Carlos was born to a Mexican American mother and a Mexican indigenous father. His early years were spent traveling between San Jose CA and a rural community in the Autlan Valley of Jalisco, where his father was a small farmer. His experience growing up was informed by the beauty of the Mexican countryside, his large extended
family and its customs, as well as the struggles of his immigrant father, his Mexican culture, and the lower income communities where he was raised.

At the age of 7, Carlos experienced an awakening moment where the death of a family member connected him to the concepts of the infinite (the eternal afterlife), and zero (death). His obsession with the existential meaning of the human journey caused many sleepless nights trying to make sense of the higher implications of being sentient and self-aware but facing imminent end. Thus began his process of living life in the now, while perceiving every significant act from the moment of his last breath. While he was surrounded by violence, alcoholism, and the sufferings of impoverishment, Carlos’ fascination with being alive enabled him to stay above the shackles of the trauma.

While his friends all dropped out of high school, Carlos decided to go to college. After two years in junior college, Carlos was accepted into UCLA to study biology and anthropology. Despite working 30 hours per week to pay for
his tuition, Carlos was able to graduate in 1993 with a BS in biological anthropology. He then spent 3 months living amongst the Achuar of the Ecuadorian rainforest to connect with the indigenous ways of humans in nature and to learn of the life of a hunter-gatherer community. 

While in Ecuador, Carlos received a letter informing him he had been accepted into the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science where he received a Masters of Environmental Science degree in 1995, with emphases on conservation biology and political ecology. Coming to the realization that all efforts at creating a sustainable relationship with nature and each other is first and foremost political, Carlos chose the path of becoming an organizer.

In the 1990s, Carlos honed his craft of social organizing as an early participant in the nascent environmental justice movement. In the 2000s, Carlos focused on developing his political organizing and legislative skills by working as a congressional aide and then a chief of staff to the Oakland City Council president, and then as a registered lobbyist for a firm he created. His early lobbying days were on behalf of urban infill housing projects and cannabis legalization policy. Coming to the realization that all efforts at creating a sustainable relationship with nature and each other is first and foremost political, Carlos chose the path of becoming an organizer.

From 2018 and 2022, Carlos had experiences with entheogens, including mushrooms, ayahuasca, DMT, and Peyotl, which introduced him to the transformative power of these natural substances. Recognizing their capacity (with good education and integration) at expanding compassion in society, and the implications for political transformation toward greater sustainability in how humans live, Carlos co-founded the Decriminalize Nature movement, which has decriminalized now in 15 cities, and is helping shape policy throughout the United States.

Jyoti Ma is an internationally renowned spiritual teacher. She has cultivated projects that demonstrate ways of life that honor the Earth and all Peoples.   As the Grandmother Vision Keeper of the Center for Sacred Studies (https://centerforsacredstudies.org), she co-founded Kayumari with spiritual communities both in America and Europe. Other projects she has helped to convene are the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and the Unity Concert. She is the founder of The Fountain (https://thefountain.earth) It’s mission is to restore an economic model that is based on reciprocity and collaboration guided by Nature and the Sacred. Currently, as a delegate of the Mother Earth Delegation of United Indigenous Nations a collaboration with the Fountain has grown, creating a global movement for and with the Earth that is ready to activate the New Day.
 Eight Sacred Staffs of the Kaggaba Indigenous People
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cbov1Osg5o&t=3s
Terrance McKenna - Sense Making in the End Times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsOzLk21gkU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl7ZXG4v-_c
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNBQVlOnGHE
​

Grandma Jyoti Ma shares the message to choose Love over Fear.

Veda is a water researcher, public speaker, mother, artist  and author. She has dedicated the last 8 years observing and photographing the life of water. She believes that water is fluid intelligence, observing itself through every living organism on the planet and in the Universe. 
Her primary area of focus is photographing water in its ‘state of creation’, the space between liquid and ice. It is through her remarkable crystallographic photos that water reveals its awareness of not only Creation, but thought and intention through imagery. 
Veda brings a message of hope and joy from the very source of life itself, she says “Water is transparent, it knows no color, creed or religion. Water does not judge, nor does it label, it will enter the body of an ant as easily as it will enter the body of a king, or a homeless person or a tree or a dragonfly. Water is our constant companion, from the moment we are conceived it is always with us...even upon death, it is water that evaporates from the physical rising upwards into the Heavens. 
Veda sees water as Source rather than a resource, and considers all bodies of water to be sacred. Her passion for water extends out of the freezer and into primary schools where she donates time teaching water science and cleverly intertwines it with art projects. She loves to reconnect children to the living water systems inside and outside of their bodies, believing that the 'tamariki' (children) are the water bearers of the future.
$100 - Master Class Feb. 12 United States

This is going to be an amazing Class.
 https://www.vedaaustin.com/service-page/first-masterclass-of-2023-feb-12-13th?referral=service_list_widget

Jon Dennis is a lawyer, activist, and entrepreneur in the psychedelics ecosystem. He is the executive director of Vital Oregon, a psilocybin facilitator training program by Psychedelics Today, and the co-host of the “Eyes on Oregon” podcast from Psychedelics Today. Jon is a member of the Chacruna Institute’s Council for the Protection of Sacred Plants. He is a member of the Psychedelics Bar Association and sits on its Religious Use Committee. Jon serves on the Executive Committee of the Oregon State Bar Practice Section on Cannabis and Psychedelics and is a co-chair of its Psychedelics Subcommittee. He is a founding member of the Entheogenic Practitioners Council of Oregon and was the main proponent behind the effort to create a community paradigm of psilocybin services under Oregon Measure 109.
 Links:
 https://chacruna.net/the-community-practitioner-framework-for-psilocybin-services-under-the-oregon-psilocybin-services-act-a-primer/

https://maps.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/JonDennis-MAPS-Bulletin-XXXII2-V1b-10.pdf
https://psychedelicstoday.com/2021/12/31/eyes-on-oregon-a-psychedelics-today-podcast-with-jon-dennis-and-joe-moore/
Psychedelic Survivors
https://www.psychedelic-survivors.com/
Epic (Ethical Psychedelic International Community)
https://www.epicpsychedelic.com
Jimmy Valvano 1993 ESPY Speech 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuoVM9nm42E
Jon Dennis LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondennisesq/
Math from the Podcast and Why Grow-Gather-Gift-Share Works
1 lb = 453 grams
3.5g in a macrodose of psilocybin mushrooms on average although potency varies
453/3.5= 129 macrodoses in a lb of mushrooms