The Evolving Integration Needs of a Community

The Flying Sage Journal #21

How do the integration needs of a psychedelic community evolve over time?

Over the past two years, The Flying Sage has been running in-person integration circles in collaboration with Qi Integrated Health and in the past few months, we’ve started to notice a drop in attendance.

Although there could be a variety of reasons for this, my friend Kiem suggested an interesting possibility that I would like to explore further here.

The Extended Integration Theory

When we started our integration circles, it was the only event we offered as a community and because of this, it was the primary avenue of making connections for our members. Since then however, things have changed a lot as we now have an entire ecosystem of different event types that we offer.

We have cold plunges, breathwork events, sound baths, ecstatic dances as well as other social gatherings happening every week.

While in the past our community members would only have one option to source their integration from, they now have multiple.

This is a result of integration being a pillar of our community offerings. Instead of being something that just sits in isolation, integration has become a process that permeates and extends into the entire community itself.

Namely, integration is fostered through three primary avenues at the moment…

1. Follow up care provided from our events

2. The presence and support of skilled facilitators and practitioners in our community

3. Increased peer-to-peer connections and friendships being formed in organic ways

Thanks to the organization’s natural growth paired with the intentional development of community systems, it is possible that the integration needs of our community members are being met outside of the integration circles themselves. In other words…

Our community has matured in a way where our standard integration circles are no longer as valuable to our community members as they used to be.

If this were the case then there is reason to celebrate because this is a major part of why The Flying Sage came to exist in the first place. Our community was created with the intention of serving as a safety net to support people with the preparation and integration of their psychedelic experiences.

If people in our community no longer need our integration circles because they are adopting a more integrated lifestyle as a result of our offerings, then that is a big win for us and would mean that we have succeeded in extending integration support into and throughout the community.

Different Culture, Different Stages

I understand that in ancient societies where psychedelics have been used traditionally for centuries, there is no additional need for integration because the society itself has an integrated structure.

In those cultures, psychedelic integration is not needed in the same way it is being discussed and understood here in the WEIRD parts of the world.

I would argue that if integration is indeed being extended into the community, it would logically follow that more structured integration support circles, like the ones we run, might not be necessary.

When we started, our circles were the only node of integration and they were limited by our capacity to run them. A singular node in a single space. Now, it is possible that many of our offerings are serving as integration nodes, expanding outwards in organic ways outside the direct purview of direct community management

Testing The Theory

Now as I mentioned, I am not certain that what I have described here is actually what is happening within the community. It is just a theory at this point.

Maybe we are just experiencing seasonal fluctuations in attendance. Maybe it has something to do with the facilitators we are bringing on or the way in which we are marketing the events.

Whatever it might be, the good thing is I don’t have to sit around and speculate… it’s time to determine how to test this.

Over the next couple weeks I am going to speak to members of our community about this and get some feedback on how their integration process has evolved over time and how we might adjust our integration services to be of most support.

Some questions floating around for me at the moment include…

1. Is integration even important to you in the first place?

2. How intentional is your integration practice?

3. How has joining The Flying Sage community altered your relationship to integration?

4. What are your favorite metaphors for integration?

5. Do you have an integrated lifestyle and if not, is that something you are wanting to cultivate more?

Farewell Until Next Time

I hope you have enjoyed this edition of The Flying Sage Journal. If you would like to read more things like this, and hear updates on what I discover with my inquiry into integration, please consider subscribing and sharing this with a friend.

If you have any feedback or thoughts around what I shared today, feel free to leave a comment below.

With psychedelic love and gratitude,

- Michael 🤍

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