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See this phrase translated! | |||||||||
| MENU Soup du Jour? (picking walnuts... Monkey SEE Monkey DO! A few words on LSD, The LAW & SOCIETY |
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See this phrase translated! | |||||||||
| MENU Soup du Jour? (picking walnuts... Monkey SEE Monkey DO! A few words on LSD, The LAW & SOCIETY |
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 N THE SUMMER of 1968, I lived for a while at a ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains.
On a clear day, from the meadow at the highest part of the ranch, you could see
the bay and Monterrey Peninsula. Magnificent. What's there now? I don't know, I
haven't been back there since November, 1968...My hosts were the young relatives
of the people who had grown British Walnuts in a grove on the side of the hill. I
was first taken there by some of the people I met in the fall of 1967, the folks I
stayed with in Santa Clara, California, in the valley on the SF Bay side of the
peninsula. Not
long after I got there in the summer, I discovered that the cooking
arrangement consisted of an old wood stove, outside of what appeared to be an old
garage. All the buildings were constructed of clap-board wood siding, unpainted,
and extremely weathered. It might have been a few decades since anyone had lived
there...One morning, I awoke to the smell of burning newsprint. I walked out to the stove, and there was a thick cloud of heavy smoke coming from the stove. Whatcha tryin' tuh do, I asked. Bake some bread, was the reply. Lemme see that fire, I said, as I opened the firebox door. Whoever was trying to build that burn up sure had NO experience with making a wood fire! There were big triangular chunks of chopped walnut, with newspaper stuffed around it, inside. Hence, all the smoke!! I resorted to my Boy Scout years, and told them they'd never get the bread baked that way. Although
I'd never dealt with it before, I simply applied my Boy Scout learning to
the task. Cut up kindling, little slivers of wood. Then, prepared a few sizes of
wood in between that and the chunks of walnut. Got a fire going in the kindling,
and slowly added the bigger pieces. Once the big chunks were roasting nicely, I
was promptly declared master of the FLAME by popular acclaim...Soon,
Bakemeister got added to that, as I managed to learn how to crack wheat, and add
the organic raisins, and FRESH British Walnuts which had already been gathered
from the grove nearby. YUMMY GOOD! AYBE IT WAS the same afternoon, of the day I
baked my first loaf of cracked
wheat, raisin walnut bread...if it was a few days later, oh well...this IS a
sixties story, after all...A small group of the ranch dwellers decided to harvest
walnuts. This meant simply picking them up off the ground under the trees in the
grove. Someone arrived with some of Dr. Hoffman's Legendary "SOMA"
Discovery...or
so we were told. The group consensus was to ingest the elixir. At the time it
didn't seem out of place - maybe because we'd all been raised in a "things go
better with Coke" kind of society.I think the placing of LSD, Mescaline, Psylocybin, peyote, "magic" mushrooms on
the controlled substances list by the federal government has done more harm to
many people than any presumed protection provided has accomplished. Humans have
been discovering psychotropic substances in their environment since the "dawn of
time". No puritanical, control-oriented effort, now that people full of what the
Greeks called hubris say they have tamed the wilderness, will
completely eradicate every plant that produces anything that has the effect of
making us "see" DIFFERENTLY, in a way that some who are obsessed with having POWER
over their fellow humans don't want anyone to see. I think that some shamans of
indigenous peoples have knowledge that is far more to the point than the rantings
of some street corner preachers who would have us believe that those shamans are
deluded by "demons" and the various other creatures in "league with
Satan"...Tell me preacher man, have you seen Satan? I'd suggest looking
in the mirror for starters... Placing those who've had trouble with their
visions in the hands of those who haven't been "there" and come back seems to me
incredibly short-sighted. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though. We are the
society that champions convenience uber alles. We see no further than the
window we throw (collectively, I mean) that soiled pamper out of...There was a period for a few years after October 6th, 1966, when people who had
LSD experiences without the political paranoia added by the illegality were still
in touch with folks who came along later. I have since met some of these early
intrepid tripsters. Before it is too late, we ought to be seeking these folks out
for their advice and wisdom about the "problem child" of Dr. Hoffmann, not
vilifying them as Pied Pipers of Psychedelic ruination. One thing I learned from
an old Hog Farmer who travelled around keeping an eye on the parking lot scene for
the Grateful Dead, was that LSD "talks" down. If one is having any problem
adjusting to a new way of "seeing" a grounded reference point works wonders. I
know - I saw this in action at the "bummer" tent at the 69 Woodstock
festival...That afternoon is still vivid in my mind...People were picking up walnuts which
were cracking open from exposure to the sun, and the kind you find in a bag at the
grocery...those needing a nut-cracker. I'd noticed while making bread that the
nuts I could open by spreading the crack with my thumb-nail and fingers were ripe
- so sweet! The others were bitter - of course - they were green!I decided to suggest to the others that we leave the "green" nuts alone and only
pick those we could immediately use. Yet, gibberish came out of my mouth. I wasn't
alarmed by this, however. We were simply beyond "consensus reality"...ask
anyone
who's learned to adjust to this...Quickly, the idea to make what might appear to
be a psychotic break to some straight-laced "scientists" - a weakness,
don'tcha know? - into a strength, occurred. I began to wave my hands and arms up
and down. Made grunting noises. Got everyone's attention real well (HMM...might "MONKEY SEE - MONKEY DO!" actually apply?).Then,
with
gestures that came as fast as Arthur Pendragon pulling Excalibur out of
the stone, I took a ripe walnut, and in exagurated fashion opened it, showed how
easy it was to get the meat out, ate it, made a satisfied look and rubbed my
stomach - yummy - for emphasis. Then, picking up a walnut I knew was not yet sun
ripened, I made faces one might associate with sour/bitter and threw it back down.
Success! People got light-bulb-going-on expressions on their faces. I watched
with delight as they began to pick up only the ripe ones. Not a word of English
had been spoken, yet we'd communicated!!As I
saw
the number of ripe ones under our first tree dwindle, I moved to another
tree, and began harvesting there. A quick glance back however, resulted in more
gibberish sounds and arm waving...the others were reverting to picking up every
nut they saw. So I vigorously waved them over to my tree as I picked up a ripe nut
and pointed to it. Smiles and mass movement to the good pickin's followed. Is this
tale worth the time it's taking to tell and read? I think so, I don't consider
myself very special at all, I just happened to be the surfer who keeps his eye on
the horizon for the big wave, know what I'm saying? You never know when you might
be in a high-tech-broken-down survival situation. Who would you rather be
with...someone that only knows how to enforce rules...someone who only knows how
to buy it ready-made...or an improviser, adept at bricolage?
As an
afterword, I will say I stopped accepting offers of a chance to go
travelling with "Uncle Sid" a decade or more ago. I feel that I learned what I
could from the experience. Now I say Do you Know the Chemist? Know the Chemist!!!
The memories are there somewhere...work them out, WORK with them...yet,
even though I decline offers, I still think the use of scare tactics, or ad
hominem arguments is a blind alley we are condemning the people who will take LSD
for all the "wrong" reasons to walk...let me know if you agree or
disagree. |
