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Don’t try this at home

https://news.ohsu.edu/2022/03/17/little-evidence-on-how-psilocybin-therapy-interacts-with-existing-psychiatric-treatments-review-finds?linkId=156952130

People are busily hopping on the psilocybin bandwagon. DON’T. Why not, you say, it’s NATURAL. Well, the death angel mushroom is also natural but it will kill you. So are red tides, poisonous snakes and sharks.

You wouldn’t take your buddy’s appendix out in your kitchen, would you? Don’t mess with your buddy’s brain either. Especially if there is already a behavioral health diagnosis and/or an addiction already on board. Either or both might get WORSE rather than better. Wait for the research.

And remember: one in four people meets diagnostic criteria for a behavioral health diagnosis at least once in their life. When there is also an addiction, we call it dual diagnosis.

And for pity’s sake, be careful with pot products, ok? It’s a total myth that they are not addictive. Yeah, people have told me for my entire career, over 30 years, “I am not addicted to (pot, heroin, alcohol, gambling, cocaine, meth, crack, whatever)”. ALL ALCOHOLICS say this the first time they are admitted for crashing a car or alcohol poisoning or vomiting blood or liver failure. “Not me. I am stopping today. I am NOT addicted. I do not need to talk to the substance abuse person.” We roll our eyes and send in the substance abuse person anyhow, because HEY, THE PERSON IS TOO ADDICTED AND IN DENIAL.

If you are going to use pot products, use them one or two times a week. Max three. Because a study of teens that paid them (with parental permission, consent, etc) to stop for a month found that almost none of the teens who used pot daily could stop. They relapsed. And they complained of anxiety and insomnia. And I have worked with adults trying to quit: again, anxiety and insomnia. The teens in the study who only used 2-3 days a week COULD stop for the month. The study monitored urine drug screens quite strictly.

And if you say, well, I can’t sleep without it. Um, yeah, that is addiction. I would wean. Reduce amounts and then start with one night a week without it. Good luck. Get help if you need it.

And don’t jump on the psilocybin bandwagon!!! Holy moly, humans are amazing, the ways they think up to hurt themselves and each other. If you want to be in a clinical trial, go find one. Don’t fool with Mother Nature, she can be a killer.

Happy solstice and blessings.

Here is the scientific paper for the science geeks like me:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-022-06083-y

The picture is just a picture. No worries.

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mer loss

Here is a closeup up the mer creature from the beach. I could not return her to the sea and I fear it would be futile anyhow. I photograph her for posterity.

But the tide goes out and comes back in. She is gone the next day. Was she returned to the sea? I couldn’t move her but the tide can move boulders. I hope that she got home and is not dead and is safe.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: futile. Maybe not.

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stranded mermaid, cilia and tubulin

I took this photograph last summer at North Beach. I thought she looks like a stranded mermaid, thrown up on shore. I couldn’t move her, she was twice my length. The rock attachment had come too, up from our sea beds.

Happy solstice. Today marks the one year day from when I realized that I was having my fourth round of pneumonia, with hypoxia, agitation, fast twitch muscle dysfuntion and felt sick as could be. I am way better but not well. That is, I still need oxygen to play flute, to sing, to do heavy exercise and to carry anything heavy. Which is WAY better then having to wear oxygen all the time. Today I find a connection between the lungs and the brain, in quanta magazine. This video talks about a new found connection between cilia and the brain. We were taught that cilia and flagella are for locomotion, powered by tubulin. However, this shows that cilia behave like neurons and there is a connection. Since my peculiar illness seems to involve cilia dysfunction in my muscles and lungs, so that I get pneumonia, and the brain, because I am wired when it hits, this is a fascinating connection. If neurons developed from cilia, the dual illness makes a lot more sense. Hooray for quantum mechanics! We use it in medicine every single day.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/before-brains-mechanics-may-have-ruled-animal-behavior-20220316?mc_cid=80d950ddd6&mc_eid=5faa14000f

Happy solstice! Here comes the sun!

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Maybe

Maybe
You could be a cat
Independent
A bit snotty
Refusing to share your thoughts
Keeping your secrets
Enjoying refusing to answer questions
Macavity the mystery cat
when something happens
He’s never there

You could be an elk
Guarding the herd
While the elder ladies
Lead it through the woods
At certain times of year
You bugle
And want them
And they/we/I mew
And you find me
And we both enjoy it
Very much

I am a cat too
independent
I will travel alone
If you won’t travel with me
I will find other music
If you won’t play with me
I enjoy it when you come round
Very much
I keep my claws sharp
Just in case I need them
If I long for cuddles and purring
That is my problem

I am a lady elk
Confident in the woods
I let you do the guarding and bugling
While I lead the herd
Up and over the ridges
The spine of the mountain
The spines of the dragons
Elwha and Sol Duc
I know them well
I hear you bugle
And think about whether this time
I will mew
Or not
I have found new forage
And the loggers are changing the forest
You bugle anyhow
Even if I am distracted
I like to work
But I like to mew too

Maybe we will come together
Now and then
Cats
or elks
or humans
Maybe.

___________________________________________________________________

My father read me T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats when I was little. He loved Macavity the mystery cat, called the Hidden Paw. And my goodness, the cat outfits in this show are quite something!

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small cruse

The Ragtag Daily Prompt is cruse, which I had to look up. I thought, I don’t have any earthenware. Then I thought, yes I do, but can I find it? I did.

My sister and my maternal cousins and I had elaborate doll houses with china dolls. I think the adults were trying to stave off Barbie. We collected whatever we could find for the doll house, for 8 inch dolls that were the “kids”. The adult doll was 12 inches.

The three earthenware pieces in the back are from the late 1960s or early 1970s. I am guessing SE US or Mexican. The three in front are Native American and from after 2000, at least, we got them after 2000. Possibly at a garage or thrift sale.

I think my grandmother made that dress, because of the button detail down the front and the short sleeves. I did do lots of sewing, small quilts, dresses, mattresses for the beds we made.

Here are the live cats, wondering what I am doing.