pcplantdb

["John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

The raw, unmitigated irony of people wanting to force 'secret' traditional
plant knowledge to be made public, or to just plain steal it,so that they can
then make it proprietary and 'secret' in the context of USA/euro-corporate
'international law' is really quite something.

As Papa Henry 'Auwe said regarding traditional Hawaiian practices, which were
handed down in family lineages but were always provided 'free' within their
cultural context - if you charge money, the medicine doesn't work...which in
one way or another will be true for any commercializations of traditional
practices.

Break the pattern, break the spell...no wu-wu there at all, from a whole
systems perspective it's simply true, and scientific research can (and has)
shown this.  Plenty of examples.  Speaking of polynesia again, look at 'awa
(Hawaiian), called kava and similar elsewhere.

People who want western-cultural self-medication effects and ignore the
ritual/traditon of 'awa use abuse it and get consequences they don't like - no
surprise there.  Mass production out of context leads to root *peelings* being
used to make 'product', which turns out to make a brew that does liver damage,
especially when it's (ab)used as a 'recreational' self-med without the
ritual/tradition.

And so on...stupid human tricks.  Where context is ignored, karma happens. 
OK, karma happens anyway... ;-)...but consequences are not the same...

John S.



John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Design & Technology Services
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net