Communitas is Healing

Through connections with Exeter Uni, our team of Karuna directors learned about a research project they were collaborating on alongside a Canadian non-profit organisation, Gathering Groups. Gathering Groups run a 12 week, legal, structured community based programme incorporating preparation, education, community building and a 2-night psilocybin retreat followed by four weeks of integration.  

After connecting with them over the summer, we discovered we shared the same values and purpose around affordable, accessible and non-hierarchical community of practice retreats. We signed up to complete their 12 week course between November 2025 and February 2026.  Our seven Karuna directors were joined by  Anne Rossignol from Psychedelics In Recovery to form a group of eight people who would experience this journey together at every step. 

Below is an account of one of our director’s experiences.

Our Online Preparation

We had been planning this journey for several months when, the day before our first online meeting, an email arrives from Gathering Groups with a question:

‘What in your life brought you to this journey? Who would you like to be at the end of it? You will have three minutes to share your answer.’

The question spins around my mind non stop the following day. Will I really be able to speak for three whole minutes? What will I say?  The day passes quickly and before I knew it the appointment time had arrived. I spread my notes across the table and click “join.”

As our eight faces popped up on the screen we are warmly greeted by Peg and Heather, the group facilitators and co-founders of Gathering Groups. After sharing a few grounding breaths, we are each invited to offer two words to describe how we were feeling in that moment: one physical and one emotional. Peg and Heather go first before gently inviting the rest of us in. The facilitators are very much equal members of the group, opening up and sharing the vulnerability. After housekeeping and a short video introducing the week’s theme, it’s time for the share.

There is three minutes each to answer the question, followed by two minutes of embodied listening responses from the group — personal reflections to each share, expressing how our bodies feel the words offered. “When you said…, I felt… in my……”. Even through screens, in that strange hyperspace of online connection, there is something profoundly physical and real about that connection.

I surprise myself and speak for the full three minutes. More importantly than that, I feel heard. The responses from others are warm, open, vulnerable. There is a sense of safety and deep empathy that allows honesty to surface.

This becomes our rhythm for the next seven weeks. The format remains consistent, yet fluid. We explore different themes — breathwork, meditation, Internal Family Systems and nervous system regulation, amongst others  — always returning to embodied listening and a flat structure where every voice matters. Trust deepens week by week. What begins as tentative sharing grows into something rooted and real. We begin to understand ourselves and each other in tandem, one process feeding the other.

At the close of the eighth session, the excitement is tangible. We know next time we meet we would be in 3D.

The Retreat Weekend

I meet the others outside the airport, the bright afternoon sun mirroring our moods. When we pull up to a beautiful stone building set within expansive grounds and surrounded by ancient trees, I know it is the perfect setting. Walking into the building, Peg, Heather, and three space-holders, who we have already met online, greet us with tea, snacks and easy warmth.

Once settled, we gather in the main space for our first in-person sharing circle. I flop onto a beanbag and immediately feel the familiarity of the process — like slipping into a well-worn, comfortable jumper. We share how we feel physically and emotionally. Each of us brings a small amulet or meaningful object to guide and ground us, introducing it to the group. Intentions are spoken and reflected back, before being distilled into short phrases written on cards that we keep beside us during our journey the next day.

Despite the anticipation, I sleep deeply that night.

The next morning, after a light breakfast, we prepare the psilocybin tea together, offering gratitude before pouring. We label our chosen cups and enter the journey space; eight mattresses arranged in a circle around a central table holding a selection of sacred objects. Heather blesses the space, turning to each of the four cardinal directions - offering gratitude to the ancient trees beyond the walls as well as respect for the ground that supports us.

Masks on. Headphones over ears.

The effects of the lemon-tek tea comes on gently but unmistakably — colours and shapes forming whilst consciousness softly dissolves. Soon I am fully immersed. The carefully curated playlist carries us on our individual journeys, together. If I lift my headphones and hear the same music filling the room, anchoring us in shared experience.

My journey feels warm and expansive, filled with love and quiet magic. Occasionally I sit up, removing my mask to reorient. Each time, my gaze meets one of the space-holders offering a universal, silent gesture: “Are you okay?”. I am.

Time stretches, disappears and folds. Hours feel like moments — or lifetimes. There are whispered conversations, cards drawn, incense fanned through the air, essential oils passed around. Nearing the end, around four hours later, a few of us step outside with a facilitator, wandering amongst animals and plants, eventually planting a sprouting acorn in the earth.

As the journey draws to a close, we regroup naturally in a circle around the central table. “Here Comes the Sun” plays as sunlight streams through the open doors. We dance softly in the beams. Then come pens and paper. We are invited to draw our journeys — not to create something beautiful, but something truly reflective of our experience.

Later, I spend hours outside in nature, talking quietly with others. Another delicious meal is shared around the table. That evening we return to our nests in the shared space, offering our drawings and stories to the circle. The embodied responses feel deeper now — more powerful, more meaningful. Integration begins the next morning with a sharing circle, structured reflections and a gradual tuning back into everyday reality. We laugh a lot and feel comfortable in any vulnerability

Our Online Integration

A week later we meet online again. The structure is the same, but something has shifted. We settle in easily, yet there is a noticeable change — both individually and collectively. The conversations are more honest, more trusting. Four weeks of integration, while our brains are still open to change, consolidates our intentions and experiences into noticeable changes that we celebrate together. It feels safe and thorough. 

The first online preparation session was filled with nervousness, uncertainty and self consciousness.

The last integration session is filled with excitement, tenderness, as well as recognition of how much has been transformed within us, both as individuals and as a group.

The learning still continues — about ourselves, about the process, but most of all about community. What begins as eight faces on a screen becomes something living and connected. And in ways I cannot yet fully name, I am already becoming the person I hoped to be.