If there is a single reason for most human sickness, unhappiness and poor quality of lives, it is the fact that we have progressively removed ourselves from nature and the biosphere we call Earth.
No amount of drugs, vaccinations, medical support, increasing economic growth, consumer goods, processed foods will solve this existential problem that besets us all today. Perhaps we needed a coronavirus-19 to make us stop and take a while to reassess our lifestyles and aspirations!
We are an integral part
Like it or not we are all an integral part of this biosphere we call Earth. We live in a soup of bacteria, viruses and micro-organisms, the vast majority of which are keeping us alive and in good health.
We now know we are host to trillions of bacteria micro-organisms inside the gut, the biomes that have recently been “discovered” as essential for our nutrition and health. We are coated with almost the same number of friendly “bugs” that offer protection against unwanted intruders.
We are not machines. We are not separate from the rest of the living creatures on this planet, from our largest mammalian friends – the elephants or whales – to our smallest invisible visitors or guests in our lives – the microbes, bacteria, viruses and others. If we live in a concrete jungle of a city it is difficult to see this connection.
A thousand years ago mankind was much closer to nature and had a much more sensitive appreciation of all the other inhabitants of the planet. Primitive man was intuitively connected to every living thing his environment, to the plants, animals and insects. Even today we can find primitive tribes living in this harmonious way with the nature of their immediate environment.
Civilisation and science based on almost purely material matters has brought us to this tipping point when the very survival of the human species is severely at risk. We have “conquered” nature only to discover nature wasn’t our enemy, but essential for our future survival.
Last night I was privileged to watch a webinar by a leading scientist Adam Boday who gave me the scientific insight into the question of biomes and the invisible living creatures that are essential for our health and life. His research has resulted in the development of a probiotic product that is made from a multitude of microbes that live naturally on many herbs and plants. It appears that this is what most of us are missing with our sterile, clean, processed living. It is also the main reason we have become so susceptible to infections by damaging bacteria and viruses. Our immune systems have been progressively damaged and depleted by our modern lifestyle.
The way forward
The way forward is difficult, we cannot all revert to a more primitive life, gathering herbs and plants in the fields and being very much a part of the natural world around us, when in fact most of us are living in cities and towns and concrete jungles that are very often great distances away from any natural world we’re talking about. Perhaps we have all to make an effort to revisit the world we’re living in with a more open mind and a more enthusiastic desire to embrace all living things which we find in our environment, to eat more foods that are not processed and denatured and sterilised as much as they are today.
Essentially we need a shift in the our attitude towards nature and the planet we live in. We don’t own nature, we are not the masters of nature we like to think we are, we are but a part of the natural environment and must learn to be respectful of that environment and treat it with the care and consideration as much as we do towards our own family.
Rebuild a healthy connection with nature
Meanwhile let us all try to rebuild this healthy connection and respect for nature. This might include us getting out into the countryside, teaching children that there is a consciousness even amongst simple creatures, perhaps even amongst plants, and that it is not outrageous to “hug a tree”.
We might be less enthusiastic about keeping our environment sterile and free from all bugs and bacterium. Children who have been brought up, free to play in the garden and get dirty hands usually have a far better immune system than those that been brought up in a sterile environment. In fact this all begins with the birth of the child if the birth is a natural birth, the baby receives its first introduction to the world of microbes from its mother as they pass through the birth canal, (not so for caesarian section babies), then they receive more from the mother’s milk (not so from the bottle fed baby) and then when they begin to be weaned they come in contact with the other micro-organisms around their immediate environment.
All these stages stimulate and develop the child’s natural immune system, which learns to sample everything entering their body to assess whether to accept or reject it. This sampling begins with the tonsils (not when they have been removed). Throughout the later development of the child many medical interventions will further compromise their immune system, usually done with the best intentions for the wellbeing of the child. This might include suppression of fevers when the child has an infection, the administration of antibiotics that indiscriminately kill off the good as well as the bad bacteria and many more such treatments.
Working towards a new normal
Today we have all been stopped in our hectic lives and made to be quiet. We have time to listen to birdsong, to maybe get a walk in the countryside or a garden, to enjoy the perfect clear blue skies and the clean air even in the cities. Do we want to go back to the old normal? Or can we work towards a new normal that is closer to nature and more appropriate to our own health and wellbeing?
