Natural Living—what it means to me

[sts]

I was trying to put some of my thoughts about this down. I know this is by no means everything that I think belongs to this subject. After all, this is about Life, and about Nature, which I think are about as complex and intertwined as anything could be. I don’t think there is any ONE answer—everone has a different understanding what that means; there are as many answers as there are people. **Food: I believe in eating a variety of foods. I eat meat, to me that seems natural. I do try and get meats from animals that were husbanded in a humane way, and I don’t eat a lot of meat (what does “a lot” mean?). In general, I think that Americans & others eat way too much meat, and too much of the same kinds, especially beef. It creates an imbalance in many ways: in the body, in our environment, in our minds/spirits. Watch Diet for a New America, with John Robbins, sometimes. It will probably make you want to vegetarian. Whatever you end up doing/deciding on, it has to fit in with the rest of your life. As Casey says, it has to be something you just do. You have to able to sustain it; it has to be something that defines who/what you are. It becomes part of you, and of course, as you grow and evolve, it does also. I know total vegetarianism is not for me, even though I have spells when I eat hardly any meat at all. I love to cook & eat. I love to explore new things in food, and I love traditonal cooking as well. Food to me has to be real. I make stuff from scratch. I do buy canned or frozen things also, but I am a label reader. If there are a bunch of words on the label I don’t understand, I don’t buy it. If I do understand and I don’t want it, like aspartame or monosodium glutamate, I don’t buy it either. I don’t eat at McDonalds or other fast food places like that. That food doesn’t seem real, it doesn’t have spirit to me. It seems to me that it mainly feeds big time corporations. **Medicine/Healing: Medicine these days is out of wack, to me. If I turn on the TV, I am bombarded with all the advertisements that tell me to take this medicine and that pill, and to ask my doctors for a number of presriptions, or else! “Alternative Medicine” often times seems not much better. Everyone seems to have a miracle cure, a super elixier, a magical potion, what ever. I like Susun Weed’s cathegorization in approaches to healing: the traditional, the heroic & the wise woman way. The Traditional Way is the scientific, legally accepted way; it measures, tests, and proofs. Many of the alternative practices follow the Heroic Way; it asks to believe and it will have the answer/rescue. The Wise Woman Way asks to believe in yourself, listen to yourself, and also that what is happening is natural, even disease and other conditions that the other traditions try to eliminate. Susun doesn’t say we should turn our backs on established practices to find relieve, etc, only that we should listen to ourselves in determining what to. Sometimes this is very easy for me, other times not so much. It makes it hard for me to accept what others (doctors, friends, etc) tell me I should do. I have to think or meditate on it, and I am often unsure what would be the best course for me. **Living (Natural) to me is Spiritual: Believes: I believe that we create our reality by what we believe. Everyone’s believes are different, and so is everyone’s reality. Discuss a book, a movie or a memory with someone, and you find that they had a different experience with it. I believe the same holds true in a much larger context. If it is amazing just how some people are relatively healthy having (to me) very unhealthy eating habits. I believe that it is their believes around food (or disbelieve that if they change their eating habits they would be healthier) that keep them that way. I have also made the experience that changing my believes about certain things changed aspects of my life related to that believe. Life and Death: It is natural for us to die. For some of us it is natural to die quite young, or by a long illness, etc. It is part of what we are here to experience. It is natural that if we live long enough we will loose our parents, our life partners, our friends, etc to death. It is also part of our experience on this earth. It is natural that our bodies, mind & spirits will change as we grow older. However, for me it doesn’t mean that I will become a cripple or loose my mind or stop being able to climb stairs or otherwise take care of myself. Bigger picture: I belive that we are part of this earth, this universe. (Wo)Man is part of nature, not separate. As Indian chief Seattle once said ”The earth does not belong to us, but we belong to the earth” (quoted by Starhawk in “The Twelve Wild Swans”, pg 62) I believe that we are here in this place and at this time to experience certain things, whatever they may be. Everything that is, is natural in a sense. Everything IS, good and bad are 2 sides of the same coin. ******This are just some rambling thoughts I am having on this at this time. Some more thoughts perhaps some other time. **Books: Evelyn Tribole & Elise Resch: "Intuitive Eating". Jane Roberts: "The Nature of Personal Reality". Susun Weed: "Menopausal Years", "Healing Wise", others. Lynn V. Andrews: any of her books, but “Shakkai” on death and dying, and “Woman at the Edge of Two Worlds” on menopause. Starhawk: "Spiral Dance". Video: John Robbins: "Diet for a New America". YouTube: Enter a search for Susun Weed to watch some food-for-thought interviews.

[Dr. Terek Brown]

Thanks for your thought provoking post. I'm happy to see that this topic is much more than a superificial thought, but it is truly what encompasses our world how we treat her and coexisting together. Living Naturally is not always easy for many, such as Casey states it just is a way of being. It takes an evolutionary process to get to that point and some never do, but this is where we start the dialogue that creates the community that perhaps could make the shift/change in someone else's life.

It's true that it is your thought, your opinion, your " way of being" . .............. But I was not aware of a few of the books you referenced, so thank you!

BTW, there is another book you may want to read, it is called " The Occassional Vegetarian" by Karen Lee and Diane Porter.