After class I was reflecting on my conversation with this one shaman
from the Andes who recently moved to California. He gave a lecture I
attended one day, but then I continued to ask him some questions after
it ended. One plant he helped people work with was Ayuhuasca - a
powerful hallucinogenic plant. This reminded me of Jacob's comment of
playing with fire. I heard numerous stories from people there and prior
to this, that one day of working with this plant has completely cured
illnesses that no Western-trained doctor could cure - however, this
usually involved strings of powerful hallucinations, convulsing, and
vomiting. Not having a well-trained guide with someone might lead to
only bad results. Its not something that even well-trained people will
try with too much regularity. Only if used carefully and respectfully,
can one really get the strong positive results.
One
other interesting comment he made - that maybe far fewer people would
accept - was that there was some almost global relationship humanity had
with plants. He said that different plants all had special kinds of
vibrations. These vibrations were what helped put certain types of
illnesses back in order with people - effectively retuning us back into
the orchestra. He said that a person could have an individual
relationship with a plant type, but there was also a subtle linking of a
species throughout the world. He added that the way people use a plant
effected this overall relationship effectiveness around the world.
Therefore, he said, people have ravaged the medicinal capability of a
plant like marijuana. Too many people use it without ceremony in plain
recreational ways. It passed a sort of global threshold to where a
formerly essential medicinal herb was, according to him, no longer of
much use.
--- I've heard some different reasons for not taking
drugs and alcohol. But this one was rather unique: Don't use this
recreationally, because you take away from other people's opportunity to
use it as medicine when they need it.
my oh my - with all the centuries-long beer drinking throughout the world, those poor hops! :P
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