fuenzalida is an Adjunct Professor for the Classics and Religious Studies Department and core faculty of the Psychedelics & Consciousness Studies M.A. Program at the University of Ottawa, while also teaching for the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. With apologies for the temporary rough audio in the introduction to this episode, in our conversation together, Ariel and I wend our way through his tumultuous childhood: from his experiences as a child growing up in Chile and losing contact with his mother for a year during the political unrest, escaping to Canada with his family, and finding grounding and community in what became eventually their new home. As he came to settle in Canada, Ariel talks about his early experiences of presence, flow and wonder that he accessed in his early years, and the influences and motivations that eventually brought him to his first psychedelic experience with friends as a curious and maybe a little naïve university student at a Chinese restaurant in Ottawa.

Music credit: Music by Mass X Audio from Pixabay

#psychedelics #podcast #tripreport

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