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Eyes wide open...

Hits close to home.

My brother-in-law and acupuncturist who's been down to South America and tried ayahuasca was telling me of this very thing, the scientist, the snakes the DNA strands. I can't remember if he said he saw the snakes or DNA himself, but I know he did find the ayahuasca quite the experience.

I've seen those DNA strands myself in the...the...uh...the meditative space. What's that place called anyway?

Great blog.

posted by Oceandancer on September 21, 2004 at 6:04 AM | link to this | reply

Well, let's just keep...

destroying the rain forest and the Amazon basin and Shamanism, powerful and potential healing rememdies from their environment will become moot....Saving the environment...how utterly altruistic, how liberal, how...wrong.

posted by xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on September 11, 2004 at 12:23 AM | link to this | reply

Thanks Damon

Good luck with the ayahuasca. Let us know how it went, when you get back safe and sound. This is a fascinating subject that could lead to some really break-through scientific knowledge, if more scientists could have an open mind about it.

posted by GoldenMean on September 6, 2004 at 6:55 PM | link to this | reply

I've Only Just...

...come across this post via your Comment in my 'Path of a Shaman' blog.

I know that shamanic practitioners gain knowledge from the world around them, but they access what some modern folk call non-ordinary reality (to access non-ordinary knowledge through non-ordinary means). So its clear to me that the secrets of ayahuasca and other plant remdies and hallucinogens come to the shamans direct from the plant itself, and NOT through trial and error. As you point out yourself, the number of possibilities is huge and this would take many lifetimes (and probably many lives!).

I've never heard the DNA link before, and it does sound plausible, though I worry about scientists taking a mystery and trying to shoehorn the percieved phenomena into an answer that fits their reality. Still, it may yet hold some merit.

I'm hoping to be guided through an ayahuasca experience next year by a Shuar shaman in Ecuador. I know the risks, of course, but I'm working hard, even now, to minimise them by getting my own spiritual space as right as I can.

Great post!

D

posted by DamonLeigh on September 5, 2004 at 5:51 AM | link to this | reply

Thanks for the comments, Rove and Billy

If you guys or anyone else has a dream about two giant snakes giving you a lecture, let me know!

posted by GoldenMean on August 25, 2004 at 7:58 PM | link to this | reply

Fascinating...I once worked with an ethnobotanist from

Nicaragua who believed these cures were from trial and error but perhaps they come from a collective memory.  Not that she's an expert but Jean Auel talks about this in Clan of the Cave Bear.

posted by FreeManWalking on August 13, 2004 at 1:30 AM | link to this | reply

so it could be that our backs are capable of telling us directly how to cure their pains? i don't have much else to say, besides fascinating.

posted by rovesciato on August 13, 2004 at 1:08 AM | link to this | reply