Further Ruminations

I've been doing some reflecting – I suppose that's well in keeping with my first blog post – and decided I should share some of it, and some of the realizations I've had the last couple of weeks.


One of those realizations is a recurring one: I can't reach all my goals overnight. That's been a problem with me my whole life, to be honest, setting a goal and throwing myself at it, then being disappointed when I can't make it work before dinner. I wind up spreading myself too thin and I don't get anything done, and that disappointment in myself manifests itself as partly-completed projects – and a slightly deeper shadow in my psyche. I'm working at banishing those shadows, so I'm focusing on what's important and letting the less immediate priorities wait. Being patient.


But it's still annoying.


Another “ah-ha” moment came from holding up my own belief in the “Macrobiotic Way” against the rest of the natural world – and realizing just how much out-of-step mankind has been for the last several generations.


What had me thinking along these lines is that I had heard the news of Mishio Kushi passing away last December (with far too little public fanfare to my way of thinking), and I read the family's statement as it was posted at www.michiokushi.org. Sensei Kushi succumbed to complications related to metastatic pancreatic cancer at the age of 88.


Believing as I do, I was momentarily taken aback. But then started looking at it from a Macrobiotic standpoint, and I began to understand. When I read something that his son had written regarding a 2004 colon cancer scare (in response to someone who wondered why he, of all people, could develop cancer), it became even clearer.


We may most visibly apply the basic principles of Macrobiotics – the relationship of Yin and Yang, the bigger the front the bigger the back, etc. – to food, but in reality those principles are universal and anything can be examined under that microscope. The flight of a bird can be examined in the terms of Yin and Yang. We wouldn't have the concept of “light” if it wasn't “dark” half the day. We wouldn't know “good” if “evil” wasn't there in equal measure. There is no “up” if there is no “down.” The far-left Democrats are there because the extreme-right Republicans are, too.


We have Macrobiotics to help offset what the last few generations of people – fueled by the promise of convenience and by political/corporate greed – have done (and are doing) to our food supply. Those of us who 'follow the grain' know what factory processing does to our food. We understand the lie our parents and grandparents (ad infinitum) were told about processed sugar – a lie being perpetuated to this day. Now we have GMO foods – I'm afraid that their safety, too, will turn out to be a big lie. We understand this.


You need look at the rest of the world through the eyes of Macrobiotics; the bigger the back, the bigger the front. We've been poisoning the ecosystem for a very long time. Chemical fertilizers and corporate farming practices have rendered once-rich soil into something barely able to grow anything. There is not an ocean fishery on the planet that is not tainted by mercury pollution. The industrial activities in much of the world send any number of unnatural pollutants into our air and water. We come in contact with all these and more, and our bodies must process them.


I am certain that following Macrobiotics gives me an edge. My body is getting healthier all the time, functioning more efficiently, better able to fend off the influences of these toxins as well as the various viruses and bacteria that would make me ill. I will not develop diabetes in my lifetime – I refuse to (my doctors diagnosed me as “pre-diabetic” some years ago). And I stand a better chance of remaining cancer-free despite a family history that is cancer-positive.


But thanks largely to what our corporate progenitors and their current profit-driven offspring have done to our environment, Macrobiotics may not be a perfect shield.


Individually we don't have very loud voices – but as more of us vote with our pocketbooks the profiteers will get the message. Support local, organic farmers whenever you can. When you can't, then buy from companies with a demonstrated support for the world around them. And continue to raise alarms, both local and world-wide, over the poisoning of our land, air, and water. It's cost us too much.