It’s hard to remember what century I’m in right now. Is the medicine made of turpentine or petrochemicals? Are women striving for equality or are they striving for … equality? Are certain aspects of healthcare about bleeding people physically or is it about bleeding people financially?
Do we feed our children mercury or do we feed them high-fructose corn syrup?
Instead of tidily keeping bottles of oxymel of squill and vitriol, we have bottles of cough syrup and antidepressants.
Heaven help us, why do we think we’re so superior to the generations before us?
We are better off in many ways, yes. Our knowledge of sanitation and water purification has given us longer lives. Our discoveries of how chemicals work throughout our bodies has brought us closer to understanding our biology, and it should have made us stand in awe of our blindingly gorgeous, intricate tie to all that is nature.
Instead, it’s turned us into a set of numbers, a chain of enzymes, separate pieces of matter that are looked at as unrelated to the whole. And the whole is rarely looked at in its relation to the natural world around it.
We became “rational” and “logical.” And with that came a disassociation to anything mysterious. If we don’t know it and we can’t quantify it, then it doesn’t exist. That’s the common thought today.
But I digress.
The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
Flat out, you need to know this: I am not a historian. I am someone who dabbles in history, and who just finished 5 straight days of reading historical periodicals in order to get a sense of what life was like in a woman’s world back then.
Back in the 1800s. And the 1700s. And a little before that.
You know what I expected? I expected some kind of grand enlightenment to the more natural ways that things were done. I expected to be lifted up on wings of traditional wisdom into a new understanding of how our world should be.
Instead, I read magazine after magazine, book after book, of complaints, ideas, and contradictory advice. It was, save words like “vial” being spelled “phial” and “recipes” spelled “receipts,” almost identical to reading a magazine today.
In fact, in one issue of Godey’s Lady’s Book, there was a lengthy article on the idea that care of the teeth requires nothing but a good rinsing out and that brushing your teeth with powders would remove enamel. Later, in the same issue, came a recipe receipt for a tooth powder that included at least one of the ingredients they’d aforementioned to be dangerous.
They were just crazy back then, though, right?
Go to your local supermarket. Check out the covers of the women’s magazines. Count how many have covers that announce weight loss strategies just above or below a headline proclaiming “decadent dessert recipes.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Back then, women tortured themselves by wearing corsets so tight they fainted. Now, women torture themselves by starving themselves, or by going under the knife, or by relentless, obsessive exercise.
Humans – throughout history – have always been both brilliantly ignorant and stupendously genius. The same is true now, whether we want to believe it or not.
We have not come a long way, baby. We’ve just marched on, with our thoughts, through time. Reviving the same roles. Living the same dramas. Making the same mistakes. The only word I could find, while immersing myself in the personal dramas of the past, was insignificant.
It’s all so insignificant, in the vast scheme of it all. And, by mercy, not a single one of us knows what’s good for anyone else. Anyone but ourselves.
But there’s one thing – yes, there is a light at the end of this tunnel – one thing that HAS carried on, a thread through our existence, and that is our tie to nature and its healing powers.
We May Not Always Get It Right, But We Always Get Some Of It Right
Right about the time that pharmaceuticals – as we know them today – were born, right about the time that medicine became commercialized, we stopped truly believing in the healing power of nature.
The concept of “snake oil,” started to bleed into every aspect of natural healing. Because our forefathers and foremothers did some questionable things, an insidious belief was born. A belief that everything they did was wrong. And everything we “more enlightened, scientific people” discovered – even in its nascence – was right. Superior. The only way to look at things.
Right along with the bathwater of snake oil, the baby of natural healing was hurled out the newly plastic-lined window. In its place we substituted haughty superiority and a total dependence on things like plastics, and petrochemicals, and anything someone in the lab could throw together in a new, improved formulation.
But the thing is, if you trace human history, there’s one thread that’s always there – always – and it’s the healing power we all possess, innately, along with our brilliant ability to heal ourselves using nature.
There’s no doubt in my mind that, 200 years from now, our great-great-great-great grandchildren will look at things like petrochemicals, most pharmaceuticals, and GMOs the exact same way we look at snake oil, blood letting, and giving medicinal cocaine to children.
We’ve replaced one form of silliness with another. No doubt about it. It’s a pattern, this lack of understanding, this moving ahead without considering the consequences. This excitement for something new and improved, no matter how not-new and not-improved it really is.
We Can Learn, We Can Pass It All On, Without the Mistakes
So, after all of this heavy stuff, I went inside and thought the darkest, most despairing thoughts.
We’re always destined to repeat the same mistakes. Nothing really matters, and life really IS just a walking shadow. If we haven’t gotten it “right” yet, we never will. You have to choose – science or nature. That’s what everyone else thinks. And besides – if humanity made it through the Dark Ages just fine, won’t we all make it through the Plastic Ages just fine, too? Why bother with any of it?
And after I spent an hour or two living there, in that bad place, this happened:
I realized that, while humanity as a whole, has lived the same dramas and made the same mistakes, only in increasingly shinier packages, for millennia, we don’t have to choose that way.
We – here at Crunchy Betty and all over the world – can choose to incorporate old wisdom with new. We can – and I think we have to – live by combining all that we know in our hearts to be true about life today, with all that we know in our souls to be true from the past.
Today, we are not geniuses who have all the answers to health and beauty. Three hundred years ago, we were not geniuses, either. But we weren’t complete dummies.
Now is the time to start marrying the wisdom we’ve been blessed enough to carry with us all these years with the knowledge we have today, instead of thinking that one is superior to the other.
Because it’s not.
And you know how I know this?
Because I can walk into my kitchen, right this very moment, and create a balm that heals my burns – using the same ingredients our foremothers did – but it only takes a quarter of the time, and I don’t have to put out a single fire.
Unless I catch my petticoat on the electric burner.
—
I know this was long, but I do want you to brainstorm with me:
- What other ways can we incorporate our natural pursuits, our “old-fashioned ways,” with the ways of today? Can you think of other ways that we can benefit from recent inventions by combining them with old wisdom?
- How can we put a stop to the cycles of the past, where we do really dumb things and call them healthy (or convenient)? Can you think of ways to get in touch with your own innate sense of what is actually healthy?
- Or: If you could choose: What one single thing should we, as a species, do completely away with in terms of our health? What one thing, if eradicated like “snake oil,” would make our world a better place?
Historic Beauty Days: Snippets From A Magazine Past
Sugar
I know you are busy and flooded with loving readers, but I want to just genuinely thank you for confronting these feelings publicly and inviting the rest of us to share with you. I think the biggest thing that we can do away with to keep our health is the lack of understanding about how and where and why food is made the way it is, and to turn our interests away from funding huge agribusinesses who feed us fertilizers made by big pharmaceutical companies, which make us sick and in turn we pay doubly to pharma having to buy their medicine. localize crops back to communities, stop eating exotic foods in such huge quantities, and recapture with our modern knowledge the ability to care for ourselves and our families without having to eat food that was doused in the blood and sweat of slaves and chemical cocktails. let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food! now that it is understood what we should eat and why, lets learn how to rear the crops that will keep us healthy, and revel in the few hours a week it takes to maintain your own food source.
The one thing we would be much better off if we never had “discovered” and I would be HAPPY to see out of our lives is petrochemicals. They have a way to be in almost everything we eat, drink and consume, with nasty effects in the long term, if not for our bodies, for nature. It is in pharmaceuticals, it is in agriculture, it is in packaging, diapers, and even in the receipts you get from a cashier (BPA). And we could have all the same items with different materials that are not harmful or coming from a non-renewable source. The impact (political and economical) of harvesting oil is a reason in itself not to use it, mind you all the horrible effects on nature of our mishandling of the black gold (oil spills). I know it’s running lower and lower, and all the reserves will end, but why wait so long, considering our planet will manage it, to become aware?
Sadly I don’t think snake oil has been eradicated. The study (yes, one) implicating saturated fat as bad for your heart actually showed an increase of heart disease alongside fat AND sugar. The author concluded that fat was the problem without actually doing further study to verify which it was – his conclusion was based on assumption. Today, we now have an entire industry based on that one assumption, including statin drugs which are also highly unscientific. Honestly, I think we actually buy more snake oil than ever, but because it is “backed by science” (and a lot of money) we don’t dare question it, even when that “science” is completely made up to back an agenda.
So I would get rid of assumptions, but most of all fear. Fear immobilizes us to question and to act – to do what’s right. When we stop being fearful, we can change the world.
I am also considering the idea of getting rid of money. Going back to the system of trade. That is a huge long discussion that I don’t think I can do justice here, but I have a lot of notes in my notebook waiting to be finished.
The way I try to incorporate the need to be close to nature and the benefits that modern technology brings is through education and awareness. I strive to be conscious in all my decisions – to understand the consequences of any choice, and to act based on that, not just going through the motions. It is a work in progress, but so worth it.
That certainly struck a cord with me. I was recently thinking about how much I am becoming my mother. I am ashamed to admit that as a kid, I was slightly embarrassed when my lunchbox had homemade bread and cookies, versus the white bread and oreos that my classmates had. Cures for common ailments came from the kitchen cupboard and mom spent months making Christmas presents. She made our soap and our soda pop. I am 60 years old and mom is long gone, but she would be pleased to know I have come full circle. Thanks, mom
In answer to your third question: What should we eliminate? Industrial agriculture. I can’t think of anything that has done more damage while consistently failing to live up to its promises, yet so many people are convinced it’s indispensable.
And for your first question, marrying the old-fashioned ways with our modern knowledge: This might sound silly, but I discovered that a corset, when not laced too tight, is actually super comfortable. Like a sexy back brace that supports your bazooms better than any bra. (But it has to be a real corset, with bones, not just a tight-laced bodice like you see at the Renaissance festival.)
I love this beautifully written and thought provoking post and the comments from people (especially NMG) If theres one thing I would change, which may encorporate all of the above mentioned (profit striving etc) it would be peoples attitudes about being in it for themselves. If it weren’t so much about making money then people wouldn’t be trying so hard to fake, dupe, hide and pull down others. If it weren’t so much about trying to be/have the best or more than other people then there wouln’t be so much back stabbing, deceit, distance between the ‘classes’. I would love to see everyone working on someones comment of local fresh farms in different areas, the community working together for everyones benefit. Producing chemical free, fresh food full of goodness. Because lets face it, if given a choice, who would choose chemicals over fresh goodness? Who would choose sickness with medicines over being healthy in the first place? And more importantly, who would choose rich and sadly alone over being blessed with happy, healthy friends and family?
Mine will sound weird, but it’s razors. As a teen I thought the whole idea of having to shave every day or so was SUCH a waste of time, but I wasn’t ready to be a social pariah so I started using the little pink razors. That led to makeup, which led to looking at fashion magazines, which led me to think I was fat and then the icky stuff hit the fan, so to speak:)
Wonderful post. I think you hit the nail on the head with this sentence, “It’s a pattern, this lack of understanding, this moving ahead without considering the consequences.” We need to remember that modern technology has brought us many wonderful things; natural is great, but if you simply jump on that bandwagon and decry all things synthetic, you are missing the point. (It cracks me up when I see someone using the internet to create a blog about the evils of modern technology.)
I think the real change we need to see is an understanding that everything is connected, that life is about balance and cycles, for every action, a reaction. We should make better use of our technology to help us achieve a better balance, so that we can keep moving forward, and hopefully, make better choices. But we are only human, we will make mistakes, we need to get accept that, stop worrying about who’s to blame, and continously strive to do better.
eradicate the word diet and all its cousins from our language
Seriously. That word has been abused and no longer means what it it supposed to.
For the world, I would get rid of factory farming, as well. (…I just had a Miss Congeniality moment. But I promise I actually thought about that answer, and i’m pretty sure that everyone who said it first spent as much time on it!) But I can’t change the world; I can only change myself. For myself, I am trying to not follow capitalism. Realizing it’s okay if I wear the same pair of pants more than once a week, that I don’t have to keep something obscure because I might need it some day, that my life is not dependent on my stuff is something I’m really working on. Today’s technology means that when I make a purchase, it’s really the right one. And it’s strangely fun to go away for a weekend with toothbrush and -paste, a dress for church and a change of underwear. Try it!
I definitely second the eradication of factory farms. Go back to farming they way they did in the “old days” when they followed nature’s cycle, didn’t overload the land, and diversified their crops/animals for the betterment of nature and of the people. Before GMO’s and shoveling grain in to cows.
We also don’t subscribe to the commercialism of today’s society. We don’t have fancy cell phones or a house full of technology. We don’t have credit cards. We buy local whenever possible. I try to make every thing I can at home. We repurpose whatever we can.
And it is quite freeing to pack one small bag for 2 people for a overnight/weekend trip. 🙂
Man, it sounds like you just read the book of Ecclesiasties – the whole everything that’s on the earth has been seen before….
with all the technology today – being able to have the world at our fingertips – the main thing lacking is true communication, and unified communities, when I was growing up – I knew everyone on my block – now days I don’t speak to my neighbors, they don’t speak to me. we as a whole can change the world – but as 1 person change is slow going.
This write reminded me of this song;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k3JVfxluFU&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLAC52E7AD32A2AB0C
I see the glass half-full. Especially when referring to the internet and the scope and speed of shared information. Look @ how it’s changed marketing strategies. Companies are going green (if only to increase profits). The one thing I’d eliminate? Well, you said it– CORN SYRUP. That would knock out a huge part of the reason for the increased incidence for obesity in this country. How many babies are set up for life by drinking it in formula and thereby being “addicted” to it? But what of the farmers? They can still grow corn for synthetic plastics and the like. And for goodness sake, let’s grow our own food and eliminate processed foods from our diets as much as possible.
Wow, I had honestly never listened to those lyrics before. Powerful! I always liked the song, but only superficially.
Corn syrup in formula disgusts me. Ugh.
First, Crunchy Betty, I’m always geeked when I get a notification for one of your posts! This one brought this to mind: we look back to “dark ages” when people would just throw their refuse out into the streets and say “gross!” Yet, we “civilized” people do the same thing into landfills. Out of sight, out of mind? I guess so. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I was JUST thinking about this, after my mom told me she cured her eczema with plain old vitamin E oil. When she’d tried dozens of creams and prescription things. We still buy the snake oil! But I love that you ended your post with hopefulness. And this is one of my favorite ways to combine the old with the new: if you’re interested in an alternative path, you don’t have to feel alone. You can find friends and information on the internet, if you know how to use it wisely! I love the interwebs, and your blog.
I used coconut oil to cure mine! 🙂 A thin layer each night wiped it out in no time!
I am with all my fellow posters who said they would get rid of factory farming. The antibiotics and hormones the animals are being fed is certainly contributing to our (lack of) health and well-being. Not to mention the antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. And GMO’s? Really? So food that is supposed to keep us healthy should first be hosed down with ever increasing amounts and strengths of pesticides? If the food needs to be protected from the pesticides (which, to my understanding, is why they are genetically modifying them), what about us? I don’t want to be genetically modified in any way…I like who I am! And I love my kids just the way they are, too!
I use modern technology (the internet, forums etc) to learn about aspects of “natural wisdom” that I might not otherwise come across. And I learn about the good and bad aspects to help weigh up what to do – e.g. I will use modern chemicals to clear pernicious weeds so that I can begin forest-garden cultivation, and ultimately cause the least harm to the land.
My thing to eradicate would be the relentless pursuit of profit. Then we can take pride in our work. If there is no reason to factory-farm, then why would we? If there is no need to adulterate our food to make it cheaper to produce, then we can concentrate on quality. Note – I didn’t say get rid of *profit* in itself. I’m not totally silly!
Beautifully put!
We, as women, will only go so far until we truly lift each other up. Only then will we realize we are not in competition with each other.
Just this morning I was describing to my daughter how I grew up in the (disposable plastic) 80’s and I thought it was embarrassing when my mom would re-use things like plastic bags. Even using a reusable lunch box was so LAME. When we look at everything around us in terms of where it comes from and where it goes when we are done with it, that changes a lot. Now I have plastic bags washed out and hanging to dry in my kitchen. Now I’m excited when the only waste my cooking produces can go in the compost. Now I spend time in the kitchen before I shower “cooking” my beauty products instead of using bottled toxins on my body and in the water.
We are always looking for ways to be more beautiful, to be more healthy, to be more comfortable. It is in our nature. It is just time to stop competing WITH nature, and with each other, to do so.
So, yeah- that’s the “just one thing” that I would name that would help so much: Stop judging and competing with each other. We would find ourselves caring less about the stupid stuff, trying to fit into boxes that will never be our shape, and stop using what is around us so irresponsibly. We could do what is healthy instead of what is popular.
I grew up the exact same way, and went under the exact same changes – now I do just as my Mum did! I agree wholeheartedly, too; judgement really gets in the way of things.
Betty, I started my journey of getting in touch with what is healthy when I read a book called “What the Bible Says About Healthy Living” by Dr. Rex Russell. I don’t know how you feel about the bible, but Dr. Russell’s book is very informational. As a medical doctor he explains the dietary and lifestyle restrictions God gave to the Israelites and how they apply to today. It’s fascinating. Talk about learning from history! After reading his book I became interested in non-processed and organic foods, which made me think about pesticides, recycling and composting. I entertained the idea of raising chickens in my backyard, or bees. Neither of which my husband would agree to. I bought into the idea that natural really is better and started using natural products on my skin and in my home. It’s a lifestyle where everything is interconnected and works together. I think that’s the way God designed it, which is why it’s important to know what he says about healthy living. But that’s just me and how I got in touch with what’s healthy. I still eat bacon and drink pop occasionally because I’m not obsessive. But I am aware and I’m convinced that natural is the way to go. And that is the beginning.
I would choose to get rid of processed/pre-prepared foods – anything which contains artificial sweeteners, colours, flavour enhancers, etc, because if you threw out all that junk, you would also be kissing goodbye to most of the foods which contain excess added (natural) sugar, excess fat, salt, low vitamin/fibre content, and you would hopefully as a result be encouraging people to prepare food from scratch, which helps people to understand and become interested in the origins of the food on their plate, which would also hopefully lead to an increase in ethical farming & food production. It would also in one fell swoop take care of some of the huge health burdens placed on Western society, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke. There is also the link between a healthy diet and reduced risk of a multitude of cancers, although this is perhaps not quite as strong a link as that between diet and the other conditions mentioned.
Oh I loved this post! I have to say, people back then were on to something with snake oil…it’s pretty high in Omega 3s 😉 But thanks to science we now know those go rancid very quickly and once rancid will stop having nifty health benefits.
Science has delivered us some wondrous things. We’ve been to the moon and back. But the belief that science has all the answers, and that the understanding of the healing powers of nature is nothing but a bunch of woo-woo is making us sick. Literally. As you said, we see ourselves as separate from nature. Above and not a part. We’re taught to ignore all that we truly know deep inside unless a double blind placebo controlled study proves we do have an inner voice and maybe it does know what it’s talking about. It’s maddening! Modern science and medicine have much to offer, I do not disagree. I would not be here without it, nor do I think many of your other readers would be either. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we as a whole (and not just us crazy crunchy people) figured out that the combining of the “old” and the new is really where it’s at?!
As for what I’d do away with…factory farming. I know that’s a fairy tale at the moment, but I would love to see a local version of Polyface farms in every area. A farm that can produce food in harmony with its surrounds, and add to the health and ecology of the land, instead of destroying it. And sunscreen 🙂
Why sunscreen? I’m curious 🙂 I might just do some research.
Commercial sunscreens are full of nasty chemicals! There’s been talk that using it is more likely to cause cancer than exposure to the sun itself. There are some pretty good natural sunscreens out there though, so I would just say eliminate the toxic ones 🙂
As Heather said below, they’re full of icky crap. One of the issues I take with the chemicals in chemical sunscreen (as opposed to mineral sunscreens) is that many of them are oxidative. That’s part of why there is suspicion that they are contributing to the increase of skin cancer.
I also take issue with blocking UVB but not UVA, as UVB is beneficial (we don’t make Vitamin D without it – UVA does not cause the same reaction in our skin). UVA causes more damage to the skin, causes premature aging, and is suspected of increasing skin cancer risk. However, the FDA now requires that all sunscreens be broad band, so they block both UVA and UVB. I still don’t think that’s a step in the right direction though. We’ll head in a better direction if we start being taught that sensible sun exposure is healthy, while over/under exposure is not.
If we were not intended to live under the sun, we would be nocturnal.
Betty, I’m loving these posts about the last few centuries…
Here’s my “just one thing”, the single thing I would like to eradicate first: genetically modified foods. More diversity, local food growing and buying, less big agriculture.
And then…the rest of the way we care for our Mother Earth. Oy vey! Hard to stop at one! So, as soon as we wave our wands at GMO foods, let’s then get started on pollution and climate change, thank you very much!
Love and light,
Sue
Robert Heinlein once wrote ” A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future”. It takes people who actually care to learn, to understand the big picture and see the pattern and try to change it. More studies find that things found in nature provide equal or better benefit than their artificial replacements. We learn more every year about how various systems in our body work, which we can put together with studies of natural items to understand why certain traditional treatments work. The best thing we can do is spread the word and hope someone listens, even partially. I think you do a great job with that on your blog. Loving this history dive.
This post is very thought provoking. Certainly anyone who has decided to make a conscious effort to ask questions about how to heal the body has also confronted these contradictions of advice and seemingly endless repeating loops of misinformation. The only way out is a higher perspective. To be free of this trap, I have started down a path of holistic healing. It is a path for the body, mind, and soul. I see the limitation of our culture as specialization and overly focused attention. I know if I want to change my life I have to take responsibility for ALL of it. It is the only way. Freedom comes from knowing ourselves. The process of learning allows mistakes, so I cannot be discouraged if I am on the receiving end of someone else’s shortcomings. A positive attitude has changed my world. I don’t see a doomed society riddled with problems. I used to want all the lotions and potions, with trappings of all the new fandangled culture, but I started to question why I wanted it. I asked myself what I was seeking. This line of questioning really changed my basic paradigm. Sure it is philosophical, but we all have brains…no such thing as not able to think for ourselves. Betty, I agree that much of the day-to-day dramas of weight loss, miracle foods, NEW this or that is insignificant. Even more importantly, I can’t make anyone wake up to these facts; I can only live by example and share my life experiences with loving compassion. I believe that I am a beacon of hope because I see the world changing for the better. And thank you, for I see so much promise in your writings about what a magical world we really do live in.
We are destined to repeat the cycles of the past because every generation thinks they have the answer to the worlds problems. They get some if it right, and a lot of it wrong. It’s human nature.
Once upon a time, I learned something or other from some source or another and found it so fascinating that I started ranting and raving about it to everyone. That is until somebody finally asked me, “where did you get that information?” Where DID I get that information?… I don’t even know! I don’t know if my source was reliable or not. How silly of me. I heard it, and ran with it. I didn’t even question it. Something very important that I think we all need to do in order to continue growing in our knowledge (both new and old) is check our information. What is actually in these anti-inflammatory pills (or whatever pill you want to imagine) and who says they are good for me and why? Are they telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or did they find a little bit of new info and run with it? Do our research folks. It makes us smarter, ya know! 🙂