Monday, April 11, 2005

A Few Thoughts: Entrepreneurship, Indie Stylings, and Ayahuasca

I was reading Talking Story this morning and happened upon a discussion regarding “on-again-off-again-entrepreneurship.” This interested me because I have always been fearful to let go of the paying job…it always seemed to be an all or nothing venture. This discussion talks about oscillating between the two: working for yourself and working for someone else. I echo Rosa Say’s statement when I say that I am looking forward to Anita Campbell’s (Small Business Trends) continuation of this conversation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I went to the Lisa B. spoken word night on Saturday and was not only brought to tears by her powerful pieces but profoundly moved by the indie stylings of Glenna G. I am really looking forward to their next show at Solstice Café on the 21st.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seems I have yet again proven to myself and others that my memory cannot be likened to a sponge…during a conversation, where I was attempting to bring in a few interesting points of fact that I had picked up during an ethnographic survey course, I confused said facts. So the following is a little clarification courtesy of Wikipedia:

Traditional and Western
Nowadays, the term
ayahuasca can also mean analogous concoctions made with other plants that contain the two main components, an MAOI and DMT, or one of its analogues. The DMT is the main "active ingredient", causing the desired effects. The MAOI is necessary for DMT to be active orally. However, most actual shamans and many who work with the tea regularly object to this and state that the Banisteriopsis vine is the only defining ingredient, everything else being of secondary importance. While the DMT can be thought of as creating the desired state, the vine itself is considered by many to be the "spirit" of the tea; it is the gatekeeper to the other realms and the guide through the experience, controlling access to the altered states and helping one navigate them. Traditionally, Caapi is and has been the defining ingredient of the tea.

In modern Western culture, entheogen users sometimes base concoctions off of Ayahuasca. When doing so, most often Rue or Caapi are used with a non-traditional, non-DMT admixture, such as Psilocybin or Mescaline. Nicknames such as Psilohuasca or Pedrohuasca (from the San Pedro Cactus, which contains Mescaline) are often given to such brews. This is usually only done by experienced entheogen users who are more familiar with the chemicals and plants being used, as the uninformed combination of various neuro-chemicals can be dangerous and most are unaware that such combinations can be made.

The point being, for those of you involved in the conversation, that the drug I think I was speaking about (dimethyltryptamine) – from the Amazon – is in fact a component of “ayahuasca,” found in South America as well as the Amazon.

Another case of a little knowledge going way too far. I hate it when I behave like an academic stereotype…

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah yes, I remember this converastion. DMT *is* one of the components of Ayahuasca, so we were in fact discussing similar things. One can in fact have an extremely powerful experience from smoking DMT crystals, which are extracted from crushed plant matter of various DMT-containing botanicals (such as Banisteriopsis Caapi, Syrian Rue, Virola, Acacia, Yopo and others). By all accounts, it is not for the faint of heart. Check out Erowid.com (the most comprehensive source on the net for information regarding psychoactives) for everything you ever wanted to know about DMT and Ayahuasca .

7:34 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home