Snippets of 2020 (3) Speak Up
One of the many challenges arising this year is the establishment of a way forward in a world that has been rocked by direct and serious threats to health and the environment. Whilst many people are looking for things to get back to normal, we need to define what this means.
The definition of normal is functioning in a natural way.
Nature has been overlooked, redefined and undervalued as a teacher and a protector in so many ways over the past decades that most of us do not even know what ‘natural’ looks like anymore.
The accepted paradigm in medical practice is still that we think we know better than the laws of nature and it is our misinterpretation of nature’s gifts that is causing the most damage.
It is frustrating and disappointing that committees established across the world to address antimicrobial resistance and One-Health initiatives for example, repeatedly fail to appoint natural health practitioners and experts in the field of treating disease without the use of these substances in the first instance. An invitation has never been issued to experts in these areas to present their findings and a time must come soon when the skills and expertise of integrative practitioners will be recognised and appreciated.
I often forget that homeopathy has never been proffered the ear of the public in any positive or wide reaching manner that would help people to know these options even exist but the people who make the big decisions are aware of this medicine and repeatedly discredit it to the shame and detriment of humanity and the animal kingdom.
Bearing in mind that we have all been born into the Modern Era, we are unlikely to see the need to extend our vision past what we have always known unless we realise that what we still know is next to nothing, or more fairly, highly inadequate. Perhaps we do need to learn from the lessons of the past as we attempt to create a better future.
This posting is for those people for whom a shift in thinking about what constitutes health and how to achieve it is desired or required. It starts with the courage to admit that what we know is only a snippet of the possibilities available.
We may assume that we have made huge progress in the practice of medicine and have been easily persuaded to believe as much since we cannot imagine otherwise. In fact this is only partly true and mostly only true in the area of diagnostics and not in the treatment of disease itself. Surgical procedures have made huge advancements with technology but since we, as biological organisms, have not evolved much at all over many hundreds of years, the treatment of medical diseases has floundered and still fails. There is only an illusion that this is not true as we actually get less and less healthy and accept that to be the new normal. Our successes with treating ancient diseases like leprosy, plague and tuberculosis with antibiotics has lead to an overdeveloped reliance upon pharmaceuticals without acknowledging that sanitation, good hygiene and a better appreciation of the role of nutrition were probably the most crucial aspects in eradicating these diseases. Homeopathy enjoys the same level of success in disease outbreaks over history, by the way, both as a prophylaxis and as a treatment but anyone raising this fact is treated as a heretic. We have developed an unhealthy reliance on pharmaceuticals that are arguably causing more harm than good as they erode our innate healing capacities and cause dependency.
Moreover and as a direct result, we have translated this approach into the practice of small animal medicine in particular.
As much as we progress and study towards better understanding, the further removed we have become from the self evident truths of the natural world. So much so that the formal study of medicine has become narrower and narrower following a model of reductionism.
This reduces everybody to the same prescribed treatment irrespective of unique differences or personal indications and reactions. We are considered to be no more than points on a bell curve. This will become strikingly evident quite soon in the proposed solution to the challenge of 2020, which is largely still a mystery to the masses but will be ‘solved’ by the modern medical industry, no doubt more quickly than it ought.
It will be packaged, promoted and sold as the recommended solution to our predicament with very little mention of sound alternatives.
We are an integral part of nature but nature has lost her voice.
We have gone from being a part of nature to being apart from nature.
We have had many harmful medical practices recommended and practised throughout the course of our development. Over the past few hundred years it was wise and necessary to abandon the majority of these but what we failed to see is that we threw the baby out with bath water and then proceeded to develop more insidiously harmful medicines in the name of progress and modernity. Marketing has corrupted the language of medicine. Newer, safer, better, all mostly not true.
We forge ahead on a path predetermined by profit and neglect of duty to the higher truths that govern our existence.
If, as wise and intelligent medical practitioners and homeopaths, we had noticed that our medical art was being hijacked back at the turn of the twentieth century we would arguably be in a much healthier and progressive world than we currently tolerate.
Homeopathy is medicine that requires the highest intellect and insight.
Samuel Hahnemann had inadvertently stumbled into the quantum realm prior to 1900 because he was a visionary, highly intelligent, intuitive and observant. He challenged the medical fraternity of the era and unfortunately they still feel challenged today and resist any changes to the rigid mindset that governs modern medical practice. Subsequently it has become far too easy to adopt the current business model of medicine that one size fits all since it so very easy to sell. The illusion that our scientific medical achievements are unsurpassable is actually a delusion.
Hardly any medically trained people on the planet at present have any knowledge of the true art of healing or the curative actions of the medicines they are prescribing.
All of the above is compounded by the disastrous results that our interference with companion animal genetics has wrought upon their health. The disgraceful insinuation of packaged plastic foods and unnecessary chemical burdens that our pets are forced to endure in the name of progress have created serious impediments to their health and vitality that we have come to recognise as being normal. Most of our dogs these days are genetically and immunologically flawed especially with skin and behaviour symptoms foremost, however they are not usually totally beyond help with the correct approach.
Rest assured that if your pet has an acute emergency, modern techniques are highly recommended and often life saving. Plus I hasten to add that all veterinarians are trying to do the best that they know without realising that what they know has been limited and most of us would admit that we do very well in emergencies but have limited real understanding of the chronic diseases that plague our pets.
It is also pertinent to mention that finally there is a lot more investigation and acknowledgment of the importance of the microbiome to health than ever before undertaken and this is a big step in the right direction. To recognise the paramount role that bacteria play in keeping us well is crucial to the advancement of medicine in a modern world that must place good food back on the top of the remedy list. At least an opportunity to have a conversation has arisen even if it may be a while before we are invited to the table. Even though more natural and raw diets are emerging as mainstream it will be quite some time before they are widely recommended. It is also good to be aware that all ‘ready to eat’ prepared foods are convenient and can be the subject of cost cutting fillers and persuasive marketing even when we may all have to choose them occasionally.
Bottom line, choose your dog breed wisely and look at the genetic characteristics that comprise good health or be prepared to accept a lot of flaws and their subsequent challenges. The hybrid vigour on the Heinz variety pound or rescue dogs still offer the best value for money unless you find an exceptional breeder.
The new designer breeds are very, very expensive these days and can be more so when we are trying to remedy the side effects of breed defects of anxiety or fear reactivity in particular. Although these conditions can be brought about by diets, interventions like desexing and chemicals, (epigenetic factors), they are also being bred into many modern dogs. In fact as I peruse the latest list of ‘genetic’ mutations and DNA tests in dogs I am reminded of how many of these are miasms with incomplete expression that have arisen as a result of our chemical and nutritional assault on their species over the past few decades especially. The more obvious physical deformities of the brachycephalic breeds have been given publicity in recent times as an animal welfare issue.
I encourage anyone reading my blog to find the courage to follow the dictates of your own intuition. Your dog will still know what is best for it too, so follow its lead or ask a veterinary homeopath to interpret.
Your health, your choice and so too for those beings directly in your care.
Science says to Nature:
“I do not need you.”
Nature says to Science:
“But I love you.”
From the book Science and nature
From the book Science and nature
From the book Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 45
Question: Why is humanity polluting and destroying Mother Nature?
Sri Chinmoy: Mother Nature is being polluted and destroyed by the unaspiring realities of life. It is very sad. Mother Nature has become so helpless, and the people who are trying to preserve Mother Nature are in no way helping. They are only talking, talking, talking! Governments also are only talking. They come forward and say, “Yes, we want to preserve the trees and fields,” but their actions produce the opposite effect.
Because we human beings see enemies all around us, because we are afraid someone will come and attack us, we use all our money and energy to make ourselves powerful. To make ourselves powerful enough to fight our enemies, we cut Mother Nature into pieces and take her resources. We give importance only to scientific and chemical advancement, which does not allow Mother Nature to remain beautiful or powerful. Chemical advancement and Mother Nature’s progress cannot go together. As long as there is fear on earth, Mother Nature will never be able to fulfil her divinity. It is only when we no longer see others as enemies that we shall be able to keep Mother Nature intact.
Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy answers, part 7, Agni Press, 1996