Login: damiana        			Name: Joanna England
Directory: /u/damiana               	Shell: /bin/tcsh
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Damiana is an herb. It grows native to Mexico. It can be used as a tonic or
aphrodesiac. Too much damiana, however, can lead to sleeplessness. Damiana
can be taken orally, with food, or by infusion. 


Softly she caressed the road
holding it like a gentle serpent
undulating through her hands

With far away eyes she watched
it endlessly glide into the night
a silent breeze holding her aloft

Sweet is the tender underbelly
she kisses with invisible lips
tempted by the other side

The smallest crevice in the road
breaks the certainty of eternity
and endless flight under the moon

Sharp eyes catch white dog alone
quivering upon the serpents back
waiting for the dawn


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Walking upon the serpents back
I realized that dreams are real

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Right here on this very street corner
The Murder burger
If you want to eat it
You must feed it.
Y'all come back now.
You bet.

            -Stan Rice

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Though its been centuries since I've had such an idle day,
This day did happen. I must say, i enjoy sleeping with
snakes. Bodyheat is a nice way to warm them when you want 
to save the electricity bill.

Vajra and I went for a walk down the hill, but declined to 
go play in the stream, (I declined, she did not, but we did
not.) On the way back home I decided to try a dirt road I
had not yet been up. It was curvey, and started to wind in the opposite
direction, but you know how that can be deceiving...I only
turned back after encountering some very large, loud, Pit
bulls that did not seem to like us on their road. Vajra
bristled, and we slowly returned to where we had come from.
Up the main road we proceeded, I nearly dragging Vajra at
the end of her leash, as she plodded slowly onward. Walking
around a blind turn, on the safer side, as two or three cars
suddenly appeared, Vajra's collar slipped off over her head
and with it the leash. The leash dangled in my hand, and I
had to grab Vajra by the scruff of the neck to drag her back
to the safe side of the road and out from in front of the cars.
Vajra freaked and rolled over in the road, biting at my hands that
were holding her neck. The car that was passing had changed to
a lower gear which was making all kinds of loud noise that was
contributing to the Freak Out. I managed to hold Vajra out of 
the way until all the cars were past, and then I got the collar
and leash back on. We proceeded homeward, I, somewhat shaken.
All the while, Fheargal clung around my neck like a good little
snake.

--------

Okay, so after all that I'm really just some Wacky girl who is not 
a true geek, but not a social butterfly either. I am the Mistress of
Wackyland, a place where there is no symmetry, no straight lines of
any kind. Never straight, always forward. I am an artist and poet
at heart, who has recently been challenged by misery and a general
numbness that wants to eat my brain. I love beautiful things, and
beautiful people. There is beauty is so many things..many things 
that most people tend to overlook. At the same time, certain so called
"normal" things I find terrifying. Have you ever thought about the
concept of clowns? They're absolutely evil! Or products containing
saccarin or Nutrasweet(tm)...which prompts me to say that Coke(tm) is
IT! I love sugar, I love sugar, I love sugar, I love sugar. Caffeine
caffeine caffeine caffeine caffeine caffeine caffein caffeine caffeine.
Be glad that its only things like this i'm spouting, and not boring
you with poems of drug addiction and teen angst. Enough said for now.

Love me, love my poor grammer and typos.


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Subject: damiana

from the handbook of medicinal herbs
turnera diffusa

mexicans drink the leaf teas and use the leaves to flabvr
liquers, especially the Guadalajara liquers called
"damiana".  Leung mentions it's use in alcoholic
and nonalcoholic beverages, baked good, candies, frozen dairy desserts
gelatins and pudding, with use levels up to 0.125%
crude damiana in baked goods.  Siegel notes
that damiana is advertised as producing
a marihuana type euphoria lasting 60-90 min.,
adding "such effects are little more than anecdotal at this time".  One
source suggest smoking the leaves and drinking the tea simultaneously.

it's reported to be aphrodisiac, CNS-depressant, CNS stimulant,
diuretic, expectorant, laxative, purgative, stimulant, tonic.
damiana is a folk rememdy for amaurosis, catarrh, cholecystosis,
cold, cough, diabetes, dysentery, dysmenorrhea,
dyspepsia, enuresis, headache, impotence, infections,
inflammations, nephrosis, orchitis, paralysis,
renosis, spermatorrhea, stomachache, syphilis.
The tea made from the leaves has been considered a
mild aphrodisiac and tonic.  Yucantanese use the leaf
and flower decoction for asthma and bronchitis.
Bahamians give the leaf decoction for enuresis.
Cubans take the decoction as aphrodisiac, diuretic and stimulant.
Homeopaths use for impotence, migraine, neurasthenia and sterility.

It contains 0.5 to 1% essential oil with a low boiling
fraction containingt  maily 1.8-cineole, alpha
and beta-pinenes, p-cymene, and a higher boiling fraction
consisting primarily of thymol and sesquiterpenes
(alpha-copaene, gamma-cadinene and calamenene.)
Also contains 8% chlorophyll, circa 3.5% tanin, about 7$ alkaloid,
13.5% gum, 15% protein, 6.5% resin,
6% starch, sugar, fatty oils and traces of acids.  Leavces
are said, also to contain arbutin.  The antitumor compounds
beta-sisosterol, gonzalitosin I (5-hydroxy-7,3',4'-trimethooxyflavone),
resin, and a bitter substance termed damianin.

Toxicity:  reported to contain cyanogenic glycosides, tannins and the
medicinal compound arbutin.  Approved for food use.


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