Thursday, May 28, 2009

Seven Words

Medicine Cannot Fix What Medicine Doesn't Understand.

The necessity of chiropractic can be found in these seven words. Who will step up to take care of the sick and diseased in our society? If humans are viewed as machines, then medical doctors are simply mechanics. Swap a part here, drain and change some fluids there. Viola modern medicine at its best. Perhaps only in todays post-modern, post-human world of concrete, glass, and steel did we as a society somehow forget that humans, and all life, are filled with a powerful force. It is the same force that causes trees to grow, to fix their roots deep into rich nutritious soil and to send their branches skyward. Trees like all life seek fearlessly to deploy material and energetic resources in the most efficient manner possible. Roots do not hog nutrients to spite the needs of the leaves. There is no such thing as self or ego or possession - in nature all things are united. There is just the driving force to grow and succeed that permeates each and every cell of every living creature on earth.

Medicine works on the assumption that the suppression of symptoms is an effective way to treat disease. Its akin to saying the person who never cleans their house and lives like a pig can just spray air-freshener over everything and then claim it to be clean because it doesn't smell dirty. We have learned that symptoms are a latent sign of dis-ease and patho-physiology. Yet since the symptom is usually the first sign of illness, it is erroneously assumed that the symptom IS the sickness. When the winds blows and leaves tremble we can say the wind is blowing. We cannot see the wind, but we can see the effect of its passing. Disease and illness works in much the same manner. If we are trying to understand what is afflicting a patient, it would be a disservice to focus on the symptom (the leaves) while ignoring the causative factors (the wind).

It should be clear at this point that a superior health-oriented paradigm is greatly needed. Chiropractic is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this leadership void. We are learning that adjustments open up the body's intrinsic pathways of information and energy resulting in a being living at a higher level of functioning and integration. We are learning that proper alignment of the skeletal system, specifically the vertebral column, is vital to health. The brain and spinal cord are integrative, information processing centers that are interdependent upon the structures through which they travel. So by focusing on adjustments and corrective structural intervention, chiropractic has the answer for many in our society who are seeking a better way. We should remember that chiropractic is perfectly capable of taking care of itself and its patients without changing who and what we are. Treat people as a whole entity instead of treating symptoms as an isolated incident.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Toxic Town

We credit the alchemists for coining the phrase "as above, so below". This simple yet powerful statement reveals that the there are universal laws and truths operating at all levels of reality. The planets in our solar system rotate around the sun just like atoms whirl around the nucleus of an atom. There are solar winds traveling through space just like there are jet streams in our atmosphere and ocean currents in our seas. Nations organize human beings into systems just like living things organize cells into organs. What the alchemists were alluding to is the fact that similar phenomenon exist at all levels, micro and macro.

Consider then the community of cells we call the human body. Our cells respond to toxic food, excessive stress, and emotional suffering just like human beings respond to fear, violence, and poison. Lets consider what would happen to normal, healthy individuals in the following scenario:

Imagine a dense urban environment, called "Toxic Town", where we remove all the nutrition from the food supply and replace it with processed sugar only; place drugs into the drinking water; pollute the air; tear down the lines of communication to the rest of the world; and finally wall off that part of the city. What do you think the health of those citizens would be like in a few days? A few weeks? A few months?

We took normal, healthy people and changed their environment. In this walled-off part of the city people suffered greatly from dis-ease as they were unable to escape the health negative effects of their environment. Anyone subjected to the above reality would likely experience degeneration and dis-ease. Without the ingredients for health available in the immediate environment, and without the ability to flee, is there any doubt as to the fate of these imaginary people?

Keeping with this train of thought, how might today's medical authorities deal with this situation? If we follow the orthodox medicine point of view then our remedy would be to send in ANTI-BIOTIC foot soldiers to "wipe the floor" with these sick people. Or perhaps a SURGICAL air strike would effectively wipe this dis-eased Toxic Town right off the map. When we consider that cells are like people, orthodox medicine becomes violent very quickly. And how are we going to heal each other, if we practice violence against ourselves?

The citizens of Toxic Town didn't do anything wrong and obviously don't deserve to get obliterated by medical intervention. They became victim to their environment - an environment that made it impossible to experience health. In our own bodies it is not the fault of our cells that they become diseased, anymore than it is the fault of the people in Toxic Town. And like the people stuck in this toxic part of town, our cells cannot up and move to a cleaner part of our body.

We should consider then how vitally important is the environment. Whether we are an individual human being or an individual cell, our health and our fate is fully dependent upon the support of the immediate environment. Mother nature has made it simple for us to keep our cell environment healthy. All that is required of the average person is to avoid things which are made by people in labs and factories and to eat fruits, veggies, and meats growth in an organic and sustainable manner. By selecting foods rich in vitamins and minerals we will be assuring that our cells are awash in the biochemicals they depend on to function at their best.

We have all heard that the body is our temple. That means that if we respect, cherish, and love life that we will keep that temple clean and healthy. No one benefits from living in a Toxic Town. And no cells can thrive living in a toxic body. We can change cars when we wear them out. We can move into a new house if we wreak the one we have. We have but a single body and it needs our love, respect, and attention.