Controlling symptoms, controlling nature, controlling choice
Alchemy skill to practice: Connection
Stewardship Tool: Why Stewardship Why now?
How the cultural obsession with control is harming our food system, our planet, and limiting your path to Vibrant Living
This post was prompted after I read and article* about why American food is hurting us (Americans).
The article begins with the news that Monsanto (owned by Bayer), is paying out billions of dollars in damages to people who have gotten cancer after using their Roundup product. And that’s only the beginning. There are over 1,000 pending lawsuits
From that stark news, the article draws the connection between healthy food and healthy people. Noting that our food system contains thousands of chemicals that have not been proven safe and that are banned in other countries. Chemical companies in Europe have to prove their chemicals are safe. In the US, it’s a bit like “buyer beware,.” Chemicals are made and used until someone proves them unsafe.
The result:
loss of bees, butterflies, diverse plant life and the invisible microbiome and fungi in the soil that nurture all of life
bugs, weeds and disease that resist control
chemicals leach into groundwater creating dead zones in the sea and chemical filled drinking water
cancer, poor birth outcomes and developmental defects or challenges
How can this be reversed?
According to the article: “Instead of trying to control our farming environment by killing things off and wasting our greatest fertilizer (poop), we should be cultivating a system that nurtures healthy and diverse soil that actually improves over time.”
“By reimagining our food and our health in the context of a thriving system, we can create a whole new paradigm where instead of trying to kill and control things, we are creating a vibrant, abundant food system that can nourish us long into the future.”
This is the same shift from pathogenesis (killing and attacking disease) to salutogenesis (cultivating and creating well-being for people & planet.
The desire to control has been imbedded in our culture for thousands of years
The good news - a cultural worldview shift towards healing and connection is emerging
For the longer explanation of this cultural evolution, go here: Why Stewardship? Why Now?
The short explanation is that for the last several thousand years humans have been living in, and created, cultural paradigms based on control, hierarchy and creating categories of separation. That probably sounds familiar. We’re starting to shift into a new era. And with a keen eye or ear, you can see the shift emerging.
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Tell your friends. Gathering a group of PALS (Passionate Alchemists Living lives of Stewardship) is a key component of this grand journey. Start today.
5 minute Stewardship practice
As an Alchemist, you begin to notice connections like what this article demonstrates.
You may have read this article, and you say to yourself something like, “They (big ag, the greed of chemical companies, etc) are seeking to make a profit by attempting to control nature. That’s similar to big pharma (greed again) and the bulk of MDs trained by big pharma trying to control symptoms rather than figuring out how to create balance, wholeness, and an inner state of Vibrant Living.”
Think about your recent interactions with the medical, insurance or pharmaceutical system.
Where do you experience control? If seeing those aspects is a challenge, reverse that: where do you experience a lack of choice?
How does that lack of choice, or control, connected to your desire to create well-being - salutogenesis?
Is the control supporting your goals or detracting? In what other areas of your life do you notice the subtle, or not so subtle, cultural leanings toward control?
Every hero on their journey gathers mentors, a tribe for their journey (PALS) and totems, artifacts or magic potions that will help them on their journey. Here are some things you can put to use now:
Find a journal that you will enjoy writing in. Writing by hand connects our right brain and left brain, and head and heart. Note what you notice.
Learn more about the cultural era shifts.