The Gartan Lullaby…
Sleep, my son, the red bee hums
The silent twilights fall
The lady from the grey rock comes
To wrap the world in thrall
My darling boy, my pride, my joy
My love and hearts desire
The cricket sings his lullaby
Beside the dying fire
Dusk is drawn and the green mans thorn
Is wrapped in wreaths of fog
The fairies sail their boat till dawn
Across the starry bog
My darling son, the pearl-white moon
Has drained her cup of dew
And weeps to hear the sad, sweet song
I sing, my love, to you
Saturday… The Green and Tumbling World hurdles towards the Equinox, preceeded by the Perseids… Today we have a crowd of Rowan’s friends over for a celebration of the 16th year he has spent on this orb. So far it looks like the season of silly gifts; Tiara, matching Earrings… and more of the same.
Big Thanks to all who have helped out with EarthRites Radio. I think we have achieved our goal, now to see what the procedures are to bring the Beast back alive. So, stay tuned (sorreee) to what is looming on the Radio event horizon.
Well, have a pleasant one, and may this find you in a good place.
Pax,
Gwyllm
—–
On the Grill:
The Links
Invocation: Robin Williamson (Thanks Lois!)
The Delphic Bee – Jonathan Ott
Poetry Robin Williamson
_____________
Links:
Evangelicals urge museum to hide man’s ancestors
George Galloway Eats Skyy Reporter Alive
Sky-watchers await celestial show
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From Lois in W.VA.. a reminder from Robin Williamson
you that create the diversity of the forms, open to my words
you that divide and multiply it, hear my sounds
I make yield league to you, ancient associates and fellow wanderers
you that move the heart in fur and scale, I join with you
you that sing bright and subtle making shapes that my throat cannot
tell you that harden the horn and make quick the eye
you that run the fast fox and the zigzag fly
you sizeless makers of the mole and whale
aid me and I will aid you
I make a blood pact with you,
you that lift the blossom and the green branch
you who make symmetries more true,
you who consider the angle of your limbs
who dance in slower time, who watch the patterns
you rough coated who eat water, who stretch deep and high
with your green blood my red blood let it be mingled
aid me and I will aid you
I call upon you, you who are unconfined
who have no shape, who are not seen but only in your action
I call upon you, you who have no depth but choose direction
who bring what is willed
that you blow love upon the summers of my loved ones
that you blow summers upon those loves of my love
aid me and I will aid you
I make pact with you, you who are the liquidness of the waters
and the spark of the flame, I call upon you
you who make fertile the soft earth
and guard the growth of the growing things
I make peace with you, you who are the blueness of the blue sky
and the wrath of the storm, I take the cup of deepness with you
earthshakers
and with you the sharp and the hollow hills,
I make reverence to you round wakefulness we call the earth
I make wide eyes to you, you who are awake
every created thing both solid and sleepy or airy light
I weave colours round you
you who will come with me
I will consider it beauty
I will consider it beauty
–”Invocation”
By Robin Williamson
______________
The Delphic Bee: Bees and toxic honeys as pointers to psychoactive and other medicinal plants. – Jonathan Ott
Economic Botany 52(3):260 -266,1998.
Herein a brief review, with 49 references, of the history and phytochemistry of toxic honeys, in which bees have sequestered secondary compounds naturally occurring in plant nectars (floral and extrafloral). It is hypothesised that such toxic honeys could have served as pointers to psychoactive and other medicinal plants for human beings exploring novel ecosystems, causing such plants to stand out, even against a background of extreme biodiversity. After reviewing various ethnomedicinal uses of toxic honeys, the author suggests that pre-Columbian Yucatecan Mayans intentionally produced a psychactive honey from the shamanic inebriant Turbin corymbosa as a visionary substrate for manufacture of their ritual metheglin, balché.
Tradition holds the famous Delphic Oracle was revealed by a swarm of bees, and the Pythia or divinatory priestesses in Delphi’s temple of Apollo were affectionately called ‘Delphic Bees’, while virgin priestesses of Greek Goddesses like Rhea and Demeter were called melissai, ‘bees’; the hierophants essenes,’king bees’. Great musicians and poets like Pindar were inspired by the Muses, who bestowed the sacred enthusiasm of the logos, sending bees to anoint the poets’ lips with honey (Ransome 1937). Some hold the vatic revelations of the Pythia were stimulated by inhaling visionary vapours of henbane, Hycscyamus niger L., issuing from a fumarole over which the Delphic Bees were suspended, and into which the plant had been cast (Ratsch 1987). The primordial Eurasian entheogenic plant soma/haoma, known in the Vedas as amrta, the potion of immortality, was called ambrosia by the Greeks, and with nektar, the other sustenance of the Immortals, was associated with bees and honey (Roscher 1883). This curious lore may represent a sort of mythological fossil, concealing a hitherto overlooked mechanism of drug discovery. I suggest that immemorial pursuit of wild honey, the only concentrated sweet which occurs naturally, could have led inexorably to the discovery of psychoactive and other toxic honeys, while subsequent observation of bees’ foraging habits could easily have led preliterate shamans/pharmacognosists to single out toxic plant species, even against a background of extreme biodiversity, as in Amazonia.
Xenophon’s 4th century BC Anabasis (IV,VII,20) described psychoactive honey poisoning during the ‘Retreat of the Ten Thousand’ in the ill-starred expedition of Cyprus. Countless soldiers in the greek army encamped near Trebizonde in Asia Minor, ate liberally of honey found there, “lost their senses and vomited” and “resembled drunken persons.” Pliny (XXI,XLV) described madness-inducing honey from this area as meli mnomenon (‘mad honey’) and also mentioned (XXI,XLVI) a medicinal honey from Crete, miraculum mellis or ‘wondrous honey’ (Halliday 1922; Ransome 1937). The 6th-8th century BC Homeric Hymn to Hermes referred to melissae or bee oracles from Delphi’s Mount Parnassos, who could prophesy only after ingesting meli chloron or ‘green honey’, perhaps a reference to Pliny’s ‘mad honey’. It was conjectured that these bee-oracles were the Pythia, hence psychotropic honey could have been a catalyst for the mantic utterances of the Delphic Bees (Mayor 1995). It is thought the source of meli mnomenon was Rhodeodendron ponticum L., which contains toxic glucosides called andromedotoxins or grayanotoxins (Krause 1926; Plugge 1891; Wood, et al. 1954) found in other species of Ericaceae, notably Kalmia latifolia L., another plant whose honey has provoked poisonings (Howes 1949; Jones 1947). Grayanotoxins occur in North American toxic honeys, presumably from K.latifolia (Scott, Coldwell, and Wiberg 1971). Frequent honey poisonings in Japan (Kohanawa 1957; Tokuda and Sumita 1925) were traced to ericaceous Tripetalieia paniculata Sieb. Et Zucc., and grayanotoxins were found in these honeys (Tsuchiya et al. 1977). Another toxic glucoside, ericolin, is known from ericaceous Ledum palustre L., and from honeys derived from this plant, which caused human poisonings (Koslova 1957; Palmer-Jones 1965). Both L.palustre and L.hypoleucum Kam. are used as shamanic inebriants by Tungusic tribes of Siberia (Brekhman and Sam 1967); while ‘Labrador Tea’, L. groenlandicum Oeder of the Kwakiutl Indians is said to have narcotic properties (Turner and Bell 1973), pointing to possible content of ericolin and grayanotoxins.
An ‘epidemic’ of honey poisoning in New Zealand was traced to honeydew or excrement of Scolypopa australis Walker, which had fed on leaves of tutu, Coriaria arborea Lindsay, Coriariaceae (Palmer-Jones 1947; Palmer-Jones 1965; Palmer-Jones and White 1949). ‘Mellitoxin’ isolated from the honey was identical to hyaenanchin from euphorbiaceous Hynanche globosa Lamb; and a second honey toxin, tutin, is found in C arborea (Clinch and Turner 1968; Palmer-Jones 1965). This leaf-hopper had transformed tutin from tutu leaves into hyænanchin during digestion; the bees making honey from its excrement. Symptoms of this honey poisoning included giddiness, delirium, excitement, suggesting a toxicological relationship to the Ecuadorian shamanic inebriant C.thymifolia Humb. Et Bonpl.ex Willd., shanshi, used to induce sensations of flight (Naranjo 1969). Preliminary investigations of shanshi suggested presence of a toxic glucoside (Naranjo and Naranjo 1961).
Solanaceæ are known both for shamanic inebriants and toxic honeys. Human honey poisonings in Hungary were traced to Atropa Belladonna L. or Datura metel L., and symptoms resembled those of tropane alkaloids scopolomine and hyoscyamine found in both (Hazslinszky 1956). Polish honey poisonings were traced to D. inoxia Miller (=D.meteloides DC.ex Dunal ), and scopolomine found in the honey (Lutomski, Debska and Gorecka 1972). Both scopolomine and atropine were detected in toxic honey from Colombia, of unknown provenience (Barragan de Dominguez 1973). Perhaps Brugmansia species were involved these Andean shamanic inebriants (Ott 1993) yield toxic honeys (Lockwood 1979). Indole alkaloid gelsemine could account for honey poisoning from loganiaceous Gelsemium sempervirens (L.) Aiton in 19th century South Carolina symptoms also included giddiness (Kebler 1896).
Brasilian inebriating honey from stingless bee Trigona recurva Smith is called feiticeira (‘sorceress’) or vamo-nos-embora (‘let’s go!’) in “allusion to the reeling, half drunken condition in which one falls after partaking of this honey” (Ihering 1903(4)). Mombuca, Argentine stingless bee (Melipona sp.) honey had “inebriating effects owing to the fact that the little bees harvest it from some flowers with narcotic properties” (Spegazzini 1909). Toxic honeys oreceroch and overecepes occur in Chiquitos, Bolivia; also a delicious honey, omocayoch, said to be as inebriating as liquor (D’Orbigny 1839); while a Paraguayan honey was characterized “as intoxicating as aqua vita” (Schwarz 1948).
So at least three categories of psychoactive phytotoxins-indole and tropane alkaloids and glucosides-occur in toxic honeys, and likewise in nectars from which such are made (Vide: reviews of non-sugar floral-nectar chemistry: Baker 1977; Baker and Baker 1983). Psychoactive cannabinoids occur in bee pollen of marijuana, cannibinaceous Cannabis Sativa L. ( Paris, Boucher and Cosson 1975). Pollen toxins could be sequestered by bees in honeys, as are nectar or honeydew toxins. Cannabis nectar likely also contains cannibinoids, explaining a common belief of marijuana growers, that marijuana honeys are psychotropic.
One of the more recondite Mesoamerican inebriants is the Mayan metheglin balché, a mead of stingless-bee honey, water and bark of leguminous balché, Lonchocarpus violaceus (Jaquin) DC. (Goncalves de Lima, et al. 1977). L. violaceus is psychoactive, owing to content of longistylines (Delle Monache, et al. 1977) or piscicidal rotenone, and Mayaist C. Ratsch proposed other shamanic inebriants, like psilocybin musrooms and ololiuhqui (Turbina corymbosa (L.) Rafinesque. Xtabentún in Mayan) were once added to balché (Ratsch 1992). Ratsch thought feasible my suggestion that xtabentun may have been a balché ingredient, as honey rich in psychotropics ergoline alkaloids of this Convolvulaceæ (Hofmann 1963) – noting that the Lacandon Indians, avid balché consumers know of inebriating honeys. Contemporary shamanic use of T. corymbosa has not been documented among the Mayans, but is all but universal among indigenous groups in Oaxaca, and occurs elsewhere in Mexico (Lipp 1991; Wasson 1963). Besides psychoactivity, ergolines have potent uterotonic effects, and seeds of ololiuhqui/ Xtabentún are also used as ecbolics/oxytocics (to precipitate childbirth) by indigenous groups in Oaxaca (Browner 1985; Ortiz de Montellano and Browner 1985). ‘Virgin honey’ of stingless bees (Trigona sp.) is used in ethnogynecology, noting of Tabentun (Xtabentún, identified as convolvulaceous):”the aromatic honey from its flower is said to be the source of a potent drink” (Roys 1931). Oaxacan Mixe use T.Corymbosa as a shamanic inebriant, and also employ “special honey” from Trigona sp. As an ethnogynacological remedy (Lipp 1991). Clavigero highly praised estabentun honey (Clavigero 1780); entomologist H.F Schwarz attributed xtabentún honey to Melipona beecheii Bennett, noting it was still produced in Yucutan in the 1940′s, being the most esteemed of many ethnomedicinal Mexican honeys (Schwarz 1948). An article on Mayan apiculture described situating hives near natural strands of xtabentún, noting “all their honey comes from this flower. No other is allowed to prosper in the immediate vicinity” (Mediz Bolio 1974). These clues suggest colecab (M.beecheii). T.corymbosa honeys were produced intentionally and much esteemed for constituent ergoline alkaloids conferring uterotonic and psychoactive properties. Such honeys may have been exploited by the Mayans in fabrication of their ritual metheglin balché, endowing the sacred inebriant with the plants legendary and chemically-verified entheogenic properties.
Field work in Yucutan and Quintana Roo revealed xtabentún honey was no longer of economic importance, and traditional Mayan hollow-log apiculture was found sadly degenerated. We failed to obtain samples of xtabentún honey for bioassay and chemical analysis, but attempts to produce it are underway. In Merida and Vallodolid, Yucutan, there survives production of a distilled liqueur from fermented honey, and known as xtabentún! A modern liqueur named for a pre-colombia entheogen, is yet another clue pointing to existence of inebriating T. corymbosa honey, and its probable use as traditional fermentation substrate for the sacred Mayan metheglin balché.
Xtabentún liqueur and conjectured use of psychoactive honey in balché have parallels in the classical and modern worlds. Pliny noted meli mænomenon of Asia Minor was made into a mead or metheglin, and toxic Ericaceæ honey was traditionally added to alcholic beverages in the Caucasus, to enhance their inebriating properties; while such toxic honey, deli bal, is taken in Turkey as a tonic in milk. Deli bal was an important export from this region in the 18th century, widely used to potentiate liquors in Europe – called miel fou, ‘crazy honey’ in France (Mayor 1995). “very intoxicating” honey, likely from spp. (mountain laurel) was used in 18th century New Jersey to ‘spike’ liquor sold under the appropriate trade name ‘Metheglin’ (Jomes 1947;Kebler 1896)
Toxic honeys are not unusual (I have intentionally ignored the literature on non-psychoactive plant (and industrial) toxins sequestered in honeys), nor are accidental inebriations by psychoactive honeys exceptional. In satisfying the universal human “sweet tooth” during human explorations of any given ecosystems, foragers would encounter psychoactive and other toxic honeys. Having consumed such honeys and experienced psychoactive or other medicinal properties of their contained alkaloids and allied phytochemicals, it would require no special technology nor great imagination to follow the bees to the nectar source, thereby easily finding valuable plants. It has been suggested that ethnomedicinal and culinary plants were discovered by a systematic process of ingesting all species, in the eternal search for food. Some have questioned whether such an extensive bioassay program were feasible in areas of extraordinarily high biodiversity, such as Amazonia, thought to be home to at least 80 000 species of higher plants (Schultes 1988)! Apart from observation of the effects of bioactive plants on domestic wild animals, serendipitous encounters with phytotoxins in honeys could have served as highly specific and efficient pointers to medicinal, especially psychoactive, plants, which would thus stand out in deep relief, even against a backdrop of extreme biodiversity.
There is evidence that in the case of T.corymbosa among the Yucatecan Mayans, a toxic honey may have attained exalted status as a preferred method of ingesting a psychoactive plant, even being produced intentionally. These Mayans came to worship bee-gods like Ah-Muzen-Cab,’Great Lord Bee’, who can be seen descending even today above the entrances to pyramid-top temples at Tulúm and Coba, his ancestral home. Much as we sweeten our bitter medicines with sugary syrups, bees collecting toxic nectars from flowers might naturally have prepared and concentrated a sweetened drug for the delectation of awed human votaries of Ah-Muzen-Cab and his industrious, heavenly host.
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Lyrics/Poetry: Robin Williamson
Strings in the earth and the air
make music sweet
strings by the river
where the willows meet
there’s music along the river
for love wanders there
pale flowers on his mantle
dark leaves on his hair
all softly straying
with head to the music bent
and fingers playing
upon an instrument
twilight turns from amethyst
to deep and deeper blue
lamps light with a pale green glow
the trees of the avenue
the old piano plays an air
sedate and slow and gay
she bends upon the yellow keys
her head inclines this way
shy thoughts and grave wide eyes
and hands that wander as they list
twilight turns a darker blue
with lights of amethyst.
—-
The Dancing of the Lord of Weir
In the third part of the year
when men begin to gather fuel against the
coming cold
hear hoover ring hard on frosty ground
begins our song
for centuries we lived alone high on the moors
herding the deer for milk and cheese for leather
and horn
humans came seldom nigh
for we with our spells held them at bay
and they with gifts of wine and grain did
honour us
returning at evening from the great mountains
out red hoods ring with bells lightly we run
until before our own green hill
there we did stand
she is stolen
she is snatched away
through watery meads straying our lovely
daughter
she of the wild eyes
she of the wild hair
snatched up to the saddle of the lord of Weir
who has his castle high upon a crag
a league away
upon the horse of air at once we rode
to where Weir’s castle lifts like a crippled claw
into the moon
and taking form of minstrels brightly clad
we paced upon white ponies to the gate
and rang thereon
“we come to sing unto my lord of Weir
a merry song.”
into his sorry hall we stepped
where was our daughter bound near his chair
“come play a measure!”
“sir at once we will!”
and we began to sing and play
to lightly dance in rings and faster turn
no man within that hall could keep his seat
but needs must dance and leap
against his will
this was the way we danced them to the door
and sent them on their way into the world
where they will leap amain
till they think one kind thought
for all I know they may be dancing still
while we returned with our own
into our hall
and entering in
made fast
the grassy door.
—-
The Water Song
Water, water
See the water flow
Glancing, dancing
See the water flow
Wizard of changes
Teach me the lesson of flowing
Dark and silvery
Mother of life
Water. water
Holy mystery
Heavens daughter
Wizard of changes
Teach me the lesson of flowing
God made a song
When the world was new
Waters laughter
Sings it through
Wizard of changes
Water. water, water
—-
Queen of Love
A strong power calls from the left hand
Across the waters deep
a strong power calls from the left hand
let all things sleep or weep
oh the queen of love, you have unwove my eyes
and my heart will not sleep
the eye would sleep but the mind would rise
I must needs walk down God’s eyebrows
and along the street of his eyes
look for me and you will see me in my red cloak
swimming determined
as God’s blood flows
creatures of grief you beg from the thief
I will not carry home your sacks of sorrow
but I will pay the fiddler good silver if he smiles
pray God he see tomorrow
and the fine fine girls that are into it
and my eyes with salt water swim
and we disputing with a brittle gaiety
upon the world’s rim
if I sought to love you with my body
it would be with a bent back
unto the day of doom
Oh the Queen of Love
I am in her heart
she is in my room
and together alone we clasp hands
and in each other’s eyes walk the endless shore
and below I have my duty to perform in the song
and that that I was
you will see it no more
the snow is on the hills of my heart
and to speak is to die
the men at arms do seek to mark me
and the monks raise hue and cry
seek me in vain on Golgotha
or in fear’s hollow
for the way I take today
only the true may follow
the ancestors in stone armour
calling for loyalty untrue
seek to make a zigzag of the arrow’s flight
it is so swaddled in the bands of form
but I am girdled with the storm
and cloaked with the night
I am not to be seen or found
save only in what I cause
standing outside on the inside outside
perfectingness and flaws
how will I say where I end
or where you begin
how will I say, what shall I play
shall it be you or the wild wind
as Pan with the unsane eyes
or with the wild horns
or when I am crowned with the paper crown
or with the crown of thorns
a strong power compels distortion from the right hand
fleece to the grey wolves
fangs to the grey sheep
but the Queen of Love she strokes
my body alive, that I do not sleep.
The doctor brews potions and pills
to open his own front door
and the locksmith makes strong bolts
to bar his gates to every new breeze that blows
shall I now put lion’s ears upon my ears
hear every sound as a roar
shall I now put mouse’s eyes upon my eyes
gauge the moon for size against my paw
while the Queen of Love
she sings to me
from above and beyond the world
and I observe my mind
it is playing ignorant boy
while at her feet I am curled
and I remember all female movements so well
of such a form to bring much joy and ease much care
to perfume and let fall the coloured gown
and to let down the curling hair.
But now I play seed thrower
and I will play three-legged man
I will play dream weaver and day bringer
and catch as catch can
While the Queen of Love
she swims like a silver dove in my mind’s room
and my body sleepwalks down the road
in a warm dark swoon…
—-
A Blessing on your day!
