Hi lovely folks, I’m Mercedes, I’m a queer, femme witch, writer, and community organizer with a long, winding, scrappy background in journalism, documentary film making and strategic communications, supporting artists, activists and movement organizers in human rights advocacy, and within the psychedelic space, currently practicing on the island of the T’oq qaymexw in the traditional territory of the Klahoose, Tla'Amin, and Homalco First Nations, on Turtle Island. 

I  hold over 500 hours of certified yogic education, over the last decade, with a focus on trauma recovery through a disability justice lens, having created and facilitated educational and therapeutic workshops and training programs focused on substance use and addiction recovery. I’m currently completing a multi- year, 1000 hour trauma-focused somatic breathwork clinician certification with Breathwork for Recovery, now as an Apprentice. I’ve been supporting clients with trauma-focused breathwork for over 2 years. 

I’m a survivor of many lineages of trauma, and many subsequent “diagnoses”, including CPTSD and ME/CFS. I have ancestral and cultural roots in Ireland, Scotland, England, and Ukraine, and as an adoptee, I’m still unraveling a complex and mysterious family tree. Humbly practicing somatic abolition and disrupting inner and outer systems of oppression that hinder personal and collective liberation.This lens informs how I show up in the world, and in my work. 

I’m educated in journalism, creative writing and documentary filmmaking, having produced, directed and written several films, in addition to providing strategic communications support for crowdfunding for independent filmmaking projects. She likes to write about the intersections of death, drugs, grief, science, healing, power, politics, solidarity, magick and Collapse, and currently has bylines in The Daily Beast and Doubleblind magazine, among others.

I’ve contributed to the psychedelic and plant medicine space since 2015, providing strategic communications, decolonial education, crisis management, event production and film production support to organizations including The Psychedelic Chronicles documentary film project, the Spirit Plant Medicine Conference, the 2018 and 2020 Psychedelic Psychotherapy Forum, and most recently Psyaware, a not-for-profit organisation providing essential education and support systems in the psychedelic space.

You can find me writing, learning how to rest, building a tiny house in the woods, navigating chronic illness, absorbing art, exploring altered consciousness, and weaving the threads of her experience to hold space in her community for resilience, resistance and solidarity building, Grief integration, community care and mutual aid, amid Collapse.