Exploring
the Psychedelic
in Oakland
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| Mark Henson's Two Choices |
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| Rick Doblin, Ph. D. |
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| Manny Salzman |
OLD FRIENDS… Many friends of Shroomfest attended the event, including Dr. Emanuel Salzman
and his wife Joanne of Denver– founders of the Telluride Mushroom Festival.
Manny has long been an advocate for the medicinal use of psychedelics – or
“mind medicines,” as he likes to call them. In fact, it was his interest in not
excluding entheogenic properties from mushroom studies that led him to found
the Telluride event …
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| Paul Stamets weaving his mycelial net |
Paul Stamets, one of Shroomfest’s founding faculty, gave
a heartfelt talk on the need to work together to change the ruling paradigm
when it comes to entheogens. His daughter is getting married this next summer,
but he’s hoping to be able to make it to Telluride again … Ethan Nadelmann,
J.D., Ph.D., who heads up the Drug Policy Alliance led a workshop on
“Constitutional Freedoms, the Uses of Psychedelics and MAPS’ Mission. Described by Rolling Stone as “the
point man” for drug policy reform on the national level, he attended Shroomfest
twice, and told me he is hoping to come join us again, perhaps even this coming
year.
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| Ethan Nadelmann |
He has authored two books on international criminal law enforcement (Cops Across Borders and Policing the Globe), as well as dozens
of articles on drug policy in Foreign
Affairs, Foreign Policy, Science, National Review and the Nation
…
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| Valerie Mojeiko |
Valerie Mojeiko, MAPS deputy director, gave the initial conference welcome.
She, along with her husband Josh, have been regular faculty presenters in
Telluride, and we’re looking forward to having them back again in 2012 …
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| The late Robert Venosa & Martina Hoffman |
Martina Hoffman, one of the many psychedelic artists represented in the
Visionary Art Gallery, embraced us warmly. She, and her husband – Robert Venosa
– who passed away earlier this year – have been past attendees of Shroomfest,
and she expressed a desire to visit us again – something we’re hoping we can
make happen. A special tribute was held for Robert with a Jonathan Singer
video, a digital dance performance by Android Jones and Phaedrana, and music by
The Human Experience …
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| Hoffman's Third Eye |
Although I didn’t get a chance to visit with them, two
former mushroom festival faculty were also presenters – Don Abrams, M.D., and
Ralph Metzner, Ph.D … Don is chief of the Hematology-Oncology Division of San
Francisco General Hospital and Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University
of California, San Francisco. One of the first clinicians to recognize and
define many early AIDS-related conditions, he received funding in 1997 from the
National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct clinical trials of the short-term
safety of cannabinoids in HIV infections. He’s gone on to run many cannabis studies,
his latest being the possible pharmacokinetic interaction between vaporized
cannabis and opioid analgesics in patients with chronic pain. He was co-editor
with Dr. Andrew Weil of Integrative
Oncology from Oxford University Press. His work is something I’ve always
hoped to showcase in Telluride …
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| Ralph Metzner, Ph.D. |
Ralph is a psychologist and professor emeritus
at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he organized an
international conference on ayahuasca in 2000. His writings include two edited
collections on the science and the phenomenology of shamanic entheogens: Sacred Mushrooms of Visions – Teonanácatl and
Sacred Vine of Spirits – Ayahuasca.
He is founder and president of the Green Earth Foundation. We’re hoping very
much to bring him back to Telluride as a featured speaker.
NEW FRIENDS
… While there were dozens of wonderful people we met in Oakland and who want to
come to experience Telluride, plus a bunch more whom we want to come to talk,
like Michael Albert-Puleo, M.D., and his fascinating research on the
pharmacology on the secrets of the early Christian “Messiah Medicine”;
Mark Henson and his Sacred Light – the Art of Conscious Evolution;
David Bienenstock, senior editor at HighTimes; Cinematographer Torsten Klimmer; Alan Macy,
Hitch McDermid and Mark Goerner’s Heart Beat Amplifier; Tatiana Ginzburg from Russia; Andres from Hungary; Jett – the list goes on and
on … And the one thing I’m sure of is that Shroomfest this next year is going
to be far richer and more exciting than ever with an infusion of new
psychedelic energy.
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| Shroomfest co-director Scott Koch rolls the dice at our exhibit booth at the MAPS conference. We gave away free t-shirts to lucky winners who rolled 7 or 11 |
THE TALKING GOURD
Midnight
The cows are crazy. It’s weaning time.
A night of wails, cows calling, everyone
unhappy. Our human children
tell us, I miss you more than ever.
Color is leaving Earth, leaves already gone,
garden skeletons abound.
Persephone has picked her flower.
Demeter looks for her white cape.
It will be month before
the pomegranate is bitten.
The yearning is only just begun
-Ellen
Marie Metrick
San Miguel County Poet Laureate
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