itty bitty lyrical shifts in the nature of you and me

The life of an Indian is like the wings of the air. That is why we must always be feathered up: we are relatives to the wings of the air. ----Black Elk (1863-1950) Oglala Sioux Holy Man

You Can Fluff Our Feathers

Aquarians, or water bearers, are symbolic of the Gods nourishing the earth with life giving energies.
And sheezy do these Aquarius sistlings got energies :)

The past few months of my life have been abundant with those beautiful, unfolding miracles that inspire awe in every moment <3 We know these become most apparent in the from of coincidences, and that the forces behind these coincidences - the flow of energy, information, and intelligence, help us achieve greater access to places deep within and without ourselves, all while awakening us to the intricate dance of the matter, mind, and spirit <3 It's like, all at once, everything becomes illuminated as you realize there's a never ending library of light waves and sunbeams to study and love. Meaning becomes fully visible in those tingly leg feelings that make you want to skip up and down the street, as you begin to understand the connectedness and synchronicity of all things.

In my devotion to relishing life in its most natural and to stepping into the unknown to create a story, find new light, I have begun keeping "synchro-diaries," in my attempt to fully appreciate the luster of these moments. Today, I am devoting this post to sharing one of the many tiny gems that are coincidences with you, and what better way than to share one of these shimmery moments that pays homage to one of my most energetically aligned lovebirds: my sister Haley.

Her daily creative workings and thinkings have influenced me greatly, and you can check her out at the hotspots: www.breadofmany.blogspot.com and www.breadofmany.etsy.com

Now, we LUV Etsy. And because we're sisters, and sisters like to steal things from each other (you know, like clothes and shoes and belts), we have decided that a much more affectionate way to decorate ourselves would be to periodically purchase gifts for one another off our favorite website- Etsy of course!

So she calls me a "Human Charm Bracelet," because I love all things charmy and magical and delicious; and I call her "Intergalactic Whatever," because she loves all things acorny and poppy and stationary-like. Naturally, I bought her paper in its purest form, some amazing customized wooden stationary by palomasnest, and she bought me a necklace in its most delicious form, golden and charm-y by ohhellofriend.



Now for your closer peak! On her stationary, I had them customize "By The Tum Tum Tree," a line from one of our most favorite of favorite poems, The Jabberwocky, at the very top (the proceeding text is a note she wrote to me). The necklace she chose for me is laced with charming knickknacks from Alice in Wonderland - the bottle marked "drink me," and the tiny golden key she found on the glass, three-legged table.

So completely arbitrarily, the playful nature of Lewis Carrol had weaved its way into our intentions and gifts; a moment where like a flock of birds flying one way, all of a sudden - as if in a flash, change directions. No one instructing - choreographed only by the intelligence that lies at the heart of nature. A cosmic message for us to embellish each other in the beautiful, nonsensical, and whimsical work of Carrol's fantasies, clearly.

...and the birdy-like stories of our lives continue to unfold.


"We are fancy and cute birds and i love you" - haley dolan katko


"The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo" ~ Lewis Carrol, Alice In Wonderland

little plants that manufacture little molecules with the power to change the little subjective experience we call consiousness

And that, my friends, is ethnobotany.

Not only is this the field where the ingenuity of plants meets the art of biochemistry, but discovering this connection was, for me, the moment when the universe's mysterious molecular makeup seemed to unravel—when the DNA woven through the tissues of my bones became luminous and spoke to me in a foreign tongue, one I had, in truth, had access to my whole life.

Accessing excellence.

Ethnobotony's art and my relationship with it.

Imagine, through equal parts scientific inquiry and equal parts cultural history, that we are able to explore the mysterious interactions between plants and human culture, body, and mind. Ancient doctors, classical philosophers, and shamans of today have healed, prescribed cures, and altered the textures of consciousness; and as nature wears the colors of our spirits, so too have plants been used to provide the aesthetic flourishes in cultural practices of beauty across the vividly outlined crayola-spectrum of human expression.

Today, I want to introduce YOU(!) to one of my favorite ethnobotanists, Terence McKenna. An ethnobotanist among many other names, he is noted for his studies of plant-based entheogens—remarkable plants whose chemistry guides human consciousness into its own molecular depths, giving our minds access to the genetic sequences shared by all forms of life.

McKenna held a particular fascination with shamanic cultures. In his work, he draws a poignant comparison between schizophrenia and shamanism, highlighting the sharp contrast between the linear values of Occidental society and the archaic, authentic impulses glorified and celebrated among land-based cultures.

A few of my dearest, most extraordinarily creative, and provocatively brilliant loved ones have had to learn strategies to navigate the conditions of schizophrenia within our modern social civilization. Having firsthand witnessed these individuals similarly “living in a world of twilight imagining, becoming marginal to society, and struggling to hold a regular job,” McKenna provides a deeply personal perspective that, in turn, helps me gain a greater understanding of what may have been unique developments in their own access to new, molecular levels of insight into the genetic sequences behind nature's vast intelligence.

The Occidental gaze, McKenna felt, is a double-edged mirror: on one side, it fractures the ancient wholeness of shamanic vision, reducing the sacred to spectacle, mystery to pathology, the ecstatic to chemical anomaly. What once was the birthright of human consciousness is translated into categories of “primitive ritual” or “hallucination,” stripped of its living soul. McKenna’s warning and hope was this: that the Occidental effect on shamanism shows both the wound and the medicine. The wound is disconnection, desacralization, exploitation. The medicine is rediscovery—if only the West can learn to approach these practices not as curiosities to be consumed, but as doorways into remembering the latent capacities of the human spirit: telepathy, ecstatic communion, the sense of being woven into a living cosmos.


"People without plants are in a state of perpetual neurosis, a state of existential wanting."

Jungle Feva'

I'm trecking into Brazil to let my hair down, let my skin feel and glow and transfigure and to
become
new treads, and to find that fire that will let me relish
in life and love in its most natural state...

The wavey sea, the wild.

travels are set to wrap at the Kayapo reserve, where I'll study Kayapo social life, the biodiversity of the Amazon Rainforest and the endangered cerrado landscape. We'll be delving into issues such as the struggle to protect the rainforests while also meeting peoples needs; linking community organization with larger NGOs; using ecotourism as a means to promote economic development and environmental protection; and the threats that illegal logging, mineral extraction and hydroelectric projects have on the integrity of the rainforest.

and I'm trecking into Brazil for the very first time,
to let my hair down, let my skin feel and glow and transfigure and to
become
new treads, and to find that fire that will let me relish
in life and love in its most natural state...

The wavey sea, the wild.

so there i'll teach, my profession, my frequency - in violet, obvs.