Photo courtesy of omarali.md's photostream I woke up this morning dizzy and light-headed, and feeling nauseated. I have to hold onto the walls to walk.
I am house-sitting, and yesterday their cleaning lady came to steam-clean the carpets. I must have absorbed some chemicals through the soles of my feet later in the day. Damned hazardous chemicals are everywhere.
About 10 years ago I was diagnosed as having 'increasing environmental sensitivity' due to the wanton and irresponsible over-use of chemicals everywhere. Even though I personally have been chemical-free for over 25 years, the chemicals everyone else uses have seriously diminished my health, and I'm angry. Chemicals have diminished the nutrition values in my food, and I'm angry.
I don't really much care if you choose to harm or kill yourselves, but what right do you have to harm or kill me? (Actually I DO care what happens to you, but it is your free CHOICE to do what you will to yourselves.)
I can no longer use commercial soaps, shampoos and laundry detergents (or fabric softeners); I cannot wear synthetic fabrics. Breathing someone's cloud of after-shave or cologne makes me ill. I can't even go into most fabric stores... the formaldehyde in cheap fabrics makes my eyes burn. I can, however, go into a very high-end fabric store that deals in natural fabrics like wool, linen, silk, cotton... with no problems. My sensitivities grow worse every year thanks to increasing chemical use. I'm beginning to understand how the fish in our chemically-polluted streams must feel. Helpless.
I read an alarming report in an English newspaper this morning about continued (and increasing) honeybee decline. We've lost over 3 million colonies in the US and scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen. Some commercial beekeepers lost 60-80% of their hives this past winter, on top of many previous losses, and it is spreading world-wide. Folks better start waking up because more than a third of everything we eat is thanks to the honeybees' pollination.
And it is not just commercial agriculture, either. It's us... from the chemicals we use to wash our windows and clean our toilet tanks, to the chemicals we use on our lawns and gardens. I'd bet the ranch that the cleaning lady yesterday never read the ingredients' list, and probably would not have understood it anyway.
Most homes have enough chemicals beneath the sink and in the garage to be considered 'weapons of mass destruction' for the microbial population of the earth, killing beneficial bacteria along with pathogens, without discrimination.
What happened to good old vinegar and newspaper instead of 'windex' to clean windows? What happened to the old-fashioned wire-mesh screen flyswatters? The 'modern' flyswatters made of plastic push so much air in front of them they alert the fly and we miss... and so, we resort to aerosol pesticides. Our lungs must love that! Why take the time to learn that wasps have a dormant period every morning and evening when the nest can be safely smoked out with a burning newspaper, when we can buy a $7 bottle of wasp spray and spray them anytime?
Have we become so dumb that we are incapable of understanding we are killing ourselves by killing the planet that supports us? Or are we just too lazy to care? A 'pill' will not fix this. Not now, not ever.
I am seeing the same syndrome in health issues surrounding nutrition. Most people don't really want to be healthy if they can't do it by taking a 'pill'... it's too hard. "I don't have the time to cook from scratch with real ingredients because I have a job and 3 kids..."
Actually, it's probably more like "I don't have the time to learn that the propaganda (via advertising and 'advice' from supposed authorities) is leading us down a merry path..."
Fortunately there is a growing percentage of us that DO care.
But what will it take to finally awaken the general population? Is it even possible? I thought something like the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico might... but I doubt it. Most folks care philosophically, but in reality they don't really care much because it isn't their shores... oh, they may get a glimpse when there are no more gulf shrimp or fish. Or when the dead ecology of the gulf deltas affects the food chain world-wide. When will they realize it's their world, and we're all connected?
It's NOT up to someone else.
Thanks for these comments and facts....I have a similar "battle" going on here in Germany(I´m originally from South Dakota). From window cleaner to toilet products, natural products work as well or better than the chemicals, and yet one is confronted by the latter everywhere. I would add here:
ReplyDeletethe medical profession has been reduced in general to pharmaceutical sales and gross negligence in prescribing unnecessary drugs. Case in point: my present sciatica pain induced me to visit an orthopedic doctor(my natural health practitioner was booked solid)--the orthopedic doctor did an x-ray, prescribed ibuprofen (which I took a few of), a muscle relaxant(which I refused--when I asked if he felt it was necessary, he said,"no"--so why did he prescribe it?!)--finally, he prescribed a cortison shot, which I also refused.
I have been massaging my feet at reflex points and slept just fine last night! Tomorrow I will see a different natural health practitioner who
as a rule prescribes homeopathic medicine and may do a homeopathic shot(this shot cured my friend´s sciatic pain) with no side effects.
My point here is that there are safe, practical and low-cost solutions to almost everything--
--if we care enough, as you so aptly wrote.
It was a breath of fresh air to find your blog today. I will visit it again. The best to you!
Thank you, thank you! I often wonder if what I write rings a bell with others.
ReplyDeleteSo right, toxins are everywhere and impossible to avoid. (Have you ever seen Northern Exposure--remember the Bubble Boy, John(?)? If not, it is a must must see, the whole series, it's on Netflix.) I was just thinking of all the knowledge, time and skills it takes to successfully avoid them even just most of the time: a background in and good working knowledge of chemistry; being able to read, set up and interpret a scientific study so to then be able to prove it false if necessary--there is so much pseudo-science now and the scientists are on big-somebody's payroll; journalistic research to find where the study funding was obtained; label reading, studying and being able to identify all the pseudonyms the harmful concoctions go by; understanding statistics and how many dozens of ways there are to twist them; keeping track of all the companies that bought out your fave brands that you don't want to do biz with; knowing which products are pseudo-organic; and then we won't even get into the issues of the ethics how the creatures who gave their lives were treated or the folks who made it; and etc and etc. All in all, I think one would need to be to the far right of the intelligence bell curve and spend dozens of hours per year, that is, after figuring out who to trust...which is where the universities are waylaying and brainwashing most of the intelligent. So lets say 30% (Mike Adams estimate is much lower) are even intelligent enough, of which 70% go to college and join the other ranks, we have 9% left to even understand. Greed takes another half of them, and many focus on other issues that are nearly as important, so what's that leave? But keep ringing the bell, it is so important. I was at my sister's with her 2 toddler sons watching her clean the kitchen, spraying Clorox CleanUp all over, the kids sitting on the floor under her, and immediately wiping it off. It says (or should) on the label to let it sit for several minutes. So she just gased her kids for nothing. Of course they own a landscape biz that sprays chemicals, and she gets mad at me for even asking her to strip and wash her clothes and shower in their entryway facilities after a full day of spraying going 10 miles an hour on a cart. Instead she takes a steaming hot bath after loving up her kids and won't even listen how everyone's pores are soaking that up. She's so brainwashed. My tongue hurts from biting it all the time to keep the peace. I got into a huge argument with hubby's Godmother, who has everything sprayed and has cancer all around her and is constantly ill. When she asked that we agree to disagree, that she wanted to use her petroleum concoctions without guilt, I told her there would be no such, that we would agree to not discuss gardening! Somewhere in there I vowed to educate myself very well about every issue concerned. Honestly, if she won't even hear my opinions about it, then she shall not be hearing about my other plant opinions, either, and I grow many things she wants to know about. I tell her the same thing I as everyone else, when you promise to go organic, we'll have lots to talk about plants! It makes for uncomfortable moments, but I don't like people poisoning my planet and have the right to speak out. I just don't see how one can believe in God, but not His creation's ability to take care of us if we do as asked in taking care of it...it's just not logical. Keep up your great work, we need you more than ever!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Fighting with those who choose to ignore the realities of poisoning our planet is always an uphill battle, and all too often, a losing battle.
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