East meets West: What about North meeting South?
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Dear Friends, 
We like to say that holistic medicine is a merging of the medical philosophies and practices of the East and the West—and it is. I, myself, am a sanyasin, a Zen Buddhist, a Christian; an adept in yoga, macrobiotics and ayurveda, with 30 years of teaching and promoting health through good nutrition, products, laboratories and health practitioners—I am transnational. Without a doubt, in our generation there has been a merging of the East and the West in the practices of holistic medicine, but I have a question for you. What about the merging of the North and the South? I would suggest that this is the 1800 lb moose standing in our livingroom that we of the global North have been culturally blind to. It is the next frontier we must fully embrace to make our world whole, equitable and just. I love Jon Stewart and his Daily Show, I think that he is “right on” most of the time. However, a few nights ago he interviewed Michael Spector on his new book Denialism. Spector maintains that all the “fear mongering” by the holistic community regarding vaccines and Monsanto is not evidence based, and is counter productive to the important progress they are making. To my amazement Stewart, especially in regarding to the vaccine issue, ate the blue pill. For those of you who haven’t seen the Matrix Movie and don’t know what the blue pill symbolizes I have linked you here to our BioImmersion home page’s clip, The Meatrix, that illuminates the point beautifully. Here also is the clip of the Spector interview. What do you think? Last week, Monday Nov 30th, I had the opportunity to hear Eric Holt-Gimenez speak at the University of Washington on his new book, Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice. I had come across his work as Director of Food First and as a professor at UC Santa Cruz during my research on La Via Campesina (the peasants way) for our June 11th Newsletter. I was very excited to hear Eric’s talk. What I didn’t realize was that I was entering into the middle of a week long gathering commemorating the 10th anniversary of the WTO shudown. The University of Washington auditorium was packed. The evening was led off by Heather Day, the Director of the Community Alliance for Global Justice (CAGJ)—the organization largely responsible for bringing this evening, the week long conference and the 1999 Seattle WTO protest together. The week’s conference was entitled Global Week of Action/Seattle People’s Summit— WTO+10: Global Justice Forward. Heather thanked us for coming, explaining that CAGJ was a grassroots, membership organization based in Seattle, with three programs: Food Justic Project, AGRA Watch and Trade Justice. CAGJ was founded by Seattle-area activists who helped to organize the historic shutdown of the World Trade Organization meeting in 1999. In her opening remarks Heather noted that November 30th 2009 was 10 years to the day of the Seattle Protest, and that on this day the World Trade Organization will host a meeting of its highest decision-making body in Geneva. She reminded us that on Dec 7th, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change launches in Copehagen and thanked us for joining in an effort to harness the spirit of the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle with a renew commitment to justice and a strong message to Wall Street: “People of the planet are not for sale.”
Eric gave, as expected, a tremendous talk. I will focus next weeks newsletter on his talk. He provided specific examples of how the people of the global South and underserved communities of the industrial North lost control over their food systems (to the global North) and how this led to the systemic vulnerability that underlies today’s crisis. What is the crisis today?
I look forwarding to sharing with you key points from his talk next week. One of his most important points was when he told us that social change comes about when an uprising of the population overwhelms the controlling forces. And, that is what we the people must do create a social change of paradigmal proportions through our collective rising up. Sincerely yours, Seann Bardell Clinical Note: The Therapeutic Foods were put together to Help Your Body. We have 15 different formulas with seven of them containing probiotic organisms. Many of you have asked me for a single page summary sheet, outlining their uses in supporting the various systems of the body. I have been working on that and plan on having that for you in next weeks email. The Last Quiz Answer: I love this magical animal. It’s around 2 feet tall, 3 feet in length and 23 pounds. They live up to 15 years. Perhaps 1000 exist in the lower 48 states. They are on the endangered list. Lynx are usually solitary, although small groups of lynx may travel and hunt together occasionally. Mating takes place in the late winter and they give birth to two to six kittens once a year. The gestation time of lynx is about 70 days. The young stay with the mother for one more winter, a total of around nine months, before they move out to live on their own as young adults. Lynx will create their dens in crevices or under ledges. They feed on a wide range of animals from white-tailed deer, reindeer, roe deer, small red deer, and chamois, to smaller, more usual prey: snowshoe hares, fish, fox, sheep, pets, squirrels, mice, turkeys and other birds, and goats. They also eat ptarmigan, voles and grouse.
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