Body & Mind Are One

By Donald Payne

Hello again, dear reader, and hello to this new magical world of 2008. As we begin this year, I am beginning a cleanse of blood, lymph glands, urinary system, liver, and bowels. I am using a cleanse put together by Dr. Jeremy Appleton and made by Nature’s Way Herb Company. It is called Thislyn Cleanse.” During the cleanse I will also use Nature’s Way Primadophilus Optima probiotics to support my intestines and immune system. We know that during a cleanse in the winter it can be easier to let your guard down and get a flu bug. Not me! Just the same I will also take a dose of the German imported cold-care supplement Umcka. Umcka is from a herb known as Pelargonium sidoides; grown and harvested in Africa, it has shown through clinical studies to prevent and lessen the duration of upper respiratory colds and flu.

One dose a day for prevention—easy and it tastes good. The only other supplement I will use during my cleanse is my Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega 3 fish oil capsules. I have found that the omega 3 really helps keep down the inflammation in my muscles and joints that I usually feel during a cleanse. I trust the Nordic Naturals brand because it is as pure (free of mercury or lead or pollutants) as you can get. I don’t want to cleanse and then put in more metal or chemical poison at the same time! Also, I think it’s good karma, so to speak, because of the responsible manner in which Nordic Naturals treats the waters and the fish it harvests.

My diet during a cleanse? Mostly vegetables and whole grains, cooked and prepared with an attitude of healing. Healing my body, yes, but also to heal my heart and mind and of course with the idea to extend the healing to family friends and this wonderful community we live in. This year’s cleanse and desire for healing was brought about after I found and reread some old papers I had written to myself maybe 15 years ago. Among them was a commentary I wrote about the early French philosopher Rene Descartes: “The emphasis on ‘rational’ (dualistic) thought in our culture is epitomized in Descartes’s celebrated statement, Cogito ergo sum—‘I think, therefore I exist’—which encouraged Western-culture individuals to equate their identities with their ‘rational mind’ rather than with their whole organism. This unfortunately, divides mind from body. Thus, we have forgotten how to think with our bodies and how to use them to commune and to cooperate with our body’s rich variety of living, intelligent, microorganisms. “This division between mind and matter led to a view of the universe as a mechanical system consisting of separate objects, which in turn were reduced to fundamental building blocks, whose properties and interactions were ‘thought’ to completely determine all natural phenomena.

This Cartesian (as it is today called) view was then further extended to living organisms, which were all at once regarded as ‘machines’ constructed from separate parts (modern medicine’s view). This still serves as the rationale for the manner in which we not only trust disease but also our natural environment, as if it consists of separate parts to be treated and/or ‘exploited’ by different medical specialists or by different interest groups.” After rereading my writing in December 2007, my first thought was “How do we stop the ‘schizophrenia’?” Which is what it truly is.

The first step is to cleanse it from my own mind, heart, and body and that, dear readers, should be the mission of all of us this next year. Let us cleanse and purify the consciousness of our doctors, our congressional leaders (please become more proactive in learning about laws and proposed legislation and letting your representative know whether you like it or not), and our families. But first, let us wash away all of our own transgressions in mind and body so that we begin again to learn how to listen to the intelligent thoughts of all of the cells in our bodies. We are not machines consisting of separate parts! We truly are whole organic beings who are completely connected and interactive with everything and everyone else in this divine universe. My prayers are that in 2008 we all begin to wake up and heal. Blessings to all, Donald Payne S&S Produce and Natural Foods