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MrWormwood

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  13. Posted · Edited by MrWormwood

    Dark Emu 
    by Bruce Pascoe 

     
    An excellent work that targets the long taught belief that Aboriginal culture is essentially nomadic and as such lacked any understandings of agriculture or of animal farming. Highlights include an argument for a vast inland native grain belt that was actually more extensive than Australia's current grain belt, as well as perhaps the most comprehensive current account of the sophisticated fish traps that were constructed leading us to newly appreciate the extent of the proficient Aquaculture techniques that the Aboriginals possessed. Most importantly,  Pascoe's book led me to consider what would happen if the image of the witchetty grub, which is undoubtedly the image that most quickly comes to mind when the average Australian is asked about traditional aboriginal foods, what would happen if we took that image, so bizarre and alien and grotesque when you truly consider it, and replaced it with an image of fields of native millet or barely grass, interspersed with carefully tended mounds of yams, or with fresh fish and eels cooking on an open fire? 
    • Like 3

  14. Posted

    I've been on here for awhile, and haven't contributed much. After a few years of interest i fear i still don't have the skills to be able to offer much advice

    however, i can do book reviews. and so i shall contribute a few if that's alright.

    The research in Tastes of Paradise is solid, and this book is jam-packed with cool historical images of the stimulants and intoxicants described. But the great interest of this book lies in the more broad-reaching comments the author provides on the changing roles drugs play within a range of European cultures over time. These can be quite thought-provoking and insightful such as the contrast Schivelbusch provides between the place of coffee as a Protestant drug and chocolate as a Catholic drug. The connection between Protestantism and coffee is nothing really new, and not very radical to make, but the contrast the author establishes between coffee and the role of chocolate in Catholic cultures was, at least for me, a new perspective that i found quite interesting to entertain. One good example of the importance of chocolate for Catholic countries lies in the nutritional richness that chocolate provides whilst still being consumed as a liquid. As such it allowed Catholic communities to imbibe without breaking their religiously ordained fasting periods, such as Lent. Fascinating.

     

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/141602.Tastes_of_Paradise

     

    • Like 2

  17. Posted

    I enjoyed this, most memorable part was when the author makes a case for the coffee bean as an evolutionary catalyst. This is sort of how Terrence McKenna made the argument that the ancestors of Homo Erectus benefited psychologically and socially from ingesting psychedelic mushrooms, except its caffeine and not Psilocybin that initiates the great leap. It is an intriguing hypothesis backed up by the fact that fossils of some of mankind's oldest ancestors have been found in the same Ethiopian highlands where wild coffee trees first originated as well the proven heightening of the powers of cognition and expression that caffeine has on the human brain. So coffee, the drug that made us human? no wonder i barely feel human before my first cup of the day

    • Like 3

  20. Posted · Edited by MrWormwood

    First I'd like to express caution about lumping priests and Shamans together

    In my opinion a priest and a shaman are two separate things entirely, hence the two separate terms

    Priests have been historically associated with the rise of powerful Empires, hence we can speak meaningfully of Egyptian priests, and with these powerful empires they emerge in societies that have marked social differentiation between the powerful and the powerless, between Gods, and men, between royalty and commoners. The Egyptian priests, for example, spent their time tending to their opulent temples and cared not at all for the wellbeing of the common people.

    The same basic dynamic carries through to Christianity and Catholic priests, who, again, despite the rhetoric of concern for the meek and powerless, turned their backs on the people in general, if not engaged in actively exploiting them. They too traditionally moved in circles of power and prestige, case in point: the Vatican and all it represents

    Shamans, traditional, Shamans on the other hand, were intimately connected with their communities, it is true that in some cases they were elevated in the eyes of others, but just as often they were considered to be outcasts, or just ordinary people who took on the role (on many occasions reluctantly) because they had been chosen by supernatural entities. Even when they were considered to be set apart as special individuals, they were distinguished from others very simply by their manner of dress, some special headdress or facial paint at the most, never, ever, were they distinguished by living in more opulent surroundings, by having more wealth or more power than the tribal leaders (if such leaders existed), and instead of being removed from the general community, they were deeply embedded within it particularly in relation to their role as healers of the sick..

    And this leads me to my next point, which is an essential one, the 'Shamans' being referred to in the article posted, by practicing and applying their 'arts' to people who come from outside their immediate indigenous community, be they Westerner, or Eastern, or whoever, are by definition not Shamans at all. I've seen such people referred to as Neo-Shamans, but that is too kind a nomenclature in my opinion, opportunists is a better way of putting it, psychedelic entrepreneurs, might be a nicer take (particularly as i understand that they take monetary payments for their services in, which no true Shaman ever would) . At any rate, they are not Shamans. In this almost completely globalized world of ours perhaps there are no Shamans anymore. But if there are, they practice their trade entirely within the isolated communities of which they are a part, they would personally know the individuals they practice on, and rely heavily upon their common cultural and mythological background, their complex shared world-view, in order to effect their cures.

    • Like 9

  21. Posted

    Sorry, don't mean to hijack your thread, but me too!

    would prefer a plant to seeds as i have seeds and they just to refuse to sprout

    any suggestions for nurseries that i should prehaps be contacting

    apologies again Mountaingoat, hope you don't think it rude of me.

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    I know nothing on the subject, would love to know more, and haven't seen it discussed on the forums yet (though there's a likely chance I've missed something obvious, if so, forgive me please)

    I guess just making a simple Damiana tea is making an extract, but im looking to start exploring the next level up, so to speak

    any recommendations/recipes for a simple gentleman, who has a modest etheogenic garden, who wishes to start dabbling in the gentlemanly art of chemistry

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