Women’s Empowerment Through Entheogens—A Psychedelic Feminism Liberation Story

Photo by Tracey Eller for Cosmic Sister

Dawn Musil has a bachelor’s of science in Biochemistry and Ecology from Ohio State University and is completing a Venture for America fellowship in business development with a Sema, a Baltimore-based biotech startup, where she develops sustainable ag-tech solutions through AI software. Dawn was raised in an oppressive Christian cult which she escaped after she lost a close friend to suicide. She found a way to open her mind through science and travel and earned a Semester at Sea Presidential Scholarship to do research in 13 countries to help break down the gender gap in STEM fields. Wherever she went in the world, Dawn found medicine women whose spirits touched her life, like the women of Inle Lake who showed her the magic of kun-ya for upset stomach in Myanmar and the Ghanaian grandma who wove wild tales of Iboga ceremonies.
Dawn also received Cosmic Sister’s Plant Spirit Grant and traveled with psychedelic feminist leader Zoe Helene, ethnobotanist Chris Kilham, and a diverse (mostly female) group to the Peruvian Amazon, where she participated in traditional sacred plant medicine ceremonies with indigenous Shipibo healers at Temple of The Way of Light. She was awarded Cosmic Sister’s Women of The Psychedelic Renaissance grant to present “Women’s Empowerment Through Entheogens—A Psychedelic Feminism Liberation Story” about how she found healing, self-liberation, and empowerment through journeying with entheogenic plant medicines, at Spirit Plant Medicine Conference in Vancouver. Dawn believes society is ready to embrace feminism as a powerful movement that drives positive change through individual and collective action, where women are empowered to take control of their own destiny—and perhaps even society as a whole.
“The medicine taught me who I can be,” says Dawn, “And to know that my voice has as much value as the voices of males in the plant medicine space.”