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October 2026 Newsletter: When Does Your Life Become Your Decision?
Updated: Oct 7
Beloved family,
A Note From Shaman Danny: When Does It Become Your Decision?
This week I listened to a conversation that I have not been able to put down. One question in it keeps coming back to me, and I want to hand it to you:
At what point does your life become your decision?
Not your parents' decision. Not your ex's. Not your boss's, the economy's, or the decision of the younger you who got hurt and learned to stay small. Yours.
I see this moment in ceremony all the time. Someone lies on the mat and sees, maybe for the first time, exactly where the pain began. The father who could not show love. The mother who was overwhelmed. The betrayal they never talked about. That clarity is a gift, and it is real.
Then the morning comes, and they have to decide what to do with it.
There are two roads from there. On one, the insight goes home and becomes a stronger case for why life went wrong. On the other, the insight becomes the place where a new life starts.
I know the first road well. When my marriage ended and the mortgage meltdown took everything I had, I carried a very good story. Every word of it was true. And for a long time that story kept me exactly where I was. The day things began to change was not the day the story stopped being true. It was the day I stopped needing it to explain who I was going to become.
The medicine has taught me something I now hold close: people can only give what they were given. Most of the people who hurt us were handed the same wound by someone before them. That does not excuse harm. Some of what happens to people is unfair and wrong, and I will never tell you that everything happens for a reason. But understanding it loosens the grip. When you stop waiting for someone to apologize, or to finally understand you, your energy comes home to you.
Your history explains you. It does not get to decide for you.
That is what integration really is. It is not remembering the vision. It is choosing from it.
So this month I am asking you to look honestly at three places where the decision quietly gets handed away:
What you feed yourself. Not just food. What you watch, scroll, and listen to every day is shaping who you are becoming. If your feed is full of outrage, envy, and fear, that is not the world showing you the truth. It is you choosing your teacher. You can choose a different one.
Who you measure yourself against. Comparison steals the life that is actually in front of you. You have no idea what anyone else's life costs them. Gratitude is not pretending things are fine. It is seeing what is already here.
What you keep putting off. Almost everyone has something that has been sitting in their belly for a year, or ten. A call. A conversation. A boundary. A change. The fear of doing it is almost always smaller than the weight of looking back one day and saying, "I wish I had."
What I want for you is not more achievement. It is peace of mind. Knowing who you are, knowing your intention, and no longer needing anyone else's permission to live it.
The season is turning. This is a good time to decide.
If you heal, I heal. We are one.
Blessings,
Shaman Danny
A Practice for This Week: Taking Back the Decision
Name the story. Finish this sentence in writing: "I can't ____ because ____." Do not judge it. Just see it on paper.
Separate what happened from what you are choosing. Draw a line down a page. On the left, write what happened to you. It may be true, and it may not have been your fault. On the right, write what you are choosing to do now. Only the right side is yours to change.
Take one action within 24 hours. Make it small and real. Send the message, book the appointment, say the honest sentence, delete the app. Something that moves you off the left side of the page.
At the end of the week, ask yourself: Whose permission have I still been waiting for? And what would I do this week if I stopped waiting?
Bring what you find to Integration Tuesday.
With Gratitude
Before anything else this month, thank you.
On the Autumn Equinox, September 22, we lit the Sacred Fire and initiated the founding circle of the Sacred Healing School. Watching these students step into this path together was one of the proudest moments of my nine years in this work.
Thank you to everyone who sat in ceremony with us this season, and to everyone who keeps showing up to the circles week after week, especially on the nights it would have been easier to stay home. Thank you to those who have given so that others could come to ceremony. Thank you to Connie, who holds so much of this work quietly and with so much love. And thank you to Lisa Starr for bringing the Medicine Wheel to our land.
None of this exists without you. We are deeply grateful.
The Medicine Wheel Ceremony with Lisa Starr
Update, October 7: the Medicine Wheel has moved from October 11 to Sunday, November 8. If you already RSVP'd, your place is saved for the new date.
Sunday, November 8 · 1:00 to 4:00 PM Pacific · Sacred Desert Sanctuary
This month we are opening our land for something different, and everyone is invited.
The Medicine Wheel, the great Wheel of Life, is a living expression of Mother Earth's energies. When a wheel is built in ceremony, it opens a direct line of communication with Mother and nourishes everyone within its circle. Together we create a vortex of vision, healing, and alignment that reaches the people who walk the wheel and the land around it.
This is a form of Earth Renewal: recharging the land and creating a sacred place of power that the whole community helps build. Traditionally, the men prepare the space for the wheel and the women gather stones from the land.
"Whatever you put into the spinning energy, the thought, prayer, intention or word, comes into being." ~Bennie Blue Thunder LeBeau
If this month's question is about taking your life back into your own hands, the wheel is a beautiful place to set that intention in front of witnesses, with your hands in the earth.
About Lisa Starr. Lisa is a Holistic Healing Arts Practitioner, artist, ceremonialist, shamanic guide, and educator with more than 20 years of experience. As a Minister of the Quero Apache tradition, she weaves traditional wisdom, Earth Magic, sacred ceremony, and mindfulness. She is a Cal-Earth alumna who designed and built Bonita Domes, her earthbag home and retreat here in Joshua Tree.
By donation. A donation of $30 is suggested.
All are welcome, including children. Bring the whole family.
Potluck. We close in celebration. Please bring food to share if you can. Healthy snacks are encouraged.
Please arrive by 1:00 PM. The address is emailed to you when you RSVP.
Meet the Medicine: Ceremonial Cacao
Some medicines open the door with force. Cacao opens it gently, and then waits to see if you will walk through.
Cacao comes from Theobroma cacao, a tree native to the tropical Americas. When the botanist Linnaeus named it, he chose Theobroma, "food of the gods," and the peoples who first worked with it would have understood why. For thousands of years, Mesoamerican cultures including the Olmec, the Maya, and later the Mexica prepared cacao as a sacred drink. It was offered to the gods and shared at weddings, births, and rites of passage. In some places the beans were valuable enough to trade as currency. Cacao was never just food. It was relationship.
What Makes Cacao Ceremonial
Ceremonial cacao is not hot chocolate. It is the whole bean, minimally processed, ground into a paste that keeps its natural fat and its full character. Cocoa powder and chocolate bars have usually been stripped, roasted hard, and sweetened until little of the original plant remains.
The main active compound is theobromine, a gentle and longer-lasting cousin of caffeine. It tends to bring a soft, steady energy rather than a jolt, and it widens the blood vessels, which is part of why so many people describe cacao as warming and heart-opening. It does not take you out of yourself. If anything, it brings you more fully in.
Why Cacao Belongs With This Month's Question
Cacao will not show you visions or take you somewhere far away. She works closer to home. She softens the chest, slows the breath, and makes it a little easier to hear what you already know.
That is exactly why she pairs so well with the question in this month's note. Many of the decisions we keep postponing are not hidden from us. We feel them. We just keep talking over them. Cacao quiets the noise enough for the heart to be heard. What you do with what you hear is still your choice.
Approaching Cacao With Respect
Gentle does not mean casual. Ceremonial cacao is far stronger than a candy bar. If you take antidepressants or other psychiatric medications, especially MAOIs, if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure, or if you are pregnant or sensitive to caffeine, tell us during screening so we can talk it through honestly.
Come to cacao the way you would come to any medicine. Bring an intention, not just a mug.
How we serve her. In our Psilocybin Ceremonies with Cacao, we open by setting intentions together and honoring the Four Directions. Then a heart-opening cacao ritual gently prepares the body and spirit before the psilocybin journey begins. You can find our upcoming dates further down in this letter.
Bring Cacao Home: $20 Off While It Lasts
If you would like to begin your own practice at home, our sister apothecary, Sacred Cybin, carries ceremonial-grade cacao from Peru's Sacred Valley. It is heritage criollo cacao, stone-ground in Peru and held at our altar in Joshua Tree before it ships.
A new harvest is on its way, so we are clearing what remains of this batch to make room. We have only 24 bars left. Take $20 off a 500 gram bar: $30 instead of $50. Each bar makes about 25 servings.
To prepare it, warm 8 ounces of water until it is hot but not boiling. Whisk in about 20 to 25 grams of cacao with a small pinch of sea salt. Drink it slowly. Sit. Breathe. Set an intention.
Use code cacaolove at checkout. The code takes $20 off one bar per order. When these bars are gone, the clearance is over.
Upcoming Ceremonies
Our October and November ceremonies have filled almost entirely, and we are deeply grateful to everyone who said yes to this work this season.
If you have felt the call and have been waiting for the right moment, this is a good time to look ahead. New dates are open into the winter and the new year, and the circles stay small, so places go quickly.
Please check out our future and upcoming ceremonies, and find the date and the medicine that feel right for you.
Every ceremony begins with a readiness conversation, preparation guidance, and honest screening. If you are feeling called but are not sure which medicine is right for you, email us at info@sacredhealingretreat.com and we will talk it through.
Our Weekly Circles
Integration Tuesdays · Every Tuesday at 6:00 PM Pacific
Men's Circle · Every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Pacific
Women's Circle · Every Sunday at 7:00 PM Pacific
These circles are free. Come to be witnessed, to listen, and to keep the work alive between ceremonies.
Join links are sent to our email community. To receive them, write to us at info@sacredhealingretreat.com.
Blessings,
Sacred Healing
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