reclaiming health
Twenty-twenty you ruthless, fiery shrew.
Some days we see the gifts of the rug being pulled out from underneath us, and other days it is as if we sit in a room, abrasively + awkwardly sharing space with all of our bad decisions, bad hair days, and bad dates….
Whilst many of us are ready for change, others pine for familiar, blissful ignorance. I will not lie, I teeter between the two. But whether we like it or not earthlings, we are destined for radical, impolite + unassuming change. Full steam ahead.
Occupying a liminal space makes us ache. We want to know. We want a guarantee. And as we hang like little tiny spiders in a dust storm, this liminality appears to be a very necessary part of our bumpy commute to the next chapter.
Perhaps the blessing of not having a fucking clue of what is going on, is that we are able to slow humanity down a little, reflect on past mistakes, and quite importantly, map out how to do it better next time.
Currently, our conversations seem saturated with the topic of health. Thanks to Covid, our personal + collective health has been put under the microscope like never before. But do we dare to ask…. why only now? Is it not peculiar that a knuckle-biting-health-crisis-induced-global-economic-shutdown was not initiated decades ago?
Let's see.
Vitamin supplements that effectuate health are ludicrously expensive, yet generic and sometimes questionable pharmaceuticals are discounted + pimped by doctors. Organic produce is so expensive that it is considered a luxury afforded by the privileged and yet, sprayed and imported fruit + veg is accessible at a fraction of the price. We literally pay more for food that is not poisoned. Most GP’s have minimal education around nutrition yet they receive the bulk of health issues. We tend to leave the doc’s office with a script when what we often need is an adjustment to diet + lifestyle.
Preventative and integrative medicine have outstanding results, yet they are an anomaly. Acupuncture, Ayurveda, and ancient indigenous medicine, all of which have been effectively practiced for thousands of years, are neither valued nor considered by the mainstream medical system. And if you'd like further evidence of the government's idea of health, then go and see what they are feeding the country's most vulnerable in hospitals and aged-care facilities.
Passionate, educated humans, who devote their lives to exploring new terrain around health are sadly labelled ‘quacks’ by a defensive, conservative mainstream who stamp a territorial foot on their turf. To question the status quo ultimately means a total recall of everything studied, practiced, preached, and paid for thus far. And so, to question what we think we know is an overwhelming thought for most.
So, we’d simply rather not.
The rate of disease + death that is preventable through diet + lifestyle is GOBSMACKING. So why have we chosen NOT to regulate or eliminate any of the other products on the shelves which contain shit-that-can-kill us? Why weren’t the statistics + proof + facts enough to make us sit up and listen or take to the streets?
Is a slow death more morally acceptable that a quick one?
But health is not limited to kale + cashew cheese + bone broth. It is clean water/air, stress management, community, physical exercise, creativity, purpose, healthy relationships and it is the symbiosis we experience with the natural world. Our health is intrinsically holistic.
Stress is an actual killer. Society primes + conditions us to participate in stress, normalises it and encourages us to manage it with addictions. And... it happily sells those addictions to us. Alcohol, sugar, cigarettes, and gambling are more socially acceptable than the drugs you’ll find in a back alley, but they all essentially serve the same purpose and that is to soothe personal dysfunction. Sadly, there is much shame around addiction but little focus on the structural issues that create and sustain it.
CBD is demonized + scrutinized. You'll most likely have to buy that on the black market too. Even though it is a genius-superhero-deity-world-class-winner of a plant that annihilates countless medical conditions and saves lives.
More and more vaccines are being rolled out, more fear pushed into the public about the dangers of viruses and diseases, more guidelines about “keeping safe”. But who is stepping up on a global level to educate the world + our children on how best to support an immune system?
Our idea to date of “what is healthy + what is not” holds little transparency to the general public. One needs a rather large magnifying glass + chemistry degree to decipher the additives + preservatives codes found on food packaging. Pharmaceutical companies, chemical manufacturers + telecommunication companies go to great lengths to refrain from providing clear, honest, non-biased product information to the public. Why? Haven't they had a gutful of annoying protesters + class actions + lawsuits? Don’t they want to just shut us all up, stamp our foreheads with 'conspiracy theorist' and be done with it?
Why aren’t McDonald's, Phillip Morris + Monsanto held accountable for the millions of deaths worldwide that they are responsible for? Comparatively, these deaths make Covid look like a walk in the park. Where is the global lockdown for the destruction caused by cheeseburgers, roundup + winnie reds? Bayer’s contributions to Hitler’s gas chambers and Vietnam’s Agent Orange surely should have been enough to warrant a royal uproar decades ago, yet here they are, STILL SELLING SHIT.
When it comes to health, governments and corporations have little interest in truth-telling. If they did, our world would look contrastingly different from how it looks now. Covid or no-Covid. We would have strong immune systems + healthy bodies. Our nervous systems and mental health would be thriving. We would be supported, not addicted. We would be educated + confident. We would invest in progressive technology that was safe for the environment and for our bodies. The leaders of the world would be creative, empathic, and committed to evolving. The benchmark of a great leader would be how they treated the poor, minority groups, indigenous, elderly, mothers + children. The economy would be secondary to the health + happiness of the people.
Somewhere along the way, we handed over authority of our health to someone else, and to our detriment, they monetized, commodified, colonized, and medicalised it. Health is sacred. It is our birthright. It is what we have when we are not exposed to toxins, poisons, stress, and a compromised environment - resilient, capable + miraculous bodies. It is my hope, that in all of our conversations around health right now, that we are gearing up to reclaim it. This time, on our terms, in sync with the terms of nature.
We are currently designers of a world that will exist when we are no longer around. At some point, you and I will become ancestors + stories. But for now, for some reason unbeknown to us, we were born at this particular point on the historical timeline. I believe it is less coincidence and more opportunity. An opportunity to look at the flawed patriarchal systems in place and perhaps consider what life might look like if we had new, better systems that were more conducive to the health of the planet and its inhabitants.
The pandemic is a bitch. But it has forced us to have conversations that we were just not having. In the mess of it all, we see clearly what is working + what is not. When it comes down to it, our health + freedom + relationships are really what matters. Our bodies, the planet, and our time here are finite and precious. I guess that is one thing we can all agree on.
For now, metamorphosis looms.
Breathe deep.
❤️