tonus

Thanks for food for thought and the ideas guys!

Hey, My partner is going to India and I want to buy her an MP3 player and fill it full of music. Does anyone have any idea how many CDs I can put on a 1Gig player? Thanks!!

A musing: drinking a phleb caapi brew I have this very organic expansion of the inside of my body which is unlike all the other tryptamine admixtures I have drunk. It is as if the visual domain of the tryptamine is transferred to a certain somatic space which expands onwards stretching the phenomenological continuum starting somewhere within my viscera. It is as if I experience visuality somatically, I guess this is a synaesthetic experience... I love the feel of those leaves too...so strong: love to brew with them. So wonderful to know that this special entity has only one home...I feel quite priviliged when I have some in the house. And I feel its spirit is more ascertainable, when I have some leaves around the house, compared to other tryptamine admixtures I may have with me. I put this down to it being a local spirit...a little aussie deva!

With the new interest in academic/medical research into psychedelic substances, for example LSD research is beginning once again at Harvard after a 40 year gap, I'm interested in what it would take for such trials to happen in Australia? Publications are on the increase, fresh research is being undertaken, the conversation is becoming more refined...and thus more acceptable academically/medically/socially. Optimism is showing its face... What sort of channels would eventually have to be navigated for clinical trials to happen in Australia? And...have any clinical trials into psychedelics occured in Australia in the past?

Located some cheap yerba in Sydney. La Paula (cake/coffee shop) 122 Gardeners rd Kingsford. They sell a variety of brands for $10 a kg. Not organic but compared to $5 for 50 grams at HHH good value.

I work in a drug detox and the local clinics we work with give our clients Maxolon for withdrawal nausea. Clients detoxing from opiates are given a withdrawal medication pack. One of the medications is Maxolon. Never tried it and dont know how safe it is.

Second place looks inspirational!!! A friend of mine wants to create an MO out Kyogle way. I thought MOs were pretty much not allowed these days. He's confident for some reason...maybe hasn't looked into it enough. What do you guys know about starting up MOs in the northern rivers?

As a Sanyasan friend once said about purchasing property, a few years ago when the Northern Rivers market was booming and going through the roof; you have to wait for your own inner boom to happen! Not the most practical advice!

Yeh, I need to suss the south american connection. Been buying from organic shops and way to expensive to be drunk on a daily basis. Actually a friend teaches spanish at high school and has connections to the south american community. I'll ask her. Thanks for the lead

Anyone know where I can find Yerba mate, Ilex paraguariensis, in Sydney? Anywhere but HHH. Been having short/strong tea shots of material with aya and finding its energy very uplifting and zesty, (without caffeine edge), very spacious, opening and helpful in sharpening awareness. Great companion when MAO drowsiness creates too much fog.

Found these stats in the: Non Smokers' Update Issue 13, July 1996 The Non-Smokers' Movement of Australia Inc, Box K860, Haymarket NSW 1240. Phone and Fax 02 9638-1171. Male % Female % Age 12 13 14 15 16 17 12 13 14 15 16 17 1984 10 17 24 29 29 27 8 18 29 34 34 30 1987 5 10 19 25 27 25 5 13 22 28 30 29 1990 6 11 17 22 25 24 5 13 20 29 28 28 1993 8 13 20 24 27 28 7 14 23 28 28 31 There is some increase in some levels but overall the numbers are fairly steady over this 10 year period. I reckon more recent stats would show a down turn which correlates with general overall decrease in smoking in Australia. The problem with anti smoking campaigns is that they encourage further government interference into day to day lives. I see anti smoking campaigns as a metaphore for the "war on drugs" we are being subjugated to. If the government succeeds in restricting/stopping the use of a currently completely legal drug then they can surely beat billy bong smoker into submission. I may not have explained my point very well so I will just sum it up. If the government can stop/reduce smoking then it doesnt bode well for any of us here. Problem as I see it with cigarettes is that it is, for most people, not a life-style choice but a really strong addiction that leads to very compulsive behaviour with really dodgy medical/social/psychological consequences. And in the end...part of this behaviour involves paying tobacco giants and the government loads of money to kill you ever so slowly. Regarding government interference in people's lives the anti-smoking campaign is funded by the Cancer Institute, (tobacco taxes), co-ordinated with the help of State Health, and is greatly powered by concerned people who see a big con being perpetrated upon people. That antismoking virus has already killed some of my favourite hang outs, the hookah cafes. Most of my mates are wogs, and we would sit at the coffee shops for hours smoking sheesha, eating baklava and turkish delight, and having loud conversations. Now we all have to come to my shitty shared accommodation and smoke overpriced low quality sheesha on my balcony with cheap coffee and biscuits. Not as pleasant IMO, especially because most my wog mates are hated by the intolerant assholes I live with. Luckily rumour has it a hookah only "cafe" has opened near Surfers Paradise somewhere, will have to journey down and check it out at some stage. It is a shame that social networking has been effected that way. Maybe a spin off from all this will be that people will start growing their own tobacco and gathering around this spirit in a way which honours and respects its power.

Athough teenage smoking was on the rise for some recent years as far as I understand it it wasn't, and isn't, a dramatic increase. I work on a smoking cessation programme and will look at some recent stats. As for the message wearing off...the 'message' has only just started!! Cultural forces are place, (dodgy advertising, stigma if your a smoker, price hikes, smoke free places), which have and will begin to have further effect on smokers across all age barriers and all levels/domains of society. It is in certain parts of the lower-socio economic level of society, where smoking is so very prevalent, where the anti-smoking message will take the longest to come home. Yet this is the level of society which can afford to smoke the least...imagine spending 1/4-1/3 of your pension/allowance on cigarrettes!!!??? And some people do!!! I think the telling statistics will start to come out in a year or two: a year or two after the introduction of smoke free public spaces, dodgy advertising EVERYWHERE, (on every major media), and the cultural forces such campaigning will set in place. There is an anti-smoking virus going around...

In 1945 75% of Australians smoked...GPs use to recommend cigarettes as a form of stress relief!! Now the amount is just under 18-19% and reducing at a massive rate. In Australia, at least, the tobacco companies are losing the control they once had... People who started smoking sneaking cigs behind the shed have gone full circle again...sneaking cigs behind the shed. Smoking fags is going underground! Who knows what sort of weird underground cigarette culture will arise . Maybe one day people will start growing/smoking organic tobacco and coming to terms with the powerful nature of this sacred spirit... Must be powerful...most addictive and destructive herb so far harnessed by humanity!

Ayahuasca can work well when intentions are focused around particular energetic alignments people would like to see manifest. More often than not, in my experience, Ayahuasca, like stan grof's notion of the inner-radar, goes where it needs to go...whatever is in most need of being processed comes to the fore...irregardless of intentions. Often it is the material that lies underneath, somehow driving our conscious intentions in over-compensatory ways, which comes to the fore while drinking. I find that unearthing this material, through simple exercises around becoming aware of what is here right now that is calling for attention, allows a more direct resonance with what may become magnified during the drink. Sharing what is going on for people in their lives before a drink can allow for the creation of a well aligned and strongly compassionate holding space which can heighten the therapeutic possibilities of aya.

which, unsurprisingly