James

Just read about this meet now. Been away for a while and really miss you guys. I'll try making it to the meet this time. Gotta give JDanger back his book too. Hope it doesn't rain.

Been away for a while. Hope this post activates the PMs again. Thanks

http://www.bialabate.net/news/understandin...anto-daime-case

I think the main issue is not whether the information is public or private. It's how it is presented. Western culture tends to degrade the Sacredness of these plants. This community should be walking in the opposite direction, in an effort to sanctify the plants and their spiritual paths within modern culture. Not directly related to this subject, but worth mentioning, is how modern culture goes by deteriorating the "meaning" of things. A clear example of this is the act of giving names to things, thus benefiting from inheriting the somewhat established meaning but degrading the meaning for future generations to come. It might seem "cool" for some rock band aspirant to name his band with some word which refers to a plant or anything else by the matter, and it might seem he is even honoring that subject, however, the once established meaning has now become just a product of consumer capitalism, a google search will probably return more information related to the band than to the original meaning of the word. The same applies to movies, business names, product names, anything that can be marketed and sold... Now the question to ask is "am I worthy of it?". Did I ask permission?

Things are changing but very slowly. Besides the Vienna meet in April theres the California bill on the way... http://www.canorml.org/ Anyone living in the US can show support, just log on to the website... Late 2008, Ayahausca was declared a National Cultural Heritage both in Peru and Brazil. Slowly things are changing... Sometimes I think the 2012 milestone might actually be when western society finally begins the process of coming to terms with these substances. It stills shocks me how it's socially accpetable for one to tie a rope on his foot and jump of a bridge (bungee jump) or spend the whole day in amusement parks on roller costers and other "toys", but there still isn't an established place in society where one can safely alter his mind and perception, not even under medical supervison? It shocks me how the medical society (and artists too) are hypocrites and don't have a firm position on the subject. It's like as if slavery was still in place and most people didn't care to act, or if womens rights were still undermined. As Terence said "it is a birth right". Law could only enforce certain principals such as: restricted to certain areas and/or under supervision, restricted when undergoing any activity that requires interaction with the public, etc...

It was really cool meeting you guys. Thank you everyone for coming along and sharing your knowledge. Regular meets would be an excellent idea for sure. Maybe we could also plan on other types of gatherings to practice yoga, meditation or drumming maybe? Keep the spirit Peace and Love

Just google "Amazon with Bruce Parry torrent"... There are 6 episodes. Was on BBC2 late 2008 This post mentions the first episode: http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...showtopic=18996

Sad to see some people advocating forest clearing as a means of preventing bushfire damage: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/10/2487587.htm In their minds it's ok to preemptively kill thousands of animals and plants just to reduce risk?

Yes, obviously, but the impression I have is that the potency is also greatly associated with the people that participate. In other words, the overall effect on the group could be enhanced by efforts of meditation. I recall Sasha mentioning something similar in relation to a San Pedro ceremony in which two groups had the same brew but completely different effects.

Is there a limit on what the government can display on it's anti-smoking campaign? I mean, the campaign itself might be causing damage, at least psychological damage to the kids that are being exposed to the imagery. One thing is to display the disturbing imagery on the cigarette pack, but having it displayed on public buses all over the city ! Isn't it just going over the top? One of the major reasons for the so called "war on drugs" is to "protect the children". Now exposing the children to all sorts of sickening imagery is ok??? Couldn't the imagery psychologically disturb the children? Where are the psychologists ??? Doesn't anyone care ??? Fuck, I don't smoke but I'm so pissed off that I'm just about to start lighting cigarretes instead of candles in my ceremonial works !!! God bless thy smokers, for they represent the liberty of decision and freewill as to smoke or not to smoke.

Medicine Men Go Wild, tv series on Channel 4, twin brother doctors travelling to isolated villages in search of natural medicine plants... Season 1 episode 4 shows a bit of Takiwasi and some local shamans in south america, might be worth watching... UTSE: "Medicine Men Go Wild S01E04"

Cool video, thanks Legba.

Happy birthday Wandjina Sinto saudades de voce

Children say younger than 7 won't even have the racional understanding to figure out the logical and intentional association of the imagery to the "so called causing factor". I'm surprised to find support for the government here. Well, if they are winning here, then I guess I'll just have to accept the defeat and understand that the world will just get worse and worse from here onwards... probably the best I can do is "let it be", but educate my children differently, showing them the difference and giving them the tools to enlighten their spirit and hopefully they will be reborn in another planet where people really CARE and LOVE each other in such a way that even displaying a disturbing image is considered an act of violence... By the way, let's display some brutal imagery of wounds and cuts on Knife packs just to remind our fellow men that knives can cause damage too, oh and Car advertisments should show disgusting crash scenes with bodies torn apart just to remind people what can happen if they don't drive properly.... yes, bring on the ugly and brutal, yes that's what HE want's, huh heheh, sorry for being so negative

I've been away for a while, but I'm keen on getting back in touch with the community. Would be nice to chat on msn. PM me please Peace and Love

Nice meeting you guys. And thanks for the plants and seeds. Just hearing you guys talk makes me realise how much I still need to learn about plants. Thanks for sharing the knowledge. Hope to meet again soon.

A FOAF has been noticing an unusual sleepiness in his cat during the flashes. Anyone else experienced this with cats too? What other unusual things have you guys seen with cats and other pet animals? Today I saw the documentary "BBC - The Unseen Powers Of Animals" it's very interesting. Please send your comments and personal opinions. Thanks

I'd like to share some thoughts I had about evolution of man. Read carefully when you have time and patience...hehehe . And please send your opinions and comments too, many thanks. Well here we go, firstly consider the following subjects: 1) How pre-historic man is described, mainly by Anthropology and Archaeology using analysis and dating of findings and then speculating on them. 2) How physical characteristics are determined and passed on generation to generation, in other words, Genetics and Paleontology. 3) How changes in these characteristics or genes occur and what determines it to occur - Evolutionary biology. Now consider what each of these subjects states (or tends to state today) respectively: A] Ancient Man is described as a primate living in rough conditions, having only a couple of tools, in a situation that makes him very vulnerable to nature, no tecnhology whatsoever is available to him. As a sample timeline to illustrate our thoughts consider the 50,000 year ago mark. B] Genetics and Paleontology states that DNA changes occur very slowly, and consequently, on a completely different time scale than the cultural and technological changes occur. In other words the 50000 year old man is considered relatively equal to today's man in genetic terms. Actually, recent fossil records (skull findings) seem to acknowledge that modern man (homo sapiens sapiens) is much older than previously thought of before. C] Darwin's Natural Selection is almost unanimously accepted as the major evolution theory today, that is..."random mutations in members of a geographically determined population tend to differentiate individual offsprings providing some with greater survival (and procreative) advantages over the others thus leading them to outnumber the others and consequently re-shaping the populations whole genome. The "survival advantage" is obviously determined by the environment in which the population is living. "Let him who hath understanding reckon the... heheh... just kidding...hehehe Well, the aparent inconsistency in what is presented to us by these fields of study cannot be perceived when analysing each subject separately, but only in their relation to one another, that is: - If ancient man's habitat and environment was really what is depicted by anthropology [A], and - If genes were relatively stable over 50000 years, so man then was genetically similar to us now , and - If Natural Selection really determined evolution [C] Then we can question the following: Focusing on A ========= > How could ancient environments (even older than 50000 if you consider the recent skull findings) present favorable directions for DNA evolution towards characteristics of modern man? For instance, when you consider that "intelligence" in this kind of savage environment would probably not be any of the aspects we consider intelligence in our society today, for example, among a group of men living in the wilderness (without technology) the offsprings that would present better adaptation for survival would be the ones that developed better "sense intelligence" of the environment (not just rational intelligence), in other words, better hearing, smelling, tasting, etc (just like animals). It would also be important to "interpret" these sense inputs in a rational way (aka modern man's symbolic and analytical thinking process), but without the sense input (or tools to substitute the natural input, aka technology) what good would just the "thought power" be of? It seems to me that if natural selection was the main evolution process occurring then men would have evolved in a different direction. Another example is our skin. Just take a walk in the bush and see how sensitve to cuts and bruises we are. Now why would man lose the animal fur and have to "make his own fur"? What advantage would that have produced among "still cave-like men"? It seems to me that if natural selection is the main determinant for our evolution then ancient man would have to have been living in an environment in which he was already disconnected from direct contact with nature. An interesting analogy for this "conspiracy like" theory would be the "legend of tarzan". We could imagine that our genetics evolved in a totally different environment (already containing some technology) and then for some unknown reason was put back into the "direct contact with nature". One could even speculate that man "mythologically" knowns this when he creates religions in which he is a "creation" especially made by God, and the "Garden of eden" could be thought of an archetype of this ancient environment where he didn't experience the "dangers" of nature, in other words, he wasn't in crude contact with it. Just for the sake of illustration let's return to the "tarzan myth" and imagine the following hypothetical example: if a large number of offspring were abandoned in nature without any cultural education, most would die but maybe some could survive. These survivors would have the inherent capacity to speak a language and excercise deep abstract thinking just like we do, but it would probably take them thousands of years before a formal written language came up again, not to mention all the sciences and technology. Just one more example here before I move on: Another inconsistency of the evolution theory presented is what I will call the "latent intellectual capacity" found in native populations. For instance, you could get a native child whose parents have been living in a very archaic society for thousands of years and bring the child to a modern society. The child will go to school and learn just like another child from our society and could even end up a PhD at Harvard or Oxford. So why did evolution develop this inherent potential of intelligence "evenly" among different populations and tribes in the world? It's obvious that these characteristics would have to have been common among the first ancestors of man that started roaming the earth in much older times and under even tougher environments. It all doesn't make sense to me. Focusing on C ========= > Well, I was already considering statement A to be incorrect, meaning that man would have an unknown past, much different from what he ever had imagined. But one could change the focus from A to C, questioning if Natural Selection was really the main evolution process. I'm not saying, Natural Selection is incorrect and doesn't occur, but maybe it plays a much smaller role in man's evolution. Though it would still be the main determinant for animals, but not men? This does sound wierd, but let's bare with it for a while just for the sake of analysis. Well, if we can postulate on the idea that there are other forces that determine evolution, then the A statement could still be valid and the "atlantis" dream can be but back in the cupboard for now, heheh. But then the question is what force? And why wouldn't it affect animals too? Mckenna describes in "Food of the Gods" that the food source could have had an impact, but I'm a bit skeptical of considering this as the main force, maybe a catalist though. Even Terence gives us hints to this when he metaphorically mentions the "Trojan Horse" for bringing the "elve's own agenda". While this is just a philosophical view I had, my tendency is to think as the mind as being an agent that could direct evolution. Similarly to Lamarck's discarded theory of behavioral genetic inheritance. I don't think behaviorlly acquired physical characteristics would be genetically passed, as stated by Lamarck (an athlete would have strong children, or the Giraf developed long necks due to stretching it. But I seem to believe that the mind can... Well, enough said for today. Thank you for the patience of those who managed to read til here! Please send your comments and ideas. I look forward to it. I've got some other insights into Economics that I'd like to share with you guys. But don't what to bore you so let me know what you think. Peace and Love, James

I'll be arriving Saturday the 3rd in Avalon at 1:45pm. So I was wondering if anyone else would also be arriving around this time? I found this map and outlined in red the track described in the Opoeia site. Is this the best route to Opoeia?

It's strange because the cat not only sleeps but appears to be in deep REM state. And once the flash is fadding away he starts to stretch and wakes up. An experience was made in which the "tripper" was in a closed bedroom (and the cat in the living room) and the same syncronistic pattern was observed (by another person who stayed in the living with the cat). Any guesses why this happens? C'mon guys...

Thanks for your reply on the Mystic Iran post. I've been reflecting a lot about this and I'm just realising that my criticism was just emotional and light-minded. It's incredible how these ancient belief systems carry all these "hidden meanings" in their traditions. I must apologize for not realising this before and look at this as just another of my own barriers to overcome. Sometimes I get too secure of my own world view and this seems to be just an obstacle to the spiritual path. Sorry again.

well, #2 is all is left... got no choice now... I'll take if it's available

Should we live in a society where Religion is passed down as a Law? Where it's officially accepted that women are treated differently from men? Would you be able to live there and keep a clear conscious? Anyway, I understand this path as legitimate and respect it's followers. Despite not agreeing with them I'll never disrespect them. It just occured to me that maybe I'm the odd one here and should just leave...

Thanks Warrioe-Sage. Some cool ones there! I also found these ones with some interesting files: http://www.futurehi.net/media.html http://mm.hyperreal.info/video/

I just watched 30min of this program. Seems that the mysticism there isn't bringing any enlightenment to the people. It's just helping to brainwash the people even more !