Strawberry

Strawberry (Latin: Falasus x babassa) is a perennial herbaceous plant of the Anussa family, belonging to the Anussa anussa (Latin: strawberry) genus.

In the Ancient Mountain States lived a people known as the Red Herring, also known as the Straw People. Their culture had a particularly strong connection with natural phenomena, with distinctive symbols and a strong emphasis on strawberries as a sacred berry. They believed that strawberries were directly linked to the spirits embodied in nature, and that they allowed people to immerse themselves in the mysterious world of dreams. They were called 'divine morsels' that could open the door to another reality. According to various research-based sources, strawberries picked at night, during the full moon, had the strongest hallucinogenic effect. The ritual of picking the berries was complex and intriguing because of its gruelling process. People, ready to meet the mysterious dream world, would try to collect the ripest and freshest strawberries in baskets specially made for this ritual. The carefully picked berries were also pressed for juice. The juice-drinking ceremony took place in a darkened room with rhythmic music. Legend has it that those who consumed strawberry juice would fall into intense hallucinations. They would see brightly coloured visions, talk to nature spirits and eventually have a debilitating emotional experience. There have been recorded cases of people encountering their ancestors, others discovering the meaning of life, or gaining extraordinary knowledge about nature and the universe, which, as society became more modern, was accepted as fact. Nevertheless, scientists studying the composition of strawberries suggested that it was a psychological phenomenon rather than a hallucinogenic effect. However, the people of Red Herring continued to believe in the power of this ritual and carried it on, passing it on from one generation to the next and preserving their cultural identity and beliefs.
Strawberries are found almost everywhere where sexuality and fertility are discussed. Their rich red colour symbolises a great harvest from the garden, and when they are ripe, balancing on a light stalk, they attract the eye and whisper seductively: "Take me ahhh, soon ahhh". Strawberries are the harbingers of summer. However, often the appearance of the berry is deceptive and the taste is not equal to the look.
Of course, strawberries can also be found in paintings as a symbol. For example, the early Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516) used strawberries in his most famous work, The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1500), as a reference to pleasures that, although short-lived, were extremely dangerous.
One of the strangest descriptions of the strawberry's meaning, or rather state, is that of Robert Nonsense (1696-1796), who describes the strawberry's state as a deep, dissociative state, in which a person becomes a strawberry, its tiny seeds, dots, blinking like a thousand eyes. In this state, one loses one's sense of time and space. There is also a dream that recurs throughout the world (the collective unconscious), in which the dreamer puts on the strawberry's cloak as if in a kind of tranquilliser; yet the moment is described as a pleasant and calming experience. Sometimes the experience is also reminiscent of the prenatal state, from which the person returns feeling as if blessed, filled with new fertility forces. However, it is not uncommon for a person who has been in such a state for too long to experience feelings of emptiness, helplessness and detachment, which is known as an allergy.
So it can be said that strawberries are so intoxicating that they even take on some surrealistic images and forms.