For the third year in a row, I've had the inestimable privilege of having the plant kingdom 'speak' to me in my dreams, always at around the same time of the year.
(Although it seems to get later in the month by 4 days each year-I wonder why?)
This year, on the night of the 14th May, I was visited by the Prickly Pear, technically a damn nuisance invader species in this country, yet nonetheless prized in gardens around Gauteng, especially in front of the yard wall.
The Prickly Pear in this dream appeared to have its lower ends wrapped in another form of vegetation - I wasn't sure what, but it was long and clingy.
So off I went to the Internet, where I find that this particular cactus is sometimes an ingredient in the entheogenic brew ayahuasca, and can be combined with the vine of souls to produce a brew which has taught humanity about other worlds than the material one for thousands of years.
I'm not wholly clear on what was being communicated here. On the one hand, I would never drink of the sacred brew made from these two plants, as I am both an alcoholic and a drug addict.
On the other hand, I really don't need to. My brain is capable of some pretty fancy other-worldly trips on it's own, thankyouverymuch.
As a species, we may be leaving behind our dependence on these ancient teacher plants and starting to strike out on our own. There is most certainly, to anyone who considers for a minute, an evolution in human consciousness which has been underway for some time now, but which seems to have been gathering steam lately.
We are anatomically identical to our ayahuasca-swigging ancestor-shamans, yet our minds have definitely undergone a shift and a growth. This indicates that there is in fact something other than the bones and blood of a human on which the evolutionary force may work.
Personally, I find that a pretty compelling argument against gross materialism, right there.
Sit on one of those and it will speak to you for sure.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of gross materialism and prickly pears ... I'm about to move to Tucson, Arizona - plenty of cacti there - from my hometown on the East Coast of the U.S., swathed in lush green foliage. I just read an article in The Boilerplate Rhino about lawncare in the U.S. and it is shocking. Like 30% of urban water use on my side of the country goes to lawn care and maybe 60% on the west coast!!
ReplyDeleteScary tho it is to me to move away from the environment I think of as mother to me, I refuse to try to grow grass in the desert. I think I've still got a good deal to learn about the world from her vegetable guides ... no matter how prickly. :)