It's the Christmas season... don't forget to buy people lots of stuff because they are buying you lots of stuff.

Wake up! Look at what is going on around you!

One of the painful aspects of "waking up" is that you suddenly become aware of what is really going on all around you. Once you step outside of "normal" thinking, you see how fucked up and chaotic the world is around us.

I know that everything is perfect... ahhh... Absolute Perfection.

Umm, can I say that it is perfectly fucked-up? If we were trying to create a system that provided short-term pleasure for a very small percentage of the population... then I guess you could say that we have succeeded.  Perfectly created system to benefit the few.

Concentration of wealth. Power over. For some... perfection. For most others... pain and fear.

What is the alternative? Balance. There will always be dark energy in the world, that's the nature of duality. Let's bring light and dark into balance.

This 20-minute video shows how we, citizens of earth, are co-creating an unbalanced reality. The more we know about what is really going on around us, the better we will be able to make decisions about how to take action.

It's happening. Nerds coming together to take over YouTube for fundraising purposes. Bodhisattvas are popping up everywhere.

Each YouTube video producer is connected to a non-profit. They are seriously trying to "take over" YouTube for philanthropic purposes. Titled ,"Project for Awesome", these nerds are trying to gather together as many YouTube members to post videos with a NERDFIGHTER POWER - Project for Awesome thumbnail. This thumbnail will then "flood" the "Most Discussed" page on YouTube.

Project for Awesome: Explanation and Humane Societies

I guess you could say, "Giving. It's the new getting."  ;-)

Re: Dec 18th: The Project for Awesome and Question Tuesday!!

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."  ~ Buddha

Remember that we are all making it up as we go along. Why is it so hard to remember? When you doubt everything that you believe you may find yourself in an uncomfortable situtation. Try it sometime. No really... try it sometime.

I figured that I better talk about salvia divinorum now while it is still legal in most states in this country and also legal in most countries on the planet.

 

The Basics

Salvia divinorum is a plant used for its psychoactive effects. Given the right dose, individual, set and setting, it produces a unique state of  'divine inebriation' which has been traditionally used by Mazatec healers. This inebriation is quite different from that of alcohol. Salvia divinorum is both similar to, and different from, other drugs that affect the brain and behavior. In many ways Salvia divinorum is a unique 'magical' herb. Salvia (and the salvinorin it contains) is very difficult to categorize pharmacologically. It does not fit well into any existing pharmacological class.

 

What is a Salvia divinorum experience like? It is almost certainly not like what you expect. Even if you have considerable experience with other psychoactive drugs, you will find that salvia is significantly different from what you may have encountered before. Salvia is unique, and it is best understood on its own terms, and not by analogy with other substances. Salvia is not a recreational drug, rather, it is best used by those wishing to explore deep meditative states, spiritual realms, mysticism, the nature of consciousness and reality, or the possibilities of shamanistic healing. Experiences vary with the individual, set, and setting as well as with dose and route of administration. It produces a short-lived inebriation that is very different from that of alcohol. However, like alcohol it interferes with the ability to drive, produces incoordination (ataxia), and may produce slurred speech.

 

The inebriation, at low doses, can facilitate aesthetic and sensual appreciation. However, the experience is not marijuana-like, and salvia is not a marijuana substitute. At somewhat higher doses, visionary trances occur. The lowest level visions consist mainly of closed-eye imagery somewhat similar to the hypnagogic phenomena that many people experience when falling asleep. These tend to be two dimensional faint images. The term "eye candy" is an appropriate description of the interesting closed eye visuals that are not confused with reality. At this level communication with others is still easy and one can move about although clumsiness will occur. With a higher dose vivid visual images occur even with eyes open, and with eyes closed one may completely enter the visionary world, and it will seem quite real, but upon opening ones eyes one will reestablish contact with ones surroundings. Speech patterns may be interfered with and communication is difficult. At still higher doses, one remains conscious but completely enters an inner realm and loses all contact with ones actual surroundings. Some people may move around in this deep trance state and for this reason a sitter is required for anyone seeking to explore such deep levels. With very high dosage a brief period of unconsciousness or at least the inability to subsequently remember the experience will occur.

 

Further information can be found in this FAQ.

The Expert

Daniel Siebert is an independent researcher, pharmacognosist, ethnobotanist, educator, and author. He has been studying Salvia divinorum for over twenty years and was the first person to work on the human pharmacology of salvinorin A and to clearly identify this compound as the psychoactive principal of the plant. He has studied Salvia divinorum in its native habitat and has worked with it under the guidance of Mazatec shamans.

The Experience

Erowid is a member-supported organization providing access to reliable, non-judgmental information about psychoactive plants and chemicals and related issues. They work with academic, medical, and experiential experts to develop and publish new resources, as well as to improve and increase access to already existing resources. They also strive to ensure that these resources are maintained and preserved as a historical record for the future. [Somebody has to preserve all of this seemingly wild and crazy stuff]  ;-)

Words fail to describe the salvia experience but you can read others attempts at putting it into words here. Be prepared for some mind-blowing recollections.

For a good video introduction to salvia, check out this short student documentary on Salvia Divinorum:

Finally, if you have time, check out Alex. The video is a little long but captures a full salvia experience. Alex’s experience resonates very deeply with me. During the salvia experience, everything happens so quickly that words fail to convey what is being witnessed moment to moment.

 

“It feels like my mind is a camera and it’s taking pictures and every time there’s a flash my mind is thinking and while there’s not a flash my mind is not thinking.” ~ Alex

 

Alex is only one of several hundred “younger” persons that have posted their salvia experiences on YouTube. Unfortunately most of these “young” people have little or no framework to understand or comprehend the experience. So what are we to do? Make salvia illegal and sweep it under the rug with marijuana, LSD and MDMA?

 

When are we going to stop, wake up and pay attention to what is being revealed to us?

 

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” ~ Wizard of Oz

What is money? Where does it come from? What is alternative and complementary currency?

Coinci-dance. The dance of coincidence and synchronicity.

The following was written six months after this explorer's first experience with Salvia…

 

" During those months the Salvia experiences were never far from my thoughts, the apparent ‘realness’ forcing me to question my entire belief structure, which has always been pretty shaky at best. Even though I consider myself a veteran drug user, Salvia shocked and shook me to the very soul of my being like no other substance has ever done. Indeed the Salvia experience was so ‘out there’ I was no longer sure where ‘here’ is. My new-found pre-occupation with trying to integrate the Salvia experiences into my worldview of what is possible took away worries from everyday trivial concerns, for as a human I was no longer stuck plant-like to the same spot, I had arms and legs and an opposable thumb! What gripe had I? 

I tried to explain to my friends what had happened, but how could I even begin? This rambling written report will give you some idea about that difficulty. After a while I decided to shut up, as harping on about it seemed to act as a barrier between normal interaction. My psychology degree-holding friends half-heartedly listened then belittled and branded the most profound experience of my life as hallucinations. They probably thought I was weirder than Prince Charles. This irritated me slightly, because, as friends, and particularly as educated psychologists, I would have expected more interest from them. Even if my experiences were hallucinations, what do those hallucinations tell us about the brain and chemical reactions, etc., and if the hallucinations seemed ‘true’ and realer than real, then how real is reality, and so on. I was just expecting more input and less ridicule, since it is their professional field. To me, this plant seemed to be a fascinating tool for exploring psychology - most importantly, states of consciousness and belief structures. However, my friends’ belief structures wouldn’t budge or consider anything beyond what they had first sponged from a textbook (darn conformist scholars!). I can’t blame them, though: even I couldn’t believe it, and it had happened to me! It was clear I needed to find other people who had experienced Salvia, to see what they made of it too. This is what brought me to do further research on the internet. 

Reading through other people’s Salvia reports I was taken aback - as they revealed that different people in different places were ‘hallucinating’ the same thing!!! "

 

 

I agree that the similarity in experience reports is astounding... amazing, unbelievable and sometimes frightening. What if each Salvia user is experiencing this same questioning of their belief structures? I like to think of Salvia as being the "The Red Pill" from the movie The Matrix. If there is a "Wake-Up" pill, Salvia could be it.

 

 

The full Salvia experience report can be found on Erowid.