WHAT ARE SOME OF THE KNOWN DIFFERENCES?
Cooked foods cannot create true health because they are missing some very vital elements needed by the body for its optimal functioning; things like enzymes, oxygen, hormones, phytochemicals, bio-electrical energy and life-force. When foods are heated above 105 degrees F they begin to lose all of these. By 118 degrees F, most food is dead. Yes, the vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats and proteins are still there, but in a greatly altered state – not at all what nature provided.
Each cell of the body is like a tiny battery, and raw and living foods supply the bio-electricity which charges these batteries. The bio-electrical energy of raw food can be clearly seen in Kirlian photographs of the food. This photographic process shows electrical discharges that naturally emanate from all living things as luminescent, aura-like flares surrounding the subject. The glow is bright and radiant in raw foods, yet almost totally absent in Kirlian photographs of comparable cooked foods.
To me “life-force” means “the energy that is able to create life.” The sprouting ability of raw foods demonstrates the presence of the life-force within them. All grains, legumes, beans and seeds sprout. Nuts in the shell sprout. Potatoes sprout and create new potato plants. (Do not eat potato sprouts as they are poisonous.) If you stick the top part of a pineapple into water, it will sprout roots. Apple seeds create apple trees. Avocado pits and mango pits sprout.
Now, take cooked versions of all the above, put them into soil and see if a plant will grow. Cooked food rots, rather than sprouts, and a new plant does not come forth. Through observation, you can easily demonstrate for yourself what you are losing by eating cooked foods. A food that is cooked cannot create life and cannot maintain the life-force energy in our bodies.
Cooking food disrupts its molecular structure and kills all the enzymes too. Enzymes are the indispensable biological catalysts (infused with “energy charges”) which enable the body to utilize vitamins and minerals. (Think of enzymes as the workmen and vitamins and minerals as the bricks and mortar. Without the workmen, the bricks and mortar don’t get put into place.) Enzymes are extremely heat-sensitive and thus do not survive in cooked foods. The vitamins and phytochemicals also are injured, greatly diminished, and left in an altered molecular state. The minerals are made less soluble. The fats have turned from life enhancing cis fatty acids to trans fatty acids, which create damaging free radicals in the body. Trans fatty acids also interfere with respiration of the cells. The proteins (including vegetable proteins), become denatured; they then coagulate (like the white of an egg) and are very difficult to digest. Some researchers report that unmetabolized protein particles in the bloodstream are a possible cause of allergies.
When you eat cooked (enzymeless) foods, you put a heavy burden on your body, which then has to produce the enzymes missing in the food. One of the reasons you feel lethargic or sleepy after a cooked meal is because the body is diverting its energy to replacing the enzymes that were not supplied. By comparison, a raw food meal leaves you feeling light and full of energy. You can judge this for yourself. Uncooked foods digest in 1/3 to 1/2 the time of cooked foods. The stress of creating and replacing enzymes, meal after meal, day after day, year after year, greatly contributes to accelerated aging.
Ingesting cooked food also causes the body to produce a surge of white blood cells (leukocytosis). These cells normally defend against disease, infection and injury to the body, but their production is a routine effect of ingesting cooked foods (as if the body considers such food a threat or danger). Because leukocytes carry a variety of enzymes, there is another possible explanation for the increase in white blood cells. The leukocytes may be delivering the missing enzymes so that digestion can proceed unhindered. Leukocytosis does not occur when raw, unheated foods are eaten. According to Viktoras Kulvinskas,5 “in any pathological condition, including the intoxification of the digestive system with cooked food or other toxic materials, these white cells increase from 5 or 6 thousand per cubic millimeter to 7, 8 or 9 thousand per cu.m.m.” Leukocytosis also occurs when additives, pesticides and chemically based supplements are ingested. And, of course, producing these cells creates an additional stress upon the body.
Raw foods are full of oxygen, especially green leafy vegetables which contain an abundance of chlorophyll. The chemical structure of chlorophyll is almost identical to the hemoglobin in our red blood cells. The only difference is that the hemoglobin molecule has iron in its nucleus and the chlorophyll molecule has magnesium. Chlorophyll detoxifies the bloodstream and every other part of the body better than anything else you could eat. When you eat raw green chlorophyll foods, you oxygenate the blood. The bloodstream, through its capillary system, then delivers this oxygen to every cell in your body. And when you eat greens in blended form, such as in Dr. Ann’s Energy Soups (see Recipe Index), this process is even more efficient.
Sprouted seeds contain vital elements which nourish our glands, nerves and brain. The hormones needed by the body are created out of the natural fat and other essential principles found in seeds. Think about how few seeds are found in the average diet. The plant breeders are hybridizing most of the seeds out of our foods. Now we can get seedless watermelons, seedless grapes, seedless citrus, and the list goes on. Even if we did find a seed, most of us don’t understand the value of eating it and thus, it would be discarded.
When you eat cooked starch, the body absorbs more than it needs. Getting rid of the excess starch then becomes another burden to the body. Those who favor cooked foods often make the point that since the body cannot absorb raw starch, this is a sign the food should be cooked. Another way to look at it, however, is that the body absorbs just enough of the raw starch for its needs and then passes out the rest. (When pig farmers feed their pigs raw potatoes, the pigs stay slender. Since farmers sell their pigs by the pound, they have learned to feed them cooked potatoes, which fattens them up.)
Cellulose – the woody, fibrous part of food – was previously believed to be unnecessary to the body. Because the body did not absorb it, it wasn’t deemed important. Now we know that this fiber is what keeps things moving through our body so that we don’t become constipated. Nature is vindicated again! I believe, in addition, that raw fiber has the ability to act as a broom which sweeps the intestinal tract and keeps it clean. Cooked fiber has lost the ability to do this for us. Enemas and colonics serve their purpose, but they are a poor substitute for what nature, by putting (raw) fiber into foods, has provided.
Raw and live foods nourish and improve the body’s inner environment. Raw and live foods enable the body to dislodge and expel accumulated wastes. A member of my family had a tiny sliver of metal lodged in his hand as a result of an accident. For two years he tried to get it out by squeezing, pushing, and probing with sterilized needles, etc., but it wouldn’t budge. He went to the Optimum Health Institute (to learn about live foods) for a week and, when he returned home, decided he would continue on raw foods. Four weeks later, a bubble formed on his hand and inside the bubble was the sliver of metal. The bubble then burst and the sliver came out. This is an example of what raw and live foods do. If something is not supposed to be in your body, it will be expelled.
Eating cooked food prevents the immune system from working on what is really important in keeping us superbly healthy and young in body, mind and soul. We exhaust and dissipate the body’s strength by using the immune system to combat the unnatural cooked foods, chemically based supplements, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, hormones (in meats, poultry, fish and dairy) and numerous other toxins we ingest, breathe in or absorb through our skin. When we really need the immune system to support us (as when a disease or infection develops or an injury occurs), it then lacks the strength to defend us properly.
Eating healthy means giving your body power foods it can easily assimilate and use for regeneration and rejuvenation. Life comes from life. So the more foods you eat which are organic and straight from nature’s raw garden, the better you are going to feel.
5 Survival Into The 21st Century, Viktoras Kulvinskas. Iowa: 21st Century Publications,1975.
IS AGING NATURAL, NORMAL AND INEVITABLE OR IS IT JUST A SYMPTOM OF SOMETHING THAT HAS GONE TERRIBLY WRONG WITH NATURE’S PLAN?
I do not think aging is natural, normal or inevitable, but rather is a result of choices we make in our lives.
“We do not degenerate because we grow old. . .
We grow old because we degenerate!”
—Ross Horne
At any moment in time, you are either aging or rejuvenating. There is no standing still. You are either going one way or the other depending on the choices you make:
Food choices – do you eat vibrant live food or processed dead food?
Do you make the effort to drink clean water and breathe clean air?
In former times we could just take it for granted that the air and water were clean but today the situation is different.
Do you have a grateful attitude towards life in general; about the life that you are living, in particular; and about all the potential truth and beauty it can unfold?
And if not, are you willing to cultivate a grateful attitude?
Do you choose to think life affirming, life sustaining, uplifting thoughts or negative, pessimistic and life depriving thoughts?
Thoughts, feelings and emotions create chemicals in the body just as surely as the food you eat does. Depending on the impact of the specific thoughts or emotions, the chemicals created can be beneficial or damaging to the body. Inharmonious thoughts and feelings create an acid condition in the body.
Have you allowed yourself to be burned out by life’s troubles (challenges)?
Or do you still face each new day with the expectation and fresh hope of uncynical youth?
Exercise and breathing choices – do you find a way to include physical activity in every day or are you sedentary?
And when you do exercise, is it done perfunctorily or with exuberance and fun? Do you find time each day for deep pranic breathing to offset the shallow superficial breathing we engage in most of the time?
Do you get out into the sunshine regularly and let the natural light enfold and caress you with its healing brilliance?
Sunshine and natural light are tonics to the body.
Lifestyle choices – do you choose clean living with no addictions to smoking, drinking and drugs, no bingeing on food and no “burning the candle at both ends?”
Do you surround yourself with positive, uplifting people or negative people who bring you down and sap your energy?
Do you choose to worry about situations or, confidently and delightfully, visualize what you want to occur?
Do you choose to be happy or unhappy?
Happiness is not something that happens to us but results from an attitude we consciously or unconsciously adopt.
Are you happy or unhappy in your chosen work or profession?
And if you’re unhappy, do you have some hobby or avocation you regularly engage in, which brings you joy, satisfaction and fulfillment?
Can you depend on yourself and on your word or do you let yourself and others down a lot?
Do you hold a clear and pleasingly youthful image of yourself in your mind’s eye, or do you find fault with your looks and put yourself down?
If we see ourselves as youthful we move towards youthfulness; but if we see ourselves as getting old, we inevitably move towards that.
“Whatever thou seest, that too become thou must;
God if thou seest God and dust if thou seest but dust”
is a quote which has fascinated me all my life. I don’t know who said it. I just believe it to be the way all things work in our lives.
Do you choose love (or at least tolerance) over hate?
Do you choose admiration over envy?
Do you follow through on the things which are really important to you, the goals you set for yourself; or do you let them fizzle out? When you don’t follow through, unfulfilled goals and unfulfilled longings become as debris in the body.
Do you act on the knowledge and wisdom you have acquired in life or do you try to ignore it, living as if you did not know? It’s been said “Ignorance is bliss,” and the reason this is so is because once you know something, once you truly believe something to be true and you then go against that belief by your actions and your words, your body and soul are adversely affected. Along with the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom comes responsibility.
Do you take advantage of life’s invariable opportunities to cultivate a sense of humor? Do you choose to see the light side of things and not take yourself so seriously? Laughter is a great healer.
Do you choose to find joy in each day of your life or are you waiting for everything to be perfect first?
ALL of the above impact our rate of aging.
Why would these things contribute to our rate of aging? Because when you’re on the positive side of all the above, you are nourishing yourself in diverse ways. Food is nourishment, yes, and the primary subject of this book, but we also receive (or fail to receive) nourishment in many other ways too.
In our world, it seems verboten to go against the established norm of believing in a progression of aging. Most people believe aging is inevitable and so the process of aging becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. It is difficult to break out of the prevailing mind-set. But you are by now (hopefully) eating “high-raw” . . . and so you’ve already broken through a few barriers. Harnessing the mind then becomes easier for you.
AGING AND THE ACID/ALKALINE BALANCE
A youthful, healthy body is alkaline. A diseased body is acid. The foods we eat must contribute to the alkaline state of the body. Consume 80 percent alkaline forming foods and 20 percent acid forming foods. If you adhere to this 80/20 principle, and minimize negative emotions, you’ll be on your way.
When a body is in an acid state, what neutralizes the acid? Alkaline compounds neutralize acid. That’s why you see all those ads on TV and elsewhere advertising products to neutralize acidity. Because they do not deal with the CAUSES of acidity, but only the symptoms, these products do not work in the long run. The Standard American Diet (see Glossary) is acid forming. Meat, poultry, fish, wheat, cola and dairy are acid forming. Stress is acid forming. Anger and negative emotions are acid forming.
The issue of acid/alkaline balance can be a little confusing because each organ of the body, as well as the blood and skin, have optimum pH levels that are different. The blood, for example, is slightly alkaline at pH 7.37 to 7.45. In order for the blood to be constantly maintained within this narrow corridor, the body engages in heroic efforts. If the blood gets too acidic, calcium from the bones is dissolved and utilized to adjust the blood’s pH. Could this have anything to do with the high incidence of osteoporosis in this country?
The skin has a slightly acid pH because one of the avenues the body uses to expel acid waste is through the skin. Interestingly, the “acid mantle” thus created then protects us by killing bacteria and viruses on the skin.
Other pH values are 1.5 for stomach juice and 8.8 for pancreatic juice. Some authorities say the urine should be acid and others say that the urine must be slightly alkaline. Is it any wonder we are confused?
The waste products created from the body’s own process of metabolism are all acid. Protein metabolism produces sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid. Carbohydrate and fat metabolism produces acetic acid and lactic acid. These acids are poisonous and must be washed out of the system on an ongoing basis. First however, they have to be neutralized by carbonic salts, which are composed of alkaline mineral compounds. We must have a reserve of these alkaline minerals available at all times to assist the body to do its work efficiently. This is why a high alkaline diet of fruits, vegetables and sprouts is so important to our health and well-being.
Nobel Prize-winning biologist and surgeon Dr. Alexis Carrel did an experiment in which he kept parts of a chicken heart alive for 28 years in a saline solution which contained a full spectrum of minerals. The solution was changed every day to clean out the wastes. As long as waste products are disposed of, cells appear to be virtually immortal and cell renewal can go on indefinitely.
The importance of preparing food with love cannot be overstressed. When food is prepared lovingly, an intangible vital nutrient is added to the food. As far as I know, there is no name for this nutrient, so, for the purposes of this book, I’ll call it Vitamin L-complex. (Of course, researchers would dispute the existence of this nutrient, as it has not been located in the physical realm.) I submit that the food tastes better and is more nourishing when Vitamin L-complex is imparted to it.
“Oh, no, now she’s really lost it!” I can hear you say. But, bear with me and I will try to explain. Author and lecturer Dr. Deepak Chopra, in his audio tape series, , talks about an experiment which was done with newborn premature babies at the University of Miami. In the experiment, the newborn babies were divided into two groups. Both groups were fed identical diets, but the experimental group was touched and stroked for 10 minutes, three times a day (they referred to this stroking as “tactile kinesthetic stimulation”), while the control group was just fed, but neither touched nor stroked. At the end of the experiment they found that the group which was touched had gained 49 percent more weight per day than the control group. As a result, this group of babies could be released from the hospital much sooner, saving the hospital $3,000 per baby in costs.
Stroking has been shown to stimulate growth hormone, such as when dogs and cats lick their young. I question whether this effect results from just the physical stroking alone, or is it the stroking in conjunction with the loving feelings that are generated by the very act of stroking that stimulates the growth hormone? In the case of the newborn babies above, I don’t see how a caring nurse in a hospital could mechanically stroke a baby without some tender feelings coming into play.
As Chopra says, “Heaven forbid they should call this stroking ‘love,’ ” but that’s just what it was and you can plainly see the result. It’s intangible, but it nourishes. Is it not possible then to affect the foods as we prepare them by touching with our hands and our loving thoughts? And as a result, would not this food be more nourishing to those who ate it?
Another example of how we impart intangibles into things is a humorous incident that occurred to Edgar Cayce, as reported by his son, Hugh Lynn Cayce. Edgar Cayce,7 in some of his readings, had given detailed instructions for building an appliance which was supposed to help people, especially insomniacs, sleep better. After a number of these readings, a close friend of the Cayces, Marsden Godfrey, decided to manufacture the appliances to send to people, as called for in some of the readings. One client, who received an appliance, sent a letter to Cayce stating, “Mr. Cayce, I was sleeping part of the night before I got this appliance that you recommended and now I can’t sleep at all. I have gotten so nervous. What should I do?” Cayce didn’t know what to do either, but he told her to send the appliance back. When it arrived, it was decided that they would set up another reading to find out how to proceed.
Cayce, in the trance state, suggested that they use a strong magnet to remove the anger which had been programmed into it. It seems that Godfrey, on the day he was building the appliance, had a violent argument with his wife and the “inanimate” object had picked up the vibration. After being cleared by the magnet, the appliance worked as it was supposed to, as later reported by the client.
“Of course, we could never explain to the woman what was wrong with her appliance because the explanation was harder to accept than the original malfunction,” mused Hugh Lynn.
What I got out of this incident is that feelings – especially strong feelings – can impart intangible qualities into things.
Many cultures on earth adhere to a tradition of blessing food before eating it. This is usually in the form of being grateful to nature, to God or to the universe for providing sustenance. This consciously charges the food with loving energy, which makes it more harmonious and nutritious to consume.
My third example is that of Grandmother’s Chicken Soup. I believe it may work for the ailing grandchild or family member, because when Grandmother is making this soup, she is making it with the love and regard she has for her family. So the Vitamin L-complex is imparted to the food and is picked up by the person who eats it. Love is ever the healer, and we do absorb it any way it comes.
How much love and caring do you think goes into the food prepared in fast food establishments? Or into factory-processed food?
So please, get into a good mood, put on some healing music and impart Vitamin L-complex into the food as you lovingly prepare it. And this will be the most nourishing ingredient of all.
7Edgar Cayce was a psychic during the early part of this century who was able (by going into a trance state),
to diagnose people’s illnesses and offer remedies for their healing. If people followed his suggestions faithfully,
a large percentage of them regained their health. The readings, over the course of years, numbered into the thousands. An organization known as The Association for Research and Enlightenment sprang up as a result of Edgar Cayce’s work. It is located, to this day, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The readings are available for perusal.
WHAT IF I’M NOT INTO FOOD PREPARATION? CAN I STILL DO THE PROGRAM?
More than half of this book is dedicated to tasty, delicious, raw/live food recipes. You might be the kind of person, however, who is not really into kitchen stuff. Would you still be able to practice this wonderful, healing lifestyle? IF you can adapt to and be satisfied with foods as they come from the earth, the answer is “yes.” After all, nothing really needs to be prepared. You can just eat food as nature delivers it.
Fruit, of course, is very tasty on its own and easy to eat. Most fruitarians, however, do not include in their diet the vegetable-fruits, such as squash, okra, eggplant, cucumbers and other less sweet fruits, which I feel are necessary for the body to receive the full spectrum of nutrients, as well as to feel balanced. If you’ve read my section on fruitarianism, and do more investigation on your own, you may come to believe, as I do, that fruit alone is not enough. I believe that in today’s polluted world, the body needs heavy doses of green, leafy vegetables loaded with chlorophyll (for oxygen delivery), phytochemicals and other as yet unidentified factors.
For most people, however, these greens need a little preparation to make them palatable. My recipes (see Marinated Collard Greens and Down Home Greens) are very easy and take all of 10 minutes to prepare. Many other dishes are also very easy and take only a few minutes in the kitchen. It is best to cultivate a taste for a wide variety of foods and include them in the diet, instead of concentrating on just a few favorite items.
A TASTE CAN BE CULTIVATED FOR UNFAMILIAR FOODS
Sea vegetables (seaweeds) can be soaked until soft, drained, and then tossed with cubed avocado or dressed with a quick and simple dressing. Flaxseed oil, lemon juice and garlic come to mind. Sea vegetables are invaluable for both their mineral content and their alkalizing effect on the body.
A taste can also be cultivated for root vegetables, and once you have acquired this taste, you can eat them like apples.
It’s obvious that appetites for various foods can be cultivated. What person has ever liked the taste of whiskey, for example, when they first tried it? Perhaps, you think, people learned to like it because of the way whiskey made them feel. Well, the same can be said for raw/live foods. After a while, you will just love the way they make you feel . . . energized, and feeling good all the time.
Once the raw/live food diet becomes more generally known and accepted, then more and more restaurants will want to include at least some raw/live food choices on their menus. It will then become easier for people who don’t enjoy preparing food to purchase what they need, ready made. In most large cities, numerous salad and raw juice bars are available right now.
You could also get involved with raw and live food circles of people, raw food support groups and potluck get-togethers. People are usually happy to share food. You might even become motivated to make some of the easy stuff yourself; and don’t forget to support restaurants and caterers that provide this type of food by patronizing them regularly.
CONVENIENCE — AT WHAT COST?
We are living in a world of convenience. We can easily pick up what passes for food everywhere we go. We can eat it as we walk down the street, grab a bite at our desks, or snack while driving our cars. We can bring it home and pop it into the microwave. We can certainly satisfy our immediate hunger; but there is a deeper hunger that prevails. And that is the hunger for a pain-free body; for endless energy to do whatever we have to do or want to do, without fatigue. It is the yearning deep within our souls for exuberance and vitality and youthfulness. And this hunger will not be satisfied with fast foods, junk foods and foodless foods. In our quest for “convenience,” we overlook the fact that feeling ill or down or depressed is not convenient. Instead, we take it as a matter of course.
In our “convenient” life, we think it is normal to go to doctors, hospitals, and clinics, and to submit to examinations, prodding and vaccinations. In our society, drugs, chemotherapy, radiation and surgery are the tools of choice for bringing the body back to some semblance of “health.” Health is typically described as the absence of any clinical signs of disease, but do most of us really feel good? In our “convenient” way of life, we take it for granted that we will end up in old age homes, nursing homes and convalescent homes, if we even last that long. I have yet to discover what is so “convenient” about that.
In our devotion to “convenience” we have forgotten that Nature’s ways for attaining “true health” cannot be circumvented.
Some people say they “just don’t have the time” to prepare raw/live food; their lives are toooo busy. But when they get sick, they’ll be spending time at home feeling ill and they’ll find the time to go to doctors and hospitals, if necessary. So it’s just a matter of choosing where you want to spend your time. The time WILL be spent . . . either in the kitchen or at the doctor. You choose.
You CAN find a way to implement the lifestyle – it just depends on your interest and motivation, and how important it is to you to live in good health.
It’s been said that a plant-based diet is the most compassionate, least destructive way we humans can live upon this planet. Making the changeover, however, is not easily accomplished for most of us who were not raised as vegetarians. It takes belief, dedication and commitment to tread lightly upon the earth. Our present society does not make it easy; we’re often made to feel that there is something wrong with us, or that we’re too extreme. In fact, it is the behavior of the civilized world, which has been corrupted by the economics of unbridled, unlimited growth — even to the point of destroying the natural environment — that is too extreme. We vegetarians are just trying to live wisely and peacefully within it, and to make changes where we can — beginning with ourselves.
A mostly vegetarian planet would resolve so many problems: water problems, land problems, problems of insufficient food for the worldwide population. Yes, other problems would be created in their stead, primarily economic hardship during the time of transition. But once through the chaos, what a beautiful world it would be. I don’t know if I’ll see this happen in my lifetime, but I hold the vision for future generations.
Historically, many countries have been primarily or largely vegetarian. China and India come to mind. Sometimes the people in these societies are led to believe that an improved standard of living and increased wealth will allow them to obtain the so-called “better things in life” — like meat and processed “luxury” foods. These are things they didn’t consume before, because they were economically unable to obtain them. Looking forward to such consumption and considering it an improvement, however, is a false ideal, because with increased consumption of these products, the health of the people deteriorates. This has happened in many societies. So what has been gained?
In his book, , Dr. Weston Price documented the many ways native people’s health deteriorated after the introduction of refined and processed (deficient) “modern” foods into their communities. (See Chapter 3, “Some Significant Studies.”)
Mother Earth, the planet that feeds and nourishes us, and permits life to even exist, is being systematically destroyed, in large measure today, by multinational corporations whose bottom line does not take into consideration the preservation of the resources which sustain them, and all the rest of us, in the first place. The forests are disappearing; desertification is overtaking our lands; the air and water are clean no longer.
Natural marine animals are being reduced in numbers by man’s poorly conceived fishing practices, which include mining of the oceans. In the search for a particular fish, nets stretching for miles, which trap everything, are spread out upon the waters. The other sea dwellers, which are caught in these nets, are just tossed away, most of them killed in the process.
Natural animals on land are dying of starvation because we have disrupted their natural habitats. We have taken over the land without making provision for a continuation of their natural environments, even if diminished in size.
Natural animals are also being pushed out by our predilections for the hamburgers of McDonald’s and Burger King fame. Forests of all kinds are being cleared to raise the beef for these addictions. And with the forests go the natural animals (becoming extinct), as well as the oxygen we need for our survival. As verified by analyses of oxygen bubbles trapped in amber, the atmosphere in ancient times contained 38 percent oxygen. In our modern world, the atmosphere contains 21 percent oxygen, but in many of our polluted, industrialized cities, it could be much lower. Can we afford to lose any more?
Natural animals are dying in droves because we carelessly dump all manner of petroleum products and poisons of all kinds into and onto the earth. We are losing species at an alarming rate. And anytime a species is permitted to disappear from the face of our planet, we all become impoverished and die a little. If just one species of life of any kind were to be detected in any of the other planets in our solar system, it would create worldwide front page news headlines, big time. And yet, the rapid disappearance of numerous species on our own earth appears hardly worthy of mention, except by the environmental organizations struggling valiantly to stem the decimation.
A man in touch with his mother, the earth, could not, would not, do this to her.
And yet the mother is not passive. Metaphysical teachers suggest that the earth is fighting for her life; that the movements of the earth, such as earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, etc., which we term “disasters” because they can destroy the unnatural things we’ve constructed on its surface, are a way for the earth to right itself, and to cleanse and heal itself. Metaphysical teachers suggest that the great increase in these natural movements of the earth in recent times are related to man’s management . . . or more accurately, mismanagement, of the earth.
ANCIENT GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH
Indigenous Indian peoples are the most ancient guardians of our earth; and even into present times, their ancient beliefs in protecting and honoring the Earth Mother are very strong. Those of us who are becoming conscious of environmental issues would do well to align ourselves with native peoples in their continuing struggles to maintain what remains of their tribal lands. Their objectives – to maintain and preserve, or where lost, to reclaim, their ancient cultures (deprecatingly referred to as subsistence economies by Westerners) are right in line with our environmental objective – to put things right in the natural world once again. In recent years, many of the major environmental organizations have also come to recognize that an alliance with Indian causes is in the interest of protecting the earth. Where Indian traditional cultures survive, so there also, the earth survives.
Many Indian Nations and communities have not been traditionally vegetarian; nevertheless, indigenous peoples all over the world share a consciousness of man’s sacred connections to Mother Earth and of the sanctity of the land, forests, waters, air and creatures. In their way of life, they took from the earth only what they needed for their own survival, and no more. They did not produce surpluses, and if there happened to be a surplus for some reason, it was cause for a celebration or a feast, which would quickly take care of the surplus. When an animal was killed, they used every part of it, so that there was no waste. They did not hunt for sport.
In America, before the arrival of the colonists, millions of buffalo roamed. The flora and fauna was lush and abundant, and the soil was fertile, rich and productive. The waters were clean, and the forests intact. In traditional Indian cultures, all things were shared; there was no individual ownership of land or of any of the gifts of nature. They could not understand how you could own something that the Creator put here for the benefit of all. There were no crimes that they could not deal with, judging by their lack of prisons. There were no hospitals; medicine men capably took care of any health problems. There were no homeless. No one starved (under normal circumstances). An observer would be hard pressed to know that 25 million1 native people lived here peacefully (for the most part) because they were so well-integrated with their environment. Some of the numerous tribes had been here for 5,000 to 40,000 years. The Spanish, French and English, who had battled for possession of this “empty” land, thought of them as ignorant savages; there was even debate about whether they possessed souls.
Just a few hundred years later, the whole panorama of America has changed. Westerners have dug up, cut down and paved over the natural world. The Indians say we have stripped her of her skin. Westerners have stolen most of the Indian lands and murdered most of the Indians. Indians in other parts of the world have not fared well either. While that history is bad enough, my plea here is for the restoration and preservation of our Earth Mother. What all native peoples believe — so deeply and unwaveringly, about our sacred connections to Mother Earth — these connections must be reawakened in the soul of all people.
Modern technology on its present course has no respect for nature or for the creatures living in it. Modern technology wants to disconnect us from the umbilical cord which fuses us to the very core of life.
1″Widely dispersed over the great land mass of the Americas, they {indigenous people} numbered approximately 75 million people by the time Columbus came, perhaps 25 million in North America.” Ref: A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, page 18.