Zendo Project Expands Offering Its Peer Support Model To Mainstream Communities
After providing psychedelic peer support for thirteen years at events throughout the world, the Zendo Project is expanding to provide harm reduction education to mainstream festivals and community mental health organizations. The shift represents a wider awareness that care services developed for people exploring psychedelics can be effective for those experiencing other altered states of consciousness.
“What I love about this is that we can learn from what psychedelics have taught us about non-ordinary states of consciousness and bring that knowledge into mainstream mental health settings where psychedelics might not have been a variable, but where the skillset has great value,” says Zendo Project Executive Director Chelsea Rose Pires.
In an interview last month at Burning Man, where the Zendo Project brought a crew of more than 400 volunteers to support two care spaces, Pires says that the organization is in discussions with a nonprofit that runs a county-level crisis services team.
“We are looking to create a training for crisis response teams across the country affiliated with county-based mental health crisis services,” says Pires. “We are looking to provide training to support people in non-ordinary states of consciousness be that from psychedelics or grief, or the myriad of all the difficult things that come our way in life.”
The Zendo Project was founded at Burning Man in 2012 as a project of the nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and became an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in 2022.
The community that offers Zendo services has provided care, training and implementation of psychedelic support services at a wide range of gatherings including Envision in Costa Rica, AfrikaBurn in South Africa, and Lightning in a Bottle in the U.S. Since becoming an independent nonprofit, the Zendo has brought their care team to the Texas Eclipse Festival and the 2023 Psychedelic Science conference, while also maintaining their substantial presence at Burning Man.
Members of the Zendo Project board say they support the organization’s move to export its values and training to organizations providing community-based mental health services. They believe that the skills acquired by Zendo volunteers can be effective for mental health professionals who provide care under sometimes challenging circumstances.
“Mental health crisis teams are trained in how to formally assess, but those mental health workers don’t always have the skill set for how to sit with somebody in the hardest moments of their life,” says Stephen Bagley, Zendo Project board member and long-time service provider. “Our hope is to bring that skillset into mainstream mental health where we can impact mental health teams and the quality of care they provide.”
Lessons From Black Rock City
In an effort to support broader community-based mental health services, the Zendo is shifting its focus. According to Pires, the project needs to redirect its resources to have sustainable global impact and share its innovative model outside of the Burning Man container where it was incubated.
In a newsletter sent to its supporters on August 8th, the Zendo announced that it would be shifting the way it provides harm reduction services at Burning Man and its temporary metropolis Black Rock City. The city, which is built each year on the playa, or alkali flats in the Black Rock Desert north of Reno, Nevada, typically hosts more than 70,000 citizens for the annual event at the end of August.
Pires notes that Burning Man takes up half the Zendo’s staff time and annual budget. While on the playa, Zendo volunteers receive significant material support from the Foamy Homies, a service organization that provides a foaming body wash and art to Burners and other event participants. Pires says the Foamy Homies also feed Zendo volunteers, provide power to their camp, and donates $100,000 to the Zendo Project every year.
“While the Zendo has been an integral part of the care services that exist on the playa, we recognize that there is great need for the work we do beyond the boundaries of Black Rock City,” wrote Pires in the newsletter. “In 2025, we plan to reduce the scale of our services at Burning Man, and move toward an education-focused approach. We will offer training on psychedelic care and emotional support to theme camps, safety teams, and other playa organizations.”
In her comments in the Zendo newsletter, Pires noted that she first found her way to the Zendo at Burning Man as a guest in 2012. She fondly recalls the experience and the original structure, a cardboard yurt “warmly lit with piles of cozy pillows, and a handful of gentle, kind faces to greet me. The circular space fully embodied the feeling of a sanctuary – a generous spirit of compassion and calm energy surrounded me – providing a necessary break from the chaos of the world outside the cardboard walls. Watching the clouds pass by through the open yurt roof, I slowly came back to myself, and into connection with those around me.”
During the rainstorms and subsequent flooding during the 2023 Burning Man, the donated cardboard yurt was damaged and replaced this year by a waterproof structure. After sheltering thousands of guests on the playa, the original Zendo remains the iconic symbol of the project.
In the Zendo newsletter, Pires wrote that the 12-foot wooden crown ring that held up the Zendo roof and gave guests a view of the open sky would be placed in the temple at Burning Man. The ring was inside the temple structure this year where it was tied with ribbons covered in messages from supporters. As is traditional, the temple and its contents, which honor those who have passed, were burned on the night of September 1st.
“For us, the ring represents the completion of a cycle – a time to let go, shift, and call in something new. As we step over a threshold into new opportunities for the Zendo Project, we welcome your prayers, cares and shares,” wrote Pires.
Since the publication of the newsletter, Pires says ongoing conversations with Burning Man organizers may bring forward the support needed to maintain services on the playa. “We are having discussions with Burning Man and they are supportive of changes that need to happen to keep Zendo services available to Black Rock City,” says Pires. “We are hopeful that we can reach an outcome that is most supportive for the people who need our services as well as something that is sustainable for the Zendo as it grows out in the world.”
The Burning Man organization was invited to comment on these discussions, but was not able to reply at press time.
Creating A Culture of Care
After evolving for a decade at MAPS under the initial leadership of Linnae Ponte and later Sara Gael, this is the third Burning Man where the Zendo Project has served as an independent nonprofit. Zendo services also proved adaptable during the pandemic providing virtual online care to Burners in 2020 and 2021. Pires says that building communities of compassionate care remains the aspirational model for the Zendo Project at Black Rock City and beyond.
According to Pires, the Zendo Project is also seeking to bring its expertise to mainstream festivals that are now served by more traditional medical and mental health providers.
“We are building relationships with medical and security providers at large events around the country and working with some of the largest event producers to bring the harm reduction model into spaces where it never previously existed,” says Pires.
A few days before the burning of the Zendo ring, a group of Zendo Project volunteers and staff members joined a panel discussion on the playa at the Palenque Norte speaker series to reflect on the Zendo’s contributions to harm reduction.
Jonas Di Gregorio, Zendo Fundraising Director who has served as a Zendo volunteer for six years and worked in harm reduction in his native Italy, noted during the panel discussion that when the Zendo first began providing care at Burning Man, their services were controversial. He said that some believed the type of support that the Zendo provides was leading to the idea that drug consumption was being “incentivized.”
Di Gregorio observed that many Zendo guests are simply seeking compassionate care during an event that can be overwhelming for some participants. He recalled one guest who arrived at a Zendo care space at Burning Man crying and feeling disconnected from her boyfriend. “We need human connection and that was the first time here she did not have other friends. Sometimes we have situations where no substances are involved, just life and a breakup and a family member who had passed away the previous night,” said Di Gregorio recalling the interaction. “For someone to show up as a volunteer and listen and be present for someone else. That is the magic of the Zendo.”
Valerie Beltrán, Zendo Project Outreach Director and services supervisor, says that Zendo volunteers hold space for guests “helping them to allow their experience to unfold.” She observed that Zendo care providers bring guests through an experience instead of attempting to talk them down. Beltrán noted that Zendo care spaces offer a separate tent for guests to express strong emotions in a safe way. “If they want to throw pillows around and thrash about, we are making sure to keep things within safe boundaries for them to be able to do that and be received. Show them love and unconditional positive support that they often don’t get in their regular life. That is very healing.”
Tineke Phillips, a Zendo service provider who also spoke on the panel, noted that some Zendo guests sometimes simply need water and a listening ear. She remembers one guest who arrived in physical discomfort and wanted help feeling safe. “What she needed was compassion and that she mattered,” says Phillips. “Each guest shows you what they are seeking.”
Adam Rubin, a long-time Zendo volunteer and care supervisor, noted during the panel discussion that the approach to harm reduction offered by the Zendo is part of a lineage that stretches back to knowledge adapted from ancient healing practices, care teams serving counter culture and underground communities, and pioneering psychedelic-assisted therapies. “As peer support practitioners we recognize that we are in a particular role not based on our training in academia, not a shaman, but in a very specific way of being based on the four principles,” said Rubin.
Rubin said the Zendo trains its volunteers to embrace its four principles of care which include providing a safe space for healing and thriving, sitting or being fully present, and not guiding but allowing the guest’s inner wisdom to lead the way. Zendo volunteers are also trained to let the guest lean into the experience, allow it to occur and let go – a process often described as talking through and not down. Zendo volunteers also embrace the idea that “difficult” is not necessarily bad and that challenging experiences can be our greatest teachers.
Rubin added that the Zendo provides online training in these techniques for people who don’t necessarily even plan to go to Burning Man, but want to embrace and support these approachs to care. “Spread the word,” said Rubin. “Spread the love and compassionate care around the world.”
Meanwhile, as Zendo volunteers served Burners on the playa near medical and ranger services, Pires considered how the lessons learned by the Zendo at Black Rock City could help make the project more sustainable. How could these insights be applied? “By creating a model of community care that supports people to come together and care for one another,” says Pires, taking a rare moment to sit down and reflect at the Zendo camp. “This skill set is widely applicable and accessible to building stronger communities of compassionate care.”
As the Zendo Project takes steps to offer the knowledge gathered by its volunteers during dusty days and nights at Black Rock City, Pires says these insights transcend the immediate impact of psychedelic compounds.
“It takes what we have learned culturally and brings it back into the mainstream where it’s not even about psychedelics, but values and skills for the community care model. It is a skillset that is accessible and that we can bring into our everyday lives,” says Pires. “When someone is trained, they can bring that skillset back into relationships with friends and family as well, creating a web of care for holding each other in difficult or challenging times.”
Disclosure: Ann Harrison aka Annie Oak is the founder of the Full Circle Tea House and has served as a Zendo consultant, trainer and care provider. The 2024 Burning Man was her 26th Burn.