Easily grown and perfectly legal, Salvia divinorum presents challenges and promises in ethnobotany, chemistry, psychotherapy, neurology, and shamanism. This year’s event should be even better, and there have been some significant developments regarding Salvia divinorum since last December. The emerging theme involves how we can incorporate this plant spirit into our lives as a tool for divination, understanding, healing and exploration. The presentations will include the following:

Ralph Metzner will enlighten us with a presentation on “Shamanic Divination and Visions for our Planetary Future.” He also says, “I’d like to offer an experiential divination process to the group. This would be about a 45-minute divination, guided inner journey: my preference would be to do it as a separate event in the evening when its darker; there would be sage for smudging, and perhaps some sound effects as well.”

Kat Harrison has prepared a talk on “Leaves of Light: Healing Tales and Techniques,” posing such intriguing questions as: What is a healing experience? Who/what heals? Do the leaves of Salvia divinorum make us more whole? If so, how? If healing/wholeness is the goal (it may not be)then does method of ingestion make a difference? What kind of difference? Join with Kat in furthering our understanding of these issues.

Dale Pendell has been pondering and experimenting with Salvia divinorum in divination and will share his wisdom about just what divination is, and how we can employ Salvia divinorum, as well as other plant allies and techniques, for practical divination work in our daily lives.

Daniel Siebert has prepared special in-depth presentations on the benefits and cautions related to various uses of Salvia divinorum and salvinorin-A. He will give demonstrations and advice on techniques and approaches for using the fresh and dried leaves, as well as the pure compound and preparations of salvinorin-A, addressing ingestion techniques, duration of effects, safety, side-effects and such. He will also give an overview on “The Varieties of Salvia divinorum Experience” presenting predominant
types of visionary phenomena reported and some speculative discussion about the meaning of such visions.

Jonathan Ott will be coming up from his home in the remote mountains of central Mexico, where he cultivates several strains of Salvia divinorum in his garden of entheogenic plants. He will be sharing his experiences researching this plant in the field as well as in his laboratory, along with his numerous bioassay experiments, in a discussion entitled “Salvia divinorum Pharmacognosy.”

Bret Blosser has been doing extensive historical investigations lately, and will present a talk on “Salvia divinorum, Healing and Rebellion in Colonial Mexico.” Bret adds, “I recently located more documents in a colonial period archive in Mexico City, which open windows on the use of Salvia divinorum by Indians and Hispanics in 17th and 18th century central Mexico. There is good evidence for its use as a visionary agent. Salvia divinorum may have been the unnamed visionary plant that figured in an Otomi rebellion against Spanish authority.”

Rob Montgomery will host a practical session, “Our Shared Insights & Practical Findings on Cultivation and Propagation of the Salvia divinorum Plant Itself,” and how we all can successfully incorporate this living being into our lives with proper respect. We will use this session to collectively share tips and perspectives with each other, as we fellow articipants grow and know this plant under a variety of conditions. Ample live cuttings and plants will be available.

Located about two hours drive east of Portland, Breitenbush Hot Springs is a small and very beautiful resort in the mountains of central Oregon, a wonderful local to muse on Salvia, enjoy the company of Salvia friends, and soak in the hot springs. Please register early; space is limited, and the past two years quickly filled to capacity.
 
 

Source: Northwest Center for Health & Safety