Normalizing Psychedelics, Port Townsend, & Community Healing || Erin Reading

Meet Erin Reading

Erin Redding is a community organizer, activist and works with the Port Townsend Psychedelic Society. In this interview she talks about normalizing psychedelics in Port Townsend, WA, and the importance of healing within a community as opposed to on your own.

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How do you create such a strong community around psychedelic use?

Honestly, I feel like the number one way we did that is just by acting like it was normal and talking about it like it was normal. And once more and more people started doing that other people saw that people weren’t reacting poorly and I honestly haven’t had a single person at all of my time here You I act weird when I talk about working with psychedelics.

Everyone’s just like, Oh, that’s so interesting. How do I get involved? Like, I heard this story. I read that research. I saw that movie. And people are really passionate about these medicines around here. So I do live in a place where people are already very open. But then we also host a lot of events that just bring people together and are very welcoming.

And I think that’s the biggest element is just making sure people feel included, that they’re welcome, that they’re seen you know. We really feel like community is the biggest part of the medicine.

We really feel like community is the biggest part of the medicine.

What are some benefits of healing in community rather than going to a retreat center?

For me personally, healing in community is where it’s all about.

Oftentimes, people will go to a retreat center, not know anyone, and then come home and then have to integrate solo, basically. And here, people get to be in retreats together, get to do medicine work together, get to peer support one another, have community based circles.

And the same people that you sit in ceremony with, you’re going to see at the co op, and at the farmer’s market, and at dances, and so you’re building those relationships and supporting each other in daily life and integrating and embodying what you learned in ceremony. And it’s not always easy because medicine work brings up shadow and challenges.

And when you do medicine work in community, it brings up challenging community dynamics as well as your interpersonal dynamics, and so there’s often work to do afterwards in terms of leaning into conflicts and learning from those differences and learning from whatever projections arise and sorting through those together as a community and actually having it build us or strengthen our relationships.

Where does the passion come from for being such an advocate for plant medicine?

I have had many, many healing experiences myself.

I feel like I am the person I am today because of my work with these medicines, especially in community.

But almost more importantly, I’ve seen so much healing for other people, and I’ve also seen community webs strengthen in profound ways. And seeing that, It’s like the mycelial network is growing stronger where I live, and it feels like it’s making our community healthier and happier, and I get to be part of that healthy, happy community, which is really rewarding.

And I also, I just love where I live so much, and I want us to do things right here.

Port Townsend is a really magical town. What is the history of Port Townsend and psychedelics?

I can talk about some of the history of psychedelics. I wasn’t here back in the 60s, but I know a lot of people who were very involved in the 60s with psychedelics moved to this area.

It was like art haven land base, a lot of beautiful mountains and water around here. A lot of musicians. There were more in the 60s and 70s, and a lot of those people still live here and carried that culture forward.

I think, the early 1970s, one of the first conferences on entheogens was hosted at Fort Warden in Port Townsend. So we do have a history of psychedelics being very prominent in our town.

When I moved here six years ago, I honestly have never lived in a place where I met more people who worked with psychedelics on all sides of political parties.

Watch the FULL interview with Erin