Making Psychedelic Art: The Interplay of Art, Energy, and Consciousness
Episode 20 with Redesigning The Dharma by Sahaja Soma features an inspiring conversation with Juliana Garces, the visionary artist behind Juliana Garces Art.
This episode explores the interplay between art, energy, and consciousness, and begins with a discussion on Juliana's background in meditation, yoga, and psychedelics. She shares how her cross-cultural upbringing and DMT experiences have profoundly impacted her artistic creations and the inspiration behind using specific deities like Shiva and Shakti. This episode also delves into the importance of psychedelic preparation and intention-setting when working with plant medicine, and the significance of balancing equanimity with discernment when it comes to the practice. Listeners will gain insights into Juliana’s artistic inspiration and learn how to tap into the greater cosmic creativity.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to Juliana Garces
01:05 Juliana's Artistic and Spiritual Journey
08:14 DMT and Ayahuasca Experiences
12:56 Psychedelic Preparation and Integration
33:20 Diving Deep into Buddhism and Meditation Practices
41:26 Art as a Universal Language
43:01 The Role of Psychedelics in Artistic Expression
54:07 Integrating AI in Art Creation
01:00:39 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Projects
Guest Bio:
Juliana Garces is a visionary artist and spiritual seeker, whose work reflects her deep commitment to raising the collective consciousness. Her journey with art is a continuous exploration of how visual forms can transcend language and open pathways to the infinite.
Grounded in her daily spiritual practices—meditation, yoga, mindfulness, and deep study of mysticism—her work reflects visions and experiences from realms that words cannot fully describe. Juliana sees herself simply as a channel for cosmic creativity, doing her best to step aside and let the visions flow through her. She doesn’t view the work as her own, but rather as something greater that she’s fortunate to be part of. By tapping into the infinite space within all of us, she hopes to create pieces that serve as gentle reminders for others to reconnect with their own eternal nature.
Full Transcript:
Adrian: Welcome to Redesigning the Dharma. I'm your host Adrian Baker, and today I'm speaking with Juliana Garces.
Juliana is a visionary artist and spiritual seeker whose work reflects her deep commitment to raising the collective consciousness. Her journey with art is a continuous exploration of how visual forms can transcend language and open pathways to the infinite.
Grounded in her daily spiritual practices, meditation, yoga, mindfulness, and deep study of mysticism, her work reflects visions and experiences from realms that words cannot fully describe.
Juliana sees herself simply as a channel for cosmic creativity, doing her best to step aside and let the visions flow through her. She doesn't view the work as her own, but rather as something greater that she's fortunate to be a part of.
By tapping into the infinite space within all of us, she hopes to [00:01:00] create pieces that serve as gentle reminders for others to reconnect with their own eternal nature.
Thank you so much for making the time and
Juliana: Thank you for having me. Thank you.
Adrian: Absolutely. Yeah, I've been wanting to speak with you for some time because when I came across your profile on Instagram, I was like, wow, this is someone else who's like into visionary art and they happen to be into, I don't know the exactly what, if you're studying Hindu tantra or whatever, but just the Shiva and the Shakti artwork, and it's, it's rare to find people who are very much at that intersection so I I was excited by that.
Juliana: Thank you.
Adrian: Yeah. Yeah. And not that it's rare that people are in Eastern religion and psychedelics, but specifically and I want to get into the influences for your artwork, but um, it does have a specific kind of feel.
And I don't necessarily, you know, there's a lot coming understandably out of the, more like South American imagery and style like that, but I don't often see it fused Hinduism or Buddhism or things like that, so that's [00:02:00] what excited me about it because that's what I'm really into. So just wanted to say that I'm, it's psyched to be talking to you.
Juliana: Wonderful. Thank you so much. And absolutely, it definitely has a mix of all those things. I feel like I'm a mix of all those things and it becomes portrayed in my art. I'm originally from Colombia, and if you're familiar Colombia, they work with yagé, also known as Ayahuasca and DMT.
So that's something I was exploring. I've also been practicing meditation from a young age of maybe like 12 or 13. And I really started off mostly practicing a lot of Buddhism and attending Buddhist temples and meditation retreats, the vipassana 10-day meditation retreats.
But I, I loved yoga also. I love the practice of yoga as like a moving meditation, but a part that always felt a little bit of a disconnect at a younger age was the connection between [00:03:00] the deities.
I had no personal connection to them, and I didn't see how yoga incorporated these deities, even though, like I, I love their practices, their meditations...
it wasn't until I started working very deeply with DMT that I started to have direct experiences with these deities. And that's where a lot of these artworks came from. So even though I philosophically appreciated them before and had read the Gita and things like that and admire their, portrayals as these universal archetypes, there was no deep personal connection until I started working very deeply with DMT and I started to experience these beings in my journeys where I would interact with them.
I would go and I would visit their like temple in these fractile realms. And I'd go to Ganesha and I'd speak to Ganesha [00:04:00] directly. And I started speaking to Shiva directly and Kali, Shakti. And I started to have a personal connection with them where I felt so deeply inspired of them being universal archetypes, but also like aspects of myself and in, aspects of other people where I started to see almost like the source energy where it's all one kind of divided into two, which was Shiva and Shakti, yin yang, the dualities, the original dualities.
Hence why those are some of my favorite is Shiva and Shakti. And then the other major deities and saw them as like mirrors of myself, like an aspect of myself and had a personal connection with them, and felt so deeply inspired when I would go into these inner travels and speak with them that I felt I needed to portray them in these other worldly hyperspace temples and [00:05:00] ended up devoting a lot of years into making these massive artworks, representing them.
But, that's only like a small aspect of, so many things I'm into. And even though I would say day to day I practice still very dedicatedly and with a lot of dedication, Buddhism and vipasana meditation, I still feel a very personal connection with these deities, especially Shiva.
I love Shiva so much that if I speak a lot about him, I'll tear up and stuff.
Adrian: Yeah, I can feel the devotion. I love it. There's so much that you said there. I wanna, I want to get into, I actually want to go back a sec, just 'cause I'm so curious with your biography and how you got into some of these interests. So did you actually grow up in Columbia or
Juliana: I grew.
Adrian: Yeah.
Juliana: I grew up back and forth, like I would be there a few years and go to school and then I'd come to the United States and it was back and forth. at the time, it was confusing as a young child, but I love that I got to be exposed to both [00:06:00] cultures and maybe people that have come from two cultures can relate where if you're switching back and forth, you can almost see beyond culture is what I experienced.
Adrian: Totally. I can relate to that. Yeah. And then when you were in the us where you, where were you living when
Juliana: Mostly Florida. Now I'm in California. But growing up I was largely in Florida.
Adrian: Yeah, I was just curious. The exposure to Yagé Ayahuasca makes total sense with Columbia. I was curious where you were connected to Buddhism and yoga and things like that. Was that in Columbia or was
Juliana: That was in Florida. I would say it was more of a personal interest. No one around me that I knew was into that. I was just a huge bookworm. And so I started reading about these, mostly inspired by lucid dreaming. So when I was 12 years old, I started to wake up from my nightmares and start to control them and make 'em into [00:07:00] beautiful dreams.
And I started to become lucid, just naturally no outside influence. I didn't even know lucid dreaming was a thing. I was like a little 12-year-old and I tell my parents, Hey, I'm aware my dreams and I'm starting to fly through galaxies and I'm going to all these worlds. They had no idea what I was talking about.
So I started like looking it up, like "knowing you're dreaming" and I found out lucid dreaming, and I started to do a bunch of research. And learned that, oh, if you meditate, it can help you. So I loved reading and I would go to the bookstore and I started looking into eastern philosophies and spirituality, and I would just eat this stuff up.
I'd be so excited to, 'cause I almost felt like I had experienced this opportunity that was so magical that no one else was talking about. Like, I'd tell my classmates, I'd tell my parents, nobody knew. And I was like, I'm like exploring these incredible worlds in my sleep and it's so magical and no one's talking about it.[00:08:00]
There's gotta be more stuff out there like that. And that kind of created that curiosity for exploring consciousness. That later, very shortly after, led me to exploring meditation and yoga and getting into all these things from a young age. I.
Adrian: Yeah. there are a lot of people now who, who are coming to psychedelics and you know, ayahuasca for a variety of reasons. It seems like the people though, who are the true psychonauts. are sort of these people who have that innate desire to explore consciousness.
You know, I felt the same thing from a young age. One thing that I hear in you is that you seem to be one of those people who, and please tell me where I'm, I'm off base or whatever, but you seem to be naturally maybe very open or sensitive to energies in certain ways.
That came through in terms of maybe if the medicine opens to you in that particular way where you're really interacting with these deities in that way and just the things that you said about dreaming when you were younger, perhaps, you're one of those people who maybe just are very sensitive and open to things the way an artist often is.
[00:09:00] Does that resonate?
Juliana: most definitely. I feel like it was just like a natural thing. It was only a matter of time. I feel that until I got into all these different practices of meditation and psychedelics and just exploring consciousness. Later I found out was, largely from past life activities.
Adrian: Interesting. And did you find that out through working with ayahuasca, or was it dreaming or some other means?
Juliana: It was through hypnosis. So, I'm a visionary that loves working with a lot of different vision methods. Some people have like their, one thing I would say if I had to pick one, it would be mostly meditation. But I love, like exploring all the ways of raising our frequency, exploring our consciousness.
I'm not so interested with ways of exploring my consciousness in like lower vibrations like, heavy substances or things like that, that, that doesn't interest me. I'm, I'm interested in how can I raise my frequency and explore these different techniques that do that. So I ended up coming across hypnosis back in [00:10:00] 2020.
Which is really not that long ago. I was already, very deep into astro projection. I had worked for like a decade with psychedelics and all these things, but a friend sent me a past life regression hypnosis, and I tried it out and I thought it was just gonna be like a glimpse.
I should have expected more knowing how sensitive I am to getting visions where I'll just be like chanting and I'll start, experiencing altered states of consciousness now. I wasn't sure what to expect 'cause I never tried hypnosis, but I worked with it and it was like...
It wasn't like seeing a past life. I stepped into that body. I was there physically, like present, and I started to recollect that whole life. It was a very powerful experience, but it gave me a lot of kind of backstory of why I have the interests I have in this life and why I'm doing what I'm doing. So it was a very useful experience.
Adrian: Cool. Very cool. So I want to ask, 'cause you, I think you mentioned, you said DMT at one point, but then [00:11:00] also yahe... are you working with it mostly as ayahuasca with the full beta carbolines or are you doing, have you done mostly pure DMT.
Juliana: I have worked with both. I would say by far the majority has been just pure DMT. I'm really grateful I started off by working with it in the traditional form with ceremony and everything because that created that foundation of, of understanding how to use it respectfully. I know many people, other people can do that, but like sitting in ceremony and seeing the whole traditional way and having the circle and all its practices really was a wonderful introduction to the molecule.
And then later on I went on to work with just a pure molecule and ended up working a lot more with that. But I'm really grateful I was introduced first through the traditional way.
Adrian: Okay. Super interesting. This is one thing I'd love to get into. So a couple things jump [00:12:00] out for me about that. The difference in terms of the medicine itself. What's it like when you take pure DMT versus the DMT with the beta carbolines, but there's also, the setting is different.
What's it like when you're doing it with that traditional container from the, a South American country and there's diversity within those traditions but there's still some commonalities. And there's a difference between sort of that traditional container and then doing it on your own, in your own sacred space or with a facilitator where it doesn't have that.
So, Let's start actually with just the setting itself.
You talked a little bit about what you enjoyed, what you learned about the tradition. What do you enjoy about being outside that or in a different container and working with
Juliana: I really, I have to say I really appreciate the traditional method and I, I brought a lot of those things that I got a lot of use out of, into doing it alone. Particularly this is something I feel like might not be as fun, [00:13:00] but it proves a wonderful result, which is putting time to prepare the body and the mind.
And a lot of people wanna like jump right into it, especially if you have it yourself and there's no one around to see if you're gonna prepare or not, but like taking a week or at least three days to, clean your diet, to meditate more, to write down intentions, to really put in that work so that when you show up, you feel like fully ready and you really put your best effort.
I thought that was super useful and I still do that the times I've worked with it by myself. And creating like a sense of sacredness and that can vary for people like making an altar with perhaps beings that inspire you or flowers... having your intention written out. Creating everything like in a beautiful way.
Having, no dirty dishes or anything that's
Adrian: Yeah.
Juliana: feeling uncomfortable even though that's such a small thing. But it does play a role like having things like properly taken care of and [00:14:00] doing it at the right time, like having a set time okay, now we're gonna do it.
All that kind of leads up to that moment of being able to fully release and not feeling like you're still holding on to anything and having clarity of why you're going in there, what you're gonna seek from that experience.
So I find that very useful and I first experienced that through traditional ceremonies, and I still apply that. I would say your question though was like what I enjoy about doing it by myself, I guess like largely
Adrian: Or just to clarify if you're not doing it by yourself, what do you enjoy when you're with a friend or someone else about not being in that traditional container
Juliana: This one's gonna sound, very like, practical, but not having people purge around you is really nice.
Adrian: No, this is the kind of thing I'm getting at. Yeah, go on, please.
Juliana: Yeah. Because, they can be distracting. And also what I, really appreciate about the molecule itself, even though, you know, each has its pros and cons, of course, but I [00:15:00] appreciate that since it's so powerful but in a short time, I feel like I can fully let go of the body and just be fully in that space. Completely somewhere else. And then come back and not have to worry about the body.
Versus in ceremony, because the ayahuasca is so lengthy, you have to come back and make sure, you know, you are going, getting up to use the bathroom and other people around you.
There's a lot more that kind of brings you back to the physical versus with the pure molecule, I feel like I can fully release and it's just me and that experience. So I really appreciate that. And also how quick I come back to full sobriety, full, like normal state allows me to more effectively bring back visions because I'll write 'em down immediately versus having ayahuasca or this also happens with other psychedelics where the come down lingers.
By the time [00:16:00] you're in full regular state of consciousness, a lot of those peak moments, it's been a lot of hours and it's harder to capture. So for someone like myself who's trying to bring back these visions and be a vessel for that, having that quick switch from being fully immersed, fully experiencing that realm to back to regular state of consciousness allows me to bring back a lot more.
Adrian: You know what I still love about what you're sharing in this conversation is just the value of of different perspectives depending on someone's intention. That totally makes sense. Everything you shared and given your intention, especially as an artist and recreating these visions, and it's sort of like the flip of a lot of times what I or some other people feel with Ayahuasca, the benefit of drinking it is that actually you're able to like integrate a lot of it.
Like for some people, a lot of the psychological insights or some things It's difficult to mind that as much when [00:17:00] you go in and out so quickly, because it's so fast, like people just don't remember anything, or they need to kind of integrate it slowly by drinking it.
But I can totally see what you're doing where you're just trying to open up to that dimension, that portal, and bring back that artwork while actually it could be more helpful to just go there very intensely and then come out, because then you could draw, take notes, create whatever.
That
Juliana: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Depends. Depends what you're doing. What I find
Value
Adrian: of intention. Yeah.
Juliana: what I find magical about the pure molecule though, is when I feel like I'm fully prepared and I go into that space in it's full expression, there is no time, and it could have been eight hours, and I got like that same amount in those 15 minutes where, you know I feel like I spent a an eternity there experiencing all these different things, but in a physical clock, it's just been 15 minutes.
So there's also that like time warp.
Adrian: [00:18:00] Definitely. Absolutely. I also want to underscore, 'cause it's, I think you're so right on and it's not appreciated enough, the importance of preparation in the sense of sacredness you bring to the experience. One thing that I noticed, and it's, even in the modern psychedelic space, it's underscored by like titles.
So for example, there's a lot of talk about psychedelic integration and psychedelic integration coaches, but psychedelic preparation does not have nearly the same buzzword or like cachet or it sounds well known as integration. And I've got it in a sense of this, speaking to other integration coaches is, most of the time, even if they're emphasizing preparation, people come to them and it's already, oh, I had this crazy like ayahuasca journey. I feel very destabilized or whatever. Can you help me to, to integrate it? But there's not a lot of people as much taking their time and being like, no, I really wanna prepare and take my time for this journey.
I come across those people sometimes, but it's, it's a fraction right of the other, [00:19:00] and it really is so important to take your time with it, whether it's actually like getting the diet right and preparing for the journey if you've already committed to it, or being like, Hey, I'm interested in doing Ayahuasca or DMT, but maybe I should take my time and do some research first. Maybe I should develop a meditation practice first. Maybe I should learn more about the diet first.
Like, just slowing things down more because that preparation is really, really important. And this is part of the paradox I find and, you touched on it, is, ultimately doing any kind of psychedelic, it's really about letting go and non-resistance, that's the big teaching...
But it's like we need to do all these other things like even doing the dishes or all these other things that help us to let go. So it's doing the things that are gonna help us to let go in that intense moment when we really have no choice but to let go.
And so I think that was very wise, a lot of what you shared there and really underappreciated.
I'm curious [00:20:00] in terms of what you notice speaking to friends and other people, do you see similar patterns in terms of the way people approach it and that sort of lack of preparation?
Juliana: It depends on the people. I feel like people that are just getting into it, it's like, oh, if I have this thing, I just wanna jump right into it. I get it. It's from that excitement. But I. That preparation is gonna lead to better experience and better result and an easier time integrating.
Like you said it beautifully. So I appreciate that and I agree, there's so much emphasis on the integration, not enough on the preparation, but they go hand in hand. Proper in preparation leads to really easy and smooth integration.
Adrian: yeah. And I find the more we're integrating it, it's about changing habits. So then it's like you have to do, or at least I feel I have to do less preparation in the future because I'm now, Eating a better diet and I have better habits. it's less [00:21:00] forced.
Juliana: Yeah. And also like when we go in there and we haven't prepared, and it's like we've been eating, for example, a bad diet. What we're gonna get is, hey, eat a better diet. Versus if we already have all those like, basic things in check that we know we should be doing, then we can get those deeper insights that are super valuable.
That might make the journey that much more useful to go in there like, Hey, like this maybe life purpose and things like that, other than, Hey, you need to maybe eat better, right?
Adrian: Yeah. I'm actually curious about something since overwhelmingly my experience is with taking DMT with the beta carbolines-- ayahuasca, but also I work more with a ayahuasca analog that people call Soma, where they're using peganam harmala with DMT. And so I'm curious, 'cause a lot of the times the diet is so critical, in particular because things can contraindicate with the beta carmines and cause nausea or things like that, but if you're [00:22:00] vaping or smoking DMT, can you talk about how and why the diet is really also important with just pure DMT, and how that compares to preparing for ayahuasca?
Juliana: Yeah. So with Ayahuasca you have a very direct interaction, but it's still there with the pure DMT, even though it may not be as obvious, having a food that is high frequency is going to allow one to, you know, tap into those more high frequency spaces. ' cause everything's frequency and what we consume through the sense doors.
And this goes beyond food. This is also what we're watching, what we're listening to. All these different sense doors is going to largely dictate our frequency when we go into this space. but the very important thing, of course, is to be fairly on an empty stomach while doing DMT because it's not, you can potentially purge and it can be dangerous.
That's like one of the only ways that DMT can actually like pure DMT can be [00:23:00] dangerous is if one goes in with a very full stomach and, vomits and there's no one around. Very dangerous. So you wanna make sure you've gone at least four hours without eating... ideally more.
But before then, we want to make sure we're treating the body well and eating well, eating high frequency foods fresh fruits and vegetables, all those so that we feel our best, we feel high frequency, and when we can go in there, we're going in as the best version of ourselves so that we can have the most beautiful experience and not have a, an experience that's tough love, which sometimes that's also useful, is the thing.
Adrian: You know, It's interesting though just to offer different perspectives, just showing how different people need to find what works for them. I know what you're describing is so true for so many people in terms of really needing empty stomach. And that's the traditional advice. However, my friend who facilitates and myself, we both eat pretty close to the ceremony.
And for [00:24:00] me it's actually, yeah, for Soma we're doing, so it's, it is a bit easier with peganam harmala versus the vine for sure. But it's still the same principle. It's the beta carbolines and then we're taking the chacruna. And for me it's actually, and him, it's actually the opposite. It's, I'm more likely to purge if I'm on an empty stomach,
Juliana: Interesting.
Adrian: yeah.
And again, so many people would say, oh, you've gotta do plant-based for both him and me, because what we normally eat is a more paleo or meat heavy diet. A chicken or steak, shortly before I would drink medicine, which would be I com... Totally shocking. I understand to many people, but it's finding what is right for each person.
But the principles apply in that. I think the diet has to be very sattvic , I'm gonna use that word, 'cause when you say high frequency, that's what I think of from like an Indian, Ayurvedic... so eating very organic meat, eating [00:25:00] very clean. So using only like grass fed butter, ghee or olive oil, or just salt, not having it being very flavorful.
Absolutely not garlic, onions. Just
Juliana: Being conscious, yeah. With what we're consuming and. I'm also speak speaking from experience from the pure molecule and from Ayahuasca, having worked with the Soma you're speaking of. And I'm just going off of the recommendations from the tribes I've worked with of, being on a fairly empty stomach and with DMT just from also experiences with other facilitators and friend who actually had that happen where they were on a very full stomach and they were by themselves.
And I don't mean to scare anybody, but they did purge. And it could have been very dangerous if a friend hadn't happened to show up in that moment. And, you know, we just wanna avoid that situation. If anybody's especially doing it by themselves, it's good to, to just not have anything to purge, right?
Adrian: Yeah. [00:26:00] No, I think it, it's generally true for most people that they're better off on the empty stomach. There's a reason that practice developed,
Just wanted to nuance it a bit. Just goes to show, we're all so different,
Juliana: Yes. Once we start getting experience and comfortable... that's definitely the advice I'd recommend to anybody new to these substances. But if you know someone that's already explored a bit and like yourself, then they can start playing around and seeing what works best for them.
Adrian: Yeah. And I also in terms of when we start to do the mess and we start to realize some things and figure out what's best for us. You touched on another thing with regard to designing the space that I think is really important. I found it for me as well.
You talked about how you liked doing it on your own because not having people purge around you. And it's interesting because the modern ayahuasca ceremony... it has a lot of people. And from what I understand, be curious what it's like in Columbia. It seems like that wasn't necessarily the [00:27:00] case a lot of times in traditional settings, but perhaps, as Ayahuasca became a business and you were having group ceremonies, you started having 20, 30 people in these settings.
And I just found that though it can be a really good practice for opening to compassion for other people's suffering, the sheer sensory intensity of having that I found that the medicine can actually shut down what I'm gonna open to, and my friend who facilitates, has noticed this as well for people.
Because it sort of knows that if it's opening you so much and you're taking all of that in, it could actually be too much for the nervous system, the subtle body.
And so I found I can actually go deeper when I'm in with just my friend who's facilitating or with a small group or I've got a private space or something like that. Have you noticed that as well in terms of not just feeling more comfortable, but the depth of your journey can actually
Juliana: Yes. And each person's different. I'm [00:28:00] a bit of an introvert and spend a lot of time in solitude and meditation, so I. Personally, that's where I feel the most relaxed and I can release the deepest.
For someone that's extremely extroverted, perhaps having it around other people would make 'em feel safer where they can release.
Each person's different. And there's a perspective shift that can make that experience very beautiful, such as someone that's a huge extrovert and they love community. They wanna connect with the collective consciousness. That's a very beautiful direct way. Send them love right there.
But it is in my personal experience, a very intense sensory overload when, you're seeing all this and exploring realms, but you're also hearing like 10 people purge at once. it feels a little disoriented and I love being able to release fully. When I'm journeying into DMT and I love silence, so like releasing fully into silence is [00:29:00] for me very special.
But that's not the case for everybody. Of course.
Adrian: Yeah. Yeah. Totally resonate with that and, You know, One other thing to sort of. I reflect on there seems to be a pretty popular belief in a lot of the traditional settings, and please let me know if this is the case in your experience in Columbia, that the medicine is something that needs to be guided or directed or controlled by someone like a shaman.
And then when you're doing it in your own space whether it's pure DMT or I don't know if you were doing the full brew in kind of that setting, there's obviously not someone to direct it, and it was interesting only after I did it first in the traditional setting in Peru, and then when I connected with my friend who facilitates, he said, in my experience, and he trained in the traditional way, he said, I found that the medicine is not something directed or controlled. It's really the teaching is about opening completely into like non-resistance and just being with what is and being directly with that [00:30:00] sentient intelligence.
And when I was in this sort of, new space where he was just a facilitator, he wasn't guiding that, I found that to be the case myself, that it wasn't something that needed to be directed.
And I'm curious yeah, just what your thoughts are and reflections on that as someone who's worked in, both settings.
Juliana: I believe that it's very good advice for people that are experiencing it for the first time to do it with someone that's a professional, a shaman, or some sort of facilitator, just because that avoids the situation of, someone drinking it and they're like, let's say, young teenager and they don't know what they're dealing with, and it's way more powerful than they expected.
And it's just for safety. But then once people have experienced that, then they can kinda know what they're getting into and from there, draw their own conclusions, such as working it with it by themselves, which is, you know, what I, I've done. So I think it's,
Adrian: Sorry, can I [00:31:00] clarify something? I'm sorry to interrupt. I just realized I think maybe I didn't phrase it clearly. Not that people should do it by themselves, but I'm talking even just you're doing it with someone. But the difference between a facilitator and a shaman, in other words, the facilitator's there, he's providing the safe space.
I would definitely not encourage someone to do it by themselves either, but the difference being a facilitator is providing the safe space, but he or she is not guiding the experience versus a shaman is actually directing or guiding And I'm curious your reflections on that. Does the medicine need to be guided by someone or, or actually can it just be, is that not necessary?
Juliana: I would say for the vast majority of people, it's not necessary. But there is some individuals where that'd be useful, especially if they're someone that's dealing with a lot of inner turmoil perhaps. I personally haven't had an experience where it's been directly guided by someone very deeply.
It's been more like just the presence of [00:32:00] making sure that everybody's safe kind of thing. But no one kind of, orchestrating the whole experience. But I would imagine, for example, I've seen in modern therapies that are now working with psychedelics where it is a little bit more guided.
And I'm sure there is some cases out there where that would be useful. But I would say for the vast majority of people, I'm more on the side of, just ha have someone to make sure you're safe. But other than that, it's like you're in a journey 'cause the wisdom is within, right? Our deepest insights, our deepest insights are gonna come from within.
We have that truth within our hearts that if we tap into we can get those things we need to change in our life. All that. Versus if someone's implementing it, it leaves a little bit more, also risk for them to try to put certain ideas or notions in our mind. So there's also that.
But if it's someone that's very trusted and a professional and they're dealing, for example, with someone with very intense trauma, perhaps that would be a situation [00:33:00] where it would be beneficial.
Adrian: Yeah, you, that's well said. And I do think that's part of the issue sometimes we don't reflect on is someone else, the more someone else is playing a prominent role, they're guiding, they're orchestrating, that person's karma kind of enters our karma in the
Juliana: space.
Mm-hmm.
Adrian: It's just something worth reflecting on, for someone who is gonna enter that traditional space.
I want to geek out with you on, on your meditation practice for a moment, and then we're definitely gonna circle back to the notion of accessing the deities and talk about that in the visionary art. But I'm curious, so you're into vipassana, which is cool. We can talk about that, I've practiced vipassana myself.
I'm curious, did you practice any other kinds of meditation? And specifically, I want to know, did you practice like, in non dualist traditions, Zen, Dzogchen, Kashmir Shaivism, anything like that compared to vipassana? And if so, how'd you find
Juliana: it?
Yeah, I've practiced a handful of different types of meditation, but something that I found very useful that someone said [00:34:00] was that it's better to dig one hole very deeply than dig a bunch of shallow holes. And that's how I landed in Vipasana, was like, I'm just gonna choose this path and go deep into it with the Anapana, the Vipasana, and the Metta and just focus on developing those.
Even though in the past one that I really did enjoy and I still kind sometimes sprinkle it in, is questioning of who am I?
Adrian: Oh, so you did some advaita
Juliana: Self Inc.
Self-inquiry. Yes. Some of that is, I find very interesting. And of course there's just, there's so many different types of meditation from various types of visualization and things like that, but I think picking one and going deep into it seems the most, most useful.
Adrian: I think that is generally good advice, so we could make a distinction between, there's vipassana as a practice, right? But in Buddhism and including the earliest Buddhism, right? They talk about the [00:35:00] first of the eightfold path is right view. So the view is very important. So one could be doing vipassana from an early Buddhist or dualistic perspective, but one could also do vipassana from a mahayana or vajrayana perspective. And I'm curious in terms of the view have you explored what that's like in theravada versus mahayana vajrayana? And if so, how that oriented you in your practice in different ways?
Juliana: I appreciate both. The type of vipassana that I mostly practice now is the one by Goenka and the ten day vipassanas. Even though I think it's really useful for someone that's starting off with meditation to explore different types and see what naturally resonates, and then decide on one and go deeper into it so that way we're not digging all those shallow holes.
But I, I very deeply appreciate both Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism. I love going to both temples and, one of my favorite teachers is Thich Nhat Hanh but I also love, like the forest, [00:36:00] the Thai forest practice like Ajahn Chah and all the Ajahns. So appreciate them. And I think that there's many paths to the mountaintop ultimately.
And we pick our practice, we go deeper into it, but at the end of the day, we have to also let go of that raft that got us there. So also not being too attached to the practice, it's just a vehicle to get us to, those higher states of consciousness. So, Practicing vipasana, but also not being, if someone else is practicing some other form of meditation or like self-inquiry or anything like that it's not a lesser path by any means.
It's just a method we get to where we need to go and then we let go, right?
Adrian: Yeah, absolutely. So you talked about accessing these deities through the medicine, so tell me a little bit, first of all, in terms of how do you even think about what a deity is? How would you explain that to someone? And I don't mean it just intellectually, you can just talk about it from your [00:37:00] direct experience, as well,
Juliana: So I, I personally see them as like there is light, the formless realm, that realm where all is one. There's nothing and everything. That, to me, is my most inspiring realm.
But for there to be a perceiver and perceived, there needs to be the duality, something physical. And hence from what I've seen in my experiences, the two dualities come in, and that can be called Yin Yang or Shiva Shakti.
I see them as Shiva and Shakti, these two essential energies that created the duality so that there was a cosmic game for us to be in. And from there, it starts to like, almost like multiply into these other archetypes, and you get Ganesha and all these others, right?
And then eventually goes down through the realms where beings multiply and multiply until, we have this realm where, there's billions of just humans, right?
And not to mention so many other creatures. So it's like a [00:38:00] multiplication of more and more beings. But that's why I really appreciate these archetypes as as a way of me expressing them because they are part of us in, in my experience, my personal experience, I see them as part of me.
They're just like a very essential, like pre-diluted version. So does that make sense?
Adrian: It does. One thing, and you talked about it at the beginning of our conversation and I sense that you just got it, which is such an important thing, is that Yes, there is the ultimate level where things are non-dual, it's all interdependent and beyond concepts, but on the relative level, there is duality.
And that's something that, that second step is a crucial one that a lot of people miss sometimes. And sometimes I feel in especially more western circles, there's this fixation on the non-duality in the elevation of that, but actually duality is, contained within it. And as one of my teachers said, I loved it, she said duality is where the erotic happens.
It's sexy. [00:39:00] That's where attraction happens, and that's part of the play and the joy of being alive and being informed. So it's really important to honor both. Yeah.
Juliana: It's what makes the cosmic game possible. And it's about I see it as the middle path, having one foot in both. I think going too far into any, can be a little disorienting. So having like one portion of feeling into that non-dual and another portion where that is playing the cosmic game.
Adrian: Yeah.
Juliana: Where, is where find the balance,
Adrian: Yeah. And there's there's one definition of deity. I'm curious if you've ever come across Sally Kempton's teachings being into
Juliana: I have not,
Adrian: Shiava Shakta Tantra. Okay. She was an excellent Shakta tantra teacher. I can send you her link after this, but she was one of my teachers. And um, Sally would describe deities as what they are, they're like a vortex of energy.
And so with each of these archetypes, like when you connect [00:40:00] with Durga or with Kali or with Shiva, it's, you're accessing a particular energy that's there. And it, there's almost like a scientific frequency, like vibration to it. We can think about in the Jungian sense, what they represent, but there's also just this energy to it beyond the symbol.
And I'm curious in terms of your direct experience when you're in that medicine space, to what extent does that describe your experience? Is what you're encountering as like a vortex of energy and if so, how does it feel for you?
Juliana: Absolutely, that's a beautiful way of putting it into words. Sometimes these experiences are so felt. And for me particularly with DMT, are very visual and just felt. But it's wonderful when I can hear people like yourself put 'em in these uh, beautiful words, describing them as frequencies. Yes.
Like they're primordial archetypes, primordial frequencies, and when we tap into them, we [00:41:00] can realize that in ourselves. So when I meditate on the Shiva and Shakti energy, or bringing out my, my divine masculine, and my divine feminine, or my remover of obstacles and so on it, it's a wonderful, I love that.
Love what you said about frequencies.
Adrian: And I'm curious take us more on a little bit of a journey how working with DMT and feel free to talk about, any other compounds that you work with, how that has shaped your artistic journey. Because it sounds like something that as a child, like already exploring yourself, expressing yourself artistically that way, but how did it bring it out even more?
Juliana: Absolutely. I loved art from a young age because of that moving back and forth between South America and the United States, because language kept changing on me. I'd be a few years speaking Spanish, a few years speaking English. But when I would draw something, it transcended language. I could show it to someone over there, someone over here, and they would understand. [00:42:00] It would communicate. So I thought it was like magic that art transcended language.
And as I grew up and I started having these very mystical experiences, first through lucid dreaming. Then at through LSD and 13 through meditation, I started having these experiences where I felt the same way I felt as a child. Where words were not enough. Words felt short. They couldn't describe these mystical spaces.
And so I turned to art the same way I did before and I started drawing these experiences. And later on I ended up actually getting into poetry 'cause I didn't wanna limit myself. I was like, maybe it can be put into words. I need to let go of that notion. Let me try to also write some poems.
But I would say that it shifted my art in that way because it gave me an inspiration for something to depict because it was beyond words. And mystical experiences to me were the most inspiring [00:43:00] experiences in my life.
From psychedelics to very deep meditations later on, hypnosis, all these experiences where I wanted to share 'em with someone, but I couldn't capture, I wanted to show them what I saw. So I would paint it to show it. And as I did this, I started to find a magic in me depicting these visions that I felt more like I was like a vessel for them, for cosmic creativity to depict these visions, that I started to have a lot of people tell me that they would experience these same spaces.
They saw that same thing. So I almost felt like I was tapping into these collective spaces that our consciousness can tap into. And I was more of a vessel kind of taking a photograph where a camera can't go and bring them back.
And having not just myself be able to share these, but have someone that perhaps isn't very artistically inclined, have an image [00:44:00] of that, that then they can put in their space and feel inspired by on a daily basis. Because sometimes these experiences can be fleeting and we get caught up back in the daily life in Samsara and just doing stuff. And we forget this divinity that we experience through maybe psychedelics, maybe meditation.
So having these images, I hope that they could remind those people of that which they learn about. It's all one or whatever it is they, they learned of. And yeah, have it be like a little souvenir
Adrian: Yeah,
Juliana: those spaces because it's hard to bring anything back. So I try to do it.
Adrian: That's so cool. And I love the way you describe it. It actually feels like this is like a form of the icaros for you. A lot of times, like with the medicine, it's my friend Ronan who facilitates, he describes it as what we're doing with the medicine work is becoming a superconductor. It's removing those blockages from the channels, which is what [00:45:00] yoga does, right?
It's removing these karmic knots from the channels. And the more we clear ourselves, the more that Shakti, that life force can flow through us more freely. And that icaros that creativity can flow through us and that can come through as like in the more traditional way as song, it can come through as dance. And in your case, it seems like the e is like this beautiful visionary art
Juliana: absolutely. That's something I'm super passionate about right now is connecting to cosmic creativity and actually trying to teach others how to do that. So I've been doing a lot of guided meditations to get people to kinda move their mind out of the way so that cosmic creativity can come through.
So that's something I'm pursuing right now is expanding from just doing visionary art to helping others tap into that cosmic creativity. Which I feel is something that has helped me a lot to learn to become a clean vessel for things to come through. And it's always a never ending process of just cleaning the vessel, becoming more and more transparent for the [00:46:00] light of source, for cosmic creativity, for those messages to come through.
Working on those guided meditations and seeing where it goes.
Adrian: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about some of those like hacks or however you describe it, for helping to sort of, drop the cognitive mind into open
to
Juliana: Yeah. It's pretty simple. It's through stillness. It's through quieting the mind 'cause deep within us all is that infinite creative vastness. Where all true creativity comes from. It's just the mind gets all cluttered with thoughts, with past and future. And if we can just find stillness and move that out of the way it's, it's there.
It's our nature. So these guided meditations I've been doing it's a way of just coming back to the present moment, finding stillness, quietness, inner silence so that we can hear those creative ideas. Maybe to write a song to paint, to come up with an idea for a business. Whatever it is, it's all already within us.
It's just [00:47:00] about moving out of the way.
Adrian: Yeah, absolutely, by the way, Juliana, I forgot to ask at the beginning, how old are you? If you don't mind me 29. I'm just asked because I'm very impressed. You're very, you're a precocious, quick learner, and I'm very impressed by your emotional maturity and how you've really, I think, picked up on a lot of these lessons and things I'm still learning as well through the medicine.
Juliana: Aw, thank you. Appreciate
Adrian: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Juliana: We are just sharing notes,
Adrian: yeah,
Yeah. Totally. We're, We're learning With
each other. With each other. Yeah. What's your, and I'm certainly asking this for myself, you seem to be someone who's naturally been creative or artistic from a young age, and some of us I feel maybe have some blockages around that.
We know we're creative in some ways, but we've got some sort of identity attachment where we think we're not creative. What can be helpful for those kind of people to cut through or move that kind of obstruction around this limiting belief of I'm not creative or artistic.
Juliana: I would say there's a few [00:48:00] things that can help. First and foremost, deeply letting go of that notion, that one is not a creative person knowing it's just the notion. And that we are in a universe that is infinitely creative and we're a microcosm of that, and so we can have that energy flow through us just as much.
So getting rid of that notion and then making sure. Like I was speaking of before, all those inputs from the sense doors are high vibrational. So if we are trying to have creative ideas, but we're watching, dark movies and consuming dark music and doing all these things that are low frequency, our output is also gonna be the same.
So we're gonna output very similar frequency unless we're like super intensely our own frequency, which, you have to be far along for that. So for the vast majority of people, including myself, being a conscious curator of what we're consuming through all sense stores, that really helps.
That [00:49:00] way our vessel is nice and clean. So now we have, we've let go of that notion, our vessel is clean, and then it's just finding more silence, more stillness. Inner silence. Inner stillness for me, and I highly recommend this, that's meditation. That's a very direct way. But for people, it may just be going on a quiet walk in nature.
Maybe it's just going in the car and not listening to anything. Just finding more, times of silence. Making tea very mindfully without anything playing. Just listening to the sound of the birds and just creating more, more moments of stillness, of silence for those ideas to come through.
Adrian: Nice. I think that's great advice and, and something you said there, I really liked it. I made a note of it.
Being a conscious curator of what we're consuming through the sense doors. And what that brings up for me, having studied and practiced in different yogic and by mean yogic, like I'm including Buddhist traditions, is [00:50:00] through this notion of equanimity.
And there's different sort of views around that in different traditions because in some ways I think some traditions would say yoga is, they emphasize this notion of yoga as viveca or discernment. So we should be very conscious of what we're letting in through the scent doors.
And a lot of the early Vedic traditions are around, like where we draw that boundary. But if you get to some, especially like some of the acetical buddhist traditions, it's really elevating equanimity to the point of we should let things in, and it's the way we're perceiving the world. And I found there's a healthy tension there.
It's good to engage with it, but I found for me, as someone who's very sensitive, as someone who's neurodivergent, I actually really do need to give myself permission to draw a more clear boundary around what I let in and what I don't. And I'm curious as a practitioner, especially in sort of in those early Buddhist traditions, how you think about that [00:51:00] creative tension between discernment and equanimity.
Juliana: If something's a choice, we should choose to go with those things that are more high vibrational and pure, because that's creating that inner foundation. If we have the choice, we should definitely go ahead and just choose the pure thing. And then we can create this inner peace, inner stillness, because all we're consuming is high vibrational so that when we go out into the world and we have things that we are exposed to that we don't have the choice we're as, as ready as possible, right?
So that it's like we go to the, let me say like the gym, to lift weights so that when we go out into the real world, we can be strong and lifted up. So we are applying that strength we've gathered.
So in our own life where we're having the choice whether, hey, should we listen to this beautiful, inspiring chant, or should we listen to this music that's [00:52:00] very degrading and dark, we can make that positive choice so that when we go out and we're already filled with positive energy, and let's say we go and we, now we're at a store and we don't get to choose what we're listening to.
We already have that really solid foundation. So I think it depends, like if something's a choice why not choose the good thing, right?
Adrian: I am with you. I feel that's not the message. I mean, If you read sort of Thai forest tradition or a lot of early Theravada text that's not the message that's given but I happen to share your perspective. I think that's the difference also between someone who's trying to live life as a householder versus an ascetic as well.
Juliana: But also a lot I do have to mention even those tradition, like the Thai Forest traditions, they do have rules like where there's like the eight precepts of not listening to music and not consuming shows for entertainment.
You wouldn't find a monk reading like something sexual or things like that.
So [00:53:00] there they are making those curated choices.
Adrian: They are, but there's a different framing, including the notion that, like sexuality, for example, is low vibration as opposed to hybrid vibration like that's coming from a certain ascetic bias. They're also not letting in like beauty in art and beautiful music as, as well as
Juliana: yeah. And I think it the important thing is to decide what we are gonna curate and be conscious curators, right? Like I was, like we were mentioning, because it's when we have no, we make no conscious decision that we're just consuming whatever, right?
Adrian: Yeah.
Juliana: It's about deciding, okay, these are my boundaries, these are what I'm gonna choose to pick and then sticking to those.
Because it may be different, like you mentioned, for someone, it may be listening to only beautiful music, and for some people may be listening to no music and all that, but having that conscious decision and that discipline and sticking to it, I think that's where we make a lot of progress.
Adrian: Yeah. It goes back to the discussion around the [00:54:00] ceremonial space. Just being intentional
Juliana: Intentional.
Adrian: We can all have different intentions, that's fine, but just being conscious of that intention. One thing I wanted to ask about your creative process, and I think I saw this from the website, like you're creating some art now that is... are you using AI or using technology? And I'm just curious what you're enjoying about that, and then what's different from the more traditional,
Juliana: Absolutely.
So I started, being a professional artist long before AI was even a thing. And I would do sometimes oil paintings, sometimes acrylics... I'm a mixed media artist, so I, I like being creative with how I create, is how I like to say it.
So I liked mixing medias and sometimes I would mix like some degree of digital with acrylic and layer it and do all kind of, I, I like not only having the artwork be creative, but how I made it be creative.
And at first, I know there's a lot of kind of controversy whether artists should use it or not. [00:55:00] And I do have to say, I hope that these platforms start using the images they input into it more ethically, ' cause I know there was some platforms that were taking from artists without permission, which I do not agree with that.
But it's outta the box, right? It's out. And we can't resist change. It's like when the car came around and people were like, no, I'm gonna just stick with my horse. Over time we gotta embrace change. So
I intentionally try to ask myself, how can I implement this tool without it being the final result?
'cause I don't want it to take away my creativity because my creativity is direct as, as much as I can with cosmic creativity. I don't want it to make the art for me. So now I'm in this stage where, it's still pretty new. This is a huge thing in the art world that we've just been experiencing.
It's just like when photography came around it's gonna take some years to integrate and see how we're gonna implement this. And from that, AI artists came out just like when the camera came out, [00:56:00] photographers were invented basically. And now there's AI artists, but I don't wanna be an AI artist.
So I've been trying to see how I can use it as a tool in my toolbox and implement it into some aspects that can help make my art better, but without it being the final result. So I've been experimenting with, maybe there's a subtle texture that I'll, use inspiration instead of a, from a photograph I'll reference aI artwork. Things like that.
So I'm trying to figure out, I'm still in the midst of it, of trying to see how I can use it as a tool in my toolbox without it, being the whole thing, right? How I can use it in a mindful way to help the visions I was gonna make anyways come out better, more accurate. And for now, it's using it as partly as portions of reference photos. Not the whole thing, but like perhaps a texture. Like right now I'm doing a lot of studying diamond artworks and diamond temples, like making these worlds of diamonds. And [00:57:00] there's not a lot of reference photos for that. So looking at textures inspired by, okay, like a column made out of jewels and studying that, and then from there going and making an oil painting of it.
So I'm still playing around with how I can implement it, but I think this is something that an art history will look back at and it'll be just as impactful as like when the camera came around. Before that artists were making realistic artworks. That was their job. They were the cameras and the camera came around and it completely changed everything.
That's where abstract artworks started because they were like well, now we don't have to make the realistic portraits. Now what do we do? And they're like, okay, let's paint how we feel. Let's throw paint. And it changed everything. And now okay, so now there's this new tool, now maybe it's more about the process. More about adding the human emotion.
Now it's not so much about the final product because AI can make it in a couple seconds. How can we add that human touch to it? How can we show our process? Because that's maybe what matters now. [00:58:00] And still seeing how it turns out. We're in the midst of it, like I said, but it's very fascinating time.
It's a big time in art history
Adrian: It is. I realize one thing I wanted to ask you in your creative process I touched on earlier, besides DMT, are there any other compounds that you work with? Or is that just kind of your
Juliana: I would say DMT was my main inspiration. Currently meditation is, that's my current experience of choice, even though it's not a substance. But my first medicine that I worked with at 16 was LSD, and later on I worked with mushrooms quite a bit. And, I've dabbled in others, for example, peyote and all these other compounds.
But I would say the main psychedelic that I resonated very deeply with was DMT. And its pure crystal form, particularly was the one that I ended up making the most artworks from.
But now, after quite a handful of journeys at [00:59:00] this moment, I feel inspired by getting my visions from meditation, and that's what I've been doing mostly at the moment.
But that is subject to change.
Adrian: Yeah, it's, I love that you're open about that. It, it also makes sense for someone who's so open, in that sort of artistic way, it makes sense that perhaps you just didn't need as much to cut through. Like just a little bit really did it for you because you were already so open to that dimension.
Juliana: And I worked with it for a lot of years. I started working with psychedelics at 16, now I'm 29. And between that time I worked quite a bit with DMT and it got to a point where in deep meditation I can access a lot of those same spaces. So it became, dMT is within us also.
So it's if we like go through that doorway enough times, we get familiar with it.
And then there's no need for that exterior substance to get us there. So there's also that. [01:00:00] Yes. Absolutely. And that's what's so interesting about DMT or Ayahuasca or soma, it's, DMT's endogenous to the body.
Yeah. And not to mention five MEO that's a whole fascination also.
Adrian: Did you do that as well?
Juliana: Yeah. I only worked with that one. I've only worked with it once,
but I have to say it was probably my top experience.
Adrian: It's definitely epic for sure.
Juliana: yeah. For, but for art purposes it transcended all forms. So not much to paint regarding it, but definitely for life inspiration. very useful.
Adrian: Yeah, that's well said as well regarding from the artistic perspective. That makes total sense. So yeah, Juliana I've really enjoyed this conversation. I appreciate your time. Do you wanna let people know about any upcoming offerings that you have or projects on the horizon.
Juliana: Just if any of my work inspires you, that's what I make it for, ultimately to raise the consciousness. And if anything, just go [01:01:00] meditate. And I have if you don't know how to meditate, I have lots of guided meditations that will help people tap into that place of inner stillness. I believe that I'm here on this earth to help people tap into that.
May that be through artworks, through poems, through guided meditation. So if any of those things inspire you, that makes me happy.
Adrian: Awesome. So we'll be sure to include your website, social media, handles, all that so people can find you.
But just thank you so much for your time, Juliana really enjoyed this
Juliana: Thank you. Same here. May all beings be happy and well.
Adrian: Absolutely. Okay, take care.
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