The Countenance of Cactus Day

By Marc Devitt

We travelled from places all over Sydney to converge on the Giant Dwarf, a Surry Hills boutique theatre with lovely staff which we filled to full capacity (the theatre, not the staff) for the first ‘full capacity’ APS event since lockdowns began last year. The space was comfy, without being too closely packed, and any unsettled atmosphere was quickly transmuted by the spontaneous fractal flurry of pockets-within pockets-across pockets of conversation, as old faces met new, long overdue catch-ups were had and a general sense of community coming together was felt. This was additionally met by the eager reaching into pockets for cash to go toward the phenomenally popular APS Cactus Day Raffle with some premium cacti specimens being so generously donated by Tony & Karyn as well as the cuttings and seedlings used in Tony’s talk/workshop being given away as spot door prizes. There is a word (a bit old-fashioned now) which has come to mind at much smaller APS events - bonhomie - and the appropriateness of that noun persisted into this much larger setting, which was very reassuring considering the way that the APS is growing.

This was the APS’s second iteration of Cactus Day, which began last year during lockdown, not long after Mike Jay’s incredibly thorough book; Mescaline: A Global History of The First Psychedelic was released. When we searched for an 'international' day to acknowledge this incredible plant/medicine experience, however, there was nothing listed. We therefore felt it was deserving that the psychedelic cacti get their own day as do LSD (Albert Hofmann's discovery of LSD on Bicycle Day April 19th 1943) and Magic Mushrooms on 920 (September 20th - being close to the Equinox and midseason in the Northern Hemisphere). After some discussion with Mike, it seemed fitting that we choose May 23rd, as this was the date Aldous Huxley underwent his landmark mescaline experience that was later recounted in the seminal text The Doors of Perception. Huxley and Humprey Osmond, who’d gifted him the mescaline, then declared the term 'psychedelic' as a fitting descriptive for the experience and so this date is indeed a significant and critical point in psychedelic history. So this year we felt it fitting that Cactus Day be devoted specifically to the Trichocereus species (San Pedro/Huachuma).

On the way to the event, passing down Cleveland Street, I spotted Tivoli House, one of the crisis-accommodation centres that I had the pleasure of staying in when I had first found myself homeless, opposite Sydney’s sprawling Prince Alfred Park, its greenery and open space reminding me of the cactus focused event (organised by a conspicuous society of plant, people, and planetary enthusiasts) that I was travelling to. I stopped on the edge of one gnarled fig tree and briefly took the scene in. Impressive indeed, but in some way, it all seemed devoid of life in a city of 5.3 million people. Recalling that the park was originally laid contemporaneously with the displacement of its Indigenous inhabitants, and named after Queen Victoria’s son to mark the centenary of Captain Cook’s arrival here, I wondered about the Victorian era’s fascination with glorious gardens, parklands and ‘wildernesses’ which conveniently excluded those humans who lived in that ‘park’ for millennia. Were we, a society of boldly transparent plant-people and planetary enthusiasts, in danger of doing the same? Could we, would we, should we, reduce this prelapsarian heritage of psychedelic experience within nature into some polite but patrolled bourgeois parkland? Having put my finger on the root of the tree, which was still sipping from the surreptitiously submerged Blackwater creek (a perennial source of freshwater for Sydney’s Aboriginal people, and a place for fishing and other activities), I strolled up to Cleveland Street to the Giant Dwarf Theatre.

Once we were all seated, still chattering away, it took Jef a few shots at quieting the enthusiastic audience and bringing ‘silent darkness’ to the room so that we could start the first presentation: a film called Huachuma. This was followed by Jef interviewing Mike Jay, and the afternoon was topped off with Tony Davey’s captivating and informative cactus cultivation workshop. It is not my intention to summarise everything that was said, as that would defeat the point of the event, but here are some impressions of the film and the interview. Both film and interview sprawled through millennia of evidence for the use of psychedelic trichocereus cacti bringing us up to the present-day integration of San Pedro cacti into psychedelic workshops run by a variety of practitioners. Chavín de Huántar was inevitably discussed in some detail by Jef & Mike Jay, it being an important pilgrimage site in which the San Pedro cactus was received in what seems to have been a notably egalitarian tradition. Although the details of the no doubt psychologically, physiologically and emotionally intense ritual activities that initiates underwent there are mostly lost to the green fleshy skin of time, what appeared to have transpired there leaves us with the unmistakable impression of an organised religious practice with a priestcraft to administer the potion. By way of contrast, we can observe the living traditions of the Q’ero people, who moved very high up into the Andes to escape attempts by the Spanish to force them into haciendas (large rural estates). The Q’ero claim to be living descendants of the Inca (an assertion backed by several anthropologists) and they only began to emerge from imposed isolation in the late 20th century, with a message of their immanent Pachacuti – literally, the return of change, time, disturbance - in which these colonial haciendas would be removed and a deep ecological connection restored.

In the film Huachuma we noticed a typical feature of Andean shamanism: the syncretism of their traditional non-dogmatic practices with small elements of Christianity. It is said, for instance, that among the Q’ero there are no shamans in the sense of priests. Their word for revered leaders, paqos, is more correctly translated as ‘practitioners’ rather than ‘priests’ or ‘shamans’. There exists no vicarious intermediary between the people and Pachamama. In Q’ero tradition, it is seamlessly acknowledged that when Inkarri (the original Inca) founded the city Qusqu (Cusco) by throwing a golden rod, he also created Jesus Christ. Through this opening I pull through a thread:

            One Sabbath Jesus was passing through the grainfields, and His disciples began
            to pick the heads of grain as they walked along.
            So, the Pharisees said to Him,
            “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
            Jesus replied,
            “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry
            and in need? During the high priesthood of Abiathar, he entered the house of God
            and ate the consecrated bread, which was lawful only for the priests.
            And he gave some to his companions as well.”
            Then Jesus declared, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
            Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
            (Mark 2: 23-27)

This is not new to our psychedelic community and several books have been written on the subject of the ‘consecrated bread’ anointed with enhanced cannabis oil and the ark of the covenant’s ‘manna from heaven’ recognised by many as psilocybin mushrooms. The purpose of me weaving this reference in is to show that there is a common theme pointing out the danger of allowing psychedelics to become part of any kind of social, political, economic, or religious elite. This is heightened by the fact that the Pharisees admonished the disciples of Christ for picking the corners of their private fields of plants – they claimed these plants were their private property because they were in their field, and that it was wrong to pick them naturally as had been done for millennia before the onset of agriculture. In fact, they themselves were picking and choosing at their own law, as it was given that the corners of each field would be left unharvested for the local poor and the homeless refugees to pick from freely (Leviticus 23:22). Jesus does not even mention this; he just goes straight to a psychedelic reference and stands on cognitive liberty against dogmatic elitism!

Now we come to the impressive and encyclopaedic contribution made by Tony and why this was so impressive and personally, I would love to see his notes published, or Tony go on and publish a book or short instructive doco. For sake of brevity, I will not even attempt to match the precision with which Tony delivered this live slide presentation, but I will give you what I think we all took away from it, with what I gauge was at least half the room sitting on the edge of their seats in attentiveness as he poured forth his subterranean watercourse of cacti-related knowledge like the source of the mighty Marañón. We heard practical knowledge on how to identify, plant, nurture, graft and propagate a variety of cacti (including which ones to avoid!). This was all completely legal instruction as it is to grow in NSW, but I believe that even apart from the guts it takes for public speaking, it took courage to so boldly do so, only because of the social stigma that we have to overcome for doing these things in an Australian context, and not having to post pictures of one’s latest $5k journey to Peru onto Facebook just to show how ‘authentic’ and ‘spiritual’ one is with their path.

Now, I’d like to add a short caveat: I have been to Peru, spent about 3 months there, spent the money, done the ceremonies, and I have to say it is an immensely valuable and worthwhile experience. Hopefully someday if we assert the freedom to travel in our minds then we may perhaps assert the freedom to travel without so many physical restrictions. I have not travelled to Peru in 12 years because the cost and effort of me applying and integrating what I learned there has meant that I have not had the money to do so. Also, because I have learned that I do not have to travel to Peru to have a valuable entheogenic experience. I should make it clear that if people want that pilgrimage experience and they want the high-end of the market experience, knock yourselves out. Meanwhile, however, there are some of us taking a deeper stand on cognitive liberty rather than on religious freedom (often prompting assertions of cultural appropriation) and/or medicinal value (both for the treatment of ailments and the betterment of wellness) for the use of cacti and all psychedelics for that matter.

We left with a great buzz, a ‘natural high’ as they say, and a good dozen or more of us, APS crew, members and supporters all together, were led to the local by one well-striped serviceman on crutches persistently hammering away at the practice, and so we all enjoyed a wonderful meal and good discussion that ended the evening nicely. Sincerest gratitude must go to the hardworking APS-Sydney volunteers both before, during and after the event and to our awesome videographer Brendan for editing the Mike Jay interview and Tony’s workshop so beautifully and uploading them to the APS YouTube channel so promptly. I use the term ‘esprit de corps’ not just to be whimsical but moreover because it literally means ‘spirit of the body’, and in relation to anyone who speaks of the cacti experience this seems most appropriate to describe the genuine feeling of camaraderie at that table. And so, once again I experienced real esprit de corps all throughout Cactus Day 2021, and I hope you will all share in cultivating it annually. Get your hands soiled.