A Journey Home to the Heart of Service
After a life-altering psychedelic awakening in 2008, Ehren Cruz has devoted more than eighteen years to the mindful study and intentional use of entheogenic medicines as pathways to healing, self-actualization, sacred remembrance, and servant leadership. As a harm reduction ceremonialist, he has guided more than 250 high-dose psilocybin journeys; each one follows a rigorous ethical framework of assessment, preparation, facilitation, and integration.
Ehren’s path has moved through many lineages. He trained in ceremonial apprenticeships within the Havasupai, Azteca, and Lakota traditions, studied Qabalistic Magick and Hermeticism for over a decade, and practiced devotedly in both the Vedic and Buddhist traditions. Across all of it, one truth kept returning: medicine can open the door, but the trained, quiet mind is what lets us live on the other side of it.
That understanding brought him home to the Theravada Buddhist tradition, which now anchors his life and work. He keeps a daily sitting practice of two hours or more, lives by the precepts, and deepened this commitment through a nine-day silent Vipassana retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. There he took the eight precepts and touched, for the first time, a stillness he describes as luminous. He is currently training as an Insight Meditation teacher in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program led by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, is returning for another 10 day silent Jhana Meditation retreat in Spirit Rock in October and a 5 day silent retreat at the Insight Meditation Society during the Thanksgiving Holiday. A daily Shaolin Qigong practice roots this contemplative life in the body.
From 2010 to 2020, Ehren served as an award-winning producer and high-performance team builder. He generated more than $100 million in revenue through sold-out festivals and cultural events that welcomed artists and cultural ambassadors from more than 85 nations to the southeastern United States.
In 2021 he founded The SpArc, a rites of passage and transition mentorship practice that guides clients through life’s great thresholds toward genuine, integrated healing. Its offerings include the Inner Compass Path for those moving through major life transitions, and Soul Path Mentorship, a mystery school journey through Seven Thresholds of Awakening. The SpArc has been featured in The Assembly, Psychedelics Today, The Psychedelic Podcast, Psychedelic Conversations, The Innovative Leadership Institute, and AyaSpeaks. Ehren has served as teaching faculty at the Psychedelic Coaching Institute, sat on the board of the Pearl Psychedelic Institute, and was a founding member of the Psychedelic Society of Asheville.
[For four years Ehren tended Communitas, his home sanctuary for ceremony, contemplative practice, and community. His recent departure from Communitas marked a threshold of its own, one he meets with the same practice he offers others: letting go with gratitude and walking forward with an open heart.]
His writing and creative work carry the same depth and sacred inquiry. His book, 1,000 Journeys Home, is forthcoming from Wisdom Path Press in Fall 2027. The press’s founder discovered Ehren through his Substack essays on rites of passage, men’s work, and mindfulness and offered him a full publishing contract. The book traces the arc of medicine work toward its true destination: stillness, a life free of the hindrances, and a sanctuary found within. He is also developing Mechanical Man, a screenplay about John B. Watson, the founder of behavioral psychology.
Ehren is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), Certified Psychedelic Coach (CCP1), Master Psychedelic Facilitator, spiritual mentor, harm reductionist, keynote speaker, writer and is currently training to become a Certified Mindfulness Meditation teacher. A devoted father of three daughters, he remains committed to healing, awakening, and sacred service in every part of life.
