John’s Sunday Blog

More or Less

I feel at times I’m a spokesperson for nature. Maybe it’s from my conditioning when phones were on the wall and the tv went snowy at 11:30. More or less I feel I am the same as I have always been. Simply here, now. Excepting of course those times when deeply lost into my role and the meanderings of what happened, and what might. But that’s beside the point. When is more good, and less bad, and vice versa? Well, it’s obviously a balancing game we are playing. From our health (mental and physical) to our choices in occupation, relations, etc. Now, when you look around at our hurried state, or into that shiny back lit mirror, the human species seems to be improving itself into a new form of hell on earth. Why is this? Balance.

It’s nature vs mind; mind wants, nature is whole and complete.

How does one alleviate these modern ills? Yes, illness- skyrocketing cancer, pain, degenerative diseases of all kinds and new ones “popping up”, mental illness, suicide etc.

Well guess what? You can only change it by starting with yourself. See the disease here is more, more and more. So it’s coming from more, more and more of what? Simply put, there too much going on for a natural human body to carry. Notice that nature is slow compared to our imaginative minds. One needs to slow down, “do less” to understand that overwhelm leads to tension. When tension becomes constant and low grade, this leads to disease.

Look at the scientific data on breath. We breathe too much. When one is in a state of hyperventilation, which a lot of modern people are, one is regularly mouth-breathing in the upper chest 12 to 15 times per minute causing a drop in carbon dioxide levels. Carbon dioxide dilates blood vessels and releases oxygen from the red blood cells. Remember when breathing into a paper bag would calm a person down? It worked. And breathing is just the surface. We over do everything and that creates more problems that can be fixed by overdoing the fixes.

We have amazing minds, don’t we? With our imagination we can create anything, you name it. But with this amazing mind comes this natural body that’s geared for survival. Notice that you are reflective and what in nature’s slow way are you reflective to? Sleeping at night and moving at day. Eyes made for finding colors in nature that broadcast danger or food. The sound of birds and the wind in the trees. A skin sensitive to touch, and heat, and coolness. Arms and hands and legs and feet for most any terrain. And a bond of trust and joy with those whom you reside. Were we meant for these natural limitations, to the speed of Sun and seasons, to the speed of a slow breath, an easy gaze, an open heart?

Can we heed our bodies call to balance our natural nature with all these modern conveniences? Yes, it does call. Your body has a language. It speaks in pressure, heat, coolness, and a variety of sensations energetic in nature. Now this is important to learn, an inner journey. Yet the body is geared for its environment so attuning to surroundings (in the present) is important because the head can be a hard place to live. So what are you attuned to? Notice the powerful reflective properties of the devices we carry. Have you ever scrolled for a bit, and then felt empty, out of sorts. Well this science goes back a bit. Institutions studying shell shock, now known as PTSD, found that many individual’s minds could not take the massive environmental and emotional changes throughout their tour of duty. They found that this principle works in interrogation. You massage the persons mind making them feel befriended and safe to the edge of terror and guilt and shame and back again. This will make one quite docile, and suggestible. And that scrolling- Isn’t it top of the mountain here, horrifying there, scandalous here and calming there, and so on? The human nervous system can’t handle this. If practiced often, scrolling can make real life gray. The dopamine released is going to aggravate one’s autonomic nervous system turning this back to the very thing that’s causing self harm, basically Stockholm syndrome on a massive scale.

What to do?

Well we can turn to what’s already here… community. Find your tribe of like-minded people. Yourself, instead of an uber bite, walk to the store and get some whole food and make it. Take up a physical practice of movement that’s right for your body. One that leaves you refreshed rather than burnt out… ehem, yoga! And see what’s been here the whole time: Real light. The earth embracing you and the weight of your body pressing against it. It’s been there your whole life guiding your posture, your balance. And yes, someday you’ll literally be pulled into it. And the time till that moment is limited. But the offer to slow down is not limited. Even if you’re busy, react less. Attention is the new currency so give it to something you love, that makes all this a little lighter.

Nature is not a brand.