******SPOILAGE IF YOU HAVEN"T SEEN STAR WARS EPISODES I -III ( Read more... )

In my last ceremony, I had the feeling that my teacher in Peru was in bad shape. Wednesday I got an email from his wife saying that he is in fact in the hospital, not having his leg operated on but for his lungs and a near heart attack. And of course there's no money to pay the bills. So I dashed off an email to everyone I know who's been to stay ( Read more... )

Interesting stuff - Ms de Wys went to drink ayahuasca to cure her cancer and ended up apprenticed to her curandero - and ended up his lover. See the interview here. There's quite an extensive comments thread, in which the legitimacy of non-native shamans is discussed. My reply appears near the end.

I called home in the process of waiting to meet up with my LJ friend, but we soon dissolved into meaningless endearments - nice, but not critical, and I only spent 15 min on the phone. I saw JT´s son G at the Internet cafe and he said there hadn´t been any ceremony on Saturday night. This was nice for me, as I didn´t miss anything by passing out at ( Read more... )

subtitle: The Shamanic Teachings of the Plant World ( Read more... )

This is the autobiographical account of a British woman who went to the Peruvian Amazon in 1997 and became the last apprentice of a shaman there. She starts out in Machu Picchu in the tourism industry, but it goes sour for her and she has a vision directing her to Iquitos (the same area where I spend my time in Peru). Once in Iquitos, she waits ( Read more... )

( The detailed writeup )

Saturday was a good aikido day for me. I seem to have cracked at least some of the forward roll problem, and there was ample opportunity for me to practice at least a couple of the moves enough times so that I felt like I was at least getting the hang of them. I think I do better on Saturdays because the class is in the morning, rather than in the ( Read more... )

The author, a collector of Native American artifacts, sees a picture of a Cree marriage basket at a photography exhibition. Determined to have that basket, she calls the gallery to ask where it came from - only to find that they have no record of the picture, or of the photographer's name. Even her friend who accompanied her to the exhibition has ( Read more... )

So this past week has been pretty busy - my dear friend shaix was visiting from the US and we were throwing a 40th birthday party for fragiletender.

I'd done the organising of the food - I had it made by a company that normally does ready-made healthy meals for busy professionals but agreed to do some catering in their slow season. It was great to be assured of ( Read more... )