Pinwheel Cave rock art in California

[Judi Durber]

Pinwheel Cave rock art in California may depict hallucinogenic 'trance flower'

https://www.livescience.com/rock-art-hallucinogen-california.html

or on BBC

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55070442

 

[Stuart France]

Abstract ancient cave art is found elsewhere, e.g. this wheel like object, dated at >40,000 years...

https://www.rtl.be/info/monde/international/la-plus-ancienne-scene-de-chasse-de-l-art-prehistorique-denichee-en-indonesie-1180662.aspx

...alongside the usual galloping bisons.  I like to include a few 'cave art' slides in any talks that I give as that is one aspect of caves that a non-caver audience will instantly recognize and relate to.  Then there is contemporary art too, like this cave made of paper cones [figure added for scale]:

 

[pwhole]

I once persuaded my parents to grow a large Datura Stramonium plant in their front garden in Rotherham on the grounds that it was 'unusual and attractive'. And legal. Hahah. Thompson & Morgan sold the seeds - they probably still do. I tried smoking the leaves, which was OK I guess, though pretty mild. However a friend of mine made some tea with it and spent two days talking to a guy who wasn't there - he even cooked him a meal, explaining to some unexpected visitors (some other friends of mine) that the reason his invisible guest wasn't eating the food right now was because he was embarrassed to eat in front of strangers, and if they left, he'd eat it. So they did, and rang me up straight afterwards suggesting I go round. No chance! He might have got his invisible guest to eat me instead.

It's strange stuff, and definitely on the crude side of the psychedelic spectrum, but interesting, nonetheless - and I guess if you live in a jungle it'll do just fine. And it's inspired a lot of primitive art over the millennia, so it can't be all bad. And a useful, if controversial asthma treatment too. Dr. Potter's was the classic product in Britain. An interesting article on that aspect of its usage here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2844275/

It's a shame that paper cone cave wasn't available at the same time as the Datura, as I could have spent a few days caving in there

 

[JasonC]

... and covered in some detail in books of Carlos Castaneda

 

[pwhole]

We all had to start somewhere