So much fighting and disagreement. Control versus freedom, conformity versus individuality, obedience versus logic, false information versus truth. Goodness. Have we forgotten how to get along and what it means to be human?
Yes. We have.
We’ve not only forgotten, but humanity has stepped so far from its origins of being in harmonic relationship to Earth and to each other, it’s almost like we are not human. And we’re actually not. Sort of.
No, I’m not going to talk about Alien origins. That train of inquiry might better explain all the fighting going on, but let’s not get into conspiracy “theories”. That’s another story.
I want to talk about bugs. The tiny organisms that coexist with us and that we are a part of; the bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa and all the good dirt. That’s the kind of dirt I’m interested in! Inside our bodies and mostly in our gut, we are filled with these organisms. In fact (and here is the weirdest part) they outnumber our human cells. Yup. We are made of more “bug” than human. We want the good bugs inside of us, they help with lots of essential functions. Yes, there are good and bad bugs, but when the good bugs are dominant, they kill off the “bad” ones. That’s a good fight!
As the war against this virus crisis wages on, I’ve been doing a lot of inquiry into immunity, wanting to prepare my body to “fight” an onslaught of deadly pathogens. We all have become extremely concerned. We can look forward to vaccines and more fighting, or we can look backwards to the synergy we had with earth as early humans.
As earth-based organic living bio-electric sentient organisms, we developed on this planet for the last several hundred thousand years connected to The Earth. We planted, dug, built with what earth provided and ate what she offered. Everything was organic, the meat was hunted fresh, the water was pure and we never wasted anything. Since life began, we breathed each other’s air, shared cellular information though touch, and exchanged bacterial materiel. It sloughs off of us. We need it to be healthy! We develop natural immunity to harmful bacteria (the bad bugs) through healthful eating, being around dirt and each other. Babies naturally put things in their mouths. Our immune systems develop this way. People in the past lived in harmony with their environment, AND with the microbes that lived inside of us. We were in balance. “As within so without”. Balanced on the inside equals balance on the outside.
Previously, when we estimated the age of archaeological skeletons, we thought people lived to be about 30. Now, we are discovering that theory was based on perceived age. New estimates say our ancestors could have lived well into their 70’s or older. Compared to today’s standards of aging, however, they appeared much younger with very little internal degrading. Over the last hundred or so years many people are aging very fast and are in terrible physical condition. All kinds of diseases are plaguing us (not just Covid) and even children are getting sick at alarming rates.
Animals in the wild don’t get sick and our ancient ancestors had relatively no disease.
What in the world is going on?!
I think the problem is that we have been waging a war on the wrong enemy. We have been waging a fight against bacteria and viruses rather than acknowledging they are a part of us and they just need balance. After all, we are made more of this stuff than “us”!
With all the hand sanitizers, antibiotics, pesticides and herbicides, we have killed off our tiny friends. Did you know that our immune system lives in our gut and that is where our microbes flourish? Our gut microbiome is crucial for many areas of health. If we don’t have the right balance of tiny bugs in our bellies, our immune systems become compromised, mental health gets whacked out, we don’t digest food properly, we gain weight and we can’t think clearly. Our microbes play many important functions but they are not working right from harmful food like products, sugar, caffeine, pesticides, heavy metals and pharmaceutical drugs. Our food is no longer nutritionally active due to GMO’s.
We are basically dead inside.
The imbalance with the natural world inside of us creates an imbalance to the world outside of us. As above, so below. We are now vulnerable to the bad bugs. Additionally, not accepting the biodiversity inside of us separates us from the biodiversity of humanity. We forgot that we came from nature and thrive with Her and with our tribe. We’ve lost our excitement for being alive and with the soil. Our “must go faster with more and more" mentality has created a catastrophic downward spiral and potential extinction of Humans. We’ve disconnected from the simple things: a flower, the hum of bees, the wind in the trees. We have forgotten the miracle that is life, the beauty that is all around us, the magnificence of the planet and entire Universe.
As a Pagan and Priestess, I honor the natural world. I choose to respect The Mother in all her forms: Earth, Goddess Gaia, Moms, daughters and dirt. I also honor The Father: Gods, Celestial Realms, Dads, sons and stardust (stardirt?). I see the connection to what is within us and all around us.
We are all made of earth and we’ll all return back to it. What we do with our lives between birth and death is up to us. To connect with and love Nature or wage a war against Her? Do we continue to destroy our own environment inside and out until it’s too late? It’s up to each of us to decide. You can make a difference, even if it’s just for yourself, because we each matter. We are each our own Universe. Will you will choose to return to the way of nature? Learn to heal from the inside out? It might mean a total change in lifestyle. Yes, it’s a big shift and commitment. But do we really have any other choice? To my readers who are already doing all they can for your gut and Mama Gaia, thank you! For those of you ready to step into a total life shift I’m here for you.
Mother Earth needs every single one of us to do our part to return to balance.
Earth is getting a break right now, but what about when we go back to work, to our cars, over-purchasing and mindless activities that we really don’t need? This is the perfect time to decide to make some serious changes.
We only have one body and one planet. May we learn to live in harmony with the large and the small. Make bugs, not war.
With deep dirty love,
Dev