The Rhythm of the Sage

Hallucinogenic drug concerns police

2009-08-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

Hallucinogenic drug concerns police.

Oh yay, another article that spreads FUD, just what we needed, more lies and misinformation.

2012 and Salvia...A new one one me....

2009-04-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

While I think that there's a lot more to do with attempts to get brownie points for re-election from the fear crazed masses behind all the Salvia Madness recently than any fears of people seeing into or beyond 2012,, I have to admit it's an interesting article. (Actually the article doesn't talk that much about 2012.

Salvia Divinorum and the 2012 Doomsday cult.

Oops. 1st Salvia bust was too early....

2009-04-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure most of you know, Salvia was recently made a illegal in Ohio. Hehe, looks like someone jumped the gun on it though.....

Linky.

2009-04-02T04:18:00.000-07:00

"The United States is 2% safer against the dangerous scourge known as Salvia Divinorum today. In a courageous move, the state of Ohio has said "Enough!" to the zero deaths caused per year and the zero cases of salvia addiction plaguing this great land. Salvia is now banned in 12 states and many others are considering it, including Minnesota...."

Linky.

Salvia Divinorum: A woman's first Experience

2009-03-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

This is a pretty good read.

Linky.

Salvia Divinorum may have Medical Benefits

2009-03-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

"March 2009 - Salvia Divinorum is a very popular for its psychedelic effects. Many people have a misconception that the Salvia Divinorum is in the same class of drugs as marijuana and cocaine. Therefore, they believe that Salvia Divinorum should be made illegal. Nothing could be further from the truth. Salvia Divinorum is entirely different from other plants and drugs. In fact some studies indicate that Salvia Divinorum can be used to free a person from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. In addition, new research is unlocking the untapped medical potential of Salvia Divinorum."

Linky

2009-02-17T18:43:00.000-08:00

This is kinda cool, ran into someone who has a brain, check out this Blog: Some Bills that Need Your Attention.

I'm no Libertarian, but I like some of her (I think) ideas.

The book or the oven?

2008-12-09T16:06:00.000-08:00

Way back in the day, I'm talking years ago, when I had a plant of my own, I tried a few different drying methods. I never really liked the idea of putting the leaves in a box and shaking every day for days on end. So, I tried 2 others. One is the book. Put the leaves in a nice big phone book and squish them flat. The upside to this is that you end up with beautiful green flat leaves that are dry in about 24 hours. The downside is if you have a lot of leaves, I imagine you could run into problems of needing many phone books. I never had many leaves to deal with.

The other method I tried was putting some leaves in the oven under low temps. I really don't remember the total specifics, but I'm going to guess around 200 degrees or maybe 150 for about an hour. It dries the leaves excellently and seems to make them way more potent. The other good thing is you could dry a lot of leaves in a relatively short amount of time. So, try drying one or 2 till you gage about how much and how long. I highly recommend it...

Driving on Salvia...

2008-12-08T17:59:00.000-08:00

Of course a bad idea to even try, but 99 times out of 100 this is how it would go. I still wouldn't advise being anywhere near a car, just because strange things can happen on Salvia. Remind me to tell you some day.

Quiet Day...

2008-12-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

There doesn't seem to be a lot going on in the Salvia world (as opposed to the Salvia World) today. I am considering giving this:

The Entheogenic Evolution

a listen. There is an interview with Daniel Siebert on there. Plus some other interesting looking things.

This is how....

2008-12-03T18:51:00.001-08:00

Some of the Salvia Divinorum laws get passed I guess, I never knew about this myself.

http://eatmoretoadstools.com/wordpress/?p=108

Doctor Says Salvia Not So Bad

2008-12-01T15:40:00.000-08:00

http://ben-mckenzie.com/general/doctor-says-salvia-not-so-bad/

I like this guy. Of course, as all my loyal fans know, I am not a big believer in the social use of Salvia, but I never wanted to take that away from anyone, not anyone over the consenting age anyway.

Well, imagine my surprise.....

2008-11-26T21:34:00.000-08:00

I use the Google clipping service to, among other things, keep track of Salvia Divinorum references on the web. Well, imagine my surprise when I see my very own blog post in it. I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised, because it is a blog about Salvia and well, this is a Google blog site, but I rarely ever (if ever) show up there, because the search is actually for Salvia Divinorum and most of the time I reference it as Salvia.

The reason it showed up was because of that link I put into my last post. It used the whole term, Salvia Divinorum. I guess this one may show up too....

Misinformation, Disinformation and Lies.

2008-11-25T16:09:00.000-08:00

You know, I'm pro-child. Seriously. I like them, they are great little people, for the most part anyway. In fact, I am so pro-child, that I do not believe in taking away their future rights. Like say, this guy (group?) does.

http://watchfuleyefoundation.blogspot.com/2008/11/salvia-divinorum-legal.html#links

This little article is so full of misinformation, disinformation or out right lies (you be the judge). Like this little Gem...

"For those of you who may not be familar(sic) with Salvia - you can smoke it, drink it, chew it, just about any form of digesting it will bring about the immediate hallucinogenic high."

Wow. First of all that's not even physically possible. Even if it were, it's not true, oh readers of my blog, you know the score on this. It's no where near that easy, not even for the extreme soft heads I don't believe and they are so rare that even if it is for them.......eh.

Here's one of my favorite lines though...

"Though I have not discovered anywhere that Salvia is said to be addictive, I believe it won't be too long before there is a very serious problem with this."

That's probably because of those Anti-Addictive properties that Salvia contains. No big surprise there.

Oh, but back to my point. The children. Should children or teens be doing Salvia? No! No! Absolutely not, I have said it before and I will say it again! NO!!!! However. That is no reason to curtail ANOTHER one of my rights, not to mention remove a right from these children when they do get old enough to make the informed decision about whether or not to try Salvia (I say try because most people try it once, don't like it and don't do it again.).

So, how about instead of a ban, I don't know, we restrict it to a certain age? Maybe 18, maybe 21? Whatever. I don't have a problem with that. I doubt most people (over the age mind you) who have a brain and use it occasionally would mind this. I may be asking too much of "The Watchful Eye" though.

Activity...

2008-11-24T17:16:00.000-08:00

I've decided to try to post here more often than I have been. That should not be too hard, even with minimal effort, but I am trying for m ore than minimal.

I haven't had (and by had I mean used, I have some) Salvia in a while. Sage Singer and I are going to get together, one of these days, and Skype a Besagement. I look forward to it as I do all Besagements, with joy and trepidation, especially since I won't have a physical sitter. I for the most part don't need one though.

no interesting news to comment on Salvia today, so perhaps tomorrow.

Reefer..er, um...Salvia Madness!

2008-11-17T16:50:00.000-08:00

Looking about me and seeing all that's going on around the country (and the world for that matter). I must say that I do believe I have seen all this before. It's Reefer Madness all over again, just with a new plant. This must be stopped. Seriously, what's next? Nutmeg? You can seriously get a good buzz going off of that. Maybe I shouldn't say that too loud, The spice police might raid my kitchen....

Best Article Ever

2008-07-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I probably exaggerate, but it's awesome, they actually didn't just toe the governmental line about blah blah blah, all non-alcoholic mind affecting things are evil.

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=13063

Clipped from article....

"We hold the research being done by all the exemplary psychedelic experimenters at YouTube in as high regard as anyone, but we asked Sak if he could produce any literature produced by actual, you know, scientists with medical degrees and things like that. Sak, saying he didn't have any peer-reviewed literature to share with us, suggested we find some on our own."

A response.

2007-12-15T15:35:00.000-08:00

I found today someone had written an article here: http://visionsteen.com/blog/2007/12/salvia-divinorum-appears-in-teen-drug.html

I decided to respond to it. My response follows, as I feel that it will never see the light of day over at that person's blog, but we shall see.

There is more than one "glaring error" here. For one, Brett Chidster had was not under the influence of Salvia when he committed suicide, the link between his suicide and Salvia Divinorum are tenuous at best.
"The use of Salvia Divinorum by teens entering teen drug treatment centers is becoming more common. Salvia Divinorum is a potent hallucinogen." This, if true is not surprising, chances are the teens have depressive issues and are trying to use the Salvia as an antidepressant (http://www.sagewisdom.org/jclinpsych.html) . This is not the way to go with this of course as one should wait until one is fully grounded in this reality before he/she begins exploring others.

Salvia is illegal in several countries.

"Most teenagers smoke Salvia with marijuana making the act illegal." Smoking Salvia with Marijuana (a bad idea) does not make the act of smoking Salvia illegal. Just as smoking Marijuana and drinking Pepsi does not make the act of drinking Pepsi illegal.

In conclusion I do want to state that Salvia should NOT be sold to or consumed by minors. I am just trying to clear up some erroneous information. I am pro-salvia, but only for responsible adults.

Cushioning the Soft Head.

2007-08-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

When last we met, we spoke of softening the hardhead. There are a few of you out there who are quite the opposite of the hardheads, the softheads. I don't have whole lot of advice for you. Admittedly, I am a bit of a softhead myself, SageSinger is even more so, but not like some of you.

Well, the beginning of my advice is not that different from that to the hardheads. Meditation is good if you are a meditater. The relaxation that is wrought from it could help smooth a rough trip.

Some of you may need stronger measures. You might get an order of Blue Lotus. This is another plant that is, as far as I know, legal everywhere (once again though, check your local listings). Blue Lotus tends to relax one and also makes a dream more manageable. It also tends to make the dream harder to have. I wouldn't suggest it to a hardhead really, but it might be just the thing for the softheads.

That's about all I have for the softheads. More than that is the Standard advice. If you can, use less. If you are using an extract, either use a less strong one, or plain leaf. If I think of anything else, I will post further at a later date.

Cracking the Hard Head.

2007-08-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

"The dream
That came through a million years"

Olivia Newton John
Xanadu

I have been putting this off for long enough and am ready to tackle the Hard Head. I don't mean the true Hard Head of course as they could smoke 100% Salvinoran A and wander off without even getting a bit dizzy. Fortunately they are quite rare. The people I am referring too are people that we over at ¡BeSaged! refer to as having Hard Head tendencies.

I'm going to go off on a tangent for a moment, but don't worry, it does relate to the subject at hand. I have the feeling (though I have no data to back it up) that Salvia Soft/Hard Headedness is a bell curve. Extreme Soft Heads on the one end (people who can dream just from getting a whiff of the smoke in an incense) and Extreme Hard Heads on the other.The big bulge in the middle would have everyone else, and of course the closer you are to the Hard Head end, the More you have Hard Head tendencies.

Ok, back on task. You have gotten your Salvia, maybe even a pretty good extract, a 10x or 15x. You've smoked a few bowls of it and while it made you feel a little weird, it didn't do much else. You're first instinct might be to try and buy a stronger extract. That is a viable option, but let's explore some other avenues first.

First of all check around and make sure you have a reputable vendor. A low quality 20x Salvia can be less potent than a high quality 5x. If you do check around and find out that the original vendor that you tried does not tend to sell high quality material, when you do find a reputable vendor, be very careful, because even though you may have ordered the same level of extract it could be an order of magnitude stronger than the other batch.

Let's assume however that you have a reputable vendor and high quality product, and are still getting nowhere. The first thing I would suggest is, before smoking your Salvia, that you meditate for 10 or 15 minutes. This, as I'm sure you know, tends to bring you into a calm place. The calmer that you are when you do Salvia, the more likely you are to dream and the better your dream will tend to be.

Some of you are no doubt thinking "Meditation doesn't really work for me SageDancer! What should I do?" Fear not. Meditation doesn't really work fir me either. There are other things that can be done. I can think of one thing that someone could smoke before doing salvia that would bring you to a calmer level. Now don't jump to conclusions on me! What I'm talking about is Wild Dagga (Leonotis Leonurus. It is as far as I know, and assuming you are over the age of Majority (and if you are not, go away. You shouldn't be reading this anyway) legal everywhere, but as always, check your local listings! Wild Dagga is actually probably not a bad idea for anyone who wants to do Salvia, as it also tends to make the dream more manageable.

The next thing I will do is go over smoking method. I know I touched upon this in an earlier entry, but it bears repeating and I probably will add information that I did not earlier. Firstly the lighter. Some people say that you must have a torch lighter, and others say that a standard lighter will do just fine. I will bow to the wisdom of Daniel Siebert on this one. He says that while it is very handy to have a torch lighter for plain leaf, it is not necessary for extracts. I've done both with a plain lighter and both worked just fine for me. I prefer to use the torch lighter though, I just like them. Seriously they're cool. The coolness could be just enough to get you into the dream. One thing I would suggest about the lighter though is to get a pipe lighter. If you haven't seen one, its a lighter that has a bit of a bend in it that keeps the flame away from your thumb. It also makes it less awkward for lighting a pipe.

As for the pipe itself, I always recommend the water pipe. These are great for cooling the smoke, as it is REALLY hot. Some people think that the smoke goes through too much cooling in a water pipe and some of the Salvinorin A ends up on the side of the pipe. If you subscribe to this idea, fine, but you will want a long pipe. A short pipe doesn't give the smoke much chance to cool at all and it can be a real throat burner. I have found that I can't get enough smoke in with a short pipe to have anything but an annoying body buzz.

The next thing you need to remember is to hold the lighter to the Salvia for the full duration of you inhale. Salvinorin A does take a fairly high temperature to vaporize (I don't recall off the top of my head but if you really want to know, you can google it). That temperature is high than the temperature that Salvia burns.

The next thing is hold in the smoke. You don't have to be Hercules or anything. If you can go a good 15 or 20 seconds that will probably do. If you are capable, go ahead and go longer, but don't strain a lung. You may have to build up on this. This is the good thing about extracts, they tend to be far less harsh that plain leaf.

The Last thing that I will say before getting to the more experimental stuff, is to get the entire dosage that you have decided to smoke in as quickly as possible. Preferably under 2 minutes.

The next methods I will describe I term experimental. Unlike the tried and true stuff above, that you can find quoted all over the Internet, these are more creative ideas, that are to be used with the above.

For this method you will need both an extract and plain leaf. Some would say that this will not work, but I believe it will (in fact, in a round about way, I know it can), for at least some of you. We will start with the percentages method*. The first thing you will do is figure out a dosage of plain leaf. This is not supposed to make you dream (be careful though, because it could). Measure out 1, or even 2 bowls of plain leaf, and separate them into 10 mini-doses. Also measure out a small dose of your extract (keep it very small, especially if you have a high level extract, you can always try again later and increase the dosage of the extract a bit). What you will do, is once every minute or 2 (you may have to have your sitter help you with this after a while) smoke a mini-dose until they are all gone. For some reason when you do it this way, the Salvinorin A doesn't seem to degrade in your system the way it does when you take it all as one big jolt. As you do this, you will probably find that things get stranger and stranger the more mini-doses you take. Once you have taken your tenth dose of the regular leaf, load up your extract (your sitter may need to do this for you) and and hit it hard. I'd advise laying down (I always do for Salvia).

For the next Method all you will need is an extract. First rinse out your mouth with a mint mouthwash with alcohol. Be careful to swish the front of your mouth, this is to help with absorption. Then take a pinch of your extract and hold it between the cheek and gum. Leave it in your mouth for a while. Hopefully with in a half an hour or so you will start to feel the beginnings of the onset of Salvia. At this point, remove the Salvia from your mouth and smoke your regular dosage. This probably will only be effective if you tend to verge on dreaming, but just can't make it over the hump.

As of right now, I have only one more method to try, and that is perseverance. There is what some call the "reverse tolerance". Some call it "potentiation". Whatever you call it, it does seem that the more one does Salvia, the easier it becomes to dream.

That's really all I have right now, if I think of any more things I will add them (probably as another entry). Next time "Cushioning the Soft Head." That one will probably be pretty short.

*Once I tried the percentages method. It was interesting, but I didn't make it all the way through. I got through maybe 5 doses, and felt the need to put the pipe away (I did) and then lie down. I dreamed. It's not something I would do often. I hate the feeling of the come up of Salvia (usually it's not so bad because it lasts like 5 seconds and then you are dreaming), and the percentages method is just one long come up mostly, unless you do manage to dream, but even then the come up lasts for minutes.

An apology....

2007-07-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, apparently blogger has a default setting on the comments and only people who have blogger (or possibly Google accounts, so that would widen the field a bit) accounts can submit comments. I have changed it so now anyone who wants to should be able to submit a comment.

My first breakthrough...

2007-06-26T22:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I believe that I promised you all a story and I always try to keep my promises. My old roommate (SageSinger) and myself, after having lived together for a while, discovered that we were both budding psychonauts. We tried many substances (all legal) with varying degrees of success. We had both heard interesting stories about Salvia and decided we wanted to try it. We found information, trip reports and videos on-line. Most of the videos are schlock, but there are a few good ones out there. The trip reports were very enlightening.

We found a reputable vendor and decided to place an order. We of course were both chomping at the bit waiting for the order, it seemed to take forever to come, but really was only a few days. We had ordered an ounce of plain leaf and when we got it we were very pleasantly surprised by the size of it. The bag was huge!

I believe we did our first careful experiments that very night. I believe I went first, I packed our little pipe (just a plain ordinary pipe) and took a few good hits off of it. The only reaction I achieved was a very annoying body high. That's all I ever got from plain leaf with that pipe. SageSinger however got very interesting stuff. He would see things like fireflies, the corners in the room would be come rounded, all sorts of stuff.

We decided what was needed (both because pretty much all the literature that we read called for it, and because it was really harsh) was a water pipe. So, on ,y next payday I went out and acquired an inexpensive, but serviceable water pipe. I brought said pipe home and showed it to SageSinger and he was terribly excited to try it later that evening. As often happens, however, Life intruded. SageSinger's at the time Girlfriend (now wife) came over and he became excited about other things. So after dinner, they sequestered themselves in his room, and I will allow the gentle reader to speculate on what may have happened behind closed doors.

With SageSinger's mind (and body) elsewhere, I was left with almost a full ounce of Salvia and a brand new, untested water pipe and no sitter. I wasn't too worried however about not having a sitter, as nothing spectacular ever happened to me with Salvia. I figured, maybe, if I was "lucky", I might get a few fireflies or some rounding. So I went into my room, closed the door and sat on my bed. I packed the bowl full of Salvia, fired it up and inhaled. Held the smoke in for 15 or 20 seconds, released it and repeated. The second hit killed the bowl, so I put the pipe and the lighter down and then blew out the smoke.

That is when everything went strange. Suddenly I was sitting on my bed. I was floating up around the corner of my room, watching myself sit on the bed. I was also riding a color wave, somewhere else. All these things were happening at the same time. Every once in a while, for a few moments I would be just the me sitting on my bed. At those times I had a mission (Sometimes Salvia gives you a mission, this seems to be an early usage phenomena, not really prevalent when you have been seeing The Lady for quite some time). The Mission was to take the pipe into SageSinger's room and give it to him (this could have been awkward). However I was completely incapable of completing this mission. Every time I would try to stand, I would make it a few inches off the bed then fall back into a sitting position and laugh raucously. Then I would be back in 3 again.

This went on for a while (in all actuality probably only 3 or 4 minutes) but I finally reintegrated into 1 person and could stand again. I had to walk around our living room for a while in clockwise circles. Counterclockwise was an uncomfortable way to walk. I was pretty freaked out and honestly a bit afraid. I felt like I would never be "normal" again. But as is the way with Salvia, it wasn't too long before I was back to baseline.

Well, that is the story of my first real breakthrough experience. I hope you enjoyed it and it spurs you on to find a good sitter... ;)

About usage.

2007-06-16T20:54:00.001-07:00

So, you have some Salvia and you are wondering what to do with it. Well, here is my advice on usage.

Well, first things first. Make sure that Salvia is legal wherever you may happen to be. She is still legal in most places, but not everywhere. The next thing, and I can't stress this enough, if you are not at least at the age of majority where you live, put the Salvia down. Everyone should have a good solid grounding in reality before you try to leave it, or in the words of Adam Corrola, wait until your brain dries out.

Ok, now that the legal stuff is out of the way, let's get to it. ;) First, I would advise having a torch lighter and a water pipe. You probably won't actually need either, but let's face it, torch lighters are cool. Water pipes cool the smoke dramatically and allow you to take much more in. I can trip fully with plain leaves, however, not with a regular pipe. I thought I was a hardhead (someone who can't trip at all) until I got a water pipe. I will tell that story sometime in the near future.

So you have gathered together all your materials and are ready to smoke. Stop. You really should have one other thing. A sitter. Some of you will scoff at this. Some of you in all actuality will not need the sitter at all. However, many of you will be glad that you had one. Let me help you with some advice about how to pick a sitter. You need someone you can trust. Someone who won't try to do something to you while you are tripping. Someone who will sit quietly with you and not bug you during your trip. Also (and this is key, or you wouldn't need someone to sit you anyway) you need to make sure that they will keep you from doing anything stupid while you trip!

Ok, I know what some of you are going to say. "I don't have anyone like that.". or "I don't need a sitter." Obviously I can't make you use a sitter. So if you are going to go ahead and try the salvia anyway, let me give you some advice about that. Actually, I would use this advice whether or not you have a sitter. First, pick a good place. Don't trip in a car. Or by a deep ravine, or a river or lake. You have a brain, use it. And if you are reading this and wondering why tripping at the edge of a cliff might be a bad idea, then put the Salvia down and walk away. She is not for you.

Also, wherever you happen to be. make it difficult to access anything that could be a danger to you, or anything that you might break. You are also best off just being with you and your sitter. Salvia is not a social plant. Please don't be at a party. Set and setting are very important. The thing, I think that people forget about when talking set and setting, is set. They focus on setting, which, is important, don't get me wrong about that, but set is probably equally important. As far as I can tell, set refers to your mind set. This is especially important on those first few trips (and honestly, may be the difference between having them and not having them for many people), be calm. If you go to work and have a really bad day, get home and find that your long awaited Salvia order has finally showed, but you are still in a bad mood from work, then wait. It will still be there tomorrow. Also don't take something to put you in a better mood. There are certain herbs that are known to put people in a euphoric state. I would advise against using them, with Salvia. At least until you get a handle on how Salvia works alone. Same with Alcohol. Now if you are a meditator and can meditate for a while and put yourself in a peaceful state of mind, then by all means do. This may be your best friend for Salvia use.

Oh, I am editing this later because I need to add something. This should go without saying, but apparently it dozen't. Sit Down. No seriously, sit down. Actually if possible, it is best to be sitting in a place where you can lay down. I have read many reports of people who say that they barely had time to make it to a chair. I also read reports where people say that they do their inhalations only to find themselves 5 minutes later on the floor with a broken pipe and icky water all over them. Sit down. Oh, and did I say sit down? good. Sit!

I really only have one more thing to add tonight. If you just found this and thought "Oh, this is all good advice and I am ready to start!". Stop. Do more research. check out the experience vaults at Erowid. They are invaluable. Also check The Salvia Divinorum Users Guide at Sage Wisdom. I send you there because he is really an expert. I just offer a little advice. I will go deeper in future posts. And I welcome comments.

Out and about

2007-06-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

I'm heading out today, but when i return I may do some Salvia. Part of me wants to refer to a Salvia trip as dreaming rather than tripping. While it is more accurate, I think it may sound pretentious. Not sure. What do you think?

HB 215

2007-06-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

So, it looks as if I may have to make a trip to Columbus.

This annoys me no end, as Columbus is not real close to Misery Falls.

The other thing that annoys me about this possible trip is the reason for it. It seems that some well meaning but naive congress person here in Ohio has gotten it into his head that Salvia Divinorum is dangerous. While I will agree, in a very small way, that it could be, (in fact in the same way that pretty much anything else could be dangerous), I would say that it is far far less dangerous than say, tobacco, or alcohol.

It seems to me that the people down at the statehouse would have better things to do with their time (and my money) than schedule a non-addictive (some have even said anti-addictive) non-lethal (find me one case where someone has died unequivocally from Salvia), wonderful plant.