In this episode — Psychedelic psychotherapist Heather A. Lee returns to the program with the message she received on a recent psilocybin journey. She and Richard cover psilocybin for women sixty and over, why she thinks the “hero’s dose” is male language, what a micro dose actually is, Colorado’s grow-gift-share model, and the psychedelic tourism they’ve produced.

Guest: Heather A. Lee, LCSW, LNMCF — one of the nation’s first licensed psychedelic-assisted psychotherapists (Licensed Natural Medicine Clinical Facilitator, Colorado); 30+ years in clinical practice; trained at the Harvard Mind/Body Medical Institute; former Coordinator of Women’s Mind/Body Wellness Education at UVA Medical Center’s Midlife Women’s Health Center; featured in Lisa Ling’s CBS special The Psychedelic Renaissance. Author of The Psilocybin Sessions: Real-Life Stories of Women’s Wisdom Awakening with Psychedelic Medicine (Modern Wisdom Press, 2025). heatheralee.com · Azores retreats

Chapters

00:00 — Cold open: “all the other plants have something to say”

00:55 — Welcome: living in community, and Peaks Island’s 900 people

02:41 — Breakfast, intermittent fasting, and watching your protein

04:28 — Fuel: air, water, and ingestibles

05:48 — The Psilocybin Sessions, and what’s new

06:31 — The mushrooms’ message: listen to the other plants

07:28 — The Azores: a retreat that sold out in two weeks

09:21 — Living on the planet vs. living as part of it

10:23 — Selling Boulder, buying Peaks Island

11:33 — The legend of the Azores: the healers being called back

13:49 — Psilocybin for women 60 and over: cumulative grief, reinvention, resilience

17:02 — Hero’s dose vs. heroine’s dose

19:27 — What a microdose actually is

19:58 — How do you know what’s in the mushroom? Testing and strains

22:19 — Colorado’s two models: unregulated (grow, gift, share) and regulated

24:23 — Psychedelic tourism: flying to Colorado to do it legally

27:31 — Many paths: the jungle, the hospital, or “a psychedelic broad like me”

29:02 — Will psychedelics change the culture?

30:54 — Forest bathing and clinical ecotherapy

31:53 — Adverse effects: screening, and the three who went silent

35:09 — The container: 12 to 15 hours of prep, journey, and integration

36:19 — Who Heather turns away

38:04 — The break, and the open-source archive

40:28 — Imagine the mossy forest: magnifying glasses, black sand, breath work to the surf

44:01 — Close: heatheralee.com