Our Planet, Our Selves: The Earth's Symptoms and What YOU Can Do About Them
Human health is more dependent on the health of the planet than the planet is dependent on human health. Unless we learn to live in harmony, we will be expelled from this Garden of Eden.
(An earlier version of this article was published at the HuffingtonPost, August 5, 2010)
HONORING EARTH DAY/EARTH MONTH/EARTH YEAR!
"The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself."
-- Gregory Bateson
Our planet is not called "Mother Earth" for only symbolic reasons. We have been born to and from this Earth. We are not simply on this planet but of this planet. Unless we learn to take care of our home, we will all be prematurely buried six feet deep under it.
Earth’s other name is GAIA, the Greek goddess of EARTH, the mother of all life. And like the human body, GAIA is a living, breathing organism.
Just as the human body can become ill, so can a planet's body. Global pollution is turning the Earth prematurely gray. Our planet is presently experiencing a global warming, a fever and inflammatory condition that is slowly cooking us all…and creating weather disruption and extreme temperatures and rainfall which creates imbalances in the earth’s biome. The life-giving blood of the planet is in great disorder as a result of water pollution, and the planet's respiration is being choked by air pollution. Our planet's most efficient oxygen-manufacturing plants are the rain forests, and they are being wiped out at an alarming rate, while anemic soil conditions are creating biological malnourishment and chronic fatigue, turning lush plant life into desert.
The more complex web of life on our planet is, the more stable and sustainable it is. And yet, the overuse of pesticides (like antibiotics) indiscriminately kills both "pests" and "friends" alike. Worst of all, pesticides over-simplify and destroy the complex web of life, often turning a "solution" into a greater problem. And herbicides, such as glyphosate, are sprayed indiscriminately, ultimately killing birds and fish and soil organisms, thereby making food sources into poisons and turning soil into deadly dirt. The fact that glyphosate is now a known carcinogen creates a certain karmic effect to those humans who profit from it and forcing this bad karma onto everyone else.
Overpopulation is creating congestion, a type of constipation in which increased waste build-up leads to diminished capabilities of storage and elimination. Toxic waste sites have become the planet's newest infections, resulting in corrosive materials opportunistically oozing and seeping out wherever they can.
Of greatest long-term potential danger to our Mother Earth is nuclear waste storage, which creates a hereditary disturbance that can strike at the heart of the planet's life. Such storage becomes the Earth's legacy. It is a Pandora's Box that must never be opened, and yet, we can only hope that time and circumstance does not disturb or open it.
Like the human body's response to symptoms, the planet's symptoms are its efforts to call attention to a problem, reduce it and to attempt to heal itself. Sometimes, however, the stress is persistent, and the Earth cannot heal itself adequately or rapidly enough against the ravages of our progressive human race. It adapts, it deforms itself and it rids itself of any vulnerable life form, even if it means destroying its children to save itself.
Ignoring symptoms of the Earth or simply providing short-term "solutions" that suppress (or bury) the problem does not create real healing. Biomimicry (the application of technologies that mimics nature's wisdom) uses nature as a model and as a mentor for sustainability. The closer that our technologies mimic nature's sophisticated, evolved and sustainable state, the more likely these technologies will be a part of the real solution and less likely to create new problems.
Humans may indeed be clever, but nature has wisdom.
Human health is more dependent on the health of the planet than the planet is dependent on human health. Until and unless we learn to live in harmony in our home planet, we will be expelled from this once pristine Garden of Eden.
We are finally waking up to the need for a healthy home, both for our own and our planet's benefit. It is now becoming patriotic to conserve energy, to recycle, and to use biodegradable products, though some individuals and companies are just pretending to be green as a clever marketing tool ("greenwashing").
There are innumerable decisions that each person makes every day that can slightly and sometimes greatly reduce the Earth's resources. We must make these decisions more consciously so that we learn to live in greater harmony with our home.
Acting as individuals, we must also try to reduce the toil and trouble that our lifestyle creates for our environment. We must also encourage the companies for which we work and other companies with whom we do business to become ecologically concerned, both in the products they create, how they manufacture them, and how they dispose of them. Ultimately, every action and every purchase must be considered for their environmental effect, short-term AND long-term.
Although these efforts are vital for our survival and for that of our children, we must do more. Due to the already present environmental problems, we must now go on a "planetary diet." We must extend our efforts beyond simply maintaining the Earth as it is to ways that will help the Earth recover from her severe illness. It is incumbent upon us all to encourage governments to make more forthright efforts to clean up the mess we have created.
It has been said that one person's right to wave a fist ends where another's nose begins. Because everything in this home planet is so interconnected, our nose, metaphorically speaking, is actually much larger than most of us realize, not just to fists but to various environmental assaults. The effect of everyone's actions has repercussive and cascading effects. Unless we learn to live lightly on our planet, our children will carry the heavy burden of our conscious and unconscious indiscretions.
BIO:
Dana Ullman, MPH, CCH, graduated from UC Berkeley School of Public Health (1978) and was interviewed by UC Berkeley’s alumni magazine here. He has written 10 books on homeopathic medicine, two of which contain a Foreword by the Physician to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (who is a MD and a homeopathic doctor). Dana Ullman has served on advisory boards or in teaching capacities of complementary and alternative medicine institutes at Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Arizona.
Dana Ullman, MPH, CCH, is America's leading spokesperson for homeopathy and is the founder of www.homeopathic.com. This website is an important resource for accessing homeopathic books, medicines, medicine kit, software, and ecourses.
Dana Ullman, MPH, CCH, is the author of 10 books, including his bestseller, Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines. His most recent book is, The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy. Dana’s eCourse on Learning to Use a Homeopathic Medicine Kit is a great way to make homeopathy practical in your personal and family life.
Dana Ullman, MPH, CCH, has also written chapters on homeopathy for four medical textbooks, including two published by Oxford University Press.
Dana lives, practices, and writes from Berkeley, California. He sees his patients via Zoom.
Dana, all wise and beautifully articulated. It is almost like being back in the '60s again.Biggest of thanks and I pray for an awakening.
Wake up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7APyHHS3Y
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=suspicious+observers+magnetic+pole+shift