Buki Fadipe, a writer/content creator, educator, womanist, and healing catalyst, founded Adventures in OM (@adventures.in.om) an educational resource for those seeking expansion, healing and growth with sacred earth medicines.

Buki was born in Nigeria where she lived until she moved to the UK when she was 11. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fashion Promotion and Communication from the University of the Arts London, is completing a Psychedelic Practitioner training program with Synthesis Institute, and is a certified Hatha Yoga instructor. Her work is rooted in spirituality and reclaiming ancient earth/indigenous wisdom traditions to act as a basis for more natural and holistic ways of healing. Buki hopes to combine these elements into a potent mix in a therapeutic psychedelic medicine practice.

Buki runs educational workshops, courses, and one-on-one sessions on preparation, navigation, harm reduction and integration for people seeking holistic alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs and conventional Western medicine. She writes about the intersections of psychedelic healing and spirituality and creates content for a number of psychedelic platforms and retreat organizations.

Buki uses an empowerment model to champion psychedelics for healing intergenerational trauma, decolonization, and self-liberation work—the route to lasting and holistic transformation. She is investigating how psychedelics can be used as a catalyst for healing and ecological justice and help us bridge cultural divides, heal ancestral wounds, and create a better future for the global collective. She advocates for diversity and inclusion while creating safe spaces for all people in need of healing, growth, and expansion to educate, share, and heal in union.

Tell me about Adventures in OM.

Adventures in OM is a resource for people seeking tools, inspiration, guidance, and education to support their growth and expansion. Om, or aum, is the Sanskrit word for unified body, mind, and spirit, a sum of all states of consciousness. Adventures in OM’s mission is to create a compassionate container and community that foster holistic healing through a fusion of spirituality, psychedelic allies, and Indigenous and shamanic earth wisdom.

Through Adventures in OM, I facilitate and lead workshops, courses and one-on-one sessions on preparation, navigation, harm-reduction, and integration for people seeking holistic alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs and conventional Western medicine. This work also combines spiritual guidance and information about holistic healing. I use an empowerment model to champion the use of psychedelics and spirituality for transformative healing and sustainable growth. My work focuses on but isn’t exclusive to unpacking intergenerational trauma, decolonization, and self-liberation work, which I believe is the route to our lasting and holistic evolution

What motivates you?

I firmly believe that when addressing any dis-ease, we have to consider all aspects of the self by addressing the emotional, physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological planes if we are to initiate deep healing and lasting change. I’m passionate about introspection, self-inquiry, and compassionate self-love. My work, education, and interests have a specific focus on but are not limited to psychedelic integration, spiritual guidance, enhancing intuition, and transpersonal psychology.

In order to activate the healer within, we need to dive deep and journey inwards. With the distressing rise of chronic disease and mental health illnesses, it is becoming increasingly evident the modern model for “healing” in the west is just not working; pharmaceutical medicine is failing so many of us, and the illusion of separateness is dividing our society and eroding community. I believe that when we take responsibility for addressing our trauma and healing, we are not only committing to cultivating peace within ourselves but also contributing to the shifting of historical patterns, healing inter-generational trauma and addressing the shadow side of ourselves and the collective.

Does being female in a male-dominated world factor into your personal and/or professional work?

Yes, most definitely. I am very much a womanist, and therefore my advocacy for women’s rights is embedded into every aspect of my life—not just my work. Professionally, I have been very vocal about the need to uplift and champion the voices of women, more specifically BIPOC women in the psychedelic space, as they are the most disregarded and undervalued in what is becoming an industry shaped by a patriarchal perspective and powers. After centuries of suppression, the voice of the feminine in its diverse forms and expressions is demanding to be heard again. We are in dire need of a shift in consciousness, moving from the current dominant masculine to a more balanced representation of both our dual energies, not just for the sake of mankind, but as part of the solution to the ecological crisis our planet currently faces.

In empowering women, we champion and embody divine feminine energy. I really feel, as we witness this re-emergence of psychedelic healing into the current health and wellness paradigm, that it’s pivotal for women to gather, empower each other, and reclaim the ways of the sacred feminine. We need a substantial increase of female leaders and not just in the psychedelic space; in empowering women, I enable my own evolution in this work.

Why are women's voices important, especially in the sacred psychedelic medicine world?

Throughout history, women have been society’s healers. The roles of “medicine women” are famed in many ancient civilizations and indigenous cultures, yet they are still marginalized and in the minority in the mental health and psychedelic space today, as the narrative, research, and policies continue to be male-dominated.

It is imperative we continue to honor the lineage of this work, which historically originated at the hands of women. Women have carried the wisdom and practices of holistic healing for millennia. Genealogically and culturally, women have been herbalists, curanderos, oracles, and shamans; they have been intrinsic to restoring and reconnecting us to the healing power of the divine feminine energy that these medicines allow us to tap into. Much of our collective expansion requires tapping into the divine feminine healing energy responsible for the renewal, restoration, and re-birthing process that is key to healing with psychedelic and sacred medicines. It is this divine feminine energy that allows for our nurturing and growth—this is what connects us all to the sacred.

I really believe the future of humanity depends on the collective meeting the challenge of harnessing the divine feminine energy we are so lacking. These are the transformative energies that have the power to heal a world lacking in love and compassion. We are in desperate need of this nurturing and mothering, and using these medicines facilitates our ability to connect to this energy, which lives within us all.

What sacred medicines do you work with personally?

I prefer and mostly work with cannabis and psilocybin but have also worked with MDMA and ketamine.

Can you share an important personal medicine healing experience?

It was cannabis that awakened me to my internalized oppression and exposed the damage colonialism has had on my psyche. For me, cannabis acts as a direct line to tap into my higher self and consciousness, whereas psilocybin offers deeper psychological reflection and reconnection to the aspects I have lost.

One of my most powerful and healing journeys with psilocybin reconnected me to my female ancestors. I was on retreat at a remote farm in Portugal near the border with Spain, surrounded by nature and animals, disconnected from modern trappings and noise. This high-dose sacred mushroom journey took me on an adventure back to Nigeria, where I was born. Although I did not witness the faces of the women on this particular journey, I heard their voices and experienced the comfort and nurturance their presence brought me. They told me I was not alone and that they were with me, supporting me and enabling me always. They asked me to share with them what I needed to let go of, what needed to die in me so I could be rebirthed.

There was a period of the journey when I heard African drumming and tribal music playing loudly. This music was coming from my ancestors; they were calling in. As the music grew louder, my limbs guided me intuitively through an energetic rhythmic dance, which involved shaking and contorting in ways I’d never moved before. It was powerful and deeply cathartic. I danced and cried and shook and writhed. I knew intrinsically I was shaking off trauma that wasn't completely mine. ⁠

⁠My integration process afterwards took me on a deep dive into the grief and mourning practices in Africa, where of course I rediscovered the roots of what had come to me on this medicine journey. ⁠I dived into research about Nigerian tribal (specifically the Igbo) therapeutic mourning rites for honoring the dead, and discovered there are many mourning dances used as a cultural healing system that are relevant to somatic therapy. Family, loved ones and community members of the deceased would perform these death dances to alleviate overwhelming suffering, fear, and pain associated with bereavement and loss.

This was one of the first journeys that really highlighted the need for me to reconnect with my family history and my linage. It encouraged me look into the holistic healing practices of the women and people of my culture and family. It also simultaneously gave me the encouragement I needed to dive deeper and commit to a career in this healing work.

Is humans’ relationship towards Earth important to you?

Yes, deeply important. I am a spiritualist and therefore an animist. I believe we are in a crisis of relationship—we have lost relationship with Mother Earth, which is the foundation of our relationship to all things she inhabits: nature, animals, others, and ourselves. I believe it is our broken relationship with nature that is the core root of our collective dysfunction. The lack of reciprocity and disregard is reflective of our collective lack of empathy and connection to each other. We need a conscious revolution in the way we relate to each other, the earth, and ourselves.

There is an urgent need for us to reconnect with nature and more organic and natural ways of being. We are moving more and more away from the organic to the synthesized or human-made. In reconnecting with nature, we come to realize the intrinsic value of our planet and the nurturance that all of nature brings. We have become blinkered by our technological “evolution” and the systems our modern world has perpetuated to support this separation and maintain this disconnect. We need to recognize it is a colonial idea that people are separate from the wild and that it is responsible for the illusion that humans are separate from nature. When we look to indigenous cultures we consider “primitive,” we see that they do not consider themselves separate from the lands they inhabit.

We are living what Vandana Shiva called an “ecological apartheid,” and it’s essential that we come back to earth. Sacred medicines provide us an opportunity for deep reconnection with natural ways of being, and in this reconnection, we come to remember the inherent value of our planet, our responsibility to it, and the need for a more reciprocal relationship with the land. Our connection ignites the empathy, respect, and compassion that is being eroded in our culture.

The Comic Sister Emerging Voices Award (CS EVA) supports individuals who demonstrate outstanding potential in the field of psychedelics and cannabis to strengthen their visibility in the community. Special thanks to Mt. Tam Psychedelic Integration (@tamintegration) for donating an all-access pass to the Psilocybin Summit (@psilocybinsummit) to each CS EVA winner.

Opinions expressed by honorees are their own.

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