Hallo friends and fiendrs!
I know it has been long months since my last return, I have had busy semesters and rocky soulquakes. Yet here I am with the promise of a son just days away. I hope none of you have forgotten my plots and plans, because I certainly have not!
One of my most profoundly influential non-personal relationships has been my fervent audio-pursuit of the infamous and beloved Terence McKenna. Lorenzo Haggerty and B Art exposed me and guided me through a lengthy course in Bard questing, and I relate his words into all of my favorite discussions. Today, I discovered that another great mind in consciousness expansion has his own radio/internet audioshow. Erik Davis of Techgnosis fame has been producing the Expanding Mind show for a few weeks now, and his most recent episode is being filtered through my headset as I type. This week his guest is Dennis McKenna, brother and collaborator of Terence. His work in entheogens and ethnobotany continue to inspire and educate generations and hundreds of independent psychonauts. It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to hear these great thinkers discuss their own ideas on such a complex subject.
Another major occupation of my recent years has been my pursuit of a degree in the field of anthropology. The further I have gotten into my anthro-research, the more I have realized how I may be able to bind and intertwine my interests and garner a more exciting path into entheogenic and anthropogenic works. My first step, the way I dipped my toes into independent research was through the activity of Parkour. My colleague and I participated in the rush and run of urban gymnastics and free-form exploration of the built environment. Our understanding became formed around the notion of redefining the ways in which humans, citizens, are allowed to move through, around, and over the modern landscape. This work is not exactly entheogenic, but is definitely resonant.
While I am still working in the realm of understanding place and landscape from an anthropological approach, my next independent work is to be in the vein of ethnopharmacology.
The same colleague with whom I worked with on Parkour and I will be taking an anthro-approach to the understanding of the presence and use of entheogens in human cultures. We have developed a syllabus for our work and will be following it synchronously with the Fall 2009 semester. We hope that the work we produce from this independent course will provide an example of our abilities for use in application to graduate schools, as well as gleaning a new or more complex understanding of the subject.
At the moment I am simply priming all of these engines, because my life is soon to be exponentially more complex, yet I believe spinning a dozen plates may just help me stay on my toes, however much I may wish to kick back and chill while it all falls down. So, I will bring this ramble to a temporary close as I get back to work. Until next time, breathe easy....
photo courtesy of: http://www.xoxomusicvideos.com/2009/03/everytime-lustral.html (not my own!)
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