Great site, check it out!
http://www.realitysandwich.com/
“Reality Sandwich is a web magazine for this time of intense transformation. Our subjects run the gamut from sustainability to shamanism, alternate realities to alternative energy, remixing media to re-imagining community, holistic healing techniques to the promise and perils of new technologies. We hope to spark debate and engagement by offering a forum for voices ranging from the ecologically pragmatic to the wildly visionary (which, to our delight, sometimes turn out to be the one and the same). Counteracting the doom-and-gloom of the daily news, Reality Sandwich is a platform for voices conveying a different vision of the transformations we face. Our goal is to inspire psychic evolution and a kind of earth alchemy.
For the launch of the site, we’ve assembled dozens of regular contributors who will post a variety of content, including thought pieces and essays, short news stories, video clips, and audio podcasts.
As Reality Sandwich develops, we will become much more than a traditional online magazine. Reality Sandwich will merge media with a social network that facilitates connections between the members of our international community. As our features present visionary ideas and new tools for sustainable living, the social network will support our members in using these new concepts and techniques in their own lives, as well as facilitating discussions about their own journeys of discovery. “
http://www.iamshaman.com/amanita/resurrection.htm
The painting entitled “Resurrection of Santa Claus” (above left) is the result of an exploration into the mysterious relationship between Santa and the Amanita muscaria, or fly agaric mushroom. Through the course of making this painting, I discovered that much of the popular iconography surrounding Santa Claus can be linked to the fly agaric. His immortality, omniscience, powers of magical flight and prosperity can all be attributed to this particular mushroom and its entheogenic powers. (1) Unquestioned holiday symbols such as flying reindeer, chimney sliding, Christmas trees and magical elves at the north pole all begin to make sense in the context of Santa’s relationship to the fly agaric.
As I am primarily a painter, this is to be taken as a loose presentation of some of my research and insight into a deep and murky subject. The fact that Santa is related to a psychedelic mushroom came to me spontaneously during a state of heightened awareness. And, after much research, I have found growing support for this hidden secret of Christmas. I see Santa Claus primarily as a symbol, an archetype. Ultimately he represents masculine spiritual power, like Buddha or Christ, yet we may need to look deep beneath the surface to see his potency. His current form is twisted and grotesque, a caricature of his potential self. I believe he got this way due to the abuse of masculine power over thousands of years. Santa Claus represents magic which, in western society, has been controlled, abused, ridiculed, outlawed, repressed and finally forgotten. Santa is often times mocked, diminished and misunderstood as he is portrayed as a slave to commerce, infantile, dysfunctional, a joke. On the other hand, as he is preached to our children, he is wise, benevolent and magically powerful.
How are we to make sense of this conundrum? The only answer, I submit, is through facing the bizarre fact that Santa Claus and Christmas have a hidden secret: namely the powerful entheogenic mushroom, Amanita muscaria. Though perhaps challenging and difficult to accept, a close examination of this strange relationship offers deep insight into the nature of the human soul. This long forgotten key to the hidden meaning of Christmas helps to explain the very nature of the classic religious experience. And as we probe deeper into this mystery, it may even shed light on the widespread religious and political oppression that still dominates much of the world.
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