Earth medicines and self-surrender to source saved my life. The goal of the mystical experience is altered traits not altered states. Huston Smith. Nature loves courage. Terence McKenna. Ask the plants of the earth and they will teach you. Job 12:8. If you see the day of judgement coming finish planting a tree. Muhammad
It’s not to be overlooked in human history that the last time the climate shifted we evolved a whole new perspective and became who we are today 12 thousand years later. We have one shot at this except since the latest shift is of our own creation it is on us to do the individual work to evolve ourselves out of this mess. That’s what the plants are telling us.
Evolution created the fully functional endocannabinoid system over 450 million years ago in our ancestor the sea squirt. This is why the plant has been following us around for thousands of years in co-evolution with us. We as a super complex organism that is a conscious self-expression of the universe can go to war or have childhood trauma that the sea squirt will never have and we need a plant helper as back up.
Finally did the floatation tank after watching the movie Altered States back in the day. John Hurt and Drew Barrymore’s screen debuts by the way.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_States The movie deals with John Lilly’s sensory deprivation research while under the influence of psychedelics.
I have a very serious question for my fellow human beings.
Who on planet Earth can explain to me why the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxy tryptamine) is legal and the neurotransmitter DMT (N,N-Dimethyl tryptamine) is illegal and a Schedule I Drug making every person on US soil guilty of possession and manufacture every single moment of their lives?
I realized and understood lots of things that in Ayahuasca school made perfect sense when the teacher put them up on the blackboard which of course was just the now polished mirror of my heart. I understood that veterans are the moral conscience of the country because we have to exercise the will of the politicians and policy makers. We are sent to right or wrong to do the things that only God should do. This is why veterans need this healing. We as a sacred congregation have been an instrument of, a deliverer of and a witness to the most horrendous and impossible things a human being can experience and need to be reintegrated in to the matrix of nature if our society as a whole has any hope of healing itself.
In his late 20s, Benouis said he went through a series of things that shook him up pretty seriously. First, he almost drowned while body surfing near Santa Cruz, which he said was a big deal for a kid who grew up in Hawaii. Then, he was deployed to Panama for Operation: Just Cause. Next, Benouis said his house was robbed and burned to the ground. And finally, his wife left him.
“I was like, ‘OK, God. You’re trying to get my attention,’” he said with a guffaw. “You’ve got it!”
Benouis picked up a Bible and other books about religion and spirituality. Eventually, he started reading the Quran and it made an impression on him quickly. “It wasn’t some particular passage,” Benouis said. But his sense was that the book was “clearly true.”
“I guess that kind of makes me a Muslim,” he remembered thinking.
Ian Benouis, a former Black Hawk helicopter pilot, has testified at the Capitol on behalf of patients with PTSD who use marijuana to treat symptoms. He admits he has been using marijuana for more than 20 years after trying prescription pills that he didn’t react well to.
“You can sleep through the night, that’s the biggest thing for me is that the nightmares and bad dreams, I don’t have them with cannabis,” said Benouis. “I’m using a plant that in my opinion God put here to help humanity whereas the government is saying ‘Oh, you can’t use that but you can use all these pharmaceuticals which the side effects are suicide and suicidal thoughts.'”
I’m sharing this because I initially wrote it over 20 years ago and it still a useful indictment of our failed War on Drugs today.
The Entheogen Review, Summer Solstice, 1995
The following essay first appeared in the March 13, 1995 issue of Legalese, the student publication of the University of Houston Law Center. It also ran in the University of Houston student publication the Daily Cougar. The author has generously made it available to the public — it may be photocopied and sent to officials and policy-makers concerned with decisions related to The War on Drugs.
everything is reunion each moment a homecoming leaving begins the return to the way of infinite love
Recently here in Texas Representative David Simpson a tea partier and conservative Christian published a blog post entitled: The Christian Case for Drug Law Reform in concert with his filing of a bill that would strike the word “Marihuana” from the Texas Criminal code. That inspired me to cover the same topic in Islam which I have been pondering for at least well basically for the entire time that I have been practicing Islam. Here goes:
Ian Benouis 