The Sedum (and Ice Plant) Madness Grows More Colorful!

When I first posted photos of the succulents, the buds were just starting to open. Now that most of them are in full bloom, I find they are much more photogenic. Just for fun, I thought I'd make another post showing the same plants as before, and in the same order so you can compare these photos with the ones from last time.

Now that I've posted my Big Article, High-Powered Tools of Inner Exploration and Neuroscience, and more, I feel the need to demonstrate how the Sedum Madness has been progressing. Previously, there were only nine species of Sedum, four of ice plants, and one Sempervivum (hen-and-chicks).
` Now I have 21 types of Sedum, nine types of ice plants, two Sempervivum and one Escheveria. And I'm finally good at 26 stepping stones. There is still also fuzzy lamb's ear, but I have brutally killed all other non-crass(ulacid) plants for not meeting my standards of attractiveness.
` I've have not been spending much time gardening this month, but it's already too late -- they're taking over the entire front retaining wall! For example, the first ice plant to bloom was this red one. Let's see how it looked when I got back from our little road trip to Montana:

Some of the flowers were already dead, with new ones on the way.

The original photo of this was looking up the side of the slope, but I had to take this photo from above because a canopy of sedum flowers were completely obscuring them from the sidewalk.
` So, as a bonus "extra photo", I took another from the same angle as the original photo, except it is of a sedum off to the right of the ice plant. The same species is prominent in both the original first and second photos, so it seems fitting to include it, especially during the time it was flowering:

Actual Things People Say About Psychedelics #1

On February 26 I mentioned that "I've started three good-sized blog posts". After a prolonged dive out of and back into good health (and a road trip to Montana), I published one of them as High-Powered Tools of Inner Exploration and Neuroscience. It's a science-based article about a particularly stunning and unusual class of mind-altering substances and how they benefit people psychologically and neurologically.

` Though this certainly wasn't taught in the psychology classes I went to, and hasn't been since The War On Drugs came into effect, psychedelics are known therapeutic agents and more. I extensively described much of their effects on sense perception and expansion/alteration of conscious awareness, and you can read it right here.

The other two posts (from Feb 21) are "Things People Say" About Psychedelics, which I didn't dare publish until I had at least one well-referenced article on this blog. It's the first, perhaps in a long-running series because I have even more of these, from many different people.
` Discussing this in skeptic/atheist circles, I find a wide range of reactions to this chemical class of substances, and this mostly has to do with the degree of people's overall familiarity with them.
` For example, some tell me how they have used psychedelics for better self-understanding and self-control. Some others say they would assume that psychedelics hinder these things. It's important to me that we're no longer so divided in our knowledge on this. (It's not the only topic, but it is a good starting point.)

I'm going to focus on some objections and questions, which I have answered, and then cut and pasted them here. I'll start with a common sort of challenge:

Onto Part 2 soon, but first, the power of suggestion strikes again, and other stuff...

With the power of suggestion, the previously-persistent pain for years in my right index finger, above the first joint, has disappeared completely. This happened in one instant, when I was concentrating on doing just that. And it worked. My finger felt normal except perhaps a bit of nerve damage, but no pain from it.
` For two days it was completely pain-free. Then, I hit the very tip of that finger really hard, and there is a little pain from that now. It's been a good test of how well the suggestion worked, because the rest of the pain has not returned.
` Currently, it feels as though my index finger simply stops after the first knuckle and has been replaced by a prosthetic. The pain from the bruise seems to have migrated to my other fingers, if that makes sense. I have no idea what this means, but I take it as a good sign.

Oh yes, and I went to Montana last month for a few days. I got some video for YouTube, but the only non-blurry photos I got were on my phone. After I returned, I took more photos of the mind-consuming sedums, including these just starting to explode into yellow flowers:

I will also be putting together more videos, about self-suggestion, psychedelics, navigating your mind, as well as other projects. I've been doing slightly more and more all the time, and those are definitely on my short-term to-do list.
` Part 2 of "High Powered Tools of Inner Exploration and Neuroscience" will be up soon, but first, I have several draft posts that I haven't published yet. Some are ones about psychedelics which I have been waiting to publish until after getting something else done first. Some are also from last year, including CSI Con 2016.
` I also have more multi-color sedum photos, since I have more kinds than before, and they're almost all flowering. Not to mention all the vividly-blossoming ice plants! As for why I haven't gotten on this earlier, I have been having more trouble than usual staying awake and holding my body in a vertical position.

Part of the deal has been coming back from Montana, exhausted, to summer heat and no air conditioning. Even Matt has had difficulty staying awake and non-lethargic, and has become more exhausted than usual after working out at the gym.
` The other is, seemingly paradoxical, because of physical improvement: My center of balance is continuing to shift farther to center, thanks to the trekking poles. My right side is still too weak to support me as I prop myself up on the couch. I put a small suitcase next to me so I can lean on my right hand.
` The only way I can prevent myself from falling forward is to put my right knee against the table and/or suitcase. Then, to type, I rest my right elbow on my knee and put my left elbow on the table. And, I don't wear pants (as in trousers) because of how they can squeeze my torso. Yeah, baby.
` At last, I am starting to feel like I can do this again for more than two minutes at a time, especially during the evenings. Which is what I'm doing now, after having slept a lot of today, which has actually been a goal since I can only seem to sleep for five hours at one time.

With enough sleep, I actually am feeling more like a human being. It's amazing. I'd better get to bed already, though, since I have much blogging and video editing yet to do, including video of me at the piano without pants! It's sexy.

High-Powered Tools of Inner Exploration and Neuroscience, Part 1 of 2: The Basics

Matt and I were seated front and side at an overflowing event at the University of Washington; a researcher talking about a truly extraordinary piece of technology: Imagine if you had a device that could allow you to turn down your mental chatter and just allow yourself to experience the world more clearly in some ways.
` Your everyday assumptions could become visible. You would notice details about yourself and the world around you that you never noticed before. You'd find that you can see beyond your ordinary habitual, repetitive thoughts and emotions. It is possible for perception to expand so far beyond ordinary consciousness that dissolving and rearranging one's conceptual boundaries is universally accepted as among the most meaningful events in one's life.

This was a very large room, yet not enough chairs for everyone!

` Your own mind becomes seemingly transparent, and closing your eyes reveals an inner world of thoughts and impressive-looking computer graphics in real-time. These graphics can be scenes or simulations that you create for your own use. They also could be something else entirely, such as four-dimensional fractal geometry.
` Which you can see, because you're not viewing it with your eyes, you're experiencing it in your mind. It is like 'turning on' a whole new set of senses, as though you were using cybernetic implants to explore a virtual world. Concentrating on this inner reality, and turning up the intensity of the device allows one to sit back and have the most otherworldly experiences that seem to defy time and space.

As something of this magnitude should be, this device's importance from neurology to psychotherapy is compared to the telescope in astronomy, or the microscope in medicine and biology. Mathematicians, engineers, scientists, artists, musicians, and philosophers begin crediting a number of their achievements through abilities and perception they gained from the use of this 'mind-scope'. Culture changes dramatically and visibly from this tool's influence.

What some of you may not realize is, this "advanced technology" exists today.

If you haven't guessed, these possible states of mind are explored every day, via the use of psychedelic substances. They have been throughout recorded history, and long before.

The researcher speaking that evening was Albert Garcia-Romeu, from Johns-Hopkins University School of Medicine. His subject is the serotonin 2A receptor agonist known as psilocybin (SILL-o-SY-bin), a psychedelic alkaloid found in hundreds of species of mushrooms worldwide.
` In years past, I'd thought that these fungi made people "go crazy", but in general, psychedelic use seems to improve mental health (Johansen and Krebs, 2015) and reduce the risk of suicide (Peter Hendricks 2014).
` As Johansen and Krebs state: "We failed to find evidence that psychedelic use is an independent risk factor for mental health problems. Psychedelics are not known to harm the brain or other body organs or to cause addiction or compulsive use; serious adverse events involving psychedelics are extremely rare. Overall, it is difficult to see how prohibition of psychedelics can be justified as a public health measure."
` I will explain in this article and Part 2 how they can be used to help break addictive habits, from alcoholism to obsessive compulsive disorder. This is part of how they can be used to catalyze remarkably rapid and profound healing, which is the entire subject of Part 2.

So close, yet so far...

If I had one more day, I'd publish this 'Big Post' that I'm keeping "secret" except to the people who I've been telling to go to my blog for the past three months to read it. It's fundamental in understanding how I could recover from being tortured and the entire extravaganza of gaslighting, and how you too can have unbelievably amazing mental powers and perceptions!

I thought I was going to have one more day, but instead I am leaving tomorrow morning. I suppose I would have gotten it done if I hadn't gone to the Skeptic's Meetup, which was about how your gut flora affect your brain.

` It was interesting, and worth it especially because I spoke up about putting on my own presentation, perhaps in August or September. It will be based on my Big Article Parts 1 and 2, and so will a lot of my videos, and comics. It's that Big. I just have to get it finished first, then I can base all the things on it.

I won't be bringing a laptop with me, just because I doubt I could find a way to prop myself up in front of it in such a way that I could type. It's extremely difficult as it is where I am, and I doubt I will have the energy. So, it will be a few days before I can get back to finishing this post.

` It's literally almost done, I just spent the past week figuring out how to make Part 1 work as a piece on its own. I just need to finish a few paragraphs and then proofread it, but I won't get a chance to even resume work until NEXT WEEK!! ARRGH!!!!!

So, I would finish it tomorrow, and I thought I would have until tomorrow, but I don't, so I can't. As interesting as it is to see how long I can keep this up, it's getting to be a bit much. It seems I'd have done it if I didn't run out of energy just trying to keep myself propped up in front of the laptop. It seems to me that if I just had something which held my body in a position where it didn't hurt, I would be considerably more energetic.

` And my podcast, Skeptophany, for which this blog is named, is still out of my ability to access the files. It has been over a year. So as soon as I'm finished with the Big Article, I'm fixing my laptop or something so that I can access my drives that the files are on. Assuming some catastrophe doesn't befall me.

As for the carbon fiber trekking poles, the pain and pressure on the right side of my body was gone after a couple of DAYS! I'm a lot more energetic and move so much more quickly when I'm on a walk. It's helped me to gain control of my body in front of the computer, which has helped me type a lot. It hasn't been enough, but it's been so helpful.

` This evening after getting back from the Meetup, I found that my center of balance is now so close toward the center that I can use both poles! I don't fall over to the left, after about a week of using just the right one. While I'm away, I'll have to experiment with them!

So, if I get back in one piece, this blog and videos are going to continue. If not, I hope you don't forget about me altogether. I have hours more videos, hours of podcast material, and so much more to make. I have so much to say to the world, how long will I have?

` Well, my body can't support me in front of the laptop anymore, I must go to bed. I want to do nothing but write all about this subject, it's one of my life's greatest passions, but I'm going to have to put it on hold. Again. It's really burning in my mind. Driving me up the wall.

My life will change after it is published, much as it did after the Gaslighting Extravaganza video was published. I hope the police decide to investigate.

Sedum Madness, Psycho-Physical Therapy, and Chemical Mind Control...

I've been attempting to finish a key blog article for months, and my own brain/body are working against me once more. It's no biggie, I'm getting back on track for the nth time. So, what else have I been doing all this time besides not feeling well?
` There are now seventeen stepping stones out on the front retaining wall flower bed. Before my last post, there were zero. Here's one of them, just to the right of the first ice plant to start blooming this year. It's metallic red, and some of the others will bloom metallic purple, orange, and/or yellow.

All the other plants here are different types of sedum.

So, this isn't my 'Big Article', but it is An Article Greatly Swollen With Photos That I Just Took Yesterday!

What's going on with my health, and what's with all the succulents? I will answer those questions here in an amusing fashion, and with several more colorful photos:

...So, here's what I've been doing, and here's what I'm about to do!

Aaand, my health took a sudden brief downturn. But I'm fine now.

I am planning to do more videos very soon, after I'm done extensively blogging for some time. When I say extensively, I mean, massively, with plenty of scientific citations. That's why I've been calling it 'my big post'.
` It's so big I'm dividing it into Parts 1 and 2, and these will be important to this blog, my videos, and my podcast for which this blog is named, and which I still cannot access to put on the internet for you to hear. That's one of the next things on my to-do list.

Another thing, I want to admit that since I did this video at the piano, I began to have such difficulty in keeping my balance that I had to stop practicing almost altogether until a month or so ago. I discovered that if I switch the pedal extension to the left side and then press my right foot up against a cushion that's wedged under the piano -- and remove my pants -- I can actually keep my balance.
` So, I made a video of myself showing my new way of piano-ing -- without pants! I was wearing a dress. I'm also glad to report that I am getting better at keeping my balance in other instances of sitting down, especially now that my pants have all mysteriously gotten bigger again. Strange how that happens. Must be the "Underwater UFO" Aliens.

This resumed piano practice hasn't been taking up huge amounts of time, so much as it takes some amount of energy away from blogging and everything else. But it's worth it. What's probably taken up more time are the little errands and other adventures I've gone on, such as today, upon which Matt and I returned with a shrubbery *orchestra hit*!
` For another recent adventure, we attended a Seattle Skeptic's Meetup. This time; The Humane League And The Horrible of Industrial Farming. Most animals in the U.S. are killed for human consumption, the vast majority suffer terribly as cogs in a factory farming machine.
` Now that's another subject for a blog post, but again, I must press on with my original course: More and better (and generally not-so-big) blog posts and videos! Speaking of, I've gotten a few more lovely videos to go on YouTube, including lots of rainbows, and one of the blooming cherry blossoms overlooking Lake Washington.

As for what I said last time, the whole getting eight uninterrupted hours of sleep for the first time in years was a prelude to a sudden inability to stay awake or alert for two days. I forgot the idea of finishing the post on Bicycle Day, or even 4-20.
` Thankfully, this fatigue didn't have to do with whatever was living in my sinuses for two months: It was more a blip in my internal chemistry, which resulted in extreme exhaustion, muscle soreness, and inability to brain. I was, at least, able to get my mind working well enough to destroy thousands of tiny weeds when the sun was out. Productive, and meditative rather than mentally taxing.
` Yesterday, Matt and I even failed to go to the March For Science, even though we had been enthusiastic about it until the day before. Both of us were exhausted and not much up for being out in the rain for hours. Instead, I stayed inside and did some more writing, and later when the sun came out, we had a nice walk among the ducks, crows, hummingbirds and spring blossoms.

A little bit more of my time is taken up by software-related 'fun'. Just last night, I had two tabs open that had several links on them, and that information would be stored in my Firefox browser history. I closed Firefox to restart the computer to install some updates, thinking it probably wouldn't screw anything up.
` Strangely, it did: I couldn't open Firefox because one of its files was somehow missing from this computer. This had happened before, and I'd solved it by reinstalling Firefox. Which I did several times, didn't work, so I installed Chrome.
` It works really well.
` Firefox isn't installing with Chrome either, so I'll just use Chrome, and take the minor setback of losing two tabs. What would be worse would be if I lost access to my WordPad document which has plenty more sources and notes, for the next several blog posts.
` Which happened -- temporarily:
` Due to my enormous amounts of writing/research, the file had gotten so big that this computer's WordPad couldn't quite handle it; neither could Google Docs. I emailed it to Matt and his computer opened it in 10 seconds, then he copied and pasted the text into an email and sent it back to me.
` I divided that up into three sections, so at last I can go back to writing, as I was doing yesterday. Assuming that nothing else annoying happens, Part 1 should be up really, really soon, since it is practically finished, and Part 2 only needs a small amount of work so should be up shortly thereafter.

Along with these blog posts will be my next (very short!) video, most of which I took when it snowed in February. So, I'll be moving from winter, then to spring blossoms, and then to fall colors, because I took many videos back then as well. Let's just put it this way; time will not be linear on my YouTube channel!
` I can't wait to get back to it, I love feeling healthy and I'm tired of feeling sick! I probably won't have time to do any writing tomorrow, due to another adventure I've got planned, but I don't have any other foreseeable delays. The ball keeps threatening to start rolling, and I think this time it just may.