Pg. 3
Issue #4
Weather in Oakland, CA 59°
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
“REMAINS”
A poem in fragments
By Jesús Castillo - Purple & Gray 4.4.2010
“This is a test.” A set of margins created for company. For waiting in train stations or asking a stranger the time. You’re allowed to freak out this much only. There’s a green car parked outside, by the curb, near the bike racks. An old man is asking people to put change in his plastic cup and I remember my name contains both my father’s and grandfather’s stories. The table I’m sitting at is made of steel and marble. It’s cold and it’s spring. In the song on the radio, a noise
.
Carmen. Do you remember Carmen? My cousin, who married young, to a man twice her age and
with little means. Back in San Luis. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but the farm, I remember. The pond, overgrown with stalks and moss. Where I’d catch dragonflies by the tail. Their wings almost metallic in the gilded, orange noon. Carmen, still 15 and a virgin, sang in the straw-roofed kitchen hut, where she helped my grandmother cook, steaming the tripe, and grinding the corn into mush.
.
At some point, air support was requested. It was mostly children. But the claims were exaggerated.
140 casualties, in this instance, is an acceptable mode of living. The captain hacked and spit like an old
engine on a cold morning. When it rains, the homeless will sit under the shelter of bus stops for hours, sometimes even long after it’s cleared. I know I call in a time of brittle language. I know the dams are gathering fuel. Fearsome dissidents wait outside the glass gates. Is the comfort of laughter enough? Or what is it, exactly, that we’re saving from the flood?
.
Is this Chopin? To see the valleys and the flowery graves. Insistent string. Mountain ridges opening
up to reveal cloud formations breaking. A sudden layer of thin blue film. Before train stations.
Music as a gesture towards heaven or a vague suspicion of what we were. I say this now as my body, which appears young, shows the first signs of time drained. I say this as a breath rising up to the wooden beams of the restaurant ceiling. A rhythm like glass pellets raining on tile. Days like passages from a Russian novel, where love is a distant fracture we can hear from the hill.
.
The collision, the paused rain, the small delays between breaths, the pebble rolling down, the slope
of a hip, the skylight, the glare, the tedium of age, the building full of children, the repetitive mechanism,
the idle company, the phone call, the place, the evening walk’s end, the minute space between two things touching, the loss of meaning, the boundary’s approach, the rendering of limbs, the edge of the skin behind.
.
It rained for four whole years. The crops gorged and died. We drew portraits of the city. Our monuments, half-hidden in clouds. Many banded together for survival. Our elders wrote love letters to God. God remained curious as an ancient child. Much like today, we pondered by windows. The pipes rusted. What happened afterwards, I’m not quite sure. We were put on earth to dream. A child told us, Go forth, life is waiting at the bottom of the steps, to your left. You will know it by its seriousness. You will know it by its reflective carnival mask.
APHRODISIACS
By Courtney Wilson - Purple & Gray
5.4.2010
Sex has been everything from celebrated to shameful throughout history and between the many cultures on this earth. I myself am a proponent of celebrating sexuality, though often times it can go untended in the garden of our busy lives. If life is taking the fun out of the bedroom, some herbal allies can put it back in. More frequent, more passionate, and hotter sex is something everyone can enjoy. Because sexual appetite has physical, emotional and spiritual facets, it requires a multifaceted approach. Herbs can’t rearrange your time to make time for sex, but they can cue your body into making it more of a priority.
According to the Kama Sutra, awakening the five senses is the key to heightening sexual pleasure.
So with religion, morality (dharma) and material success (artha), kama is the third goal of human life. Kama…is the enjoyment of appropriate objects by the five senses of hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting and smelling, assisted by the mind together with the soul.
(Kamasutra, 1883)
You don’t need anything to experience your surroundings more sensually other than intention. Things that can help are soft clothes, a rough-glazed cup full of a spicy herbal chai, or music that you enjoy.
TO PURCHASE YOUR VERY OWN CORRESPONDENCE SET
Visit the Yellow Owl Workshop :
Camp Correspondence Set
California Postcard Set
Winter Correspondence Set
France Postcard Set
New York Postcard Set
Bologna University, Italy, conducted a 14 day double blind study on trained male cyclists, testing for both sexual desire and athletic performance. After 14 days of taking maca, the cyclists made better time on their 40K races as well as a significant increased rate of sexual desire. Scientists at Northumbria University in the UK conducted a 12-week study on maca’s effects on erectile dysfunction. Results showed statistically heightened sexual desire for both patients treated with maca and those who received a placebo, but that heightened physical performance in patients who received maca exceeded those who received a placebo treatment.
As more of a sexual tonic than an instant love potion, maca builds stamina and sexual potency for both men and women over time. Its utility for male impotence is also promising for those of us who have more serious issues at hand than a simple desire to spice things up in the bedroom. In my own experience with this plant, it seems to benefit my mental stamina as well, opening up long-closed channels of thought, improving memory, and assisting me in viewing whole systems and interconnectivity rather than scattered details.
I have two preferred vehicles for maca or damiana.
1. Smoothies. I add a heaping tablespoonful of the powdered herb into a smoothie for two.
2. Truffles. I blend the powdered herbs of my choice with cocoa powder, and a small amount of honey, nut butter, or maple syrup until they are moldable into truffles. It’s a trial and error, give and take affair. These are a delicious way to take an herbal
medicine! Dosage: 1 truffle at dessert each night. Not a bad deal.
Life doesn’t always wait for you to catch your breath. These plants, and a conscious state of mind can help you remember how to take sex off of the to-do list and put it on the live life list with getting enough sleep and taking the time to enjoy yourself. I think the sacred texts of the Kama Sutra put it best in their advice to pursue the life goal of enjoying life using the five senses, the mind, and the soul. Sex is no exception.
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RESOURCES
Journal of Ethnopharmacology. Estrada-Reyes et al. Turnera diffusa Wild(Turneraceae) recovers sexual behavior in sexually exhausted males. Jun2009, Vol. 123 Issue 3, p423-429.
Journal of Ethnopharmacology. Stone, Mark et al. A pilot investigation into the effect of maca supplementation on physical activity and sexual desire in sportsmen. Dec2009, Vol. 126, Issue 3, p574-576.
Department of Internal Medicine, Aging and Nephrological Diseases; University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. Subjective effects of Lepidium meyenii (Maca) extract on well-being and sexual performances in patients
with mild erectile dysfunction: a randomised, double-blind clinical trial. Zenico, T. et al. Apr2009, Vol. 41 Issue 2, p95-99.
Panther Gulch Permaculture; Williams, Oregon. Wilson, Scott. Secrets of the Lost Root - A Brief History of Maca Magic on the High Plains.
Panther Gulch Permaculture; Williams, Oregon. Black, Jerome River. A 2,000
Year Old Crop Resprouts in the Andes.
Kamasutra. 1883. Availabile HERE
Bikes in front of Manifesto
Maca, Lepidium peruvianum, is a well-known aphrodisiac from Peru. This cold-hardy turnip-like root has been in cultivation since 4,000 BC by tribes in the Andes as a medicinal food for enhancing stamina, immune function, and sexual vitality. It was eaten by warriors, horses, and sent as tribute to the Spanish. In 1549, 15,000 pounds of maca were sent to the Spanish, who in turn sent much of it to Spain for its fantastical aphrodisiacal properties. In the 1970s, this cultural lynchpin of the Andes was in danger of going extinct with a mere 70 cultivated acres remaining. Fortunately, with careful seed collection methods and cultivation techniques, there are over 1,000 acres of maca in cultivation in Peru today, and it is a commonly eaten food. Maca’s long and colorful history reminds us to buy fair trade and organic—and to research the herbs that we purchase, especially when they’re not from our part of the world. Buying natural products from afar impacts those economies, environments, and possibly the health of a species, especially when it is a wildcrafted or endangered plant, as maca once was.
The time tested health claims for maca’s ability to restore vitality and sexual potency have fascinated people worldwide for hundreds of years. The department of Internal Medicine at
Sexual inhibitions with new love, or even with someone we are comfortable with, can hold many of us back in our sex lives. It is common practice in high schools and universities nationwide for students to turn towards alcohol or marijuana for this purpose. One of my favorite herbal options to release sexual anxiety is damiana, also known as Turnera aphrodisiaca, a traditional sexual herbal tonic of Mexico.
If longstanding traditional use of a plant is not enough to assure us of a medicine’s efficacy, we can always look to scientific studies. The journal of Ethnopharmacology did a study with damiana in 2009 on sexually exhausted male rats. Results concluded that damiana did increase their ability to achieve a second ejaculation time in shorter amounts of time. The important part to note is that this action was not due to anxiety producing compounds such as caffeine—but rather flavonoid components. This offers a more dissected view of the plant’s ability to reduce sexual anxiety, and supports its use as an aphrodisiac. Personally, I have found that it works like a charm during times of prolonged stress that may be affecting my sex life; it also jump-starts the digestive system, and acts as a significant antidepressant. Thus, I would recommend it to someone whose sex life may be affected by stress or mild depression and especially if those symptoms are accompanied by sluggish digestion. On the contrary, I would recommend caution with this herb with an easily irritable digestive system.
Three of the most common sexual actions of aphrodisiacs are increased circulation, lowered inhibitions, and increased stamina. With increased circulation of the blood from consuming chili or ginger, for example, the physical imitation of sexual arousal reminds the body of the possibilities of love. My favorite fast acting love elixir is one I found accidentally at a bar I was working at. After my initial discovery, I returned to it purposefully, over and over again. My beau loved its effects on me so much he was even known to make it himself. The recipe is simply to add juiced ginger to pear nectar. I shouldn’t say ‘simply’ regarding juicing ginger root, because juicing anything can be laborious, especially when you are dealing with something that is not particularly juicy. But its reliable effects are well worth the dirty kitchen and the effort.
The general principle of circulatory herbs being beneficial for increasing sexual appetite can be applied in widely varying ways. A spicy Mexican hot cocoa, a sweet ginger cocktail, or a mango salsa taco might produce similar effects. You can safely play with cayenne, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, clove, and nutmeg for all of your different moods.
