salve syndrome, stretching self, seeing straight, seeking strenght and ripples in the water
wa've ~ did you see this coming?!
Did you see this coming?! is my (mostly) optimistic view on our changing reality and everything that is in motion. I am trying to make this intersting by adding speculations of what might be, provocations where I can and skepticism where I must. This way I hope to open your eyes and see that possibilities are endless.
Imagine with a Super natural mind
In this extended period of instability and insecurity, resulted by a series of catastrophic events, futures thinking is an important skill. It gives us the power to see what is coming our way, with this power we feel less fear,anxiety and other overwhelming feelings.
By applying this skill it can help us salve our syndromes, allows us to stretch ourselves, makes us see straight and supports in our search for strenghts.
Salve syndrome
This is the most magical time of the year were joy, happiness, grattitude and kindness are on the lips of everyone. But do we actually and deeply feel it? I know, it is a personal question to reflect on. Let me share my recent observations and experiences with these feelings in this last Did you see this coming?! of the year.
The pandemic has accelerated our persuit for self development and growth. We find mental, emotional, spiritual and social health more and more important as we have been challenged in this area of wellbeing. Trendwatching calls it the ‘age of healing’ and expects that employers and businesses should integrate it in their operations, products and services to stay successful.
This integration means being kind and showing postive behaviour like getting the printer mended, rather than leaving it broken for the next person to find, or watering the plants in the office. More and more studies on this topic show an increased level of satisfaction, performance and efficiency.
Scientists who study happiness know that being kind to others can improve well-being. Small acts as simply as buying a cup of coffee for someone can boost a person’s mood, for example. These random acts of kindness can be even boosted by being aware and focus on the warmth you are giving away.
These are wonderful insights to take with us in exploring our mental wellness, spirituality and even nature. Adobe has seen it too and has themed ‘Psychic waves’ as one of their four creative 2023 trends.
This trend takes us on a wavelenght ‘trip’ beyond the physical world to ride dimensions of mesmerizing gradients and rich visual storytelling. Pinterest calls this trend the mush-room. Start-up advisor True Altitude is not waiting for 2023 and already launched their new “psychedelic” identity and many more will follow.
Stretching self
My personal spiritual exploration started in 2020 when I started practicing mindfulness, this gave me more headspace and as I am a runner I experimented with breathing techniques. But this year I opened up and surrendered to myself.
For me it was not a case of depression but sincere curiosity that lead me to psychedelics. But this year the amount of good and bad research and publications have opened they eyes of many to see how psychedelics could help them heal.
This doctor for example is breaking taboos around restrictions on drugs in the US as it restrict liberty and the persuit to happiness. Now that the largest clinical trial shows the positive effects of mushroom psychedelics for depression it is safe to say the medicine itself takes restrictions away in a conditioned environment.
It is a magical drug that can reduce anxiety, depression and addiction and give us a feeling of oneness. With new start-ups like Layer on the market that offer microdosing products and services, everyone can feel less selfish.
You don’t even have to take a medicine like mushrooms to get into a transcendent state. A VR experience called Isness-D shows the same effect of a medium dose of LSD or psilosybin. Participants can partake in an experience called energetic coalescence: they gather in the same spot in the virtual-reality landscape. It results in a sense of deep connectedness and ego attenuation mirrors feelings commonly brought about by a psychedelic experience.
Seeing straight
My mushroom medicine journey has given me a deeper understanding of myself, I feel empowered with new abilities and have a sense of oneness and connection with the universe and nature.
Let me compare it to this psychedelic nudibranch who lives deep in the ocean that has the super power to absorb of other organisms. It can make the power of self-healing, strenght or flying their own and has also learned to be “solar powered”. The most amazing thing about this organism is that it can jettison it’s entire body, heal wounds and grow back their organs in just 2 weeks!
Imagine how useful it would be if humans could replace a cancerous lung, a weakened heart, or a cirrhotic liver. This armadillo experiment suggest that we can regenerate human livers with leprosy.
The wonders of nature are full with inspiration. As long as we keep looking, caring and learning from it we will increase our wellbeing. After all we all know that being in and with nature has a positive effect on our health.
Seeking strenghts
With the oldest technology (clothes) on our bodies we are already very close to nature. It is always evolving and part of our human nature. Let’s have a look at how we can absorb some new super powers from nature as we transform into more advanced human.
Moon jelly fish have transparent bodies, glass frogs blend in among green leaves to avoid predators and glasswing butterflies have a anti-reflective coating and light passes right through them so predators have a hard time tracking them.
Obviously us humans do not have these cool features, but we are getting closer and closer.
These Chinese graduate students from Wuhan have invented a coat that make us invisible to AI security cameras and stay under the radar. These students are not alone, clothing brand Vollebak believes they are closer to a invisible cloak inspired Harry Potter.
“Security cameras using AI technology are everywhere. They pervade our lives. Our privacy is exposed under machine vision. We designed this product to counter malicious detection, to protect people’s privacy and safety in certain circumstances.
When it comes to self-healing and regeneration we are also making great progress. Take this Cornell Universtity robot for example who have created a system called SheaLDS which can detect an injury and use polymer for self healing. Experimenting and testing will first happen in industries of robotics and construction for example before we can use it on our own bodies.
We already use the power of the sun for a lot of things, so why not use it on our bodies too?
The latest research from the UK’s Nottingham Trent University (NTU) lead to an experimental project in developing an e-textile embedded with 1,200 tiny photovoltaic cells. Solar power via miniature panels on clothes can generate 400 mWatts of electrical energy, enough to charge a basic mobile phone or smartwatch. MIT is also working on superthin solar cells that can convert any surface into a powersource.
As these developments do not yet keep us warm yet, we might settle for in-between-solutions like this natural blanket-poncho made from upcycled birds or ‘Entropy Vest’ invented by Petit Pli the vest evolves its State and responds to the user’s body as well, so as a person goes about their day and begins to create kinetic heat, it adjusts and cools down.
To come back to our emotions and (mental) health. Clothing material developments might help us recognize stress symptoms earlier. Iga Węglińska fashion designer has designed a collection of emotional clothes to stimulate our sense of taing part and force us to focus more on our bodies.
“This is similar to biofeedback – a therapeutic technique that aims to help people understand their bodies better with sensors that measure key bodily functions.”
Ripples in the water
I have been curious about the universe, space-time and quantum fields before my mushroom journey. But after this experience I feel more connected with the universe and want to learn more about of how us humans, animals, organisims and matter are all linked to life. The MU exposition beyond borders and binaries has given me more food for thought and reflection on duality during the holidays.
For now feel grateful for getting closer to my purpose: I want to break and enrich established visions and inspire others by enabling them to look at our changing world with empathy, curiousity and critism in order to create better futures. I will continue this newsletter as I believe contributes to this.
My random act of kindness is to donate to an organisation called MIND. Their mission is to change to a society that invests in mental health and does evertything to prevent unnecessary psychological suffering.