Chief Paco on Peyote Ceremony, Community and Palabra
On Episode 1 of the Quantum Collective Podcast, Jonah Bolt sat down with Chief Paco, Keeper of the Sacred Peyote Medicine and a Mixteco Nahua leader of a traditional dance and medicine community in South Florida. You can find him on Instagram at @ceyaotl_franco. The conversation moved through his childhood in the mountains of southern Mexico, the stories his great grandmother told him, the way a peyote ceremony is structured from sundown to sunrise, and what it really means to carry the title of chief. What came through most clearly was not mysticism for its own sake. It was responsibility.
A note before we begin: this post shares a cultural and spiritual tradition as Chief Paco describes it. It is not medical advice, and it is not an invitation or recommendation to seek out or use peyote.
From the Mountains of Mixteca to New York City
Chief Paco comes from the Mixteca, a mountain region in southern Mexico, and from a family of teachers and curanderos, the traditional medicine people of his culture. He was raised in part by his great grandmother, a medicine woman who grew plants between the rows of corn and used them to care for her family and village. She told him stories about many medicines, peyote among them, and about the cycles by which a medicine arrives for a people when they need it and fades away when it is no longer respected.
By the time he was a boy, peyote no longer grew in that part of the Mixteca. Chief Paco points to pollution, misunderstanding and changes in both the land and the people. Like the medicine, he eventually traveled north. Growing up in New York City with his uncles and aunties, he found the stories returning to him through the dance community and through ceremonies of the Native American Church. He describes it as remembering rather than discovering, and he credits the ancestors who prayed seven generations ahead for the path that opened in front of him.
He learned by sitting with elders, many of whom have since passed. The first instruction was always the same: sit up, stay quiet, pay attention. From there he worked his way through the roles of ceremony, the fire and the door among them, slowly rebuilding a relationship his great grandmother had first described to him as a child.
A Community of Families
Today Chief Paco leads a community of traditional dancers and medicine people. When Jonah asked what leadership means in his tradition, he began not with himself but with the people around him.
“We are a community of families. It's meant to be a place where our families can grow, our children can grow and develop and learn and feel safe.” Chief Paco
For Chief Paco, dance is the living container for all of it. Through dance the community preserves and passes on its ceremonies, its music, its respect for the ancestors and its way of life. Practice is also a form of prayer. With copal burning on the altar and the drum pushing the rhythm forward, dancers move their bodies and release whatever they have been carrying through the week. He also welcomes the fresh experience younger generations bring to the tradition.
Palabra: Why a Leader's Word Matters
Chief Paco received the responsibility of chief at Sundance, after years of service to the medicine and the people. In his tradition, he explains, there is no single word for leader. Instead, leaders are called palabras, which means words.
“When you're a palabra, that means your palabra matters, what you say.” Chief Paco
People listen to a palabra and give their trust because that person's word holds weight. The title, he says, is mostly more work. The first thing he was told when he received it was that a chief belongs to the people. You cannot lead without a community, and leadership means doing whatever needs to be done without asking why. His motivation is personal too: he has two daughters, and he stepped up so that they would have a place to grow, learn and carry the tradition forward.
Inside a Peyote Ceremony: Structure and Presence
For listeners who have never sat in ceremony, Chief Paco walked through the general shape of an all night Native American Church meeting, noting that other lineages, such as the Wixárika tradition of northern Mexico, follow a very different structure.
A ceremony begins with a sponsor, the person asking for prayer. The reason might be a birthday, a wedding, a difficult transition or a hardship in the family. The sponsor approaches the person who runs ceremonies, they share tobacco and make an agreement, and the sponsor gathers everything needed and invites the participants. Officers support the night: a fire keeper, a door person, a drummer and the leader. Everyone sits on the ground around a fire and an altar, and the sponsor opens by explaining exactly why everyone has gathered, so the whole circle is praying in the same direction.
He was clear that this is not a place to lie back and drift.
“You're supposed to be present and focused, you're supposed to be aware of what's going on.” Chief Paco
The Midnight Water and the Morning Water
Two moments anchor the night. At midnight the fire keeper prays over the water, which honors the male energy, and everyone shares it. Later comes the main prayer, when the sponsor speaks and the whole circle listens and prays together with one heart and one mind.
At sunrise the morning water is brought by a woman, traditionally an elder, a grandmother, an auntie or a mother. Chief Paco explained that men do not carry the experience of bringing life into the world, so it matters to listen to a woman's teachings at dawn. For those who have lost their mothers, as he has, it is like hearing from her again.
Safety, Respect and Education First
The heart of Chief Paco's message is caution. He believes that ceremonies like these come from humble people who turned to them in their hardest times, and that they should never be approached as a trend. He encourages people to educate themselves first: learn where a tradition comes from, why it exists and who is holding the space. Ceremony runs on protocols, not rules, and those protocols exist to keep everyone safe.
He was also honest that people are being harmed by those who take advantage of others' needs, and that harm can echo through families for generations. His advice is simple. Choose the people around you carefully, and trust your own sense of safety. If you do not feel safe and comfortable, do not go.
Watch the Full Interview
This post only scratches the surface of a warm, wide ranging conversation. Visit the Quantum Collective Podcast page for more episodes, and watch the full interview with Chief Paco on Rumble. To follow his community and teachings, connect with him on Instagram at @ceyaotl_franco.
Supporting the podcast keeps these conversations going. Browse the Quantum Collective online store for products that help fund our work.
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