Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!*

The treacherous debauchery of the BP oil spill has been under public purview since the explosion took place on April 20, 2010, about 40 miles off of the Louisiana coastline that killed eleven men and continues to kill ocean life, precious wetlands, migratory bird wildlife refuges, and an entire Gulf economy. Prior to two weeks ago, the public was lead to believe that approximately 5,000 barrels of oil a day (though the earliest estimates were set at 1,000 barrels a day) were spouting from a broken pipeline (210,000 U.S. Gallons/day). The public learned that number is much greater than it was lead to believe by BP when robot cameras, sent about a mile down to the sea floor, were broadcast live on the Internet and provided an even more startling insight.

While BP claimed it could only estimate and was unable to give an accurate portrayal of the amount of oil, all over the world, mathematicians and scientists studied the video feed. Tuesday, a government panel declared that, by their calculations, between 1.47 million and 2.52 million gallons a day are being released into the, once pristine, waters.

Scrambling to help, people discovered that human hair is one of the best ways to absorb oil. All over the U.S., people started sending in their salon hair clippings. After unsuccessfully attempting to shoot cement and mud into the pipeline to jam the 7,000 pound per square inch (psi) flow, the geniuses attempted shooting shredded golf balls and tires into the hole which, again, was a bust. By the way, the hair was never used. Alongside the golf balls, cement, tires, and environmentally shady use of chemical dispersants strewn about, BP rejected the hair, stating that it could not be used, as the environmental impact of hair was not known.

In other news, a giant, green and lavender (only upon close inspection could one notice his lovely colors) smelly-but-friendly sea monster has been spotted in the Gulf. It reportedly bubbled-up from the underground ocean of methane gas that scientists thought might exist beneath the waters. With tentacles and scales glimmering in an iridescent, black and reddish oil sheen, the sea monster, showing a strong command of the Queen's English, stated that he will gladly eat one BP executive per week until they figure out how to stop the Earth from vomiting all over all of us. Then, while facing the type of scrutiny a sea monster might encounter once making himself public, he fainted.

The Russians, accustomed to such disasters, suggested using a low-level nuclear device, a tactic they've used twice in the past. Some scientists claim that the immense heat created will literally create glass out of the sand and oil; thereby, stopping the flow. BP and the U.S. government are opposed, as they do not wish the oil to cease, but want to capture it. The sea monster is in favor of using a nuke, as he is lonely and needs the company of another beast.

*Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

Photo Source: Momo The Sea Monster by Mia Mäkilä, 2009, acrylics on canvas (50×50 cm).

Psychedelic Psyciety**

This week, a New York Times article entitled, "Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning in Again", highlighted the fact that "hallucinogenic*" chemicals such as psilocybin are being used in psychiatric research trials at world renowned medical facilities such as Johns Hopkins and UCLA. The purpose of the trials was to measure how a person who is in crisis due to, in the case of the article, receiving a cancer diagnosis may or may not be affected when experiencing an induced psychedelic state.

In the United States, psilocybin is listed as a Schedule I substance. This means that our government believes the chemical psilocybin has no medical benefit to people. Below, is the definition of Schedule I thanks to Erowid.org:

Examples : LSD, MDMA, Marihuana, DMT, Peyote, Psilocybin, Mescaline, Heroin
• The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
• The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
• There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
  
  Schedule I drugs may not be prescribed

In 2008, while attending the Horizons Perspective on Psychedelics Conference in NYC, Dr. Roland Griffiths, from Johns Hopkins, spoke to a packed and attentive audience at Judson Memorial Church regarding he and his colleague's research. At first, I was skeptical as to whether spiritual experiences could be induced in a clinical setting. I specify clinical, as one might logically argue that all spiritual experiences are induced through one means or other. I am not to judge the validity of these private, spiritual epiphanies, but I firmly believe that setting and tone often determine whether a person will have such an experience. To me, it is equivalent to someone swimming in a public pool versus swimming in the ocean, one is restrictive and confining and the other is expansive and free. I prefer the ocean.

Griffiths explained that they, too, considered set and setting. While the participants were, no doubt, in a hospital, Griffiths and his colleagues made certain to consider the fact that sterile exam rooms are less likely to aid one in achieving a positive psychedelic/spiritual experience. Colorful tapestries and wall hangings were used, among other props, to transform the space into something more like a cozy living room.

Last year, in 2009, I returned to Horizons and attended a day-and-a-half of entertainment and lectures on psychedelic drug policy and their uses in psychotherapy. Dr. Alicia Danforth presented one of the most moving filmed interviews I have ever seen that came as a result of her work at UCLA with Dr. Charles Grob's Harbor-UCLA cancer anxiety trial with psilocybin. The film showed a neuropsychologist, Dr. Annie Levy, talking about her own experience with terminal cancer, Little Pieces of a Big Dream, Participants' Stories from a Cancer Anxiety Study with Psilocybin. 

Annie was a doctor who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was told she had only a short time to live. She explained that she was depressed, depressed enough to really have no desire to keep living or fighting, or to keep going through treatments. Cancer gave her the feeling that she was imperfect, somehow, that she was incomplete as a person, a failure. Then she entered into the psilocybin study.

She explained how the initial experience was a bit scary, but she also felt she had nothing to lose. Her few experiences with psilocybin had a dramatic effect on her outlook into life and death. So much so that her depression faded into complete contentment and she said something that will stay with me for the rest of my life, "I realized that I was enough."

That was so beautiful to me. It meant, to me and all of us listening and watching, that we're not lacking and that we are perfect just the way we are. I suppose hearing the words come from a person who was absolutely dying had a greater impact. I cried knowing that I and most people in the world seem to, forever, be in a state of constant discontentment and dissatisfaction. We are always seeking and striving to be "more" and "perfect", never realizing that we were always perfect. And just think, it took a drug that the U.S. government lists as being of no benefit to people to help a dying person find peace in her last moments of this life.

She isn't the only person I have heard of doing this. In fact, I know of several people, who at their moments of death, not only wanted to take these substances, but who actually did. D-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methamphetamine (MDMA), psilocybin, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). In hospitals, medical doctors shoot people up with morphine, so they're completely in some other world, unaware and unfeeling of their pain and the fact that they are dying. They die in silence, unable to express their fears, sadness, and words of love to those who are left behind. My grandfather died this way and I often wonder if his end of life could have been beautiful, like the doctor and others I know, rather than ending it in a fog of despair.

While my personal beliefs are such that we should legitimately educate people about drugs and create environments of safety and family; whereby, people grow into knowledgeable adults who choose their own paths in life, the use of psychedelics in psychotherapy is a promising first step into welcoming the benefits of promoting a psychedelic society.

I pray for the day when our children are no longer taught that legal means "safe" and "acceptable" (in 2009, there were more than 22,000 alcohol related deaths), where cocaine and heroin are no longer lumped into the same category as LSD, DMT, psilocybin, peyote, mescaline and cannabis (substances that have not killed from their use, alone, even in pretty high doses, and which have no physical, habit-forming properties), and where I am free to make choices about what is best for me without fear that I or anyone can lose our freedom and liberty.It's thanks to people like scientists Sasha Shulgin, Albert Hofmann, Roland Griffiths, David Nichols, and ethnobotanists like Terence McKenna, Christian Ratsch, and Rob Montgomery, and to drug policy advocates like Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (which, just this weekend, held the biggest Psychedelics conference in 25 years in San Jose, CA) who have and will continue to tirelessly promote a commonsense approach to free our minds from believing we are anything less than perfect- as we are.

**Psyciety is a play on the word "society". *I place this term in quotations for the purpose of questioning the word, itself. A hallucination occurs when one sees something that is not there... a mirage of sorts. Psychedelic chemicals, however, do not induce hallucinations; rather, they alter our sensory perception. So, a bouquet of flowers to one under the influence of psilocybin is likely to seem much more vibrant and colorful. A hallucination would mean that the bouquet was never there to begin with.

The Vacuum of My Life: A.K.A. How to Really Suck

From the beginning of time, my mother has been a self-

proclaimed cleanliness fanatic. When I was a baby, it wasn't so bad. That is to say, Mom was able to control my behavior, so she didn't yell. To keep me occupied, she might sit me in front of the television during The Price is Right which, according to her, fascinated me at the ripe age of 3 weeks. She might also plop me down on the wool shag, area carpet with geometric patterns in varying hues of orange (what I most recall), where I would itch (but could not scratch- being a baby and all), but my building blocks would be neatly contained, nonetheless.

Not until I was older did I understand what fanatic meant: No water droplets on the bathroom sink counter top, no grazing for food in the "closed kitchen", no sitting on her precious sofas to watch t.v. (we had our own bedroom t.v.s for Pete's sake! and we might, accidentally, sit improperly on her cushions), never cleaning my room or learning how to properly do my laundry because I was not permitted... though in fairness, Mom tried showing me the proper way to make "hospital corners" while making my bed, though I believe my jaw dropped and my mouth was hanging open while my mind wandered-off in 18 million other places- this is precisely why I still cannot make hospital corners.

But above all else- No walking on her carpet.

I know what you're thinking, "She can't be serious! I mean, the carpet? Isn't a carpet meant to be walked-on?" That's right. I'm not talking about some heirloom rug that's worth tens of thousands of dollars and is isloated in one, fancy room of the house. We're talking wall-to-wall. And one night in 1990, when I was feeling particularly brave and defiant, I walked on the carpet, sat on the sofa, and turned on the television. Mom came home and in a voice unlike her sing-songy, normal voice, sounding like a cruel Disney villain she said, "Who-walked-on-my-carpet?" She saw footprints and noticed the lines she vacuumed-in were slightly askew.

To think I could shield my children from the familial madness by becoming fanatically messy and careless would be a mistake. You can ask my daughter what "Gram" did to her when she was two and was eating a cookie in the kitchen (silly me, where else in Gram's house would she be eating it?). I have spent years undoing the trauma of Mom vacuuming the baby by insisting to the poor kid that the vacuum can be FUN! hahaha! Hop on and let's zoooooom around the room!

In my life, not cleaning the house has meant comfort. I've fought my love for the smells of chlorine bleach and Lysol and attempted to replace them with cooking spices, candles and fine incense. After a lifetime of deliberate avoidance and oppositional defiance, I realize only now that I am a Closet Cleaner. I don't mean that I clean closets, I mean that I've been hiding my love for all things organized and clean just to punish my mother.

Recently, a friend who has a background in clinical psychology said to me, "Grow-up."

In other words, when am I going to stop being like an obnoxious teenager who acts passive-aggressively toward her parent? Because not only am I, as an adult, trying to make Mom suffer, but I am also living in a manner and fashion which I find to be rather distressing and which others who live in my home must also endure.

No matter the extreme, whether fanatical in cleanliness or in being sloven, comfort is lost. I find the fact that I can't find my keys equally as distressing as a sterile environment. Both extremes promote fear, which to me, is not a desirable goal for one to attain. A home, for me, should be a place of love, respect, safety, and comfort.

The same psychologist friend believes that, innately, as people, we spend our adult lives seeking that which we believe we sufficiently lacked as children. I know that the concept is nothing new and that we act in many ways which subvert or drive our overall success as individuals. Where it is new, however, is when I apply the concept to my own life.

Continuing to plague the world with one's sense of entitlement and ownership while believing the rest of the world can go hang is wrongfully audacious. It is not one's job, responsibility, or right to punish anyone for attempting to or successfully squashing one's ego or sense of self. How childishly insane... and people do it all the time when they have extra-marital affairs, drop-out of school, fight and bicker, consume harmful chemicals, and kill each other.

For as we punish others for our short comings, we also punish ourselves because no one in the world is responsible for an individual except that same individual. It's not only others who suffer, we suffer too when we decide to sabotage our perfection.

So, if a person sucks, it's his or her choice. Suck it up! The Universe has given us everything we've always needed, though some probably have a hard time believing me. We've all been so conditioned from birth to believe that we are special and different and that we deserve to be special. But if "special" means that a person will do anything to force the hands of the world to carry that person's weight because he feels it owes him something, I promise the world will inevitably drop him time and time again. What a vicious cycle that could become; for, you will always be disappointed in your expectations. Poor, poor souls who choose suffering over peace- dissatisfaction over contentment, suck no more.

Reality is One, Giant Placebo Effect

For decades, medical researchers have studied the Placebo Effect. Most people understand placebos to be "sugar pills" given to research participants in medical studies; oftentimes, medical research groups will be divided into two groups: one group will receive the actual treatment being tested, while another group will be given an impostor treatment, or placebo. Researchers use this method to test the efficacy of potential drugs by comparing and contrasting the results of both groups. Something that has fascinated researchers is that, sometimes, the placebo subjects' medical woes will dissipate or even disappear, especially in psychiatric trials. Now, new scientific data suggests that the Placebo Effect is much stronger than was previously recorded, which scientists are calling placebo "drift".

While some of this data is correlated with pharmaceutical research fraud, overall, this shift is significant enough to warrant concern in the research community. In the NPR report, The Growing Power of the Sugar Pill, data suggests that faith is a powerful medicine. Now, when some people hear the word "faith", it stirs serious emotions. Atheists and agnostics might fiercely defend their right to non-faith; while others whom welcome spirituality and religion, might welcome the concept.

But this faith doesn't require God or an absence of God. Rather, this faith deals with believing in science. People have faith when they go to the doctor that modern medicine will cure one's ails. Well, according to researchers, having faith that you're being cured might actually work. It's enough to skew data and make some scientist scratch their heads, because faith cannot be measured using the scientific method.

This news is welcome for people like me who would not consider themselves religious or sometimes frown at conventional spirituality, but who also accept that there are answers science cannot measure or answer. I consider myself a realist who takes full responsibility for my Self. This also means I believe that I can control every aspect of my Self, and not just deciding on whether to make a left or right turn, or choosing to treat people with common courtesy. I'm talking about the micro too: I should be able to control every aspect of my life down to a molecular level, and all with a thought. I can manipulate my external environment, so why not the internal?

Aside from placebo drift, I'm not the only one who believes this to be true. Tibetan Buddhists have believed the mind and body are interconnected for thousands of years.

Now, the test for me is to learn how to do it. How can I, with a thought, make myself hot and then cold? How can I, with a thought, heal diseases of my mind and body? If I can choose to control my external environment deliberately, I must also be able to use the same deliberation and presence of mind to control what is within.

We can already master our internal selves when we choose to be happy or sad, angry and passive- logically, I must also include the minute, microscopic, subatomic particles that make me who and what I am.

What effects do your beliefs have on your life? Perhaps a lot more than you think.

Image source: http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/04_03/014head_468x558.jpg

Does Anti-Matter Matter?

As a person who loves Chaos Theory, the LHC excites me... of course, this is tempered with the reality that the monster will be sunk by virtue of its gargantuan size. Oh, but the possibilities! I imagine the LHC creating, in its infancy, a small bit of anti-matter that will be like hugging a tiger cub: The cub is so cute! Ooh, let's pet the kitty! Well, these mad scientists will keep feeding that kitty until one day it may, inevitably, swallow them whole. I'm rooting for the kitty. Let's create and uncreate at the same time! Let's SUCK! Let's never understand what we don't understand, but hope that we understand! Let's give the entire Earth Shaken Baby Syndrome!



LHC Ready for Duty Again

February 19, 2010 by Miranda Marquit

(PhysOrg.com) -- For the Christmas holiday, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was shut down for a break and for a little technical tinkering. But next week, the hope is that the LHC will start up again around the 25 of February.



The Large Hadron Collider is used in experiments involving smashing particles together at high speeds. Just before the Christmas break, the LHC had sent particles careening into each other and resulting in energies not seen before. The hope later this year is to gradually get the LHC to the goal of 7 TeV, smashing the previous record. The collider is built for collisions resulting in 14 TeV, but that level probably won't be reached anytime in the immediate future.

Just reaching 7 TeV will take some time. Scientists plan to rev up the LHC slowly, starting initial beams at that produce relatively low energies of around 900 GeV at collision. CERN honchos want to avoid a situation similar to the explosion that marred the LHC's initial run in 2008. The hope is that a gradual warm up for the LHC will ensure that everything is in working order as CERN races the Tevatron in the U.S. to be the first to pinpoint the elusive Higgs boson.

The LHC is expected to help solve some mysteries in particle physics, as well as possibly provide information about other dimensions and further insight into the origins of the universe.


More information: CERN LHC: http://lhc.web.cern.ch/
via TheRegister / BBC


© 2010 PhysOrg.com
Image source: Julian Herzog via Wikimedia Commons

Mature Love

At 19, a teacher who I'd kept in contact with since junior high, wrote me a poem. While it had been many years since we spoke, our friendship and fondness remained intact and developed as I grew. In fact, he never taught me in the classroom, but became someone who fostered my budding interest in English Literature and eventually, became a bit of a mentor and someone I have always admired for being so hard-working and successful in life since he was born.

I remember the moment when "Doc" (nicknamed for his Doctorate degree in Education) read his poem for me. Mixed feelings flooded my spirit: on one hand, I was full of immature embarrassment- seemingly unable to accept such a gesture of genuine love and appreciation; on the other hand, I was immensely grateful to have someone express, so beautifully, who I then was as a person when I was unable to see, myself, let alone to express as much in such an articulate manner. I wanted to snatch that paper right from his hands. It was folded, as if to say, "I was to be placed in an envelope and mailed," but it was pulled from a jacket pocket and unfolded. I extended my hand and Doc said, "I am going to read it to you, first."

Wow.

As a woman, I would do the same, now: I would read a poem to the person for whom it was written. Then, I could ensure that the intonation and feeling of my thoughts and words would accurately be expressed. That's what Doc wanted to do, help me to feel the poem. But even at 19, I was still just a girl... unripe for honesty's harshness, especially, when the honesty was intent upon me feeling what someone else thought of me, no matter how beautiful the thought.

I blushed. He read, gazing deeply and intently into my bashful eyes at every pause in breath:

Young Starbird

Thrust out of the black

with a silver glint... moving... radiating

Effortlessly moving away from the flock

and the noise

Maturing... Questioning

Distancing the Din

Seeing all... from afar

Still not forgetting the irreplaceable space...

She has left

In Awesome Wonder, she sets a forward heading

in search of deep meanings

seeking affirmation... yearning to be held... wanting to be held

just held

Looking for affirmation of her existence

through paper thin fragments of wisdom... she soars

smelling like yellow rose petals

and a new bathed baby

wrapped by her slow, sad, beautiful smile

Heavenly softness... gentleness

Gliding by... with an angelic twinkle

as a day brightener

for those who take the time to see her... differently...

for perhaps, the first time... to...

Listen to Her...

To help her with the Natural Shocks

To Know Her... in the Belongings of her Beautiful Heart...

and Face

as

She pushes into Life's love

while flirting with the stars

and

quietly

arms herself full

of

Womanly Status.

3/6/1996

I didn't know what to say... it was so-

Deep.

Doc asked me to write a poem for him in return, but to be honest, I was not able to write anything remotely from my heart with such clarity and conciseness of thought and feeling. And not only did Doc accomplish this, but he also delved deeper inside of who I was than anyone had ever done, even I.

This has taught me, over the years, that it takes a certain maturity to graciously accept Love. Immaturity brought Insecurity and Insecurity foolishly embarrassed... Maturity brought Security of Self which, in turn, brought the ability to Love myself as I love others.

Reading this poem now, at 30-something, I go over the lines again and again. Sometimes, I read the same line ten times. I feel safe in sharing with the world because, frankly, the words are simply words if you're a stranger to me- you can only imagine what something like, "Distancing the Din" means only so much as to be either remotely vague or completely amiss. But for me, I can hang on each word, waiting for the next word to come so that I can understand the totality and depth of Doc's words. I can hang on each word, finally, being appreciative. In the child's metamorphosis, Fortune arrives in the form of a Deep Breath... stopping and letting go of Ego and Self- an exercise in replacing them with grounded Truth and Wisdom, Compassion, and Love.

I promised Doc a poem and I'm finally ready to sit and dig deeply, in poetic form, as to what I want to say about a man who has dedicated himself to bettering the lives of all he has ever touched. He tempers a hard-edged, grounded, Semper Fi Spirit with the greatest of Love and Wisdom. He is the rarest gem and I, truly, must be lucky to know him. I'm grateful you're here, even if we had never met and you never touched my life.

Thank you, Doc.

Photo Source: Susan Morrison

The Golden Bird

A dear friend wrote this amazing, lovely poem and I thought to share it with you:

From my Beloved eyes, through my eyes,

the fiery Grace of passions truth has appeared,

a golden bird of prey above me, ready to strike,

demanding I answer:

What is this Love, what is loved, her being,

her beauty, the scent of her breath,

what intent do we hold for one another?
Embracing, entangled, falling quickly together,

I behold my love, naked in body, naked in heart,

with such piercing vividness-

I could never describe
This bliss,

hidden sadness, her being,

her beauty, the scent of her breath, the taste of her mouth...
The fiery Grace of passions truth has appeared before me,

she is a radiant golden woman, ready to strike,

she demands I answer,

what is this Love?

C.R. Canale, January 2010