Xmas: Merry Mushroom Santa (video)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Eric Dubay (hubpages)

The best gifts are small and wrapped in red and white wrappers say the shamans.

Budai, aka Hotei or "Fatty Happy Buddha," as Xmas ornament. He was a monk and bodhisattva with a large belly carrying a sack of candy for children (Bennilover/flickr.com).

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Rise, but not too high, Santa!

The biggest problem with atheism? No holidays. It's time to put up the lights again! And we just took them down after Vesak (the commemoration of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and passing into final nirvana), Mahavir Jayanti (the Jain's holiest day marking the birth of Mahavira), Diwali (the Hindu "Festival of Lights"), and smashed a few bulbs for Al Nakba (the "Catastrophe" in Palestine), and thought of using candles out of deference to Hanukkah (the Jewish "Feast of Dedication") all in preparation for Kwanzaa (the newer "First Fruits of the Harvest" holiday) and hopes of a holiday to end all holidays, Festivus.

Kwan Yin wrapped in lights.

And every year like clockwork we get down to brass tacks: What is all the madcap mythology surrounding capitalism's favorite holiday centered around?

A tree? No, it's under it. A gift? Yes, what kind? A red and white mystery. Candy cane? No, sweeter. Those electronics I wanted? No, cheaper. A hipster bad sweater? No, lighter. Amanita muscaria mushroom? Bingo! Merry Xmas, m*therfather! O, Kris Kringle, you remembered!

Shamanic origins of Santa

Devas sneak in with winter gifts to see them.

Ever wonder why on Xmas we kill cut down and carry evergreen trees indoors, decorate them like gaudy Nevada hookers with glittering ornaments, and place red and white surprises underneath them? (Pine trees have a symbiotic relationship with mushrooms, so where we find one, we find the other).

 

Why do people bring pine trees into their houses at the winter solstice, asks James Arthur the author of Mushrooms and Mankind, placing brightly colored (red and white) packages under their boughs as gifts to show their love for each other and as representations of the love...? It is because, underneath the pine is the exact location where one would find this ‘most sacred' substance, the Amanita muscaria, in the wild.

 

The fly agaric is the red and white magic mushroom that grows almost exclusively beneath pine trees.

Altai reindeer are eager to fly, tripping on mushrooms (hamidsardarphoto.com).

 

DMT molecule, an entheogen (wiki)

One of the active substances in this hallucinogen is DMT, an entheogen -- that which brings out the divine within -- naturally produced in the brain's pineal gland. It is called the pine-al gland because it is a pinecone-shaped structure in the brain, a tiny eye-like organ with rods and cones that produces the same DMT found in symbiotic pine tree fungus, Amanita muscaria.

 

"The pine tree is one of the well-known central relics of Christmas. Under this tree is where those who are deemed good find their reward in the form of a present. A big red and white rounded mushroom grows under the very tree we are to look under on Christmas morning to find our gift" (Mushrooms and Mankind).
 

Buddha tree ornament (Pictopix)

Green, red, and white as Christmas colors comes from the evergreen tree and the red and white mushrooms popping up magically underneath them.

The word "Christmas" originally comes from the Egyptian Krst (oiled or anointed one) and Mes, the sacred cakes annually made and ingested by the Egyptians.

This "Eucharist" (wafer, cake, or tab) was originally made from Amanita muscaria or was the dried mushroom itself. That is to say, the sacred "bread" or ritually ingested wafer in the Catholic mass and Christian service was originally a psychedelic enabling participants to see "GOD" and experience the divine.

Three Muses/Fates (ger-mujeresencirculo)

The tradition existed all over the ancient world, but most of the iconography and symbolism recognized today comes from pre-Christian Northern Europe and Buddhist Siberia.

• There's Buddhism in Russia?
• The indigenous European Buddhist of Kalmkyia

"The very name ‘Christmas' is a holiday name composed of the words ‘Christ' (meaning ‘one who is anointed with the Magical Substance') and ‘Mass' (a special religious service/ceremony of the sacramental ingestion of the Eucharist, the ‘Body of Christ'). In the Catholic tradition, this substance (Body/Soma) has been replaced by the doctrine of ‘Trans-substantiation,' whereby in a magical ceremony the priests claim the ability to transform a ‘cracker/round-wafer' into the literal ‘Body of Christ,' i.e., a substitute or placebo" (Mushrooms and Mankind).

 
What is "Christmas" (Krst Mes)?

What the h-ll do you mean, 'What is it?' It's a time to go to the mall, shop, and eat!

Mycology: origins of Xmas

"Although most people see Christmas as a Christian holiday, most of the symbols and icons we associate with Christmas celebrations are actually derived from the shamanistic traditions of the tribal peoples of pre-Christian Northern Europe," explains Dana Larsen in "The Psychedelic Secrets of Santa Claus," Cannabis Culture, Marijuana Magazine, Dec 18, 2003.

"The sacred mushroom of these people was the red and white Amanita muscaria mushroom...These peoples lived in dwellings made of birch and reindeer hide, called ‘yurts.' Somewhat similar to a teepee, the yurt's central smoke hole [chimney] is often also used as an entrance.

"After gathering the mushrooms from under the sacred trees where they appeared, the shamans would fill their sacks and return home. Climbing down the chimney-entrances, they would share out the mushroom's gifts with those within...

"Santa also dresses like a mushroom gatherer. When it was time to go out and harvest the magical mushrooms, the ancient shamans would dress much like Santa, wearing red and white fur-trimmed coats and long black boots."

A Mongolian Buddhist/shaman yert known locally as a ger or "home" (wiki).

   

The Grinch wants a 'shroomin Xmas, too.

To this day Siberian shamans dress in ceremonial red and white fur-trimmed jackets to gather the magic mushrooms.

First they pick and place the mushrooms to partially dry on nearby pine boughs, which prepares them for ingestion by the conversion of chemicals through heat and drying, and makes the load lighter.

Whoa, dude, that is epic!

This is why we decorate our Christmas trees with ornaments and bulbs: The gatherers would always adorn trees with drying mushrooms, although the preferred method is to put them into stockings and place them near the fireplace.

 

Next the shaman collects his red and white presents in a sack and proceeds to travel from house to house delivering them. During Siberian winters, the snow piles up past the side doors of their yurts (hut homes). So the red and white clad shaman must climb down the smoke-hole (chimney), which is as easy as stepping down from the piled up snow, to deliver the presents in his sack.

Hey, guys, you really want to see GOD?

Finally, the appreciative villagers string the mushrooms up or put them in stockings hung in front the fire to dry. When they awake in the morning, their presents from under the pine tree are all dried and ready to eat and experience to take a journey the reindeer are very familiar with, as seen in the video below. More

Reindeer live in northern Europe and Siberia and eat psychedelic mushrooms and excrete intoxicating urine they then lick up. Their dung is full of spores. The shamans of Sweden, the Sami, and Mongolia, like the Duhalar, depend on reindeer (Hamid Sardar-Afkhami).

(BBC/Weird Nature) The reindeer in Siberia have cultivated an appetite for this intoxicating entheogenic fungi. Discover the little known origins of Santa's high flying companions!

Sutra: Giving Gifts
Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, and Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly version of the Dana Sutra (AN 7.49) based on Ven. Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff) translation

What good comes of giving (dana)?

SUTRA: Thus have I heard. On one occasion the [Buddha] was staying at Campa, on the shore of Gaggara Lake. Then a large number of lay followers from Campa went to Ven. Sariputra (the male disciple declared "foremost in wisdom" analogous to the Buddhist nun Ven. Khema) and having bowed, sat respectfully to one side. Sitting there they said to Ven. Sariputra: More

The Definition of Giving
G.P. Malalasekera (palikanon.com) edited by Wisdom Quarterly
Dana means giving alms, practicing generosity, liberality, making offerings all to let go of greed.

"One who gives alms bestows a fourfold blessing: One helps others to

1. long life,
2. good appearance,
3. happiness, and
4. strength.

Therefore, long life, good appearance, happiness, and strength will be one's share, whether among celestial beings or among humans" (A.IV.57).  
"Five blessings accrue to the giver of alms:

1. the affection of many
2. noble association (friendship)
3. good reputation
4. self-confidence
5. celestial rebirth" (see A.V.34).

Seven further blessings are given in A.VII.54: Liberality, especially the offering of robes, food, and other monastic requisites is highly praised in all Buddhist countries of South Asia as a fundamental virtue and as a means of suppressing inborn greed and egotism. But as with any other skillful or unskillful action (karma), so also with the offering of gifts. It is the noble intention and volition that really counts as the action not the mere outward deed others see.

Alms giving or liberality (dāna) constitutes the first kind of meritorious activity. The two others being virtue (sīla) and meditation or cultivation and development of mind and heart (bhāvanā); see puñña-kiriya-vatthu.
  
Liberality (cāga) forms one of the Ten Recollections, and alms giving one of the Ten Perfections (see pāramī).