Kristina Ellery
Minister of Sacred Earth Sanctuary • Breathwork Facilitator • Herbalist • Creator
One day, I may have volumes to write about the questions, healing, and transformation that led me into the world of psychedelic medicine. For now, as I complete my certificate studies in psychedelic-assisted therapies and continue developing the language this work deserves, I want to begin more simply: with the story of how I came to know Kristina Ellery and why her example has shaped my understanding of what responsible stewardship can look like.
My path toward this work began, unexpectedly enough, in the diabetes clinic.
Through my clinical work with GLP-1 medications, I became fascinated by the ways a drug can alter more than physiology. I saw how medication might affect appetite, certainly, but sometimes also desire itself: what a person wants, how compelling that wanting feels, and what behaviors follow. That observation opened a much larger question for me. What other substances might create change not only in the body or mood, but in desire, behavior, perception, and our sense of what is possible?
Curiosity led me into psychedelic research literature, documentaries, and conversations with other healthcare professionals who were asking similar questions. Eventually, a friend who is a psychiatric nurse practitioner asked whether I had heard of Sacred Earth Sanctuary, an Amesbury church that had been featured in Boston Magazine as part of a story about New England’s evolving psychedelic landscape.
I had heard rumors, but I had never followed the thread.
That thread led me to Kristina Ellery, minister of Sacred Earth Sanctuary.
Kristina approaches the world of sacred plant medicine with tremendous care and deep compassion for those who seek out the church. What most impresses me is not an inflated claim to certainty, but her practiced awareness of responsibility. She appears to understand that guiding people through vulnerable inner terrain requires reverence, preparation, discernment, community, and a willingness to recognize the limits of any one person’s role.
Her stewardship is visible in both the broad structure of her work and its smallest details. Sacred Earth emphasizes thoughtful preparation and intention before a ceremony, a grounded and welcoming physical environment, and opportunities for integration afterward. Kristina draws upon her experience with breathwork and herbalism,
incorporating elements such as intentionally selected music, herbal tea, essential oils, nourishing food, and community integration gatherings.
These details are not decorative. Together, they communicate something essential: experiences involving altered states do not happen in isolation. The conditions surrounding an experience—the preparation, environment, relationships, sensory landscape, nourishment, and care available afterward—can all matter profoundly.
What particularly fascinates me about Kristina is the gorgeous line she walks between holding sacred space and living as a creator.
Her creativity springs through everything she does: her acting, stage-makeup artistry, elaborate themed gatherings, and the imaginative environments she builds for healing and celebration. Her creative life does not feel separate from her spiritual work. Both seem to emerge from the same willingness to explore the depths of her own being and return carrying something alive.
I believe that willingness is part of what allows Kristina to remain steady in the presence of other people’s complexity. She does not present herself as someone who has transcended the difficult, contradictory work of being human. Instead, she demonstrates what it can look like to cultivate an ongoing relationship with one’s own shadow and light—and to let that relationship deepen both care and creativity.
I am grateful to know Kristina and for the ways her example has expanded my understanding of healing, responsibility, and creative life. She reminds me that stewardship is not control, certainty, or spectacle. It is the patient work of creating conditions in which another person can encounter themselves while remaining surrounded by care.
The person who helps us approach the depths should know something about returning.
And what we retrieve there may become part of what we create next.
Learn more about Kristina and Sacred Earth Sanctuary.
Watch Kristina’s interview on The Passion Witch Project.