A Curative/Healing Botanical Evolution

A little known plant was discovered in the small desert regions of the tiny African nation of Barundi, one of the poorest nations on Earth.

For generations Hutu tribesmen have used the plant for traditional herbal sprit quests and for it's healing properties. The curative effects are often likened to the Aloe plant for burns and cuts. The pulp of the plant has been shown to accelerate healing more than any known pharmaceutical agent. The pulp seems to mimic human plasma while also providing a protein that promotes dermal generation.

The plant is used for vision quests, and also during the main Hutu right of passage ceremony, where young tribesmen have their palms cuts in a crosshatch pattern and they are made to hold a hand full of the pulpy cactus like substance while the hand is wrapped closed. The tribesmen are also held in a hut where copious amounts of incense made of the flowering buds are blown through open holes, while chanting and and the singing of traditional songs goes on through two nights. with breaks being taken during sunrise and sunset and a noontime ritual.

As an added bonus, the pulp also contains a mild psychoactive agent that chemically resembles some mild hallucinogens. The effects are said to be meditative, and not to alter perception of the outer world rather its effect is felt most greatly on the subjective/inner experience. While dreaming, or in environments with diminished sensory stimulation (dark, quiet, non-textured settings), the effects are felt more greatly. Perhaps its most exciting effect is upon meditative practices. If one meditates or dreams within hours of ingesting the pulp or smoking/vaporization of the flowering buds.

Subjective measures tell a story of individuals being able to more easily block out unwanted thoughts and to allow individuals to meditate for exponentially longer periods of time and to derive a greater degree of personal satisfaction as well as greatly enhanced objective scientific measures of calmness, stress reduction, satisfaction, happiness and less reactivity to all top 15 measures of urban stress producers.

Although through traditional lore there is no addictive quality to the plants, those who have partaken of the plant who from the west have reported psychological, and at times some mild physical dependence symptoms.

The plant is not easily maintained indoors or in environments that do not closely resemble arid megathermal climates (areas where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation).

Trafficking of the drug has resulted in the plant becoming endangered. The plant has been bred and cultivated through a joint collaboration between The New York Botanical Garden & International Plant Science Center and the University of Texas at Austin Plant Biological Sciences Division.

Research has been ongoing and the active akaloid has been isolated and synthesized and is currently being studied to investigate if the effects are similar to the active psychoactive ingredient of the plant.

Joseph Hayne Rainey: the world's oldest ex-slave turns 177

Oct 4, 1834-20??
The world's oldest ex-slave amazingly is still alive and turned 177 today. Still clear of mind and radiant, he says that his memories of the condition of slavery, his escape, his return to slavery due to the fugitive slave act, and purchase by a group of abolitionist lead by Theodore Dwight Weld as well as the nation's reaction to the Dred Scott decision are all fresh in his mind.

Amazingly he not only survived slavery, but also 4 years as a Union soldier and part of Sherman's scorched earth campaign. After the war, he returned to the South Carolina Sea Channel Islands and was one of the original group of black representatives to the United States Congress. after black codes and voting laws were passed to suppress the black vote, Mr. Rainey was voted out of officer, whereupon he returned to college, studied history and was a historian and eventual chair of the history department at Lincoln University. He received Ph.D's in American History (Lincoln), European History (Princeton) and African Antiquity (Fisk).

His recollections of working with the world's greatest historians, hearing their perspectives, reading source materials and vast first hand personal accounts area treasure trove for modern day historical scholars who want to get a real feel for the 360 degrees of history. He has served as a mentor to Carter B. Woodson, John Hope Franklin, Steven Craig Wilder and Chiekh Diop. "They were all incredible. I learned as much from them as they did from me, maybe more. I love working with young people." He gave a laugh, "I guess I'd better right?"

There aren't that many people that can count A. Philip Randolph, Frederick Douglass, Madame C.J. Walker, Marcus Garvey, Paul Robeson, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby and Skip Gates as personal friends

A masterful storyteller and lecturer, he can speak comprehensively on virtually any aspect of Black history and culture for hours at a time. He still gives guest lectures at Universities within 100 miles of his home in Oberlin Ohio and is emeritus chair of the Oberlin History Department and emeritus Vice-Provost.

His amazing longevity has doctors baffled, but he comes from a family of centurians. His father had him at age 74 with his 4th wife (who was born in 1800 but only lived to be 104). Mr. Rainey's father, Moses Rainey worked the cotton field's for over 95 years and died while picking cotton 4 days before the farm was liberated by Union Troops and the Emancipation Proclamation was read aloud to the newly liberated field hands.

Mr. Rainey's mother lived to be 127, dying in Harlem in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance. "I was only 93 when my mother passed away. She was doing so well, It was unexpected." Mr. Rainey said while dabbing his eyes.

Although he was eligible to draw social security old age pension in 1942, he was still actively working and teaching and didn't official retire until he was 120 the day the Voting Rights act (1965) was signed into law.

He had 39 children by 11 wives, the last, "Harriet" in 1994. Harriet plans on attending Oberlin College to be close to her father, "I'm beginning to see some signs of old age" she said. She is currently a senior in high school. When told that the Wikipedia site has him listed as having passed away, she laughed and said, "Yeah, he told me about that. What happened was that the United States had just Settled a lease with Hawaii for Pearl Harbor in January of that year. My father sold his bank and went out to help oversee recruitment of Black and Hawaiian work crews. At the same time another Man named Joseph Rainey died. Since my father left abruptly, some folks thought it was my dad. He was 53, which would have been short, but a full life for an ex-slave and civil war vet. I've called Wikipedia numerous times and they refuse to change it."