FIREWORKS AT A WEDDING: ‘ENTHEOGENS’ AND RELATIONSHIPS
I admit, I don’t have personal experience with many of the ethnobotanical hallucinogens, often called “entheogens”. I’ve never taken mushrooms, or LSD, or such things. I can only tell my own story here, and I feel the need to.
When hearing non-indigenous people describe their plant-assisted ’shamanic’ journeys, I feel something missing. It reminds me of the great visionary stories, of Black Elk, and Buddha, and Jesus, and Stalking Wolf. And it all seems so intense, violent, and non-relational.
And I still don’t see why one needs a plant-intermediary to help establish a deep connection to land and spirit.
As in the title above, for me building relationships with friends and family, human and other-than, feels like an ongoing series of weddings. Courtships, and laughter, dancing, and feasts. Gifts, gifts, gifts, and receive thankfulness and community in return.
A wedding has so much going on. Just imagine then, if a crew of guys came in, and started up a fourth-of-july quality fireworks show, right there? Thunder and explosions, bursts of color and light, oohs and ahhhs.
But what about the wedding? It suddenly turned into spectacle.
I’ll admit, Christmas lights and fireworks don’t do anything for me, and maybe this explains the disconnect on my part.
It just feels so simple to me, though. My routine works this way: You want to befriend Cedar? Give Cedar gifts! Talk, and listen, to Cedar! Steward the Land around Cedar! Ask for blessings. Give blessings.
Can entheogens even find room to coexist in such a cozy, tight space, between courtier and beloved, between two best friends living in the bright, rainy world?
I don’t have any advice for those thinking about entheogen use, or who currently do. I tell my own story here, and wish you luck with your own.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Amen.
I think using entheogens could work out–as your relationship to that entheogen. But first, we have some deeply wounded notions to bind up first about drugs, getting high, and ultimately, the fundamental wound cutting off mind and body.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Good point. That sounds exactly like what the native shamans who use plant-aids do. Before they use them to get “more aware”, or go on trips, they develop a lot of rappoire with the plant person first.
Unfortunately, as a culture of abusers and addicts, I see this rarely working. Certainly I’ve never met anyone with a relationship with an “entheogen” that would satisfy me. Perhaps they exist, somewhere. It just must not happen that much…
April 25th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I made a comment in a post on the rewild forum about this. Since you have devoted a post here to this subject I’ll elaborate a little here.
First I would like to clarify that I was not referring to the cultures where the use of substances like peyote or iawasca originated. I know many people who follow NAC ways and I don’t want to make any statements about that because I believe they are following a path that provides the lineage, back-up and guidance that is required for their use of the medicine.
What I often see is people using these substances as a shortcut to a mystical or visionary experience. I think these kinds of experiences carry responsibilities with them and often require a person to do some work after having the experience. The gift lies in completing that work.
In a traditional way, people make commitments (of some kind) in order to have these kinds of experiences and that involves commitments to do the work. So often now we have people using the medicines without the commitment, then ignoring the call to do the work. They dress this form of entertainment and all it’s shallowness up in the guise of spirituality.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I assumed you meant this, but thanks for clarifying. I agree 100%. Also, thanks for bringing it (the problem of ‘dabbling’) up in the first place.
April 29th, 2008 at 12:31 am
It’s interesting that I stumbled across this thread; I’ve now got an invitation, via two different community friends to join (1) the sit-up ceremonies (peyote) and (2) the diame ceremonies (iawasca).
One community member described it as such; you can choose, as part of your life, to communicate on certain levels in the world using the sacrifice path or the plant path. The sacrifice path is sweat lodge - vision quest — sundance. The plant path would be entheogens.
These methods are NOT incompatible and are seen as different tools for communication / focusing intent / honoring the world. On the plant path, for example, I hear a lot about how sacred it is to vomit (deliberately using the harsher word; the typical euphemism I hear is “giving up to the earth).
I understand why my friends do it — they come directly from cultures that value this as part of life’s experiences (to use the metaphor above, these traditions would be the fireworks AFTER the wedding, at the reception, perhaps
).
Why would I, white guy from Mother Culture, choose to pursue these paths (and I will, ultimately; it’s just a matter of proper timing). For the diame, I’ve been instructed by my friend that it’s often used to deal with ancestor stuff (good or bad). I believe I need to talk to my ancestors about what our culture’s been up to, what I’m up to, etc. in this direct a manner.
As for they sit-up, it’s directly affiliated with what happens in the American Southwest, with the power of the Mother herself. I desire a different perspective to help aid with what my community’s dealing with, an astonishingly large city that currently tries to commit suicide.
Can I do it without it? Um… yes! I already spend time talking to ancestor and, as well as I can, to the world around me. But, for me, it’s also good to sometimes pick up the powerful tools and watch the fireworks go. Sometimes, just sometimes, we need those fireworks to inspire our world.
Best
Bill Maxwell
P.S. Oh… and because I wasn’t cogent enough to be able to fit this into the post above, I also tend to question those who use entheogens as an artificial bridge to spirituality. Spirituality… hunh… even saying that work to me indicates you’re trying to have a relationship with spirits. WELL, DATE FIRST, you schmuck! Then use whatever tools you need to later, powerfully direct or powerfully subtle, to nurture a relationship that already exists.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Hey Bill! Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for articulating the entheogen ‘issue’ from where you stand. I appreciate it.
I will refrain from telling my ayahuasca knock-knock jokes.
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I’ve read all this a couple times now. The first reading lead me to believe you were expressing contempt for any use of entheogens that falls outside of traditional, authentic, indigenous, tribal, old ways, no matter what the desired result was. Subsequent readings, however, lead me to believe instead that your concern lies rather with entheogen use as intermediary to more-than-humanly connections, whereas (ideally?) one could instead give gifts to plants, talk to plants, wed the plants, whatever, and form profound relationships with these other lives and spirits in ways that make without such intermediaries. I think such an understanding has some agreement with your own words when you state “And I still don’t see why one needs a plant-intermediary to help establish a deep connection to land and spirit.”
Okay, my thoughts if you don’t mind. I hope this does not come off as an attack, as such is not intended, what follows are thoughts brought about by what’s been read above, and others already in my mind, therefore some things may appear irrelevant and tangential.
I find it striking and strange that those rewilding (and often influenced by Daniel Quinn to no small degree) speak of how there’s no “one right way”, and there being “Ten Thousand Ways”, yet at the same time are possessed by an inability to understand non-traditional ways of getting in touch with whatever the hell they want to get in touch with and/or experience. I can understand an apprehension regarding those tripping balls off of LSD calling it a traditional spiritual experience or something like that, I’ve never seen such, perhaps you have; I’m not trying to defend such actions and claims.
I commend those who take it upon themselves to alter their perceptions in attempts to better connect with the world in meaningful ways, be they through daily walks through the woods or a park, to thanksgivings to plants for their gifts and knowledge, to LSD, DMT, mushroom use to provide more loving and profound relationships with the myriad manifestations of the world. The late Albert Hoffman (pbuh) said it succinctly: “Everything that can contribute to such a fundamental alteration in our perception of reality must therefore command earnest attention.” Every person is possessed by different needs, and different ideals of how to achieve them (of course). I’m not saying this is the case, but it often seems to me that estranged white folks lacking authentic animist traditions are derided and given shit just for trying to achieve meaningful relationships (with non-human-persons), either because they’re new age or because they inappropriately practice some form of cultural appropriation in attempting to find and create their own traditions. With so few roots (routes?) to takes, what can one really expect?
I have used hallucinogens before (I hardly care to call them entheogens, in part because I’ve never felt connected to any spirit of any thing, and definitely never with a Theos; it sounds too singular and external to me), and feel my life and perceptions (not that they’re separate things) have been enriched by these engagements. They’ve aided me in shaving away the separations between mind and body, and helped towards realizing those things which must and must not be done in order for me to achieve my goals. Lead me to realize that every time I trip my perceptions are different even from every previous trip, AND that all these different perceptions are valid in themselves, needing no justification (they’re all their own blossoming flower). In a society that is so visually based I can see (heh) why drugs that can give one open eyed visuals are so desirable to some. I’ve never experienced the fireworks you speak of (if I ever do I have no doubt they’ll whisper quiet secrets to me). Almost always it comes as millions of infinitesimal changes, minglings of patterns never noticed before (everywhere), blurring of edges, along with increased vibrancy. I’ve heard wind sing and trees wave in unison with hawks dancing about in snowflake fractal clouds, unfolding in such beautiful ways that I cried (something I hadn’t done for, oh, 15 years before this). I’ve tasted colors, heard silent things speak to me, been ridden by the essence of happiness (and other times of pure weirdness), heard sounds that changed the shape of objects, expanded my self to include music and heat from the sun and breezes, and known how they all flowed, on and on. Some of it seems immeasurably profound, some immeasurably insignificant; for me the thing is to integrate such profundities back into my ‘normal’ consciousness, just as one integrates body and mind and dissolves borders to live a richer less alienated life. I make no pretension of any of this being spiritual for me, and would never claim the richness given by hallucinogens could not be achieved by methods external to their use, but for me, for now, now and again, I find them useful implements in self-transforming.
Some have a bum leg and use a cane to walk, some have a desire to hunt and utilize an AK47 to achieve deer kills until their bow skills are up, some have poor eyes and use glasses until they can afford LASIK, some went to the market, some stayed at home, some had roast beef…
May 5th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
chiggles-
yep. I agree: to each their own.
I hope I made it explicit enough that I wrote this blogpost because I myself have a hard time understanding the non-traditional use of hallucinogens, not because I had an answer concerning it. My lack of understanding certainly does me no credit, but I don’t see any point in keeping it a secret.