Today we’d like to introduce you to Sari Starr.
Sari , we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m originally from Toronto, Canada, and after spending seven years in Los Angeles, I now call the Big Island of Hawai‘i home. My work sits at the intersection of sacred ritual, music, and human consciousness. I’m deeply inspired by my own journey toward liberation of the mind and what it truly feels like to be free in a world where freedom itself is becoming more of an illusion. That journey has ultimately led me to helping others discover their own path toward purpose, authenticity, and dharma.
Before stepping onto this path, I spent over fifteen years running a creative agency, developing marketing campaigns for lifestyle brands around the world. Looking back, I realize storytelling and building culture were preparing me for the work I do today, which is rooted in understanding identity, the stories we tell ourselves, and how those stories shape the way we experience reality.
In 2016, I launched Redefining Cannabis to help cultivate a more intentional and respectful relationship with the plant while supporting the emerging brands that would become the defining voices of the industry. Together we worked to shift the narrative from “heathen to healer,” helping change the public perception of cannabis through education, storytelling, and conscious branding.
That work eventually grew into Cannabliss Retreats, one of the early pioneers of educational cannabis retreats and festivals. We hosted immersive experiences throughout California, Canada, Jamaica, and Hawai‘i, and developed KARE (Kannabis Accreditation, Regulation & Education), a curriculum that combined the science, cultivation, culinary arts, history, and spirit of the plant into a framework rooted in right relationship.
Around this same time, I was moving through my own dark night of the soul. Through profound experiences with sacred medicines, incredible teachers, and years of studying consciousness, ceremony, ritual, and human behavior, I found the guidance I had been searching for. Eventually, the medicine called me into service. At the time there were no mainstream facilitator trainings or certifications, so I continued studying, practicing, and learning through direct experience.
In 2020, I noticed that the people I was supporting with mushrooms were asking many of the same questions about preparation, dosage, safety, and integration. I compiled those answers into my book, Let the Magic Be Your Guide: From Micro to Hero, creating a practical roadmap for people seeking a relationship with mushrooms during a time when access to experienced facilitators was extremely limited.
During that period, I left Los Angeles and moved to the Big Island of Hawai‘i, where I purchased five acres of land with the vision of creating a place for ceremony, community, and healing. In 2023, I co-founded Sanctuary 72, a sacrament temple devoted to ceremony, education, and community. Through Sanctuary 72, I facilitate retreats and ceremonies and created Mush Love Initiation, a facilitator training program focused on ethical leadership, responsible stewardship, and helping others hold transformational spaces with integrity.
One thing I never expected was how powerfully music would emerge through ceremony. It became impossible to ignore. I immersed myself in music theory, production, sound healing, songwriting, and recording. What began as a curiosity quickly became another expression of my life’s work.
Today I create and perform under the name SYLVER STARR, an identity that emerged from a profound ceremonial experience shortly after arriving in Hawai‘i and was named in honor of my grandmother, Sylvia Starr. Through cinematic soundscapes, live instrumentation, and storytelling, I weave together rock, electronic, world, and ceremonial music into immersive experiences that explore liberation, mythology, and expanded states of consciousness.
One of the projects I’m most excited about is my album 72, completed in 2026 and preparing for its public release. Inspired by the seventy-two Names of the Divine within the Kabbalistic tradition, it was created specifically for sacred medicine journeys. Structured around the elemental progression of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth, the album was intentionally composed to accompany the emotional and spiritual arc of ceremony. Featuring more than twenty instruments including guitar, cello, percussion, didgeridoo, violin, harp, piano, and layered vocal arrangements, it serves as both an artistic expression and a practical tool for inner exploration.
Beyond 72, I continue writing cinematic songs that explore humanity’s relationship with freedom, remembrance, and what it means to awaken more fully to who we are.
I’m also the founder of Celestial Sacraments, a line of herbal alchemy products designed to support ritual practice and conscious living.
Over the past two decades, I’ve immersed myself in the study of human potential and the mystery traditions through yoga teacher training, Reiki, Dr. Joe Dispenza’s Advanced Quantum Retreat, two years within the 13 Moon Oracle Mystery School, and ongoing studies in Kabbalah, Hermetic philosophy, ritual magick, and non-dual inquiry.
At the heart of everything I do, whether through music, ceremony, mentorship, or education, is a desire to help people move beyond inherited conditioning and remember their own sovereignty, creativity, and capacity to create extraordinary lives.
Along the way, my work has been featured in Rolling Stone, LA Weekly, High Times, Huffington Post, and on Late Night with Seth Meyers, among other publications.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My path has been anything but smooth, though I’ve come to see the challenges as some of my greatest teachers.
In 2017, I experienced my first intentional journey with mushrooms. During that experience, I was confronted with a profound realization: that I had spent much of my life searching for love without truly understanding its unconditional nature. The medicine revealed something both simple and life-altering… that beneath all the stories, achievements, and identities, I am love.
What followed was the beginning of a long dark night of the soul. In the years after leaving my marriage, I found myself questioning everything I thought I knew about who I was. I faced fears I had spent a lifetime avoiding and embarked on a pilgrimage that took me around the world in search of truth, meaning, and belonging.
At the same time, I made the difficult decision to close the creative agency I had built over more than fifteen years in order to pursue a path that felt more aligned with my spirit and my purpose. It was both terrifying and liberating to let go of an identity that had defined me for so long.
The medicine opened doors within me that I never knew existed. It awakened my connection to music, expanded my understanding of consciousness, and illuminated the shadows I needed to confront in order to grow. It revealed not only my gifts, but also the places within myself that still longed for healing.
Finding my authentic self has not been a linear journey, nor an easy one. It has required surrender, courage, and a willingness to continuously shed old versions of myself. But every challenge, every heartbreak, and every moment of uncertainty has brought me closer to who I truly am.
It has never been easy, but it has always been worth it.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
At my core, I am a weaver of connections… between people, between worlds, between the seen and unseen, between creativity and consciousness. Everything I create, whether through music, ceremony, mentorship, or community, is rooted in one central question: what becomes possible when we stop living according to inherited stories and begin authoring our own reality?
Liberation has become the thread that runs through my life and my work. I have always been someone who leaps into the unknown long before I know how things will unfold. I left Canada to build a life in Los Angeles, and years later left the familiarity of that world behind to begin again on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. Time and time again, I have chosen the path that made the least sense on paper and the most sense to my soul.
I live by the belief that we are far more powerful creators than we have been taught to believe. Some people call it manifestation, some call it faith, but I have spent decades putting myself in situations where the only option was to trust my vision and swim in the deep end of uncertainty. As a result, my life has been shaped by experiences that often feel miraculous opportunities, relationships, and synchronicities that defy conventional logic.
What sets me apart is not simply what I do, but how I move through the world. I have never been interested in following prescribed timelines or waiting for permission. In my forties, I decided to take my music seriously, stepping into the role of an artist long after many people believe that chapter of life should have passed. Yet in just a few years, I have created albums, performed live, and built a body of work that continues to evolve because I refused to accept the stories society tells us about age, success, and what is possible.
The same philosophy informs everything else I create. Through Sanctuary 72, Mush Love Initiation, my music project SYLVER STARR, and the communities I cultivate, I encourage people to question the narratives they inherited about money, purpose, creativity, and personal sovereignty. I often speak about money as medicine—not simply as currency, but as energy that reflects our fears, our desires, and our capacity to receive.
I am deeply committed to truth, even when that truth is uncomfortable. Those who seek my guidance know that I will never offer empty affirmations or tell people what they want to hear. I believe growth often requires us to walk paths that others may not understand or approve of, and I have built my own life by repeatedly choosing authenticity over acceptance.
What I am most proud of is not any one accomplishment, but my willingness to continue evolving—to remain a student of life, to trust the unknown, and to keep choosing the things that make me feel most alive. Success, for me, has become less about external milestones and more about the freedom to create, to explore, and to wake up each day in deeper alignment with who I truly am.
My work is simply an extension of that journey: an invitation for others to remember that they, too, are capable of creating lives far beyond the limits of what they have been told is possible.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I currently live in Pahoa, Hawai‘i, though after spending seven years in Los Angeles, California still feels deeply like home. Over the years, I’ve driven across much of the state and have fallen especially in love with Nevada City and the Sierra Nevadas. There is something about Northern California—the towering pines, winding roads, and creative spirit—that continues to call me back.
Life on the Big Island is beautifully eclectic. I’m surrounded by lush jungle, vibrant flowers, fruit trees, lava fields, and an incredible community of artists, visionaries, and free thinkers. Hawai‘i carries a powerful energy—especially on the Big Island, where the elemental force of fire is woven into the landscape itself. That intensity fuels my creativity and inspires much of my work, while also inviting me to confront the shadow aspects within myself.
What I love most about California is its extraordinary diversity. On any given day, you can find yourself in the mountains, by the ocean, wandering through ancient forests, or driving for hours along the Pacific Coast Highway without ever tiring of the view. The coastline, the people, and the sheer beauty of the land make it one of the most remarkable places I’ve ever known.
If there is something I struggle with, it’s that I have yet to find a place that feels entirely like home. I currently live in Hawai‘i and spend a great deal of time traveling to the mainland, and over the years I’ve realized that home is less about geography and more about a feeling. More and more, I find that home exists wherever my heart feels most alive.
If I had to pinpoint the dislikes then I would say I dislike that Pahoa doesn’t have a town with a vibe, like you don’t walk up and down the streets and people watch, sit in coffee shops and enjoy the atmosphere, you have to go to events to be social.
LA for me is too busy now that I’ve been gone for a few years, the pollution and traffic of course… I feel like Nevada City has the best of both worlds for me. Although nothing beats walking on the Venice boardwalk and I definitely miss my old hood in Marina Del Rey.
Pricing:
- $4500 Facilitator Training
- $4000-$5000 Week long retreat
- $450 for group ceremony
- $1100. – $1500 for private ceremony
- Free online community gatherings with Sanctuary 72
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.saristarr.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovesaristarr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SariStarrG
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Sylver_Starr
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sylverstarr
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/41OLIzx0RdoalyCIXEp8g3?si=G35D4yWZSMWA2XPe0oXtfw
