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pasitheaDeath becomes life, life becomes death. Reversal is a powerful force.
Funny that someone like me who's a bit of a mycophile is also a complete mycophobe. Today I picked some mushrooms, brought them home, chopped them up, and preserved them in a jar. I did so wearing an organics mask and rubber gloves. I cut them with a disposable knife on a surface I could also discard. I then put enough warning labels on the jar that you'd have to be blind not to know what it contains.
I don't know why, but I have some deep primal fear of Amanita Phalloides. Sure it's a deadly deadly poison that kills you in a slow horrific manner and has NO cure but.. I have lots of substances around my house like that. Arsenic, Sodium Hydroxide, Hydrochloric Acid, Sulfuric Acid, etc. I think perhaps it's that none of those look anything remotely like food, or maybe it's just because I was taught such major fear of mushrooms as a child. Dunno. Whatever the case, Amanita Phalloides scares me and I feel pretty uncomfortable having it in my house.
So why do I, you ask? Well.. _BECAUSE_ I'm terrified of mushrooms. It's choc-full of deadly amatoxins and since I discovered the Meixner test and confirmed it works using this mushroom as a test and a plain old Safeway button mushroom as a control, I can now use this elixir as a control in future tests and compare the results of other unidentified mushrooms with it to detect the presence of amatoxins. This could protect me from misidentifying a deadly galerina as a tasty honey mushroom or something like that. It's no substitute for careful identification procedures, but added to the rest of my battery of tests, it's a darn nice safety net.
I must also confess that some part of me likes the fact that I've taken something very threatening to me and turned it into something that will protect me and, in turn, I've taken the very thing that usually protects this little nasty from getting picked. Its rather overkill and unpleasant defense has been turned on itself. Ha!
This is actually a good example of my weird mechanism for coping with fear. Whenever I have a fear, even if its perfectly justified, I tend to confront it, but not just confront it. Machismo doesn't do much for me. What I really prefer to do is take whatever I'm afraid of and turn it into something positive. By finding positive aspects in things I fear, I tend to lose my fear of them in a far more lasting way than merely challenging them. I still have a very healthy respect for mysterious mushrooms (amanita phalloides in particular) but a healthy respect is much preferable to an unchecked phobia.
Funny that someone like me who's a bit of a mycophile is also a complete mycophobe. Today I picked some mushrooms, brought them home, chopped them up, and preserved them in a jar. I did so wearing an organics mask and rubber gloves. I cut them with a disposable knife on a surface I could also discard. I then put enough warning labels on the jar that you'd have to be blind not to know what it contains.
I don't know why, but I have some deep primal fear of Amanita Phalloides. Sure it's a deadly deadly poison that kills you in a slow horrific manner and has NO cure but.. I have lots of substances around my house like that. Arsenic, Sodium Hydroxide, Hydrochloric Acid, Sulfuric Acid, etc. I think perhaps it's that none of those look anything remotely like food, or maybe it's just because I was taught such major fear of mushrooms as a child. Dunno. Whatever the case, Amanita Phalloides scares me and I feel pretty uncomfortable having it in my house.
So why do I, you ask? Well.. _BECAUSE_ I'm terrified of mushrooms. It's choc-full of deadly amatoxins and since I discovered the Meixner test and confirmed it works using this mushroom as a test and a plain old Safeway button mushroom as a control, I can now use this elixir as a control in future tests and compare the results of other unidentified mushrooms with it to detect the presence of amatoxins. This could protect me from misidentifying a deadly galerina as a tasty honey mushroom or something like that. It's no substitute for careful identification procedures, but added to the rest of my battery of tests, it's a darn nice safety net.
I must also confess that some part of me likes the fact that I've taken something very threatening to me and turned it into something that will protect me and, in turn, I've taken the very thing that usually protects this little nasty from getting picked. Its rather overkill and unpleasant defense has been turned on itself. Ha!
This is actually a good example of my weird mechanism for coping with fear. Whenever I have a fear, even if its perfectly justified, I tend to confront it, but not just confront it. Machismo doesn't do much for me. What I really prefer to do is take whatever I'm afraid of and turn it into something positive. By finding positive aspects in things I fear, I tend to lose my fear of them in a far more lasting way than merely challenging them. I still have a very healthy respect for mysterious mushrooms (amanita phalloides in particular) but a healthy respect is much preferable to an unchecked phobia.
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Date: 2008-09-04 03:40 pm (UTC)You might try some herbal pills called Calms by a company called hylands. hylands.com is their website. Great stuff really. Takes the edge off of the anxiety without knocking you or alienating you from your human experience of your feelings. I've recommended them to a lot of folks and they've echoed back their praises. Good luck.
Calms = Hops, Passion Flower, Oats, Chamomile