"Press your space face close to mine, love. Put your raygun to my head."
--David Bowie, Moonage Daydream
Although I dictate this from the claw-footed bubble bath of a friend's home in the Indian Village neighborhood of Detroit, my thoughts wander back to the outlaw pleasures of The Los Angeles Lunar Society Christmas Party. It was an evening rife with Santa imagery and flying saucer imagery, a Yuletide Moonage Daydream, but this is typical of even an average evening in Malibu. But on this night we were not just festive, not just legendary, we were.....archetypal. During this year's December 15th full moon party, the Los Angeles Lunar Society truly achieved liftoff.
Allow me to explain. American mycologist Jonathan Ott suggests that many of the modern features attributed to Santa Claus may somehow be derived from those of the Kamchatkan or Siberian shaman. During the midwinter festival in Siberia (near the north pole), the shaman would enter a yurt through the shangrak (chimney), bringing with him a sack of fly agaric mushrooms (presents) to give to the inhabitants. These mushrooms contain two toxins, ibotenic acid and muscimol. Ingestion of these toxins results in "expanded perception," talking to God, macropsia (perceiving objects as enlarged), rapid heartbeat, dry mouth. This type of mushroom is brightly colored red and white, like Santa Claus....The mushrooms were often hung to dry in front of the fireplace, much like the stockings are hung now at my hearth in Venice waiting for Santa to make my wildest dreams come true on Christmas Eve. You know I want those too-glamorous-to-tell shoulder skimming opal-rific earrings from Barney's. Like David Bowie said in the song above, "Make me baby, make me know you really care. Make me jump into the air."
These red-capped mushrooms are also associated with reindeer, who have been observed eating them and becoming intoxicated. Reindeer are associated with the shaman, and like Santa Claus, many people believe that the shaman can fly. I inherited from my Swedish-side grandmother several red-capped, white dotted Christmas ornaments from the 1930s which are on my lovely Christmas tree at home on the California beach now. From an Arkansas auntie of Cherokee heritage I received a nineteenth century silver and turquoise necklace that shows flying visitors from the sky, whether Santa or extraterrestial or native shaman I know not. But I'm ready for whatever flies down the chimney. I can't wait till Old St. Nick sees my tree ornament 'shrooms...
Still from "Santa Claus vs. The Martians", top. Photo of fly agaric mushroom, below.
[The Wit Of The Staircase warns you: do not ingest these mushrooms. Even tiny amounts can be poisonous.]
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