This particular post isn’t really about me anyway, it’s about the world, in all it’s peculiar and wonderful variety.

Have you ever heard of ice hotels? Most are seasonal, I think one up in the Arctic Circle is year-round. They’re one of the coolest things (sorry, that was unintentional) ever (IMHO). Someday, when money is no object, I will stay in one.
Here’s an article (and pictures!) about one where all the guest rooms are done by different designers:
12 Designs From The 2009 IceHotel: Catch Them Before They Melt!

In other mind-blowing news, some teenagers sent a helium balloon into the stratosphere and took pictures of space with a $60 digital camera. No, seriously. For real.
Here’s an article about it in The Daily Telegraph and here’s their Flickr Photostream.
I don’t know what else to say about it but wow. Wow.

In a final totally unrelated news item (from the most wonderful Boing Boing), a growing archive of US Military medical illustrations is available online. Ever wanted to see a beautiful illustration of a skull? I know I have.
There’s some other funky stuff, too. WARNING: page 2 of the overall photostream contains pictures of some weird eye procedure; you may want to skip that page if you find that kind of thing disturbing.
Well, here you go then: otisarchives1′s Photostream. Here’s the post on Boing Boing, too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our little foray into the realm of the wondrous.

Join me again next week for…well, I’m not really sure. You’ll just have to join me to find out, I guess.

By Karen Defelice, Natural Solutions magazine

The pounding went on all day and all night. My son was a chronic head-banger from early on. Our efforts to help him resolve this and other debilitating problems, such as extreme sensory sensitivities and socialization difficulties, led us down many roads. Enzymes provided one of the key paths.

In the past five years, enzyme therapy has emerged as one of the most successful treatments for autism-related conditions, based on a new understanding about how closely the digestive, nervous, and immune systems function together and on how to use specific enzymes. Since taking them, my older son, who was diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition (ASC), no longer bangs his head on the floor 10 to 14 hours a day. He now interacts with others around him and communicates well. His sleep and sensory problems have also improved. The rest of us took enzymes as well, and my younger son’s reflux and bowel problems faded away and my chronic migraines disappeared.

My family isn’t the only one to experience these outcomes. After tracking results for more than five years, I’ve found that 90 to 93 percent of people with ASC see improvements after trying a good-quality enzyme product. Benefits appear in a wide range of behavior, language, cognitive, and physical issues, and older children and adults experience these benefits as much as younger kids.

Food Intolerances and Allergies
Autistic children often suffer from numerous kinds of food intolerances and digestive problems. My son was so sensitive to dairy, he would begin banging his head hard on the floor about three hours after eating it. While this reaction occurred with other foods and stimuli, we knew that dairy was a specific trigger. To resolve it we found a product containing several proteases including one known as DPP IV, which breaks down dairy and gluten proteins.

Unlike many drug therapies, enzymes are a quick and relatively inexpensive option to try, with a high probability for success. You will usually see results within the first four weeks, and often with just one bottle. While we found success by focusing on specific enzymes, some ACS children respond equally well to a broad-spectrum enzyme product that focuses on the digestion of carbohydrates and fats in addition to proteins. As you plan out a course of enzyme therapy, think in terms of categories: Children who have trouble digesting proteins need proteases; amylases break down carbohydrates; problems with candida yeast respond well to fiber digesting enzymes; and those with dairy intolerance benefit from lactase and DPP IV enzymes. Ascertain which category applies best to your child’s particular problem and then choose among the enzyme products within this category. Most families with children who have developmental delays tend to get best results using one of the broad-spectrum products at all meals along with one of the strong protease products.

The Bug Connection
Many children with autism related conditions also suffer from candida yeast or bacterial overgrowth in the gut. To resolve the problem try yeast-targeting products with high levels of fiber-digesting enzymes (like cellulases) to break down the outer walls of yeast cells. The product should also contain a high level of proteases to help clear out pathogenic yeast and reduce any die-off reactions. Consider combining a yeast-controlling herbal supplement such as grapefruit seed extract or oregano with the enzymes for a synergistic effect.

Underlying persistent viral infections also seem prevalent in autistic children, and when these are addressed, the children show some permanent improvements in language, socialization, behavior, and cognitive ability. Several autism specialists are turning to Valtrex, a prescription antiviral medication that provides good results. Another alternative, ViraStop, is a specialty blend of enzymes used between meals at high therapeutic doses (12 to 15 capsules per day). Two preliminary investigations using ViraStop resulted in a program that has delivered excellent results. Combining this with other supplements that have antiviral properties, such as olive leaf extract, vitamin C, or monolaurin, increases its effectiveness against viruses.

While the exact mechanisms of enzyme therapy remain obscure in the case of autism, it clearly works on underlying causes, not just symptoms. Even though not all my son’s sensory problems have disappeared, he has became much more social, his grades have improved, and his general anxiety has gone away. Now when people ask me how my son is, I’m thankful I’m able to say, truthfully, “He’s fine!”

The two galaxies are oriented so that they appear to mark the number 10. The left-most galaxy, or the “one” in this image, is relatively undisturbed apart from a smooth ring of starlight. It appears nearly on edge to our line of sight. The right-most galaxy, resembling a zero, exhibits a clumpy, blue ring of intense star formation.

The blue ring was most probably formed after the galaxy on the left passed through the galaxy on the right. Just as a pebble thrown into a pond creates an outwardly moving circular wave, a propagating density wave was generated at the point of impact and spread outward. As this density wave collided with material in the target galaxy that was moving inward due to the gravitational pull of the two galaxies, shocks and dense gas were produced, stimulating star formation.

The galaxy pair was photographed on October 27-28, 2008. Arp 147 lies in the constellation Cetus, more than 400 million light-years from Earth.

(from NASA’s Image of the Day Gallery)

I was going to write something about that and my terrible recent case of foot in mouth disease (a problem when you’ve got such a big mouth, like I do),

BUT I changed my mind.

Instead I’ve decided to quit my pity party and put some beauty out there for y’all.

Positive ripples, and all that.

Courtesy of Rob Brezsny:

Prayer for You

I’m happy to announce that this is a perfect moment. It’s a perfect moment for many reasons, but especially because I have been inspired to say a gigantic prayer for all of you. I’ve been roused to unleash a divinely greedy, apocalyptically healing prayer for each and every one of you — even those of you who don’t believe in the power of prayer.

And so I am starting to pray right now to the God of Gods … the God beyond all Gods … the Girlfriend of God … the Teacher of God … the Goddess who invented God.

Dear Goddess, You who never kill but only change:

I pray that my exuberant, suave and accidental words will move you to shower ferocious blessings down on everyone who reads this benediction.

I pray that you will give them what they don’t even know they want — not just the boons they think they need but everything they’ve always been afraid to even imagine or ask for.

Dear Goddess, You wealthy anarchist burning heaven to the ground:

Many of the divine chameleons out there don’t even know that their souls will live forever. So please use your blinding magic to help them see that they are all wildly creative geniuses too big for their own personalities.

Guide them to realize that they are all completely different from what they think they are and more exciting than they can possibly imagine.

Make it illegal, immoral, irrelevant, unpatriotic and totally tasteless for them to be in love with anyone or anything that’s no good for them.

O Goddess, You who give us so much love and pain mixed together that our morality is always on the verge of collapsing:

I beg you to cast a boisterous love spell that will nullify all the dumb ideas, bad decisions and nasty conditioning that have ever cursed the wise and sexy virtuosos out there.

Remove, banish, annihilate and laugh into oblivion any jinx that has clung to them, no matter how long they’ve suffered from it, and even if they’ve become accustomed or addicted to its ugly companionship.

And please conjure an aura of protection around them so that they will receive an early warning if they are ever about to act in such a way as to bring another hex or plague or voodoo into their lives in the future.

Dear Goddess, sweet Goddess, You sly universal virus with no fucking opinion:

I pray that you will help all the personal growth addicts out there become disciplined enough to go crazy in the name of creation, not destruction.

I pray that you will teach them the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control, awaken in them the power to do the half-right thing when it is impossible to do the totally right thing.

Arouse the Wild Woman within them — even if they’re men.

And please give them bigger, better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more interesting problems.

Dear Goddess, You pregnant slut who scorns all mediocre longing:

I pray that you will inspire all the compassionate rascals communing with this prayer to love their enemies just in case their friends turn out to be jerks.

Provoke them to throw away or give away all the things they own that encourage them to believe that they are better than anyone else.

Show them how much fun it is to brag about what they cannot do and do not have.

Most of all, Goddess, brainwash them with your freedom so that they never love their own pain more than anyone else’s pain.

Dear Goddess, You psychedelic mushroom cloud at the center of all our brains:

The curiously divine human beings reading this prayer deserve everything they are yearning for and much, much more.

So please bless them with lucid dreams while they are wide awake and solar-energy-operated sex toys that work even in the dark and vacuum cleaners for their magic carpets and a knack for avoiding other people’s hells and their very own 900 number so that everyone has to pay to talk to them and a secret admirer who is not a psychotic stalker.

Dear Goddess, You fiercely tender, hauntingly reassuring, orgiastically sacred feeling that is even now running through all of our soft, warm animal bodies:

I pray that you provide everyone out there with a license to bend and even break all rules, laws and traditions that keep them apart from the things they love.

Show them how to purge the wishy-washy wishes that distract them from their daring, dramatic, divine desires.

And teach them that they can have anything they want if they’ll only ask for it in an unselfish way.

And now dear God of Gods, God beyond all Gods, Girlfriend of God, Teacher of God, Goddess who invented God, I bring this prayer to a close, trusting that in these mysterious moments you have begun to change everyone out there in the exact way they’ve needed to change in order to express their soul’s code.

Amen. Awomen. And glory halle-fucking-lujah.