༺ The Less is More Philosophy ༻

Never underestimate the Power of Intention, Energy and Vibration.
We believe the power of healing lies in our ability to feel, clear and attune using all energetic layers present in the body.

We Want to Feel

It is probably fair to say that generally as a society – we like to FEEL things. We are chasing MORE! More and more. More stimulation, more experiences, more sensations, more expansion, more connection, more healing. Perhaps as we have become desensitised and disconnected to ourselves and nature – we seek more intensity in experiences. We want to feel alive. We want to feel. And we want it now!

We seek stimulation in many ways, whether it is through our foods – heavily flavoured foods ladened with sugar and salt, our screen entertainment, or how we engage with healing modalities and medicines, especially plant medicines. Often when working with a medicine like cannabis or psilocybin, we want to take more. We are seeking to feel exactly what it is doing and how it is changing us, in a physiological way or maybe through being catapulted into expansive altered states of consciousness.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with this – it is perhaps a natural adaptation response to our modern lifestyle, there are other, more subtle ways to engage with these medicines that could support deeper, richer and more integrated healing. We call this ‘Less is More’.

Less is More

The Less is More approach is a fundamental approach for us as basis for working with any medicine and in particular, the use of plant medicine. When we say Less is More, this is applied in a couple different ways – in terms of dosage itself, exploring working with plants in lower doses, and in relation to how many different types of medicines, supplements, herbs etc. someone works with at any given time.

A starting point for working with this principle is to contextualise how this is applied and who this is applied to. Someone working with a chronic imbalance or dis-ease in the body, may at points work with higher doses of medicines (for example, to stimulate the endocannabinoid system) and multiple types of medicines, whereas someone who is relatively well – the simplicity and subtlety of the Less is More principle, may be a better approach to working with these medicines. It is not a hard and fast rule – simply an invitation to see through a slightly different lens and engage with medicine at more subtle levels. Moving away from the need to feel everything in a big way.

Exploring working with lower doses assists us to be able to feel the more subtle qualities of the medicine, we develop more sensitivity to being able to sense the impact of the medicine and respond to what is needed. This is what it means to ‘titrate’ – to start at a low dose and to slowly increase it to see how your body responds, to minimise any side effects and maximise the benefit. Working with lower doses, for example, micro-dosing or even what could be described as micro-micro-dosing over a period of time, can offer significant health benefits and support a range of systems in the body in incremental but integrated ways.

If we blow our system out with large quantities, we can miss the teaching of the medicine and disconnect from our bodies – maybe perpetuating the cycle of sensory stimulation and instant gratification. There is a significant and necessary process to integrate the experience into the body, and allow the message to infiltrate our layers in present time here and now.  That being said, there are many ways to engage with medicine and there may be times when a medium size dose or even ‘Hero’ dose can be appropriate and profound at multiple levels. Less is More is a principle and approach – not a rule!

Working at more delicate level with medicine, we can connect with it at energetic levels – becoming more attuned the frequency of the plant and its teachings in a more day-to-day manner. In this way we can come to connect with the medicine with humility and respect and refine our senses.

When it comes to taking multiple types of things, we might know someone (or maybe this is us) who takes multitudes of pills, potions, powders and extracts every morning and evening. Their macadamia-milk-based-protein-pea-powder-smoothie is so thick with added ‘health’ products, it must be consumed with a spoon! How do we know what is working in our bodies, what is doing what, and what synergy is occurring with what is being taken? How can our delicate digestive system and the complex microbiome process and assimilate what is being taken in? Stripping back and simplifying what is consumed, ensuring that it is taken in a way that maximises bioavailability of nutrients and where possible, consuming whole foods and plants as medicine is key to our philosophy. More on bioavailability here.

A philosophical offering – perhaps we can also learn and heal with more grace and ease. Sometimes the path of healing seems like it needs to be intense, prolonged, and painful – maybe-just-maybe, it does not always have to be this way to be legitimate and profound. Deep healing can occur through softening and relaxing into it – taking one mindful breath at a time.

Mental Blockers

There is a sense of urgency at this time in history – we seem to collectively desire to transform and heal, and for many people this feeling is a driver to how they approach working with medicines and specifically plant medicines. Hasten slowly on this path!

One mental pattern or block that we commonly see when working with people and medicines is that there is a strong expectation that they are going to feel something profoundly as soon as they start taking it, and it will have a specific intended effect in an obvious way. And if that does not happen, then it is not ‘working’.

This type of expectation – of thinking something should feel a particular way, do a specific thing and in a certain timeframe, can be a significant block in working with the medicine. It may inhibit the medicine from working in the way that it needs to and for us to be open to the innate intelligence of the medicine, and indeed our body.  It is sort of like a placebo mindset in reverse – the rigid perception that one will obviously feel changes immediately and it will heal exactly in the way one thinks it should, can hinder the natural course of the healing process and the connection with the medicine.

The products and medicine we use are of the highest quality available. The research on the medicine is well established on its efficacy across an incredibly wide range of benefits. We encourage people to drop the mental expectation and soften into the somatic experience of feeling what the medicine and their body is telling them. Trusting the process, the medicine and the body’s own intelligence invites a deeper and more integrated healing experience.

Trust The Intelligence of the Medicine and Your Body

Our medical system is set up for reliance on it. It disempowers people as they place their body in the hands of doctors. It is a dangerous amount of power for an individual to hold – that a doctor or specialist has such agency over the healing journey of an incredibly complex and unique biosystem.

In the current Western medicine system, we are prescribed pharmaceuticals and told how much to take, when and how we should take them. People have become so dependent on someone outside of themselves to provide the exact details for use, what they are going to feel and what is going to happen. Listening to our bodies and attuning to our distinctive needs is not even a factor in this prescribed approach.

It is a reductionist mentality – taking complex and nuanced individual biological systems, applying generic pharmacological solutions, and setting up the expectation for specific experiences and outcomes – a ‘x+y=z’ type approach. We want to avoid this approach when working with plant medicines.

Your body is phenomenal – it is system with inconceivable complexity and choreography. It has an intelligence that is beyond amazing – it is an absolute miracle. Likewise – plant medicines are incredible, the function of fungi for example, is astonishing. The interplay between our unique system and plant medicines has extraordinary potential for healing and personal growth. This relationship is not a reductionist one – where there is a part of us ‘broken’, we ingest a certain amount of a plant and are ‘fixed’. It is a journey of learning how to connect with our own bodies and the plant, and deeply listen and feel into how to play together.

The ‘how much, when and how’ question that is so often asked about plant medicine can best be answered by tuning in and working in relationship to the body and the plant. Of course, there are general guidelines around dosage and a broad understanding of the potential scope of treatment, but it is not meant to be a prescriptive or dogmatic approach. Learning how to listen deeply is fundamental. Becoming still and quiet and asking with an open mind and heart. Dropping the cognitive processing and our expectations around the healing journey, and simply being open in each moment to the deep wisdom available to us through listening to our bodies.

The endocannabinoid system for example is so different for each person. A 1000mg extract taken in the same quantity will have a very different impact for someone who has depression and is lethargic, as compared to someone who has high levels of stress and has difficulty sleeping. It may energise the person with depression so they should take it in the morning at a higher dose but may soothe the nervous system of the stressed person and make them sleepy, so they take a lower dose in the evening before bedtime. While this is an oversimplified example, it illustrates how we are seeking to work with medicines to create a balanced healthy homeostasis in the body – and that is individual at any given moment for each person – it can and will change from day-to-day.

In the end, we hope our range of offerings and assistance, can allow you an experience where you can integrate your food with your medicine, and move away from how we associate with these words into a new way of experience. We stimulate your senses so our subtle body becomes alive, which opens the doors for worlds of spices, roots, flowers and essences to penetrate and work with you in ways you may have never experienced. We very much look forward to sharing our goodness with you.