entheogenic-gnosis said:
Here's a better picture of an Acacia dealbata, this one was said to be growing in Portugal, looks a lot like yours, no?
Since Acacia dealbata is also considered invasive in the region, I'd say there is a really good chance that this is indeed what you have.
-eg
That's the guy! Thanks so much for confirming it for me.
There's a lot of them growing around here. Some huge trees some smaller.
I'm finding a lot of mixed information regarding alkaloid content in this plant.
I previously extracted DMT from MHRB with a simple lye/water & naphtha tek.
Am I correct in assuming a similar tek would work on this material, if it indeed contains alkaloids?
Would I also be correct in assuming that a mature specimen would yield more alkaloids?
I suppose the only way to really find out is to try it. I've been in this country for a month. Now to start cobbling together a chemistry set. Can any Portuguese nexians advise me as to a decent, safe brand of lye, and where to buy it?
Here's a story, in exchange for the advice.
Something weird happened last week. I'm here with my band, writing music and busking. We've been watching a movie every night and we just got done watching "The Matrix" trilogy. At the same time I was reading a book,
"The Matrix Warrior: Being The One", an exegesis of the movie, treating it as a manifestation of the collective unconscious - literally a message from the "real world", encouraging all of us to "unplug", as Neo did. It's a cool book, I dig it. This story takes place the day after we got done with the third movie (it was pretty weak), and I was about halfway through the book. We spent the day walking around, discussing the movies and exploring the city.
I've been planning to occupy an abandoned cinema we'd spotted. The place looks cool, and I want to squat there. Anyhow we went to check the place out, to try and find a way in, and as we turned the corner we see three black cats on some steps. This was significant, to us - at present there's 3 members in the band - and our spare change signs carry the name "St. Christopher & The Black Cats", so we laughed together for a while at the bizarreness of the situation, calling it an omen, psychic phenomenon, a premonition, a glitch in the matrix.
The REALLY spooky thing was, as we left the cinema, I noticed the street sign, and the name of the road the cinema was located on - "Rua de Sao Cristovao", or "St. Christopher's Street" in English.
Anyway, later we were on the streets, playing some songs, and I got talking to a local, a jobless man who travelled the streets painting henna tattoos on tourists for 5 euro a pop. He was cool, in his 40s but looked about 28. We shared smokes and he gave my bandmate a tattoo. We got talking about the universe, about metaphysics, and he said he used to lucid dream "on the natch". I've never lucid dreamed but I told him I'd heard you can practice techniques and become highly proficient at it - and if he was able to do it without even trying he must be a very highly advanced spiritual being. His spoken English wasn't great, but I could tell he understood me with clarity. Without me asking for it, he described to me a prophetic dream he had at 26 (my age), which sounded so remarkably similar to my first DMT experience earlier this year. I asked if he'd ever heard of the molecule, and he hadn't, but I'd sparked his interest. His lucid dreaming had stopped in recent years and he felt that DMT might re-activate his pineal, or something to that effect.
So we're chilling, basking in the poignancy of our conversation, making plans to trip together and even work the streets as a team once my band goes home and leaves me in this country. While this was all happening I noticed a large, very drunk, very Portuguese-looking man staggering down the street towards us. His teeth were stained blue with wine. His mouth moved even when he wasn't talking. He meandered like a honeybee but moved with purpose, directly towards us, somehow not spilling a drop of the dark bottle in his hand. He swayed as he stood but he looked right at me with piercing, knowing eyes.
"Do you know Jamiroquai?"
I smiled. I wasn't expecting that. Anyway, we play punk rock.
"Yeah, dude, he's cool, I don't know any songs th-"
"VIRTUAL INSANITY!" He gestured at the crowd of tourists, shopping and milling around.
"LOOK AT ALL THESE PEOPLE, MAN! THE MATRIX HAS THEM!"
I was stunned. I put my guitar down and reached for the hash spliff tucked into my neckerchief.
"...have you been inside my head?"
The man just smiled.
He kept grabbing his crotch, leaning in so close I could count his pores. He was twice the size of me, my bandmates looked concerned, but I was uncharacteristically comfortable with the situation. I tried with more questions but it was hard to get anything tangible out of him. Not only was his English a bit sketchy (my Portuguese is worse), he was insane. He talked in rambling, fragmented sentences. He skipped from topic to topic like a pond skater, covering Gnosticism, soma, extraterrestrial life, shamanism...it was like he'd read every book I'd ever read. Or he'd been inside my head. When he looked at me I felt like I was seeing through his bizarre, rambling human exterior to the enlightened soul within. He was obviously very intelligent, despite the insanity. I asked him how he lost his mind, and he told me he re-cycled his urine as a drink, for a year, after eating 30g amanita muscaria. There's a lot more that he said but I was so mindblown at the time, and a little drunk myself - the local bar gives us a free tab for playing outside.
I don't think I took it all in. But it was such a weird experience, after a day that was already full of odd synchronicities and coincidences, I had to write it up and share. I wonder how he knew we'd been watching the Matrix? How he knew I'd understand all the stuff he rambled about?
