[Noisebridge-discuss] Christmas tree (against)

[Jake]

The "Christmas Tree" was the christian appropriation of a much older 
tradition.  The Amanita muscaria is a red and white psychadelic mushroom 
which was found under pine trees, and was eaten by reindeer.

santa colors:
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/images/Amanita_muscaria.jpg

When children came of-age, around the winter solstice they were given 
Amanita in order to have a vision-quest, meet god, discover the un-namable 
wisdom that was shared by their elders, etcetera.

But their younger siblings, seeing that the older children were given a 
gift of great treasure from under the pine tree, would scream and wail 
until they, too were given a treat of some kind.  Since parents didn't 
want to feed their babies mushrooms until they were old enough, they would 
produce some sort of toy from under the pine tree.

The older kids, however, would be tripping so hard they would hallucinate 
that reindeer were flying through the air in formation.

In other words, if you are going to bring a pine tree into the space, make 
sure it has some psychadelic mushrooms under it, and toys for the 
less-mature among us.

-jake

P.S. these same people who worshipped the mushroom as god were a big 
trouble to the Romans, who saw the mushroom as a threat to their 
authority.  So the Romans killed their savior by smashing and stomping all 
the mushrooms they could find... but three days later, they rose again!!

On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Rachel McConnell <rachel at xtreme.com> 
wrote:

> Xmas is not everyone's holiday and I'd just as soon Noisebridge not take
> sides, as it were.  I know that non-Christians in the USA are pretty
> inured to Xmas (and Easter) if only out of self-defense, but I hope that
> Noisebridge will not force a holiday on people who prefer not to
> celebrate it.
>

FWIW, "Christmas trees" have nothing to do with the Christian religion.
They're a pagan fertility celebration.

- Sai