tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35447999874999956382024-02-20T12:42:23.351-08:00Singing to the PlantsShamanism and the Medicine PathUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger232125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-11603891228624807832009-08-09T04:48:00.000-07:002009-08-09T05:16:02.124-07:00RSS Feeds<br /><img style="float:right; margin: 10px 20px 10px 20px; width: 128px; height: 128px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sn68ydGT9rI/AAAAAAAAB9o/btq44R1Je14/s400/icon_rss_large.png" border="0" alt="" />This is an important message for all the people who have subscribed to the Singing to the Plants blog via RSS or Atom feed. <br /><br />As you know, the blog has now moved to a new website at <a href="http://www.singingtotheplants.com/">http://www.singingtotheplants.com/</a>. If you want to skip the main website page and go right to the blog, just point your browser at <a href="http://www.singingtotheplants.com/blog/">http://www.singingtotheplants.com/blog/</a>. If you go to the old blog, you will automatically be redirected to the new site, where the blog contains all of the posts of the old blog.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">If you want to continue to receive RSS feeds of the blog posts</span>, just go to <a href="http://www.singingtotheplants.com/blog/">the new blog page</a>, click on the RSS link in the upper right corner, and then click on the name of your news reader. That's all there is to it.<br /><br />If you want to subscribe manually, the feed URL is <a href="http://www.singingtotheplants.com/feed/">http://www.singingtotheplants.com/feed/</a>.<br /><br />Thank you for subscribing! I am looking forward to continuing our conversation on shamanism and the medicine path.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-63304065179965457122009-07-16T07:40:00.000-07:002009-07-16T08:39:57.358-07:00The Website Has Moved<br /><img style="float:right; margin: 0px 20px 10px 20px; width: 125px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sl8_t9Eb_wI/AAAAAAAAB9g/biaNfUQLO50/s320/Steve+11.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><span style="font-style:italic;">Singing to the Plants</span> has a new website!<br /><br />Please head on over to <a href="http://www.singingtotheplants.com">the new website</a> to read all about my new book, <span style="font-style:italic;">Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon</span>. Read a free excerpt! <br /><br />If you want to jump right to the blog, just direct your browser <a href="http://www.singingtotheplants.com/blog/">here</a>. The entire blog has been ported over to the new site, including all the more recent comments.<br /><br />Please let me know how you like the new website, and, as always, feel free to leave lots of comments on the blog posts.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-82198079676208264602009-05-25T05:16:00.000-07:002009-05-25T05:18:11.657-07:00Sacred Justice, Part 1<br />We live in a culture that is <em>hierarchical</em> — that is, in which people have power over other people. We accept this as being normal and natural, as if there were no other way to live. We create spaces — classrooms, offices, courtrooms — that express this hierarchy architecturally. But there are consequences to this way of living that are worth examining.<br /><br />Hierarchy is essentially unstable. In our culture, people with power over other people seek to maintain this power primarily by using punishment and the threat of punishment. This punishment can take many forms — as many forms as there are ways people can harm other people. We assert and maintain hierarchical relations by public shaming, verbal abuse, physical injury, intimidation, reduction in status, and denying basic social goods, such as education, employment, the right to vote, and liberty. We swim in a punitive ocean without even realizing it is there. We do not realize the extent to which we think in terms of punishment in our workplaces, our schools, our justice system, and our relationships with our children. We think that punishing people is normal.<br /><br />In addition, power relationships are constantly being negotiated. We think that negotiation is a fair way to decide issues of power. That means that we view relationships with other people in <em>transactional</em> terms. When people are in apparent conflict with each other, we expect them to handle it transactionally — to negotiate, bargain, compromise. This is reflected in one of the key strategies of our criminal justice system — the plea bargain. We are constantly seeking to craft outcomes rather than deepen relationships.<br /><br />Then we wonder why these fixes are so temporary. We see our solutions discarded, our carefully negotiated agreements abandoned in cycles of violence. We try to force people to behave, and then we are bewildered when they do not. The result is a culture in which people are oppressed by the power that others have over them — a culture in which we all oppress each other, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.<br /><br />The punitive foundations of our culture, like most cultural foundations, are expressed in myth. In our case, the foundation myth is what theologian Walter Wink has called the <em>myth of redemptive violence</em> — believing that a harm can be made right by humiliating or physically harming the offender, that violence is a necessary and appropriate response, even that such violence is <em>healing</em> for the victim. It is normative in our society to seek vengeance for a harm done to us. Anyone brought up in our culture has seen thousands of hours of movies and television in which the schoolyard bully is finally beaten and humiliated by his victim, or the ruthless outlaw is shot dead by the gentle sheriff. The schoolyard victim and gentle sheriff are empowered and healed by this response, and often given a sexual reward for their violence. We are all constantly tempted to reenact this mythology.<br /><br />When a harm has been done in a punitive culture such as ours, founded on the myth of redemptive violence, there are, I think, four consequences.<br /><br />First, it is completely rational for the person who has done the harm to try to evade responsibility for it — to lie, hide, deny, and blame others. What is the point of being accountable, if all that you get for it is punishment? What is the point of accepting responsibility for a harm you have done, if your own needs — to apologize, to make things right, to repair broken relationships — are not going to be met?<br /><br />Second, a punitive system focuses on the past at the expense of the future. A punitive system is obsessed with the fact component of stories — who did what to whom in what sequence — because it is looking to single out the blameworthy participant for punishment. This means that a punitive system ignores the other components in the stories of the participants — how they feel, what they need. The system thus leaves all the participant with their stories untold, and their primary, most basic need — the need to be heard — unfulfilled. Moreover, the emphasis on punishment for the acts of the past means that the system largely ignores how to go forward into the future, how to make things right, and how to repair and restore broken bonds of trust in the community. <br /> <br />Third, a punitive system imposes a kind of Manichaeism — a belief that the world consists of two powers, good and evil, light and dark, easily distinguished, in constant battle. This Manichaean mythology pervades our criminal justice system and most of our thinking. We worry about the facts because we believe the facts will show us how to apportion blame. When people are in conflict, we attempt to punctuate their ongoing relationship, and thus determine who is the one to be punished.We feel compelled to distinguish bad guys from good guys, because only in this way can we make sure that bad guys get what they deserve. And, if we fail at punctuating the interaction, we often throw up our hands and punish both. <br /> <br />Fourth, our culture views punishment in transactional terms. The very terms we use — giving people what they <em>deserve</em> — embodies a transactional view. Being punished for having harmed someone is very much like a business transaction. The punishment is frequently negotiated. For example, punishment may be lessened in exchange for an admission or an apology — often a meaningless apology, with no intent to repair the harm or make things right. The transactional nature of punishment is also captured in the saying, <em>Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time</em>. Think about the converse: If you can do the time, then hell, you might as well do the crime. <br /><br />This means that the decision to harm another person is reduced to a calculus that does not involve the other person at all — only the harmer and the justice system. This means, too, that someone who has harmed another person is not put face-to-face with the harm that has been done — the physical injury, the fear, the loss of safety, the inconvenience suffered by the person harmed. The harmer does not have to deal with the person harmed at all. The harmer is involved only in negotiating with the justice system for the best possible deal. <br /><br />This is our current culture of punitive justice. But there is an alternative — a culture of <em>sacred</em> justice, which focuses on repair, restoration, and healing. We will discuss this in Part 2.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-24073599791281561702009-03-31T04:23:00.000-07:002009-03-31T04:35:46.843-07:00Jungle Survival Tips: Wounds<br />Someone carelessly tossed a machete in the bottom of the boat, your barefoot friend stepped on it, and now he has a laceration that is bleeding all over the place. Do not panic. Here are the steps to take.<br /><br /><em><strong>Step 1. Protect yourself.</strong></em> The first step in wound care is to protect yourself from blood-borne pathogens, including HIV and Hepatitis B.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 158px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc-oHfqZ7_I/AAAAAAAAB8Q/k09jddsoCeQ/s200/wounds-foot.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Bare foot meets carelessly tossed machete</center></td> </tr></table><p /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> <em>Always assume that all body substances are infectious.</em><br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Wash your hands before and after any wound contact, either with soap and water or — even better — an alcohol gel, such as those made by Purell or Lysol.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Carry some exam gloves in your medical kit, and put them on for any anticipated contact with nonintact skin, blood, body fluids, mucous membranes, or contaminated items. Wash your hands immediately after you remove the gloves.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Protect your own mucous membranes — eyes, nose, and mouth — from blood splash. Tie a bandana around your face, and put on your glasses.<br /><br /><em><strong>Step 2. Stop the bleeding.</strong></em> The second step in wound care is to stop further blood loss. Apart from an obstructed airway, nothing else matters until the flow of blood is stopped.<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 152px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc-qrQvn0HI/AAAAAAAAB8Y/JhdOvAc0p-U/s200/wounds-pressure.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Apply direct pressure on the wound to stop bleeding</center></td></tr></table><p /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> In almost every case — even in amputations — bleeding can be stopped by elevating the wound above the level of the heart and applying strong direct pressure for about ten to fifteen minutes. Blood is slippery, so use a piece of gauze, preferably sterile, or even a clean bandana if that is all you have; a Kotex pad tossed in your medical kit is ideal for this purpose. Put your thumb or fingers or your whole palm over the wound and press down hard; alert and cooperative patients can do this themselves. If the gauze gets soaked with blood, do not remove it, but add more gauze.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> <em>Do not use a tourniquet.</em> Tourniquets kill limbs. There may be occasions when a tourniquet is necessary, such as massive shrapnel wounds, but using a tourniquet is a deliberate decision to sacrifice a limb in order to save a life.<br /><br /><em><strong>Step 3. Clean the wound.</strong></em> The third step in wound care — especially in the jungle — is to make sure the wound is as clean as you can possibly make it.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc-tCBF2FsI/AAAAAAAAB8g/ayzDX9yFk0k/s200/wounds-irrigation.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Clean the wound with an irrigation syringe ...</center></td> </tr></table><p /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Remove any existing bandages or wound closure strips.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Clean the skin <em>around</em> the wound with soap and water or a topical antiseptic such as povidone iodine. Scrub gently with a sterile gauze pad. The idea is to remove any dirt that might seed the wound with bacteria. Avoid getting soap or antiseptic in the wound itself. Scrub in a spiral pattern away from the wound rather than toward it.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Allow the wound to open naturally. If necessary, spread the wound edges apart using a pair of sterile forceps.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> If the wound has become infected, pus has probably collected in pockets, so gently probe the deeper parts of the wound with a sterile instrument to make sure that all such pockets are drained.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Irrigate the wound copiously with a <em>high-pressure</em> stream of <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/03/jungle-survival-101-clean-water.html"><em>purified</em> water</a> to remove clotted blood, pus, debris, and other contaminants. Use an irrigation syringe and splash shield; in an emergency, you can use any sort of clean plastic bag with a pinhole punched in it, or melt a pinhole in the top of a standard water bottle, but protect yourself from blood splash.<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 124px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc-tCGFz1DI/AAAAAAAAB8o/9ia9WwOX7UU/s200/wounds-shield.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>... preferably one with a splash shield</center></td></tr></table><p /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> The primary medium for infection within a wound is dead tissue. Dead tissue is basically meat. It has no blood supply; white cells and antibodies have difficulty penetrating it; and thus it is a good culture medium for bacteria and fungi. You can identify living tissue because it is reddish, elastic, and bleeds when you poke it; dead tissue is dark, mushy, and does not bleed. Look for dead tissue in the wound. If any remains after high-pressure irrigation, then — unless a relatively brief evacuation is imminent — it must be removed or <em>debrided</em>. In a wilderness emergency situation, your best bet is to scrub the wound with sterile sponges, sterile dressings, or sterile pieces of cotton. Rough cloth works better than smooth cloth. Scrub with firmness. It will hurt. Your friend will use very bad language. The wound will bleed again, since clots will have been knocked off, but the bleeding can readily be stopped by direct pressure with a sterile dressing.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Always follow any debridement with additional high-pressure irrigation. The wound should be clean and pink.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 129px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc-1TRUozhI/AAAAAAAAB9A/TP9i_H-9j7M/s200/wounds-debrided.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="129"><center>A cleaned and debrided wound</center></td></tr></table><p /><em><strong>Step 4. Protect the wound.</strong></em> Once the wound is cleaned of dirt, debris, pus, and dead tissue, the fourth step is to dress the wound to provide a healing environment and prevent further contamination.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> A <em>dressing</em> is any material applied to a wound to control bleeding and prevent contamination; a <em>bandage</em> is any material used to hold a dressing in place. Think about dressings and bandages in layers. Immediately next to the skin should be a nonadherent base — Telfa, Second Skin, Xeroform, a piece of sterile gauze impregnated with petroleum jelly — that will not stick to the wound. Above that should be a gauze sponge to absorb wound discharge. Those two layers should be held in place by bandaging material that either sticks to itself or is attached to the skin with adhesive tape.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Dressings and bandages are often sold as a combined adhesive wound covering. A simple Band-Aid is a good example — neat, versatile, and sterile.<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc-tCQMTFCI/AAAAAAAAB8w/ieAL4uXoCg8/s200/wounds-dressing.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Apply a dressing ...</center></td></tr></table><p /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> If you were not in the middle of the jungle, it might make sense to use butterfly strips or Dermabond tissue adhesive to bring the edges of the wound together and minimize scarring. But closing the edges of a wound can create a deep dark warm pocket in which bacteria can grow and form an abscess. At this point, avoiding an abscess should be a higher priority than minimizing a scar.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> A goal of the dressing is to keep the wound moist and create an environment that encourages healing. Current nonadherent dressing materials — including sterile gauze impregnated with petroleum jelly — are designed to provide such an environment. You can also apply a thin layer of antibiotic ointment, which helps keep the wound moist, and may — or may not — provide some additional protection from infection. Bear in mind that no amount of antibiotic ointment can compensate for inadequate wound cleaning.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Antibiotic ointments designed for wound care usually combine antibiotics effective against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The antibiotic bacitracin targets gram-positive bacteria; neomycin and polymyxin target gram-negative bacteria. Triple antibiotic ointments — brand names include Neosporin and Mycitracin — contain all three. However, some people have allergic skin reactions to neomycin, so some antibiotic ointments, such as Polysporin, contain just bacitracin and polymyxin, which provide the same coverage. Some antibiotic ointments add the topical analgesic pramocaine. Check the ingredients before you buy.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 134px;;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc-tCbisQ1I/AAAAAAAAB84/m_zoyVoFnp8/s200/wounds-bandage.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>... and bandage</center></td></tr></table><p /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> If you are applying a dressing with a separate bandage, try to avoid wrapping the bandage or adhesive tape completely around a limb. It can obstruct circulation, like a tourniquet, as the limb swells. If you must wrap a limb, monitor the distal pulses and check frequently for bluish color, tingling, or loss of sensation.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Movement may cause bleeding to recur, so severely injured limbs should be immobilized before evacuation. Elevation of an infected wound can reduce swelling and pain.<br /><br /><em><strong>Step 5. Watch the wound.</strong></em> The fifth step in wound care is to change the dressing periodically and examine the wound carefully.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Be alert for <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/03/jungle-survival-tips-infections.html">signs of infection</a>.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Infected wounds should be drained and washed, as described above, two or three times a day.<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Infected wounds benefit from warm compresses for 15 to 20 minutes several times a day. The warmth causes the blood vessels to dilate, increases blood flow to the area, helps the body fight the infection, and loosens clots, scabs, dried serum, and pus. For an injury to a finger or toe, it is possible to immerse the wound in warm, sterile water to which an antiseptic such as povidone iodine has been added. You can make a hot compress by bringing a piece of cloth to a boil in water to make it hot and sterile, then wringing it out, folding it, and placing it against the wound.<br /><br /><em><strong>Step 6. Consider evacuation.</strong></em> Once you have done everything you can to clean and protect the wound, the sixth step in wound care is to consider whether the wound is beyond your skill and requires evacuation to definitive care. Seriously consider evacuation in cases of<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Severe animal bites, especially from potentially rabid animals<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Deep puncture wounds, dirty wounds with embedded foreign material, and wounds that contain crushed, shredded, or ragged tissue, where there is high risk of infection<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Wounds involving joints, severed tendons, or fractures<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Infected wounds that do not respond promptly to treatment<br /><br /><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/%E2%98%91.svg/200px-%E2%98%91.svg.png" alt="" width=14 height=14 /> Severe blood loss<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-61692876720162444082009-03-27T11:11:00.001-07:002009-03-27T13:35:55.582-07:00Bioneers<br />In 1985, at Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo — at that time called San Juan Pueblo — in New Mexico, a young filmmaker named <a href="http://www.bioneers.org/ausubel">Kenny Ausubel</a> watched a Native American farmer take some bright red corn seeds from a little clay pot that had been embedded in the mud wall of his adobe home. This was the sacred red corn of the Pueblo, which no one had grown in forty years. The old farmer planted the sacred seeds, renewing an ancient contract between the people and the earth. For Ausubel, the moment was revelatory.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 190px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc0H9kpcCCI/AAAAAAAAB8A/QoSVcppDFfg/s200/Bioneers1.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="190"><center>Bioneers founders Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons</center></td></tr></table><p />Ausubel went on to form an organization named <a href="http://www.seedsofchange.com/">Seeds of Change</a>, devoted to conserving the world's indigenous agricultural heritage by offering heirloom seeds to backyard organic gardeners. Along with his wife Nina Simons, he also initiated the annual <a href="http://www.bioneers.org/">Bioneers Conference</a> and its parent organization, the Collective Heritage Institute. <br /><br />The term <em>bioneer</em> is intended to indicate a biological pioneer — one who sees the solutions to contemporary global problems not in technology but in a biological model of interconnectedness, in what Ausubel calls <em>true</em> biotechnologies, based on biomimicry, natural design, and the restoration of natural capital. <br /><br />Bioneers states several interconnecting goals for its annual conferences — to cultivate and disseminate environmental solutions to national and global audiences; to inspire and equip people toward effective action; to develop and spread model economic strategies for ecological agriculture, environmental restoration, and community self-reliance; to strengthen traditional, indigenous, and restorative farming practices; to revitalize our cultural and spiritual connection with the natural world. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc0KIYUpvAI/AAAAAAAAB8I/IOhF5wF_37g/s1600-h/Bioneers2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 197px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sc0KIYUpvAI/AAAAAAAAB8I/IOhF5wF_37g/s200/Bioneers2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317917874078727170" /></a>And, in fact, the conference has over the years brought together a remarkable array of visionary activists, organizers, and speakers on such topics as restoration, ecology, bioremediation, alternative health, indigenous land practices, green medicine, natural capitalism, relation to place — and the role of sacred and psychoactive plants in world renewal. <br /><br />The Bioneers propose that there is a profound intelligence in nature, and that, in our present moment of predicament and opportunity, we must learn and follow that intelligence. It is in this context that speakers at the Bioneers conferences have addressed the issue of sacred plants and fungi, and their role as guides both to the reality of the natural world and to the ways in which we can learn to live in harmony with it. <br /><br />Fourteen of these presentations, taken from conferences held between 1990 and 2004, have been collected in the book <a href=" http://www.amazon.com/Visionary-Plant-Consciousness-Shamanic-Teachings/dp/1594771472/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237607304&sr=1-2"><em>Visionary Plant Consciousness: The Shamanic Teachings of the Plant World</em></a>. In the book, twenty-three leading ethnobotanists, anthropologists, artists, and medical researchers — people such as Terence McKenna, Wade Davis, Alex Grey, Kat Harrison, Paul Stamets, and Luis Eduardo Luna — present their understandings of the nature of psychoactive plants and their significant connection to humans. <br /><br />The Bioneers conference is traditionally held in San Rafael, California, in the Fall — the 2009 conference will run from October 16 to18 — and is also carried by satellite feed to other locations. Here is an example — environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and best-selling author Paul Hawken, introduced by Kenny Ausubel, addressing the final plenary session of the 2007 Bioneers conference:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=4933599829717860857&hl=en&fs=true" style="width: 291px; height: 245px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed> </div><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-14712897393337071472009-03-26T10:20:00.001-07:002009-04-22T08:37:31.659-07:00Eagle Feathers<br />According to several recent news reports — <a href=" http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/03/26/jodirave/rave61.txt">here</a>, <a href="http://buffalopost.net/?p=1031">here</a>, <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/federal_sting_leads_to_4_arres.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=992&Itemid=118">here</a> — the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently conducting a large-scale undercover investigation targeting people who are illegally buying, selling, or receiving bald and golden eagle feathers. <br /> <br />On March 12, federal agents arrested four men — three from Washington and one from Oklahoma — for killing eagles and selling their feathers. One of the men, Reginald Dale Akeen, an enrolled Kiowa, is <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/man_indicted_in_sale_of_golden.html">accused</a> of traveling the powwow circuit under the name of J. J. Lonelodge and selling illegally obtained feathers to dance competitors for use in their regalia. <br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style=";width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Scu2hn-rcpI/AAAAAAAAB74/-xtV0-fBjGQ/s200/eagle+feather+golden+eagle.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Golden eagle</center></td></tr></table><p />While the arrests in Washington and Oklahoma were of Native Americans, the undercover sting operation is apparently more expansive, with agents operating in sixteen states, and targeting both Native and non-Native Americans. Reports of additional arrests and confiscations have been reported on blogs <a href="http://willowjack.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/eagle-feather-concerns/">here</a> and <a href="http://natube.magnify.net/messages/view/V35SCK0J86J0JC53/Feather-Busts">here</a>, including the alleged arrest of well-known Diné fan maker <a href="http://www.ceremonialart.biz/index.htm">Patrick Scott</a>.<br /><br />There are a number of federal laws addressing the protection of eagles — the <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/usc_sup_01_16_10_53.html">Lacey Act</a>, the <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/usc_sup_01_16_10_7_20_II.html">Migratory Bird Treaty Act</a>, the <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/usc_sup_01_16_10_35.html">Endangered Species Act</a>, and the <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/16/usc_sup_01_16_10_5A_20_II.html">Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act</a>. The federal agency charged with this protection is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and its regulations governing the religious use of eagle feathers by Native Americans are found at <a href="http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=bf7ad918c63b64c9e98f573e355c3814&rgn=div8&view=text&node=50:6.0.1.1.5.3.1.2&idno=50">50 CFR § 22.22</a>. <br /><br />Under these regulations, you can legally possess an eagle feather only if you are "an Indian who is authorized to participate in bona fide tribal religious ceremonies" and have received a government-issued eagle permit. To be an Indian you must have the appropriate Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood, and you must be an enrolled member of one of the 562 entities officially recognized by and eligible to receive services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs.<br /><br />Those convicted of possessing eagle feathers without the appropriate permit face imprisonment and fines — as much as two years in prison and a $250,000 fine for a second offense, which is a felony. <br /><br />The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maintains tight control over eagles and eagle feathers. The agency has established a <a href="http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/law/eagle/">National Eagle Repository</a> at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in Denver, Colorado, to provide Native Americans with the feathers of golden and bald eagles needed for religious purposes. The repository serves as a collection point for dead eagles, most salvaged by state and federal wildlife personnel, and most either killed by electrocution, vehicle collisions, or illegal shooting and trapping, or dead from natural causes. <br /><br />Under the current law, the repository is the only legal source of bald and golden eagle body parts. In order to get an eagle feather legally, you must first obtain an eagle permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service, authorizing you to receive and possess the feather from the repository for religious purposes. Then you have to apply to the repository for the feather. There is currently about a three-and-a-half-year waiting list. More than 5,000 people are standing in line for the approximately 1,000 eagles the repository receives each year. <br /><br />These rules can have surprising consequences. <br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 164px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/ScuyhHa4rrI/AAAAAAAAB7o/5pvQKg9TMnc/s200/eagle+feather+dancer.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="164"><center>Dancer with eagle feather bustle</center></td></tr></table><p />Robert Soto — see <a href="http://nativenews.blogspot.com/2006/04/letter-from-robert-soto-lipan-apache.html">here</a>, <a href="http://www.manataka.org/page1866.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://sontree.org/fs/AIV.htm">here</a> — is a holy man of the Lipan Apache. In 2006, during the giveaway ceremony at a powwow in Texas, his eagle feathers were confiscated by an agent of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Soto did not have a permit for the feathers, and he could not get one if he tried. The Lipan Apache are not recognized as a Native American tribe by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.<br /><br />The rules also make it illegal for anyone — including enrolled members of federally recognized tribes — to possess an eagle feather that has simply fallen on the ground from a live eagle. The rules make it illegal to trade or barter feathers. The rules make it illegal for a Native American to give an eagle feather, as a sign of honor or respect, to a non-Native American, or to a Native American who is not an enrolled member of a federally recognized tribe, or to an enrolled tribal member who does not have a permit. It is illegal for a Native American to give an eagle feather to a non-Native spouse. <br /><br />And, in some cases, as among the <a href="http://www.animallaw.info/cases/causfd2008wl1971504.htm">Northern Arapaho</a> of Wyoming, feathers from an eagle killed by an automobile, for example, or by flying into power lines, or by poison, are not considered pure, and cannot be used in the Sun Dance. Instead, the feathers must be from an eagle acquired personally by the sponsor, as a gift of the Creator. The current rules make that impossible.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 125px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Scuv2prwJlI/AAAAAAAAB7I/Lsun53DUCPQ/s200/eagle+feather+repository.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>The National Eagle Repository</center></td></tr></table><p />Clearly there are a number of competing ethical and constitutional values at work here. Although the bald eagle was <a href="http://www.fws.gov/news/NewsReleases/showNews.cfm?newsId=72A15E1E-F69D-06E2-5C7B052DB01FD002">removed from the endangered species list</a> in 2007, there is every reason to continue to protect eagles and other raptors from poaching. There are good reasons, too, to try to curtail the appropriation of indigenous ceremonies by outsiders to the tradition. That is why many people believe that, after centuries of genocide and marginalization, only enrolled tribal members should be allowed to possess eagle feathers. <br /><br />Moreover, under both the <a href="http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00001996----000-.html">American Indian Religious Freedom Act</a> and the <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/usc_sup_01_42_10_21B.html">Religious Freedom Restoration Act</a>, there is every reason to accommodate Native American religious use of eagles and eagle feathers. At the same time, there are legitimate questions raised by restricting that accommodation to a group defined first in racial terms and then by a quintessentially political act of regulatory legitimation.<br /><br />Courts have differed on whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires the government to open the application process for eagle feathers to Native Americans who are members of tribes that lack federal recognition. Two cases illustrate this conflict. In both, the government argued that it had a compelling interest in preserving the eagle population, and that limiting eagle permits to enrolled members of federally recognized tribes met that goal with the least possible impact on Native American religious practices. <br /><br />In <a href="http://www.animallaw.info/cases/caus2002wl1790584.htm"><em>U.S. v. Hartman</em></a> (2002), the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that the government had not presented sufficient evidence to show that expanding the permit system to a member of the federally unrecognized Chiricahua Apache would threaten the eagle population. In fact, the court said, expanding the pool of applicants while the number of permits issued remained constant would at worst add to the delay to applicants, with no effect on eagles. <br /><br />On the other hand, in <a href="http://www.animallaw.info/cases/causfd318f3d919.htm"><em>U.S. v. Antoine</em></a> (2003), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not require the government to grant an eagle permit to a member of the federally unrecognized Cowichan Band of the Salish Indian Tribe in British Columbia. "RFRA requires least restrictive means to avoid substantial burdens on religion," the court stated. <br /><br /><blockquote>But, in this case, the burden on religion is inescapable; the only question is whom to burden and how much. Both member and nonmember Indians seek to use eagles for religious purposes. The government must decide whether to distribute eagles narrowly and thus burden nonmembers, or distribute them broadly and exacerbate the extreme delays already faced by members. Religion weighs on both sides of the scale. The precise burdens depend on how many nonmember applicants there would be, but not in any illuminating way: Fewer nonmember applicants means shorter additional delays for each member if the restrictions are removed, but also fewer people burdened if they are left in place.</blockquote><p /><br />Given this uncertainty regarding Native Americans who are acknowledged members of historical tribes that lack federal recognition, it appears unlikely that the permitting process will be opened any time soon to applicants who are not Native Americans at all. <br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 76px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Scu0sdQaCDI/AAAAAAAAB7w/lLgKMztWlSM/s200/eagle+feather+fan.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Nez Perce beaded eagle feather fan</center></td></tr></table><p />One organization, <a href="http://www.geocities.com/religiousfreedomwithraptors/New.Eagle.Feather.Law.html">Religious Freedom with Raptors</a>, has proposed replacing the tribal enrollment requirement with a Certificate of Religious Participation endorsed by a tribal member or spiritual leader. Requiring such a certificate, the organization argues, would ensure that only approved participants in bona fide Native American customs are eligible to receive eagle permits, and would allow for direct oversight of eagle feathers to ensure that feathers and ceremonies are not abused. The certificate would thus give legal protection to Native Americans who wish to include others of their choosing in traditional customs involving eagle feathers. <br /><br />But the organization does not address a further issue. If enrolled tribal members are willing to poach eagle feathers and sell them for money, as is alleged of Reginald Dale Akeen, an enrolled Kiowa, there seems to be little to stand in the way of enrolled tribal members selling Certificates of Religious Participation to outsiders for money as well. While this may reduce poaching — at least for those non-Native Americans actually willing to stand in line for years to get a legal feather — it will, as the Ninth Circuit pointed out, just make the line longer, and increase the wait for everyone.<br /><br />I would like to think that there is a fair solution to these issues, but I sure don't know what it is.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-12585733193355113972009-03-25T06:08:00.001-07:002009-03-25T12:41:54.889-07:00The Last Man<br />On March 25, 1916, a man of unknown name died of tuberculosis in California. He was known as Ishi, but that was not his real name, which no one knows; the word <em>ishi</em> means <em>man</em> in the Yahi language. <br /><br />Ishi was the last surviving Yahi. His people had been destroyed by mining silt that poisoned their salmon streams, livestock that competed for grazing with deer, epidemics of alien diseases. His people had been hunted down and killed by white ranchers.<br /><br />In the early 1860s, the Yahi started to steal cattle in order to survive. The cattle ranchers responded by slaughtering Yahi, who were apparently less important than cows. The Three Knolls Massacre in 1865 left only thirty members of the people alive. The ranchers used dogs to find the survivors, and killed another fifteen. The remainder fled into the hills, where they hid for more than forty years. By 1911, the man known as Ishi was the only one left. The whole story is <a href="http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/03/dayintech_0325">here</a>. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/ScorvYY6iOI/AAAAAAAAB7A/tmvZiyS_yMU/s1600-h/Ishi.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 153px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/ScorvYY6iOI/AAAAAAAAB7A/tmvZiyS_yMU/s200/Ishi.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317110403065088226" /></a>Ishi was caught, apparently trying to steal food, in Oroville, California, and came to the attention of two anthropologists, Alfred Kroeber and Thomas Waterman, who arranged for him to live at the new University of California museum of anthropology in San Francisco. Ishi survived by working as an assistant at the museum, demonstrating the living skills of the Yahi, identifying the Yahi artifacts that had been taken from his people. Spectators paid money to see him make arrowheads.<br /><br />Kroeber's wife, Theodora, later wrote two popular books about Ishi, which are still in print. Their daughter, Ursula Le Guin, is a respected science fiction writer, whose work constitutes a sort of speculative anthropology of culture contact. In her novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Always-Coming-Home-California-Fiction/dp/0520227352/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237984939&sr=1-1"><em>Always Coming Home</em></a>, for example, she describes the culture of the Kesh, inhabitants of the Napa Valley in California long after some unnamed catastrophe has sunk the cities of the coast. The book is a collage of autobiography, verse, tales, reports, drawings, music, and even the recipes of a minutely constructed egalitarian matriarchal culture that had — much like Ishi — survived contact with a group of hierarchical and murderous outsiders.<br /><br />When Ishi died, the museum staff apparently tried to give him a traditional Yahi funeral. They cremated him along with bow and arrows, acorn meal, shell beads, tobacco, jewelry, and obsidian flakes. <br /><br />But there was one last Yahi artifact to be plundered. Someone took Ishi's brain, presumably so that it might be studied someday, like a Yahi basket. The brain then disappeared. <br /> <br />Under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a group of Maidu Indians from the Sierra Nevada region sought to reclaim Ishi's ashes and bury them in his tribal homeland near Mt. Lassen. Duke University anthropologist Orin Starn helped them — finally — locate the missing brain in an obscure Smithsonian storeroom. Starn has written a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ishis-Brain-Search-Americas-Indian/dp/0393326985/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237983092&sr=1-1">poignant and outraged book</a> about his quest.<br /><br />Today is the anniversary of the death by tuberculosis of a man with a name no white person ever knew. He has gone to join his people.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-86821223889983973402009-03-21T12:42:00.001-07:002009-03-24T10:05:16.496-07:00Jungle Survival Tips: Infections<br />In the jungle, any open wound — abrasion, puncture, avulsion, incision, or laceration — is an invitation to infection. To understand infection, and how to tell if you have one, it is helpful to understand the normal process of wound healing, or <em>inflammation</em>.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 156px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sba0fYqu8PI/AAAAAAAAB3g/oywiM02bLtA/s200/infection-wound.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Potential Infection</center></td></tr></table><p />When you are cut, the tissue around the wound immediately constricts, compressing the small vessels and slowing blood loss. In fact, for about ten minutes, all the blood vessels in the body reflexively constrict, reducing blood flow even more. Platelets in the blood are attracted to the site of injury and form plugs in the torn vessels. Tissue clotting factors activate the clotting cascade; within minutes, clots of elastic protein fibers fill the wound. This is why, with the aid of direct pressure and elevation, almost all bleeding, even from serious wounds, will stop within ten to fifteen minutes. Over several days, the clot surface dries, forming a natural bandage in the form of a scab.<br /><br />Underneath the clot, the process of inflammation also forms a protective barrier. After about ten to fifteen minutes, as the clotting process blocks the bleeding from the injured vessels, the body releases vasoactive amines into the wound region, and these cause the uninjured capillaries to get larger and start to leak, so that blood plasma pours into the wound area. In addition, mast cells under the skin release histamine, which attracts white blood cells out of the blood vessels into the extracellular fluid, where they help to clean the wound. Polymorphonuclear granulocytes swallow and kill bacteria; macrophages consume and destroy other debris left lying around.<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbanXJHegtI/AAAAAAAAB3Y/Q7ASq8b6M2M/s200/infection-inflammation2.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr> <tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Inflammation</center></td></tr></table><p />These processes explain the classical characteristics of acute inflammation, listed mnemonically as four Latin words – <em>rubor</em>, <em>calor</em>, <em>tumor</em>, and <em>dolor</em>. <em>Rubor</em> or redness is due to the dilation of the blood vessels and the escape of red blood cells into the wound area. <em>Calor</em> or heat is also due to vascular dilation and increased local tissue metabolism. <em>Tumor</em> or swelling is caused by the leaking of fluid into the surrounding tissues. <em>Dolor</em> or pain is due to increased tissue tension from fluid accumulation. Some amount of redness, warmth, swelling, and pain are thus part of the normal inflammatory healing process. In addition, a slight temperature elevation is normal for a few days after a severe injury, and lymph nodes in the area of the wound may become mildly enlarged as they help trap bacteria and debris. Again, these signs are normal.<br /><br />But if the inflammatory process is being overwhelmed by invading bacteria, the body responds by increasing the local inflammation. It is thus <em>excessive</em> inflammation which, among other things, serves as a sign of a local infection.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 192px; height: 144px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbanWyX_pFI/AAAAAAAAB3Q/HNIAyScNHCA/s200/infection-infection2.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="192"><center>Infection</center></td></tr></table><p /><ul><li>Pain from a wound should normally subside by the second or third day. There may be an infection if pain persists, or especially if the pain increases rather than subsides.</li><li>Redness is usually limited to the margins of a wound, usually within a quarter inch. There may be an infection if the redness extends beyond the margins of the wound. In particular, a clear sign of infection is the presence of red streaks extending from the wound along a limb toward the body.</li><li>Severe swelling may be a sign of infection, especially if the skin temperature increases rather than decreases over time. Increasing limitations of motion, due to swelling and pain, may also indicate an advancing infection.</li><li>Pus is fluid filled with dead white cells. The presence of pus in a wound indicates a failure of cellular defense and confirms the presence of an infection. The pus may be whitish, green, or even reddish, depending on the infecting organism. Sometimes, but not always, there may be a foul odor.</li></ul><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbbNufYDtuI/AAAAAAAAB3o/IeuRjKmexgc/s200/infection-septicemia.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Septicemia</center></td></tr></table><p />It is possible for an infection to spread beyond the local area and enter the general blood circulation. This is <em>septicemia</em>, sometimes called blood poisoning. Signs of developing systemic infection include lymphangitis, or enlarged and painful lymph nodes, especially if they are beyond the immediate area of the infection; a high and persistent temperature elevation; chills, headaches, nausea, vomiting, or malaise. A person with a systemic infection is desperately ill and requires immediate evacuation to a facility where definitive care — including intravenous antibiotics — is available.<br /><br />In any injury, but especially in a wound to the foot, there is particular concern for <em>tetanus</em>, which is caused by <em>Clostridium tetani</em>, an obligate anaerobe that is especially common in soil contaminated with animal feces. All open wounds are susceptible, especially those that have been contaminated with soil. Tetanus is <em>100 percent fatal, and 100 percent preventable</em>. In my opinion, wilderness leaders and jungle guides should require that all trip participants have up-to-date tetanus booster immunization. A booster shot received shortly after injury may prevent development of the disease.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 170px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbZmSRP_eRI/AAAAAAAAB24/K3G8QrzJS9I/s200/infection-gangrene.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Gangrene</center></td></tr></table><p /><em>Gas gangrene</em> results from contamination of a wound by the bacterium <em>Clostridium perfringens</em>, widely found in soil and in the intestinal tracts of humans and animals. The bacteria grow and create spores in dead tissue where the oxygen content is very low. This is why the proper debridement of dead tissue from a wound is extremely important, especially in a wilderness setting. The signs of gangrene include gas bubbles in the wound, drainage of foul-smelling reddish-gray fluid, and <em>crepitus</em> or a "Rice Krispies" feeling in the skin surrounding the wound. The gas bubbles come from the bacteria fermenting carbohydrates into carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Gas bubbles under the skin cause the crepitus. Gangrene is an immediately life-threatening condition, which may be fatal in as little as thirty hours. Immediate evacuation is required.<br /><br />In the next installment, we will discuss how to prevent and handle infected wounds in the jungle.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-79636290265979611752009-03-20T10:38:00.001-07:002009-03-21T05:05:05.955-07:00Green Power<br />The term <em>poder verde</em>, green power, was first applied to <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/01/jungle-music.html"><em>cumbia amazónica</em></a> — the boisterous sexy ironic kick-ass garage-band party music that first developed in the Upper Amazon during the oil boom of the 1960s.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 181px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/ScP7Utu4J6I/AAAAAAAAB6w/yC0fm9XL7sk/s200/PoderVerde-Araujo.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="181"><center>José Asunción, <em>Huarmiboa</em> (2007)</center></td></tr></table><p />Now there is an equivalent in painting — an exhibition entitled <em>Poder Verde, Visiones Psicotropicales</em>, Green Power: Psychotropical Visions, currently on display through April 9 at <a href="http://www.ccelima.org/home.html">El Centro Cultural de España</a> in Lima, which brings together the boisterous sexy ironic kick-ass visionary work of contemporary Upper Amazonian painters. <br /><br />The Lima exhibit has clearly been a success. One <a href="http://www.eldiario.com.ec/noticias-manabi-ecuador/111870-mural-de-jose-asuncion-a/">newspaper</a> calls it "a world vision defined by sensuality, abundance, and color." <a href="http://ar.news.yahoo.com/s/12032009/24/n-entertain-exuberancia-amazonas-psicodelia-dan-mano.html">Another</a> says, "Opulent naked women populate several of the works of these artists, together with luxuriant fruits and wild animals that appear to enjoy the richness of the land." <br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:0px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/ScOx16X7ocI/AAAAAAAAB6Y/AggVw1ouEfw/s200/PoderVerde-Sakiray.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Luis Sakiray, <em>Preciosa belleza amazónica</em> (2006)</center></td></tr></table><p />And it is indeed true that this is wonderfully exuberant, extravagant, and often wryly transgressive art. Famed visionary artist Pablo Amaringo is included, of course. But also represented are the lesser known painters Harry Chávez, José Asunción Araujo, Brus Rubio, Miguel Saavedra, Jorge Cabieses, Luis Sakiray, Roldán Pinedo, and Christian Bendayán. <br /><br />These artists are, for the most part, not traditional gallery artists, but rather commercial painters, muralists, folk artists, their paintings inspired by posters, advertisements, magazine illustrations, <em>ayahuasca</em> visions, popular symbolism, figures from Amazonian folklore and mythology. Included as well are indigenous painters — Shipibo Roldán Pinedo and Bora-Huitoto Brus Rubio — "escaping from the anthropological museums," as the catalog puts it, so that their work can be taken seriously as art.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:15px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 148px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/ScOx01yY-cI/AAAAAAAAB6A/fyykgiug9cs/s200/PoderVerde-Amaringo.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="150"><center>Pablo Amaringo, <em>Aya-Mayuywayra</em> (2005)</center></td></tr></table><p />Luis Sakiray Macuyama, for example, has been principally a muralist for Chinese restaurants, chicken shacks, and <em>cebicherías</em>, where his art links the succulence of the food inside to visions of curvaceous women and a bountiful landscape. José Asunción Araujo, another self-taught painter, has specialized in the decoration of Iquitos bars, nightclubs, and whorehouses.<br /><br />Christian Bendayán, curator of the exhibition, <a href="http://ar.news.yahoo.com/s/12032009/24/n-entertain-exuberancia-amazonas-psicodelia-dan-mano.html">said</a> that jungle culture has always been "lively, garish, colorful, quite different from the rest of Peru, which has even looked upon it as immoral." Surprisingly, the swirling visionary art of Pablo Amaringo appears quite at home in this company. Indeed, the exhibit takes a broad view of the visionary. "Mediated through drunkenness, sexuality, wisdom, psychotropics," says the catalog, "the result is an aesthetic that reclaims our hallucinations, our dreams, our visions."<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/ScP9vnIHiWI/AAAAAAAAB64/oPqRPe8uqnM/s200/PoderVerde-Bendayan.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Christian Bendayán, <em>Recuerdo de tu hijo</em> (2006)</center></td></tr></table><p />Fittingly, the exhibit includes performances of <em>cumbia amazónica</em> by groups such as Los Chapillacs, and, of course, Juaneco y su combo. Opening night featured Los Hijos de Lamas — "entertainers for weddings, funerals, divorces, and suicides."<br /><br />The catalog concludes, "It is green power, the return to roots, the snake of life that gives us these psychotropical visions, to intoxicate us with their lights and colors. Thus art and life, imagination and reason, dream and reality become one. Now we are able to see again, be again, be born again."<br /><br />The complete exhibition catalog is <a href="http://www.ccelima.org/catalogopoderverde.pdf">here</a>.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-83027608413194453192009-03-19T07:41:00.000-07:002009-03-19T13:28:17.325-07:00A Victory for Santo Daime<br />On March 18, 2009, United States District Judge Owen M. Panner found that the <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/01/ayahuasca-in-supreme-court.html">Religious Freedom Restoration Act</a> protects the <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-ayahuasca-book.html">Santo Daime</a>'s use of <em>ayahuasca</em> as a sacrament of their church. The court was guided by the unanimous decision of the United States Supreme Court in the very similar <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/01/ayahuasca-in-supreme-court.html">União do Vegetal</a> case in 2006, and concluded that RFRA requires that — subject to reasonable restrictions — the plaintiff church be allowed to import and drink <em>ayahuasca</em> for their religious ceremonies. <br /><br />The suit was brought by the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen in Ashland, Oregon, led by <span style="font-style:italic;">padrinho </span>Jonathan Goldman, a student of Santo Daime for twenty-one years, who had traveled frequently to Brazil to receive instruction from church leaders, and learned Portuguese in order to understand the hymns that constitute church doctrine. Joining in the suit was a separate church in Portland, called Céu da Divina Rosa, Church of the Divine Rose, and its leader Alexandra Bliss Yeager, as well as several individual members of both churches.<br /><br />Goldman had been arrested and the church's supply of <em>ayahuasca</em> seized by federal agents in1999. Counsel for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit attempted to negotiate an agreement with the Department of Justice, which refused to consider a religious exemption for the church. On the other hand, in 2000, the Oregon Board of Pharmacy determined that the religious use of <em>ayahuasca</em> by the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen was a "non-drug" use, and therefore not subject to state drug laws and regulations. Since that time, <em>ayahuasca</em> has had a status in Oregon law similar to that of peyote when used as a sacrament by the Native American Church.<br /><br />Following Goldman's arrest, the plaintiffs continued to practice their religion in secret. In 2006, after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the União do Vegetal case, the plaintiffs commissioned a study of Church of the Holy Light of the Queen members by psychiatrist John H. Halpern, who had written extensively on the use and abuse of hallucinogenic drugs, including a paper on the long-term health of members of the Native American Church who consume peyote as a sacrament — a study we have discussed <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/01/long-term-peyote-use.html">here</a>. <br /><br />In 2008, armed with the results of that study and the earlier ruling of the Supreme Court, plaintiffs brought suit in federal court, seeking an injunction that would allow them to use <em>ayahuasca</em> as a central sacrament of their religious practice.<br /><br />Judge Panner's opinion provides a scholarly and sympathetic account of Santo Daime history and doctrine in general, and of the practices of the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen in particular — their careful records of <em>ayahuasca</em> purchase and use, their screening procedures for new members, their use of medical questionnaires, their "controlled and supportive religious ceremony," their security procedures for storing and distributing <em>ayahuasca</em>. <br /><br />The court was less sympathetic to the claims of the government, particularly its scientific case concerning purported short- and long-term effects of <em>ayahuasca</em> use. "I find studies of LSD and pure injected DMT," the court wrote, "are only marginally relevant in evaluating the risks of consuming Daime tea in a religious ceremony." <br /><br />The court was also unimpressed with the government's other arguments. For example, the government asserted a compelling interest in preventing the diversion of <em>ayahuasca</em> to recreational users. "The government has not presented evidence that there is a significant market for Daime tea," the court wrote. "The government also has not presented evidence that plaintiffs have allowed the diversion of a single drop of Daime tea. This is an issue best addressed through reasonable guidelines for storing and inventorying plaintiffs' supply of Daime tea."<br /><br />The court closely followed the legal reasoning of the Supreme Court in the União do Vegetal case, and similarly found that the government had failed to establish either a compelling state interest in forbidding the use of <em>ayahuasca</em> by the church, or that "outright prohibition of the Daime tea is the least restrictive means of furthering its interests." On those grounds the court found that the plaintiffs were entitled to the requested injunction under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_law24_santodaime_mar2009.pdf">entire opinion</a> is cogent, clear, sensible, and well worth reading as a road map for the litigation of similar cases in the future.<br /><br />Ordinarily, we could now expect a long, expensive, exhausting slog to the Supreme Court. But it may be worth noting that, on the same day as Judge Panner issued his opinion, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/us/19holder.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=holder%20medical%20marijuana&st=cse">told reporters</a> that the current administration would effectively end the earlier policy of frequent raids on distributors of medical marijuana. He said that the Justice Department's enforcement policy would now be restricted to traffickers who falsely masqueraded as medical dispensaries and "use medical marijuana laws as a shield." <br /><br />It is not at all clear whether this might signal a change in administration policy toward the use of <em>ayahausca</em> by such entities as the Santo Daime church. Commenting on this case, Mark Kleiman, a nationally recognized expert in the field of crime and drug policy, <a href="http://www.samefacts.com/archives/religion_and_politics_/2009/03/another_court_win_for_another_ayahuasca_church.php">suggests that</a> the simplest approach would be for the Attorney General to tell the DEA Administrator to draft and publish in the Federal Register a set of procedures and criteria to deal with cases such as this in the future. <br /><br />We will see.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-73172493796582876402009-03-16T08:38:00.001-07:002009-03-16T15:18:22.893-07:00The War on Coca Leaves Redux<br />As <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/03/war-on-coca-leaves.html">we have discussed</a>, the International Narcotics Control Board — a United Nations monitoring body that oversees the implementation of the UN drug control conventions — has called for the governments of Bolivia and Peru to abolish all uses of the coca leaf, including coca leaf chewing. In its 2007 annual report, the INCB asked Bolivia and Peru to make possessing and using coca leaf criminal offenses — a move that would make criminals of millions of people in the Andes and Amazon. <br /><br />The Peruvian response was dramatic, with legislators <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN1362707620080314?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews">defiantly chewing coca leaves</a> on the congressional floor. The current meeting of the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/15/2516644.htm">United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs</a> in Vienna has elicited a strong response from Bolivia as well. Some context might be helpful.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 137px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sb5rco5sqgI/AAAAAAAAB5g/Kd2m7GpWrno/s200/Morales3.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="137"><center>Morales wearing indigenous clothes</center></td></tr></table><p />Evo Morales, an Aymara, is the first indigenous president of Bolivia. He came to power in 2006 promising a <em>decolonizing revolution</em>, a term with a special meaning to indigenous Bolivians. The first decolonization took place when Bolivia became independent from Spain in 1825; but, for Bolivia's indigenous population, this political separation meant only that their exploitation and marginalization took on new forms. For the poor and disenfranchised indigenous people who helped bring Morales to power, colonialism is still very much alive in Bolivia, in everything from the educational system to the Catholic Church. <br /><br />Although publicly declaring himself a Catholic, Morales has actively promoted indigenous beliefs, including appointing traditional shamans to his government. Bolivia’s previous constitution had allowed for freedom of religion, but had specified Roman Catholicism as the sole state religion. The new Bolivian constitution, approved in January, has the stated goal of refounding Bolivia as a “socially just state guided by indigenous beliefs," including the elevation of <span style="font-style:italic;">Pachamama</span>, Earth Mother, to the same stature as the God of Christianity. <br /><br />In a recent dissertation in social anthropology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, entitled <a href="http://gupea.ub.gu.se/dspace/handle/2077/18963"><em>As Though We Had No Spirit: Ritual, Politics and Existence in the Aymara Quest for Decolonization</em></a>, Anders Burman examines how the government policy of decolonization has been interwoven with indigenous rituals and cosmology. He carried out his ethnographic field work among shamans and activists within the Andean indigenous people's movement.<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 147px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sb5jk38LiWI/AAAAAAAAB5Y/RssJV33vYog/s200/Morales2.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Morales receives a sacred staff from an indigenous shaman</center></td></tr></table><p />Burman distinguishes three different ways of looking at the decolonization project. The government views colonialism as inherent in existing political structures, and therefore seeks institutional change. Indigenous activists view Bolivia itself as a colonial project, and therefore seek to build a new country from the ground up. But the shamans and their apprentices with whom Burman worked perceive colonialism to be a <em>sickness</em> and decolonization as the cure, and, based on traditional cosmological linkages, work to decolonize not only the state and society, but the landscape and the self as well.<br /><br />Still, these three ways of looking at decolonization overlap in significant ways. Political activism and the ritual practices of shamanism, Burman says, derive from the same interpretive cultural framework — how to deal with that which is understood as alien, whether a national power elite that is perceived as foreign, or unfamiliar spirits that bring about sickness. In the same way, traditional Andean cosmology is one of the cornerstones of the government representation of its decolonizing policies.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sb5jkKaj-PI/AAAAAAAAB5Q/wSXDOny-4cQ/s200/Morales1.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="142"><center>Morales campaigning with a coca plant</center></td></tr></table><p />And Bolivian indigenous beliefs are deeply intertwined with the <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/03/war-on-coca-leaves.html">sacred coca plant</a>. Morales, a former <em>cocalero</em> union leader, won his greatest political support in the impoverished coca-growing areas of central Bolivia. In a <em>New York Times</em> op-ed piece published three days ago and entitled <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/opinion/14morales.html?_r=2&th&emc=th"><em>Let Me Chew My Coca Leaves</em></a>, Morales challenges the United Nations to reverse what he calls a forty-eight-year-old mistake — the false notion, incorporated into the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, that the coca leaf is a narcotic in the same category with cocaine, and the concomitant order that "coca leaf chewing must be abolished within 25 years from the coming into force of this convention." <br /><br />That deadline passed in 2001. "So for the past eight years," Morales writes, "the millions of us who maintain the traditional practice of chewing coca have been, according to the convention, criminals who violate international law. This is an unacceptable and absurd state of affairs for Bolivians and other Andean peoples."<br /><br />Morales urges the UN to distinguish between a narcotic and the plant from which it is derived. "What is absurd about the 1961 convention is that it considers the coca leaf in its natural, unaltered state to be a narcotic," he writes. "The paste or the concentrate that is extracted from the coca leaf, commonly known as cocaine, is indeed a narcotic, but the plant itself is not. " And he concludes:<br /><br /><blockquote>The custom of chewing coca leaves has existed in the Andean region of South America since at least 3000 B.C. It helps mitigate the sensation of hunger, offers energy during long days of labor and helps counter altitude sickness.... Today, millions of people chew coca in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and northern Argentina and Chile. The coca leaf continues to have ritual, religious and cultural significance that transcends indigenous cultures and encompasses the mestizo population.... It is time for the international community to reverse its misguided policy toward the coca leaf. </blockquote><p /><br />According to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aHyt0477z4MI&refer=latin_america">ABI</a>, the official Bolivian news agency, Morales chewed coca leaves at the conference on drug policy in Vienna as he asked the Commission reverse its decision to qualify the coca leaf as a narcotic.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-8753129501281847152009-03-16T05:02:00.000-07:002009-03-16T05:11:23.492-07:00Jungle Survival Tips: Hyperthermia<br />I mentioned <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2007/12/cushma.html">here</a> that the temperature in the jungle remains pretty steady at around 85 degrees and the relative humidity at about 90 percent. Although the temperature in the jungle does not get as high as it does in the desert, the high humidity prevents the rapid evaporation of sweat, which is one of the body's primary cooling mechanisms. You can be perfectly comfortable under most jungle conditions, but you can still get heat illness if you are not careful.<br /><br />Heat illness or <em>hyperthermia</em> is what happens when you are too hot. There are two serious types of hyperthermia — heat exhaustion and heat stroke. The two conditions are points on a continuum which runs from being uncomfortably hot to being deathly ill. The primary difference between heat exhaustion and heat stroke is that in heat exhaustion the body’s heat dissipating mechanism has been overworked, while in heat stroke the body’s heat dissipating mechanism has been overwhelmed. <br /><br />It is important to remember that, in the jungle setting, both heat exhaustion and heat stroke can often be prevented simply by adequate hydration. Whoever designed the human body made two major mistakes — the knee, which comes apart under even moderate lateral pressure, and the thirst mechanism. The trigger for thirst is a beginning electrolyte balance; that is, when you get thirsty, it is already too late. That is why it is important to drink lots of water in the jungle, and to drink it before you get thirsty. Pound it down. Force yourself. Drop a tea bag in your water bottle to give the water some taste. Set up a rule that if one person drinks, everyone has to drink. <br /><br />How much should you be drinking? Under normal circumstances, water intake should be between 9 and 12 cups per day — that is, between about 2¼ and 3 quarts of water per day. The amount needed can increase with exercise and environmental factors. In 2003, the International Marathon Medical Directors Association and USA Track and Field jointly issued fluid replacement guidelines for marathon runners, advising them to drink as much as they wanted between 400 and 800 mL/hour — that is, between 0.42 and 0.84 quarts each hour. For an average amateur marathoner, that means between about two and four quarts during a five-hour marathon. Conversely, with only light to moderate exercise, a person in the desert should drink about four quarts of water per day.<br /><br />But you don't have to measure your intake when you can observe your output. You can know you are properly hydrated by paying attention to your urine. Your urine should be clear, copious, and colorless — or at least pale yellow. Most people live in a state of chronic dehydration; so, when you are properly hydrated, you should feel like you are urinating a <em>lot</em>.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sb14hH1kdZI/AAAAAAAAB5I/Cr4nmliiLGA/s200/hyperthermia2.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Heat exhaustion</center></td></tr></table><p /><strong><em>Heat exhaustion</em></strong> is actually an early stage of hypovolemic shock. The body’s fluid levels have dropped sufficiently that organs are not getting enough oxygen carried to them by the blood. The fluid pressure has dropped because of a combination of excessive sweating, dilation of surface blood vessels, and inadequate water intake. <br /><br />Since the brain is one of the first organs affected by inadequate perfusion, one of the first signs of heat exhaustion is often a change in level of consciousness — spaciness, forgetfulness, confusion, odd speech, restlessness, anxiety, and changes in behavior, sometimes subtle. Other signs and symptoms are thirst, weakness, headache, nausea, dizziness, rapid pulse, rapid breathing, exhaustion, and profuse sweating. Patients can sweat so much that they feel cold, have goose bumps, and complain of chills. The skin is cool and pale.<br /><br />The treatment for heat exhaustion is simple. Get the patient cool. Move the patient to the shade of a tree, fan her, pour water on her head. Remove excess clothing. Have the patient lie down. If the patient is alert and able to swallow, give water; or, if you have it, Gatorade diluted three to four times; or about a half–teaspoon of salt dissolved in a quart of water, maybe with a pinch or two of sugar. Have the patient drink as much as a quart of water over the next hour. Recovery should be rapid and without consequences. If the patient does not improve promptly, then the condition may in fact be an early stage of heat stroke, and immediate evacuation should be seriously considered.<br /><br />Always suspect heat exhaustion when a person becomes ill in hot conditions, especially during physical exertion, and particularly if accompanied by changes in level of consciousness. Heat exhaustion should be treated aggressively. More important, it should be prevented by drinking lots of water. <br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 140px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sb13QM0akwI/AAAAAAAAB5A/EasT7fTliFk/s200/hyperthermia1.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="140"><center>Minnesota Vikings right tackle Korey Stringer died from heat stroke in 2001</center></td></tr></table><p /><strong><em>Heat stroke</em></strong>, as opposed to heat exhaustion, is a life-threatening illness that requires immediate evacuation. It has many of the same signs and symptoms as heat exhaustion, but they are more severe. There is an altered level of consciousness, rapid heart rate, and increased respiratory rate. The altered level of consciousness can be dramatic — disorientation, irritability, combativeness, delusions, incoherent speech. There can even be loss of coordination and convulsions. The patient may or may not be sweating, but will complain of being hot rather than cold. The skin is hot, red, and wet rather than pale and cool. The body’s core temperature has risen to above 105 degrees. It will be obvious that something is very wrong.<br /><br />The treatment for heat stroke is the same as the treatment for heat exhaustion. Cool the patient off as rapidly as possible. Remove excess clothing. Cover the patient with wet cotton clothing and fan vigorously. Apply ice if it is available, and at least pour the coldest available water over her. Concentrate on cooling the head and neck. It is probably not a good idea to try to immerse the patient in a river or stream, because a disoriented, combative, or convulsing patient is hard to manage and may drown. Do not delay. Be aggressive. You are saving a life. As the core temperature continues to rise, vital organs, such as the brain and kidneys, start to shut down. Cardiovascular and neurologic collapse are imminent. Evacuate immediately to where definitive care, including IV saline, is available, and continue cooling procedures during evacuation.<br /><br />A few other points. Keep good records of vital signs, especially body temperature. The temperature may go down during cooling, and then rise again when you have stopped active cooling measures. If the patient becomes unresponsive, pay particular attention to keeping an open airway. If shock occurs, elevate the patient’s legs twelve inches. <br /><br />Bear in mind that I am talking about wilderness emergency care, or care where resources are extremely limited — no ice, no normal saline, no IV start kit, no ambulance, no hospital. I will defer to others about urban street medicine, or patient management where such resources are readily available.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-5809448216734397982009-03-14T06:48:00.001-07:002009-03-15T09:05:40.075-07:00Peyote Songs<br />Peyote songs are the prayer music and ceremonial heart of the Native American Church. The songs have traditionally been sung, accompanied by the gourd rattle and water drum, in the various languages and musical styles of the indigenous peoples from which the church drew its membership. <br /><br />At the same time, the pan-Indian nature of the church made it a powerful vehicle for the diffusion of musical styles and content. Early studies of peyote songs, dating from the 1940s, found Navajo peyote singers using the Ute musical style, and recognizably the same peyote song among the Tarahumara, Navajo, and Cheyenne. Such studies can be helpful in tracing the historical spread of the new religious movement.<br /><br />An important aspect of peyote songs is their use of <em>non-lexical vocables</em> — sequences of phonemes without conventional semantic content, but meaningful to the singer in the context of the ceremony, and often an indication of the song's origin as a spiritual gift. Peyote songs often combine the consonants <em>y</em>, <em>w</em>, <em>h</em>, <em>c</em>, <em>k</em>, <em>t</em>, <em>x</em>, and <em>n</em> with vowels, in the sequence CVCVCV... to produce vocables such as the important peyote word <em>heyowicinayo</em>.<br /><br />Beginning in the 1990s — their first CD was released in 1995 — two singers, Verdell Primeaux, a Sioux, and Johnny Mike, a Navajo, developed a new form of peyote music they called <em>healing songs</em>, characterized by mesmeric and meditative vocal harmonies and frequently without the paradigmatic driving beat of the water drum and gourd rattle. <br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbumeSFpM5I/AAAAAAAAB4w/_DEEFkp5l1I/s200/peyote-stoner.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="200"><center>Brian Stoner</center></td></tr></table><p />The songs, sung in Lakota and Navajo, became immensely popular, not only with Native Americans, but also among the same audience that was eagerly purchasing the similarly meditative flute recordings of R. Carlos Nakai. Their crossover appeal is evidenced by the fact that, in 1998, their seventh recording, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Peyote-Songs-Native-American-Church/dp/B00000DBWF/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1237049558&sr=1-2"><em>Peyote Songs of the Native American Church</em></a>, won both the Native American Music Award for Best Traditional Music and the New Age Voice Music Award for Traditional Native American Music. <br /><br />Their haunting music, however, embodied a partial disconnection from the traditional roots of the peyote song, where the gourd rattle and water drum have traditionally been an integral part of the ceremony, and tying the soaked deerskin drumhead onto the cast-iron drum kettle is an important and symbolically resonant part of the preparation. Indeed, this disconnection in part drove their popularity. One music reviewer — apparently intending to be complimentary — went so far as to say that the new peyote music "transcends the usual ethnographic feel of peyote recordings and becomes true art." <br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sbumei9wMUI/AAAAAAAAB44/OTL3z0WPGso/s200/peyote-w%26c.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="150"><center>Whitehorse and Crowe</center></td></tr></table><p />There is now a new generation of peyote singers. The term <em>new generation</em> means, apart from relative youth, two things — first, that the singers have been deeply influenced by the harmonizing peyote songs of Primeaux and Mike, yet most often retain the traditional accompaniment of the gourd rattle and water drum; and, second, that they have MySpace pages and distribute their videos on YouTube, and selectively incorporate English into their songs.<br /><br />Three of these singers are <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=93955298">Brian Stoner</a>, from the Ponca and Cherokee tribes of Oklahoma; and the brothers <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=168436819">Maynard Whitehawk</a> and <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=192761147">Lance Crowe</a>, of Plains Anishinabe and Saulteaux heritage, who sing together under the name <em>Wikiwam Ahsin</em>, which are Anishinabe words usually translated as <em>tipi rock</em>. I have attached two representative videos below.<br /><br />The first video features a song set from the album <a href="http://www.peyotemusiconline.com/product/DNA%2060033"><em>With Love and Faith We Pray</em></a>, which was named the Best Spiritual Album at the 2007 Indian Summer Music Festival, and which features Whitehawk and Crowe joining Stoner on several songs. The second features a set from Whitehawk and Crowe's eponymous album <a href="http://www.peyotemusiconline.com/product/NAC%2060014"><em>Wikiwam Ahsin</em></a>. Listen for the children's songs at the end.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9Qm5Q20OA1U&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" style="width: 310px; height: 250px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed> </div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/at9fBbGUUkc&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" style="width: 310px; height: 250px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></div><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-86810644413861824062009-03-12T07:17:00.001-07:002009-03-12T08:02:51.472-07:00Jungle Survival Tips: Snakebite II<br />I have talked about Crotalid or pit viper envenomations <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/03/jungle-survival-tips-snakebite-i.html">here</a>. Elapids or coral snakes are different from the Crotalids in a number of significant ways. Coral snakes are generally shy and docile, and they do not attack unless deliberately provoked. Fewer than forty percent of Elapid bites result in significant envenomation. Fatalities are rare.<br /><br />Coral snakes have very short fangs in the front of a small mouth. The small mouth and fangs make it hard for a coral snake to bite anything other than a finger, toe, or fold of skin. Pit vipers strike and release, but coral snakes hang on and chew. And while Crotalid venom causes rapid tissue necrosis, Elapid venom slowly attacks the central nervous system. These differences mean that you treat a coral snake bite differently than you would a pit viper bite. In particular, for Elapid envenomation,<br /><br /><ul><li> the use of a <a href="http://www.rei.com/product/407144">Sawyer Extractor</a> appears to be of little benefit, and</li><li> the use of the Australian pressure-immobilization technique has become accepted as a standard treatment. Since Elapid venom is a systemic neurotoxin, wrapping the entire bitten extremity can help delay systemic absorption of the venom, but, unlike Crotalid venom, will not cause local tissue necrosis.</li></ul><p /><br />When an envenomation occurs, the bitten extremity starts to become weak and numb after about an hour. In the following hours, the signs and symptoms of central nervous system poisoning begin to appear — nausea, vomiting, weakness, muscle twitching, tingling in the extremities, slurred speech, increased salivation, and difficulty swallowing and breathing. In the worst case, depression of the central nervous system can lead to respiratory and cardiac paralysis and death.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sbkjjw0M6hI/AAAAAAAAB4o/qodh_9OmMFc/s1600-h/snakebite6.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 175px; height: 151px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sbkjjw0M6hI/AAAAAAAAB4o/qodh_9OmMFc/s200/snakebite6.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312316332766456338" /></a>A significant problem is that it is often hard to know whether the person bitten has been envenomated or not. The fang marks can be hard to see, although sometimes you can squeeze blood from the tiny puncture sites. Local swelling is usually minimal. There are often many nonvenomous mimics of coral snakes in the same area, so it can be difficult to know whether the biting snake was venomous or not. It can take more than an hour for the bitten extremity to feel weak or numb, and sometimes as long as twelve hours before the victim feels sick enough to need help.<br /><br />So, if someone has been bitten by something that may have been a coral snake, it is important to begin treatment and observation right away, and to give serious consideration to evacuation, even in the absence of signs and symptoms, and even if you might feel foolish later if nothing happens. Treatment for Elapid envenomation in the wilderness is as follows:<br /><br /><ul><li>Keep the patient calm and with as little movement as possible. Provide lots of support and encouragement.</li><li>Clean and flush the wound with clean water and apply a sterile dressing.</li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkgQLhSe2I/AAAAAAAAB4g/k6AMRHbnTTU/s1600-h/snakebite5.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 83px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkgQLhSe2I/AAAAAAAAB4g/k6AMRHbnTTU/s200/snakebite5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312312697802619746" /></a><li>Wrap the bitten limb with an elastic bandage, at about the same tension as would be used on a sprained ankle. Start wrapping about four inches above the bite and wrap away from the body toward the hand or foot. If you have an additional elastic bandage, you can then wrap in the other direction, starting about four inches below the bite and wrapping toward the body. This should help to immobilize the venom. The wrapping should be loose enough so that you can slip a finger underneath, and you should check the peripheral pulses to make sure there is no constriction of blood flow. Remember that the venom spreads through the lymphatic system, which lies close to the surface of the skin, so that great pressure is not necessary in order to constrict its flow.</li><li>Splint the limb and keep it at about heart level.</li><li>Encourage the patient to drink frequent small amounts of water.</li><li>Provide basic life support and treat for shock as necessary.</li><li>Transport as quickly as possible to definitive medical care, where antivenom and appropriate facilities for its administration may be available.</li></ul><p /><br />As with <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/03/jungle-survival-tips-snakebite-i.html">Crotalid bites</a>, the use of alcohol, incisions, electric shock, sucking, and ice are not recommended.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-57688832108410544982009-03-12T06:56:00.001-07:002009-03-12T17:18:51.098-07:00Jungle Survival Tips: Snakebite I<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkRHX5lOlI/AAAAAAAAB4Q/aYg8yk46h2E/s1600-h/snakebite3.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkRHX5lOlI/AAAAAAAAB4Q/aYg8yk46h2E/s200/snakebite3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312296053832497746" /></a>I have written <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/04/snakebite.html">here</a> about the varieties and habits of snakes in the Upper Amazon and how snakebite is treated by local healers. Remember, of course, that your chance of being bitten by a venomous snake in the Amazon is really very small, especially if you take basic precautions, such as not sticking your hand blindly into places where a snake might be sleeping. It is probably worth noting that more than fifty percent of pit viper envenomations in North America are associated with alcohol ingestion on the part of the victim.<br /><br />There are, <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/04/snakebite.html">as I said</a>, two families of venomous snakes in the Upper Amazon — the Crotalidae or pit vipers and the <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/03/jungle-survival-tips-snakebite-ii.html">Elapidae or coral snakes</a>. If you are bitten by a pit viper — and actually envenomated — you are in for a memorably unpleasant experience. But, if you treat the wound properly and avoid infection, you are unlikely to die or have permanent injuries.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkRHlxM7YI/AAAAAAAAB4Y/fL3aA3iGA0g/s1600-h/snakebite4.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 141px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkRHlxM7YI/AAAAAAAAB4Y/fL3aA3iGA0g/s200/snakebite4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312296057555447170" /></a>There is no question that a Crotalid envenomation is a medical emergency requiring urgent evacuation, if at all possible, to a definitive care facility that is equipped to administer Crotalid antivenom. In an ideal world, anyone envenomated by a pit viper in the wilderness would be immediately evacuated and receive antivenom within four hours — six at the most — in a hospital setting, under sterile conditions, with constant monitoring, and with a crash cart available in case of an allergic reaction. If such an evacuation is possible, then by all means it should be done. As professional handlers of venomous snakes say, "The best equipment for treating a venomous snakebite is a set of car keys."<br /><br />However, the first step in treatment is to avoid panic. Death is rare. Even without evacuation, most cases result in several days of serious misery and then full recovery. Remember that the fatality rate even for untreated pit viper bites is extremely low. The treatment steps are:<br /><ul><li>Use the <a href="http://www.rei.com/product/407144">Sawyer Extractor.</a> If you are in snake country, the Extractor should always be within easy reach in your pack. The Extractor can remove as much as 30 percent of Crotalid venom proteins if applied within three minutes. Use the Extractor as quickly as possible and then keep it on the bite for about thirty minutes. Because of the great suction it creates, no cutting is necessary. This should always be the first thing you do, even when evacuation is in progress.</li><li>Remove rings, bracelets, or any other constricting jewelry on the affected limb, which may swell to as much as twice its normal size.</li><li>Immobilize the bitten extremity with a splint, just as you would a fracture.</li><li>Have the patient rest and keep activity to a minimum.</li><li>Have the patient drink as much fluid as possible, in frequent small amounts, in order to maintain fluid volume and kidney flow.</li><li>Remember that a snakebite is a contaminated puncture wound, and treat it as such.</li><li>Get to definitive care as quickly as you can. Otherwise, have the patient rest and drink fluids; keep the wound clean; give lots of encouragement and support.</li></ul><br />The following are <strong>not</strong> recommended for pit viper envenomations:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkRHRFKZhI/AAAAAAAAB4I/HWTufn_r-Mk/s1600-h/snakebite2.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkRHRFKZhI/AAAAAAAAB4I/HWTufn_r-Mk/s200/snakebite2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312296052002022930" /></a><ul><li>Do not make incisions or try to suck out the venom. In jungle conditions, cutting into an already compromised limb is asking for an infection. You absolutely do not want pit viper venom in your mouth. Conversely, your mouth is full of all kinds of bacteria. And you can't suck as hard as the Extractor can anyway.</li> <li>Do not use a tourniquet. Tourniquets can result in loss of the limb due to decreased blood flow. In addition, you are just keeping the venom localized where it does the most tissue damage.</li><li>Do not use electric shock. It can be dangerous, and has no proven value in managing pit viper bites. It is the great urban legend of wilderness first aid.</li><li>Do not use ice. There is no evidence that snake venom enzyme activity diminishes with cold. Freezing already compromised tissue can lead to frostbite, which can damage the limb more than the original bite. Packing in ice has probably resulted in more lost limbs than snakebite itself; this is particularly tragic when limbs have been lost to frostbite because of a non-envenomated bite.</li><li>Do not give alcohol. It causes vessels to dilate and may speed venom absorption.</li></ul><p /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkRHfi_8BI/AAAAAAAAB4A/1JeGo8N_n7M/s1600-h/snakebite1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 123px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbkRHfi_8BI/AAAAAAAAB4A/1JeGo8N_n7M/s200/snakebite1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312296055885262866" /></a>The use of an elastic bandage pressure wrap — recommended for use with bites from <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/03/jungle-survival-tips-snakebite-ii.html">Elapidae or coral snakes</a> — has been recommended for use in some cases of Crotalid envenomation as well. The argument <em>against</em> its use is that the pressure may actually increase the risk of disfiguring local tissue damage, which may then require skin grafts and extensive repair and treatment; and that removal of the pressure may result in sudden massive swelling and discoloration. The argument <em>in favor</em> of its use is that the spread of venom to vital organs can be life-threatening — in fact, some Crotalid bites can cause serious damage to limbs even when the bites were to a finger or foot — and the use of a pressure bandage can prevent this spread, even at the risk of greater localized damage. The way to apply a pressure bandage is described <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/03/jungle-survival-tips-snakebite-ii.html">here</a>.<br /><br />The problem is that there is no way of knowing how serious the envenomation is at the outset, when the decision must be made. There is a tradeoff between averting more serious life-threatening damage and increasing the risk of painful and disfiguring local damage. Such a decision should be considered a serious one, to be decided in full consultation with the patient.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-78048318088994137422009-03-11T09:37:00.000-07:002009-03-11T12:31:31.844-07:00The Psychedelic Review<br />We have talked about the Fall 1989 issue of the <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/01/whole-earth-review.html"><em>Whole Earth Review</em></a>. For aficionados of classic psychedelia, however, there is no substitute for the <em>Psychedelic Review</em>, which was sporadically published from 1963 to 1971, and was excerpted for the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Reader-Selected-Review/dp/0806514515/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236783699&sr=1-1"><em>The Psychedelic Reader</em></a>. The entire run of the journal — eleven issues from 1963 to 1971 — is available online, in PDF format, in the <a href="http://www.luminist.org/archives/PR/index.htm">Luminist Archives</a>, and on the website of the <a href="http://www.maps.org/psychedelicreview/">Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies</a>, where individual articles are also accessible.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbfbUeADNgI/AAAAAAAAB3w/MlFDNZSGimI/s1600-h/PsychedelicReview1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 154px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbfbUeADNgI/AAAAAAAAB3w/MlFDNZSGimI/s200/PsychedelicReview1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311955430203930114" /></a>By the 1970s, the term <em>psychedelic</em> had acquired indelibly frivolous connotations, but the term had originated, with the best of scholarly intentions, as a way of describing the effects of a number of psychoactive substances considered to be of both intellectual and spiritual importance. The term itself — from the Greek <em>psykhe</em>, mind, and <em>deloun</em>, reveal, make manifest — was proposed in 1956 by the British psychiatrist Humphrey Fortescue Osmond, and first used in a scholarly paper he presented the following year at a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences. <br /><br />Aldous Huxley, in an earlier letter to Osmond, had instead proposed the term <em>phanerothyme</em>, from Greek <em>phanero</em>, make visible, manifest, and <em>thymos</em>, soul. In support of his neologism, Huxley offered the couplet, <em>To make this trivial world sublime, take half a gramme of phanerothyme.</em> To which Osmond responded, <em>To fathom Hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic.</em><br /><br />The <em>Psychedelic Review</em> was intended to be an intellectually serious publication, begun by members of the Harvard Psilocybin Research Project. It was published and sponsored by Timothy Leary's International Federation for Internal Freedom, whose purpose was "to encourage, support and protect research on psychedelic substances," with the goal of increasing "the individual's control over his own mind, thereby enlarging his internal freedom." One purpose of the review was thus apparently to provide a scholarly and intellectual predicate for IFIF's advocacy.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sbfjf9bQY6I/AAAAAAAAB34/uQ4EP0A8T5A/s1600-h/PsychedelicReview2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 146px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sbfjf9bQY6I/AAAAAAAAB34/uQ4EP0A8T5A/s200/PsychedelicReview2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311964423711122338" /></a>The original editorial board consisted of Paul Lee, Ralph Metzner, and Rolf von Eckartsberg. The announcement of the new journal indicated an intention to publish articles on visionary plants, the neurophysiological aspects of drug action, the epistemology of transcendent experience, the relationship between mysticism and schizophrenia, and other weighty topics. The goal was to publish "original research reports, scholarly and historical essays, outstanding phenomenological accounts of spontaneous or induced transcendent experiences, and reviews of relevant pharmacological and other literature." Editorial consultants included Richard Alpert, Timothy Leary, Huston Smith, and Alan Watts.<br /><br />And, indeed, the journal wound up publishing articles not only by its founders but also by such diverse contributors as R. Gordon Wasson, Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann, R.D. Laing, Sir Julian Huxley, and Alain Danielou, although some of its material was reprinted from earlier sources. Beginning in 1967, in the final three issues, both the covers and the content became visibly more — well, psychedelic. The journal ceased publication in 1971.<br /><br />As Erik Davis says in his introduction to the 2007 reprint of <em>The Psychedelic Reader</em>, the articles in the review are a time capsule from a different age. Timothy Leary was already embarking on his own unique trajectory; the <span style="font-style:italic;">Psychedelic Review</span> manifests an attitude that I can only describe as high seriousness mixed with a sort of roguish innocence. <br /><br />When the first issue came out in 1963, a student could subscribe to the first year for four dollars.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-55098333305648734392009-03-10T02:25:00.001-07:002009-03-10T13:06:44.002-07:00A New Ayahuasca Book<br />An important recent social phenomenon has been the development and expansion of new religious movements in Brazil, which use <em>ayahuasca</em> as a central sacrament within a largely Christian theological and rhetorical context — referring to <em>ayahuasca</em> as the Blood of Christ, for example, or <em>mareación</em>, the <em>ayahuasca</em> experience, as awakening to Christ Consciousness. The Upper Amazonian contribution to these movements was the use of the basic <em>ayahuasca</em> drink, made from the <em>ayahuasca</em> vine and — exclusively — <em>chacruna</em>. Unlike the Upper Amazon, no other companion plants, such as <span style="font-style:italic;">chagroponga </span>or <span style="font-style:italic;">sameruca</span>, and no <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/01/ayahuasca-admixtures_04.html">admixture plants</a>, are used in the drink. <br /><br />Other central aspects of the Upper Amazon culture area, particularly its shamanism, were also not adopted along with the <em>ayahuasca</em> drink. In fact, anthropologist Edward MacRae has specifically pointed out that Santo Daime has not incorporated such features of Amazonian shamanism as <em>virotes</em>, darts, <em>arcanas</em>, protections, phlegm, or Amazonian ideas of the moral ambiguity of the shaman. Rather, <em>ayahuasca</em> was incorporated as a sacrament into a folk Catholicism that had already been profoundly influenced by spiritism and Afro-Brazilian culture.<br /><br />These religions began in the 1930s, when many Brazilian immigrants moved southwest to the Amazon seeking work <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/06/shamanism-and-rubber.html">tapping rubber trees</a>. Most of these impoverished Brazilian immigrants became sedentary <em>seringueros</em>, but came in contact not only with indigenous Amazonians but also with itinerant <em>mestizo</em> <em>caucheros</em> from the Upper Amazon. Three of these Brazilian immigrants — Raimundo Irineu Serra (1892-1971), Daniel Pereira de Mattos (1904-1958), and José Gabriel da Costa (1922-1971) — founded new religions, mixing African-Brazilian, spiritist, and Christian elements with <em>mestizo</em> and indigenous use of <em>ayahuasca</em>. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbU9vw5_lVI/AAAAAAAAB2g/wjf22zM8YD4/s1600-h/Labate.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 135px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbU9vw5_lVI/AAAAAAAAB2g/wjf22zM8YD4/s200/Labate.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5311219226344658258" /></a>The Brazilian new religious movements have developed their own terminology for the <em>ayahusca</em> drink, often distinct from the terminology of their Upper Amazonian sources. Followers of Santo Daime and Barquinha call their sacred drink <em>santo daime</em> or simply <em>daime</em>, based on the words of Mestre Ireneu — <em>daime força, daime amor, daime luz</em>, give me strength, give me love, give me light. The <em>ayahuasca</em> vine, which they call <em>cipo</em>, vine, or <em>jagube</em>, is the masculine, solar aspect of the drink; the added leaf is called <em>chacrona</em>, or <em>rainha</em>, queen, or simply <em>folha</em>, leaf, and is its feminine, lunar aspect. Followers of the União do Vegetal call the drink <em>hoasca</em> or <em>vegetal</em>. The vine is called <em>mariri</em>, representing the masculine <em>força</em>, power, and the leaf is called <em>chacruna</em>, representing the feminine <em>luz</em>, light, in the combined drink. The various churches have also developed ceremonies quite different from those used for healing in the Upper Amazon.<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 132px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SbVqkqx7pZI/AAAAAAAAB2w/W2EjI_rlpLA/s200/Labate2.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"> <td width="112"><center>Bia Labate</center></td></tr></table><p />These Brazilian churches have generated a significant amount of <a href="http://www.bialabate.net/books">social science literature</a>, much of it in Portuguese. We now have available, however, thanks to anthropologist <a href="http://www.bialabate.net/">Bia Labate</a> and her colleagues, including translator Matthew Meyer, a major contribution in English to the study of these <em>ayahuasca</em> churches — a book entitled <a href="http://www.maps.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=143"><em>Ayahuasca Religions: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Critical Essays</em></a> by Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Isabel Santana de Rose, and Rafael Guimarães dos Santos, translated by Mathew Meyer from the Portuguese <em>Religiões ayahuasqueiras: um balanço bibliográfico</em>. The book is published by — and is now available from — the <a href="http://www.maps.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=143">Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies</a>.<br /><br />The book consists of three parts. The first is a thorough overview of the history of the Brazilian <em>ayahuasca</em> religions, along with a critique of the main publications devoted to these religions, describing the characteristics, tendencies, and central perspectives in this research area. The second part discusses the most significant scientific investigations — pharmacological, psychiatric, and psychological — that have been published about these movements, including critical discussion of their results, contributions, and limitations. The third part is the most exhaustive bibliography to date on the topic of the Brazilian <em>ayahuasca</em> churches, including texts written in Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Spanish. This list includes not only academic publications but also the texts of the new religious movements themselves. There is a foreword by Ralph Metzner.<br /><br />More please.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-9035356001676681792009-03-09T02:58:00.000-07:002009-03-09T06:43:23.655-07:00Listening to the Dreamer<br />A <em>lucid dream</em> is one in which the dreamer is aware of being in a dream state while the dream is still in progress. Lucid dreams can be extremely vivid and realistic, depending on the level of self-awareness during the dream. Most strikingly, lucid dreamers report being able to actively participate in and often manipulate experiences within the dream environment — that is, deliberately walk, fly, look around, handle objects, and interact with dream persons.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SalvAGhsriI/AAAAAAAAByM/vSLRSzYOZbk/s1600-h/lucid2.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 10px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SalvAGhsriI/AAAAAAAAByM/vSLRSzYOZbk/s200/lucid2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307895683375476258" /></a>Lucid dreams provide a unique opportunity to find out more about the experience of dreaming — and, by extension, perhaps more about the experiences of shamans, and about other visionary experiences, including those related to <em>ayahuasca</em>. <br /><br />It is clear, however, that dream <em>reports</em>, given after the dreamer awakens, have a number of methodological problems — problems with recall, conflation, censoring, exaggeration, and confabulation. Dream states are notoriously slippery and prone to being forgotten. Significant details are easily either lost or filled in; coherence is imposed on narrative; connections drawn later are understood as part of the dream itself; memory of the dream is subject to constant revision. People may fail to report the contents of dreams that they perceive to be too revealing, embarrassing, or in conflict with the dreamer’s waking persona.<br /><br />Here is a simple example. Can a lucid dreamer perform mathematical calculations during a dream? If a lucid dreamer is instructed beforehand to calculate, say, the factors of sixteen while in a lucid dream, will the dreamer be able to do it? And — here is the methodological question — how would we know? The dreamer may misreport or misremember the dream content; the dreamer may <em>dream</em> that he or she had calculated the factors of sixteen without actually having done so. <br /><br />What we would like, of course, is for the dreamer to answer the question <em>during the dream</em>, and somehow communicate that answer to the investigator.<br /><br />Similarly, some lucid dreamers report being able to control events in their dreams. There is some reason to believe there are limits to this control — for example, that major changes in dream setting, or even sudden changes in ambient light, such as turning on or off a light switch, are beyond the power of a lucid dreamer. Interestingly, lucid dreamers almost universally are unable to read material of any complexity, being able to read only a few words, with longer sequences deteriorating quickly into gibberish. Again, we would like to have the dreamer both carry out and report the results of reading experiments while still dreaming.<br /><br />So: Is there any way for a lucid dreamer to communicate with us while dreaming? The problem is that, during REM sleep, when lucid dreams seem most likely to occur, there is physical paralysis — known as <em>REM atonia</em> — and difficulty of arousal. However, we can take a look at several interesting possibilities.<br /><br />Here we can distinguish between <em>passive</em> communication from the dreamer to the investigator, using such tools as electroencephalography, and <em>active</em> communication, in which the dreamer voluntarily initiates and controls the communication.<br /><br />It is possible to use instrumentation to attempt to confirm at least some claims of experiences in lucid dreams. In one case, a female lucid dreamer claimed to be able voluntarily to initiate sexual activity in her lucid dreams, leading to orgasms of “profound” intensity. She was fitted with EEG, EOG, and chin-EMG measuring devices, as well as devices to measure respiration, heart rate, vaginal EMG, and vaginal pulse amplitude. She was able to signal, with eye movements, when she was initiating dream sexual activity, and reported upon awakening that she had had an orgasm while dreaming. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Salu__x41wI/AAAAAAAAByE/Rs1LhCOy0_E/s1600-h/lucid1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 197px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Salu__x41wI/AAAAAAAAByE/Rs1LhCOy0_E/s200/lucid1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307895681564333826" /></a>The instrumentation revealed that, at that time, her heart rate showed a moderate increase, and her respiration, vaginal blood flow, and vaginal muscle activity reached their highest point of the night. As a methodological issue, it is not clear whether — or by what criteria — those results count as a confirmation of an orgasm. It is reported that “comparable results were obtained with a male subject,” although presumably, in that instance, such elaborate instrumentation would be unnecessary, as would also concern over definitions.<br /><br />This example raises important issues. To the extent that we are dealing with physiological correlates of internal states, when can it be said that instrumental verification of a physiological correlate confirms the reported state? Presumably what we would want to know about the female subject in the preceding paragraph is the state of her vaginal blood flow and muscle activity during a waking orgasm. Similar examples might include fear, excitement, sorrow, exaltation; to what extent can we claim to have confirmed such reports through physiological correlation? Can we legitimately generalize from physiological correlation of heart rate and fear, say, in waking life to a similar correlation in the course of a lucid dream?<br /><br />The male volunteer raises similar questions. Since erections are regular concomitants of REM dream states in any event, to what extent does an erection confirm a report of voluntarily initiated sexual activity in a lucid dream? The question is generalizable, and once again raises the issue of baseline for particular dreamers.<br /><br />But there are also ways in which the dreamer can voluntarily communicate while in the dream state. The most frequently used mechanism for voluntary communication from a dreamer is by <em>eye movement</em>. It appears that, when a lucid dreamer looks left or right in the dream, the physical eyes in fact make the corresponding motions, which can be picked up and measured by electrodes near the eye muscles. A number of ingenious experiments have been performed using these eye movements. Using such signals, experimenters can determine at what part of the sleep cycle lucid dreaming takes place, how long lucidity lasts, and the correlation of lucid dreams with REM and NREM sleep. Moreover, it has been possible to show that lucid dreamers can in fact remember tasks set for them before going to sleep and can carry out those tasks during the dream state. <br /><br />For example, one lucid dreamer was instructed to draw triangles during the dream and follow the movement of his hands visually while doing so; and, indeed, the physical motions of his eyes while asleep corresponded to those that would have appeared had he been drawing a triangle while awake. Finally, eye movement has been used to show that a lucid dreamer’s sense of time is similar to his or her waking sense of time; instructed to signal with eye movements every ten seconds, lucid dreamers were about as accurate as their waking counterparts. <br /><br />But eye signaling raises methodological issues of its own. While eye movement can signal that the dreamer is, in fact, lucid, it is difficult to use for more sophisticated communication. Moving the eyes apparently changes what the dreamer sees, and such changes in visual imagery apparently can on occasion be sufficiently disruptive to wake the dreamer. Further, there is a limit to the complexity of eye movement that can either be controlled by the dreamer or picked up by a polygraph, and, therefore, there seems to be a limit to the amount of information that can be transmitted by eye movement. Eye movement signaling is an information channel of very narrow bandwidth, usually confined, in experiments so far, to providing yes-no information.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SalvASU6DBI/AAAAAAAAByU/bkp6K4xzog4/s1600-h/lucid3.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 154px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SalvASU6DBI/AAAAAAAAByU/bkp6K4xzog4/s200/lucid3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307895686543051794" /></a>In addition to eye movements, it is at least on occasion possible that <em>nerve impulses</em> generated by voluntarily walking during a lucid dream can be detected by electrodes placed at the feet. Apparently a lucid dreamer, when moving his or her legs in a dream, can actually cause nerve impulses to travel down the legs; although the legs do not actually move, these impulses can be detected. It is not clear that this can be done consistently, or to what extent this ability is found among lucid dreamers generally. It has also been reported that a lucid dreamer can affect the rate of <em>breathing</em> in the physical body by changing the rate of breathing during the dream.<br /><br />The possibilities of such communication can be multiplied by the utilization of various current heads-up and virtual reality devices. For example, it is possible to detect, with relatively accessible technology, not only the movement but the position of the eyes; there are digital cameras available that use this technology to focus on what the viewer is looking at. Data-glove technology, used in virtual reality simulations, can similarly detect minute changes in the positions of the fingers. It should be possible, with proper training, to develop more elaborate codes than the simple yes-no eye-movement codes previously used in lucid dreaming experiments. <br /><br />Such studies apparently remain to be performed.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-75982657467442038552009-03-06T03:24:00.000-08:002009-03-11T05:13:57.361-07:00Jungle Survival Tips: Clean Water<br />I mentioned <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-build-house.html">here</a> that getting clean potable water can be difficult in many parts of the Amazon, including the larger cities. In fact, I strongly recommend against drinking <span style="font-style:italic;">any</span> untreated water in the Amazon, no matter how clear and tempting it might appear. And that includes rainwater, unless you know that the containers in which the water has been caught and stored have been properly cleaned and maintained.<br /><br />Even when you get water through a pipe, the quality of the water depends on where the water comes from and whether the pipe has any cracks or leaks. In addition, the single most important cause of gastrointestinal illness in the wilderness is oral-fecal contamination from dirty hands. Sure, <em>you</em> wash your hands after using the latrine, but does everyone who handles your food and water?<br /><br />So, if you are thinking of heading into the jungle, here are some survival tips.<br /><br />There are three sorts of waterborne microorganisms that can cause human illness in the wilderness — viruses, bacteria, and protozoan cysts. Bacteria in contaminated water may include <em>Escherichia coli</em>, <em>Shigella</em>, and even <em>Salmonella</em>; protozoa may include <em>Giardia</em> and <em>Cryptosporidium</em> — all potential contaminants whenever animal or human fecal material gets into your water source. It is worth bearing in mind that just about any gastrointestinal infection you get from contaminated water can do more than just spoil your trip.<br /><br />Apart from packing in your own bottled water, there are four ways of treating water in the jungle.<br /><br /><strong><em>Boiling</em></strong> is completely effective against protozoan cysts, nontoxic bacteria, and viruses. Bringing the water to a rolling boil is enough, except at higher altitudes, where longer boiling is required because the water boils at a lower temperature. If you are backpacking, there is nothing extra to carry, since you have a pot and stove anyway. On the other hand, boiling takes time and uses up your fuel. Boiling also does not remove sediment, but filtering the water through a bandana usually takes care of that.<br /><br /><strong><em>Halogens</em></strong> such as iodine or chlorine kill bacteria and viruses, but may not kill all protozoan cysts. Iodine tablets such as Potable Aqua and saturated iodine solutions such as Polar Pure are readily available, inexpensive, and lightweight. You can make your own water treatment kit by putting iodine crystals in the bottom of a small bottle, filling it with water, and using capfuls of the resulting saturated iodine solution to treat your drinking water. If you just keep refilling the bottle with water, the iodine will last indefinitely.<br /><br />Some people dislike the iodine taste of treated water, but the taste can be eliminated by adding some vitamin C, as in powdered fruit drinks; in fact, the Potable Aqua "taste neutralizer tablets" are simply ascorbic acid. Another drawback is that the halogen must be given time to work before you can drink the water — anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on how cloudy or cold the water is. Pregnant women and people with thyroid conditions may have adverse reactions to iodine. <br /><br /><strong><em>Mechanical filtration</em></strong> forces the water through a finely porous internal element inside the case in order to physically strain out solid materials, including fine sediment and most — but not all — microorganisms. Bear in mind the difference between a filter and a purifier. A filter mechanically removes protozoa and bacteria from contaminated water. A purifier goes a step further and eliminates viruses as well, by passing the water through either a matrix containing iodine, which kills them, or a filter medium that carries an electrostatic charge, which traps them. A device must inactivate 99.99 percent of viruses to be labeled as a purifier. <br /><br />There is spirited debate about the relative merits of filters and purifiers. Portable filters and purifiers are compact, relatively speedy, efficient, and you can drink the water immediately. On the other hand, they are heavy, a chore to operate, occasionally cranky, and easily become clogged with sediment. <br /><br /><strong><em>Ultraviolet light</em></strong>, if strong enough and applied long enough, destroys the DNA of microorganisms, making them unable to reproduce and cause illness. A small portable ultraviolet light source, weighing less than four ounces, called the SteriPEN Adventurer is designed to be inserted into a wide-mouth water bottle, and is supposed to take about fifty seconds to purify sixteen fluid ounces and about ninety seconds for a liter. It is said to be effective against viruses, bacteria, and protozoa, and it leaves no iodine taste. <br /><br />A drawback is that the device is operated by batteries, and batteries require recharging or replacement, which may not be feasible in wilderness conditions; and the device's performance is significantly affected by the quality of the batteries used. You can get the device with a solar panel battery charger storage case, but it can take two to five days to recharge two <span style="font-variant:small-caps;">cr</span>123 batteries, depending on sun conditions. The device does not remove sediment, but, as with boiling, you can prefilter with a bandana.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-6715596289599848842009-03-05T05:06:00.001-08:002009-03-09T10:27:47.803-07:00Jungle Madness<br />We have talked — <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/06/jungle-and-rainforest.html">here</a> and <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/02/el-dorado.html">here</a> — about the image of the jungle in the European imagination. Part of that mythology is that the jungle — filled with what German filmmaker Werner Herzog called “fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away” — has a mysterious power to drive Europeans crazy.<br /><br />As famed Amazon explorer ColonelPercy Harrison Fawcett said, before his final expedition, "We will have to achieve a nervous and mental resistance, as well as physical, as men under these conditions are often broken by their minds succumbing before their bodies." The term <span style="font-style:italic;">men </span>presumably did not apply to those indigenous people who actually lived under the conditions he was describing.<br /><br />There can be little doubt that this mythology is founded on a hierarchic colonial discourse, in which the colonial Other was seen — often contradictorily and inconsistently — as lazy, aggressive, violent, sexually promiscuous, bestial, primitive, innocent, and irrational, and the colonizers feared contamination by absorption into indigenous life and customs. But more, this colonial discourse was permeated by sexuality. <em>Going native</em> meant, above all, transgressive, interracial sex, with its attendant deterioration and degeneracy — the "abominable practices," the "monstrous passions" of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s <em>Heart of Darkness</em>. <br /><br />The promotional material for a recent <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lost-City-Deadly-Obsession-Amazon/dp/B001NLL414/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1235922617&sr=1-1">book on Amazon exploration</a> speaks of a history in which countless explorers, irresistibly drawn into the green hell of the jungle, "have perished, been captured by tribes, or gone mad." Note the mythic conflation of death, madness, and assimilation into the indigenous. All three fates are essentially the same.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 171px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SahUikjY_gI/AAAAAAAABxs/fg011VvfJjg/s200/quest-Kinski.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="171"><center>Klaus Kinski</center></td></tr></table><p /> In <em>Aguirre The Wrath of God</em>, directed by Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski plays conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro on a doomed quest for El Dorado, the city of gold, in the impenetrable jungles of Peru. The story is based on a historical expedition in 1650, as recorded in the journals of a priest who accompanied the mission. The conquistadors, greedy and cruel, face an environment whose cruelty is equal to their own — hostile natives, disease, starvation, and treacherous waters. <br /><br />The opening shot shows a long line of men and animals snaking their way down a trail on the eastern slope of the Andes into the jungle; the final shot — one of the most unforgettable in cinema – has the camera swooping around the insane Aguirre drifting down the river on a raft filled with corpses and monkeys. In the beginning, Aguirre is rational and careful, surrounded by all the useless trappings of triumphal European civilization, carried on the backs of native porters; in the end, firing his cannon uselessly into the jungle, he is stripped of everything but transgressive sexuality, muttering about how he will conquer Mexico, marry his own daughter, and found "the purest dynasty the earth has ever seen."<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 173px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SahUiu3UKlI/AAAAAAAABx0/7NOQwNEo9oM/s200/quest-Ogier.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="173"><center>Bulle Ogier</center></td></tr></table><p /><em>The Valley (Obscured by Clouds)</em>, produced and directed by Barbet Schroeder, follows a different set of European invaders — a group of hippies searching for paradise in the jungle of Papua New Guinea. The beautiful Bulle Ogier plays the bored and self-centered Vivian, married to the French Consul in Melbourne, who is in New Guinea searching for feathers of the near-extinct Bird of Paradise, which she plans to send back to Paris to sell in her boutiques. She falls in with a ragtag bunch heading for the interior to search for an unknown valley, obscured by clouds and thus invisible from the air, where the natives believe that the gods live. <br /><br />What follows is not entirely clear. The feckless group heads into the jungle, Vivian has sex with the leader, they are welcomed by a primitive people wearing mud masks, they abandon their horses, and finally, at the point of death, they think they see a valley — and the movie ends. <br /><br />The cruel <em>conquistadores</em> and the ineffectual hippies both fall prey to the madness that the jungle inflicts on Europeans. Both movies express this process in dreamy psychedelic soundtracks — by Popul Vuh in <em>Aguirre</em> and Pink Floyd in <em>Valley</em>. Both films enact the European myth of jungle madness; both sets of invaders are stripped bare, absorbed into the jungle, assimilated, finally, into primal fornication and death, gone native entirely.<br /><br />It is worth taking a moment to compare the endings of the two films.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZDlra8SsuXc&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" style="width: 310px; height: 250px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed> </div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hWkW1jf9vVA&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" style="width: 310px; height: 250px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed> </div><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-65922049390818313642009-03-04T03:44:00.001-08:002009-03-04T06:35:08.755-08:00The Magic Mosquito Net<br />In order to become an <em>ayahuasquero</em>, one must be <em>coronado</em>, initiated, usually by receiving the <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/01/phlegm.html">phlegm</a> of one's own <em>maestro ayahuasquero</em>. Still, a number of <em>mestizo</em> shamans also report being initiated by <em>dreams</em> that announce — or confirm — their healing vocation. Strikingly, these dreams tend to share certain themes — a journey, often to a spiritual hospital; initiation by a powerful woman, such as the Virgin Mary, or the Queen of the Hospital; the gift of healing or of shamanic tools, flowers and a shining crown; the prediction of great strength or healing ability.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SaqSKU2QFAI/AAAAAAAABys/ktHpboVfOyU/s1600-h/mosquitero.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 124px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SaqSKU2QFAI/AAAAAAAABys/ktHpboVfOyU/s200/mosquitero.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308215816902153218" /></a>My plant teacher doña María Tuesta had such an initiatory dream when she was eighteen, in which the Virgin Mary confirmed doña María's destiny as a healer. The dream, as she told it to me on several occasions, was long and complex, and sometimes changed in the telling. But it always began with a beautiful young woman coming and sitting by her side. "Today we are going to go upward," the woman says, "and see everything that is happening on earth." <br /><br />María and the woman go into María’s mosquito net, which carries them up into the clouds to a beautiful green meadow. This is paradise, filled with angels — men and women, adults, children, and babies — wearing brilliant white robes and crowns of sweet-smelling flowers. All the angels start to pray the <em>Ave María</em> and the <em>Pater Noster</em>, holding hands and dancing in a circle around her. As María marvels at the sight, the young woman tells her that she is in <em>paraíso terrenal</em>, the earthly paradise. There are thousands of angels, holding beautiful brightly lit candles, holding up their hands and saying <em>amén</em> in a single voice.<br /><br />In the dream, doña María sees many more miraculous things and is dressed by spiritual doctors in the white robes of a healer. But that is a story for another time.<br /><br />A small detail in the dream is of great interest. The fact that doña María is carried to heaven in her <em>mosquitero</em>, mosquito net, has significant symbolic resonance in the Upper Amazon. In crowded households, the impenetrable cotton mosquito net is a refuge of privacy. Even more, shamans of the highest order work secretly within their woven <em>mosquiteros</em> — as pioneering ethnographer Robert H. Lowie says, "in complete darkness under a mosquito net." <br /><br />The ability to enter a mosquito net and disappear, or to converse under the mosquito net with the most powerful spirits, is one of the things that distinguishes the Shipibo <em>meraya</em> shaman from the lesser <em>onanya</em>. The mosquito net within which the <em>meraya</em> retreats after drinking <em>ayahuasca</em> is called a <em>bachi</em>, an egg. <br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 270px; height: 162px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SanQA_YZRzI/AAAAAAAAByk/HxjOywYosXw/s320/Amaringo+-+Banco.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="270"><center>Pablo Amaringo, <em>Spirits Descending on a Banco</em> (detail)</center></td></tr></table><p />Don Francisco Montes Shuña says that the <em>banco</em> — <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/02/prestige-and-hierarchy.html">the highest rank of shaman</a> — enters a mosquito net in the middle of the house, lying face down, while all the disciples remain outside. Then the spirits come to the <span style="font-style:italic;">banco </span>from below to talk to him, and to speak through him. Pablo Amaringo has painted a picture of a <em>banco</em> lying beneath his mosquito net while three spiritual beings — a wise old king and two princes — descend and sit on his body. The shaman is here the <em>banco</em>, the bench, for the sprits descending into the <em>mosquitero</em>. Others wait outside the mosquito net to hear these spirits speak through the shaman’s mouth. <br /> <br />A <em>mestizo</em> who heard doña María’s dream would understand, from the mosquito net reference, that she was experiencing an initiation of a very high order.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-90531667936823881992009-03-03T06:48:00.000-08:002009-03-03T07:01:53.065-08:00Native American Film Festival<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sa0hX5nQl1I/AAAAAAAAB1w/FAsJeH0F1vY/s1600-h/film1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sa0hX5nQl1I/AAAAAAAAB1w/FAsJeH0F1vY/s200/film1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308936230225876818" /></a>If you are going to be in New York this month, check out the 2009 Native American Film + Video Festival, running from March 26 to 29.<br /><br />Founded in 1979 and now celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, the festival is organized by the Film and Video Center of the National Museum of the American Indian. The festival aims to showcase the creative talents of Native American directors, producers, writers, actors, musicians, and cultural activists. The Film and Video Center serves indigenous media throughout the hemisphere through extensive exhibition and information services. <br /><br />From the more than 350 entries received, sixty award-winning shorts, features, and documentaries are being screened, representing indigenous media artists from Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela, and the United States. The films deal with themes central <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sa0zwVDzMNI/AAAAAAAAB2Y/wtzgGeUeWOA/s1600-h/Film5.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:20px 20px 20px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sa0zwVDzMNI/AAAAAAAAB2Y/wtzgGeUeWOA/s200/Film5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308956441119502546" /></a>to indigenous life in the twenty-first century — honor to elders and hope for youth, courageous community action, the survival of Native languages, and the everyday strugle for life and dignity in a profoundly changing world.<br /><br />Subjects of the films range from young Apache skateboarders to the Chiapas massacre, from blood quantum rules to Indian boarding schools, from Navajo weavers to preserving the traditional <em>umiaq</em> skin boat. Several films recount the struggles — and the triumphs — of Asháninka, Guarani, Ayoreo, and other indigenous Amazonian peoples.<br /><br />All festival programs are free. For details, take a look <a href="http://www.nativenetworks.si.edu/eng/blue/nafvf_09.htm">here</a>.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-79175083745820791822009-03-02T17:21:00.000-08:002009-03-03T08:02:37.012-08:00Ayahuasca and Mental Health Among the Shuar<br />We have talked before — <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/01/ayahuasca-and-transient-psychosis.html">here</a> and <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2008/01/ayahuasca-in-supreme-court.html">here</a> — about the Grob, McKenna, Callaway, <em>et al.</em> <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/01/ayahuasca-and-transient-psychosis.html">psychiatric study</a> on the long-term effects of drinking <em>ayahuasca</em> in the ceremonies of the União do Vegetal church. I noted that the study had not clearly disentangled any bias that might have resulted from the fact that the <em>ayahuasca</em> drinkers — but not controls — had been preselected for their orderly churchgoing habits. Here is a study that may shed some light on that question. <br /><br />The twenty-question Self Report Questionnaire, or SRQ-20, is a screening tool for common mental disorders that investigates nonpsychotic symptoms — depression, anxiety, somatiform disorders — in the month prior to the interview. The questionnaire consists of four questions about physical symptoms and sixteen questions about emotional symptoms, all with yes-no answers — questions about such things as crying, tiredness, and inability to enjoy life. The test was validated in a Brazilian population, and thus is commonly used in South America to identify psychiatric symptoms in a primary care setting.<br /><br />The higher the number of positive <em>yes</em> responses, the greater the likelihood of psychopathology. The validity study in Brazil reported that a score of more than eight positive responses is an adequate cut-off point to detect nonpsychotic mental disorders. The test was reported to have a sensitivity of 83 percent, a specificity of 80 percent, and both positive and negative predictive values of 82 pecent, which makes the SRQ-20 a pretty good little test.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 150px; height: 200px;;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Saxidl9w8jI/AAAAAAAAB1A/q_uH6b0IlNA/s200/Fericgla.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="150"><center>Josep María Fericgla</center></td></tr></table><p />Josep María Fericgla, director of the Institut de Prospectiva Antropológica in Barcelona, is an ethnopsychologist and cognitive anthropologist who has done fieldwork with Shuar shamans in Ecuador, and has written widely on shamanism and sacred plants, including a classic Shuar ethnography, <em>Los jíbaros, cazadores de sueños</em>. In his book <em>Al trasluz de la ayahuasca: Antropología cognitiva, oniromancia y consciencias alternativas</em>, he reports on his administration of the SRQ-20 to 113 Shuar, and analyzes the results according to the number of times each participant had drunk <em>ayahuasca</em> in the past.<br /><br />The chart below should make the results clear. The stacked columns run from zero positive responses on the left to greater than sixteen positive responses on the right — that is, from left to right in order of increasing psychopathology. <br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;"><table style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;"><tr> <td><img style="width: 400px; height: 274px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Saxm5WMneMI/AAAAAAAAB1I/1gc4mSb4zn4/s400/SRQ20.png" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr></table></div><p /><br />The chart clearly shows that Shuar who drank less <em>ayahuasca</em> had higher psychopathology scores on the SRQ-20, and those who drank more <em>ayahuasca</em> had lower psychopathology scores. Put another way, the chart shows Shuar who drink more <em>ayahuasca</em> stacked at the left-hand low-pathology end of the chart, and those who drink less <em>ayahuasca</em> stacked at the right-hand high-pathology end. Of those participants who gave zero positive responses, 72 percent had drunk <em>ayahuasca</em> more than 21 times.<br /><br />The study also revealed that there appears to be a generally high rate of psychopathology among the Shuar: more than 60 percent of the participants gave eight or more positive responses on the SRQ-20. Fericgla attributes this unusual level to the accelerated process of deculturation that the Shuar were undergoing — the destruction of their traditional way of life, the plundering of their environment by multinational petroleum and lumber companies, territorial conflicts with colonists, the loss of their spiritual values. Even so, the <em>distribution</em> of the high scores is interesting. Of those who gave eight or more positive responses, 72 percent were women, and 35 percent were men. Part of the explanation may be that Shuar women bear the brunt of deculturation more than the men. Another part may be that Shuar men drink <em>ayahuasca</em> at twice the rate of women. <br /><br />Now, again, what we have here is simply an apparent association between increasing <em>ayahuasca</em> consumption and lower scores on the SRQ-20. The study cannot tell us if there is a causal connection, or, if there is, in which direction it runs. It may be, for example, not that drinking <em>ayahuasca</em> causes better mental health, but rather that people with greater mental health — for any of a variety of reasons — drink more <em>ayahuasca</em>; or even that some third factor — family or social status, for example — is causally related to both.<br /><br />But the bottom line of this study remains that — consistent with the results of the União do Vegetal study and, indeed, of the long-term study of peyote use we discussed <a href=" http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/01/long-term-peyote-use.html">here</a> — there is little evidence that the long-term use of either sacred plant in its ceremonial setting causes any psychological harm, and appears to be associated with mental health benefits.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-41071837048681362432009-03-02T08:18:00.000-08:002009-03-03T06:26:46.184-08:00Mark Your Calendar<br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 146px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Saz-OeREykI/AAAAAAAAB1o/ba7Skwjg68I/s200/Calendar-Metzner.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="146"><center>Ralph Metzner</center></td></tr></table><p /><strong><em>April 1—5</em></strong> The <a href="http://www.sacaaa.org/">Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness</a> and the <a href="http://atpweb.org/">Association for Transpersonal Psychology</a> jointly present a conference on <em>Bridging Nature and Human Nature</em> at the Edgefield Resort in Portland, Oregon. The conference is intended to create an "interdisciplinary coalition to help reassess science and culture and the interface between technology and nature" — that is, to call for a more systemic, process-oriented, intimate, and sensual understanding of the universe in which we live. There will be presentations by Marlene Dobkin de Ríos, Stanley Krippner, David Lukoff, Ralph Metzner, and many others. Two panels are of particular interest to students of shamanism — <em>Sacred Brews: Ayahuasca Controversies and a Clash of Cultures, Indigenous and Postmodern</em>, chaired by Evgenia Fotiou; and <em>Bateson, Postmodernism and Shamanism</em>, chaired by Constantine Hriskos and Sarah Williams. The complete schedule is <a href="http://www.sacaaa.org/downloads/SACSchedule.pdf">here</a>.<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 137px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/Sa0ohj77zkI/AAAAAAAAB2Q/yyaYODA0w1M/s200/Calendar-Luna.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="137"><center>Luis Eduardo Luna</center></td></tr></table><p /><strong><em>April 7—11</em></strong> The <a href="http://hallucinations.risc.cnrs.fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=10&Itemid=70">Association pour la Recherche Transdisciplinaire sur les Hallucinations et autres États Modifiés de Conscience</a> presents its second annual Spring Symposium on Hallucinations in Philosophy and Cognitive Science in Paris, France. While the main focus of the conference is the phenomenon of hallucination, this year invited experts will speak on a wide range of related topics — REM sleep, out of body experiences, meditation, cognitive and affective mechanisms of altered states of consciousness, the phenomenology of conscious states, the ontology of hallucinations, psychoactive plants, traditional rituals, and shamanism. Among the speakers will be <em>ayahuasca</em> experts Luis Eduardo Luna and Benny Shanon, as well as neurologists, neuroscientists, neuropsychopharmacologists, and artists. A preliminary program is <a href="http://hallucinations.risc.cnrs.fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=50&Itemid=73">here</a>.<br /><br /><strong><em>June 7—10</em></strong> The <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/congreso2009/">Takiwasi Centre</a> holds the first International Conference on Traditional Medicines, Interculturality and Mental Health in Tarapoto, Peru. This conference brings together practitioners of traditional medicine, indigenous representatives, participants in projects that integrate traditional medicine with conventional medicine, academics, government representatives, and international organizations, in order to demonstrate and promote the contribution of traditional medicine in providing solutions to contemporary problems in mental health. A list of proposed presentations is <a href="http://www.takiwasi.com/congreso2009/ing/expos.phppractitioners of traditional medicine, ">here</a>.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 155px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SawMYddbzHI/AAAAAAAABzc/l99MukPC5vg/s200/Calendar-Kandemwa.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="155"><center>Augustine Kandemwa</center></td></tr></table><p /><strong><em>June 18—21</em></strong> The <a href="http://www.shamansociety.org/">Society for Shamanic Practitioners </a>holds its Fifth Annual Conference on Shamanism and Shamanic Practice at Menla Mountain, Catskills, New York. Although the program has not yet been set, the conference will feature Mandaza Augustine Kandemwa, an <em>nganga</em> or Bantu medicine man in the Shona and Ndebele traditions of Zimbabwe. Also featured will be healing practitioners Pamela Albee, Jane Burns, Leontine Hartzell, Sharynne MacLeod NicMhacha, Mark Perkins, Linda Secord, and others. A continuous drumming prayer ceremony will take place twenty-four hours a day during the conference. The Society of Shamanic Practitioners was formed to support the re-emergence of shamanism into modern western culture, and to document the ways in which shamanism is changing and being used in the twenty-first century world.<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:10px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 138px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SavTtL4ePZI/AAAAAAAABzU/kG5c3ybsX7c/s200/Calendar-Krippner.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="138"><center>Stanley Krippner</center></td></tr></table><p /><strong><em>June 26—30</em></strong> The <a href="http://www.asdreams.org/2009/">International Association for the Study of Dreams</a> presents its Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference at Wyndham O’Hare Hotel in Rosemont, Illinois, with the theme <em>Earth Dreaming: Twenty-five Years of Carrying the Dream Forward</em>. Keynote speeches will be given by psychologist Stanley Krippner, <em>Everyone Who Dreams Partakes of Shamanism</em>, and cognitive anthropologist Barbara Tedlock, <em>The Shamanic Power and Spirituality of Dreaming</em>. Invited presenter Robert Moss will speak on <em>The Secret History of Dreaming</em>. There will be five days of seminars, workshops, papers and events focusing on clinical, theoretical, research, cross-cultural, artistic, and spiritual approaches to understanding dreams and nightmares from over 150 international presenters.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:0px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 122px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SawgOfM0o6I/AAAAAAAAB0A/6XRFlPY4inU/s200/Calendar-McKenna.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="122"><center>Dennis McKenna</center></td></tr></table><p /><strong><em>July 11—18</em></strong> <a href="http://www.soga-del-alma.org/conferencesite.html">Soga del Alma</a> hosts the Fifth International Amazonian Shamanism Conference with the theme <em>The Art and the Heart of Healing</em>. Local <em>curanderos</em> will hold evening healing ceremonies, and there will be a special showing of the movie <a href="http://heavenearthfilm.com/"><em>Heaven Earth</em></a>, along with discussion with the filmmakers Rudolf Amaral and Harald Scherz. The schedule is still being compiled, but expect to see a number of local healers, including <em>huasero</em> Marie Louisa Garcia, as well as psychopharmacologist Dennis McKenna, journalist Peter Gorman, painter Pablo Amaringo, sound healer Richard Grossman, and many others.<br /><br /><table style="float:left; margin:2px 20px 10px 0px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 166px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SavTsgvcnaI/AAAAAAAABy8/PbDOS5iOuBM/s200/Calendar-Amaringo.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="166"><center>Pablo Amaringo</center></td></tr></table><p /><strong><em>July 25—August 5</em></strong> <a href="http://www.shamanism.co.uk/pablo-amaringo-workshop/Pablo-Amaringo-Visionary-Art-Workshop.html">Eagle's Wing Centre for Contemporary Shamanism</a> offers <em>The Ayahuasca Visions of Pablo Amaringo</em>, a visionary art workshop to be held in the Alpahuayo Mishana Nature Reserve with famed painter Pablo Amaringo, who will give daily hands-on art workshops. There will be ceremonies in the evening with Shipibo shamans Enrique Lopez and either Benjamín Ochavano or Leoncio Garcia.<br /><br /><strong><em>September 5—7</em></strong> The <a href="http://shamanismconference.org/">Society for the Study of Shamanism, Healing and Transformation</a> holds its Annual International Conference on the Study of Shamanism and Alternative Modes of Healing at the Santa Sabina Center, San Rafael, California. This year the theme is <em>Shamans of the Twenty-First Century</em>. The schedule is not yet set, but the conference will feature Bantu medicine man Mandaza Augustine Kandemwa, as well as presentations by practitioners and independent scholars of shamanism and alternative healing.<br /><br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SavTslbrxnI/AAAAAAAABzE/bzbKblnJlLE/s200/Calendar-Danashin.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="150"><center>Danashin Tamang</center></td></tr></table><p /><strong><em>November 29—December 8</em></strong> <a href="http://psychoactivity.eu/">Psychoactivity</a> presents its sixth annual conference at the Dhulikhel Mountain Resort, Kathmandu, Nepal, on the theme <em>The Tiger Meets The Jaguar</em>. Nepalese shamans Maile Lama, Parvati Rai, Danashin Tamang, and Dawa Sherpa will meet with anthropologist-turned-shaman Kajuyali Tsamani, head of the <em>Fundación de Investigaciones Chamanistas</em> in Colombia, and with noted scholars Christian Rätsch, Arno Adelaars, and Claudia Mueller-Ebeling to share their life stories, ceremonies, and shamanic knowledge. Psychoactivity was founded in 1997 in Amsterdam to organize conferences on new visionary plant research, shamanism, and altered states of consciousness.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3544799987499995638.post-76903569318584285862009-03-01T15:08:00.000-08:002009-03-01T18:08:26.921-08:00Primer Festival de la Selva Peruana<br /><table style="float:right; margin:10px 20px 10px 20px;"><tr><td><img style="width: 167px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2F6NQ_-Fucc/SaU2OChjOWI/AAAAAAAABws/WEMVtLQyTaY/s200/Wilindoro.jpg" border="0" alt=""/></td></tr><tr style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial;" valign="top"><td width="167"><center>Wilindoro Cacique, left, and <em>La Tigresa del Oriente</em></center></td></tr></table><p />The photograph on the right shows Wilindoro Cacique, original vocalist with the famed Juaneco y su Combo, masters of <em>cumbia amazónica</em>, whom I discussed <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2009/01/jungle-music.html">here</a>, and Judith Bustos, <em>La Tigresa del Oriente</em>, whom I discussed <a href="http://singingtotheplants.blogspot.com/2007/12/tigress-of-jungle.html">here</a>, "making click click," as <a href="http://www.cumbia.com.pe/?p=1964">one music blog put it</a> — "kissing each other on the mouth like teenagers" and posing very affectionately for the photographers. "Hot-blooded," said <a href="http://www.cumbiaperuana.com/portal/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2445&get=last">another</a>, enthusiastically.<br /><br />"We are great friends with each other," said <em>La Tigresa</em>, who is now 63 years old, about the same age as Wilindoro. "My children support me and do not care what I do at this stage of my life." The performers say that they plan to appear together — romantically — in a video on the subject <em>Felina</em>, Cat Woman.<br /><br />According to the <a href="http://www.agenciaorbita.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1080&Itemid=39">Orbita news agency</a>, this historic meeting took place in Lima on February 23 at the first <a href="http://blog.festivaldelaselva.com/">Festival de la Selva Peruana</a>. "This is the first time that the most important groups of our jungle will share the same stage," <a href="http://www.cumbia.com.pe/?p=1879">said</a> the organizers of the event. "The idea is that the <em>charapas</em> living in Lima will be able to enjoy the pure style of our birthplace and thus recreate in the capital a true Amazonian carnival. Nothing will be missing." <br /><br />The term <em>charapa</em>, literally <em>turtle</em>, has traditionally been used to refer, often pejoratively, to the indigenous and <em>mestizo</em> inhabitants of the Peruvian Amazon, with the implication that they are slow, like turtles. Like many pejorative terms, this one has been adopted by its targets as a mark of pride, who see themselves — especially those far from home in Lima — as hard-shelled, thick-skinned, and invulnerable.<br /><br />The festival included a number of new Amazonian music groups — Kaliente, El Lobo y su Sociedad, Los Caribeños, Los Patos, and Ilusión — as well as regional dishes, exotic drinks, and the election of Miss Jungle Fashion 2009. <br /><br />Miss Jungle Fashion! Damn, I can't believe I missed this.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0