Trip to San Francisco and High Times

On September 25, I went to San Francisco for the NORML conference. NORML stands for the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. The experience of being at this conference was both moving and transformative. My purpose for attending the conference was to find people who would understand the significance of apocrine sweats’ concentration of THC in blood during acute intoxication.

Recently I gave a presentation to the Southern California Bio Council regarding my apocrine research. Their response was that my work was still theoretical. While I have detected two separate cancer biomarkers concentrated in apocrine sweat, I have to agree that I have not yet found the universal cancer biomarker. As I thought about their response I realized that with regards to THC, my work is not theoretical. Although drug testing is not my passion I could see that this application is closest to manifestation and licensing my patent for that purpose would then fund my cancer research.

I wrote an Op-ed piece on THC testing in apocrine sweat which was rejected by The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. I went up to San Francisco and the NORML conference seeking a path.

High Times magazine owner Michael Kennedy was given an award by NORML. I approached the various speakers about my research and traded business cards. I was on an amazing high when the speakers immediately grasped that a road side test for marijuana significantly helps the effort to legalize marijuana. Michael Kennedy shook my hand and said High Times will publish my piece, reminding me to submit it.

The follow up e mails and phone calls ensued and High Times is publishing a news piece on apocrine sweat’s concentration of THC during acute marijuana intoxication and the development of a road side test. This will appear in the February issue of High Times which will be available in mid December.

Hamilton, Heraclitus and Hulipsa

My trip to San Francisco was barely over when I took the excitement of being published in High Times magazine back to my childhood home in New York. Both Thomas Wolfe and the Greek philosopher Heraclitus could have predicted the results.

I visited my eighty-eight year old mother who looks incredibly good ("Thanks for the genes Mom") and whose mind is sharp as ever. Despite that outward appearance, she is no longer the vibrant, active mother I remember. She was not well enough to travel with me to Niagara Falls and to my old college campus, Hamilton College, or even able to go into the city with me. She can still cook, though. No one has ever made stuffed cabbage (hulipsa) as wonderful as my mother. Did these hulipsa represent the first unconditional love of the Schechinah?

It had been nine years since I last walked the streets of Little Neck, N.Y. and I was so disturbed by the changes. The tidy little homes have given way to monstrously out of place, McMansions, that grew up and outward without balance or taste, swallowing their gardens and yards. One of my favorite pastimes, walking the streets of the old neighborhood, was no longer calming and comfortable. I remember the torn down homes of my childhood friends. My best friend Andy’s house, where I played basketball and football, is now a monstrous tribute to greed and influence, instead of the warm and cozy second home of my youth. At least most of the trees were still there, thicker and taller. I felt them smiling down upon me with warm memories.

My tantric crone goddess, Cheryl, had never seen autumnal foliage, so we drove up into Connecticut, toured the Yale campus and then headed north into Massachusetts. As soon as we started north on I95, we saw peaks of reds, and yellows and oranges. The further north we went the more color surrounded us.

I grew up in the northeast, but I have lived in the desert of Southern California for over half my life now and the rush of fall leaves was an immediate treat for my eyes but also for my memory. The forty miles of one lane road through the valley where Chester, Mass. (established 1733) sits, is the most beautiful drive I have ever taken. The thruway is fast and efficient but instead of worrying about how long our trip would take we entered a world that is timeless and captivating. Gold and luminous oranges, bright and dark reds and incandescent yellows, the names of the colors sound so beautiful but they pale in comparison to the experience of the ever moving and changing light, motion, trees, wind, rock, and streams that seemed to rain color and bleed and blend them. A cemetery with Pre-Revolutionary War gravestones surrounded by exploding trees of orange and backlit by the sun truly had to have come to us from the twilight zone.

Traveling along the Mass turnpike onto the New York State thruway, was a return to green trees, just starting to feel the cold. Crossing the border into Niagara, Canada was a lesson into the power of nature as well as time. The force of 20% of the world’s fresh water draining from the Great Lakes , as it goes over a cliff, inspires awe from off to the side but fear when you are on a boat below and cannot see through the fierce spray and cannot hear over the deafening roar. It is no surprise that 12,000 years of crashing water has eroded the falls by 7 miles.

An unexpected but fascinating sight for me was the presence of thousands of Orthodox Hasidim, on vacation during Sukot, going to all the tourist attractions. Young couples barely out of their teens with three or four children each, along with their grandparents-- the extended family sharing love and wonder. Their obvious happiness a testament to Jewish wisdom for those willing to embrace the restrictions of Halacha. Knowing that my own family was once amongst them in the old country long ago in the town of Lutsk made me smile.

Driving east across upstate N.Y. through the old lands of the Seneca nation made each thruway stop exciting as small tidbits of history were revealed. Although not in the original plans, the lure and call of my old college campus was irresistible. Three days of cold had changed the landscape and N.Y. state’s autumn glory was beginning.

My four years at Hamilton were some of the happiest of my life. Walking the campus was an esoteric experience. It had been 30 years since I was last there. I was grateful to find my old studio art Professor Bruce Muirhead still teaching and painting. We spoke for an hour in his studio, with his warmly familiar paintings on the wall. He perceived how radical I was even then when I was pre-med, my mind fearlessly venturing where thoughts would take me. More than anything else it was the woods around campus that had the most effect upon me. This high hill overlooking the Mohawk River valley was the land of the Oneida Indians. The easternmost boundary of the Iroquois nation after the treaty of 1768 is at the base of College Hill, complete with a marker commemorating Sir William Johnson’s negotiations.

Hamilton College had its roots in the Oneida Indian Academy started by missionary Samuel Kirkland in 1791, and named after his political patron Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton died in 1804, and Kirkland in 1808 and the school originally begun to Christianize the natives became Hamilton College in 1812. Buried on campus is the Oneida sachem Shenandoah, a Christianized Indian who had much to do with the transfer of Indian lands to the white man. Ultimately disturbed by the course of history, he died waiting for the return of Jesus to restore justice to the world he had seen destroyed.

The wildness of the lands around my campus and something inherent in nature called to the true me. It was at Hamilton that I became sexually active, first smoked marijuana, and allowed myself to experience the woods in a way that was non-rational and magical. I explored Art and English literature in addition to Biology and Chemistry. The class of ’77 started with half of the 240 members being pre-med, but only sixteen students were allowed to apply to medical school. In the zenith year of medical school applications in American history, eleven were accepted. It was at Hamilton that I learned to trust my own judgment and to use both sides of my brain. I could see the earliest roots of my life long task to integrate science, spirituality and sexuality.

The Mohawk River flows into the Hudson River. These two rivers have defined much of New York State’s geography but they are deceptive. " You cannot step into the same river twice as neither you nor the river are the same. " Heraclitis reminds us to create our home as we create reality every day anew and fresh, using the magic of our soul and drawing upon our memory, our experience, our dreams and our love. Traveling reminds us to seek wisdom. When we combine wisdom with compassion we have found enlightenment.

Book Review

Book Review by Dr. Susan Corso

Dr. Stuart Mark Berlin wrote to me and asked if I would consider reviewing his book. As usual, I said yes on the assumption that what approaches me is mine to do . A lot of the time, it is.

His book Everywoman a Goddess: Everyman a Hero in Her Service is not for the faint of heart. Because of the naked sel-disclousure of his life experiences, it was a challenge to read the book. Others might not findit so, but I did.

Given that, it is a remarkable story of one man's journey through discrimination, abuse, victimization and the recovery of his truest self. He is a hero, just as we all are folk on a a spiritual journey of recovering the true spiritual self.

Dr. Berlin is a devotee of the Schechinah, the feminine aspect of the God of Judaism. His personal spiritual practice has evolved into what he call Tantric Kabbalah. It is not a path for the traditional practitioner but instead is for those mavericks who must go their own way.

I agree with Dr. Berlin that the Divine Feminine is lost to most of our world. However, not to all of us. Some of us have faithfully pursused Her; more and more do so each day. She reveals Herself to each of us differently. His is one inroad.

One of his greatest points is that doubt is the able assistant, the right-hand person to both science and Divinity. Doubt is a friend! Without doubt, nothing can be questioned or examined. Without doubt, we do not know what to take as truth. Doubt leads to experience both scientifically and spiritually. I know what he means; I befriended doubt decades ago. In my life, I’ve found that doubt in a situation usually means God is trying to make a bigger thing happen than I can currently see.

Thank You, Susan, for your kind words and insight. Readers can read more of Dr. Susan Corso's wisdom on her website www.susancorso.com