New York City-based musician and writer Faye Sakellaridis (27) is managing editor of The Alchemists Kitchen and Reality Sandwich, where she enjoys the “rich spectrum of intellectual essays on consciousness through a diverse lens of art, culture, and science.” She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens College, but as a classically trained improvisational pianist, she identifies first and foremost as a musician. “Writing and music are two are elemental parts of me, and communicating through them is what I do,” she said. Sakellaridis was also awarded a Women of the Psychedelic Renaissance grant to explore and write about her personal healing work around creative and emotional blockages to transform “healing into art.” (@fayesakell)

“Ayahuasca empowers by helping you confront yourself. At first, the medicine delivered my demons to me like a sledgehammer to my third eye, which was terrifying. When I got myself out of fetal position and faced them head on, the medicine started to work with me in unbelievable ways, aligning me with my deepest fortitude. Many people, women particularly, are hindered by timidity and self-doubt. Ayahuasca helps us become our own greatest allies rather than our own worst enemies.” -- Faye Sakellaridis