Perhaps the earth can teach us…

There has never been another time like this…

When I was a young girl in school, the classrooms were lined with rows of hard wooden desks and noisy chairs – a stiff environment for energetic children that needed to run and play. There were green chalkboards scribbled with white chalk and a big clock whose hands never seemed to move, centered in the front of the room.

Every semester, we would go through the drills, performed unrehearsed. With a shout from the teacher, our small bodies would quickly dive under the desks onto the cold floor; making a racket of noise, like little worms, we would curl up, cover our heads with our arms and wait until we were told it was safe to return to our seats. As if those small wooden desks could protect us from the terror of atomic bombs and mushroom clouds; these new threats exploded outside the shattered windows of my imagination.

During those years, we lived with this new type of warfare – accompanied by the fear of complete annihilation; the leader of the Communist Party at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, was present in every headline. One of the things he was known for was taking off one leather shoe while giving a speech in front of the United Nations and banging it in red faced anger against the platform where he was standing. The combination of Russian fiery and atom bombs slept beside me and my stuffed animals each night, as mushroom clouds of nuclear waste floated from continent to continent, poisoning my sleepless nights, beginning with dreams, ending with nightmares.

Those were the fears we lived with as we continued our daily lives, not yet introduced to CNN and Fox News. Walt Disney produced the movies of that era and “convenience foods” designed by food engineers geared to trigger addictions and make us sick were on every supermarket shelf. The refrigerator was always stocked with a block of orange Velveeta cheese, made to look like cheddar with the consistency of plastic. Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Snow White and Cinderella – even they could not dispel the terrors that were always there behind the mushroom clouds, behind our eyes, pretending that all was well.

There has never been another time like this…

Now, many decades later, the so-called leaders of present-day countries, bullies, similar to Kruschev are fighting for boundaries that don’t really exist. Millions of toxic chemicals that know no boundaries are in our air, food, soil and water, poisoning us, creating a different, deadly chronic threat larger than our borders could ever be. As insects and animals become extinct, we are losing the topsoil where food is grown. Changing weather patterns are destroying our homes, oceans, lakes and rivers. The products we use on our bodies and clean our homes with are filled with chemicals that disrupt hormones, creating the pandemics of obesity, Insulin Resistance and diabetes – in adults and children. The plastics that line our bottles, cans and sales receipts also disrupt our hormones, conveniently creating infertility and childhood puberty. Genetically Modified Foods (GMOs) change the nutritional value of our food, poisoning our soil and our bodies, increasing the whole range of cancers and autoimmune conditions. And, the final straw, the tiny threat that also knows no borders, forcing us to stop, stay home and out of the streets – the tiny Virus that finally got our attention – Covid-19.

There has never been another time like this…

I’ve started to take naps. I used to drive for hours every day, along with millions of fellow humans in cars beside me. Now, I rarely drive my car, and wonderful results have occurred as a result: The skies are brighter, holding colors we have missed seeing; without the fumes from cars and industrial waste, many more birds and animals have come out from their hiding places; and, I’m saving lots of money on car maintenance. There is a different smell in the air – It’s the smell of no smell. The Planet has come to a screeching halt, not from War or the terror of nuclear destruction, but from a Virus, smaller than anyone can see with the naked eye. 

Now, there is time to read, sleep, dream, think, wander and wonder; we are shifting into new ways of living, working, not working and being, with time to stop, to ponder without going somewhere, to think without rushing, to tear up the list of things to do that is never complete, to float in a pond of stillness and create the life and world we desire…

Perhaps the earth can teach us…

I can’t keep quiet. Global Warming became more personal when I lost my home in the Woolsey Fire, along with thousands of neighbors in my community and surrounding cities, less than two years ago. The mountains are dry and brown once again – a reminder that more fires will come if our behaviors don’t change. It’s just a matter of time. 

I can’t keep quiet. For decades I have watched patients and friends, sick with conditions of the gut, Insulin Resistance and metabolic disorders – the other pandemic. We can all make changes in the way we live (See below) – We must, to survive.

We have been given a great gift. We can imagine and plan a future of Wellness – for ourselves and the Planet. We can change habits and teach children how to nourish themselves, to grow gardens and prepare food. We can teach Kindness. We can engage with everyone – not just those we are familiar with. 

Medical Intuitive Carolyn Myss says that all of us who are alive now – you, me, everyone you know and everyone you don’t know – All who inhabit the Planet are here at this time for a reason. This time we are living in, this strange and amazing time, is meant just for us. Let’s not waste it.

With love x