Scarecrow

egads - looks like i checked back here just in the nick of time. i've been very busy with study, but i'll do my best to make it!

Osho - The Book Of Secrets 112 beautiful meditation techniques explained clearly with context provided. i stumbled upon this book purely by chance, and it had a huge impact on the direction of my life. it's full of wisdom and i believe it has made me a better person. highly recommend to anybody who's serious about growing as a human being.

"there is a major risk of having a bad trip" oh no

chi packed breakfast for winter - 2 chopped shiitake mushrooms - chilli (quantity according to personal preference), chopped finely - a few slices of ginger, chopped finely - small handful of garlic and ginger chives, chopped - chopped bacon - 2 eggs - 2 pieces of bread - 2 slices of cheese (optional - you'll need an oven griller (overhead kind of deal, don't know what these are actually called) for this bit) - salt, pepper - and a bit of butter 1. on high heat, melt the butter in a pan, then throw in the bacon, shiitake, chilli, and ginger. 2. turn the heat down a little once the bacon is starting to look cooked, and throw in the chives. add more butter whenever it's necessary, the shiitakes really soak it up like sponges. 3. turn down the heat down to quite low, then crack open your eggs and drop them in. break them apart and scramble them as they cook, mixing everything together, and scraping the pan as you go to stop anything from sticking. (you'll end up with a really nice consistency this way!) 4. toast your bread when you feel like you have a moment to step away from the pan 5. when things are starting to look cooked, add some salt and pepper and mix them through also 6. now, if you've got a grill as mentioned before, start warming it up while you put your toast on the tray and load your delicious eggs on to the bread evenly. add a slice of cheese to each one, then put them under the grill until the cheese is melted. this is not only tasty, but holds everything together nicely 7. enjoy! this breakfast will give you one metric shitton of energy and warmth

fuck everything there is no hope

horses? horses.

I'll definitely make an effort to produce something, those prizes sound great! Got any specifications for the logo, like dimensions or shape? Or maybe even just a spot on the website where you're going to put it? Any of these details would help a lot with making something that will match the rest of the website properly.

haha... yeah. it's a "dream" for a reason.

Permaculture seems like a lot of work when it's small-scale and individual-based. What I'd love to see is the start of an actual community based on permaculture. Imagine having a little island with a community of likeminded people, all just making a sustainable living for themselves, and helping each other out whenever necessary. That's the dream for me!

get it... because if they win... they already have the biggest sunflower :D

the biggest sunflower on SAB forums, delivered to your backyard instantaneously! amazing!

terence mckenna is laughing in his grave

competition time~

holy moly

that's quite possibly the best thing i've seen all week lmao

A notification on the forum to the user that an email has bounced might do the trick. The message could remind the user to either update their email, or disable the emails (and thereby the annoying notifcation!)...

That might be why it's worse at this time of year, but I've definitely got a serious condition. Definitely not localized to the liver, either. I've been seeing people about this for around two years now, and I'm not self-diagnosing, despite having already done diagnosis (I don't want to be skewing my readings by having expectations); I have collapsing yang, deficient qi, and a deep invasion of cold. My intention here was mainly to take note of the changes that occur after having taken some, to try and get an idea of the nature of the mushrooms in a TCM sense. Don't get me wrong though, I'm by no means qualified to do this yet - which is why I'm not claiming anything definitive about it yet. I'm just making observations at the moment, and they're likely going to be skewed by my poor state of health. Once I've done herbs properly and improved my health, I'll be able to deepen my understanding and hopefully draw some conclusions. I've thought about it, but I would really hope that one of the many doctors I've seen would have picked up on that if it were the case. Any parasite in my gut would be suffering a hell of hot and warming and spicy foods and herbs though, so I can take solace in that at least. Might consider doing a wormwood flush just in case. Terence McKenna, fascinating ideas as always. I wouldn't be surprised if he was correct, but I'd still be wary of trusting such a creature unconditionally. Just because it's a higher dimensional inter-galactic being, doesn't mean it hasn't got its own unstated motives.

haha, i just bought me some of that stuff online. i've been sniffing my sleeve like it's crack since sunday! soon i'll be rolling in ladies.

uhhhh, like once every few days/nights for the majority of a whole winter and spring? dosage varied wildly. that was before i had respect for this sort of thing (don't judge me xD). not really surprised it kicked my ass in the end.

Oh, I'm grateful. No beef whatsoever here either... but I can't allow him to stay any longer. I've been starting to feel alarmingly close to death. The mushroom has always given me connotations of a bit of a twisted way of thinking, also. I don't think it's the best idea to simply let it do as it pleases without at least questioning it. One thing I've heard often is that, as benevolent as spirits may appear to be, they often tend to have their own motives. It's best to be accepting and curious, but also have a strong will, and be well guarded. I'm sure we'll meet again some day anyway... This is a very interesting idea. It does seem that the biggest issue I had was an exascerbation of my symptoms, so it's possible you're right, at least from a western perspective. In TCM terms, the fact that the mushroom seems to have a strongly cooling effect on the internal organs implies the same thing, as well as some other stuff. It would reduce the vigour of your immune response, slow the digestion, tighten the muscles, allow entry of exterior pathogens, etc. But this doesn't change my thoughts on having too much of it! Too much cooling, especially in the middle of winter, can easily cripple your health. For these reasons I suspect that too much of the mushroom was one of the major factors that brought me into this condition to start with. Furthermore, having noticed the powerful cooling effect, I started drinking some of my herbal medicine brew, which is very warming (to counteract my condition). There was an immediate improvement of my symptoms, and for the duration of the trip I continued drinking diluted cups of the brew. It helped immensely. I think we're on to something here :D

Reiki: I'm open minded enough to try it. My main concern would be that finding a legitimate practitioner, rather than a fraud/deluded person, for such an intangible healing practice might be difficult. I have no way of knowing whether I'm wasting my money or not, and I don't really have money to waste at this stage.As far as energy medicine in general goes though... chinese medicine and tai chi are my approach at the moment. I'm undergoing fairly regular acupuncture and cupping treatments, and practising moxabustion and tai chi at home, as well as taking regular doses of prescribed herbal brews. All of this seems to be helping a lot. I hope to learn Qigong once I've got a better foundation in tai chi. And thank you for your concern and reassuring words Dosage: naw, not likely. My bioassay was with only a quite small amount, because I know I shouldn't be pushing my limits right now. Hell, I didn't even finish the tea I made... I got about 2/3 of the way through it and then felt that something wasn't right, so I stopped. Lucky, too, because I was in a great amount of physical discomfort when it kicked in. I was definitely not anxious during the trip, either. I can handle my altered states very well, and even during some fairly immense physical discomfort, I kept a clear head and simply applied what I knew about helping my body cope with something that it's rejecting. This led to my above revelations... everything fun seems to tax kidney's life essence D:including most psychoactives... and sex watch out for that fatigue and lower back pain folks...

It's been weighing me down for quite some time, nearly two years now. Incidentally, the sensation started during a trip, and then never left. It's definitely felt like something has been living in me, feeding off whatever small amount of nutrients I give myself. Despite eating plenty and having a relatively solid diet, I've lost a huge amount of weight, and muscle. As for mental state, I've never really faltered there. Ever since I took up meditation, I've been increasingly more positive. I have never really let my illness bring me down. Likewise, I've been growing spiritually. As for sexuality, I've definitely gone through a more carnal phase. However, that's also come to a close lately, and I've become less and less driven by desires in general as I've grown spiritually and mentally. That is definitely possible. However, given the kicking onto my ass that mushrooms had given me not too long before this all started, and the fact that the the energy really felt like mycelium moving through my veins, I'm inclined to think that this was more of a hard whipping into shape. My illness was a huge factor in me deciding to take up chinese medicine, and after many revelations about looking after myself, it's led to this experience. I'm thinking this may all have been one big lesson. A rough one, perhaps, but maybe that was the only way I'd ever get the message... Plant teachers work in strange ways.

too much of anything isn't a good thing. i've been working on figuring out what mushrooms are doing in TCM terms... here are my notes from today; tension around spleen? tension around liver? tension around shoulders tension around lower back => kidneys strange feeling around behind ears, to above jaw, (outer temples?) => GB channel weakness of the limbs third eye strange feeling cold, tightening. overall feeling of burden feeling of swollfen left thumb palm (??) on the comedown: liver ache, working hard kidneys feel achey tired pain, feels taxed profuse, frequent urination right side shoulder/back pain joints cracking a lot tension along right side of spine i'm suspecting that it acts on the gallbladder channel, may cool the digestive system, taxes the kidneys... i haven't figured this out yet, need to think about this some more when i'm sober. frequent use has definitely caused me trouble, combined with some other factors may have led to my "fibromyalgia". does this count as too much information? i'm doing research here...