((The accounts of both ayahuasceros and San Pedro shamans and their descriptions of working with the plant doctors and allies that are their spiritual and healing partners reveal a very gentle,lyrical,and ensouled approach to the world.
A very different picture begins to emerge from these accounts than the images we get from newspaper reports and television documentaries,wich lead us to believe that hallucinogens of any description are bad and need to be banned.
The stories of the shamans tell of gifting their patients with power,of opening their minds to new possibilities and freedoms,to a life of connection and a sense of the divine.By contrast,our modern view seems based in fear and distaste for the very possibilities of such a connection.
What can account for the discrepancy between the two?
We are not the first writers to remark on the political dimension to all of this.
For example,the comedian Bill Hicks writes: Drugs that grow naturally uon this planet,drugs that open your eyes up,to make you realize how you`re being fucked every day of your life.Those are against the law.WOW! Coincidence? I don`t think so.....
It`s not a war on drugs,it`s a war on personal freedom.
The governments of the Western world want to ban hallucinogens(and,indeed,have already done so)and prosecute those who use them.
But what is really being controlled? Not the drugs,but our freedoms and our minds.
The hidden message behind such prohibitions is,"We will not allow you to expand your consciousness beyond the norm of socially prescribed
reality or to see possibilities in the world that do not come from us."
This is an insidious message.Digging further,what it really says is:"We will not allow you to be fully human,to use your mind,to experience reality for what it is.We withhold the sacred from you."
But our minds are our own! Surely we have every right to explore them as we wish?
Sacred hallucinogens,furthermore,are not "drugs" but plants,and surely there is a fault in the logic that says that plants can be illegal substances,
when they grow naturally,broadly,and bountifully from the Earth and in every country of the world.
Bill Hicks again:"Making cannabis illegal is like saying God made a mistake."
The land gives freely to all.Where is the logic in saying it should be owned and controlled by the few?
Argue or reason as we might,we in the west are facing a situation of increasing repression of our freedom to experience the sacred,as plants
like ayahuasca and San Pedro help us to do.
We are loosing our connection to the spirit of the world because the power of government to control our access to it.
This repression is not for our safety-to stop us from "getting high" and jumping off buildings---but to keep us locked in a materialistic mindset.
Any transformational experience that shows us the interconnectedness of all things,and our part in the planetary consciousness,
runs contrary to this objective.
But it is obvious how self-defeating this objective ultimately is when we look at where such materialism has got us.
Everything we do to our planet in the name of "progress," we also do to ourselves.
As we lose the power to dream,so our dreams die,and we create a world based in fear and conflict-the very things for wich the West has become
known,and a far cry from the gentle world of the shaman.))
( Plant Spirit Shamanism by Ross Heaven and Howard G.Charing.) :respect:
mat for både "for" og "Imot".
Det er lett å la sinnet bli forurenset i denne materialistiske tiden vi lever i.
Og for mange, er plantemedisin en hjelper til å finne igjen sitt innerste..
Viva