Confluence Retreats

I came to Confluence looking for a deeper connection to my reality, to feel more fulfilled in my life, and to make sense of some of the traumas I’ve experienced in the past. What I experienced through the plant medicine was more profound than I could have imagined.

The ceremonies brought me into a completely different relationship with myself and with life. I was able to access emotions, memories, and parts of myself that I had struggled to understand, and experience them in ways that felt deeply meaningful and transformative. There were moments that were incredibly intense and vulnerable, but also moments of profound connection, clarity, and beauty. The experience changed the way I see myself and my life, and I’m still discovering the impact of it.

What made that experience possible was the incredible support and guidance at Confluence. My facilitators, Myles, Arin, and Alix, as well as the supporting staff, became like family to me. I felt safe being completely vulnerable and was able to process intense emotions with loving, compassionate support. I never felt like I was alone in what I was experiencing.

I also really appreciated that the support continued after the ceremonies. The team kept in touch with me and met with me following the retreat to help me integrate the experience. That was incredibly valuable because the work didn’t end when I left Oregon. In many ways, that’s when I really began to understand what the experience had given me.

Every detail of the retreat felt intentionally curated. The facilities were beautiful, and the days between the medicine ceremonies included therapeutic exercises and opportunities to process and integrate. I also appreciated having traditional cultures represented through a member of the local Native community.

And the food was amazing. Our private chef prepared incredible meals throughout the retreat, which added another level of care to the experience.

The plant medicine itself was profound, but the community created around it was equally meaningful. Being surrounded by people who were genuinely invested in supporting one another through such a deep experience was priceless.

The experience was more than I could have dreamed of, and it has fundamentally changed my connection to my life. I’m incredibly grateful to Myles, Arin, Alix, and everyone at Confluence for holding such a safe and supportive space for this work. I would absolutely recommend Confluence to anyone who feels called to explore plant medicine in a setting where the experience is treated with real intention, care, and respect.

I was in a place of real struggle and felt like I had turned over many stones trying to find a way to simply return to neutral. I looked up a few programs in the Oregon area and found Confluence. What drew me to this program was the 5 day experience, the experience level of Myles (having run a similar program abroad), and the way the program seemed committed to following the data and science of psilocybin treatment.

In short, I picked the right place.

The administrative acumen, passion, and real world experience Myles brings combined with the high level of professionalism and skill of the counselors makes for a formidable program. At no point did this feel fly-by-night; this could be a program that has existed for a decade. As someone who has worked in the world of mental health treatment, I was beyond impressed.

Personally, I don’t think a single session experience with another organization would have worked for me. The first session (though difficult for me) opened the door for the second session to do its magic. Also the amount of integration, both in group and individually, is what I attribute my good experiences to in a major way.

If a safe, supportive, professional, empathetic, empirical, and warm experience is what you are looking for (plus excellent home cooking every day), then Confluence is the program for you.

From the start, I felt a genuine connection with participants and facilitators alike that really surprised me, since I’m usually a bit of a loner. There was an atmosphere throughout the retreat of openness and compassion that felt like a warm bath to my solitary spirit. It felt easy to let go and love, to trust, as natural as breathing. My own personal struggles still got in the way and were magnified in instructive ways during both journeys. But I felt safe and supported throughout by facilitators who offered their support and encouragement during challenging moments. Since the retreat I see my ego patterns a little more clearly, see them in operation, see what they cost me, but with less beating up on myself for manifesting them. Maybe a bit of humor that has given me space to settle in and explore the still quiet presence behind all the noise. Doing the retreat in nature and in a group broke me out of a rut and gave me the opportunity to listen to and connect with others in new and refreshing ways. Almost three months out from the retreat now, and I can still feel my neurons rewiring!

My 5 day group retreat at Confluence was an incredible experience. Everything about the organization is top notch, and the staff's professionalism and care exceeded expectations. The therapists were incredible - just stepping back from the support they provided, to be in the presence of people who are so masterful at what they do is rare and special to behold. Every staff-person was kind, conscientious, and excellent at their work. The food was fantastic, and the accommodations and natural environment were just beyond. The journeys were profound experiences - and while I learned they are not panaceas (nothing is), they provided me with an acuity of focus I needed to continue to do the work. Highly recommend!

I came in struggling, and I'd been struggling for a long time. I never understood my own trauma. What I could actually remember seemed too minor to be causing an effect that large, so I assumed I must be repressing something worse. That wasn't it. What happened on this retreat is that I experienced the pain emotionally instead of remembering it logically. I connected to it, gave it respect, acknowledged it properly for the first time — and that allowed me to release it. Ten years of serious wellness practice and three years of therapy had moved that only slightly. This moved it.

I've spent my career as an executive in the wellness industry, including as a trained practitioner at a luxury wellness center where we partnered with a very wide range of modalities and practitioners. I've seen a lot of programs. I don't say this lightly. I was impressed before I ever arrived — on the first Zoom call, the depth of experience on the team was immediately obvious. These are absolute professionals, not people improvising their way through profound work.

The single most important thing I can tell anyone considering this: the preparation and integration sessions are not extras. They are the program. A standalone experience is very difficult to extract real value from — something powerful can happen and then simply evaporate, because there's no structure to land it in. What this team has built around the journey multiplies the benefit several times over. If you're weighing this against a single one-off psilocybin session, you're not comparing like with like. It isn't the same thing at a different price point. It's a different thing entirely.

One practical recommendation: if you have a long-term therapist, you will get even more out of this. They already know you deeply, and they can help interpret the experience in a way that multiplies the benefit further. Bring it to them.

The group format is the other thing I'd underline. Sharing with strangers sounds awkward, and honestly it feels that way for about an hour. Then it becomes the secret ingredient. By the second day I was genuinely bonded with the people I was there with, and they with me. I can't imagine having done this alone. What the group gives you — the reflection, the recognition, the sense that you are not uniquely broken — is something a solo experience can't replicate. The facilitators know exactly how to hold that container.

It's also designed with real skill for both ends of the spectrum. Someone arriving with no experience is met properly. Someone arriving with experience, as I did, is not condescended to or handed a watered-down version. That's harder to pull off than it sounds.

Life-changing is an overused phrase. I'm using it deliberately.