gwalchgwyn

I'd hate to see what the modern human ape's insides look like by comparison

seems to me that it's all about getting food chrysostomos

Right On, Auxin! I've been growing S. miltiorrhiza for some years now & have not tried the leaf tea. Will. Love the purple flowers, the cut foliage, the will to live. In addition to its kindred S. przewalskii, another red-rooted sage, S. hians, has been lauded by Richo. History... is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken ~ Joyce

I agree with those posters who suggest that approach goes a long way: Western culture is so weaned on the notion of a right to a paradise of it's own imagination that it's medicines are inclined towards overwhelming the person. Some of the plants mentioned in the original post have been very effective for me, such as chamomile flowers. One of the best (and creatively inspiring as well) is the Passiflora, but as suggested, the prepared form (tea/pill) was a nonplusser. I ingested the fruit of the edulis flava form prepared as a tea to separate the pulp from the seed. Amazing. As one of the harmala groups it is important, despite the constantly offended no-one's-going-to-tell-me protestant social grammar, to be mindful of your experiential reaction to diet and light. Some find caapi (solo) to be similarly effective. the truth is no path ~ Krishnamurti

Glad that there is interest in this topic. I agree with those who believe that Permaculture presents a paradigm shift & would therefore suffer much criticism from voices from an older system. To say that a system that aims to overturn the existing system "doesn't work" is typical of the Western (that is: Judeo-Christian) tautology; if you're not with me you're against me. Just as abolition is impractical to a slave economy, Permaculture seeks to overturn our current system (in which the land we live on is not really our landbase.) Permaculture as an idea does challenge our dominant system that uses food as reward for service to its agenda. Think of any other domesticate and see that the reward of food is a very effective motivator. I press the blue button to get chips that I can then exchange for a meal. Now I love Basmati rice as much as any other aficionado of it, but every time I buy it at the grocery store I put serious mental to how that rice got to my table: the grower's underpayed workers - how much energy goes into a 4$ bag of rice that I "earned" from a half-hour's service? Then there is packaging, freight shipping, redistribution... how many engines were involved? how many semis? How much fossil fuels were used and how much damage has that caused to a habitable world? And I'm not even against international trade. Even if I brought the example down to the local Farmer's Market I am dismayed every time I buy food that I couldn't spend that time and energy myself. The reason for this confliction is simple: Permaculture brings the food directly from garden to table. No other animal or plant (aside from domesticates and in labs) has to reconcile its activity in this way. It is only in the dominant human symbolic gesture that we understand that completion of a chore relates to food and therefore reproduction. Permaculture yes is ideological and privileged information as any revolution would be. But at its heart Permaculture is a recognition of our basic animal nature, our direct relation to a landbase, a harsh criticism to our current destructive food system. As long as it's easier to mow someone's lawn or manage a store for food then Permaculture will be impractical and marginal. Then it's back to the quaint vestigial kitchen garden and tomato-basil summer sandwiches...

Glad to hear you are living with the land when so many well-intentioned landowners receive their livity from outside of it, then wear the badge of enviro-consciousness. It burns me up when landowners don't grow food (for themselves and for, well, every living thing.) I wish you life and harvest!

D'oh! Thanks for the guidance Dr. Octogon - newbies do have a lot of info to take in. I assay that 'Los Gentiles' is beautiful. Love to touch the spines. Best of all, as others will no doubt attest, the connection of germination to nurturing the green dot to in this case foot-tall companion is like a full breath of clean air. We have a strong relation. Thanks again.

I touched 'em. All are swelling & poised for a season of growth. Last month's superfertilizing seems to have had a positive reaction as I've never seen such happy columns. Still keeping an eye out on the seedling from SS during one of their recent trips to the Andes, an NL collect. Poor thing: I haven't disciplined myself yet from drowning the whole thing, then having to find it and replant it. One would think I'd get a clue and use a different watering method. T. peruvianus 'Los Gentiles' from several years ago is finally this year achieving a mature girth. does anyone know an assay on it? The name is auspicious...

Good tips for a difficult subject - difficult b/c a solution to a targeted "pest" could also destroy a beneficial visitor, or a desired guest could end up destroying other plants: I grow a Passiflora, in part, for a wonderful orange butterfly that in previous years and in one summer's several generations successfully killed the plant. Certainly one would want to pay close attention to the scale that is slowly sucking the juice out of her tricho companion, or those tiny black jumping bugs that can swiss cheese a solana seemingly overnight. I do use neem in dire aphid times, beer when slugs are aplenty, and spider mites need hot and dry, so i just hose those down... But I am also hip to the idea that the gardens that we care for are also habitats, and with any habitat there are predators on plants and predators on predators, etc. Do we bemoan the Black Swallowtail caterpillar that enjoys the parsley as much as we do, or do we work out an arrangement? It seems that each year in my garden there is a shift of abundance. This year is so dry right now that the usual predators like monkey spiders and predator wasps and robber flies are absent, thus I now have a proliferation of small grasshoppers that the still small praying mantises don't manage. And a neighborhood cat that I am fond of has discouraged the lizards. If a habitat is allowed the time to iron out these imbalances, top predators make their home there and a harmony of pollinators, plantmunchers and pestmunchers settles in... until the next disturbance. Obviously for some of the plants that we grow we have to be concerned and step in, but for this gardener, the less of my interference the better...

I have plenty, sold to me by JLH as D. tatula v. inermis, looks just like you pic. I don't anymore intentionally plant them as a few come up each year, which I intentionally keep PM & I'll send you some seed.

My experience is not intentional but observational. This plant grows near my clime by the highway. the soil is very alkaline. winter nights dip into the 20s (F). moderate winter precip, wet summers. along with the plastic grocery bags, soda pop bottles, tire rippings, etc, that adorn the highway, these plants actually benefit from the immense highway/shoulder mower that appears to only encourage root growth. Originally introduced for dye, it well appears that this consciousness awaits a new human culture to arrive and appreciate.

I appreciate the cautions of Darklight & Waterboy's addition from NatGeo's own archives - not to put a Doomsday Psyche on top of another. If there is a foreseeable problem, then the best solution is to not put all of our eggs (seeds) in one basket.

excellent information on Heimia! once one gets the knack, they respond well to our companionship. I keep mine in a 5 gallon. They're about 3' tall and 4-5 years old. the attractive bark makes them look like a mini redwood forest. they're in the pot because my locale dips into the 20s, but I have noticed for those in colder climes that they can take 40s (F) nights with no problem.

Admired. After a few days of reorganizing the outside space for the growing season, set the Tricho shelf, the Maidenii sun corner (this year they will top me), gave the Heimia a nutritional kelp bath, touched the sundry emerging greenies. Often seems to me that Admiration is the most important of my primate function

Great pics for comparison & Thanks Zelly & Harvard Community for making information available! Echoes of Sir Richard Evans Schultes... I have a 2 or 3 year old of AJ's Diplo thanks to an enthusiastic germinator & it is faring well in a USDA zone 8, though wintering indoors * I should add: during the nights; on winter days with sun aplenty it gets a taste of outdoor breeze and filtered sun. It is outside now at 40 degrees F nights with new growth and no problems. I think that we are all eagerly awaiting a splendiferous cascade of flowers to aide with identification. Exciting times. Thank You Kiwiboancaya!

Though I haven't had the pleasure of a Phleb experience yet, I wanted to share something that I read about legume post-germination growing tip: that legumes benefit from the nodules of other legumes in the early stages of growth, before the new seedling has had time to establish it's own nodules. Has anyone else heard or experimented with this? I took the tip and spread Desmanthus illinoensis seed, which is very easy to grow, in my Acacia pots & was pleased with the results, an overall increase in vigor of both. Anyway, just a bit from my experience, & if Others have contrary experience or caveats, let us know, but it seemed a good run for me in the first year. Cheers!

Solana for sure. Reminds me of the South American types, like Naranjilla (S. quitonense), sans purple veining. We need a Plowman chaneller!

those seeds are most definitely Mirabilis, likely as some said jalapa or multiflora. if the opposite leaves taper to a point and are bright green, likely the former; if the leaves are more rounded, glaucus and feel slightly rubbery, the latter. either way, nice surprise!

It will be interesting to see how views about Terrence McKenna will be changed once Dennis's Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss is published... I see in commentary much reliance on a worldview, certainly promoted by the ethics of sky-god authority nascent to just 7-9000 years ago in some agricultural and pastoral* groupminds, of casting characters, experience, and all of existence, into immovable unchanging parts - what I call the Static Lie: he is this; this is the word. If there are any dynamics, those dynamics are progressive - moving that is toward an agendized and final endpoint viewed as 'good,' and once there, unchanging. * although pastoralists, by definition, move, I speak here of ethical systems: 'right' ways in the cultural world-view. Who, perhaps not in their core, but certainly in important guiding principles, is the idealogical same as they were seven years ago? Some of Terrence's ally interests and commentaries on those allies were later deemed "regrettable" by both he and his brother. Yet what is one to do? The illusory tool of literacy seems to put a stamp on a person and an idea that does not account for any dynamism at all, what Eco calls two dimensional in literature. I prefer to ride Terrence's writing as a trippy visionary experience, and in this perspective he is not unlike the Caapi-drinkers who speak of travelling the Milky Way (eerily Vedantic in a way). The importance I appreciate is the patterns that are experienced.

Thank You drugo for your paper excerpt. I tend to the anthro/historical considerations. Where did the word originate? What culture co-opted and generalized the term? What family of tribal patterns does it describe? Why is the term so extremely popular for the West? It is interesting to me that in just one token image, all fall silent. That is power. I view the waves of social adaptation (evolution) away from the characteristics identified by the idea of shamanism as a pursuit of authority. This is both ancient chronology and current, since there are still peoples unconquered by the newer ways. The shaman figure's ability to see patterns, particularly in weather and medicine was, I believe, perceived as powerful by a sky-god elite that transferred the authority from experience to arbitrary (thus authority is "handed down" from the sky god to the king, unquestioned.) The modern trend is, I believe, a liberation from the king's authority and now spread out - democratized. Egalitarian arbitrary authority. One, in a shamanic culture, seeks out the Shaman for her experience and knowledge. One in a non-shamanic culture can't simply want it and adorn himself with the plants and solemnity that feels shamanic. Is the extreme popularity of shamanism in the west analogous to the bizarre outhumbling sessions of abramites (that is, a pursuit of power?) Or, after a mere 5000-year hiatus, are we calling on our deep ancestors's ways of seeing and connection that have been in our bones for millions of years? I am skeptical and hopeful of the latter.

good to know that this One is responding well to our appreciation

excellently inspiring vual ~ cob has the feel of home for many, when other forms seem dead. check out: www.cobcottage.com

Beautiful garden plant ~ I grow both the white fl/ purple bract & the purple/purple varieties in a temperate zone (above ground foliage dies down, but the plants return each spring). Remarkable in that a germination in mid-spring can result in full flower by late summer. Attractive to bees and hummers, it's scent is so repulsive to me that it goes to the back of the garden & this from someone who loves the smell of Datura leaves!

well, different reports anyway. it has been discussed in various places on the forum. the issue regards the difference in type of MAOI and whether it is a reversible type, and the quantity of tyramine foods taken. For some people evidently there is no food concern whatsoever and that's the end of discussion. I guess I advance a more cautious attitude. the main problem I have is not in difference of experience, but in the patriarchal mindset that receives information without regard to experience. the 'latest news' is sufficient to sway the entire crowd. in most scientific matters one report, based on experience, may go in the entirely opposite direction of another, also based on experience. in the Caapi Cultural center, diet is very important surrounding its ingestion. I think that our nascent cultural interaction, especially with so many types of foods that don't exist in the plant's various original cultural settings, is well advised to be cautious. and in much of the Harmala's Cultural area a few Peganum seeds are eaten with food (in places where dairy is a mainstay of the diet). Perhaps people worry over an ER scene, but in my experience with intentional ingestion of various amounts of tyramine-heavy foods, the real concern is discomfort; there is some binding afterall, and it is unpleasant. Having a little cheese? probably not a problem. But to ignore other peoples' experience is bad science (especially when it invokes science!) The bigger concern is the light issue that can be downright painful. It is as if the eye's aperture is fully open for a few days!

I concur with opiumfreak ~ actually, all of the harmalines have good creative synergy ~ good news for people in places where particular ones may have legal considerations. The effects in the proper moderation are like a Joycean epiphany, or like a readjustment when the record of life seems to be skipping. Getting one's groove back. Or like when the moving fractal bifurcates and another dynamical direction attracts energy for a new composition. even though tangential, the effect is thoroughness of vision, as opposed to confusion. like a tentacle mold that fills all of the nooks for a whole. somehow all the parts fit back, in the aura of coming down, to a complete vision ~ The most common allies in this family are the above Caapi (even, and for some no doubt, when not combined with the colorful additives); the famous neon Peganum; the much more accessible (legal, taste, moderate) Passiflora spp. (Edulis var Flava a good choice); and the herbal Hypericum. This last is usually associated with being an antidepressant, which I believe to be limiting of the character of the plant; points to usage and not synergy; typecasts the plant to a roll which ignores its other attributes. It would be comparable to calling Caapi an antidepressant while ignoring its entire Cosmology. The precautions, well known yet worth repeating (as with any ingestion), is knowing how harmalines function in the body. as MAOIs, they are not recommended for foods containing tyramine (fermentations like cheeses, wine, aged meats, pickled foods). The harmalines are also extremely light sensitive for days after ingestion. Perhaps it is just this focus of light sensitivity that allows one to find creative vision restored ~