 |
| shrooms |
I'll start with a confession - I know next to nothing about mushrooms, and have virtually no appropriate identification skills...
I'm hoping one of my dear readers might help out with this one (perhaps someone whose name begins with, oh I don't know, An*??)...
In any case, we took Robin up to the woods at the top of the hill today, and it being all damp and Autumnal, there was a range of mushrooms on show.
However, a word of advice...if you are going mushrooming, don't take a dog!
When I first spotted the little field of mushrooms above, there was a large yellow dog standing in the middle of them...hence the damage you can see...
Meanwhile, in the field we found this perfect specimen...
 |
| pre-dog |
In the background you can see Robin, blissfully unaware of the interesting fungi I was trying to get a nice phone snap of...mere moments later, he noticed our interest, and before we could stop him, he dived straight in and bit a chunk out of it...
 |
| post dog |
Fortunately he spat it straight out...I have no idea whether or not this is poisonous and wouldn't want to risk it...
This next one looks a bit like a Liberty Cap to me...
 |
| magic? |
Of course, the Liberty Cap is the traditional magic mushroom in the UK, containing the psychedelic compound psilocybin.
Whilst I'm really very interested in the consciousness-altering properties of naturally occurring hallucinogenics, I've never tried them and wouldn't have the confidence to identify them myself...although I'm sure they grow naturally around here.
When psychedelic substances are used in a spiritual context (which is primarily where my interest lies), they're referred to as Entheogens...there's a new word for you!
It seems to me that all human cultures, as far back as we know, used any hallucinatory or otherwise consciousness-altering substances they could find...many are well known - peyote, used by indigenous Americans...various cactus and morning glory, used by south American cultures...fly agaric across Northern Europe...opium and its derivatives, used by many cultures in Europe and Asia over thousands of years...cannabis in the near East and the Caribbean...
So if all cultures, given access, take drugs...then it's a natural human behaviour, isn't it?
And yet pursuit of such experience and activity is labelled "crime" (although it's rarely clear who the victim is)...we've basically made it a criminal offence to be human...
Well, the law is an ass!
If an opportunity arises to expand my consciousness and cleanse my spirit, I shall take it in a heartbeat.
Yeah, I'm just an old hippy...
:-p
No comments:
Post a Comment