Shamans of the Amazon On SBS

[Green Chemist]

Shamans of the Amazon will be on SBS on Sunday night Sunday, 3 September, 2006, at 11:15pm. I will be taping it to my hard drive. Damm will not be missing this one looks good.

:drool:

[apothecary]

Sweet. Thanks for reminding me.

[Micromegas]

You can also watch it here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8714482344821425610

[dax]

and remember you can also buy it from here

shamans

you also get the extra bits with terence and it cool to support independent film makers

[gerbil]

yeah it's good to get the DVD with 'the last word' McKenna interview.

The icaro CD is also beautiful.

I always find something to complain about though There's bits in the interview where it's been edited, I just wish that every little detail was included...I personally believe all footage needs to be spread, especially given that terrence is no longer physically with us and given the relevance and desire for such material in the underground community...we need to get as much material and in as much detail about psychedelics, especially from people who are well versed in the field.

My favourite bit in the amazon doco is the wooden flute, I absolutely adore it and hope to pick up a traditional one when I make my way to sth america. I love wooden instruments, especially relevant to visionary work :drool:

It's a great doco (as is Piers jungle trip) but for the full on ethnobotanic nerd I get really frustrated that the plant ID, preperations and spirituality isn't covered in incredible detail (in both docos!), it's such a shame to waste (well waste is a bit harsh) the opportunities available to the film makers to delve so deep into the knowledge of the shaman. Complex detailed visual and oral communication is needed IMHO.

The DMT admixture isn't chacruna, it's 'yage' which looks to me like D. cabrerana...Dean couldn't shed any light on more complex botanical knowledge than what is already communicated in the doco.

But they are still great and both Deans and Piers doco gets a regular viewing around these parts.

Edited September 1, 2006 by gerbil

[elzar]

It's a great doco (as is Piers jungle trip) but for the full on ethnobotanic nerd I get really frustrated that the plant ID, preperations and spirituality isn't covered in incredible detail (in both docos!), it's such a shame to waste (well waste is a bit harsh) the opportunities available to the film makers to delve so deep into the knowledge of the shaman. Complex detailed visual and oral communication is needed IMHO.

Sometimes it seems to me that some of these doccos show more of the presenter going to get high more than spiritual enlightenment or personal growth. This was not one of those luckily but yes i do agree that more detail to identification would have been good.

[-bijanto-]

Fucking slow internet connection

I wish I were still in Melbourne, its gonna be a long time before I get the DVD.

Edited September 1, 2006 by -bijanto-

[sobriquet]

I'll be recording this on Sunday on a HD recorder. It's been a while since I've burnt a DVD from the recorder but it is possible if I put my thinking cap on and get it right.

I'll try to burn a DVD of it, and if it works out I can share it. Just a warning that I can't promise this till it's achieved though!

[dax]

hey gerbil you are right, i think deans docos are a bit crappy in general like the one when he goes to iraq and stand on the boarder with a bunch of hippy in a circle, i want to see more!

but his is independent and he does stuff on such cool topics! the thing is it been on sbs a few times and it getting the message out their. even know it was made ages ago now

the icaro CD is ok but if you want beautiful check out "madre ayahuasca" it's heaps cool for DIY aya;)

and another cool thing about deans doco is you can get the vine that his shaman used, he imported it. it has been growing in the shamans family for 7 generation or something like that. i don't know if it where i am growing mine but it has a darker leaf then my other 2 strains.

Edited September 2, 2006 by dax

[apothecary]

My favourite bit in the amazon doco is the wooden flute, I absolutely adore it and hope to pick up a traditional one when I make my way to sth america. I love wooden instruments, especially relevant to visionary work

I was up in Nimbin recently gerbil, and at the hostel I shacked up in there was this cool New Caledonian hippy who was partial to wandering out into the bush and bringing back bits of wood to make into pipes/didges/flutes/other similar stuff...

He showed me a flute he said was from Bolivia, I think it's the same concept as the one in the doco, he would play it every morning and it was an amazing sound to wake up to.

I want one too...I was pondering making one, they are as easy to play as a recorder but have that beautiful "flutey" sound.

This is a good website http://www.fippless.org/Quena/Make

[apothecary]

Hehe you can see him here playing a didge he made in the background...

[mark80]

It's ON! It's ON! Ohhh Looks so good.....

Must not go to sleep

[noun]

Then follows De Wit 7001.

SBS, you are what the ABC should be...after SBS,.... .......

[gerbil]

Cheer apothecary! thanks very much.

What a great way to start the morning

didges are also on my want/to do list...My sister did an osteo clinic in an outback NSW indigenous town so the locals helped everyone gather wood and fashion a didge...I attempt to play it and enjoy it, but it's huge and really really heavy.

One of my mates (I think he's wurrundjeri) has a nice little one from up Arnhem land (where apparently didges originated, or at least a specific rhythym we follow or something like that) which i'll eventually get one through him, I just need to propagate lots of Catha for the Somali side of his family, hoping by the end of summer i'll have a nice one!

Thanks mate, if I get any good flute info i'll let you know

[Rev]

Im not too hot on this doco

at the least i can say that dean and his subjects dont represent how i feel about aya, politics and all that

Dean is terribly irresponsible, going with his very pregnant wife into the jungle.

Their immunity is naive at the best of times but i think what they did was just dumb

and it looks dumb too , to a first time viewer

it certainly wouldnt convince any sceptic about any heightened or enlightened common sense from aya users

And dear old Mckenna

that old and persistent enigma.

Having journeyed so much in the other realm it is hard to comprehend how T or the shamans he knew couldnt address and cure his illness. If the connection between mind body and spirit were so absolute with its assistance

Its that niggling redress to the "aya is a panacea", cure the world, cancer and all humanities illness

the sceptic would say "physician heal thyself"

and i tend to agree

Too many starry eyed hippies living in denial of their dark side. I mean its a godamn shamans drug

healing and sorcery, Dark and light, life and death. Not so openly now but these peoples who use it still kill each other over personal grievances and intertribal feuds and raids. Ayahuasca did not tell them not to be like this, rather they live by a framework within it far more complex and personal than our own

If you want subcontinental, kibbutz or partridge family bliss then go to those places and live your dream (blinkered to the psychological abuse and/or kiddy fiddling)

theres a relevant mythological story id like to share i read recently but itll take a while to post. ill slip it in soon

i dont think santo daime or UDV ar any comparable new age cult is any less detructive than the catholic church. If anything the original catholic paradigm is more realistic of humanities debacle than the new age.

The commune is a larger version of a sharehouse. And anyone whos lived in a few of those gets a solid grounding in the reality of human nature

I always felt let down by the science of the film

referencing strassman makes me cringe

its so famous because its the only one but i find it so pointless!

and the theory about the dmt and pineal gland remains just that

it has never been proven, or even tested to my knowledge

its just a convenient suggestion still

i feel it would have been far more clever to focus on the studies on depression, and rehabilitation from drug addiction which are using actual ayahuasca - not IV DMT in a clinical setting

DMT is not ayahuasca anymore than flour is bread

rant over ;)

Edited September 4, 2006 by Rev

[apothecary]

gerbil at work today I did some more quena searchin,

and managed to score a nice 34cm jacaranda wood quena for 50AUD (incl postage) from the US.

www.bolivianstuff.com

[-bijanto-]

I love SBS's docos, they kept me in my room when I was in Melb. I wish Indonesian TVs would produce a lot more docos rather than repeatedly playing the same Hollywood movies or the local shallowy soap opera.

So what are some of the best shamanic/ethnobotany docos ever played in Australian TVs in your opinion?

Edited September 4, 2006 by -bijanto-

[ergoamide]

I luved the doco thought it was excelent, first one fo these sorta doco's ive eva watched.

Although i'd have to agree wqith rev on this point, it was very stupid i thought to take ur 6month pregnant wife to the amazon, that was my first thought fo the doco when he said that. other than that its was an excellent doco i thought although i have nuthin to compare ti to lol.

[CaptAmazing]

It definitely had its good points and bad points. The whole church thing in Amsterdam or wherever was kinda hilarious because it's so hard to take those people seriously.

Whereas the doco made me feel a lot more empathetic to the Amazonians because it wasn't about people oppressing their "religion" but about the destruction of their livlihood.

The whole thing probably could have done without the computer visuals and focussed more on the actual rainforest. Especially since that was what the shamans were all about. They said it all the time that it was about feeling nature and how it interacts with itself. I also just think those types of graphics are dodgy to begin with

i liked the shamans and the rainforest stuff because that's what i was expecting. i didn't want to see a documentary on DMT, i wanted a documentary on a different culture.