Truth is something very important to me. As are plants and the natural world. I have been reading some of Des Cartes work recently. He is the father of modern philosophy, he was a vivisectionist and I think, because of his philosophy, humanity in the west has moved away from Nature and has disconnected and as a consequence we have a sickness in our society as well as in our bodies.
Des Cartes had a dream or a vision in which God told him that only the things that he, (Des Cartes), could prove to be true, were real and living. Everything else was just mechanical. Hence Des Cartes’ most famous statement, “I think, therefore I am”. He saw the truth in the fact that he was alive and knew it but could not see the truth in other living beings, including animals. They were unable to voice their knowledge that they were alive. During his vivisectionist activities - which he did as public education/entertainment in front of an audience - he described the screams of pain from the animals, usually dogs, as just a sound akin to a creaking wheel.
His inability to see and to know that of course animals are living, sentient beings and feel pain when they are cut open, has led to his view of the universe, (being merely a mechanical structure), being adopted and developed to such an extreme that everything in the west changed. Experts today know everything about one little “cog” in this splendiferous universe but do not see or understand the whole and how everything is interconnected and living. All knowledge and wisdom has been boxed in and it is rare to see multi-disciplinary study. We have lost touch with the Nature Spirits and Land Spirits; we no longer speak with plants and trees and we view animals as best as pets but otherwise as commodities or problems to be eliminated.
Growing herbs or working with herbal/plant medicine can bring us back to the Truth. We see how they grow and how they interact with other plants and beings. We know we have to seek the Truth of ourselves and be honest if we want real help. Herbalism does not mask symptoms or prolong treatment to make a profit; the plants heal us or they don’t and it all depends on Truth. When we look at a pharmaceutical medication we do not recognise it, it looks like a pill and could be literally anything. It came from a laboratory and was made by people seeking a profit. Plants just love to grow and offer healing to us and when we look at a herbal medicine we can see a being just as when we look at one another.
In today’s world of experts and “scientists” (who do not follow scientific protocol) we are a long long way from our roots. To return to plants for our personal and primary health care we are being radical, rebellious, non-conformist, self-reliant, self-responsible and independent and it feels really good. It feels truthful and honest.
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