jueves, agosto 19, 2010
Florecicas: cardo azul
Cuentan que a un cardo le tocó crecer entre lirios pirenaicos y decidió volverse moraíto como ellos, para no desmerecer...
El Eryngium bourgatii o cardo azul crece en gleras y pastizales del Pirineo, como el de la foto de abajo, entre los 1000 y los 2300 metros de altitud. No soporta la sombra ni temperaturas extremas, florece en julio y agosto. Es relativamente raro, aunque se puede encontrar en casi todas las sierras de la península ibérica.
Cardos azules cerca del barranco de la Ribereta, en las faldas del Espadas o Lardaneta.
El Eryngium bourgatii o cardo azul crece en gleras y pastizales del Pirineo, como el de la foto de abajo, entre los 1000 y los 2300 metros de altitud. No soporta la sombra ni temperaturas extremas, florece en julio y agosto. Es relativamente raro, aunque se puede encontrar en casi todas las sierras de la península ibérica.
Lirios pirenaicos en las faldas del Lardaneta (fotos: Javifields)
"El valle que te voy contando
como el cardo azul se deshoja,
y en mariposas aventadas
se despoja y no se despoja."
Las mariposas (fragmento), Gabriela Mistral
Etiquetas: florecicas, Sobrarbe
domingo, octubre 04, 2009
Florecicas: nenúfar blanco
(foto y haiku: Javifields)
Entre luces y sombras
se adorna de buganvillas
el nenúfar blanco.
Etiquetas: florecicas, fotos, haiku
miércoles, julio 08, 2009
Florecicas: irys
Foto: Javifields
Irys es al polaco lo que lirio es al castellano...Y la foto de la derecha es a Danowskie lo que la foto de esta otra anotación es a San Juan de Plan.
Porque de ti se vieron adorados,
tengo un vaso de lirios juveniles:
unos visten pureza de marfiles;
los otros terciopelos afelpados.
Flores que sienten, cálices alados
que semejan tener sueños sutiles,
son los lirios, ya blancos y gentiles,
ya como cardenales coagulados.
Cuando la muerte vuelva un ámbar de oro
tus largas manos de ilusión que adoro,
iré lirios en ellas a tejerte.
Y mezclarán sus tallos quebradizos
con sus dedos cruzados y pajizos,
¡que fingirán los lirios de la muerte!
Salvador Rueda
(Pepe Nosela, ¿no me equivoco verdad? ¿es un lirio?)
Etiquetas: florecicas, Polonia
sábado, marzo 14, 2009
Florecicas: una rosa para el blog
Este pasatiempo llamado bitácora cumplió con la anterior las 600 anotaciones. Por eso le he regalado una rosa.
Juan Luis Guerra, Te regalo una rosa
Te regalo una rosa
la encontré en el camino
no sé si está desnuda
o tiene un solo vestido
no, no lo sé...
la encontré en el camino
no sé si está desnuda
o tiene un solo vestido
no, no lo sé...
Juan Luis Guerra, Te regalo una rosa
Etiquetas: florecicas
martes, noviembre 25, 2008
Florecicas: flor de cardo
cuando te toco
una gota de sangre
es tu regalo
una gota de sangre
es tu regalo
Flor de cardo (foto y haiku: Javifields)Etiquetas: florecicas, haiku, Sobrarbe
lunes, octubre 20, 2008
Florecicas: salvia roja
Banderilla o salvia roja (Salvia splendens)
Foto: Javifields
Foto: Javifields
Parecen tropicales por el color, y lo son pues su origen es Brasil. Pero gustan tanto en jardinería que pueden verse en jardines de todo el mundo.Las de la foto estaban en los jardines del castillo de Kultaranta, en Naantali.
Realmente las siembran en los invernaderos del mismo castillo, pues las banderillas no toleran las heladas, y las transplantan al exterior todos los años.
Etiquetas: Finlandia, florecicas
martes, julio 29, 2008
Foto: rosas camino del Castello di Mirabello
Foto: Javifields
El otro día pasó el Tour por Chiusa di Pesio.
Allí hice esta foto hace un mes, camino del Castello di Mirabello.
El castillo está en la cima del monte Cavanero, y es el mejor mirador del pueblo.
(Click en la foto para ampliar.)
Etiquetas: florecicas, fotos, Italia
domingo, julio 13, 2008
Florecicas: fritillaria de Moggridge
Mis amigos guías alpinos no supieron decirme el nombre de esta espectacular florecica. Pero por suerte tenemos como amigo y co-bloguero a un auténtico experto, Pepe Nosela (el de Naturaleza a raudales), que rápidamente me dijo: creo que se trata de una fritillaria, de la familia de las liliáceas.
Fritillarria de Moggridge, en Marguareis (fotos: Javifields)
Con esa pista ya no fue difícil identificarla: Fritillaria tubaeformis ssp. moggridgei, muy abundante en los Alpes ligures (tal vez por estar protegida).
La encontramos bastante arriba, a unos 2000 metros, muy cerca del refugio Garelli, cuya imagen podéis ver en la foto de abajo, recortada ante las impresionantes paredes del Marguareis.
Fritillarria de Moggridge, en Marguareis (fotos: Javifields)
Con esa pista ya no fue difícil identificarla: Fritillaria tubaeformis ssp. moggridgei, muy abundante en los Alpes ligures (tal vez por estar protegida).
La encontramos bastante arriba, a unos 2000 metros, muy cerca del refugio Garelli, cuya imagen podéis ver en la foto de abajo, recortada ante las impresionantes paredes del Marguareis.
Etiquetas: florecicas, Italia
lunes, junio 30, 2008
Florecicas: genciana
Foto: Javifields
La Gentiana alpina de la foto es una de las más conocidas especies del género de las gencianas. Según Plineo el Viejo (naturalista romano, 23–79 D.C.), el nombre genciana tiene su origen en Gentius, rey de Iliria (180–168 A.C.), a quien Plineo atribuye el descubrimiento de sus propiedades curativas.Dioscórides (40–90 D.C.) dijo: "Tiene la raíz virtud caliente y estíptica. Bebidas dos dracmas della con pimienta, ruda y con vino, es útil contra las mordeduras de serpiente. Si de su zumo se bebe una dracma, sirve al dolor de costado, a las caídas de alto y a las rupturas y espasmos de los nervios. Bebida la raíz con agua, socorre a los enfermos del hígado y del estómago. Metida en la natura de la mujer, atrae la criatura del vientre. Aplicado como el 'Iycio' suelda las frescas heridas, cura las llagas que van minando la carne (lo cual hace principalmente su zumo) y es remedio contra la inflamación de los ojos".
Los egipcios ya la usaban contra los problemas estomacales, y los romanos –sea cierta o no la leyenda de Gentius– se dieron plena cuenta de sus propiedades durante la conquista de la Galia, lo cual abre la puerta a otra suposición: la de que fueran los druidas, expertos en cuestión de plantas, quienes revelasen sus propiedades.
En el siglo XIII, Alberto Magno, que halló la manera de obtener su extracto, la aconsejaba contra las obstrucciones del hígado y la debilidad del estómago; y Agrícola cuenta que un viejo médico le aseguró, por su experiencia personal, que bastaba con tomar cada mañana un trozo de su raíz para llegar en perfecta salud a la más extrema vejez.
Etiquetas: florecicas, Italia
martes, junio 24, 2008
Florecicas: la rosa de los Alpes
Foto: Javifields
El rododendro se conoce también como rosa de los Alpes. Bueno, alguno de los rododendros... porque en realidad el Rhododendron es un género que incluye alrededor de un millar de especies distintas y más de 10.000 híbridos y variedades. Si no me equivoco, el de la foto (rosa de los Alpes) es un Rhododendron ferrugineum L.
La foto se hizo camino del refugio Garelli, en las faldas del macizo Marguareis, a unos 1600 metros, en una zona todavía boscosa, como puede verse en la foto de abajo.
Etiquetas: florecicas, Italia
domingo, mayo 18, 2008
Florecicas: el color del amaranto
Amaranto plumoso
(Celosia argentea var. plumosa)
Foto: Javifields
(Celosia argentea var. plumosa)
Foto: Javifields
Y esta palabra, este papel escritopor las mil manos de una sola mano,
no queda en ti, no sirve para sueños,
cae a la tierra: allí se continúa.
No importa que la luz o la alabanza
se derramen y salgan de la copa
si fueron un tenaz temblor del vino,
si se tiñó tu boca de amaranto.
No quiere más la sílaba tardía,
lo que trae y retrae el arrecife
de mis recuerdos, la irritada espuma,
no quiere más sino escribir tu nombre.
Y aunque lo calle mi sombrío amor
más tarde lo dirá la primavera.
Soneto XCVIII, Cien Sonetos de Amor, Pablo Neruda
Etiquetas: florecicas
miércoles, octubre 24, 2007
Florecicas: falso azafrán
Gracias al amigo Guillermo, de Jaca, he conocido la estupenda web de su amigo José Luis Benito, dedicada a la flora y vegetación del Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido. José Luis es seguramente el mayor experto en ese tema.
Y eso me ha recordado que tengo la serie florecicas muy abandonada, así que la retomo con este falso azafrán de la zona alta del final del Cañón de Añisclo.
Falso azafrán, Crocus nudiflorus, cerca del refugio
de San Vicenda, a 1732 metros (Foto: Javifields)
Terminamos hoy con un poema breve y así retomo también mi modesta creación literaria, la olvidada serie haikus:
Y eso me ha recordado que tengo la serie florecicas muy abandonada, así que la retomo con este falso azafrán de la zona alta del final del Cañón de Añisclo.
Falso azafrán, Crocus nudiflorus, cerca del refugiode San Vicenda, a 1732 metros (Foto: Javifields)
Terminamos hoy con un poema breve y así retomo también mi modesta creación literaria, la olvidada serie haikus:
Fin de septiembre.
Los pistilos de azafrán
tiñen la tarde.
Los pistilos de azafrán
tiñen la tarde.
Etiquetas: florecicas, haiku, Sobrarbe
miércoles, abril 25, 2007
Florecicas: clavel de pastor
También conocida como clavelina de Montpellier o, para los botánicos, Dianthus hyssopifolius hyssopifolius.
Clavel de pastor, en la garganta de Escuaín,
camino de los miradores de Revilla (Foto: Javifields)
De lo que pasa en el mundo,
por dios que no entiendo ná.
El cardo siempre gritando
y la flor siempre callá.
¡Que se calle el cardo y que cante la flor!
(Todo es de color, Lole y Manuel, audio aquí)
Clavel de pastor, en la garganta de Escuaín,camino de los miradores de Revilla (Foto: Javifields)
De lo que pasa en el mundo,
por dios que no entiendo ná.
El cardo siempre gritando
y la flor siempre callá.
¡Que se calle el cardo y que cante la flor!
(Todo es de color, Lole y Manuel, audio aquí)
Etiquetas: florecicas, Sobrarbe
martes, marzo 28, 2006
Florecicas: clavelina
El barranco de Sen es buen sitio para fotografiar flora y fauna pirenaica. Ya vimos un flamante lirio y una ranita, además del ibón.
Clavelina, barranco de Sen
Vemos ahora una Dianthus deltoides, de la familia de las cariofiláceas, vulgo clavelina o clavellina.
Aprovecho para poner el enlace del magnífico herbario de Jaca, propiedad del Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (CSIC), con 8.000 especies vegetales y 350.000 muestras de toda Europa. Fundado en 1969 por el profesor Pedro Montserrat, es el tercero de España por su volumen y de particular interés por su especialización en Ecología.
Clavelina, barranco de SenVemos ahora una Dianthus deltoides, de la familia de las cariofiláceas, vulgo clavelina o clavellina.
Aprovecho para poner el enlace del magnífico herbario de Jaca, propiedad del Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (CSIC), con 8.000 especies vegetales y 350.000 muestras de toda Europa. Fundado en 1969 por el profesor Pedro Montserrat, es el tercero de España por su volumen y de particular interés por su especialización en Ecología.
Etiquetas: florecicas, Sobrarbe
miércoles, marzo 15, 2006
Florecicas: rosas, margaritas y.... y... siempreviva
Dos de los regalos del 13-03. A la derecha: rosas (las blancas) y margaritas sin pétalos (las verdes). A la izquierda... a la izquierda... la llamaremos siempreviva, no hay que regarla, ni necesita luz, ni música ni nada. ¡Y sonríe siempre! Es un chollazo de planta.Etiquetas: florecicas
martes, febrero 21, 2006
Florecicas: Cannabis Sativa
Cannabis Sativa (variedad Moby Dick)
Psicoactividad máxima; combina efecto mental y físico, aunque predomina la sativa, por lo que no es adecuada para principiantes.
El máximo potencial psicoactivo lo da en exterior, gracias a los rayos ultravioletas, donde desarrolla un efecto más triposo que en interior. Resiste bien el moho, y consume todo el fertilizante, agua, y luz que se le dé. El nivel de olor es bajo, por lo que se camufla fácilmente, siempre y cuando no tenga tres metros de altura.
"An essay concerning cannabis smoking", by Mr. X
[Este artículo fue escrito bajo el seudónimo de Mr. X en 1969 para publicarse en el libro Marihuana Reconsidered (1971). Su autor tenía 35 años entonces. Continuó consumiendo cannabis toda su vida. Tras su muerte, el editor del libro hizo pública la identidad de Mr. X: Carl Sagan]
It all began about ten years ago. I had reached a considerably more relaxed period in my life - a time when I had come to feel that there was more to living than science, a time of awakening of my social consciousness and amiability, a time when I was open to new experiences. I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked cannabis, irregularly, but with evident pleasure. Initially I was unwilling to partake, but the apparent euphoria that cannabis produced and the fact that there was no physiological addiction to the plant eventually persuaded me to try. My initial experiences were entirely disappointing; there was no effect at all, and I began to entertain a variety of hypotheses about cannabis being a placebo which worked by expectation and hyperventilation rather than by chemistry. After about five or six unsuccessful attempts, however, it happened. I was lying on my back in a friend's living room idly examining the pattern of shadows on the ceiling cast by a potted plant (not cannabis!). I suddenly realized that I was examining an intricately detailed miniature Volkswagen, distinctly outlined by the shadows. I was very skeptical at this perception, and tried to find inconsistencies between Volkswagens and what I viewed on the ceiling. But it was all there, down to hubcaps, license plate, chrome, and even the small handle used for opening the trunk. When I closed my eyes, I was stunned to find that there was a movie going on the inside of my eyelids. Flash... a simple country scene with red farmhouse, a blue sky, white clouds, yellow path meandering over green hills to the horizon... Flash... same scene, orange house, brown sky, red clouds, yellow path, violet fields... Flash... Flash... Flash. The flashes came about once a heartbeat. Each flash brought the same simple scene into view, but each time with a different set of colors... exquisitely deep hues, and astonishingly harmonious in their juxtaposition. Since then I have smoked occasionally and enjoyed it thoroughly. It amplifies torpid sensibilities and produces what to me are even more interesting effects, as I will explain shortly.
I can remember another early visual experience with cannabis, in which I viewed a candle flame and discovered in the heart of the flame, standing with magnificent indifference, the black -hatted and- cloaked Spanish gentleman who appears on the label of the Sandeman sherry bottle. Looking at fires when high, by the way, especially through one of those prism kaleidoscopes which image their surroundings, is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful experience.
I want to explain that at no time did I think these things 'really' were out there. I knew there was no Volkswagen on the ceiling and there was no Sandeman salamander man in the flame. I don't feel any contradiction in these experiences. There's a part of me making, creating the perceptions which in everyday life would be bizarre; there's another part of me which is a kind of observer. About half of the pleasure comes from the observer-part appreciating the work of the creator-part. I smile, or sometimes even laugh out loud at the pictures on the insides of my eyelids. In this sense, I suppose cannabis is psychotomimetic, but I find none of the panic or terror that accompanies some psychoses. Possibly this is because I know it's my own trip, and that I can come down rapidly any time I want to.
While my early perceptions were all visual, and curiously lacking in images of human beings, both of these items have changed over the intervening years. I find that today a single joint is enough to get me high. I test whether I'm high by closing my eyes and looking for the flashes. They come long before there are any alterations in my visual or other perceptions. I would guess this is a signal-to-noise problem, the visual noise level being very low with my eyes closed. Another interesting information-theoretical aspects is the prevalence -at least in my flashed images- of cartoons: just the outlines of figures, caricatures, not photographs. I think this is simply a matter of information compression; it would be impossible to grasp the total content of an image with the information content of an ordinary photograph, say 108 bits, in the fraction of a second which a flash occupies. And the flash experience is designed, if I may use that word, for instant appreciation. The artist and viewer are one. This is not to say that the images are not marvelously detailed and complex. I recently had an image in which two people were talking, and the words they were saying would form and disappear in yellow above their heads, at about a sentence per heartbeat. In this way it was possible to follow the conversation. At the same time an occasional word would appear in red letters among the yellows above their heads, perfectly in context with the conversation; but if one remembered these red words, they would enunciate a quite different set of statements, penetratingly critical of the conversation. The entire image set which I've outlined here, with I would say at least 100 yellow words and something like 10 red words, occurred in something under a minute.
The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I'm down. This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse. There also have been some art-related insights -I don't know whether they are true or false, but they were fun to formulate. For example, I have spent some time high looking at the work of the Belgian surrealist Yves Tanguey. Some years later, I emerged from a long swim in the Caribbean and sank exhausted onto a beach formed from the erosion of a nearby coral reef. In idly examining the arcuate pastel-colored coral fragments which made up the beach, I saw before me a vast Tanguey painting. Perhaps Tanguey visited such a beach in his childhood.
A very similar improvement in my appreciation of music has occurred with cannabis. For the first time I have been able to hear the separate parts of a three-part harmony and the richness of the counterpoint. I have since discovered that professional musicians can quite easily keep many separate parts going simultaneously in their heads, but this was the first time for me. Again, the learning experience when high has at least to some extent carried over when I'm down. The enjoyment of food is amplified; tastes and aromas emerge that for some reason we ordinarily seem to be too busy to notice. I am able to give my full attention to the sensation. A potato will have a texture, a body, and taste like that of other potatoes, but much more so. Cannabis also enhances the enjoyment of sex. On the one hand it gives an exquisite sensitivity, but on the other hand it postpones orgasm: in part by distracting me with the profusion of image passing before my eyes. The actual duration of orgasm seems to lengthen greatly, but this may be the usual experience of time expansion which comes with cannabis smoking.
I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I've had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds. A sense of what the world is really like can be maddening; cannabis has brought me some feelings for what it is like to be crazy, and how we use that word 'crazy' to avoid thinking about things that are too painful for us. In the Soviet Union political dissidents are routinely placed in insane asylums. The same kind of thing, a little more subtle perhaps, occurs here: 'did you hear what Lenny Bruce said yesterday? He must be crazy.' When high on cannabis I discovered that there's somebody inside in those people we call mad.
When I'm high I can penetrate into the past, recall childhood memories, friends, relatives, playthings, streets, smells, sounds, and tastes from a vanished era. I can reconstruct the actual occurrences in childhood events only half understood at the time. Many but not all my cannabis trips have somewhere in them a symbolism significant to me which I won't attempt to describe here, a kind of mandala embossed on the high. Free-associating to this mandala, both visually and as plays on words, has produced a very rich array of insights.
There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we're down the next day. Some of the hardest work I've ever done has been to put such insights down on tape or in writing. The problem is that ten even more interesting ideas or images have to be lost in the effort of recording one. It is easy to understand why someone might think it's a waste of effort going to all that trouble to set the thought down, a kind of intrusion of the Protestant Ethic. But since I live almost all my life down I've made the effort - successfully, I think. Incidentally, I find that reasonably good insights can be remembered the next day, but only if some effort has been made to set them down another way. If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do.
I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for. I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves. It was a point obvious in a way, but rarely talked about. I drew the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down. One idea led to another, and at the end of about an hour of extremely hard work I found I had written eleven short essays on a wide range of social, political, philosophical, and human biological topics. Because of problems of space, I can't go into the details of these essays, but from all external signs, such as public reactions and expert commentary, they seem to contain valid insights. I have used them in university commencement addresses, public lectures, and in my books.
But let me try to at least give the flavor of such an insight and its accompaniments. One night, high on cannabis, I was delving into my childhood, a little self-analysis, and making what seemed to me to be very good progress. I then paused and thought how extraordinary it was that Sigmund Freud, with no assistance from drugs, had been able to achieve his own remarkable self-analysis. But then it hit me like a thunderclap that this was wrong, that Freud had spent the decade before his self-analysis as an experimenter with and a proselytizer for cocaine; and it seemed to me very apparent that the genuine psychological insights that Freud brought to the world were at least in part derived from his drug experience. I have no idea whether this is in fact true, or whether the historians of Freud would agree with this interpretation, or even if such an idea has been published in the past, but it is an interesting hypothesis and one which passes first scrutiny in the world of the downs.
I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature. I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist. If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I'm high I know about this disbelief. And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously. I say 'Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!' I try to show that my mind is working clearly; I recall the name of a high school acquaintance I have not thought of in thirty years; I describe the color, typography, and format of a book in another room and these memories do pass critical scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs. Such a remark applies not only to self-awareness and to intellectual pursuits, but also to perceptions of real people, a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words which sometimes yields a rapport so close it's as if two people are reading each other's minds.
Cannabis enables nonmusicians to know a little about what it is like to be a musician, and nonartists to grasp the joys of art. But I am neither an artist nor a musician. What about my own scientific work? While I find a curious disinclination to think of my professional concerns when high -the attractive intellectual adventures always seem to be in every other area- I have made a conscious effort to think of a few particularly difficult current problems in my field when high. It works, at least to a degree. I find I can bring to bear, for example, a range of relevant experimental facts which appear to be mutually inconsistent. So far, so good. At least the recall works. Then in trying to conceive of a way of reconciling the disparate facts, I was able to come up with a very bizarre possibility, one that I'm sure I would never have thought of down. I've written a paper which mentions this idea in passing. I think it's very unlikely to be true, but it has consequences which are experimentally testable, which is the hallmark of an acceptable theory.
I have mentioned that in the cannabis experience there is a part of your mind that remains a dispassionate observer, who is able to take you down in a hurry if need be. I have on a few occasions been forced to drive in heavy traffic when high. I've negotiated it with no difficult at all, though I did have some thoughts about the marvelous cherry-red color of traffic lights. I find that after the drive I'm not high at all. There are no flashes on the insides of my eyelids. If you're high and your child is calling, you can respond about as capably as you usually do. I don't advocate driving when high on cannabis, but I can tell you from personal experience that it certainly can be done. My high is always reflective, peaceable, intellectually exciting, and sociable, unlike most alcohol highs, and there is never a hangover. Through the years I find that slightly smaller amounts of cannabis suffice to produce the same degree of high, and in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater.
There is a very nice self-titering aspect to cannabis. Each puff is a very small dose; the time lag between inhaling a puff and sensing its effect is small; and there is no desire for more after the high is there. I think the ratio, R, of the time to sense the dose taken to the time required to take an excessive dose is an important quantity. R is very large for LSD (which I've never taken) and reasonably short for cannabis. Small values of R should be one measure of the safety of psychedelic drugs. When cannabis is legalized, I hope to see this ratio as one of he parameters printed on the pack. I hope that time isn't too distant; the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.
Psicoactividad máxima; combina efecto mental y físico, aunque predomina la sativa, por lo que no es adecuada para principiantes.El máximo potencial psicoactivo lo da en exterior, gracias a los rayos ultravioletas, donde desarrolla un efecto más triposo que en interior. Resiste bien el moho, y consume todo el fertilizante, agua, y luz que se le dé. El nivel de olor es bajo, por lo que se camufla fácilmente, siempre y cuando no tenga tres metros de altura.
"An essay concerning cannabis smoking", by Mr. X
[Este artículo fue escrito bajo el seudónimo de Mr. X en 1969 para publicarse en el libro Marihuana Reconsidered (1971). Su autor tenía 35 años entonces. Continuó consumiendo cannabis toda su vida. Tras su muerte, el editor del libro hizo pública la identidad de Mr. X: Carl Sagan]
It all began about ten years ago. I had reached a considerably more relaxed period in my life - a time when I had come to feel that there was more to living than science, a time of awakening of my social consciousness and amiability, a time when I was open to new experiences. I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked cannabis, irregularly, but with evident pleasure. Initially I was unwilling to partake, but the apparent euphoria that cannabis produced and the fact that there was no physiological addiction to the plant eventually persuaded me to try. My initial experiences were entirely disappointing; there was no effect at all, and I began to entertain a variety of hypotheses about cannabis being a placebo which worked by expectation and hyperventilation rather than by chemistry. After about five or six unsuccessful attempts, however, it happened. I was lying on my back in a friend's living room idly examining the pattern of shadows on the ceiling cast by a potted plant (not cannabis!). I suddenly realized that I was examining an intricately detailed miniature Volkswagen, distinctly outlined by the shadows. I was very skeptical at this perception, and tried to find inconsistencies between Volkswagens and what I viewed on the ceiling. But it was all there, down to hubcaps, license plate, chrome, and even the small handle used for opening the trunk. When I closed my eyes, I was stunned to find that there was a movie going on the inside of my eyelids. Flash... a simple country scene with red farmhouse, a blue sky, white clouds, yellow path meandering over green hills to the horizon... Flash... same scene, orange house, brown sky, red clouds, yellow path, violet fields... Flash... Flash... Flash. The flashes came about once a heartbeat. Each flash brought the same simple scene into view, but each time with a different set of colors... exquisitely deep hues, and astonishingly harmonious in their juxtaposition. Since then I have smoked occasionally and enjoyed it thoroughly. It amplifies torpid sensibilities and produces what to me are even more interesting effects, as I will explain shortly.
I can remember another early visual experience with cannabis, in which I viewed a candle flame and discovered in the heart of the flame, standing with magnificent indifference, the black -hatted and- cloaked Spanish gentleman who appears on the label of the Sandeman sherry bottle. Looking at fires when high, by the way, especially through one of those prism kaleidoscopes which image their surroundings, is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful experience.
I want to explain that at no time did I think these things 'really' were out there. I knew there was no Volkswagen on the ceiling and there was no Sandeman salamander man in the flame. I don't feel any contradiction in these experiences. There's a part of me making, creating the perceptions which in everyday life would be bizarre; there's another part of me which is a kind of observer. About half of the pleasure comes from the observer-part appreciating the work of the creator-part. I smile, or sometimes even laugh out loud at the pictures on the insides of my eyelids. In this sense, I suppose cannabis is psychotomimetic, but I find none of the panic or terror that accompanies some psychoses. Possibly this is because I know it's my own trip, and that I can come down rapidly any time I want to.
While my early perceptions were all visual, and curiously lacking in images of human beings, both of these items have changed over the intervening years. I find that today a single joint is enough to get me high. I test whether I'm high by closing my eyes and looking for the flashes. They come long before there are any alterations in my visual or other perceptions. I would guess this is a signal-to-noise problem, the visual noise level being very low with my eyes closed. Another interesting information-theoretical aspects is the prevalence -at least in my flashed images- of cartoons: just the outlines of figures, caricatures, not photographs. I think this is simply a matter of information compression; it would be impossible to grasp the total content of an image with the information content of an ordinary photograph, say 108 bits, in the fraction of a second which a flash occupies. And the flash experience is designed, if I may use that word, for instant appreciation. The artist and viewer are one. This is not to say that the images are not marvelously detailed and complex. I recently had an image in which two people were talking, and the words they were saying would form and disappear in yellow above their heads, at about a sentence per heartbeat. In this way it was possible to follow the conversation. At the same time an occasional word would appear in red letters among the yellows above their heads, perfectly in context with the conversation; but if one remembered these red words, they would enunciate a quite different set of statements, penetratingly critical of the conversation. The entire image set which I've outlined here, with I would say at least 100 yellow words and something like 10 red words, occurred in something under a minute.
The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I'm down. This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse. There also have been some art-related insights -I don't know whether they are true or false, but they were fun to formulate. For example, I have spent some time high looking at the work of the Belgian surrealist Yves Tanguey. Some years later, I emerged from a long swim in the Caribbean and sank exhausted onto a beach formed from the erosion of a nearby coral reef. In idly examining the arcuate pastel-colored coral fragments which made up the beach, I saw before me a vast Tanguey painting. Perhaps Tanguey visited such a beach in his childhood.
A very similar improvement in my appreciation of music has occurred with cannabis. For the first time I have been able to hear the separate parts of a three-part harmony and the richness of the counterpoint. I have since discovered that professional musicians can quite easily keep many separate parts going simultaneously in their heads, but this was the first time for me. Again, the learning experience when high has at least to some extent carried over when I'm down. The enjoyment of food is amplified; tastes and aromas emerge that for some reason we ordinarily seem to be too busy to notice. I am able to give my full attention to the sensation. A potato will have a texture, a body, and taste like that of other potatoes, but much more so. Cannabis also enhances the enjoyment of sex. On the one hand it gives an exquisite sensitivity, but on the other hand it postpones orgasm: in part by distracting me with the profusion of image passing before my eyes. The actual duration of orgasm seems to lengthen greatly, but this may be the usual experience of time expansion which comes with cannabis smoking.
I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I've had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds. A sense of what the world is really like can be maddening; cannabis has brought me some feelings for what it is like to be crazy, and how we use that word 'crazy' to avoid thinking about things that are too painful for us. In the Soviet Union political dissidents are routinely placed in insane asylums. The same kind of thing, a little more subtle perhaps, occurs here: 'did you hear what Lenny Bruce said yesterday? He must be crazy.' When high on cannabis I discovered that there's somebody inside in those people we call mad.
When I'm high I can penetrate into the past, recall childhood memories, friends, relatives, playthings, streets, smells, sounds, and tastes from a vanished era. I can reconstruct the actual occurrences in childhood events only half understood at the time. Many but not all my cannabis trips have somewhere in them a symbolism significant to me which I won't attempt to describe here, a kind of mandala embossed on the high. Free-associating to this mandala, both visually and as plays on words, has produced a very rich array of insights.
There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we're down the next day. Some of the hardest work I've ever done has been to put such insights down on tape or in writing. The problem is that ten even more interesting ideas or images have to be lost in the effort of recording one. It is easy to understand why someone might think it's a waste of effort going to all that trouble to set the thought down, a kind of intrusion of the Protestant Ethic. But since I live almost all my life down I've made the effort - successfully, I think. Incidentally, I find that reasonably good insights can be remembered the next day, but only if some effort has been made to set them down another way. If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do.
I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for. I can remember one occasion, taking a shower with my wife while high, in which I had an idea on the origins and invalidities of racism in terms of gaussian distribution curves. It was a point obvious in a way, but rarely talked about. I drew the curves in soap on the shower wall, and went to write the idea down. One idea led to another, and at the end of about an hour of extremely hard work I found I had written eleven short essays on a wide range of social, political, philosophical, and human biological topics. Because of problems of space, I can't go into the details of these essays, but from all external signs, such as public reactions and expert commentary, they seem to contain valid insights. I have used them in university commencement addresses, public lectures, and in my books.
But let me try to at least give the flavor of such an insight and its accompaniments. One night, high on cannabis, I was delving into my childhood, a little self-analysis, and making what seemed to me to be very good progress. I then paused and thought how extraordinary it was that Sigmund Freud, with no assistance from drugs, had been able to achieve his own remarkable self-analysis. But then it hit me like a thunderclap that this was wrong, that Freud had spent the decade before his self-analysis as an experimenter with and a proselytizer for cocaine; and it seemed to me very apparent that the genuine psychological insights that Freud brought to the world were at least in part derived from his drug experience. I have no idea whether this is in fact true, or whether the historians of Freud would agree with this interpretation, or even if such an idea has been published in the past, but it is an interesting hypothesis and one which passes first scrutiny in the world of the downs.
I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature. I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist. If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I'm high I know about this disbelief. And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously. I say 'Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!' I try to show that my mind is working clearly; I recall the name of a high school acquaintance I have not thought of in thirty years; I describe the color, typography, and format of a book in another room and these memories do pass critical scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs. Such a remark applies not only to self-awareness and to intellectual pursuits, but also to perceptions of real people, a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words which sometimes yields a rapport so close it's as if two people are reading each other's minds.
Cannabis enables nonmusicians to know a little about what it is like to be a musician, and nonartists to grasp the joys of art. But I am neither an artist nor a musician. What about my own scientific work? While I find a curious disinclination to think of my professional concerns when high -the attractive intellectual adventures always seem to be in every other area- I have made a conscious effort to think of a few particularly difficult current problems in my field when high. It works, at least to a degree. I find I can bring to bear, for example, a range of relevant experimental facts which appear to be mutually inconsistent. So far, so good. At least the recall works. Then in trying to conceive of a way of reconciling the disparate facts, I was able to come up with a very bizarre possibility, one that I'm sure I would never have thought of down. I've written a paper which mentions this idea in passing. I think it's very unlikely to be true, but it has consequences which are experimentally testable, which is the hallmark of an acceptable theory.
I have mentioned that in the cannabis experience there is a part of your mind that remains a dispassionate observer, who is able to take you down in a hurry if need be. I have on a few occasions been forced to drive in heavy traffic when high. I've negotiated it with no difficult at all, though I did have some thoughts about the marvelous cherry-red color of traffic lights. I find that after the drive I'm not high at all. There are no flashes on the insides of my eyelids. If you're high and your child is calling, you can respond about as capably as you usually do. I don't advocate driving when high on cannabis, but I can tell you from personal experience that it certainly can be done. My high is always reflective, peaceable, intellectually exciting, and sociable, unlike most alcohol highs, and there is never a hangover. Through the years I find that slightly smaller amounts of cannabis suffice to produce the same degree of high, and in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater.
There is a very nice self-titering aspect to cannabis. Each puff is a very small dose; the time lag between inhaling a puff and sensing its effect is small; and there is no desire for more after the high is there. I think the ratio, R, of the time to sense the dose taken to the time required to take an excessive dose is an important quantity. R is very large for LSD (which I've never taken) and reasonably short for cannabis. Small values of R should be one measure of the safety of psychedelic drugs. When cannabis is legalized, I hope to see this ratio as one of he parameters printed on the pack. I hope that time isn't too distant; the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.
Etiquetas: florecicas
martes, diciembre 27, 2005
Florecicas: geranios
Mi casa era llamadala casa de las flores, porque por todas partes
estallaban geranios: era
una bella casa
con perros y chiquillos.
(Pablo Neruda, de España en el corazón)
Etiquetas: florecicas
lunes, noviembre 28, 2005
Florecicas: acónito
Al acónito azul (Aconitum napellus) lo llaman en algunos sitios matalobos de flor azul.
Acónito, balcón de Pineta
Toxicidad: Extrema. Produce la muerte en adultos con dosis de tan solo 1 mg. en algunos casos y, en la mayoría, con dosis de 3 a 8 mg.
Efectos: Estimula el sistema nervioso al principio. Produce una depresión del mismo posteriormente que puede conducir a la muerte.
Síntomas: Hormigueo en la boca y la lengua, rigidez facial, aumento de la saliva, vómitos, incapacidad de tragar, visión borrosa, arritmia cardiaca, dificultad respiratoria, convulsiones y muerte.
Tratamiento: Lavado de estomago, respiración artificial.
Acónito, balcón de Pineta
Toxicidad: Extrema. Produce la muerte en adultos con dosis de tan solo 1 mg. en algunos casos y, en la mayoría, con dosis de 3 a 8 mg.
Efectos: Estimula el sistema nervioso al principio. Produce una depresión del mismo posteriormente que puede conducir a la muerte.
Síntomas: Hormigueo en la boca y la lengua, rigidez facial, aumento de la saliva, vómitos, incapacidad de tragar, visión borrosa, arritmia cardiaca, dificultad respiratoria, convulsiones y muerte.
Tratamiento: Lavado de estomago, respiración artificial.
La dulce boca, que a gustar convida
un humor entre perlas destilado,
y a no envidiar aquel licor sagrado
que a Júpiter ministra el garzón de Ida,
amantes, no toquéis, si queréis vida,
porque, entre un labio y otro colorado,
Amor está de su veneno armado,
cual entre flor y flor sierpe escondida.
No os engañen las rosas que al Aurora
diréis que, aljofaradas y olorosas,
se le cayeron del purpúreo seno.
Manzanas son de Tántalo, y no rosas,
que después huyen del que incitan hora,
y solo del Amor queda el veneno.
un humor entre perlas destilado,
y a no envidiar aquel licor sagrado
que a Júpiter ministra el garzón de Ida,
amantes, no toquéis, si queréis vida,
porque, entre un labio y otro colorado,
Amor está de su veneno armado,
cual entre flor y flor sierpe escondida.
No os engañen las rosas que al Aurora
diréis que, aljofaradas y olorosas,
se le cayeron del purpúreo seno.
Manzanas son de Tántalo, y no rosas,
que después huyen del que incitan hora,
y solo del Amor queda el veneno.
Luis de Góngora
Etiquetas: florecicas, Sobrarbe
viernes, noviembre 04, 2005
Florecicas: en mi jardín hay rosas
En mi jardín hay rosas:
yo no te quiero dar
las rosas que mañana...
mañana no tendrás.
(Eternidad, fragmento, Dulce María Loynaz)
Hay un jardín de rosas en Cameron Highlands donde puedes encontrar todas las rosas; rosas blancas, amarillas, rojas y negras. Es el Mrs. Robertson's Rose Garden.
Y si levantas la vista y miras por encima de las rosas, está el valle. Paisaje típico de las montañas del sudeste asiático, un valle con sus terrazas de cultivo.Muy cerca de allí, los niños esperan el autobús del colegio.
Etiquetas: florecicas, Malasia
martes, octubre 18, 2005
Florecicas: Hojón
¿Te imaginas una hoja tan grande, tan grande que te tapa entero?
¿Una hoja en la que tienes que hacer un agujero para asomar la cabeza y otro para sacar la mano, para poder salir en la foto?
Reserva del Bosque Nuboso Monteverde, Costa Rica
¿Una hoja en la que tienes que hacer un agujero para asomar la cabeza y otro para sacar la mano, para poder salir en la foto?
Reserva del Bosque Nuboso Monteverde, Costa Rica
No es una flor, pero dada su espectacularidad merece un sitio en esta serie. No tengo ni idea de cómo se llama. No es fácil saberlo. La Reserva del Bosque Nuboso Monteverde está habitada por más de 100 mamíferos, 400 especies de aves, 500 especies de mariposas, 120 especies de reptiles y anfibios, 2.500 especies de plantas (entre ellas 420 diferentes tipos de orquídeas y 200 especies de helechos), 500 especies de árboles y decenas de miles de especies de insectos... Si algún botánico cae por aquí y sabe el nombre que lo diga.
Quizás la joya de Monteverde sea el Quetzal, pero como fui incapaz de fotografiarlo, incluso de verlo, lo sustituyo por este pedazo de hoja.
Quizás la joya de Monteverde sea el Quetzal, pero como fui incapaz de fotografiarlo, incluso de verlo, lo sustituyo por este pedazo de hoja.
Etiquetas: Costa Rica, florecicas
en la zona VIP de UGDM
saamis de los Manitoba
calcetín de Pin
botijo de Chencho
