Honey has written itself into human cultural history in several disparate ways, perhaps the most interesting of which is the convergent history of ‘mad honey’, hallucinogenic honey which is consumed all over the world. different cultures incorporated mad honey into their society at different times in human history. Today, scientific papers on the subject of ‘mad honey’ are still being published in major academic journals. One group of scientists produced a study which investigated the natural neurotoxins present in mad honey, while another group of researchers found that topical administrations of ‘mad honey’ improved wound healing rates in rats. Scientific…
It is the act of over-thinking which makes humans special. That blanket statement does ignore the many examples of non-human consciousness or sentience which are being discussed by other scientists and naturalists, whom I support wholeheartedly. However, for my argument here, we are the over-thinkers. Our realm is the stars, we look at the universe and seem to be captured by the incomprehensible. My recent research on bats has shown me that we vastly underestimate the relationship between ourselves and our flying relatives. …
Pieces of mind
A mapped-out jigsaw puzzle
Invisible to the eye, look behind
And you see only the world
Your head is a space
A globe, empty, dark, filled by hair
Imagined for want of anything else
A cloud of blurred strands clumped
Drop your ego
Remember the moment a mist
Sent shivers down your arms, goose
Bumps, plucked pores of cold
Mere electromagnetism
For this is no letter stowed in a bottle
Or kept in a box under descending beds
But lost to posterity in false memory
Mountain ice caps,
More than, she said, supernatural snow
How could anything…
Between rocks, you can see
The millennium bridge, swaying
Gently over the lost land
Carved out by erosion, my side
Crinkles under the strain. Salted
Decaying, masonry muscles
Over centuries they came
In search of a king, a miracle man
Draped in the dye of shellfish
A deep blue crushed on ships
Sailed through the gates, from a sea
Almost landlocked, to gift tin
The mines are closed now, never
Leaden by labour more than then
When we were asked to take
Byzantine gifts laid claim to trade,
Routes through which we came east
On the wind of emperors, dwindling
…
