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www.shamansociety.org 5 Cover Art By Mark Lewis Wagner The Nature of Technology The question at a conference on the Earth and Technology was What does Technology Want. Answer It wants to be part of Nature. Mark Lewis Wagner MA is a digital and traditional artist and educator. His artwork was on the book cover of Michael Harners The Way of the Shaman and his illustrations appeared for many years in the magazine Shamans Drum. Clients include the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and PixarDisney. He is also the founder of the nonprofit Drawing on Earth which passionately connects art and creativity to youth and communities around the world please donate. Their first project set a Guinness World Record for the largest chalk drawing. Wagner has created 5 pieces of art that have been photographed by satellite. He is currently showing work at the Living Shaman Museum in San Francisco. Web sites www.drawingonearth.org www.marklewiswagner www.heartsandbones.com In New Mexico wild tobacco Nicotiana Rustica is often called Punche de Mexicano. On the Native pueblos certain people grow it for the medicine men to use in their kiva ceremonies and elsewhere wildcrafters find it growing at about 4000 to 7000 feet elevation in the desert and mountains. Ten years ago I had no relationship with this powerful ally except for a negative association my father died of lung cancer at- tributed to smoking tobacco. But the Spirit of Punche had other ideas apparently and one day in Death Valley one of my vision questers came back to base camp laden with three-foot-long stalks of a plant she said was wild tobacco. A few weeks later the same woman took me on a wild-crafting outing in the Chiricauhas south of Silver City New Mexico. As we hiked among the red rocks and arroyos we suddenly came upon a tall green plant with large leaves. The plant seemed to jump out at me and glowed with a golden light. I usually dont see auras but I felt the plant was making itself known to me. My companion an expert wild-crafter said it was wild tobacco or Punche de Mexicano as the locals often call it. I felt the presence of a Spirit near the plant and had the dis- tinct impression that it was letting me know it was my Ally Plant. Since then I have had many opportunities to make friends with my Ally Plant. A Lakota Sun Dance chief in South Dakota carved a Cha- nupah ceremonial Pipe for me and initiated me into the proper ways of praying and smoking using a mix of tobacco and red wil- low. Once in a situation that felt somewhat desperate I smoked the Chanupah to help dissipate a dark energy in someones house. The heaviness in her home lifted almost immediately as we smoked and made prayers. Another time in the wilderness around Pedernal Mountain in Northern New Mexico my husband and I and two friends hiked considerably off trail and stumbled into an ancient quarry of chalcedony flint. All four of us felt nauseous as we approached this place where ancient people had made their tools. I had my Chanupah and knew it was important to introduce ourselves by smoking our prayers for the ancestral energies there. As soon as we did so our nausea subsided. I had the distinct impression that we had been accepted by the spirits of this place. I have also become acquainted with Mapacho the Southern cousin of Punche which grows in the Amazon and is widely used by ayahuasceros for healing and cleansing. When I am in Cusco Peru I purchase it in the Mercado de Brujas Witches Market for use at home with students and clients. I often do soplando with Mapacho cigarettes and have been amazed at its powerful ability to remove hucha heavy energies. It has taken Punche a few years to convince me of its desire to work with me as friend and Ally I now work frequently with this powerful plant and have come to understand that it has the unique ability to create a pathway through the veils and allow our prayers and intentions to connect with ancestral energies and helping spirits with the result that transformation healing and cleansing happens rapidly and sometimes in magical and unex- pected ways. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Carol L. Parker is a vision quest guide and pilgrimage leader in Peru Death Valley Canyon de Chelly the Yukon and Hawaii. She has been initiated into the altomisayok high mountain shaman tradition in the Peruvian Andes and continues to study with her teachers there. She integrates ceremonial and shamanic methods into her college classes as well as private work with clients and students. Punche De Mexicano Unexpected and Magical Encounters with an Ally Plant Carol L. Parker Ph.D. O p - E d