Souichi Bandou
Another piece that I have chosen to feature here as it is probably a censored vision for much of social media (IOW FB)…. This piece evokes multiple levels/layers of dream, flowering, sensuality, beauty. A nice taste of surrealism pervades it.
______________
The Dream Engine
I have been thinking a lot lately on what has transpired in the world of marijuana recently. I can only talk from a subjective view on this. I have been involved with MJ off and on (more off in the last few decades) for some 50 years. I have watched pot shops since the legalization pop up like mushrooms all over Portland and the surrounding areas. The laws surrounding the distribution and the taxation as well seems to be… onerous to a fault. The tax rate is much higher than on say, beer. The state tax here for beer is .08$ a gallon. (Alcohol Taxes Here) There is a 17% tax on Marijuana (MJ Tax Facts Here) which seems to me to be more than a bit out of hand. The gold rush is on folks, and what was left in the Sacred Space that MJ opened the door for many of us, seems to be more and more tainted with the full on onslaught of capitalism.
I am hearing that trimmer machines are coming in to the various grows, and what was once a cottage industry employing many out in the countryside has now gone the way of the loom, and factory mentality. Bad JuJu, and with the coming of the corporations (Hello Monsanto! Hello Big Tobacco!) it will get more and more obscene along the way.
If I had my druthers, I would go for decriminalization rather than legalization, and keep the damn business interest out. The only mitigating factor IMPOV is that one can grow their own, (4 plants max @ this point) and I know a few who are.
The smell of capitalism in the MJ world here is pretty rank, and down right sad. It takes the joy out of it. Going into a Pot store is probably the most depressing single social action I have taken part of in the last year, and that includes memorials. I don’t think I will go into another. The amount of tension around these businesses at least for me is palpable. No joy to be found there. Little art, no music, cash on the barrel head.
So, if you still use the plant be it by smoking, or edibles, tea, I suggest you grow your own. Retain the relationship you have built up over the years with the plant. There is a bond there, a plant ally that has a shared history with us going back countless millenia… If you have to buy, well, try to avoid the stores if you can. There are still people who grow for the love of the ally. They are out there, you just have to find them. Remember, a plant grown outside, in the dirt, free of pesticides is best. Allow the plant it’s life as close to nature as possible. Avoid the indoor grown if you can.
To turn this all around, I have decided to delve back into literature and poetry that I became familiar with. Before the days of “420”, and “apps for MJ delivery”, there is a wealth of poetry and literature spanning centuries. I can only hope that others will investigate the history and delve deeply into the richness of the culture around the plant. It truly is amazing. I have had profound and deeply spiritual experiences with it. I have visited heaven, and harrowed hell on my journeys with Cannabis/Hashish. I have seen vistas and experienced a deep and rich world, and come back refreshed and healed from pain and anxiety. I give thanks for the various gifts she brings. It has helped with my creativity over the years and has been a balm for pain when all other methods have failed.
Let us treat Cannabis with the respect she deserves, and not turn her into another product. That way lacks in respect. This edition of Turfing is dedicated to her, and all the beauty she has brought with her various gifts.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
__________________
On The Menu:
Radio EarthRites
On Social Media/Interactions
Gwyllm Art News
Susannah Martin Art
The Links
Poem Praising Hashish Over Wine
The End Of Law: The Hashisheen (Morning High)
Excerpt: The Oblivion Seekers Isabel Eberhardt (1899)
The Garden of Cafour, Cairo
Jean Léon Gérôme – Pool in a Harem
The End Of Law: The Hashisheen (Sinan’s Boat)
__________________
Radio EarthRites
A new show is coming tonight or tomorrow! Stay Tuned!
Tune In Here!
__________________
On Social Media/Interactions
I am slowly building a new approach to dealing with social media. I am not withdrawing, but cutting back, and being a bit more judicious in my time there, my postings etc. I am moving some of the art off into Turfing and what ever evolves out of it. What is needed is a greater control of the presentation. Turfing always afforded me that, and although I am sure to attract at least for a while, a smaller audience than what I have on FB (some 41k followers), perhaps they will follow me here. 😉 So, I will be here more often, hopefully back to the daily that this once was.
_______________
Gwyllm Art News:
So, the mural that I had done at Mirador on 20th & Division 14 years ago got tagged, big time. Why, I don’t understand. The city couldn’t destroy it, and it has been a part of the community for a very long time. I am hoping that someone recognizes the tag, and can put me in touch with the person who did this. I would really like to know what was going through their heads.
______________
Here is a piece that I wanted to put up on Social Media, by Susannah Martin “Empty Kingdom”. Those pieces like this one will be on the blog from here on out.
_____________________
Links:
West World Abandoned?
Telepathic Abilities In The Autism Spectrum?
I Posit A Waste Of Good Psychedelics….
Ancient Clue From Loch Ness
___________________________
Poem Praising Hashish Over Wine
Drop the wine and drink from Haidar’s Lady,
which is perfumed with ambergris
and is green like chrysolite.
It is offered to you by a well-groomed young man
In the delicate palm of his hand
as if it were a special mark on a rosy cheek.
His outstretched hand reminds you
of the tender branches of the elegant plant,
moving softly at the slightest breeze,
disseminating its intoxicating aroma,
conveying to you by way of your nostrils
its exhilarating effect.
No wine or other tonic could generate
such a heavenly sensation.
It is a virgin,
and has not been adulterated by water,
nor has it been trodden by feet
or squeezed by hand.
It has never been mixed in a priest’s chalice.
It was not outlawed by Muslim rulers,
nor was it ever declared unclean by any.
Forget your trouble
and enjoy your indulgence
and don’t leave today’s pleasures for tomorrow.
– Anonymous
Arabic Poem praising hashish over wine, from The Sufi Culture In Egypt
__________________
The End Of Law: The Hashisheen (Morning High)
Vox: Sussan Deyhim/Patti Smith
__________________
Excerpt: The Oblivion Seekers Isabel Eberhardt (1899)
In this ksar, where the people have no place to meet but the public square or the earthen benches among the foot of the ramparts on the road to Bechar, here where there is not even a café, I have discovered a kif den…
It is a partially ruined house behind the Mellah, a long hall lighted by a single eye in the ceiling of twisted and smoke-blackened beams. The walls are black, ribbed with lighter-colored cracks that look like open wounds. The floor has been made by pounding the earth, but it is soft and dusty. Seldom swept, it is covered with pomegranate rinds and assorted refuse…
This place serves as a shelter for Moroccan vagabonds, for nomads, and for every sort of person of dubious intent and questionable appearance. The house seems to belong to no one; as at a disreputable hotel, you spend a few badly-advised nights there and go on. It is a natural setting for picturesque and theatrical events, like the antechamber of the room where the crime was committed…
In one corner lies a clean red mat, with some cushions from Fez in embroidered leather. On the mat, a large decorated chest which serves as a table. A rosebush with little pale pink blooms, surrounded by a bouquet of garden herbs, all standing in water inside one of those wide earthen jars from the Tell. Further on, a copper kettle on a tripod, two or three teapots, a large basket of dried Indian hemp. The little group of kif-smokers requires no other decoration, no other mise-en-scene. They are people who like their pleasure…
On a rude perch of palm branches, a captive falcon, tied by one leg…
The strangers, the wanderers who haunt this retreat sometimes mix with the kif-smokers, notwithstanding the fact that the latter are a very closed little community into which entry is made difficult. But the smokers themselves are travelers who carry their dreams with them across the countries of Islam, worshipers of the hallucinating smoke. The men who happen to meet her at Kensadsa are among the most highly educated in the land…
The seekers of oblivion sing and clap their hands lazil; their dream -vouces ring out late into the night, in the dim light of the mica-paned latern. Then little by little the voices fall, grow muffled, the words are slower. Finally the smokers are quiet, and merely stare at the flowers in ecstasy. They are epicurian, voluptuaries; perhaps they are sages. Even in the darkest purlieu of Morocco’s underworld such men can reach the magic horizon where they are free to build their dream-palaces of delight…
Chance brought them here to Kenadsa. Soon they will set out again, in different directions and on different trails, moving unconcernedly toward the fulfillment of their separate destinies. But it was a community of taste that gathered them together in this smoky refuge, where they pass the slow hours of a life without cares…
________________
The Garden of Cafour, Cairo
Sylvestre de Sacy (1825)
The Garden of Cafour near Cairo is described by De Sacy as a place notorious because of the hashish which the fakirs used there. It was destroyed in 1258 A.C.E. The patrons eulogized the ecstasies of hashish by composing extravagant poetry such as the following.
The green plant which grows in the Garden of Cafour,
replaces in our hearts the effects of a wind old and generous,
When we inhale a single breath of its odor,
it insinuates itself in each of our members and penetrates
through our body,
Give us this verdant plant from the Garden of Cafour,
which supersedes the most delicate wine,
The poor when they have taken only the weight of one drachm
have a head superb above the Emirs.
________________
Jean Léon Gérôme – Pool in a Harem
________________
The End Of Law: The Hashisheen (Sinan’s Boat)
Vox · Ira Cohen
________________
A pipe of Kif before breakfast gives a man the strength of a hundred camels in the courtyard
– Mooroccan Proverb (Thanks to Paul Bowles!)
CYA Soon!
G