Rev. Rex Bio:

A little about me; I've been using and helping others with herbs and
wild plants for over 35 years. To this day, when we go out camping or
just for a day visit into the woods, I gather some of the plentiful
harvest that is always there. Wild plants and animals became an
interest of mine very early in life, in part because of growing up in
a National Park. I have an ancestry that includes the Tsalagi
(Cherokee), so I also started following the Shamanistic path very
early, especially when I learned that among my ancestors were several
Shamans.

Among my other interests are music (I play 9 musical instruments,
though none of them all that well, I like to sing, and I occasionally
write music), writing (I have 2 science fantasy books that have been
published and I'm working on a third), poetry (I'm uncertain about my
talents there, but have been told by a few people that the poetry is
good), gardening and landscaping, animal husbandry, the sciences
(especially astro-physics and geology), and I like creating things.
Very occasionally I also draw, but that requires a good deal of
patience that I usually don't have...it is too hard to sit in one spot
long enough! I try to learn something new every day. My grandmother, a
very wise woman, once told me that if you go through a day without
learning something new, it is a day that was wasted, and I believe
that to be true.

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Can you tell us about a few everyday herbs we would find in the woods? I live in the Northwest.

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What can you tell us about shape shifting?

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What are the titles of your two books and what was your pen name?

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I also live in the Northwest, but it really doesn't make any difference where you live as long as you can get out into nature.

First, I would define "herb" so that everyone was on the same page. I loved how it was put when Euell Gibbons was asked the difference between an herb and a weed. He said that a weed is any plant that grows where you don't want it to grow. An herb isn't. Basically, I use "herb" to mean any plant that can or is used medicinally or for food. It isn't out of a dictionary, but it works and makes it easy to understand.

Using that definition, the answer to your question is that there are a huge number of herbs that are available, pretty much year round. I'll name just a few, and some of these will no doubt sound familiar; wild garlic, wild onions, american gensing, elderberry, Oregon grape, echinicea, St. John's Wort, Queen Anne's lace (aka wild carrot), golden rod, false solomon's seal, willow, birch, high bush cranberries, ferns, choke cherries, wild plums, blackberries and blackberry leaves, stinging nettle, wild alfalfa, wild rice, wild oats, wild wheat, horehound, dandelions, miner's lettuce, chickweed, borage, wild camomile, wild mustard...the list goes on, and I haven't put a dent in it. I want to say that anyone who is interested in gathering herbs should first get a couple good wild flower field guides, and if at all possible, find someone who can confirm the plant. Collection can be a very enjoyable experience, and the best part is that it makes us more aware of things growing out in the woods that we might not otherwise be aware of.

Can you be lost in the woods in the winter time and find enough to eat? What would you eat?

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A shaman has the ability to change shapes, but this isn't done quite like the folks at hollywood would want us to believe. It has to do with our animal guides...sometimes called totums, and it has to do with what the shaman is trying to accomplish. Much of what a shaman does is done in one of the netherrealms. That is my word for it, others have referred to this place as the spirit realm. The spirit realm is an enormously vast place that exists just beyond our normal consciousness, though almost every person alive has been there, most without even knowing it. It is a place of vibrant life and beauty, a place where, in comparison, the life here is like looking through a dirty window. What does this have to do with shape shifting? I'm getting to that.

The animal guides live in the spirit realm, and each has the abilities of their counterparts in this realm. For instance, a bear is powerful in both realms, in the same way. The difference is that in the spirit realm, communication is much easier. So where shape shifting would come into play is when a shaman needed the power and ability of his animal guide in order to accomplish a task. Just using an example off the top of my head, lets say that a shaman is trying to prevent people from entering and dessicrating a burial site. The shaman knows that he is no match as he is, against a bunch of people with guns, nor is he likely to scare them very much. So he appeals to his animal guide, the bear, for strength and power. (I am simplifying this, because it isn't as easy as I make it sound, and it takes a lot of preparation.) He becomes one with brother bear, and in appearance, his form reflects this. To someone outside the experience, he would appear to become a bear, and he would have the power and strength of the bear. The harder part to explain is that in this state, the shaman and the bear are still distinct individuals occupying the same space at the same time. You can think of it as a warping of the spirit realm and the physical realm so that they overlap each other.

I hope that I'm explaining that in a way that can be understood. And I should mention that shape shifting is only done in times of great crisis and only after some rather arduous preparation. Many shamans will spend their lives without shape shifting once, and it is dangerous to shapeshift...when you do, your mind and the mind of the animal guide are sharing thoughts, and it becomes very easy to lose yourself and lose your way back "home".

What do you know about Peyote juice Rev ? have you ingested any ?


Cheers

Ian

My first book is Shadow On The Land and the second one is Land's Keep. Both are under Rex Trulove, and they are in series. I hadn't intended it to be that way, it just happened, with other people urging me on.