{"id":220,"date":"2004-07-07T04:01:00","date_gmt":"2004-07-07T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=220"},"modified":"2011-02-12T09:23:59","modified_gmt":"2011-02-12T16:23:59","slug":"220","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=220","title":{"rendered":"The Poison Path and Fatal Fronds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nWhile I was in England, M. was Web-searching and turned up the Duchess of Northumberland’s “poison garden,” which I would like to see today. Part of a much larger garden complex<\/a> that is under construction but still attracting busloads of garden-loving Brits, it has gotten a lot of press.<\/a><\/p>\n

In a recent article<\/a>, The Guardian<\/em>, <sarcasm > official organ of the nanny state \t<\/sarcasm>, gets hyperbolic about the terribly dangerous plants. Protect the children! Fence off the catnip!<\/p>\n

“Evil-looking flowers,” Caroline? Imagine a potato flower. Imagine it pale yellow with dark brown veins. OK? A plant can be a traditional entheogen<\/a> without being “evil-looking.” Ah well, she has to promote the product.<\/p>\n

\"\"Of course, people visit exhibition gardens to get ideas. If, for instance, the duchess gets official approval to grow coca (and being a young, media-savvy duchess she might well get it), others might well think, “I could plant some of that between the rhododendrons.”<\/p>\n

LEFT: “Evil-looking” henbane blossom.<\/em><\/p>\n

Who knows what else adventurous British gardeners might be tempted to try growing.<\/p>\n

I have long assumed that some very discreet growers in mild North American climates have brought Mama Coca north of the Mexican border. How useful for that long hike in the Sierra Nevada! Unlike refined cocaine, the natural plant has been used for centuries, it has nutritional value, etc.–all this is in the writing of ethnobotanists like the late Richard Schultes or Wade Davis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(I owe the phrase “poison path” to Dale Pendell<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I was in England, M. was Web-searching and turned up the Duchess of Northumberland’s “poison garden,” which I would like to see today. Part of a much larger garden complex that is under construction but still attracting busloads of garden-loving Brits, it has gotten a lot of press. In a recent article, The Guardian, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,25],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-england","tag-herbalism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-220","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3961,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3961","url_meta":{"origin":220,"position":0},"title":"No to “Neopagan,” plus Other Pagan Blogging","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 At Pagans for Archaeology, Yewtree makes the argument (started by Graham Harvey, as I understand) against using the term \"Neopagan.\" \u2022 Lupa at No Unsacred Place on greeting the land in a new place. \u2022 At The Alchemist's Garden, can your spirit helper be a machine? \u2022 Finally, at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5708,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5708","url_meta":{"origin":220,"position":1},"title":"Britain and the “Festival Gap”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A contributor to the BBC magazine takes the summer solstice as an opportunity to comment on the UK's paucity of good festivals \u2014 particularly at midsummer: If in this year of 2013, an interplanetary anthropologist came to England for fieldwork, what would they discover? On a variable Sunday each spring,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":355,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=355","url_meta":{"origin":220,"position":2},"title":"More on the \"poison path\"\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"More on the \"poison path\" This looks interesting, but will it hold a candle to Dale Pendell's work (the third volume is supposed to be out in August)?","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":215,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=215","url_meta":{"origin":220,"position":3},"title":"Under the Spell of Sulis-1","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Back from England, I am planning several blog posts as I edit the photos and video clips to go with them. Left: the base of a column that once helped to support a high, vaulted roof over the main swimming pool in the Roman baths, rebuilt in the 2nd century\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11375,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11375","url_meta":{"origin":220,"position":4},"title":"“These Are Dangerous Books”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Dale Pendell, erudite writer of \"the poison path,\" author of Pharmako\/Poeia, Pharmako\/Gnosis, and Pharmako\/Dynamis, died two years ago, but I only recently found a video of his memorial service. I am starting this video at the 30-minute mark, because that is when Gary Snyder comes on. Quite simply, I think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/pharmakopoeia-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2726,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2726","url_meta":{"origin":220,"position":5},"title":"Do You Call Your Professor “Professor”?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"How to address your professor, explained at Inside Higher Ed. (This is the American version.) For those who prefer diagrams to prose, go here: \"The Semiotics of Professor E-mail Signatures.\" It goes both ways. Advice to new doctorate-degree holders: Once you have successfully defended your dissertation, after that initial round\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2359,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/2359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}