About IESI
IESI (“I see”) is the whole journey. Here is how it unfolds, who guides it, and the role Bufo plays within it.
Your journey
A journey like this is difficult to fully understand until you have experienced it. Seeing how the days unfold, however, can help you understand what you are stepping into.
One, two or three days
- One day
Primarily an inner journey. Time to connect with yourself, to work with what needs to be seen or released, and to understand who you are being in your life right now. The experience can also open a profound sense of love and connection with yourself, with others and with life.
- Two days
Builds from the inner journey toward yourself in relationship with life and with others. The first day’s inner work stays the foundation. Your intention then widens toward how you want to live and relate in the world.
- Three days
Moves further toward connection and embodiment: connection with others, with relationship, and with your broader intentions for life. The third day can take on themes particular to you and your circumstances.
Two and three day journeys run on consecutive days. Each day builds on and deepens what came before.
Alone, together, or as a couple
- Solo
Space for focused, individual exploration.
- Shared
Up to four people, who may be friends, strangers, or two couples who may or may not know each other. Feeling the connection between people, even people you have only just met, can be one of the most powerful parts of the journey.
- Couples
An especially strong way to journey, with the work building across the days.
- Day 1
Each of you works mainly on yourself.
- Day 2
Your individual work begins to connect with your intentions for the relationship.
- Day 3
The emphasis moves toward bringing the two of you together and embodying the relationship you intend.
- Day 1
In the end, the only person we can really work on is ourselves. And yet the journey lets us feel a deeper connection with each other.
Before, during and after
The journey begins the moment you decide. It continues through preparation, the experience itself, and the integration that follows.
- Before
You begin to consider your intentions, and we talk them through together in preparatory conversations.
- During
Illuminate continues in person, followed by Expand and then Surrender.
- Right after
Integration begins while you and Brenda are still together.
- Two weeks on
An integration conversation, which can happen by Zoom, is included with every journey.
- Ongoing
Integration coaching is available weekly, or whenever you need it, to support you as you bring the experience into daily life.
Your IESI journey is more than the one to three days we spend together. Preparation and integration are part of the experience, helping what happens during those days become something you can carry into your life.
Brenda
“It’s not about me.”
Brenda was shown that she had a gift for holding space for others after experiencing the IESI journey herself. Since then, she has been asked to show the journey to others.
She offers the IESI journey as a journey of love and connection.
Brenda is your mirror. She is there as a guide who points you back to yourself, holding space for your own inner direction to emerge.
Are you ready to see the beauty in you?
Bufo and 5‑MeO‑DMT
The Sonoran Desert toad, Bufo alvarius, secretes a substance rich in 5‑MeO‑DMT, a potent and fast‑acting psychedelic compound in the tryptamine family. It is a relative of the DMT found in ayahuasca, yet the experience is distinct, both psychologically and physically, from other forms of DMT.
Plants containing DMT have been used in ceremony across Mexico, Central and South America for a very long time. Ceremonial use of Bufo is more recent, and the medicine itself is more powerful. The Sonoran Desert toad is native to northern Mexico and the southwestern United States, and much of the natural Bufo used in ceremony comes from Mexico.
5‑MeO‑DMT is sometimes called the “God molecule,” a name that reflects the profound sense of unity, connection or transcendence people sometimes describe during the experience.
Despite its intensity, the primary Bufo experience is generally brief, often around 20 to 45 minutes.
Research is following. Universities and biotechnology companies have begun studying 5‑MeO‑DMT, mostly in synthetic form, isolated from the toad and from the ceremonial setting it comes from. IESI works with the natural form, gathered with care, inside a guided journey.
Caring for the toad and its desert
Habitat loss and population stress in parts of the Sonoran Desert are real. IESI works only with Indigenous collectors who protect the land where the toads live and protect the toads themselves, so that each toad is left unharmed and its habitat survives.
Protecting this gift of nature is a founding principle of IESI.
Every journey begins with a conversation.
Send Brenda a message on WhatsApp and tell her a little about yourself and what is drawing you here. Nothing you send commits you to anything.
Journeys take place in Baja California Sur, Mexico, and at private locations in Canada.
Begin a conversation