Dear Subscribers,

A wonderful Tibetan friend of mine who was just polishing up his English used to write me letters from Princeton saying, "People will be fools as long as they continue to befool themselves."

Last month, the world lost a wise woman and one of the most interesting of the 20th century:  Juliette de Bairacli Levy did not quite make it to 100, but she passed peacefully and without pain, a great testimony to the efficacy of her highly original life style.  She was born into an affluent Jewish family in England, Egyptian mother and Turkish father.  Unable to tolerate vivisection, she left veterinary school and embarked upon an adventurous and fascinating life where she lived and studied with gypsies, farmers, and, well, you might just add "other eccentrics."  She became famous for her work in herbal medicine for animals and there cannot be a single holistic veterinarian or herbalist who is not familiar with at least some of her great legacy. She spent many years on a Greek island demonstrating harmony with Nature and was given a lifetime achievement award from Frontier Herbs in 1998.  It would be impossible to count how many bees, birds, dogs, and other animals are indebted to Juliette for the humane manner in which their dietary and medical needs were addressed.  Though many will miss her, it is impossible to grieve too much when a woman lives so fully and passionately and long.  May she sing and pray with the angels now.

I received the news of her passing while trying to find a few hours to read The One Straw Revolution, another book about being in harmony and another author who walked his talk and outlived the dissenters and critics.  Masanobu Fukuoka transitioned at 95.  Years ago, I commented to colleagues and students that I have seen the greatest longevity among orchestra conductors, superb astrologers, and gardeners, and I attributed this to the fact that they are all seeking a very specific kind of harmony that is life sustaining.  It is not, however, enough simply to live a long time, but to live passionately, enjoyably, and fully . . . and this, I believe, is what the fools can learn from the wise men and women who have graced our Planet.

I did not write my usual Sunday reflections because, to tell you the truth, I have had so many interruptions that I needed some down time.  However, a lot is going on in my mind, triggered, of course, by all the effort that is going into my crusade as well as the input I have been offering Regine for her Congo projects.  Education is very high on the list of priorities, but I personally am not much interested in conventional curricula.  I can hardly think of anything more irrelevant to a child or adult in the Congo than the alphabet or world history as it might be explained in a Western textbook.  In fact, so much is swirling through my mind that I am wondering if the educational systems that we have come to accept as "normal" are not rather a way to keep millions of people trapped inside boxes where all they learn is to repeat rather than observe, think, and understand.

My parents did not consider my decision to quit graduate school before receiving a doctorate a wise decision.  They urged me to continue.  I told them that I had to leave Yale before my right brain was permanently damaged.  They did not understand and I am sure there are countless others who also do not understand, but those who do are nodding and cheering.  The problem is that when we master the curriculum as it is heaved at us, we are only demonstrating an ability to memorize a tedious amount of material that we are personally unable to validate. . . and hence we cannot hope to apply the material in a meaningful manner.

I want to digress for a moment to provide a very simple example that reveals the consequences of this system of indoctrination.  Dr. Simoncini — the "all cancers are fungi" doctor — says there is absolutely not one study showing that cancer occurs as a result of error at the time of mitosis and not one doctor has ever seen this happen nor proved that it does actually happen.  I am not in a position to ascertain the truth of this statement, but what does it mean when generations of doctors are told something and taught to believe this as a fact when, in reality, it is not anything more than wild speculation.  We have a "war" on cancer that involves billions of dollars and there are grants and countless people employed in an industry that might not even have some of the basic premises in proper focus.

I have used the term "fashions in medical history" because when I researched my book on botanical cancer treatments, I realized that what one generation believes is very often rejected by another. However, this is only true in the West.  In the East as well as in indigenous medicine where there are long wisdom traditions, the medical systems have survived for thousands of years.

In other posts, I have tried to show that in the future, 20th century medicine will be seen to have been dominated by a rogue scientist named Pasteur who was a consultant to the beer and wine industries and not a medical doctor. The concerns he had for bacteria were vitally different from what ought rightfully to interest humans, but the war on germs has completely dominated our concept of medicine and we are in such a precarious relationship to this folly that we are at the risk of unleashing a monstrous vaccination program that will be devastating if not stopped.

How does this happen?  It happens because so many people are conformists and they might even sincerely mistake playing by the book as strategically correct.  However, there are others whose consciences are on the line.  For instance, if a microscopist knows that electron microscopes create artifacts and that these objects are neither organic nor part of the biology of cell life, what responsibility does the microscopist have to Truth?  Why do we even have to have organizations seeking to restore truth in science?  Isn't science supposed to be about the search for truth?

When I was younger, I believed that science and mysticism would eventually have to agree on everything because there are not two separate realities, just different paths to the One.  I no longer believe we can depend on this.  Of course, some quantum physicists and others who are on the cutting edge are seeing what mystics have always known but I am absolutely convinced that most people are harmed by our educational system.  Not only does the system fail to help us discover our potential, not to mention destiny, but it creates layers and layers of nearly impenetrable blockage which basically results in people functioning in a sort of abstract manner with abstract values.  For instance, if you removed a person from this system, it is nearly certain that his or her aspirations would change immediately, but within the system, one aspires to rise up the ladder.  What however is most damaging about this system is that it undermines confidence in our own observations, feelings, and insights.  No one can be whole if in doubt about himself or herself but this validation is never accorded from without, only from within so what is inside must not be jeopardized.

Disengaging from the system is not just spiritually inspiring, it is medically beneficial.  I have mentioned many times that I do not miss TV.  My own sense of harmony has crescendoed since terminating the satellite service and getting rid of the TVs themselves.  Interestingly, I got really annoyed with the classical radio station also, public service announcements for careers in law enforcement and fluoridation of our water.  Who decides what material qualifies for free airing?  I no longer miss the radio either but I still listen now and then, mainly when driving, but I am increasingly discerning.

These disconnects, by the way, free up major blocks of time.  So, now back to the Congo, you could argue that it's important to know where your village is in relationship to the global community or you could as easily argue that the rest of the world doesn't matter and never did matter except to the extent that it is predatory and coveting your minerals and cheap labor.  However, anything beyond food and shelter is really a luxury and one can learn to grow food and build suitable homes with or without being literate.  Hands on learning is valuable and it is totally lacking in our world today.  We have people in every which "profession" who know absolutely nothing about their craft.  I would like to take a few pot shots at pharmaceutical companies with retired generals at the helm, like Baxter, and suggest that such companies do not actually take health seriously or they would put a professional in a leadership position rather than someone whose background hardly qualifies him to evaluate the efficacy of the products sold by the company.  This is a classic case of a clay feet and, unfortunately, our entire society is hobbling because of the amount of crumbling clay.

There is nothing more important than knowing oneself and then allowing that self to become who it really is.  This is the art of living and we are lacking so much art these days, but I feel that we will find who we are when we realize that the system isn't helping us, that it won't help us, and it can't help us.  We can, however, help ourselves and each other.

So, now to the minor news.  Here we are at the end of June and I am already self sufficient in vegetable production.  Moreover, I have achieved this in a space that is approximately 2 feet by 2 feet.  Oh, I have lots more planted but very little is ready to eat which means not much variety yet, but nearly everything I can harvest is coming from one corner of a raised bed that is 4 x 4 feet.  So, between sprouting, which takes less than one square foot of counter space, and the part of the garden that is yielding, I have enough for myself and my birds, and, believe it not, Savika ate the veggies I gave her, both the cooked and raw ones.  The birds love sprouts and we are becoming more and more adventurous, not up there with Nadamayi and Phil yet, but we are trying new things.  In fact, I tried some outdoor "turf sprouting" and am cutting some greens for myself and the birds but the wild birds are feasting also.

I did take my camera out on Saturday but instead of photographing what I planted, I ended up taking pictures of weeds.  Kathrin of Fox Mountain gave me a definition of a weed that implies that anything you don't want in your space is a weed.  I bought two persicaria plants at the farmer's market because they were gorgeous.  When I got home, I googled and discovered they are a highly invasive weed (Wikipedia) or photo of the day (or of the year even in one source).

http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2006/05/persicaria_bistorta_superba.php

I subscribe to the doctrine that Nature loves balance.  Last year, I left all the weeds that the bees seemed to like so this year I have a lot of false dandelions, aka spotted cat's ear.

It has more or less the same herbal make up as the fabulous liver cleansing herb that looks similar but is named for lion's teeth instead of cat's ears.  While driving to the farmer's market, I saw these all along the side of the road so I thought they must be detoxifying the soil of the pesticides used to eradicate foliage near the paved areas.  In any event, when I took my camera out, I found the bees were on the weeds and they were obviously more interested in the weeds than some of the other available sources of nectar, very fine lesson!

This is a tad long already so I will sign off, but I would like to mention that I keep adding pictures to landscapingrevolution.com.  There are more in the Bee Seva section as well in the Plant Profiles and Lawn Conversion section.  Many of you are writing me about your projects but please send pictures.  If you have a lot of them, use dropboks.com or yousendit.com but ask me first so you get a valid email for the notification.

Many new sprouting supplies have also be added to LandscapingRevolution.com:

http://www.landscapingrevolution.com/sprout_seeds.html

Finally, there is a new film out on Lyme disease.  I have only seen the trailer, but you might want to have look.  Google Under Your Skin.  I believe that among other things, you will see how hard it is to get doctors to take the symptoms of Lyme disease seriously. . . oh, and do I have to mention the microscope?

Many blessings,

Ingrid

Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2009

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