Learning From The Past

We live in a “sophisticated” world, yet the simplest and most basic things are a challenge. Eating right, moving the body through exercise, prayer, meditation, self-love. How far have we really come? We have made wonderful technological advances but we are still inept at taking care of ourselves we don’t love ourselves enough to stay tuned in long enough to really learn the lessons required to move forward in this life. Our bodies have certain nutritional needs, it needs to be hydrated properly, it needs movement to stay strong, and we have legs like all the other animals in the world we are meant to move forward not stand still. Sounds easy enough? Then why don’t we do it? Why are we so committed to pain and sickness when it would be just as easy to commit to feeling good and loving and appreciating our bodies. If you can think a bad thought about yourself then you can think a good thought to. It’s all in the choices we make every second of every day. We have a choice to do something positive or to do something negative.
Part of the problem in my mind is that when we choose the new over the old we didn’t stop to think that maybe some of what we were doing was right. You can still build a beautiful bridge and grow a garden at the same time. We can still have medicine to heal an infection and be sure that all would benefit equally from this technology. We can still build our homes to accommodate our growing populations and feed our family and be good to the environment all at the same time. I always thought I was dyslexic but I’m being to think that the world’s governments are the one who are dyslexic. They have the problem and it’s up to each individual to stop looking outside and instead look within for what we innately know to be true.
My grandparents raised a family on a small back yard garden, we had potatoes, peas, corn, tomatoes, carrots, beets, cucumbers, raspberries, strawberries, apples, rhubarb, black cherries, blue berries, two or three different kinds of lettuce, everything you need to make a delicious organic salad, and more. My grandmother would cook, pickle, bake everything we would need to last us the winter. And by the way that organic salad I mentioned didn’t cost $10.00 for a small serving! The only thing it cost to eat a healthy organic meal was some elbow grease (my Nanny use to say that). My grandfather would rise before the sun was up and he would have a good breakfast and then out side he went, he worked that garden every single day of his life!! That was how we got our food. Nobody had to go out and work 12 hour days for somebody else to be sure there was food on the table. Gardening was his job and he did it well. Not only did I have my Grandpa at home growing wonderful food to fill my belly but he had time to build a playhouse, a swing, go carts, and time to indulge a crying little girl when she wanted to bring the baby rabbits in the house because it was pouring rain. FYI, this garden I’m talking about was in town not on a farm and our neighbours were close enough that we could stop and say hello and even take time to shoot the shit for awhile. We use to talk to our neighbours back then.
We always had fresh flowers, we didn’t need to go buy them from somebody else, now don’t get me started on my Nanny and flowers for she could grow anything our yard always smelled sweet. We had trees to climb, good food, fresh air and Nanny’s homemade apple pies. What more could a child ask for.
Let’s not just look to the future for all our answers. The past is full of wisdom and truth we just need to seek and we shall find.

Quote: “You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth”.
S. Tehrani

Elle