I got a new job, and it’s pretty awesome.  I work for a local indie news site.  Working in an office that revolves around web design and finding out about breaking local stories is pretty fun.  I do simple stuff, like transferring and organizing data on wordpress, and posting local events on our community event calendar.  I’m trying to make it meaningful by thinking a lot about what goes in the calendar and how I can promote really badass art and music, and blurring the line between high and low culture because of course, fuck that bougie bullshit, right?

Anyways!  Tis cool.  Even cooler, though, is that I’m going to start my “poison” garden. 

While poisons are dangerous, a better word is “powerful.”  Minute amounts can have strong effects on the human system, so these plants are incredibly important, and the utmost attention must be paid when interacting with them.

I found some Datura (stramonium) seeds on a walk around my neighborhood, so I’m going to study those for a bit, then plant them, and get super stoked on this incredibly powerful plant.

According to one source, these plants can help with bioremediation of soil by absorbing heavy metals, and can help with nerve gas poisoning. 

Columbia University Nerve Gas pre-treatment study

Bioremediation of heavy metals AND explosives… two kinds of toxic substances currently polluting the Appalachians (coal mining) as well as tons of other areas!

Datura has also been used for entheogenic/shamanistic reasons in several cultures around the world where this plant is historically found.  I will detail these further in another post, but for now, I’m very excited, and will post pictures as soon as I have a seedling.

I’m working on one, for the first full moon.  Currently, trying to collect my thoughts: What do I really want/need in the new year?

It’s 2012, so now more than ever, I think any ritual about my own life needs a global perspective.  Because of my politics, I focus on community and what that means to me daily, but something extra would be appropriate to incorporate in this ritual. 

I don’t think the world is going to explode or anything on the next winter solstice… far from it.  That would be incredibly convenient for us all, wouldn’t it?  Don’t have to solve our problems, grow or change or learn, just boom, done, and anything or anyone left after that is automatically justified for surviving.  A lot of folks already think that way about the world as it is now, and they call that capitalism…

ANYWAYS.  Practical things I need right now, really, just money.  The rest of my life is pretty spectacular.  My friends are incredible.  My siblings are awesome and we are still as close as we ever were.  My partner is wonderful.  My world is so rich with pretty much every single thing, except money to pay my bills.  Isn’t that how it goes, though?

The rest of the world is feeling the financial strain, too.  Maybe I’ll find a job, or an income, soon, but for this to really change on a global scale, radical and revolutionary action is necessary.  For folks here, that means a lot of things.. the “Occupy” movement (quotations to denote my dislike of that term being used) obviously, and for a lot of us, really, it’s more about building alternative infrastructure and providing the community with analysis that empowers them to take control of their lives.  So how to summon that energy in a money spell and tie it all together?

I will let you know when I figure it out…  Any New Year’s, Solstice, or money spells that have worked well for you?

I was in the woods yesterday and found a huge fallen tree, covered in large mushrooms of at least three different types!  Being something of a mycophile it was really exciting.  Then, as my friend and I walked around through a section of forest where several large trees had died, we found one that was full of something like sawdust, rotted tree that had almost the consistency of soil.  We both took a bagful to add to our potting soil.

At that point, some middle aged white man walked by us for a second time, and interrogated us about our coughing.  I suppose I might have coughed, since I am getting over a minor cold, and my friend smokes cigarettes, so she may have as well… but regardless, he was convinced we were smoking pot and about to burn down the forest.  He asked why we were coughing if we weren’t smoking, and then told us “Just don’t get any embers on these leaves” and stalked off.

Well, we weren’t smoking.

Also, the ground was very wet and muddy since it had been raining for hours the day before.

It was so ridiculous, that he felt he had the right to not only approach two female-bodied people alone in the woods, with his dog that was behaving semi-aggressively, and that he assumed we also didn’t know what we were doing there, to the point that, if we were smoking, we would burn the forest down.

Or maybe he wanted to call the cops?  Who knows.  It was so condescending and out of line.  The assumption is that some young, counter-culture person could not be in the woods for legitimate, practical, scientific, or spiritual reasons, only to fuck shit up or break laws or something.  I just wanted to share this experience because I know that a lot of folks who are radically-minded and also practice any form of witchcraft or other magic probably run into this a lot: What are you, some kind of druggie? Hippie?  

Nah, actually, I’m an anarchist, ecologist, and a witch.  The world is my fucking laboratory and my temple, and I treat it with far more respect than you have for me.

K, I feel better now that I’ve ranted.

An infusion of damiana and rasberry leaf is helpful with a bit of hibiscus for taste.  I might have gone a bit heavy on the damiana, (as evidenced by every dream I just had turning into a sex dream) but it definitely helps with mood as well as pain.  The rasberry leaf relieves excessive, heavy bleeding and helps minimize cramps as well.

I’ve taken morning glory seeds twice now.

The first time was during the day with two other folks.  We walked to the river near my home and smoked a bowl.  We waited until well beyond the peak to mix any other substances into the experience, except for some passion flower tea…

Anyways.  I prepared the mixture thusly:  Seeds (for three people, and since it was a first experience, probably about 1100) were ground in a coffee grinder, not to a powder, but certainly broken down a lot.  I soaked them for between 20 and 30 minutes in 60 oz. of distilled water, agitating them a couple times, in an opaque container.  This was all done in the dark with cold water. Heat and light will break down LSA.

Read More

I just started this, and I WILL be more consistent with posting.  Right now, I am sick… and also busy, with a friend in town, plus the Solstice is nearly here, and a party to get ready for tomorrow.  It’s going to be amazing, we dumpster’d an insane amount of food!  Yes.

Being sick sucks, but it has been markedly less stressful on my body than most folks I know who have had the same thing.  I started out with plenty of elderberry, and have used most of my go-to sinus/throat/lung health stuff… like marshmallow root, elecampane, and echinacea.  I also made soup which is roughly as follows (didn’t really follow a recipe)

Cayenne pepper (fresh or dried but PLENTY of it)

onion

carrot

cabbage

rice noodles

lots of mushrooms

soy sauce

vinegar

garlic

whatever spices and such you have onhand

Saute the carrot, onion, garlic and mushrooms.  When they’re soft, add some soy sauce and vinegar, balancing to taste, and the cayenne.  Fill out the broth with water or chicken broth or veg broth, whatever, and as it starts to simmer, add the cabbage.  Let it cook until it’s mostly soft (sort of al dente, i guess) and then add the rice noodles.  Reduce the heat, stir, and as they finish, add salt and pepper to taste.

The key to this is the spiciness, the vinegar, the mushrooms and the cabbage.  Mushrooms (especially shiitake!) and cabbage are full of great phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals.  The vinegar has its obvious antiseptic (i think i’m using the wrong term, but you know what i mean) properties, and the cayenne and other spices clear your sinuses and temporarily numb your throat just enough to stop you from coughing so much.

Anyways, to bed so I can wake up and cook and clean and decorate for tonight.

An herbal hair tonic.  It could be used a lot of different ways, depending on how many other products you use.  Could just be a rinse before or after shampoo, could replace it and conditioner (if I got the recipe right).  If it turns out well, I’ll post the recipe soon!

Mullein is an amazing plant.  It’s very effective for treating coughs and colds, by soothing your throat and breaking up congestion.  The flowers are also effective against ear infections, and good for your skin.

I could talk about this for an excessively long time OR just give you a recipe for cough medicine based on dried mullein leaf.

1 cup leaves per cup of water
1/8 cup dried elderberries (per cup)
1/4 cup dried peppermint leaves (per cup)
A piece (or two…) of orange peel for flavor
2 tablespoons (per cup) honey

Gently (!) boil until reduced to half liquid. strain w/ chinoise or cotton cloth, allowing all liquid to drain.
while warm, add honey and mix well. Refrigerate!

An excellent resource with lotsa info about lotsa things

Lately, I’ve been finding entheogens all around me.

In the mid-atlantic, it’s seed time for morning glories.  I happened across a patch in my neighborhood, and I’ve been collecting them for about ten minutes every couple days.  I have around 1500 right now, with plenty more where that came from.

I’ve been researching them somewhat intensely since I stumbled on them. First of all, not all morning glories contain much LSA, and they contain oily substances that make you nauseous.  LSA is tough on the vascular system, and cumulatively.  Trips should be spaced out and effects vary depending on who you are.  Usually, side effects are soreness, and extremities (feet/hands) falling asleep, getting cold, etc. much more easily than normal.  For this reason, ingesting LSA with things that amplify these effects, such as nicotine, caffeine, and any other vasoconstrictives could cause more serious effects. 

LSA is described as dreamy, highly visual, and best taken within an isolated natural setting.  Nausea can be lessened several ways, most of which depend on extractions of LSA from the seeds.  Most of the time, something is used to absorb the oils, usually a petroleum product, and then alcohol is used to separate the LSA from the remaining seed material.

There are other varied accounts of using cold, distilled water to separate the water-soluble LSA from the bad, oily stuff, or dissolving it in an acidic juice.  This is the method I’ll be starting with, as I don’t intend to process any entheogenic material with petroleum. (seems like some sort of an oxymoron to me.  If I am seeking a spiritual experience and using an environmentally toxic process to arrive at that experience, I have brought more harm than any good I could get out of the trip, so what was the point?)

I have not taken these yet.  I’m going to collect a lot more, also.  I want to have enough for multiple trips.  I want to experiment with different natural extraction methods and see what happens.

I do not usually mind or complain about nausea with hallucinogens like psilocybin-containing mushrooms.  It’s a small price to pay, right?  I actually do enjoy the flavor of mushrooms very much, so that could be part of the reason.  Either way, my research indicates that morning glories have more toxic substances, and that the nausea is often entirely overwhelming for folks that take it.

From what I’ve read, it seems ginger and fruit-based foods help.  I’ll be making a strong ginger tea with lemon and honey beforehand and drinking that about a half an hour after the water (or juice maybe?) with the LSA cold-infused into it.

LSA breaks down if heated or exposed to light, so be considerate of this when preparing any recipe.

Seeds will pass through the digestive system without giving much effect if they are not ground.  I will be writing a part two within a couple weeks updated with personal experience, what method I use, etc.  Stay tuned!

Some quick references to learn more:

LSA Experience Vault @ Erowid

Morning Glories as medicinal/entheogenic plants section on Wikipedia

Have any information to add?