This writing has been burning within for over a year. We have not been awaiting the courage but rather for the clarity and guidance for how to express some of the deepest pain we have experienced along this path.

It is a story that has felt almost impossible to tell because it is a complex web of grief, shame, love, responsibility, and trauma. It is deeply personal. It is also a story that, despite the pain surrounding it, has never felt like a secret.

We are writing this because silence has not felt like healing and because we want to speak from our own hearts, honestly and intentionally, without defending, or reducing a profound loss into something consumable and sensational.

In December of 2024, during one of our retreats, a guest lost her life. Her name was Blanka, and she was an angel, such a sweet soul.

For over a year, we have been living in the aftermath of this loss. It changed us permanently. There are experiences that divide a life into before and after, and this has been one of them, among many in the path with this profound medicine.

It does not feel right to share this story in great detail. Not out of fear or because there is something to hide, but out of respect and the impossibliltiy of ever conveying the depth of this process for any one involved. Every person impacted by Blanka’s death carries a different experience, a different truth, and a different grief. We do not wish to control the story, prove innocence, or argue against every opinion or narrative that has been spun. This is simply being shared from our own lived experience of something that shook us to the core and changed us forever.

There are only a few facts that feel important to name.

Blanka’s death was not due to acute physiological effects of the medicine. It occurred in the context of severe natural surroundings and a violation of clearly stated safety guidelines not to leave the retreat area alone or unannounced. It was also the first and only time we had worked on that particular land and upon arrival realized the risk of the terrain. Despite a robust staff it was not sufficient to see her walk off into the jungle. We also welcomed a few guests against our inuition who were not ready for the work this plant requires. So many hard lessons. And no detail can capture the weight of what happened.

A life was lost while under our care. That truth carries enormous grief and gravity. It has asked us to reckon with everything: our responsibility, our humanity, our limits, our choices, our blind spots, and equally as important: how we were able to show up in the midst of it all. It has also asked us to look at how tragedy can become distorted through projection, blame, and division, who runs away and who celebrates the struggle of another and the cruelty of humankind.

People are entitled to their views, and not everyone will see this experience the way we do, and of course- ours is through our own filters.  But what I do know, is that we cared…deeply. We cared then, and we care now. We showed up in the aftermath with the highest integrity available in the moment to address the tragedy and hold space for what the experience required, and we were not perfect. There were many people involved in creating this experience. We have carried the pain, complexity, and consequences of this loss every single day since. 

This experience fundamentally changed the way we view facilitation, screening, preparation, safety, and space-holding. It changed the scale and shape of how we serve. It changed our relationship to this work and to ourselves. In the aftermath, Anthony stepped away from serving medicine and holding retreats, and I returned only in a much smaller, more intimate way, with even deeper caution, discernment, and relational care- only to have realized that this chapter with Awaken Your Soul is closed, and punctuated by the most profound "awakening" perhaps possible.

The work we have done through this vessel and with this medicine came from a genuine desire to contribute to the healing of humanity. It was beautiful, profound, miraculous, expansive and also fraught with pain and shadow as well. We are human, we are fragile and often gave more to others than we could give to ourselves and suffered deep consequences. But beneath all of it, the prayer was real. The intention was real. We wanted to help raise the frequency of this planet by holding space for people to heal, reconnect, and come home to themselves, while doing that for ourselves…awakening our souls. We know and honor, despite everything, deep healing happened in these spaces. Lives were changed, love and true care was present and it was meaningful. Now it is time to let this chapter end.

Closing Awaken Your Soul is not a denial of what was beautiful, nor is it turing away from what was painful. It is both. It is gratitude and grief. It is humility and release. It is honoring the good we know we offered, while also bowing to the reality that this path has asked too much, changed too much, and become something we are no longer meant to continue in the same form.

And now, with reverence, we let this chapter close.

May Blanka be honored in the fullness of her sweet soul.
May all who were touched by this loss find peace.
And may we all find our way toward deeper truth, deeper responsibility, and deeper love.

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