Sat May 15: Planting the Future Conference in Santa Rosa, CA

Planting the Future Conference – California
Saturday, May 15th 2010
Sonoma Academy Campus – Santa Rosa , CA
(off Petaluma Hill Rd, just minutes from Santa Rosa)

More info: United Plant Savers

Teachers include: Amanda McQuade-Crawford, Christopher Hobbs, Kathi Keville, Cascade Anderson-Geller, Richo Cech, David Hoffmann, Sheila Kingsbury, Autumn Summers, Leslie Gardner, Denise Cooluris, ND, Peggy Schafer, Kami McBride, Jane Bothwell, Gail Julian, Rose Loveall, Trinity Ava, Dale Pendell, Bill Schoenbart, L.Ac, Lynda LeMole, David Crow, Sage LaPena, Annabella deMattei and other local teachers.

Classes:
Sirens of the Sea – Sea vegetables for food and medicine– Autumn Summers, Trish Gallagher, Kristin Younger, Terry Nieves
From ancient times to the present, seaweeds have been used by coastal people all over the world to nourish themselves, their gardens, as well as to treat disease. The Sonoma coast is incredibly rich in seaweeds that can be used as foods and medicines. Learn about this amazing resource from a panel of seaweed harvesters.

Hearing the Voice of White Sage (Salvia apiana), – A Shamanic Connection to the Plant World – Annabella De Mattei
An interactive class that is a synergy of presentations, dialogue, imaging, art expression and a journey using traditional shamanic techniques for accessing plant spirit.

Orpheus, Faust, Eve: Shamanism in the Western Tradition – Dale Pendell
Through the myths of Orpheus, Faust, and Eve we find shamanic traditions in the West—some using plants, some not—that continue to affect our policies and beliefs. The three magical traditions are distinct, and lead to vastly different results in the contemporary world.

Wildcrafting Herbs – Discussions on a Complicated Issue – Cascade Anderson Geller
With population growth and land development on the planet increasing, is there any rationale for wildcrafting herbs? Or, is wildcrafting herbs and other plants, actually an incentive to keep wild lands wild? We’ll explore this controversial issue from several points of view using well-known species such as goldenseal, ginseng, echinacea, linden, pau d’ arco, cork oak and others from around the world.

Ten Top Herbs for Kids – Sheila Kingsbery
Children often have fairly common ailments and a well thought out selection of herbs can help and appeal to their taste buds. Learn herbs for fevers, respiratory infections, coughs, sore throats, tummy aches, sleep issues, anxiety, skin rashes, insect bites and small wounds. And the delivery methods most helpful in getting children to willingly take our concoctions.

Turmeric and Red Sage –Ancient Tradition and Modern Science of Two Miraculous Herbs – Bill Schoenbart
Learn about the many traditional uses and modern research on turmeric as a powerful anti-cancer herb. Red Sage root, or Dan Shen, used to “calm the spirit” and treat heart problems has modern research that shows it possesses impressive cardiac effects and profound anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antioxidant properties. Bill’s own research shows that locally grown organic Red Sage roots are equal or superior to those grown in China.

The Medicinal Landscape – Kami McBride
Come explore the use of California native plants for creating your home medicine chest garden. Enhance the ‘medicine shed’ and turn your yard into a medicinal landscape. Seasonal harvests become healing medicines inspiring sustainability, self-empowerment and keeping your loved ones well.

Herb ‘Walk’ in the Potted ‘Insta-Garden’ – Gail Julian
Learn the identification and uses of the herbs provided to us by local growers, in our lusciously blooming potted ‘HerbGarden’.

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Today's ramble

From today’s Arthur feed on Twitter

SAD: Jay Reatard cause of death: cocaine toxicity, alcohol

FINALLY: huckster creep James A. ‘Harmonic Wealth’ Ray indicted for October 2009 Sedona sweatlodge deaths

AC/DC new singer tells Bono, Geldhof to stop telling their fans to do charity (understandable sentiment). He sez, “I don’t tell everybody they should give money—they can’t afford it.” Of course, one of the reasons they can’t afford it is… they’re stuck working in the sick Walmart system that AC/DC goes out of their way to profit from.

Now it’s Giant Robot Magazine that is ailing–asking $60k to stay afloat—donate info: http://www.giantrobot.com/donate

Harper’s is also ailing—”readership down 35k, newsstand sales plummeting” but still funded by the MacArthurs. (Wow: according to that NYT article, Harper’s has 18 people on full-time editorial staff. That’s an awful lot.)

Global Monoculture Update: “One of the world’s oldest languages has come to an end”

Erik Davis tipped us to “The Magical Basis of Corporate Personhood” by author Dale Pendell

Anais Nin on LSD's value

[Huxley] reminded me that drugs are beneficial if they provide the only access to our nightlife. I realized that the expression “blow my mind” was born of the fact that America had cemented access to imagination and fantasy and that it would take dynamite to remove this block! I believed Leary’s emphasis on the fact we use only one percent of our mind or potential, that everything in our education conspires to restrict and constrict us. I only wished people had had time to study drugs as they studied religion or philosophy and to adapt to this chemical alteration of our bodies.

[LSD’s] value is in being a shortcut to the unconscious, so that one enters the realm of intuition unhampered, pure as it is in children, of direct emotional reaction to nature, to other human beings. In a sense it is the return to the spontaneity and freshness of childhood vision which makes every child able to paint or sing.

—Anais Nin, as quoted by Dale Pendell in Pharmako Gnosis: Plan Teachers and the Poison Path

Dale Pendell on magic, beauty, offerings and gratitude

photo by Mark Pilkington

photo by Mark Pilkington

Here’s a snippet of wisdom thought from botanist-poet Dale Pendell, speaking informally at the World Psychedelic Forum in Basel, Switzerland in March 2008, courtesy Gyrus’s always provocative and thoughtful Dreamflesh blog:

“[T]he people who have lived close to the earth for a long time seem to respect these rites and rituals. They feel a sense of gratitude. God, even Nietzsche said, ‘A sense of gratitude is seemly.’ Our existence here rests on many lives who have gone before us, generations of people. And not only people; all sorts of beings that have lived, and suffered, and died, and micro-organisms creating even the air that we breathe, and the topsoil, and all of it. So every day of our lives is a gift of countless generations that have provided it, for our benefit. So a sense of gratitude is right, and it is good to give something back. It’s good to take a moment to place an offering, or a word or something. Ultimately I don’t think we can prove this. But I say, the other side can’t prove their way either. It comes down to a wager. And I put my wager on a green square, and to do these things, to find a way to move in beauty ourselves, does change the world. It’s the only way we can change the world.

“So, that’s a long way of saying that that’s the ultimate basis of my magic.”

Read more here.