I did not write this past Thursday due to family visiting for the past week. In the interim, I have received some very beneficial feedback about this blog. Specifically, that although the blog is very factual, informational and well-written, it could use the human element, the story, to inspire someone to want to read through all the information. Of course, in the coming book I intend to have LOTS of stories, both personal and from many different people and traditions. I just have not yet started on that aspect of the writing journey. But in order to respond to this feedback, I decided to start telling my story. It may end up being a part of the forward, or its own chapter in the
book, but it is important that I share it so that the reader can
understand why I am on this path, maybe a little bit about how I got
here, and why this subject is so important to me. It will also give me a chance to break up the intense and sometimes overwhelming nature of the research and do something different every once in a while!
As with everything, it is all so interconnected, it is hard to sort out where the story begins. However one thing I can say for sure: I have been searching for healing and for greater self-knowledge and consciousness my whole life...
Childhood
Starting as a child, growing up in an upper middle-class white household, I had everything I "needed." Yet when I look back on that time, I see now that I was suffering from depression, suicidal thoughts, extremely low and poor self-image, lack of confidence, addiction, and very intense intestinal problems, and I was alone with my pain and misery most of the time. I had an undiagnosed case of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the privacy of my bedroom, and would spend hours rearranging the contents of my desk into precise patterns. For as long as I could remember, I would spend hours every week in the bathroom with painful elimination, including hot and cold sweats, nausea, and intense stomach cramps. In eighth grade, my family split in two, with my younger sister and I moving out of our family home with my mom, and my older sister and brother staying with my dad. That year, besides graduating to having permission to smoke cigarettes (and using up to a pack a day), I had an attack of spastic colon which brought me to a doctor. He prescribed muscle relaxants and a diet free of spicy foods to 'cure' my condition, thereby teaching me that if I was in pain I should take drugs. To give my mom and dad and their new partners some credit, this was still during the time in this country (1978) when people didn't really talk about their problems. So I want to make it clear I am not writing any of this as a judgment of my parents. They loved me and did the best they could, and I do not blame anyone for the story of my life.
Right before my second year of high school, I "fell in love" with an older boy, who became my boyfriend at age 15. He was 19. He began criticizing my weight (and everything else about me) shortly after our getting together, and I so I began skipping meals, eventually leading to a full-blown eating disorder, kind of a cross between anorexia and bulimia. I also started using diet pills, speed, and eventually crystal meth to help
me stay thin and to keep the weight off and to have energy to study or
work or whatever I had going on. I dropped 40 pounds between 15 and 17 years old, ending up at 105 pounds (at 5'7"). I also drank alcohol whenever possible, getting drunk on a regular basis. Yet I was a very good student, this being the way to gain approval in my family, and I graduated Valedictorian at age 17, after only three years of high school. Another factor in my late teens was that my back went out, structurally out of alignment I mean, for the first time, leading to extreme pain and the necessity of constant chiropractic care from then on.
College
During my first 'round' of college I took a health class on eating disorders and realized that I had a problem, from which I began to self-heal. Yet my boyfriend actually approved of my purging! I ended this extremely dysfunctional relationship at age 19, after four long years of misogyny and my second year of college (I read The Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them and couldn't believe how well it described my relationship.) I also had another intestinal attack and had to be
hospitalized, and I was finally diagnosed with colitis/spastic colon. I dropped out of college after ending the relationship and started doing more drugs, graduating to selling them (specifically crystal meth) in order to get some for 'free.' I also began hanging out at a local biker bar, using a LOT of drugs and alcohol, and being very sexually promiscuous.
Six months later I moved to North Carolina to return to college. I left the speed behind, and discovered psychedelics and the Grateful Dead. I took LSD for the first time, and mushrooms, and started experiencing freedom from my crippling self-doubt and anxiety over what people were thinking about me. I was able to begin to move freely without so much oppressive fear. I also started experiencing a lot more of what I would call the intuitive realm. However, I was also smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and was drinking tons of caffeine in the morning, and using alcohol pretty much every night. All the while, while trying to maintain being 'normal' and functional, I never felt normal, or good, or right; I still struggled with addictions, crippling hate over my body image, OCD behaviors (like hours of gazing in the mirror picking zits), chronic back and neck pain, and suicidal thoughts. I tried a number of therapies, traditional and New Age, to help me feel better while in college but none of them seemed to help. But somehow I pulled off getting my degree, a BA in Psychology (what else?) and graduating suma cum laude.
After College
I moved to a city in the northeast and attempted to get a regular job, but quickly became disenchanted with the hypocrisy I saw. So I quit the job and became a street musician. I traveled for the next two years, gradually working on deprogramming my mind from the cultural conditioning I felt prevalent in our society; during this time I also found the Rainbow Family and went to gatherings with other free thinkers (and psychedelic users). I sat in my first teepee and drank (very weak) peyote tea for the first time, but really liked the ritual around it's use. Eventually I ended up in Hawaii, in yet another dysfunctional relationship, with an alcoholic and 'acid-guru' who was 15 years older than me and who ended up being the father of my son. While in Hawaii, I worked as a dishwasher and then as a waitress in a coffee shop, all the while trying any therapy I could to help myself feel better, to get healed from depression, chronic pain, addiction, all of it. I did some Holotropic "Rebirthing" Breathwork sessions that seemed to help, to release a lot of stored emotion. I tried dietary cleanses with fruit and vegetable juice and wheat grass juice, which left me feeling better than I ever had. I took up yoga, and swimming in the ocean. I also kept using psychedelics, on occasion, and more often than not, when using them I would have profound moments of recognizing the oneness of all things. At one point all the healing work I was focusing on prompted my mother to say to me," You know, honey, healing yourself is a good hobby... but it's not a career!"
Mid-20's and 30's
I knew right from the moment I found out I was pregnant that the baby's father was not going to be in the picture. So I became a single mom at age 25, with a beautiful (and huge - over 10 lbs) baby boy. The father and I remained friends until his death several years later (he died from complications following a drunken accident).
My first indication that there might be some sort of trauma in my history came from a massage session I was having with my son's father about a year after our son was born. During the session, he would touch a place on my body, and ask me to focus my consciousness on it, drawing me into a deep sense of the present moment. After about 15 minutes of this he put his hand over my yoni (the sanskrit word for vagina) - more like over my pubic bone and curved down between my legs. His hand was on top of my clothes. The minute his hand landed there, a teeny, little-girl voice came out of my mouth, saying, "I don't want you to touch me there." This statement was followed by over two hours of uncontrollable sobbing, to the point of retching. The next day I felt as if the area of my body over my solar plexus had had a giant hole punched into it. I was dizzy and nauseous for days following this experience (which by the way did not involve any substances whatsoever).
Life moved on. I moved to Oregon, had a daughter with a man who was also not very available for fathering, who also had trouble with an alcohol addiction (again - no fault or blame here! Just reporting the facts as I see them). Stuff happened. I started experiencing some pretty 'bad' trips when I would do mushrooms (I stopped doing LSD at age 24 - long story for another time), usually winding up with me ending up alone and scared. Then when my son was about 6 and my daughter about 2, I had my second major experience of some kind of release of or indicator of trauma from my past. I went to a local Grateful Dead dance party, the idea being to drink some mushroom tea and then let go into the fun and sometimes transcendental dance zone which we could enter at shows. My kids were staying at a dear friend's house who they loved. I had just recovered from a pretty intense flu earlier that week, with a fever for a few days of over 102. I was feeling good, though, and had a small sip of the tea. About 30 minutes later, I felt this very heavy energy enter my body starting at the top of my head, and as it descended I started feeling all of the flu symptoms come back. I started feeling dizzy, and went to sit on the steps next to the dance floor. I asked for a certain friend to come talk to me, and told her I needed a healing circle right then and there. Now at that time I was not the sort of person who could normally ask for what I needed - but I just KNEW. This dear friend looked back at me and said "It is safe for you to be here." At that, I started wailing, in a high-pitched, other-worldy-sounding voice that did not sound like it could possibly come from an adult woman. This wailing caused many people at the party to leave (those who did not want to participate in a spontaneous healing circle!) and the rest gathered around me - for over two hours straight. Eventually someone asked me what I needed and I replied, "I don't understand your big words" in a really young-sounding voice. But they offered to take me to lie down in front of the fire. I experienced choking on what tasted like dust, remembering a crawlspace in my old house, and being more scared than I had ever remembered. Then, when someone offered to rub my feet, I got to experience feeling absolutely pure child-like joy, and what it must have felt like to laugh as a small child, with my entire being.
The ramifications of what it all meant, I just did not want to deal with.
I do want to add my gratitude to my son's father, Gary, for holding me while I cried, and to all the people who sat up with me at 700 Rock Creek Rd, helping me get through whatever that was. I learned the meaning of true friends that night. I am convinced that I experienced spontaneous age regression in both of these instances. More on that later...
Mid-30's - 40
More stuff happened. I got involved with a man who lived in Taos, NM and moved there to live with him and his two boys. We got married. I taught school and raised my kids. I was depressed and addicted and had chronic physical pain and low self-esteem, but was somewhat functional. I quit smoking cigarettes, spending three months in a black hole of depression, but made it through, mostly due to daily alcohol consumption. My limited personal time was spent exploring different kinds of therapy, spiritual and self-help books, looking for answers. My partner and I bought land and started building a healing center.
Then, in the winter of 2005, at the age of almost 40, I had a good friend call and ask if I could put on a house concert for him, as he was going to be traveling to Taos as translator for a Shaman, for some healing ceremonies later that spring. I didn't know what he was even talking about when he mentioned they would be serving a plant medicine called ayahuasca, but something in me said, quite loudly and distinctly, "I want to do that!" I began a cleansing diet three full months before the time of the ceremonies, preparing myself in the best way I could for what felt like a huge opportunity - to what end, I did not know. But my spirit was on high alert, and I honored that.
To Be Continued...
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Entheogens: Ayahuasca et al.
(From my last entry)
The next set of plant medicines I would like to discuss is the ayahuasca/yagé/daime/hoasca/caapi plant medicine family. All of these substances are more or less chemically the same. They contain a woody vine, usually called the ayahuasca vine or banisteriopsis caapi, which contains an ingredient which makes it possible for humans to digest DMT, or dimethlytryptamine. (For more information about the associated chemistry, go to (1).) The other ingredient, the admixture plant, contains DMT, and varies due to region. In Peru, and for the Santo Daime and the UDV, the admixture plant is chacrona; or psychotria viridis. (2) The yagé brew uses another DMT-containing plant called chacropanga. These brews are made in extended prayer ceremonies, with some cultural distinctions giving rise to the different branches of this particular spiritual family. However, the belief that the medicine is a holy sacrament is universal - within the cultures that use it (words in italics added for clarification).
History of Ayahuasca, "Vine of the Souls" or "Vine of Death"
No one knows for how long humans have used the plant brew known as ayahuasca in Peru, yagé in the Colombian Amazon, and daime, hoasca or caapi in Brazil. Although there are no archeological records to verify its origin, researchers posit that humans have been drinking this brew since prehistoric times. Archeological evidence of other types of hallucinogenic plant use exists dating back to between 1500-2000 BC; however no evidence of the prehistoric use of the ayahuasca brew has been found. The first Western documentation of its use was in 1861, and by this time use of the brew had spread throughout the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin, causing researchers to propose its prehistoric origin. What is most interesting to me about the brew is that the neither of the two main components, the plant carrying the reversible MAO inhibitor and the plant carrying the DMT, are food plants. Was it random chance when the first shamans mixed them together? The elders say it was not chance at all - it was the plants themselves that 'showed' them how to make the brew. The first shaman I ever sat with in ceremony claimed that tobacco, who he said was the 'first plant teacher," taught the people what the ayahuasca component plants looked like, where to find them, and the involved process by which the raw materials are turned into the brew. (4)
(For a very comprehensive review of the history of ayahuasca, see (3))
The important part of this subject for me is the longevity of ayahuasca's use, and the fact that in many indigenous cultures today, drinking this medicine is a normal part of weekly life in the village and has been for more generations than can be counted, with NO ill effects. This is true with my own spiritual elders, although I am not at liberty to give specific details about the source of the particular yagé tradition I follow. I believe their request for privacy is in part to ensure that their village does not become overrun with spiritual seekers, such as what is currently happening in Iquitos in Peru and other places where ayahuasca tourism has skyrocketed in the past decade or so. What I can say is that their culture and tradition is one with a very long history, and they view the yagé they brew, serve and drink as a sacrament and as a teacher.
Hoasca Project
One aspect of this research that really stands out for me comes from the 1993 Hoasca Project, an international study of the long-term effects of drinking hoasca, the name of the sacrament of the União do Vegetal (UDV) Church from Brazil.. As early as the mid-eighties, researcher Dennis McKenna and anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna, while working together in the Amazon, talked about the possibility of holding a biomedical investigation of ayahuasca. In 1991, they attended a conference sponsored by the Medical Studies section of the UDV:
" Following the 1991 conference, McKenna returned to the United States and drafted a proposal describing
the objectives of the study that was to become known as the Hoasca Project. Initially, the objective was to
submit the proposal to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, but as the proposal took shape it became clear
that funding for the study would be unlikely to originate from any government agency. Not only were there
legal, logistical, and political problems with securing NIH funds for a study to be carried out in Brazil, it was
also clear that given the nature of government drug policy, the NIH would not look favorably on a proposal that
was not aimed at demonstrating serious harmful consequences resulting from the use of a psychedelic
drug." (5)
This is of course one of the main points I am trying to make with this blog/book - that due to the extreme taboo our western culture has placed on mind-altering plants (note I do not use the term drug here!), the ability to objectively and scientifically analyze their use and the effects of their use has been difficult at best. Luckily (for scientific inquiry if nothing else), McKenna and Luna persevered and found funding elsewhere, and the Hoasca Project began in 1993. The results were very positive:
"Among the key findings were that long-time members of the UDV commonly underwent experiences that
changed their lives and behavior in positive and profound ways; and that there was a persistent elevation in
serotonin uptake receptors in platelets, possibly indicative of similar long-term serotonergic modulation
occurring in the central nervous system that may reflect long-term adaptive changes in brain functions. The
study did establish that the regular use of hoasca, at least within the ritual context and supportive social
environment that exists within the UDV, is safe and without adverse long-term toxicity, and, moreover,
apparently has lasting, positive influences on physical and mental health." (6)
Now, here in the US, ayahuasca itself is not actually against the law. But it is, sort of. Recently the DEA has been making the argument that since DMT is a Schedule 1 Drug, anything that contains DMT should also be considered in this category, and therefore illegal. The exception is for the two groups who are legally recognized churches in the US, the UDV and the Santo Daime. Use of the sacrament is "more or less legal" to registered members of these churches. (7). In case you aren't familiar: "Schedule 1 drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence."(8)
Nothing in the Hoasca study, nor in any of the literature on the subject, nor in my personal experience, suggests that anyone has, or will, or even can become dependent on this medicine, severly or otherwise. While it is true that there is 'no currently accepted medical use,' highlight the word 'accepted' in that phrase and you come a bit closer to the truth. If you ask an elder from my spiritual tradition, or a curandero (healer) from Peru or Brazil, they would tell you that many ailments can be cured by drinking the medicine. I do not understand how this medicine can be considered dangerous, when used in the proper context within a legitimate tradition. I refute every aspect of the DEA's classification of this medicine, which HAS medical use, HAS NO potential for abuse (again, to be clear, when used in the proper way), and does NOT CAUSE dependence, either psychological or physical. Unfortunately, there are people who misuse this medicine, either by taking it without supervision, in settings that aren't safe, or taking on the role of serving it without the proper training,
The bigger application of this medicine, in my perspective as a Westerner and as an extreme case study, has been in its therapeutic use. I will save my personal story for a future blog, but suffice it to say that when people claim that one night of drinking yagé can be the equivalent of attending ten years of psychotherapy, they are NOT exaggerating! You can go online and find hundreds if not thousands of personal testimonies, crediting the medicine with everything from curing addictions (by allowing one to delve into the root causes of them, and then consciously clearing these), to increasing one's capacity for joy and for present-moment consciousness, to inspiring new purpose, creativity and vision to one's work, to healing familial dysfunction and fostering healthier relationships... and this list is just the tip of the iceberg. If not for the cultural taboos and incredibly prejudiced light in which our culture views psychoactive substances, anything with this many reported positive benefits would be the subject of numerous scientific studies by now. As stated in the ICEERS website, "the increasing personal accounts of Ayahuasca’s role in therapeutic and personal growth practices emphasize the need for thorough clinical studies."
And so, my prayer today is just this: may we - collectively - bring about a new age in thought around these important medicines and stop believing the propaganda and smear/fear campaigns which are so blatantly obvious to those of us who have direct experience of these sacraments. They are NOT what our government tells us they are! They do not cause psychosis, or create abuse or addiction in users. Believe me, it is WORK to go stay up all night and drink yagé, to see so clearly the things I need to work on, to feel the emotions I have suppressed in my body, to allow and acknowledge my shadow side to be seen, and in doing so, to bring light to those darkest and scariest of places in my being. Not to mention the purging! What I am saying is I do not drink medicine for fun. I do so to heal my being, to "...be better so I can live better," as one of my teachers likes to say. In Brazil, religious use of the brew, "...was (finally) legalized after two inquiries in the mid-1980's, which concluded that ayahuasca is not a recreational drug and has valid spiritual use." What a refreshing perspective! I pray to see the day when this country can be so open-minded, and when the benefits of this medicine can be experienced in safety and with the assurance of freedom in the sovereign choice to alter one's consciousness for greater health and happiness.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca
(2) ibid.
(3) http://realitysandwich.com/219531/ayahuasca-an-ethnopharmacologic-history/; see also https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_timeline.php
(4) Conversations with DJ, 11/07/07 and 11/08/07. (His name is kept anonymous to protect DJ's privacy.)
(5) http://realitysandwich.com/219531/ayahuasca-an-ethnopharmacologic-history/
(6) ibid; see also McKenna et al.1998 for more complete findings of the study
(7) https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_law.shtml
(8) http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml
(9) http://iceers.org/science-interest-ayahuasca.php#.VYCKGkaYVqU
(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Ayahuasca
The next set of plant medicines I would like to discuss is the ayahuasca/yagé/daime/hoasca/caapi plant medicine family. All of these substances are more or less chemically the same. They contain a woody vine, usually called the ayahuasca vine or banisteriopsis caapi, which contains an ingredient which makes it possible for humans to digest DMT, or dimethlytryptamine. (For more information about the associated chemistry, go to (1).) The other ingredient, the admixture plant, contains DMT, and varies due to region. In Peru, and for the Santo Daime and the UDV, the admixture plant is chacrona; or psychotria viridis. (2) The yagé brew uses another DMT-containing plant called chacropanga. These brews are made in extended prayer ceremonies, with some cultural distinctions giving rise to the different branches of this particular spiritual family. However, the belief that the medicine is a holy sacrament is universal - within the cultures that use it (words in italics added for clarification).
History of Ayahuasca, "Vine of the Souls" or "Vine of Death"
No one knows for how long humans have used the plant brew known as ayahuasca in Peru, yagé in the Colombian Amazon, and daime, hoasca or caapi in Brazil. Although there are no archeological records to verify its origin, researchers posit that humans have been drinking this brew since prehistoric times. Archeological evidence of other types of hallucinogenic plant use exists dating back to between 1500-2000 BC; however no evidence of the prehistoric use of the ayahuasca brew has been found. The first Western documentation of its use was in 1861, and by this time use of the brew had spread throughout the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin, causing researchers to propose its prehistoric origin. What is most interesting to me about the brew is that the neither of the two main components, the plant carrying the reversible MAO inhibitor and the plant carrying the DMT, are food plants. Was it random chance when the first shamans mixed them together? The elders say it was not chance at all - it was the plants themselves that 'showed' them how to make the brew. The first shaman I ever sat with in ceremony claimed that tobacco, who he said was the 'first plant teacher," taught the people what the ayahuasca component plants looked like, where to find them, and the involved process by which the raw materials are turned into the brew. (4)
(For a very comprehensive review of the history of ayahuasca, see (3))
The important part of this subject for me is the longevity of ayahuasca's use, and the fact that in many indigenous cultures today, drinking this medicine is a normal part of weekly life in the village and has been for more generations than can be counted, with NO ill effects. This is true with my own spiritual elders, although I am not at liberty to give specific details about the source of the particular yagé tradition I follow. I believe their request for privacy is in part to ensure that their village does not become overrun with spiritual seekers, such as what is currently happening in Iquitos in Peru and other places where ayahuasca tourism has skyrocketed in the past decade or so. What I can say is that their culture and tradition is one with a very long history, and they view the yagé they brew, serve and drink as a sacrament and as a teacher.
Hoasca Project
One aspect of this research that really stands out for me comes from the 1993 Hoasca Project, an international study of the long-term effects of drinking hoasca, the name of the sacrament of the União do Vegetal (UDV) Church from Brazil.. As early as the mid-eighties, researcher Dennis McKenna and anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna, while working together in the Amazon, talked about the possibility of holding a biomedical investigation of ayahuasca. In 1991, they attended a conference sponsored by the Medical Studies section of the UDV:
" Following the 1991 conference, McKenna returned to the United States and drafted a proposal describing
the objectives of the study that was to become known as the Hoasca Project. Initially, the objective was to
submit the proposal to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, but as the proposal took shape it became clear
that funding for the study would be unlikely to originate from any government agency. Not only were there
legal, logistical, and political problems with securing NIH funds for a study to be carried out in Brazil, it was
also clear that given the nature of government drug policy, the NIH would not look favorably on a proposal that
was not aimed at demonstrating serious harmful consequences resulting from the use of a psychedelic
drug." (5)
This is of course one of the main points I am trying to make with this blog/book - that due to the extreme taboo our western culture has placed on mind-altering plants (note I do not use the term drug here!), the ability to objectively and scientifically analyze their use and the effects of their use has been difficult at best. Luckily (for scientific inquiry if nothing else), McKenna and Luna persevered and found funding elsewhere, and the Hoasca Project began in 1993. The results were very positive:
"Among the key findings were that long-time members of the UDV commonly underwent experiences that
changed their lives and behavior in positive and profound ways; and that there was a persistent elevation in
serotonin uptake receptors in platelets, possibly indicative of similar long-term serotonergic modulation
occurring in the central nervous system that may reflect long-term adaptive changes in brain functions. The
study did establish that the regular use of hoasca, at least within the ritual context and supportive social
environment that exists within the UDV, is safe and without adverse long-term toxicity, and, moreover,
apparently has lasting, positive influences on physical and mental health." (6)
Now, here in the US, ayahuasca itself is not actually against the law. But it is, sort of. Recently the DEA has been making the argument that since DMT is a Schedule 1 Drug, anything that contains DMT should also be considered in this category, and therefore illegal. The exception is for the two groups who are legally recognized churches in the US, the UDV and the Santo Daime. Use of the sacrament is "more or less legal" to registered members of these churches. (7). In case you aren't familiar: "Schedule 1 drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence."(8)
Nothing in the Hoasca study, nor in any of the literature on the subject, nor in my personal experience, suggests that anyone has, or will, or even can become dependent on this medicine, severly or otherwise. While it is true that there is 'no currently accepted medical use,' highlight the word 'accepted' in that phrase and you come a bit closer to the truth. If you ask an elder from my spiritual tradition, or a curandero (healer) from Peru or Brazil, they would tell you that many ailments can be cured by drinking the medicine. I do not understand how this medicine can be considered dangerous, when used in the proper context within a legitimate tradition. I refute every aspect of the DEA's classification of this medicine, which HAS medical use, HAS NO potential for abuse (again, to be clear, when used in the proper way), and does NOT CAUSE dependence, either psychological or physical. Unfortunately, there are people who misuse this medicine, either by taking it without supervision, in settings that aren't safe, or taking on the role of serving it without the proper training,
The bigger application of this medicine, in my perspective as a Westerner and as an extreme case study, has been in its therapeutic use. I will save my personal story for a future blog, but suffice it to say that when people claim that one night of drinking yagé can be the equivalent of attending ten years of psychotherapy, they are NOT exaggerating! You can go online and find hundreds if not thousands of personal testimonies, crediting the medicine with everything from curing addictions (by allowing one to delve into the root causes of them, and then consciously clearing these), to increasing one's capacity for joy and for present-moment consciousness, to inspiring new purpose, creativity and vision to one's work, to healing familial dysfunction and fostering healthier relationships... and this list is just the tip of the iceberg. If not for the cultural taboos and incredibly prejudiced light in which our culture views psychoactive substances, anything with this many reported positive benefits would be the subject of numerous scientific studies by now. As stated in the ICEERS website, "the increasing personal accounts of Ayahuasca’s role in therapeutic and personal growth practices emphasize the need for thorough clinical studies."
And so, my prayer today is just this: may we - collectively - bring about a new age in thought around these important medicines and stop believing the propaganda and smear/fear campaigns which are so blatantly obvious to those of us who have direct experience of these sacraments. They are NOT what our government tells us they are! They do not cause psychosis, or create abuse or addiction in users. Believe me, it is WORK to go stay up all night and drink yagé, to see so clearly the things I need to work on, to feel the emotions I have suppressed in my body, to allow and acknowledge my shadow side to be seen, and in doing so, to bring light to those darkest and scariest of places in my being. Not to mention the purging! What I am saying is I do not drink medicine for fun. I do so to heal my being, to "...be better so I can live better," as one of my teachers likes to say. In Brazil, religious use of the brew, "...was (finally) legalized after two inquiries in the mid-1980's, which concluded that ayahuasca is not a recreational drug and has valid spiritual use." What a refreshing perspective! I pray to see the day when this country can be so open-minded, and when the benefits of this medicine can be experienced in safety and with the assurance of freedom in the sovereign choice to alter one's consciousness for greater health and happiness.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca
(2) ibid.
(3) http://realitysandwich.com/219531/ayahuasca-an-ethnopharmacologic-history/; see also https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_timeline.php
(4) Conversations with DJ, 11/07/07 and 11/08/07. (His name is kept anonymous to protect DJ's privacy.)
(5) http://realitysandwich.com/219531/ayahuasca-an-ethnopharmacologic-history/
(6) ibid; see also McKenna et al.1998 for more complete findings of the study
(7) https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_law.shtml
(8) http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml
(9) http://iceers.org/science-interest-ayahuasca.php#.VYCKGkaYVqU
(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Ayahuasca
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Entheogens, an overview; Peyote
Today I want to begin writing about the rest of the story I began on Tuesday: about the psychoactive plant medicines in question; about the cultures that use and have used them for centuries; about the cultural taboo and vilification of these medicines in the modern or Western world; and about the current legal state of affairs in this country and elsewhere. I have been sitting here at the computer for over an hour, contemplating how to begin.
I know I am not up to speed on the legal aspects of the situation so I will save that part of the discussion until after I can meet with a lawyer.
I believe I will begin with introducing the different entheogenic medicines and what I know about them. We will get to the cultural taboos another day.
In our modern world, there are several cultures which use entheogenic medicines as part of their spiritual path, with a long history of such use. The Native American Church (NAC) is a perfect example, as members use the peyote cactus as a sacrament, and the organization is, in fact ..."the oldest traditional religious organization in the Western Hemisphere." (4) There are records from carbon dating suggesting that peyote was eaten by humans on this continent as early as 3780 B.C. (5) Quannah Parker, credited with starting the NAC, taught that Peyote is a sacred medicine given to the people by the Creator and that taking it enabled the participant to commune directly with God. The teachings of the Huichol, a tribe from Mexico where the cactus grows, blend traditional Christian concepts with the more mystical view that the peyote plant itself is the "...reborn body of the Creator which people can ingest to receive wisdom, the revelation of mystical knowledge, and the experience of this communion." (6) Right from the start, there were people, well, governments, really, that wanted to suppress the use of peyote. There is a record of the King of Spain issuing an edict in 1620 against the use of peyote, and numerous Inquisition cases involving its use. (7) In this country, legislators were requesting the prohibition of peyote as early as 1886. (8) By 1965, peyote had been added to the list of controlled psychoactive substances, the use of which was illegal; however this legislation allowed for its use in religious ceremony. In 1994, members of the NAC were given a federal exemption to use peyote in their ceremonies. The issue of whether it is legal for someone not of Native American descent to be a legal member of the NAC and/or to use the peyote sacrament in a ceremony varies from state to state. More information can be found at EROWID, a site dedicated to "Documenting the Complex Relationship Between Humans and Psychoactives."(9)
The next set of plant medicines I would like to discuss is the Ayahuasca/Yagé /Daime/Hoasca plant medicine family. All of these substances are more or less chemically the same. They contain a woody vine, usually called the Ayahuasca vine or banisteriopsis caapi, which contains an ingredient which makes it possible for humans to digest DMT , or dimethlytryptamine. (For more information about the associated chemistry, go to (10).) The other ingredient, the admixture plant, contains the DMT, and varies due to region. In Peru, and for the Santo Daime and the UDV, the admixture plant is chacrona; or psychotria viridis. (10) The Yagé brew uses another DMT-containing plant called chacropanga. These brews are made in extended prayer ceremonies, wth some cultural distinctions giving rise to the different branches of this particular spiritual family. However, the belief that the medicine is a holy sacrament is universal.
The historical use of these medicines goes back thousands of years. And, this discussion is going to have to wait for another time. I will pick it up here next week!
Sources:
(1) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/entheogen
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogen
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entheogenic/hallucinogenic_species
(4) http://nativeamericanchurches.org/native-american-church-first-nation-history/
(5) http://www.peyote.net/whatis.html#history
(6) ibid.
(7) ibid, from Stewart, Omer Call. Peyote Religion: a History. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1987. Print.
(8) http://nativeamericanchurches.org/native-american-church-first-nation-history/
(9) https://www.erowid.org/plants/peyote/peyote_law.shtml
(10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca
(11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Daime
I know I am not up to speed on the legal aspects of the situation so I will save that part of the discussion until after I can meet with a lawyer.
I believe I will begin with introducing the different entheogenic medicines and what I know about them. We will get to the cultural taboos another day.
An entheogen is defined as a substance that helps one connect with the Divine. According to dictionary.com, it is "any substance, such as a plant or drug, taken to bring on a spiritual experience."(1) Wikepedia says, "an entheogen is a chemical substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context that may be synthesized or obtained from natural species. The chemical induces altered states of consciousness. Entheogens can supplement many diverse practices for transcendence, revelation, and supernatural healing." (2)
I would like to discuss the following entheogenic substances in this work: the Peyote cactus; Ayahuasca (also known as Yagé by my Colombian elders, as Daime in the Santo Daime Church, and as Hoasca in the União do Vegetal Church); the San Pedro cactus or Wachuma, from Peru; and Ibogaine, from the Bwiti peoples of Africa. I may also briefly touch on some aspects of traditional tobacco use. I will not go into other mind-altering substances such as Psilocybin mushrooms, from the ancient Aztec and Mexican cultures, or Salvia, etc (see (3) for a more comprehensive list), because I am not aware of spiritual ceremonies that accompany such substances, and my discussions about the use of these mind-altering medicines feature prominently the instruction and guidance of spiritual elders and the safe container of ceremony as a prerequisite to their use. Of course in our modern culture this is by no means the prevalent attitude. Many of these substances are consumed as drugs, as defined in part two of the introduction: something
you take to escape, to numb, to get away from your self - from stress,
from pain, from symptoms. The tricky part is that most substances can not only be used, but also abused. This discussion, also, we will save for another day!
In our modern world, there are several cultures which use entheogenic medicines as part of their spiritual path, with a long history of such use. The Native American Church (NAC) is a perfect example, as members use the peyote cactus as a sacrament, and the organization is, in fact ..."the oldest traditional religious organization in the Western Hemisphere." (4) There are records from carbon dating suggesting that peyote was eaten by humans on this continent as early as 3780 B.C. (5) Quannah Parker, credited with starting the NAC, taught that Peyote is a sacred medicine given to the people by the Creator and that taking it enabled the participant to commune directly with God. The teachings of the Huichol, a tribe from Mexico where the cactus grows, blend traditional Christian concepts with the more mystical view that the peyote plant itself is the "...reborn body of the Creator which people can ingest to receive wisdom, the revelation of mystical knowledge, and the experience of this communion." (6) Right from the start, there were people, well, governments, really, that wanted to suppress the use of peyote. There is a record of the King of Spain issuing an edict in 1620 against the use of peyote, and numerous Inquisition cases involving its use. (7) In this country, legislators were requesting the prohibition of peyote as early as 1886. (8) By 1965, peyote had been added to the list of controlled psychoactive substances, the use of which was illegal; however this legislation allowed for its use in religious ceremony. In 1994, members of the NAC were given a federal exemption to use peyote in their ceremonies. The issue of whether it is legal for someone not of Native American descent to be a legal member of the NAC and/or to use the peyote sacrament in a ceremony varies from state to state. More information can be found at EROWID, a site dedicated to "Documenting the Complex Relationship Between Humans and Psychoactives."(9)
The next set of plant medicines I would like to discuss is the Ayahuasca/Yagé /Daime/Hoasca plant medicine family. All of these substances are more or less chemically the same. They contain a woody vine, usually called the Ayahuasca vine or banisteriopsis caapi, which contains an ingredient which makes it possible for humans to digest DMT , or dimethlytryptamine. (For more information about the associated chemistry, go to (10).) The other ingredient, the admixture plant, contains the DMT, and varies due to region. In Peru, and for the Santo Daime and the UDV, the admixture plant is chacrona; or psychotria viridis. (10) The Yagé brew uses another DMT-containing plant called chacropanga. These brews are made in extended prayer ceremonies, wth some cultural distinctions giving rise to the different branches of this particular spiritual family. However, the belief that the medicine is a holy sacrament is universal.
The historical use of these medicines goes back thousands of years. And, this discussion is going to have to wait for another time. I will pick it up here next week!
Sources:
(1) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/entheogen
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogen
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entheogenic/hallucinogenic_species
(4) http://nativeamericanchurches.org/native-american-church-first-nation-history/
(5) http://www.peyote.net/whatis.html#history
(6) ibid.
(7) ibid, from Stewart, Omer Call. Peyote Religion: a History. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1987. Print.
(8) http://nativeamericanchurches.org/native-american-church-first-nation-history/
(9) https://www.erowid.org/plants/peyote/peyote_law.shtml
(10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca
(11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Daime
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
"But You Can't Give Them Drugs...!" - Part One
This is to be one of the chapters in the book Medicine Children, having to do with the absolute hypocrisy of mainstream America hitting the panic button around children attending sacred indigenous ceremony with their parents and possibly taking a small amount of a naturally occurring plant-based (and yes psychoactive) substance that has been proven over generations to be safe and indeed helpful to the humans who use it (whew!), versus the current practice in this country of over-diagnosing and over-medicating SO many of our children with chemically produced drugs that have a plethora of harmful immediate side-effects and absolutely unknown long-term effects. Just starting to look at the research on this subject makes my brain spin. How can I tease this unwieldy and for me very emotional subject into a sane discourse? Is it even possible for me to present this information in a non-judgmental, rational, and hopefully 'bridge-building' fashion when I feel so deeply about it that I want to shake this country (and maybe the entire "civilized" world) by the shoulders and scream in its face, "STOP THIS INSANITY!", which obviously brings my point of view into the 'bridge-burning' category! However I know better - and so I will endeavor to reign it in and present my case.
You see, I WANT to connect the dots here. I want to be able to use my rational mind to develop my arguments in such a way that they cannot be written off as baseless rantings. Yet part of my difficulty in exploring this aspect of the book is the question of how much of this subject do I address? I don't want to be redundant, yet I would like to present enough information and reference material to prove to the average reader that there is evidence of truth in what I am writing; to make them curious enough to go to the references provided and look into it themselves; basically to make the case about the hypocrisy inherent in our cultural taboo towards psychoactive substances.
This issue is huge and many faceted, and is not isolated to just the United States, but is in fact a world-wide phenomena. There are hundreds of articles detailing the over-medication of children, the horrendous risks of very strong pharmaceuticals on developing bodies, and the risks of long-term addiction and other very serious side-effects. There are statistics available about the multi-billions of dollars being made by pharmaceutical companies, about incriminating lawsuits wherein these companies offered incentives (aka bribes) to physicians to prescribe their drug, and about docotrs receiving incentives to prescribe drugs on the basis of 'off-label' uses, despite the fact that this is illegal, a fact that is often ignored by both doctors and big pharma-companies. There is also evidence and information about the bias towards medicating welfare and foster children significantly more that other children.
Ok, now for some numbers. Today there are over seventeen million children worldwide who have been prescribed psychiatric drugs. Side effects of these medications include depression and suicide; hostility; violent, aggressive, and psychotic behavior; and heart attacks, strokes, and sudden death (1). Nearly eleven percent of American kids are labeled as ADHD - meaning about one in ten kids. Of these, about two-thirds are on some kind of prescription medication, which are Class Two narcotics, from which the short-term side effects may include permanent brain damage, stunted growth, cardio-toxicity and liver damage, changes in personality, hallucinations, paranoia, increased blood pressure, seizures, and cancer (2). The long term effects of these medications aren't even known. Yet six million US kids are taking these drugs!
To compound the issue, many claim that ADHD is not even a real disorder, as the diagnosis is based on very subjective evaluations, including teacher and parental reports. Beverly Eakman, who wrote Cloning of the American Mind, says, 'ADHD is a phenomenon, not a 'brain disease.' It may be that children are the 'canary in the coal mine' for this modern age - and that ADHD is in fact a collection of symptoms resulting from environmental toxins, dietary toxins, and allergies. Dr Mercola, a New York Times bestselling author and proponent of holistic health, suggests a list of alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs for emotional and behavioral challenges in children, including diet, exercise and exposure to sunlight (ie time out doors) (3). I recommend visiting http://articles.mercola.com/ for more detailed information.
This topic is certainly pushing my buttons. While researching today I learned that anti-psychotics and anti-depressants are being prescribed to children even younger than twelve months old. I learned that poor kids on welfare and foster children are prescribed pharmaceutical drugs four times more than other children. I learned that over one million children have been mis-diagnosed with ADHD. Here is an especially disturbing statistic:
"Today, children 5 years old and younger are the fastest-growing segment of the non-adult
population prescribed antidepressants in the U.S. Children as young as 4 have attempted suicide
while influenced by such drugs and 5 year olds have committed suicide." (4)
Appalling, isn't it? I suspect that putting such young children on drugs is done more for the sake of the parents than for the children in question. According to Beverly Eakman, "These drugs make children more manageable, not necessarily better. Because the diagnosis of ADHD is fraudulent, it doesn't matter whether a drug 'works.' Children are being forced to take a drug that is stronger than cocaine for a disease that is yet to be proven."(5)
So why am I bringing this up? First of all, I want to make it clear that I am not across-the-board anti-pharmaceutical drugs. I know they have a place and I do have experience when the use of such drugs has been helpful to people I personally know. I AM however against the indiscriminate labeling of children (PLEASE go to (6) for a wonderful treatment of this subject!) and against the general mindset of 'take a pill to fix your ill.'
In addition, I am horrified at the amount of drugs we as a culture are taking, and at the thought of what is happening to our water and to all life downstream as our unused and expired drugs as well as the un-metabolized portion of this chemical soup is flushed down our collective toilets into our water systems (7). I am upset at the fact that most prescription drugs are not curative in nature, and are not aimed at healing the underlying roots of whatever problem is manifesting, but aimed instead at treating or minimizing symptoms, sometimes at serious cost. The list of side-effects from various drugs, as detailed above and even worse than that, can make you wonder if the fix isn't worse than the problem! (For a very humorous look at this serious subject, please go to (8) ).
In a recent study by the Mayo Clinic in 2009, nearly seven out of ten Americans were prescribed at least one prescription drug, and many more than one. A whopping one out of four Americans will be given medication for a mental health issue such as depression or anxiety in any given year. (9) We are, in effect, teaching our children from the youngest age to take a pill to subdue or eliminate discomfort, whether it be a headache, or psychological pain, or itching, or for more serious reasons such as heart disease. As a culture we are not, in general, teaching them to look for the root causes of the symptoms and to address these root causes with behavioral or lifestyle changes. We are teaching them to just manage the symptoms - while at the same time teaching them an absolute intolerance towards discomfort. So, when they get to be adolescents, are we really surprised when they turn to recreational drugs, to binge drinking, or to even harder and more dangerous drugs (10) to help them deal?
(See also (11) for a great documentary on this subject, The Drugging of our Children, by Dr. Mercola)
(1) http://www.fightforkids.org/facts.php
(2) http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/05/adhd-glyphosate.aspx
(3) ibid.
(4) http://www.fightforkids.org/facts.php
(5) http://www.fightforkids.org/adhd_facts.php
(6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv49RFo1ckQ
(7) http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/drugs-in-the-water
(8) http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/s5vr7a/on-topic---colbert-case-files---side-effects-may-include---
(9) http://www.healthline.com/health-news/policy-seventy-percent-of-americans-take-prescription-drugs-062113#2
(10) http://www.teenvogue.com/my-life/2013-09/teen-heroin
(11) http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/20/drugging-children.aspx
You see, I WANT to connect the dots here. I want to be able to use my rational mind to develop my arguments in such a way that they cannot be written off as baseless rantings. Yet part of my difficulty in exploring this aspect of the book is the question of how much of this subject do I address? I don't want to be redundant, yet I would like to present enough information and reference material to prove to the average reader that there is evidence of truth in what I am writing; to make them curious enough to go to the references provided and look into it themselves; basically to make the case about the hypocrisy inherent in our cultural taboo towards psychoactive substances.
This issue is huge and many faceted, and is not isolated to just the United States, but is in fact a world-wide phenomena. There are hundreds of articles detailing the over-medication of children, the horrendous risks of very strong pharmaceuticals on developing bodies, and the risks of long-term addiction and other very serious side-effects. There are statistics available about the multi-billions of dollars being made by pharmaceutical companies, about incriminating lawsuits wherein these companies offered incentives (aka bribes) to physicians to prescribe their drug, and about docotrs receiving incentives to prescribe drugs on the basis of 'off-label' uses, despite the fact that this is illegal, a fact that is often ignored by both doctors and big pharma-companies. There is also evidence and information about the bias towards medicating welfare and foster children significantly more that other children.
Ok, now for some numbers. Today there are over seventeen million children worldwide who have been prescribed psychiatric drugs. Side effects of these medications include depression and suicide; hostility; violent, aggressive, and psychotic behavior; and heart attacks, strokes, and sudden death (1). Nearly eleven percent of American kids are labeled as ADHD - meaning about one in ten kids. Of these, about two-thirds are on some kind of prescription medication, which are Class Two narcotics, from which the short-term side effects may include permanent brain damage, stunted growth, cardio-toxicity and liver damage, changes in personality, hallucinations, paranoia, increased blood pressure, seizures, and cancer (2). The long term effects of these medications aren't even known. Yet six million US kids are taking these drugs!
To compound the issue, many claim that ADHD is not even a real disorder, as the diagnosis is based on very subjective evaluations, including teacher and parental reports. Beverly Eakman, who wrote Cloning of the American Mind, says, 'ADHD is a phenomenon, not a 'brain disease.' It may be that children are the 'canary in the coal mine' for this modern age - and that ADHD is in fact a collection of symptoms resulting from environmental toxins, dietary toxins, and allergies. Dr Mercola, a New York Times bestselling author and proponent of holistic health, suggests a list of alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs for emotional and behavioral challenges in children, including diet, exercise and exposure to sunlight (ie time out doors) (3). I recommend visiting http://articles.mercola.com/ for more detailed information.
This topic is certainly pushing my buttons. While researching today I learned that anti-psychotics and anti-depressants are being prescribed to children even younger than twelve months old. I learned that poor kids on welfare and foster children are prescribed pharmaceutical drugs four times more than other children. I learned that over one million children have been mis-diagnosed with ADHD. Here is an especially disturbing statistic:
"Today, children 5 years old and younger are the fastest-growing segment of the non-adult
population prescribed antidepressants in the U.S. Children as young as 4 have attempted suicide
while influenced by such drugs and 5 year olds have committed suicide." (4)
Appalling, isn't it? I suspect that putting such young children on drugs is done more for the sake of the parents than for the children in question. According to Beverly Eakman, "These drugs make children more manageable, not necessarily better. Because the diagnosis of ADHD is fraudulent, it doesn't matter whether a drug 'works.' Children are being forced to take a drug that is stronger than cocaine for a disease that is yet to be proven."(5)
So why am I bringing this up? First of all, I want to make it clear that I am not across-the-board anti-pharmaceutical drugs. I know they have a place and I do have experience when the use of such drugs has been helpful to people I personally know. I AM however against the indiscriminate labeling of children (PLEASE go to (6) for a wonderful treatment of this subject!) and against the general mindset of 'take a pill to fix your ill.'
In addition, I am horrified at the amount of drugs we as a culture are taking, and at the thought of what is happening to our water and to all life downstream as our unused and expired drugs as well as the un-metabolized portion of this chemical soup is flushed down our collective toilets into our water systems (7). I am upset at the fact that most prescription drugs are not curative in nature, and are not aimed at healing the underlying roots of whatever problem is manifesting, but aimed instead at treating or minimizing symptoms, sometimes at serious cost. The list of side-effects from various drugs, as detailed above and even worse than that, can make you wonder if the fix isn't worse than the problem! (For a very humorous look at this serious subject, please go to (8) ).
In a recent study by the Mayo Clinic in 2009, nearly seven out of ten Americans were prescribed at least one prescription drug, and many more than one. A whopping one out of four Americans will be given medication for a mental health issue such as depression or anxiety in any given year. (9) We are, in effect, teaching our children from the youngest age to take a pill to subdue or eliminate discomfort, whether it be a headache, or psychological pain, or itching, or for more serious reasons such as heart disease. As a culture we are not, in general, teaching them to look for the root causes of the symptoms and to address these root causes with behavioral or lifestyle changes. We are teaching them to just manage the symptoms - while at the same time teaching them an absolute intolerance towards discomfort. So, when they get to be adolescents, are we really surprised when they turn to recreational drugs, to binge drinking, or to even harder and more dangerous drugs (10) to help them deal?
(See also (11) for a great documentary on this subject, The Drugging of our Children, by Dr. Mercola)
(1) http://www.fightforkids.org/facts.php
(2) http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/05/adhd-glyphosate.aspx
(3) ibid.
(4) http://www.fightforkids.org/facts.php
(5) http://www.fightforkids.org/adhd_facts.php
(6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv49RFo1ckQ
(7) http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/drugs-in-the-water
(8) http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/s5vr7a/on-topic---colbert-case-files---side-effects-may-include---
(9) http://www.healthline.com/health-news/policy-seventy-percent-of-americans-take-prescription-drugs-062113#2
(10) http://www.teenvogue.com/my-life/2013-09/teen-heroin
(11) http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/20/drugging-children.aspx
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Foreward Part Two; Medicines v. Drugs
June 4, 2015
Still getting used to the idea that I can write about these matters so close to my heart and be heard. It feels good! The feedback so far has been wonderful; connections are starting to manifest. Thanks to all who reached out to me since Tuesday and for all the encouragement.
[And by the way, yes, I AM in the new Bob Weir movie - my 0.5 seconds of fame occur right after the one hour mark. (just had to get that out of the way...:)]
I have a bit more from the Forward, as I found my original notes last night:
I am a part of a circle of people who practice walking through life in a sacred way. We believe the Creator is alive in all things, and that everything has its own spirit which is a part of (and not separate from) this creation. We also believe that certain spirits are available on this Earth to help us, to teach us, to help us connect with the divine spirit of God, to instruct us, and to heal us, so that we can be more available to do the work of God here. Many of these spirits to which I refer are found in sacred plant medicines known since before the beginning of recorded history to various indigenous peoples. We in the Western culture have not grown up in these traditional ways, and in fact our culture has a deep fear, mistrust and unease around the concept of altering consciousness. Yet the wisdom and intelligence of these medicines are undeniably finding their way into our Western culture.
To the Western person who has heard the calling to participate in a relationship with these medicines - such as myself - what I have found on the one hand is profound healing, the clearing of generational dysfunctional patters, an expansion of my consciousness and ability to be more fully present, the evolution of my capacity to feel joy, a permanent and evolving lightening of my vibration, and a deeper connection to God. On the other hand I have found deep-seated fear, prejudice, judgment, misunderstanding, suspicion, and misinformation about these medicines. Because they have the power to alter our consciousness, they have been labeled psychoactive or psychedelic drugs, the use of which is a crime (a felony), as these labels classify these sacred medicines as Schedule One controlled substances, the same category as heroin and crack cocaine.
This is, simply put, a grievous error caused by ignorance.
(Some prefer the darker, more conspiratorial view, that this perspective is the result of a deliberate campaign of fear and misinformation designed to keep people from accessing the wisdom and transformation these medicines can engender. Only you can decide which perspective you believe.)
This prejudice and fear become even more pronounced when the subject turns to raising children in these indigenous ways. I once mentioned to an acquaintance that I had taken my daughter to a medicine ceremony, at her request, when she was thirteen. The reaction was extreme, and basically amounted to this person believing that what I had done was child abuse, that I was an unfit mother, and that I was lucky Child Protective Services did not take her away from me. The fear this subject brings up is real, and the danger to parents and families even more so. For me to have taken my children to indigenous plant medicine ceremonies and allowed them to take the medicine if they wanted to was for me to risk our very lives together. And yet this is my spiritual path, as it is for thousands upon thousands of others.
This book is intended to create a dialogue, to offer a different perspective, and to hopefully shed some light on the use of these sacred medicines in the context of families. May our children be medicine for us and for the world. May we always have the freedom to express our true spirituality. May it be so.
*******************************************************************************
Some helpful definitions (from http://www.merriam-webster.com):
Still getting used to the idea that I can write about these matters so close to my heart and be heard. It feels good! The feedback so far has been wonderful; connections are starting to manifest. Thanks to all who reached out to me since Tuesday and for all the encouragement.
[And by the way, yes, I AM in the new Bob Weir movie - my 0.5 seconds of fame occur right after the one hour mark. (just had to get that out of the way...:)]
I have a bit more from the Forward, as I found my original notes last night:
I am a part of a circle of people who practice walking through life in a sacred way. We believe the Creator is alive in all things, and that everything has its own spirit which is a part of (and not separate from) this creation. We also believe that certain spirits are available on this Earth to help us, to teach us, to help us connect with the divine spirit of God, to instruct us, and to heal us, so that we can be more available to do the work of God here. Many of these spirits to which I refer are found in sacred plant medicines known since before the beginning of recorded history to various indigenous peoples. We in the Western culture have not grown up in these traditional ways, and in fact our culture has a deep fear, mistrust and unease around the concept of altering consciousness. Yet the wisdom and intelligence of these medicines are undeniably finding their way into our Western culture.
To the Western person who has heard the calling to participate in a relationship with these medicines - such as myself - what I have found on the one hand is profound healing, the clearing of generational dysfunctional patters, an expansion of my consciousness and ability to be more fully present, the evolution of my capacity to feel joy, a permanent and evolving lightening of my vibration, and a deeper connection to God. On the other hand I have found deep-seated fear, prejudice, judgment, misunderstanding, suspicion, and misinformation about these medicines. Because they have the power to alter our consciousness, they have been labeled psychoactive or psychedelic drugs, the use of which is a crime (a felony), as these labels classify these sacred medicines as Schedule One controlled substances, the same category as heroin and crack cocaine.
This is, simply put, a grievous error caused by ignorance.
(Some prefer the darker, more conspiratorial view, that this perspective is the result of a deliberate campaign of fear and misinformation designed to keep people from accessing the wisdom and transformation these medicines can engender. Only you can decide which perspective you believe.)
This prejudice and fear become even more pronounced when the subject turns to raising children in these indigenous ways. I once mentioned to an acquaintance that I had taken my daughter to a medicine ceremony, at her request, when she was thirteen. The reaction was extreme, and basically amounted to this person believing that what I had done was child abuse, that I was an unfit mother, and that I was lucky Child Protective Services did not take her away from me. The fear this subject brings up is real, and the danger to parents and families even more so. For me to have taken my children to indigenous plant medicine ceremonies and allowed them to take the medicine if they wanted to was for me to risk our very lives together. And yet this is my spiritual path, as it is for thousands upon thousands of others.
This book is intended to create a dialogue, to offer a different perspective, and to hopefully shed some light on the use of these sacred medicines in the context of families. May our children be medicine for us and for the world. May we always have the freedom to express our true spirituality. May it be so.
*******************************************************************************
Some helpful definitions (from http://www.merriam-webster.com):
Medicine: 1. a substance or preparation used in treating disease; something that affects well-being
2. the science and art dealing with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease; the branch of medicine concerned with the nonsurgical treatment of disease, 3. a substance (as a drug or potion) used to treat something other than disease, 4. an object held in traditional American Indian belief to give control over natural or magical forces; also : magical power or a magical rite.
Drug: 1. a substance used as a medication or in the preparation of medication; according to the
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1) : a substance recognized in an official pharmacopoeia or formulary (2) : a substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease (3) : a substance other than food intended to affect the structure or function of the body (4) : a substance intended for use as a component of a medicine but not a device or a component, part, or accessory of a device , 2. a commodity that is not salable or for which there is no demand —used in the phrase drug on the market, 3. something and often an illegal substance that causes addiction, habituation, or a marked change in consciousness
1 My definitions
Medicine: Something you take to get better from what ails you, to consciously cure yourself. Using medicines requires effort. I also like Webster's "Something that affects well-being."
Drug: Something you take to escape, to numb, to get away from your self - from stress, from pain, from symptoms. Using drugs requires minimal effort, like taking a pill.
I think starting here with these definitions is important, because in this country we condone drug use on a regular basis - pharmaceutical drugs, that is. We also socially accept the use of alcohol, which is a drug and which alters consciousness, despite the overwhelming evidence of the harm and death it causes. People use the terms 'medicine' and 'drug' interchangeably: this is the medicine I need, please go to the drug store to get my prescription drugs, etc. I will have more information of a statistical nature in my next post, but I am sure most of us are familiar with the fact that American children are among the most highly medicated (ie. drugged) children in the world. How can we as a country justify this nation-wide pandemic while at the same time condemning and outlawing the use of naturally occurring plant medicines among conscious, spiritually-oriented people and their families?
I also think it worth mentioning, under Webster's 3rd definition of medicine: (a medicine is) "a substance (as a drug or potion) used to treat something other than disease." The sacred indigenous plant medicines do just that. They treat the soul; they help the ego to dissolve, illuminating the oneness beneath the illusion of separation. They connect us to the essence, to the sacred, allowing what is not that to fall away. They help us to be better: better people, better parents, better children. What a gift.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)