Datura Stramonium: A Rabbit Hole Trip

 

                                           Datura Stramonium: A Rabbit Hole Trip

 

It started innocently enough. A quest for rabbit proof flowers. But it rekindled a trip down a rabbit hole of memories, involving a different kind of trip.

 

Our neighborhood now has a burgeoning rabbit population. While my garden is protected by an electric fence, other plants not so protected are being decimated. In a trip to the garden center I discovered a beautiful flowering Datura Stramonium, an obvious addition to my Poison Garden, and definitely rabbit resistant. Datura is also known by the common names thornapple, jimsonweed, moon flower, hells bells, or devil's trumpet. It  is very poisonous, psychoactive, sacred, and associated with sorcery and witchcraft. Let's see what happens to the damned rabbits when they sample this!

But when I was 17, I mixed a batch of it and survived.

I made a tea from Asthmador Cigarettes, available without prescription at the local pharmacy.  

 

 The cigarettes consisted of a mixture of belladonna and datura stramonium powder. Before the advent of inhalers, it was one of the few treatments for asthma. I used cigarettes rather than the plants because the package had the percentage of active ingredients allowing for dosage calculations, using my physician father’s Merk’s Manual. Fortunately, and probably luckily, I got it right and didn't kill my friends.

The tea was truly a witch’s brew, dark and bitter. After about an hour I started feeling a bit dizzy, so I took to my bed.  Then I started experiencing vivid, lucid, direct-able dreams/hallucinations throughout the night. I could see how witches could imagine flying about. A peculiarity was I didn't disconnect from my motor functions, so I found myself flailing about in the bed. The next morning, I received a panicked call from a participating friend: "I can't see! Is that normal?" Fortunately, I was familiar with  " Datura ingestion can cause blurred vision due to dilated pupils (mydriasis). This effect is linked to the plant’s content of tropane alkaloids, which have strong anticholinergic properties.”

The overall experience was very interesting but never repeated. Thus far.

Wick Hunt 

                                                               Dancing Flies

 

 

I was relaxing on the front porch, awaiting another sweet spring sunset. I noticed small flying insects yo yoing together up and down in a beam of sunlight. Intrigued, I googled “flying insects dancing up and down in sunlight”: "Dancing Flies".

It seems the males gather in competition to attract females. They tend to be attracted to some subtle landmark, such as a branch or object on the ground. Little more is known about these dancers, as they have no known economic impact. However, most of the numerous species seem described as predatory, both in larval and aerial forms. Charmingly, males are said to offer females gifts of cocoons containing a tasty insect. Less so as occasionally they offer an empty cocoon. Aphids and other tiny insects are thought to be prey. I wonder, could they be useful as tiger mosquito control?

They certainly seem eager, or even frantic, as some insect’s life spans are measured in hours. Interestingly, many of the species are associated with aquatic features, of which we only have my diminutive pond in back, and Shenk’s branch way below.

Certainly, the bobbing, swirling patterns they make are endlessly mesmerizing.

Purple Pill

 

Purple Berries

 

It was a largish purple pill. Purchased for ten dollars, as mescaline, that spiritual, cacti derived hallucinogen. But what was it, really? I took a swig from my canteen and swallowed it. I was tucked into a sheer cliff crevasse, a few feet below an overhang, just off the Appalachian Trail, next to Loft Mountain campground. I leaned over and peered down to the forest floor, 100 vertical rocky feet below. It was a warm, late autumn afternoon, peak leaves. I waited.

We were camping at relatively flat topped Loft Mountain, William, Wayne and I, sleeping in tents and the back of my Chevy van.  It was our favorite spot in the Shenandoah National Park. It was not then a busy campground. This permitted certain activities to be unobserved, hence, part of its allure.  I was seventeen.

I had a panoramic view to the south. Only visible were mountains, valleys, water gaps, and the forest. The sun was warm, there was a gentle breeze. I was secure in my hole, my back against the spine of the mountain.

 

Discrete cumulus cloud shadows drifted silently across the forest below and beyond. Breezes pushed up the valleys, rippling the leaves and limbs in a polychromic avalanche up the gaps, with swirls and flame-like eddies spinning into the hills. It was achingly beautiful, and peaceful. I was enveloped by natural beauty in front, solid and secure in back. Above, lapis sky, breathing shimmering forest floor far down below. I was alone, but I was not.

 

Much later, the sun touched the top of the mountain to my southwest. I carefully ascended to the trail above, collected my friends, and headed towards our campsite through the woods. Once out of sight of the trail, we became disoriented. The distorted camp sounds that we were guided by, wood being chopped, indistinct chatter, cooking utensil clanging, echoed and reverberated all around. We stopped, regrouped, and emerged in the campground, red faced and feeling somewhat foolish. We stayed close to the campsite that night.

I have had only two spiritual experiences, thus far. One was when I crossed over the rim of the Grand Canyon for the first time. Was it the altitude? The other was at Loft Mountain. Mescaline?

I visited Loft Mountain's cliffs recently, 55 years later, as I do occasionally. The forest floor has grown  up towards the overhang, the view somewhat diminished. It was almost a lifetime ago, but like yesterday. I no longer feel comfortable climbing down below that overhang. And I no longer feel comfortable taking a pill with unknown effects. But if you handed me that same purple pill now, I would swallow it.

Say, can I have some of your purple berries?
          Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now, haven't got sick once
Probably keep us both alive

Wooden Ships CSN and Y

 

Wick Hunt