Cannabis has 4/20, LSD has Bicycle Day on 4/19; and now, there’s a new celebration for psilocybin on 9/20. This designated date will allow for advocates to educate the world on the many wonders of magic mushrooms. Why September? Well, the middle to end of September is a great time of year to forage for fungi. We asked our plant medicine experts to share their thoughts on 9/20, and the growing psychedelic movement.
Mommy Jane Founder Jessica Gonzalez
Since we are starting to celebrate psilocybin with a holiday, I really hope more conversations happen around moms and mushroom medicine. I have been microdosing mushrooms for almost four years now, and it has been instrumental in my recovery with PTSD and anger management, and my mental health. A lot of moms are suffering from untreated depression, and cannabis alone can only do so much. It has been proven in numerous studies that psilocybin creates dopamine in the brain and can give an uplifting and life changing experience if done correctly.
Moms are so afraid of losing their kids by using alternative medicine to treat their mental and physical health, but what harm are we doing to them living with anxiety and depression and anger that is untreated, or worse, mistreated. I really hope doctors start taking this more seriously and offering their patients these highly effective alternatives because our country’s mental health needs a solution as beneficial as fungi. My top educators and advocates are @psillygirls @decrimca @decriminalizenature and of course @doubleblindmag.
Cannabis Industry Consultant and Strategic Advisor Andrew DeAngelo
I am excited that this most important visionary plant has a day all to its own. If there is no celebration in your hometown, well, you might just have to make your own. Plug into the global scene, educate those around you, and always practice safe tripping with appropriate dosages and the right set and settings. Psilocybin is on its way to a new branding in society and a new role of healer in our world. Let's make sure that happens with responsible curating of this new holiday for our community.
Budding Mind Founder Brooke Burgstahler
The path to liberation is not just the birthright of human beings — but all beings — including our fungi family. Just as people deserve the freedom to experience psychedelic mushrooms — these magic mushrooms ought to be allowed the freedom to shift consciousness, exactly as nature intended. As psilocybin medicine becomes more mainstream, and inevitably commercialized, I hope that we remember that these magic mushrooms can be grown by our very own hands. Through hosting DoubleBlind's How to Grow Mushrooms course, I was humbled to learn that birthing your own fungi family simply requires patience and TLC. Imagine a future where we're all making our own microdoses!
DoubleBlind Co-founder / CEO Shelby Hartman
Mushrooms may be the trendiest organisms on the planet right now—and I'm thrilled about it. Like cannabis, they're an opportunity for us to appreciate the incredible medicine that comes from the earth, and to reconsider why certain medications (i.e. pharmaceuticals) are legal while others remain prohibited. The research is pretty definitive at this point: Psilocybin shows unprecedented promise as a treatment for depression, substance use, trauma, and so many other mental health conditions that are plaguing our society. I'm grateful to this holiday for making these conversations more visible, and I'm hopeful that soon—whether through FDA-approved medications, the home-grow movement, or both—that many more Americans will be discovering the magic of psilocybin.
WAFBA (We Are For Better Alternatives) President Morris Beegle
Psychedelics to me are a gateway to collective consciousness for all living things. I am grateful to have started down the path many years ago, and continue on that journey today by expanding the mushroom/psychedelics conversation in our event programming. The hemp community is interested in discussions on functional mushrooms and mushroom superfoods, along with mushroom based industrial products like packaging and styrofoam replacement.
Tokeativity CEO Samantha Montanaro
I love that 9/20 celebrates psilocybin mushrooms - they certainly deserve their own day for all they have done for humanity. I firmly believe in the "stoned ape" theory that the consumption of psychoactive plants by early ancestors of modern humans resulted in the massive brain growth that sets us apart as a species. The beings that consumed these mind-expanding organisms could hunt, forage, heal and be better than those who did not consume them, therefore they not only survived, but thrived to be the "smartest" living thing on the planet. Psychedelics connect us to the unknown and mushrooms (mycelium) are the neuronetwork of our entire global ecosystem. Now that is certainly something worth celebrating!
Honeysuckle Magazine Founder Ronit Pinto
Magic Mushroom Day is an awesome holiday and I can’t wait to celebrate it. Plant medicine has entered the mainstream thanks to organizations like Dr. Bronner’s, John Hopkins, Burning Man and MAPS — they are doing so much to bring magical plants to the masses. The science behind it all is fascinating and becomes so more and more as studies and information surface. I know many people have had their lives and ways of thinking utterly transformed in revolutionary ways, and for the better. Not only people with deep trauma, but those who need to elevate their consciousness and shed themselves of negative patterns of thinking. I believe the world would definitely be better off if politicians, world leaders and those in the dark explored plant medicine, and apparently mushrooms are more similar to humans in regards to DNA then they are to other plants! If you listen, many swear the plants will share their wisdom with you and speak to you. So yes, let’s celebrate it!
Space Coyote President Libby Cooper
On one galactic night in Joshua Tree, Scott and I gathered 25 friends to view a meteor shower during the new moon. Naturally, a pot of mushroom tea was brewed, and the gang all enthusiastically imbibed. Wearing embroidered dresses, thick furs, and heavy boots, we traipsed through the desert thinking we looked glamorous, but really just getting caught on cacti and stumbling on real and imaginary hazards along the way. Scott and I led the charge, and somehow managed to perch ourselves on what appeared to be huge boulders under the stars. Coyotes were yipping in the distance and stars were melting across the sky and into our eyes. We couldn’t tell what was a real or mushroom induced meteor, but it didn’t even matter. On that night, earth became our spaceship and forever more we were the Space Coyotes. One year later, as an ode to that trip, Scott and I launched Space Coyote, which celebrates the psychedelic side of weed. Today, Space Coyote is a stoner staple and our high potency products can be found in dispensaries across the state.
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This article was originally published by and appears courtesy of Magnetic Magazine.
Featured image: (C) Christopher Ott
