Walking down our calm neighborhood street with our oldest dog, Rocky. It’s a beautiful February day, eighty degrees and it’s not even noon, the sun is shining and all around us birds are joyful. Some years winter seems to vanish within only a few weeks. That’s one of my favorite things about living in Texas.
I’m not sure I could ever live anywhere colder. My relationship with the cold is funny. I avoid it as much as possible but I am still cool even when other people are hot. I’ve been this way as long as I can remember.
Anything below about seventy-six degrees will have me searching for a sweater. If there is a breeze or moving air things need to be much warmer or I will put on a jacket. The sensation of air tickling across my skin gives me indescribable discomfort, especially on my arms, unless the air is hot.
I love long, quiet, walks. Hikes through nature or along a river are my favorite. Walking meditation, in the present moment, listening to the water and smelling the plants. Escaping into nature, free from the world of words and clocks, allowing everything else to melt away.
Even in Texas, I spend too much of my winter cooped up indoors. When the first hints of spring come, I find myself itching to go outside. Being away from nature and fresh air makes me uneasy. It would undoubtedly be much worse if I lived somewhere with a more intense climate.
Eventually, I could easily see myself retired cruising around the country in an RV or a tiny house on wheels, working remotely and traveling throughout the country, free to go with the seasons.
Dreams of migrating, moving north as things heat up and back south when they cool arise like smoke around the edges of my mind. I want to flow with the changes of the earth.
The way we live is out of tune with nature. Everything is artificial, fluorescent lights, recirculated air, and genetically modified foods. What happened to the sun, a fresh breeze and food made the old fashioned way.
Is anything real these days? Does anybody care?
Our ancestors used up physical energy harvesting foods and hunting, they earned every calorie they took in. Nothing was handed to them on a plate and everything was fresh. They ate real, organic, whole foods, exercised constantly and spent most of their time outdoors.
Fast forward and look around. People are unhealthy, people are getting sick, and people are dying. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, chronic health problems that were almost unheard of even a few hundred years ago.
Pollution in our air, toxins in our homes, and chemicals in our cosmetics. Poison has become an acceptable part of our culture – it’s everywhere. We wash our hair with it and rub it all over our lips and skin, we live with it, we eat it, we breathe it, and we don’t question it.
Is this safe? How much poison is too much? Can you combine these two poisons?
There is a more relevant question that we aren’t asking often enough – should we be using poisons at all?
Our bodies can only give back what we put into them. You are what you eat. Garbage in garbage out. Why are we surprised that millions of Americans will be diagnosed with and/or die from diet and nutrition related illnesses this year?
This unfortunate truth does not shock or surprise me. However, I am greatly saddened by the fact that so many people are sick and suffering needlessly.
Did you know many of our most common health problems are preventable and/or reversible?
Food has amazing powers if we learn how to lock them. The wrong foods can kill you but the right foods can cure and heal your body. Feed your body the fuel it needs, gives your machine what it needs to work efficiently.
Nature gives us these amazing gifts. There are diets, herbs, and plants for help with almost every medical condition. Our not too distant ancestors knew this. It was not so long ago when people went back to the earth for healing.
It’s time we think about getting back to nature. Listen to your tired, worn, and ragged body. How much begging does it have to do?
When I was 10 my parents decided to take me to a church convention in Texas. I figured it was perfect pool weather. Apparently the motel managers disagreed, since it was winter.They also had the furnace jacked up. I was melting, and was really horrified when they came and offered more blankets. I felt really close to heat stroke.
It’s not natural to have such extreme temperatures. 😮
“The way we live is out of tune with nature.” what you said is so true. I’m thinking that it accounts for so many of the problems people have today. A simple existence with just a dog or two for company…ah, that’s the life!
” A simple existence with just a dog or two for company.” – sounds amazing.
Preach. I know a lady who has an auto immune disease. She was a vegan and vegetarian for over 20 years. It wasn’t until a specialist told her that she needs needs to eat red meat because the red meat has a certain hormone in it that helps with her auto immune disease. He then explained to her that people in India can produce the hormone due to their culture not eating red meat for centuries. Unfortunately here in the west, our bodies have so much bs in it, that when we do try to wean off of processed foods, our body begins to shut down.
Yes .. it can be a problem to adopt a vegetarian life style, but there are ways …I have been an almost vegetarian for over ten years, but have to take certain amino acids and sometimes eat fish– or take fish oil. Find I only need to eat fish every few weeks with the aminos. Another protein I eat: shiitake mushrooms — which I grow myself.
I often feel the same way. When I hear people (particularly from your side of the world) listing the various medications they are on, I’m almost always shocked. We are perhaps lucky in that two of my family are vegetarian, and one is coeliac, so most of our food at home has to be made from scratch – there is little we can buy ready-prepared for a family meal that we can all eat together.
I think these sicknesses can be our bodies telling us they need better foods. I know I always feel better with whole foods from scratch.
I so agree! However…I live in Canada. I am the same breed as you in that I find 42 degrees (Fahrenheit) to be my ideal temperature. Yet to get out in nature here in Canada (especially in these wintery months) I have to learn how to manage the cold…still do though! With A LOT of layers :). That said, the combination of living life outside and becoming in tune with nature is a lost experience. Mother nature tunes our human being. When I spend a weekend in the woods, I have zero desire to start up my computer when I return. AND since becoming a nutritionist and living a plant based lifestyle (no corporate food whatsoever!) my cycle is now absolutely in tuned with the moon. I have never experienced that, but its a real thing and makes me feels amazing! Thank you for this post! 🙂 xo
I think about these things, too. I am 75 this month, and even as a war-baby, I began to take in chemicals. We lived with my grandmother (she lived to be over 100) in the early days, when she had a Victory Garden, and grew all our food. But I also remember looking out at the garden from time to time to see it all covered over in white — after she had treated it with TNT. So even at that time we were on our way to oblivion.
I long to be back in my hermitage with nature and growing my own food, so I know what you mean about that. But alas, I am not that strong anymore.
Thank you for sharing. I worry humans will only realize this once it is too late and we have polluted the earth beyond repair.
Me too! Check this out for a temporary but viable solution: http://www.ic.org/seasteading-2/
I am curious about where you live. I will probably have to move soon and I figure that wherever you live in TX must be a relatively tolerant area. I don’t imagine you want to put your email address or local address on the web, but I you are willing, go to durgama.com/contact and let me hear from you.
I’m in Central Texas – NeurodivergentRebel@gmail.com 😉
Gosh, I wish I were somewhere with warmer weather in winter…. I can’t deal well with cold either. And I’m also cool when other people are hot. Interesting, isn’t it? But I found out years ago that my body temperature is cooler than the average person’s… Might be the reason.
I love going out and taking walks in nature as well, observing things around me and just purely being in the moment. How amazing is that!
Thanks for sharing <3
Oh, and I agree, totally out of wack humanity… So many sicknesses due to what we eat. I make practically all my meals from scratch and buy as much organic and / or locally grown produce as I can. Additionally I use vegan and organic cosmetic and body products. A couple of years ago my skin started reacting to all non-organic products and I really started to feel icky with all of those parabens and poison in them…
Yes, yes, and again yes – even to the chemical sensitivity. I have a hard time with artificial chemical smells and many burn my skin. Medications also don’t work as they normally do on me and I’m allergic to antibiotics. Chemicals are NOT my friend at all. I wonder how many people have this chemical sensitivity. We are the canaries in the coal mines I am afraid.
Oh wow, me too! I’m super allergic to antibiotics! Last year i had this really bad infection and after a couple of days of being a bit better it would come right back. Since I almost ended up getting blood poisoning I decided to go to the doctor in the end. She gave me a cream with antibiotics in it. First I resisted taking it but since I didn’t know what else to do I decided to try it out. It was only a dab on a tiny spot on my body and my whole body broke out in hives! It took me 5-7 days plus antihistamine (which I’ve never taken before) plus a lot of bed rest before it went away. One freakin tiny spot and of course I only tried it once… Can you imagine?! Through that I also realized how long it takes the body to work something out…
Another reason I try to go natural when possible. Do you have this too? -painkillers make me throw up so I can’t take those either. It’s no wonder I’m not a fan of the Dr’s office . The dentist always gives me some “just incase” but I never take them since they are not worth the illness.
Agreed, I’m no fan either. I try to never go… I don’t have that with painkillers though. I maybe take one once a year in an absolute emergency. But I get super high or very weepy and depressed. No fun. But wow, throwing up! Your body definitely doesn’t want that poison!!
I hear you. Loud and clear. Did you know that unrefined bread used to cheaper than refined white bread. White bread was a luxury in the past supposedly.
I think it’s funny how we humans think we’re so smart with our little science experiments. As per your post, look where it’s got us.
Unfortunately, I think what has been done is irreparable. The sociological implications of humanity’s actions over the years has gone way too deep. It’s too bad.
Nice to meet you, btw. I’m Staci.
🙂
Many people survive by IGNORING their body’s warning signs. This is one reason many people simply EXIST rather than LIVE healthy lives filled with purpose, meaning and fulfillment. It requires more effort than we’re taught and our society doesn’t seem interested in changing this direction. It comes down to personal awareness and the desire to live a more productive life to achieve BALANCE.
Posts like this help create the awareness needed. Keep spreading the good word!
Yes!! Most of the population has accepted being away from nature as the price of modern living. It shocks me to see how people have become slaves to most gadgets, cosmetics, chemicals!! This post is totally thought provoking…
I am guilty of not taking care of myself properly. It always ends up being my new year’s resolution to eat better..
More and more people are turning away from all the toxic chemicals and artificial stuff that gets put into everything! I have turfed a lot of mainstream household cleaning and personal care stuff and am well on the way to getting rid of it all from my home. Good old fasioned vinegar is wonderful for cleaning, garlic is a fantastic antibiotic, turmeric has heaps of health giving benefits ….. and pure therapeutic grade essential oils are nature’s medicine cabinet 🙂
I am the opposite. I prefer temps in the sixties. Anything about 70 and I am so hot and sweaty. I would just melt in Texas. Too hot and humid. Good thing there are a lot of places with enough different types of weather to satisfy everyone. 🙂