Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025 12:00 – 1:30pm PT
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Join us for a transformative conversation about plant medicines, addiction recovery, and the integration of healing across clinical, spiritual, and community contexts. This Community Forum brings together clinicians, practitioners, and recovered people to explore critical questions at the heart of psychedelic-assisted addiction treatment: How can plant medicine approaches reach those most affected by addiction, despite real barriers of cost, housing instability, and access? What role do trauma, stigma, and structural inequality play in shaping outcomes? And how might we honor Indigenous and traditional lineages while developing culturally responsive, ethically grounded models of care? We’ll examine the neurobiology and spirituality of addiction recovery together, exploring how ceremonial plant medicine work interrupts the isolation and disconnection that often characterize addiction, and what safeguards are essential to prevent spiritual bypass or subtle relapse patterns disguised as transformation. Speakers include Danielle Nova, Founder of Lumeria and Executive Director of the San Francisco Psychedelic Society; Ana Juliana Demme, holistic business coach, poet, and recovered addict practicing within the Santo Daime tradition; Nicky Mehtani, Assistant Professor at UCSF researching psychedelic therapies for addiction among medically and socially complex populations; and Danielle Herrera, licensed psychotherapist specializing in “full spectrum” drug use and psychedelic integration. Together, we’ll explore how plant medicines might heal not just individual brains, but fractured relationships to self, community, and spirit.
Danielle Nova is the visionary Founder of Lumeria and the Microdosing Facilitator Training, Psychedelic Recovery, and Executive Director of the first and largest psychedelic society in the United States, San Francisco Psychedelic Society. Danielle is recognized for her expertise in microdosing, training, addiction recovery, and guiding spiritual transformation. Danielle carries forward a practice of care, expertise, and precision. With nearly a decade of experience, Danielle has guided thousands of individuals through transformative microdosing and psychedelic experiences. As a leader in the field, she has professionally trained and certified over 100 clinicians, coaches, and wellness practitioners to become ethical, trauma-informed microdosing facilitators. Danielle has made a significant global impact by creating and delivering educational programs, integration groups and addiction recovery services to over 25K individuals worldwide. Danielle was instrumental in working on the founding team of Decriminalize Nature Oakland, which passed the first resolution in the United States to deprioritize all entheogenic plants and fungi. Featured in esteemed outlets such as CBS News, SXSW and the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference, Danielle is a trailblazer in psychedelic training, advocacy and addiction treatment.
Ana Juliana Demme is a holistic business coach, poet, recovered addict, and committed practitioner of the Santo Daime whose work bridges the sacred teachings of plant medicine, Ayurvedic wisdom, systems thinking, and spiritual practice. A graduate of Dartmouth College with a degree in Fine Arts, Russian Language, and Anthropology—and a former corporate strategist managing multimillion-dollar AI and localization programs—Ana now guides purpose-driven entrepreneurs and healing practitioners through Seeds of Sattva, a platform for regenerative business design and conscious healing. Her path of recovery began with a Shipibo ayahuasca ceremony in 2019 that catalyzed the cessation of six years of daily drug abuse and the end of multiple dependencies. In 2020, she found her spiritual home in the Santo Daime, where she has been a fardada and devotee ever since. Ana has spoken on addiction recovery and plant medicines at the Rhode Island Holistic Mental Health Conference and served as a public advocate for Massachusetts’ Yes on 4 campaign in addition to self publishing her recovery centric chapbook The Return to the Light. She is currently training to become a certified Ayurvedic Practitioner, dedicated to supporting recovering peoples through holistic, heart-centered care.
Nicky Mehtani, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor at UCSF San Francisco General Hospital. Her research focuses on the use of psychedelic therapies to treat addiction and psychological trauma, with an emphasis on expanding access to these emerging treatments among medically and socially complex populations. Clinically, Dr. Mehtani specializes in Addiction and HIV Medicine, providing care at the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Maria X. Martinez Health Resource Center–a low-barrier clinic serving people experiencing homelessness and unstable housing. In this role, she has led the implementation of novel long-acting injectable antiretroviral medications for HIV treatment and prevention.
Danielle Herrera is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in what she calls “full spectrum” drug use, from harm reduction therapy for more chaotic relationships with drugs to psychedelic assisted therapies and psychedelic integration (currently, ketamine assisted psychotherapy). Danielle directs her group practice, Tender Heart Healing Arts, which embraces a warm, relational, and spiritual approach to psychotherapy. Danielle has been core faculty in psychedelic assisted therapies for Beckley Academy, Alchemy Community Therapy Center, and is a clinical supervisor across various organizations, also serving on the Board of Directors for DanceSafe National. Danielle’s therapeutic style embraces a decolonial lens, but an mystical orientation, where she brings in her own culturally Indigenous traditions as well as her study and practice in initiated mysticism to respond directly to ancestral and intergenerational wounds.
