PSA's Psychedelic State(s) of The Union: January 13th, 2026

“True strength is not measured by how much the body can endure, but by the courage it takes to sit with what the heart has carried.”

The fire crackles in the dark, throwing orange-gold light onto the tarped walls of the wampish casting the dancing shadows of the men sitting in a circle. Outside, the desert night breathes — sage, dust, wind, chirping crickets, and the whisper of ancient wisdom. Inside, combat athletes sit cross-legged in silence, hands resting on their knees, breathing deep and slow, receiving messages from the fire. The smell of burnt wood and sage circles in the air. The sounds of nature’s orchestra is the only playlist heard.

There are no cameras here.

No belts.
No crowds.
No cages.

Only a circle of men who traded blood money and fame for life force. Driven by the addiction to adrenaline as they climbed into arenas under bright lights and carrying the roar of strangers in their bones. For years putting their life on the line, now they sit with damaged bodies that absorbed every collision of their glory.

In front of the fire sits Ian McCall.

To the world, he was once one of the best fighters alive. A former Tachi Palace Flyweight Champion, a pioneer of the UFC’s first flyweight tournament, a man who went toe to toe with legends like Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez. He fought in the UFC, WEC, Rizin and survived one of the most chaotic runs in MMA history, enduring years of injuries, cancelled bouts, illness, heartbreak, and the kind of relentless misfortune that would have broken most men long before he ever stepped away.

Off the canvas, his battles were even heavier.

Addiction.
Self-destruction.
A near-fatal overdose that stopped his heart and somehow, he survived.

A prodigy.
A survivor.
A man whose art was violence, whose body became the canvas and who now carries the wisdom of what it cost him.

He is no longer chasing victory.

He is helping his brothers and sisters come home.

Not to their careers.
Not to who they used to be.
But to the parts of themselves that were left behind with each impact.

And tonight, he is here not as an athlete.

He is here as a bridge.

There is a truth every fighter knows, though few ever say it aloud:

You don’t step into the cage and exit the same.

Ian puts it even more starkly:

“We step into the ring in our underwear for blood money — to give and receive PTSD, and to act out childhood trauma.”

This is the damage from hits the crowd will never see. Concussions that don’t show up on scans. The moments when the brain quietly rewires itself to survive.

Years later, the damage finds a voice:

The fog.
The memory lapses.
The rage.
The depression.
The quiet thoughts you never speak out loud. The ones that creep in and linger when the world goes still.

Ian knows that landscape intimately.

He remembers the addiction.
The darkness.
The mornings when getting out of bed felt like stepping into a life he no longer recognized.

He remembers standing at the edge of two choices:

End everything —
or learn how to heal.

And the path that opened wasn’t through a hospital wing or a prescription bottle.

It began in ceremony.

With fire.
With prayer.
With medicine that does not numb — but listens.

It began in the jungle, among elders and songs as old as language.

And later, on sovereign land in Southern California, under a black sky filled with ancestors and wisdom. Where athletes who once fought for legacy now fight for something quieter:

Their lives.

Before ceremony, they work with their hands.

They collect rocks for the sweat lodge.
They gather wood for the fire.
They pick sage to burn.

They prepare their bodies the way they once prepared for battle, but this time the opponent is not another man. It is the story that trauma has written into muscle and fascia and memory.

At night, they sit with a high-dose of psilocybin. Doses strong enough to shake loose the grief that has lived in their bodies for decades. There is no music. No distraction. Only the crackle of the fire and the sound of men meeting what they have carried.

Some cry.
Some pray.
Some tremble like the body is finally telling the truth.

The next day, they enter the sweat lodge.

It is brutal and holy — a ritual so hot and intense that the mind lets go and the spirit steps forward. Ian describes the moment the world tilted and he understood why people do this — why First Nations communities have carried these rites for generations.

“Oh, I get it now. I get why we do this.”

Not for punishment.
Not for spectacle.
For rebirth.

Trauma leaves the body in layers.

And here, in the dark, warriors remember how to become human again.

Athlete’s Journey Home was born from this place. Not as a project or a brand, but as a vow.

A vow to his friends whose names fill locker rooms and highlight reels. Men with world titles and broken nervous systems.

A vow to the athletes who gave their bodies to the crowd and were left alone afterward to negotiate with the ghosts.

Ian calls what he does “the pollination effect.”

Heal one fighter and every person who has ever admired them starts to believe healing is possible too.

He brings them to ceremony.
He brings them to research.
He brings them into a future where brain scans, MRIs, epigenetics, gut testing, and storytelling exist side-by-side. Where science does not erase the sacred, but honors it.

Where data becomes proof and story becomes medicine.

Because for Ian, the work is not the fame or the optics.

It is this:

Help them feel better.
Help them reclaim their minds.
Help them live long enough to tell the story — so someone else doesn’t have to suffer in silence.

There is a stillness after ceremony, as the first light of morning moves softly across the land.

Smoke curls from last night’s fire.
Buffalo cooks on the stove.
The air feels softer, as if something heavy finally let go.

The men step outside barefoot, quietly absorbing the stillness and you can feel it in the hush between them. Something has returned.

Not toughness.
Not glory.
Not the version of themselves they once used to survive.

But a tenderness that is strong enough to stay.

Healing isn’t a victory you parade through an arena.

It is a homecoming.

And sometimes, it happens in the dark beside a fire that remembers the beginning of the world — with a man who has walked through hell, laid down his weapons, and decided that his greatest act of courage is helping others lay theirs down too.

Long after the ceremony ends and the sweat, tears and smoke dissolve into the night. The echo that remains is not the sound of fighting.

It is the beating hearts of peaceful men.

Step Inside the World of Athlete’s Journey Home

Ian Came Out of Retirement to Fund Healing — See the fight!

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Until next time,

The Psychedelic State(s) of America Team