Cocoon:
A Year of Prayer,
Practice,
& Psilocybin
October 2026 - October 2027
Cocoon is a year-long transformational group coaching program for women.
Together we create a protective, nurturing space for personal and group metamorphosis.
Cocoon is is catalyzed by sacred medicine, grounded in group alchemy, and in harmony with the seasons and cycles of the Earth, Moon and Sun.
Spend a year crafting your prayer and living that prayer into being within a circle of support.
Offer yourself as a vessel of support to the prayers of other women.
Who is Cocoon for?
Cocoon is for women yearning to enter a season of deep, sustainable transformation.
This could include...
Moving through a life initiation (into womanhood, motherhood, cronedom)
Reconfiguring through and after loss (death, separation, empty nesting, serious illness)
Experiencing a crisis of meaning (Is this it?)
Healing relational wounds (we are wounded relationally, we can heal relationally)
Exploring lineage and legacy (What do I carry with me? What am I leaving behind?)
Grieving cultural poverty and loss (Where are our rituals and rites of passage?)
Identifying your role in civilizational upheaval (What is my power and responsibility?)
Liberation from a pattern that does not serve (How can I truly get free?)
Methods and Rhythm
An important part of the work is reconnecting to natural rhythms and cycles. The program covers one solar year and is structured in lunar months.
Weekly meetings
The program covers 13 moon cycles. Each moon cycle flows from first quarter moon (exploration) to full moon (embodiment) to third quarter moon (appraisal) to new moon (rest). We will meet for the first three weeks of this cycle and rest on the new moon (you are encouraged to schedule this time for conscious rest).
Meetings are on zoom Wednesdays 3-4:30pmPT/6-7:30p ET October 14, 2026 - October 27, 2027
Meeting activities will vary based on the theme and phase of the moon cycle and will include embodiment exercises, small group active listening and reflection, journaling, partner accountability, large group sharing circles, and group singing.
Monthly content
Each month around the new moon you will receive content related to the theme of the moon cycle (audio/video recordings from me, visual guides, links), and suggestions for how to work with the theme in the month ahead.
Seasonal 1:1 coaching sessions
Four times during the program you will receive a 1 hour coaching session with me as an opportunity to hone your own intention/direction/prayer, explore obstacles, celebrate progress, and prepare for and integrate your psilocybin journey.
Six-day sacred mushroom retreat
Fernlove Retreat Center - Oregon’s only forest-based psilocybin service center (pictured)
Thursday June 17 - Wednesday June 23
We will gather together over the summer solstice to connect with each other, with the earth, with the elements, and with the spirit of the mushroom.
Day 1 Arrival
Day 2 Preparation
Day 3 Journey one
Day 4 Integration
Day 5 Journey two
Day 6 Integration
Day 7 Departure
Private chat group
For sharing and connecting between sessions.
Group Size
Each cohort will accommodate to 9-12 women
Facilitator -
Dr. Stephanie
Van Hope
In truth, it is less important who I am than what I can hold, reflect, and fortify in you. The work of facilitation is at its best when it is invisible. But I will share with you what has shaped my walk and how it can support your safety and growth. My purpose is to create sacred space for transformation connected with ritual, the elements, and reverence for life. I have created this program as a synthesis of multiple streams of training, knowledge and experience over the last 15 years.
I am a Registered Nurse, certified Nurse Coach, and Doctor of Nursing Practice in the specialty of integrative health and healing. I have worked primarily with people and families traversing the end-of-life passage. Nurse coaching explores how the big themes of meaning, purpose, and priorities are expressed in the small, mundane, and foundational activities of everyday life to create tangible change. I am a certified Psilocybin Facilitator in the state of Oregon. I served as a guide for a research trial of psilocybin for cancer-related anxiety. And I served for multiple years as a learning facilitator for Synthesis Institute’s Psychedelic Practitioner Training Program, mentoring pods of students through the core training program.
What is particular to my path is that I spent over a decade immersed in spiritual community studying sacred wisdom traditions, particularly of Turtle Island. During these years I lived the practices of sacred medicine work, sweat lodge, vision quest, and community land and relationship tending. I am an herb and song carrier. Our community hosted and were received by indigenous elders to honor their wisdom. During this time I witnessed both the immense gifts and the dangers of community living and spiritual devotion. I have since closed this chapter of my life and carry forward with me the blessings and the cautions, both of which are foundational to my approach to group psychedelic work.
am a daughter, sister, friend, wife and a mother of two very young, very energetic children. We live in the Charlotte region of North Carolina, land traditionally stewarded by the Catawba people.
Approach
&
Safety
The entire program is based around the concept of slow medicine, of utilizing both action and rest to allow the work to seep into your bones, of creating a breath before and after every movement.
This program will invite you to change (you would not commit your energy and resources if you did not desire change) but it will be in a manner that is easeful and sustainable for depth and longevity.
Together we will listen for the direction your heart wants to travel, take the steps along the path, and tend the path as we go so that it will always be available for you.
This primary method used in this course is community alchemy. This is our foundation. Sacred mushroom medicine is a potent catalyst within the the cocoon of community. My approach to working with the spirit of the mushrooms is one grounded in reverence and trust.
We offer reverence to the mushrooms in the following ways:
• Taking our time, allowing a whole year for this prayer to unfold
• Acknowledging the spirit of the medicine and the spirit of the land
• Holding ceremony on land that we can make offerings to and deeply connect with
• Creating an offering of (financial) reciprocity to the local indigenous people connected to the land we practice on
• Engaging sacred medicine practices of energetic permission, protection, and hygiene, ceremonial structure, sacred space tending, purification rituals, music and other approaches to uphold a space of consciousness
We engender trust and safety within psychedelic work in the following ways:
• Utilizing a screening process to ensure medical, social and spiritual readiness of all participants • Spending eight months learning about each other, tending our container and mending ruptures so that we arrive to ceremony as trusted collaborators
• Practicing techniques to ready our minds, hearts and nervous systems for the intensity of sacred medicine work
• Working within the framework of legal facilitation which offers standards of accountability for the facilitators and service center and may allow certain participants with sensitive circumstances to feel more safe participating
• Keeping an appropriate group size (9-12 women) and engaging ample support of co-facilitators during retreat journeys (1:3 ratio)
FAQs
Is Cocoon right for me if I am new to psilocybin?
Yes, this program is designed to engender safety and trust, provide layers of support, and employ an intentionally slow pace. It is an ideal container for those new to psychedelic work.
Is this program right for me if I am religious? Or not at all religious?
Cocoon is built on an interspiritual framework that is aligned with a general Earth-based wisdom orientation. Spirituality is central to the work but there is wide latitude and invitation for how you incorporate your own spiritual principles and practices. If it is important for you to be supported in your own spiritual beliefs by others who share those same beliefs, if you find Earth-based wisdom practices incompatible with your spiritual practice, or if you are seeking a space that is not centered on spirituality, Cocoon would not be right for you. If you are drawn to creating sacred space, using ritual, honoring cycles, seasons and elements, and connecting with and witnessing other women in a way that is not affiliated with a specific tradition but is guided by timeless principles, then you will feel at home in Cocoon.
Can I work with psilocybin if I have a medical condition or if I am taking medication?
Psilocybin work is compatible with many medical circumstances, though not with all. We will use a screening process approved by the Oregon State Health Authority to determine if this work is medically safe for you.
Is Cocoon appropriate for me if I have depression, anxiety, or a trauma history?
Though psilocybin work has been shown to have beneficial outcomes for people with certain clinical diagnoses, Coccon is not designed as a treatment for any particular condition, and is more oriented toward cultivating strengths, identifying priorities, and finding alignment and right relationship. Participants need to be emotionally sound enough to show up with full presence for themselves and others in weekly group sessions in order to participate. Some people may find that they need additional support, such as with a therapist, to be a good fit for this work. This will be determined in advance in a collaborative screening process.
Do you offer scholarships?
Two half tuition scholarships will be available specifically for nurses who are in financial need. If you are interested in applying for a scholarship...
Do you offer any other form of reciprocity?
10% of the proceeds of this program will be donated to an organization supporting indigenous communities of the region that our psychedelic work takes place in. Identifying the specific organization(s) will be a part of our group process.
Will Cocon always be offered for women only?
It is possible Cocoon will be offered for mixed gendered groups in the future.
