The earth is currently heating up like a body trying to burn off impurities with a fever. The immune response of our planet is in full effect struggling to regain homeostasis.
I recently participated in a plant identification walk in my mid city neighbourhood in Toronto, Canada. I was told by a city arborist that the canopy that covers my neighbourhood is dying off because trees only live about the half their potential life span in the city versus a natural environment. As the 100 year old pine and maple trees are falling ( normally these varieties would live 250 years easily) they are being replaced with smaller, faster growing non-native varieties from our southern neighbours. In fact the trees that are currently being planted are from the Carolinas which are 10 degrees south of us. This is because the city is planning for higher temperatures.
Interestingly, the premier of our province has forbid public discussion of climate change. So, we know its happening , but we are not allowed to talk about it. Cutting ourselves off from our intuition and our natural response is in fact a deeply woven part of our culture.
Many studies associate auto immune disease with self repression stemming from early childhood training and trauma. The fact that auto immune diseases effect women at a higher rate that men supports this connection. Women are generally trained to stay small and non offensive. We are taught that are bodies are naturally not acceptable. We must remove our body hair, cover our smell, hide our natural cycles both physically and hormonally. When our intuition speaks we are deemed irrational. Womaness has been handled and twisted into a palatable subservience that is impossible and unsustainable. Men are more likely to have other issues, like heart and liver disease.
The rate of cancer and autoimmune disease is quickly increasing. I recently read an article that stated by the year 2050, 1 in 2 people would be diagnosed with some form of cancer. This estimation may or may not be based on knowledge that many of our social , economic and environmental practices are destined to increase exposure to carcinogenic influences such as the introduction of 5G towers which are already proving immediate and tragic affect on people living near them.
Or, is the prediction based on planting a seed of acquiescence, perhaps even expectation? A recent confession was made by an doctor practicing in the US who admitted to intentionally, falsely diagnosing patients with cancer and prescribing chemotherapy to healthy patients in order to reap financial benefits. In fact, this doctor accumulated 62 million dollars from medicare between 2009 and 2016.
I could make a poetic comparison emphasizing the cardinal signs of global inflammation.
S – Swelling, of the oceans and flooding of our lands.
H – Heat. Global warming.
A – Altered function , the inability to sustain life. We have already lost 60 % of the creatures with whom we have been sharing this planet.
R – Redness. I want to offer the hope that the indigenous nations are rising in their power and affect on the earth and that we are listening.
My cynical side thinks Trump.
P – Pain , that palpable, invisible grief that those who are willing can feel.
Some of us are living symptoms and some are still fighting strong. Ultimately we are all organisms living on the same body and as we ravage her in our desperate attempt at survival, the body declines.
It is up to each of us to believe whether or not a symbiosis is possible. When a disease presents itself do we take responsibility for changing the circumstances that created it or do we relinquish control , compare ourselves to those who do less and divest ourselves of our potential to affect the outcome remaining a parasitic infection on a dying planet?
Corrin Adams 