As part of the team (I’m credited with hospitality and moral support) that helped in the creation of the movie From Shock to Awe I was invited to participate in the film’s premiere at the Illuminate Film Festival where it received an Honorable Mention for Social Impact in the category of Debut Feature Competition Jury Prize and it received the Mangurama Award for Conscious Documentary Storytelling.
botany, chemistry and cultivation of major and obscure psychoactive plants
history of modern ethnopharmacology and ethnomycology
peyote & solandra amoung the Huichol and the role of women in shamanism
ancient & contemporary Anadenanthera snuffs of the Atacama Desert
plant teachers of Amazonian shamanism and modern ayahuasca cults in Brazil
iboga ethnobotany and ibogaine in experimental research
training in field techniques used for ethnobotanical specimen collecting
native uses and preparations of entheogenic plants, past and present
practical methods for extraction, isolation and assay of active plant compounds
ayahuasca and admixture plants and novel ayahuasca analogs
ethnobotany, chemistry and cultivation of entheogenic mushrooms and fungi
Earth based medication advocate and activist, Ian Benouis joined me to discuss his work with veterans suffering from PTSD, earth based medication, etc.
“On a balmy Texas Saturday, I sat among a motley crew of people watching three very disturbing facts show across the screen in front of us.
Veterans commit suicide at a rate two times higher than the general population. More U.S. Veterans have killed themselves than have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty-two U.S. veterans take their own lives every day.
We were watching the short film Soldiers of the Vine: Healing War Trauma with Plant Medicine. This documentary is a journey into the hearts and minds of six veterans as they travel to Peru seeking sacred plant medicine to heal their Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Surrender to being. Your true nature is pure energy and that energy is infinite love. You can not die. Your energy can only be transformed and transmuted. You are the wave having a particle experience. You do not know where and when you will pop up next. You live in the dance of infinite superposition which is full possibility until an observer observes. The multiplicity is in the unity. This is the mystical level where all is connected in one wave. Observe yourself as the One who observes All. The observing One, the one being observed, the observation, are all ONE!
Bia Labate live interviews with Panama combat veteran Ian Benouis at the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Regional Mini-Conference.
Bia Labate live interviews with Gulf War combat veteran Eric Glover. He shares his story about healing his trauma with plant medicines.
Bia Labate live interviews Afghanistan combat veteran Matt Kahl about the therapeutic potentials of plant medicines to treat PTSD. “Ayahuasca: a call for action!
In this episode my guest is Ian Benouis who is a West Point graduate, former Blackhawk helicopter pilot, US Army officer and combat veteran who participated in Operation Just Cause in the Republic of Panama. He is an activist for the beneficial use of plant medicine, especially for veterans with PTSD. Ian is also a Muslim and a psychonaut.
