Yesterday I was scootering out with my 150cc vehicle when I noticed yet again what can only be noticed if you walk, bicycle or scooter/cycle for transportation. The air and atmosphere was warm but pleasant, the breeze comfortable--even in stopped positions--in the country, in the shade, under the big trees. As I took a break under a stand of 8 trees, I enjoyed the air flow provided by the thousands of leaves, as well as the soothing rustling sound they made. Birds sang their sweet entoxicating melody. It was 92 in the sun, higher in the parking lot a few feet away. But where I was it was cool and sort of magical, certainly mesmerizing.
Do we as a society take note of these things?
In contrast, coming into town, especially waiting at the red lights, it felt more like 100 degrees. I was feeling downright irritable, I see so many violent animal roadkill, deer, cats, dogs, squirrel, groundhog, possum. Trash where my eyes gaze, oil stains blighting parking lots, noise and more violence as I navigate my way through automobiles, those potential weapons of mass destruction. What opium was to China in some ways makes gasoline to Americans. A scant tree here or there to break the sickly monopoly of commercialization.
People will not get the sensual difference between the beauty of the former and the ugliness of the latter as long as they remain isolated in their air conditioned car and climate controlled home. There is alot of research about how historically civilizations fell and species went extinct in relation to climate and ecosystem destruction. The New Yorker discusses this in a recent article on the endangerment of frogs and bats in a recent edition.
We will not understand what a noisy and traumatic stressors we put forth in the world in the form of decibels rocketing from our machines. Unless we open our windows, both physical and psychological.
Cycles repeat themselves. The rise and fall of the oceans, the dinosaurs, the mammoths, wilderness, and now, I feel, humankind.
I will explore the implications of individual health and Oriental Medicine in my next installment.
In the pursuit of truth, love, purity, and beauty in the world of forms,
Michele Salinas, LAc, Dipl. CH, RN-BSN, MSOM
No comments:
Post a Comment