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Q (UK)
September 2001



Tori Amos
Amazonian vine juice grabbed her "by the balls".

Her kooky image was one clue. Her Cherokee Indian blood another. But few people suspected that Amos would be such an enthusiastic convert to the mind-bending possibilities of South American plant life.

"It's not like I've never done cocaine but, on the whole, if I can't see dancing elephants I'm not interested," she said.

"The drug which had a big effect on me was ayahuasca. It comes from a vine in the Amazon and you ingest it. You know that stuff they take in The Emerald Forest? It's like that. I was hanging around with some medicine women and they suggested I try it. I was very lucid but felt like I was walking around in Fantasia, having a conversation with myself.

"It isn't like acid. It's more emotional, more mental. But it can grab you by the balls and just shove you up against the wall. I've been in a room with a woman who was literally trying to bite her own arm off. And this lasted for 15 hours. I wasn't scared -- just scared that I'd make a fool of myself. The funny thing was, I kept laughing and laughing, rather than sitting in the corner being intense. Then, every so often, I'd say, I'm in a really rough patch. And one of the medicine women would come over and reassure me that everything was going to be alright...

"I haven't taken it in a couple of years now. You can only really do it once in a blue moon. But the wild thing is that sometimes I only have to smell something and I'm right back there again, high as a kite."


original article



[article shared by Lori Christie]

[transcribed by jason/yessaid]

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