María Sabina: Selections

A great book about the poetic musical style of Maria Sabina and great chapters by Henry Munn and Estrada on her musical experience and poetic chants and the Veladas. However the author met Maria rather late in life and did not adequately report on an Sacred Mushroom Veladas like Estrada Wasson , or Munn . The chapter by Homero Aridijis on her death in Mexico City is touching and excellent. A much better book about meeting Maria Sabina staying with her and participating in a Velada with Maria and her daughter Appolonia is SACRED MUSHROOM RITUALS THE SEARCH FOR THE BLOOD OF QUETZALCOATL . This unique 308 page color book also reveals information about other Curenderos and Sacred Mushroom Healing Rituals and Ceremonies. Other descriptions of the actual experience of a Velada with friends of the author who participated in the Veladas with Maria Sabina are included.

¡Qué libro tan extraordinario! Lo recomiendo.

Jerome Rothenberg presents a wonderful introduction to the life, visions, and works of this illiterate healer who cured with her words in the midst of mushroom-induced trances. She lived most of her life in grinding poverty in the Oaxacan village of Huautla de Jimenez in Mexico, comforted only by the visions of the "little ones"--hallucinogenic mushrooms. In the midst of one of her visionary encounters, she was invited to read a holy book and the words she saw there gave her the power to create long chants about herself as the healing woman/the sun woman/the silk scarf woman/the doll woman/the bruised woman/the tungsten woman, and on and on in a manner similar to the great "Thunder the Perfect Mind" text in the Nag Hammadi Library. In fact, some of the similarities are uncanny between this anonymous, gnostic-like text, and the words of this poor woman from the Mexican countryside. Both the story of her life, and the translation offered here of her words, are so powerful that you will never forget Maria Sabina. This humble woman has long been a member of my Pantheon of Makers.

I love learning so much about the mushroom queen if it wasn’t for her I would be lost in life. Thanks to her for elevating my consciousness

Great book