With my background in Chinese medicine, I am excited we are donating 10% of Earth Day sales to KISS THE GROUND. Their focus to “Restore Our Earth” and advance global regeneration is a beautiful macrocosm to restore our own personal health, as we are intricately interconnected to our natural environment.
The trees, soil, flowers, bees, bugs, all flora and fauna, the sun, moon, and stars live within a harmony that can never be artificially created. It is within this same system our own bodies are created and either thrive and grow or live in dis-ease. With our industrial history of growing food as mono-crops and spraying crops and soil with toxic chemicals and pesticides, we have in essence killed much of our beautiful carbon-rich alive soil that is naturally a part of a biodiverse ecosystem that is a result of a harmonious relationship between nature and all living creatures. When nature is thriving, we live in harmony with All That Is. When we disrupt this system, we risk the health of the Earth and its inhabitants.
What Can We Do to Support the Earth?
There are number of things we, as individuals, can do to support a healthier planet.
- Eat seasonally and stay away from foods that are artificially ripened.
- Support farmers by shopping at Farmers Markets.
- Buy organic to ensure you are not consuming toxic pesticides, chemicals, and GMOs.
- Choose fairly traded products.
- Reduce the amount of meat, fish, and dairy you consume per week.
- Grow your own herbs, fruit, and vegetables.
- Grow a bee-friendly garden.
- Join an eco-community forum like Kiss the Ground.
- Reduce food waste at home and compost
- Do not buy factory-farmed meat. Instead, choose pasture-raised and organic to ensure animal welfare.
- Support B Corporations that pay a living wage to their employees and support fair working conditions.
- Make sure you and your gardeners are not using toxic weed killers, like Roundup, in your home garden and local parks.
Between Heaven & Earth
A passage from my favorite book, “Between Heaven and Earth” says it perfectly:
“Human beings represent the juncture between Heaven and Earth, the offspring of their union, a fusion of cosmic and terrestrial forces. The Chinese ideogram for a human being pictured a figure rooted like a tree in the Earth with hands outstretched like branches toward the heavens, receiving power from above and below. Sustained by the power of Earth and transformed by the power of Heaven, humanity cannot be separated from Nature – we are Nature, manifest as people. As a cosmos in miniature, we are propelled by the same forces…. What is good for nature is good for the mind is good for the body, and so on. To harm a part is to harm the whole. What is bad for the heart is bad for the body, what damages one person damages all people, what injures the earth injures me. Conversely, to restore and preserve the good health of one body and mind is to foster the well-being of the whole, the earth, and all life upon it.
Chief Seattle, in 1854, summed up this ancient view of how humanity stands in relation to the world: “This we know – the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
By Efrem Korngold and Harriet Beinfield
Let’s re-learn how to live in harmony with nature, and remember that the perfection of nature lives inside each of us. Within the five elements of Chinese medicine, the human body contains the earth element (Bones and Muscles), water element (Blood), air element (Breath), fire element (Heat), and space element (Emptiness within). If any one element is taken out of balance, the body cannot function.
Next time you take a walk in nature, try and feel the air, earth, sun, water, and flora & fauna within your own body. Feel the harmony within and the deep connection in the belief we are all one.
Happy Earth Day. May we ourselves and the beautiful planet we inhabit thrive.
Love,
Neka
