After completing my time with Isabelle, I ventured to Peru in 2016 where my life would change forever. At the time, I was stricken with a debilitating chronic illness that I was sure I would die from. I began working with Ayahuasca, a sacred brew that had been used for centuries by indigenous communities in the Amazon for the cultivation of power and wisdom. It was there that I met Reta Lawler at Spirit Quest Sanctuary, whose guidance would shape my path for the next nine years and counting. Reta is a teacher of both immense depth with over 40 years of experience in plant medicine, psychotherapy, Zen Buddhism, and earth-based ritual from the Amazon, Andes, and Celtic regions. Through simple exchanges of care with Reta, I came to understand the importance of mentorship in the healing arts, and I began to feel the responsibility to eventually offer this type of guidance to others.

Around the same time I met Reta, I began formal training in Classical Chinese Medicine in 2017 at the Institute of Taoist Education and Acupuncture in Boulder, Colorado. For two years, I learned the foundational principles of Worsley Five Element Acupuncture, which taught me how to perceive the unique balance of the elements within each person. I studied the meridian system and learned how the energetic pathways of the body connect with the natural world. I also began completing dietas with various plants in both Peru and the United States—Ayahuma, Chuchuhuasi, Noya Rao, Rooibos, Peppermint, Rose, and Lavender, to name a few. These relationships with the plants helped me to build a foundation of power, wisdom, and protection.

In 2021, I studied with Atira Tan, a mentor who introduced me to the importance of nervous system regulation in plant medicine spaces and the concept of trauma-informed care. I then went on to work as a full-time Trauma Resolution Specialist with Somatic Spiritual Counseling for over four years and counting, helping clients navigate and release trauma stored in their bodies. This work tempered my approach into a more integrated, body-centered way of healing with psychedelics.

From 2021 to 2023, I lived internationally in nine different countries while I worked online: practicing my Spanish, learning from indigenous healers, and re-connecting with my family's ancestral cultures and homelands in Mexico, Spain, Egypt, and Israel. This extended solo pilgrimage served as a potent rite of passage into adulthood. It helped me to clarify who I am and what my mission is on a very deep level.

All the while, I continued to travel back to the Amazon regularly from 2016 up until 2024, where I deepened my studies of Shipibo curanderismo, learning from healers in the region and refining my own understanding of plant medicine. It was only through my work with Ayahuasca in combination with nervous system regulation principles that I was able to, in 2022, fully cure myself of the chronic illness that once threatened my life. I am now 100% pain-free, a living testament to the transformative power of these plants.

That same year, I traveled to Guatemala for the first time where I found my calling as a medicine guide. Up until that point, all of the indigenous ceremonies I had participated in had been in total darkness with minimal input from the participants. In Guatemala, I had the opportunity to participate in a number of Mayan-led ceremonies that combined the healing properties of mushrooms and rich, heart-opening cacao, took place around a fire, and involved lively singing from both guides and participants alike. I felt a deep sense of belonging and ancestral recognition, and my years of experience with Ayahuasca quickly transformed and assimilated into my path going forward with the mushrooms.

My chronic illness served as a painful and life-threatening eight-year initiation into the work I began to offer upon my return to the United States at the beginning of 2023: guided journeys with sacred mushrooms. It was through plant medicine that I was able to fully heal myself, and this transformation sparked my deep commitment to helping others. This offering is the culmination of so many streams of wisdom coming together into one beautiful whole. Along with being a mother, it is my deepest calling in life.

In 2023, I also began my pursuit of a Master’s Degree in Social Work with Western New Mexico University, which I hope will allow me to expand my practice to include people with more severe and chronic mental health challenges. I believe that traditional healing methods, when paired with contemporary psychology, offer a holistic and deeply effective approach to mental health and well-being in our unique cultural landscape.

I currently practice with the sole intention of harm reduction, support, and ceremonial guidance. I offer my services with deep respect for the wisdom of these traditions and the responsibility they carry.  This work is the culmination of everything I’ve gained, everything I’ve healed, and everything I am still learning. I am deeply honored to offer this work and look forward to being a part of your own healing and transformation.

about Dara Sophia la madrid

My mother and grandfather are both medical doctors, a lineage I continue forward with the blessing of my grandfather in my own unique way. My interest in other cultures started in earnest in 2010 when I spent two months living in rural Oaxaca, Mexico in a small village of only 80 people with a local family. This experience allowed me to step outside of my own cultural assumptions and begin to question the fundamental ways we live and heal here in the United States. I went on to earn my Bachelor’s degree in 2015 in Philosophy with a minor in Comparative Religious Studies from Northern Arizona University, where I continued the process of unlearning the paradigms I had been brought up in. During those years, I also immersed myself in Buddhist mediation and Hatha yoga, dove into several long, silent meditation retreats and earned my yoga instructor certification. The week after graduation from college, I was on a plane to South America, driven by the need to find my own medicine in continuance of my family's legacy.

It was that year that I met Isabelle, a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, who would become one of my first and most formative teachers. Isabelle was an extraordinary woman with a wide breadth of esoteric knowledge, ranging from acupuncture and herbalism to a practice she called “psychic surgery,” which she had learned growing up in Bolivia. She had a unique way of merging Western and indigenous healing techniques, and through her, I witnessed the power of energy work to create profound transformations, sometimes even saving lives. Our informal year-long mentorship together opened my eyes to the possibilities of healing beyond the conventional and set the stage for my deeper exploration of plant medicine.