"It is never too late to be who you might have been" George Eliot
🌑 Happy Wednesday, Happy New Moon in Libra! ♎️
The Autumn Equinox has been and gone and it feels as though we've shifted into a new seasonal realm, with cooler days, earlier nights and the leaves around slowly turning golden in colour before falling to the ground.
I've been excited for my first Autumn in Wales, for it heralds mushroom foraging season. I'm still an amateur but there's nothing more exciting than getting out into the elements and foraging for your dinner... (although there have been some recent hospitalisations through misidentification so it's really important you can safely ID your mushroom! Better yet, join a foraging course and learn from someone who lives and breathes this stuff).
Having gorged on bilberries and blackberries over summer, it's now time for mushrooms.
The themes for the Libra New moon are around balance, harmony and relationships. It's a solar eclipse too so everything will be intensified.
New moons are always good times to think about new beginnings, and for me - this has been amplified recently as I've spent a lot of time reflecting on my new beginnings - my path in life, the work I have done as a medical doctor, the work I do now, and where my place is in our current healthcare system, with all its systemic imperfections. George Eliot's quote above resonates - It is never too late to be who you might have been.
I'm up early to go off grid for a few days but I thought I'd share a few things I've read, listened to and am pondering at the moment.
What I'm reading
On the subject of foraging - I've in the middle of Mo Wilde's The Wilderness Cure. Mo lives in Scotland, and during the pandemic - she commits to a rebellious experiment where she spends a year living off only foraged foods. Partly rebelling against our toxic food systems, and partly wanting to deeply connect with nature and the food around us in the way our ancestors used to, the book is an engaging exploration of our relationship with the wild spaces around us. As a forager, ethnobotanist, and medical herbalist, it's been fascinating to read her perspective - one that is deeply rooted in a respect for nature's abundance and the interconnectedness of all life, and it resonates with so many of the Rebellious Health pillars.
What I've been listening to
I recently re-listened to this podcast with Drs Rangan Chaterjee and Zach Bush - two doctors that share my views on our current healthcare system needing radical, rebellious change. It's an old one from 2022 but is always topical in today's environment. It's a fascinating discussion into the ecological root causes of disease, and how human health and soil health are closely linked and interconnected.
What I've been thinking
Psychedelic therapy research is coming a long way and most of the major universities are now conducting trials. Australia has legalised it for the treatment of 'serious mental health conditions'. A recent study in the Lancet and a meta-analysis in the BMJ have recently been published, with promising results for psilocybin in the treatment of depression.
Much of the focus on psychedelic therapy research is about their potential therapeutic and treatment benefits, and often this focuses on the treatment of severe mental health issues, last resorts when conventional medicines have failed, for severe addiction and in palliative care.
These are hugely important reasons (its use in palliative care is a topic I'm passionate about and have written an article outlining why), and the evidence is certainly very promising and hopeful. However, I don’t think we should shy away from discussing the use of psychedelics in the right set and setting, either with therapists, trusted guides or sitters, alone or with a ceremonial backdrop for self growth, self development, or to prevent a deterioration in mental health. We should be able to discuss the benefits that psychedelics could infer before a serious mental health condition is 'formally' diagnosed, and all the benefits that they can infer through becoming more self-aware and more present, while reframing and letting go of past wounds.
I've been open about my journey towards Rebellious Health in 2019. After I hit my rock bottom in 2019, following an intense period of work related burnout coupled with a lot of personal life stuff I sought healing elsewhere. A series of coincidences, or maybe they
were universal synchronicities - led me to hand over my control and my power to psychedelic therapy , and through this I also discovered the power of breathwork.
I was able to process events in my life, and to make sense of things, to forgive myself, to forgive others and to release, surrender and let go. I was able to well and truly feel for the first time in years. Deep sadness, red hot anger, light joy, pain, hope, intense love, compassion, and everything in between. It was so hard and so visceral but the armour cracked open.
It has changed the way I view myself. It has changed the way I view others around me, humanity, the planet, nature, our intrinsic interconnectedness.
It has made me more mindful.
It has given me purpose and direction and hope and optimism.
It has reminded me that I am not emotionally numb at all, that I care and feel deeply, even if that is at times very hard.
It has sent me down a different path, and led to new beginnings.
Not everyone needs psychedelics to heal, but I did, and I don’t want to be ashamed of admitting that. I believe that we should be able to discuss their potential openly for the betterment of humans - for self-development, for healing, for building emotional resilience and improving connection to oneself, others and to nature. Not just for their treatment potential in serious mental illness or in palliative care, both of which are hugely important topics but also for the other reasons I’m talking about here.
What do you think? I'd love to know whether you agree or disagree? Or perhaps you don't yet have an opinion but you're curious to learn more...?
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