About Ceremonia

A sanctuary, built on care.

Ceremonia is a Colorado-based plant medicine retreat company founded on the premise that this work deserves both rigor and warmth. We offer legal, facilitated psilocybin and ayahuasca programs to people who are ready to do it carefully.

How we started

From a quiet dissatisfaction to a calling.

I had started several companies in technology and real estate. I was living an Instagram life, posting photos of houses, cars, and travel while smiling. But on the inside, I had a quiet dissatisfaction. Even though on the outside I appeared to be happy and high-functioning, on the inside I felt directionless. Purposeless.

And then I found ceremony.

In 2020, I was invited to join an Ayahuasca retreat for entrepreneurs. I signed up thinking it was a networking opportunity. I scoffed at spiritual concepts, I considered myself agnostic, bordering on atheist. I went in filled with pride. I could not have been more wrong.

That formative journey defined the rest of my life. I wrote Remembering My Memories afterward to share the story of regaining memories my mind had repressed, the discovery of an original trauma that, once met, began to dissolve. Ceremonia grew from that recognition: that the work is not yours to do alone, and that real healing happens in community.

When I looked for a place to go that was both clinically grounded and held with genuine care, I couldn’t find one. Underground felt unsafe. Clinical felt cold. Ceremonia is the space in between, legal, prepared, and human.

Austin Mao, co-founder

What we stand on

Four principles, plainly stated.

Preparation is the work.
The outcome of a ceremony is shaped more by the weeks before it than by the hours inside it. We invest four weeks in preparation because a well-prepared participant receives the medicine fully, and integrates it.
Honest screening protects everyone.
We will not seat anyone we do not believe is ready. This is not gatekeeping, it is care. A ceremony held with the wrong person in the wrong moment can do harm. We take that seriously.
Facilitated and clinically informed, both.
Our team includes facilitators with deep ceremonial lineages and clinicians trained in evidence-based protocols. Neither quality replaces the other. The medicine asks for both.
Integration is where change lives.
What happens in ceremony is a beginning. The four weeks after retreat, daily check-ins in week one, weekly group calls through week four, are where insights become patterns that hold.

How we are different

Three things we do that most programs don’t.

Facilitators and clinicians, not one or the other.
Most retreat programs are led by facilitators alone, or by clinical staff alone. Ceremonia brings both into the room. Sacred and safe are not opposites.
Six to eight weeks of structured support, not a single day.
A one-day session without preparation or integration is an incomplete intervention. Our program brackets the ceremony with four weeks of preparation and four weeks of integration, the full arc.
We say no when we mean it.
If a screening call surfaces contraindications, psychiatric history, medication interactions, life circumstances, we will tell you directly. The right step may be a referral, not a booking. We would rather lose the reservation.

See the full methodology: Prepare, Journey, Integrate.

Legal pathways

Two frameworks, one commitment.

Ceremonia operates under two distinct legal frameworks, depending on the medicine and the participant’s path. Both are state-recognized and subject to rigorous safety protocols.

RFRA

Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Our ayahuasca programs are held under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which protects the sacramental use of plant medicines within a sincere religious practice. This pathway has been successfully litigated and upheld in federal court. Participants engage through a documented religious membership process and meet with a facilitator before being accepted.

Read our RFRA policy

NMHA

Natural Medicine Health Act

Our psilocybin sessions are facilitated by NMHA-licensed facilitators within Colorado’s Natural Medicine Health Act framework, which established a state-licensed pathway for supervised psilocybin services. Participants go through a preparation period, a facilitated session, and a required integration session, the minimum the law mandates, and the beginning of what we offer.

Read our NMHA policy

What’s next

Cohorts run throughout the year, with care at every step.

We hold retreats on a rolling schedule in Colorado. Each cohort is small by design, twelve participants at most, so every person is known. The application process begins with an honest conversation about where you are and what you are bringing to the work. If it is a good fit, we move forward together. If it is not, we tell you why.

Start here

Want to see if it’s for you? Begin a real conversation.

Check My Readiness Book a Connection Call

From a quiet dissatisfaction to a calling.

And then I found ceremony.

Four principles, plainly stated.

Preparation is the work.

The outcome of a ceremony is shaped more by the weeks before it than by the hours inside it. We invest four weeks in preparation because a well-prepared participant receives the medicine fully, and integrates it.

Honest screening protects everyone.

We will not seat anyone we do not believe is ready. This is not gatekeeping, it is care. A ceremony held with the wrong person in the wrong moment can do harm. We take that seriously.

Facilitated and clinically informed, both.

Our team includes facilitators with deep ceremonial lineages and clinicians trained in evidence-based protocols. Neither quality replaces the other. The medicine asks for both.

Integration is where change lives.

What happens in ceremony is a beginning. The four weeks after retreat, daily check-ins in week one, weekly group calls through week four, are where insights become patterns that hold.

Three things we do that most programs don’t.

Facilitators and clinicians, not one or the other.

Most retreat programs are led by facilitators alone, or by clinical staff alone. Ceremonia brings both into the room. Sacred and safe are not opposites.

Six to eight weeks of structured support, not a single day.

A one-day session without preparation or integration is an incomplete intervention. Our program brackets the ceremony with four weeks of preparation and four weeks of integration, the full arc.

We say no when we mean it.

If a screening call surfaces contraindications, psychiatric history, medication interactions, life circumstances, we will tell you directly. The right step may be a referral, not a booking. We would rather lose the reservation.

Two frameworks, one commitment.