Aaron Rodgers rarely needs extra incentive to target Allen Lazard on the football field, but in September 2022 he found it anyway.
Lazard and several other Packers had come up with a celebration in which Lazard was going to pretend to serve ayahuasca, the tea with psychedelic properties that Rodgers brought into NFL lexicon by acknowledging he’s used, after he scored a touchdown.
But that required Lazard himself to find the end zone.
“A lot of stuff has to happen, right?” Rodgers said during an hour-long keynote presentation Wednesday evening here at the Psychedelic Sciences 2023 convention. “We’ve got to score, I’ve got to hit him with a touchdown. It’s his celebration, so I’ve got to make sure I tell (offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich), ‘Hey, if we get to the red zone, let’s call these two plays because Allen’s No. 1 in the progression on these and I’ve got to make sure I throw it to him.”
It all worked out, the Packers beat the Bears and the celebration shot around the internet instantly.
That, Rodgers said Wednesday, is hardly the extent of the connection between himself, his teammates and ‘aya,’ as he calls it.
“The cool thing is when you’re able to sit in ceremony with anybody, it changes your relationship with them,” he said later. … “I’ve been fortunate enough to sit in ceremony with teammates and I’m telling you, it is radically life-changing. And it’s wild to be in a locker room and look over and know, like, I’ve been in the ‘maloca’ with you, man. It’s pretty special. It changes the dynamic for sure.
“In this process, there’s been 100s of NFL guys that have reached out – text or whatever the young guys do these days, DMs and different (stuff) — but it’s been really fun to connect with these guys who have done medicine work or are fascinated by it and want to learn more about it. I’m really, really thankful for those opportunities.”
The four-time NFL MVP, who played his first 17 seasons in Green Bay and was traded to the New York Jets earlier this year, also gave a nod to an astrologist in attendance and said he used what she taught him to strengthen relationships with teammates.
“I would find ways to randomly figure out guys birthdays, city and birth time so I could go back on astro.com and look up their chart,” Rodgers said. “Like, ‘oh, six house sun, OK, watch him, he’s really hard on himself.’ True story.”
In the midst of a week-long convention, with thousands of attendees from all corners of this burgeoning community, Rodgers and podcaster Aubrey Marcus’ talk was less about science and stats and studies and essentially an hour-long riff on their own experiences with psychedelics and the way both believe they’ve changed for the better as a result.
The theater wasn’t as full as it had been earlier in the afternoon for mycologist Paul Stamets, but it did feature a cheesehead, more than a few jerseys and some heckling of the Chicago Bears.
Marcus introduced Rodgers by recounting their first conversation, when Marcus was recording a podcast with Rodgers’ former partner Danica Patrick and Rodgers introduced himself by telling Marcus about a time, “I was with my friends and we were at the beach and I took some mushrooms and I melted into the ocean.”
“Yeah, that was a great day,” Rodgers added.
Rodgers said he feels compelled to continue speaking about his experiences with psychedelics because he has a, “Deep gratitude for what (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies founder Rick Doblin) has done and so many other people in this field to get us to this point.
“Now, how do we further the narrative and continue to talk about this the right way?”
Rodgers couldn’t help but throw a couple of digs in, saying, “I guarantee you all these bums who want to come after me online about my experience and stuff, they’ve never tried it. They’re the perfect people for it. We need to get these people taking it. Not that they wouldn’t need a whole lot, because most of them are kind of the low peons they send at me.”
The future Hall of Fame quarterback struck a more conciliatory tone, however, in reiterating at psychedelics have helped him come to have a fuller self-love and that he’s better able to quiet his own self-criticism.
“For a perfectionist, I’m sure there’s many of you in the crowd, that’s a pretty (freaking) strong critic,” Rodgers said. “He or she knows exactly what to say to you. The anti-me is the greatest opponent because it’s me. It knows exactly what to say to me, exactly what to show me, exactly what to whisper in my ear – ‘you’re not good enough, you’re not going to win this game, nobody likes you, you’re a crazy anti-vaxxer’ – but I think the beauty in these journeys is to find that self love because the greatest antidote to the anti-you is unconditional self love. It’s a beautiful journey to try to find that and it’s a never-ending one. …
“It’s a great battle. He’s a great adversary and I enjoy smiting him every chance I get.”
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