Michou Olivera stepped into her home office on a recent afternoon and pulled out about a dozen amber Mason jars. She held them to the light: inside each was a clump of dried psilocybin mushrooms.
"We have some leftover Jedi. This is a very popular strain that's very heart opening," she said. Olivera reached into a jar labeled "Shakti," and picked up a delicate white mushroom tinged with veins of electric blue.
Shakti is "very spiritual, very mystical," she said, and "for people who have resistance, they're going to find that it is helping them push through barriers."
Olivera grows these mushrooms at home and administers them to people who often suffer with severe or treatment-resistant depression. She says many clients are referred to her by local doctors, psychiatrists and therapists. In a typical session, she'll recommend a particular variety of mushroom and then guide her client through what she calls a journey.