Medicinal Herbs: Showy Milkweed

I found this plant yesterday and fell very attached to it. The flowers are a beautiful lavender color, and are rubbery rather than thin an delicate. It's a tall plant with ball forms of clustered small flowers. It's called Showy Milkweed and here is it's traditional usage:

Edibility:

Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) was boiled and eaten as a vegetable in the mid-west and eastern regions by indigenous tribes of America. The flowers, stems, and leaves were also eaten raw, while the buds were often boiled for soups with meat. Almost all tribes of America were recorded as using the sap as a chewing gum, by boiling it down to a sticky substance and adding salmon or deer fat.

Medicinally:

Showy Milkweed sap was used as a cleaning or healing agent for cuts, sores, warts, or ringworm. The silky hairs would be burned away from the seeds, then ground down into a salve for sores. The seeds would be boiled in a small amount of liquid, which would be applied to soak rattlesnake bites and draw out the poison. Tea made from the roots was to aid in alleviating a measles rash, or curing a cough, or even cure rheumatism when applied like a wash. When the root was mashed with some liquid it could reduce swelling.

Interestingly:

Tribes would use the fibers of the plant's stalk for weaving ropes and cloth. By extracting the fibers from dried stalks via a whacking method, the fibers were twisted together to form cord. This cord also formed nets and traditional ceremonial garb.

Here's the beautiful plant:

WORLD CULTURE

"Culture: the totality of what is communicated by one generation of a people to another by means of language and example."

- Daniel Quinn, Beyond Civilization

I'm in the midst of reading this book right now, and this morning I was caught by this quote. It's an interesting thought to turn around in the head. I began to desire deducing what my culture is. What is it that was brought down through my parents generation into me? Quinn says that it is what survives via " language and example."

In terms of language, it's obvious that English is the language of my culture. Yet, more specifically, my parents spoke with a proper, educated type of English with California accents. Some people learn to speak in slang, or with mixed languages, or with accents from their region. I was brought up speaking an educated English without slang, which reflects my parent's backgrounds and thus mine as well.

I am sure I was taught just about all my fundamental life skills through example. I learned how to use a conventional oven, microwave, freezer, refrigerator, stove-top, and knife to prepare food. I also was taught how to think about what I eat, and to choose healthier options rather than what was simply available at the store. I was taught how to play various sports, and that I should stick with things. I learned that school was important, and drugs were bad. I learned a lot of social skills through my parents that make me who I am today.

And, I realize that a lot of kids grow up learning different skills from their parents. Some parents are not educated and teach their children to speak in slang that doesn't work in a professional atmosphere. Some children are taught to never question the foods they can buy at the liquor stores, which are unhealthy for them. The social skills people inhabit are handed down through their parents. When seeing this phenomenon through an anthropological lens it's not really a case of good parenting versus bad. That's more of a social opinion made later on an independent or collective level. In reality, the culture we inhabit from our parents is vastly different in America from town to town, city to city, and region to region. Some traits vary from family to family within any specific community. American culture is much more mixed up than other culture's which are more grounded by their centuries of history. Who we become via cultural skills, handed down from our parents' generation to ours, is just that - who we are and nothing more. I think we choose friends and lovers in conjunction with those traits, we have learned, which we value. Or maybe we are attracted to others who've learned more attractive or better traits.

Thus, cultures are in constant flux, especially in Western societies. There is no real set culture anymore. We try to preserve the cultural codes of other groups, but they aren't really surviving in the pure essences that we enjoy anymore. Nowadays our world culture is full of variety. The question is whether we will create a cohesive world culture, now that we are in affect a world culture. Can we polish it, with a collective set of values?

Skeptical of Skeptics: The Power of Belief

I watched two videos on TED.com the other day, which were very interesting. Each was a fifteen minute talk given by two well renowned skeptics working in America. Michael Shermer publishes Skeptic Magazine. He debunks many superstitions, occult beliefs, and the supernatural. His angle is out to prove that we make ourselves believe in certain things which are not true.

James Randi is an older man, whois mainly passionate about psychic fraud in his speech. He feels that these people who claim they have contact with the dead and the ability to uncover hidden facts are magicians. They have the tools and the knowledge of how to deceive their audience. And, they do this at a high financial and emotional cost to their customers. His foundation offers support to "ruined" psychic customers and a million dollar prize to a psychic who can prove their ability.

As someone interested in the spiritual, supernatural, and the like I was interested in hearing these men's point of views. I felt that an element of my disbelief was cemented for good, especially when Shermer played the clip of Led Zeppelin backwards asking for us to hear the specific Satanic lyrics.

I was at a lecture for one of my college courses in the occult. A guest speaker was explaining how she talks with the deceased through a special technology invented not too long ago in Europe. She records an empty room, or a silent space and then plays it over a chopped up bit of random audio taken from a TV commercial for example. Then, she'll listen to the audio segments, which are put in random order, with the recorded blank space over it. She first played us some of the clips she'd found, to which I heard just mangled sounds. Then she asked us to listen for the sentence she had deduced, and played it again.

"Oh ok, I can kind of hear that, ...I guess," I thought skeptically.

It wasn't obvious at first, but she found what she was looking for. Why? Because she wanted to, and her desire and belief were strong enough to find something meaningful in the garbage and come and lecture to us about it.

Not to be judgmental though, because although her "speaking with the dead" machine was unconvincing to me, I do have some strange beliefs of my own.

Randi and Shermer are skeptical to the core of their beings. They deal with the cold hard facts of life: the tangible, the seen, and the obvious. If something can't be proved under these headlines they aren't viable. Those are their beliefs, and the power of belief is most powerful. Their point of view is more scientific than anything. They need the problem to work over and over again to be true, and most of what they oppose does not work in this way. The power of belief works for them in conjunction with tangible objects and facts. Is it fair to say that psychics etc. are choosing to believe in something unseen, and this extreme opposition disturbs the skeptics?

I'd like to take the section of Randi and the homeopathic pills as an example. He swallows the entire bottle, and still he doesn't falter at all during his talk. He seems to rob the homeopathic industry of legitimacy. It's not a very thorough investigation into it though. This part caused me to pause and think for a minute. I am one who chooses to believe in the power of medicinal herbs. And the power of belief is extremely strong for the human mind. It is the most important element to our lives I feel I can say with almost one hundred percent certainty. Let me argue with the case of placebos standing on my sideline. We've all heard this one: in experiments a doctor will administer a placebo sugar pill, and the actual medicine to two patients within a study. In the end result, both patients say they feel an affect. This is the power of belief in action.

So, in conclusion, there are scientific elements as well as spiritual elements to our world. Both are extremely powerful to our societies nowadays. In some cultures, even when the two contradict each other no one blinks an eye, because both are so real and hold so much clout to the people of that society.

The power of belief people, don't you forget it.

The Banana Leaf Parable by Charles Eames ( American Designer )

There's sort of a parable I'd like to . . . In India . . . I guess it's a parable: In India, sort of the lowest, the poorest, the, those, those without and the lowest in caste, eat very often--particularly in southern India--they eat off of a banana leaf. And those a little bit up the scale, eat off of a sort of a un . . . a low-fired ceramic dish.

And a little bit higher, why, they have a glaze on--a thing they call a "tali"--they use a banana leaf and then the ceramic as a tali upon which they put all the food. And there get to be some fairly elegant glazed talis, but it graduates to--if you're up the scale a little bit more--why, a brass tali, and a bell-bronze tali is absolutely marvelous, it has a sort of a ring to it.

And then things get to be a little questionable. There are things like silver-plated talis and there are solid silver talis and I suppose some nut has had a gold tali that he's eaten off of, but I've never seen one.

But you can go beyond that and the guys that have not only means, but a certain amount of knowledge and understanding, go the next step and they eat off of a banana leaf.

And I think that in these times when we fall back and regroup, that somehow or other, the banana leaf parable sort of got to get working there, because I'm not prepared to say that the banana leaf that one eats off of is the same as the other eats off of, but it's that process that has happened within the man that changes the banana leaf.

And as we attack these problems--and I hope and I expect that the total amount of energy used in this world is going to go from high to medium to a little bit lower--the banana leaf idea might have a great part in it.

....Life

In searching for what to do now that I've graduated college, I've milled over tons of various ideas. My options seem vast. With everything I've done and experienced and with the skills I've gained over the past four years, I feel like I've come to the edge of a cliff. Now is my time to jump into this endless abyss. This is how I feel now, like I have a huge empty void standing before me. There are so many ideas I've worked through, either by applications and interviews, or by way of thought. Yet, I haven't hit the mark. I'm still not getting my unique nail into this piece of wood. And, of course this task would be hard. It's like how a dog walks around in circles until resting in that perfect spot. There's a place for me that fits just right, but I'm still circling it.

I think I'm coming closer though. I applied to work as an intern at the Earth Island Institute, which is an offshoot of the David Brower Center. It was founded in 1982 by the man, as an umbrella organization for the many, many non-profits striving to protect the planet. This method ensures that small organizations have access to the professional services, fiscal administration, program management, office space, and equipment to work well.

This idea is perfect and necessary for change to happen, I believe. It reminds me of a realization I made my first year in college.

When I first went to the University of California at Santa Cruz, I was opened to many different types of grass-roots organizations and student clubs. I remember wandering the central plaza with a friend, passing by tables with representatives behind them calling for our attention. I vividly recall stopping between two table on opposite sides of the walk way. I looked back and forth perplexed. One's sign read "Socialist Organization," white the other read "Student's United for Socialism." I asked one side why they hadn't combined forces, and he said something about one leader having a personal issue with the other. I scoffed at this and decided not to enter a University Socialist group.

Now it seemed like a sad joke to me. How could the socialist group make any kind of change or movement at all, if a few people in the group couldn't get over a minor issue for the sake of the cause? They had no momentum if they lacked force in numbers, and strength of backbone.

I've wondered since, why are there so many little non-profit organizations that work independently of each other. While one is working to save the sea turtles in Costa Rica, and another is trying to eradicate styrofoam from production, aren't they both working to save the planet?

This is what The Earth Island Institute has done: combined like forces, because the man behind it, David Brower, was smart enough to realize that this is what has to be done in order to actually effect change.

SO, this is the organization I'm applying to intern at, in order to become more involved with what I am passionate about. It will bring me closer to what I care about, which is what life is all about. Like a yo-yo we become unraveled, learning, growing, and experiencing. But, we need to become rolled back up to the source, to our original points of view in our hearts, that will guide us on our life's paths whether or not we are aware of it.

TRIBAL CULTURE

Leader of the Asurini (Red People) Tribe in the Amazon Jungle, Brazil.

Asurini material culture includes the following items: ceramics, weaving, basketry, weapons, body ornaments, wooden benches and musical instruments (flutes). Ceramics and weaving (hammocks, slings, headbands and other ornaments made of cotton) are the women’s tasks. Ceramic pots serve as recipients to transport and deposit water, serve food and prepare it over the fire. In the latter case, these are earthen vessels which have become black with use. For other uses, ceramics are decorated with geometric designs.

Ceramics are prepared from a clay that is obtained from deposits two or three kilometers away from the village, located near the banks of the Xingu River. The vessels are made by using the technique of cording, that is, the overlaying of rolls of clay. The form of the vessel takes shape from the fusion of the rolls together and with the help of a spatula made from a gourd. With this also, the potter does the initial smoothing of the piece which will later be complemented during the drying of the piece, using the fruit of the inajá or a rolling stone. The border of the vessels is usually shaped with the fingers or by using a species of lichen that makes it fine and uniform. After drying, the vessel is initially burned, being placed near the fire until its surface appears very dark. Later it is burned in an oxidizing atmosphere with the barks of different types of trees.

The final touches on the undecorated pieces are made by applying a layer of a substance contained in the inner bark of the stalk of a tree, giving them a reddish-brown color. In the painting of the decorated pieces, mineral raw material is used, that is, small stones of three colors: yellow, red and black. These stones are rubbed onto another larger one, thus producing the dye. The yellow one is used as a base, painting the entire external surface of the piece with this color. The black and red are used in the elaboration of geometric designs. These are done with paintbrushes that can be made of small pieces of wood covered with cotton, palm leaf stems, plant stems or feather fiber. After finishing the painting, the piece is left to dry. Afterwards, a layer of resin from the jatobá tree is passed over the external surface of the piece, polishing it and fixing the dye.

Besides ceramics, geometric designs also decorate the gourds (incised), bows and ornaments (traced). From a vast repertoire of motifs and patterns of designs used in the decoration of these items of material culture, there are those that are used to ornament the body, either by tattoing or painting with genipapo. These designs are stylizations of elements from nature, as well as representations of supernatural beings or symbolic elements, such as Anhynga kwasiat (a mythical being that gave the design to men) and Taingawa (a doll used in shamanic rituals and that also means “image, model, replica of the human being”).

Contemporary Influence of Amazonian tribe appearances: Check out these cool music videos.

Basement Jaxx video for their song "Raindrops"

Kelis. Her video for the song "Acapella"