About Cora
Our Mission
Cora Center’s mission is to provide a space for safe, ethical, and meaningful psilocybin experiences that are culturally-attuned and community-oriented. We do this by collaborating with skilled facilitators, abiding by the highest standards of safety, and centering the wellbeing of participants throughout our work.
Our Vision
We envision a society in which health and wellbeing are accessible to everyone.
We envision a psychedelic field that is rooted in the values of relationship and reciprocity.
We understand that healing is a collective endeavor, and that to heal we must go back to the roots of our shared and individual traumas, and transmute these experiences to remember our true nature.
We envision a psychedelic culture that allows us to cultivate trust and foster environments where true healing and transformation can occur.
We are dreaming toward a world where psychedelic medicine is respected and destigmatized, and importantly, the culture bearers who have protected and stewarded this sacred work for generations are at the forefront of our movements.
We envision Cora Center supporting local and international efforts to uplift Indigenous sovereignty and the preservation of the biocultures from which plant medicines emerge.
We seek to become a part of an integrated web of partnerships that support community wellbeing through social movements, community celebration, deep medicine work, and connection with the land.
We envision a space that fosters affinity groups so that those who have been most marginalized by dominant culture can rest, heal, and celebrate with people who have shared lived experiences.
We seek to humbly contribute to a life-giving culture of care, while learning from the elders who came before us and easing the way for those coming after us.
Who We Are
We are a team of community members who came together around our shared passion for collective healing, social change, and liberation. Our Co-Founders, Claudia Cuentas LMFT, Syre Saniyah Ph.D, and Rebecca Martinez first collaborated as leaders of Alma Institute, a 501(c)3 nonprofit career school. There, we ran a psilocybin facilitator training program to a cohort of 35 people under Oregon’s Measure 109 framework for legal psilocybin services. The program was built upon four pillars: Indigenous Wisdom, Trauma-Informed Care, Social Justice, and Experiential Learning. Along the way, we collaborated with many leading voices in the field of psychedelic healing, learned about the opportunities and challenges of above-ground work, and endeavored to bridge the worlds of sacred medicine and the state’s regulated access program. This is a continued learning process. We are honored to be at the tip of the arrow as we endeavor to honor the roots of sacred mushroom medicine and their communities with accountability, while carefully increasing access to psilocybin experiences in this new context.
Claudia and Syre bring a rich depth of experience as therapists in private practice who have years of experience working with distinct communities. They have been trained in numerous healing modalities, which include psychedelic-assisted therapies such as MDMA, ketamine, and psilocybin. Rebecca brings a well of insight and leadership experience through her work in policymaking, community organizing, public education, organizational development, and communications. Our operational team and growing team of licensed psilocybin facilitators are central to our success; each of them brings a unique perspective, skill set, and lived experience to the table, and we are all bound by our commitment to intersectional justice and personal growth.
Pictured: Cora Center co-founders (left to right) Claudia Cuentas, Syre Saniyah, Rebecca Martinez.
It has always been a part of our vision to create a licensed service center that would provide a gathering place for our communities to experience ceremony, and a learning environment for new facilitators to grow in their skills and become ready for the responsibility of holding space for people experiencing expanded states of consciousness. We know that mentorship is key to maturing one’s skills in holding space. This is the way of apprenticeship that is modeled by Indigenous communities around the world, and lifelong learning is integral to our philosophy.
In 2022, we were offered the opportunity to lease two buildings in NE Portland, but many months into the project’s development, the owner had to withdraw for personal reasons. This was a devastating blow, as so much of our vision was built on having a place to gather. We were able to partner with local venues and a licensed service center to provide our students with their training and practicum experience, but we held onto the hope of creating a community space of our own.
Two years and many transformations later, the team behind Alma Institute is thrilled to bring Cora Center into the world. This new project is a Public Benefit Company that enables us to provide legal psilocybin services within group and individual ceremonial containers. We are thrilled to be inviting our beloved communities to come sit in ceremony with us and get to know the wonderful, fascinating, generous sacred beings who are at the heart of our work together, los niñitos de luz.
Contact us.
info@coracenter.org
2734 NE Broadway
Portland, OR 97232