As Good As It Gets: ‘Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here’. -Jack Nicholson
(Gwyllm editing back in the DIY Press Days)
Well, I had a brand new entry to go last night, and the host went down.
Couldn’t contact them, so I awoke this morning well aware that I was tight on time, and that the best thing was to tap the library of what has gone before, which ends up with the Tuesday Mash-Up.
I did specifically start off looking for various entries, but soon found that with the element of time crunch, I would have to rely on the gift of what random brings, and folks, I am very happy with that. We have a link from the present, but the rest wells up from the unconscious of the Turfing entity.
I will have new photos soon of Mr. Eildon, and notes on his progress. Funny how a wee baby brings life into focus. He is a darling, and he came at the exact right time.
More Later,
Gwyllm
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On The Menu:
The Link O’ The Day: Texas Rabbits Rool!
2 Poems by Rimbaud
The Psychotherapeutic Employment Of Sacred Plants – by Silvia Polivoy
Consulting the Oracle – Poems by Seng-ts’an & Gwyllm Llwydd
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Link O’ The Day!
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My Bohemian Life (Fantasy)…. Arthur Rimbaud…
I went off with my hands in my torn coat pockets ;
My overcoat too was becoming ideal ;
I travelled beneath the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal ;
Oh dear me! what marvellous loves I dreamed of !
My only pair of breeches had a big whole in them.
Stargazing Tom Thumb, I sowed rhymes along my way.
My tavern was at the Sign of the Great Bear.
My stars in the sky rustled softly.
And I listened to them, sitting on the road-sides
On those pleasant September evenings while I felt drops
Of dew on my forehead like vigorous wine ;
And while, rhyming among the fantastical shadows,
I plucked like the strings of a lyre the elastics
Of my tattered boots, one foot close to my heart !
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Faun’s Head
Arthur Rimbaud…
Among the foliage, green casket flecked with gold,
In the uncertain foliage that blossoms
With gorgeous flowers where sleeps the kiss,
Vivid and bursting through the sumptuous tapestry,
A startled faun shows his two eyes
And bites the crimson flowers with his white teeth.
Stained and ensanguined like mellow wine
His mouth bursts out in laughter beneath the branches.
And when he has fled – like a squirrel –
His laughter still vibrates on every leaf
And you can see, startled by a bullfinch
The Golden Kiss of the Wood, gathering itself together again
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The Psychotherapeutic Employment Of Sacred Plants
by Silvia Polivoy
The human being shows a remarkable disposition to seek spiritual transcendence.
Since the irrational cannot be erased from the human mind, the harder we try to deny it, the greater the power it will exert upon us. The spiritual experiences are associated to the occurrence of altered states of consciousness (ASC).
The society we live in considers (as opposed to shamanic knowledge) modified states of consciousness to be onanistic and vicious. Shamans argue that to satisfy our religious drive we have to experience the divine, and in order to achieve that, they use sacred plants. That is why the sacred plants are called entheogens, because they help experience the divine.
Abraham Maslow called these experiences “peak experiences”, but they are not limited to the altered states achieved through drugs or sacred plants. They can take place during meditation, hyperventilation, the practice of yoga, hypnosis, fast, physical suffering (such as the self-inflicted pain some saints underwent or the postures certain yoguis kept for months, etc). In short, it is a state that can be reached in many ways and, once there, we can explore aspects of reality which are different from those perceived in an ordinary state of consciousness. These different aspects of reality are well studied.
The orthodox branch of science considers these altered states subjective, therefore worthless. Then, these feelings of ecstasy, these other “dimensions” of reality, these occurrences of mystical reunion, of beauty, this crossing of the space-time barrier, can be catalogued as pathological. Traditional Psychiatry does not separate mysticism from psychosis. That is why Transpersonal Psychology blends science with the study of the spiritual capabilities of man using methods to alter the state of consciousness, because the spiritual phenomena seem to be incomprehensible in an ordinary state of consciousness.
Modified states of consciousness may have a dangerous side because, since they affect the defense mechanisms of the individual, they may pave the way for unacceptable, repressed material from the individual´s past to the conscious mind and cause restlessness, which could rise to terrifying levels if the individual is unable to cope with his anxiety (this is what is usually known as a “bad trip”). That is why previous psychological counseling is advised, for the individual to be able to tell what comes from the outside from what comes from the inside. It is recommended, also, to experience such modified states of consciousness in the context of psychotherapy, under the supervision of qualified, well trained proffesionals.
But, in spite of the risks, the spiritual experiences, the unconscious material, and the altered amplified of consciousness related to them, are too valuable to be ignored. Thus psychotherapy takes advantage of the information, available when the repression mechanism is weak, to modify unwanted patterns of behaviour.
Most psychoactive substances resemble (and sometimes are identical to) substances normally produced by the human body. Therefore, the individual has a built-in capacity to experiment psychedelic states, which are inherent to certain aspects of the human mind inaccessible during wakefulness. So, under the appropriate circumstances, these substances allow the individual (for a limited period of time) to gain access to deeper parts of his psyche.
Through dreams we get in touch with those aspects of our personality which are hidden from the conscious mind. The entheogenic or psychointegrative plants help reach those states that we experience while dreaming or while in the middle of those rare, ecstatic epiphanies that can happen while we are awake. Unlike most drugs, entheogenic plants do not produce physical dependence. A quick, time-limited tolerance (that does not increase with the dose administered) is also characteristic.
Their main use is to spot the individuals conditionings and destroy them, to be unselfish by dissolving momentarily the limits of the ego, to expand the inner vision, to be more lucid, obtaining in that fashion very important insights. In short, to be able to recognize the forces, the impulses behind the individuals actions and emotions, to track thoughts back to their source and to be in control of one´s life. That´s why they help the individual to become one.
Due to all this the sacred plants are called psychointegrative, or entheogenic. The list includes Ayahuasca, Peyote, Psilocybin mushrooms, Salvia divinorum, San Pedro (a cactus), Epena, Cebil, Brugmansia, among others.
Abraham Maslow in his book called “The psychology of Science” has shown how science might be the best neurotic defense mechanism invented by man, because the selective rejection wielded by human knowledge acts as a defense and therefore constitutes a neurotic maneuver which, out of fear, disqualifies transpersonal experiences as objects of study.
We´d all benefit if science became an open sistem oriented to personal growth.
Modern physics teaches us about the Universe´s unity, in which consciousness plays a role much closer to the one described by the great mystics.
When we transcend the ego for however brief, it is the beginning of an awakening to our true Self.
©Copyright Silvia Polivoy, 2003. All rights reserved.
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“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for
people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
-Noam Chomsky
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Consulting the Oracle
Two come about because of One,
but don’t cling to the One either!
So long as the mind does not stir,
the ten thousand things stay blameless;
no blame, no phenomena,
no stirring, no mind.
The viewer disappears along with the scene,
the scene follows the viewer into oblivion,
for scene becomes scene only through the viewer,
viewer becomes viewer because of the scene.
– Seng-ts’an (Hsin-Hsin-Ming: Inscription on Trust in the Mind)
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I Consulted the Oracle.
I saw a tailed star fly overhead
There are Mountains to the West.
We are filled with Light
We are filled with Dark…
Matter seeps out of the whole
There is more space in an atom
than the waves of light which compose it.
The Light is awfully bright.
First Memory.
-Gwyllm Llwydd