We metabolize light!
I find this FACT every bit as fascinating
as the FICTION of a Jedi lightsabre. Moreso, actually.
If you wanted to weaken a person, I can't imagine a more effective strategy than this:
Identify something VITAL to their health and well-being, like sunshine... or cannabis.
Create and promote misinformation about those vital substances. Deem them bad and dangerous when, in fact, they are quite good, and our bodies love and need them.
Seal the deal with scary consequences (skin cancer! incarceration!), and you'll have the majority of folks running away from the very things they need to feel and be their best.
SO TWISTED. Brittle bones, cancer and all sickness IS PROFITABLE to a parasitic medical industry that suffers economic loss the more whole, nourished and vibrant we become.
Modern healthcare systems are built on an allopathic model, which means it presumes our ill state. It seeks ways to issue more and more lifelong, habit-forming pharmaceutical prescriptions. It creates fictitious disorders by pathologizing the human experience. (Sadness, for example, is a normal emotion in our range of emotions. But it's been so demonized, pills are pushed if someone dare have a series of bad days, or a turning within.)
Allopathy -- our health system's foundation -- treats us like a car. It reduces us to mechanized pieces and parts. It is not equipped to regard and treat us as the complex, self-healing organisms that we are.
Their "recommendations" are that of a mechanic, only able to see one part of the machinery at a time. Limited. Simplistic. And, despite a Hippocratic Oath, this system causes great and consistent harm:
Bottom line? Question all conventional wisdom, because the conventions have become increasingly distorted over time. Without critical thought, it's easy to heap more value and esteem upon a popularized drug, like aspirin, then its BOTANIC SOURCE, willowbark. A physician's white coat is associated with medical expertise and sophistication, while a well-studied herbalist or holistic provider is still largely regarded as inferior and less trustworthy. It's the modern medical industry that is unworthy of our blind trust. This quote is from a previous post:
I never believed the warnings that incite fear and suspicion against the sun. How about examining the toxic stuff (hello, aluminum) that's loaded into those goopy sunscreens that MELT INTO the open pores of our largest eliminating organ? Isn't it more feasible that THAT's the cause of skin cancer, moreso than a moderate intake of sunlight at safe hours (when UV is lowest)? In fact, according to a group of right-minded physicians, "Humans spend less time in the sun today than at any point in human history – which is why more than 1 billion people worldwide are vitamin D deficient."
If you spend most of your time indoors, with artificial light, it is likely that you are in need of more vitamin D. Following are the three best ways to get it.
1. Eat it with your MOUTH.
Most of our nutritional needs are met by what we eat. But mineral-depleted soils, contaminated oceans and addiction to processed foodstuff creates a lot of deficiencies in our health.
When I searched for images of foods with the greatest amount of Vitamin D, I expected bright, varied colors of vegetables and fruits. But, no.
Fish. Milk. Eggs. Butter. Cheese.
I'm not vegetarian/vegan, but lots of people that I love are. So here is a great sunlight hack from my favorite mycologist, Paul Stamets. It's a solution that can benefit all kinds of eaters. Basically, he recommends setting (non-psychoactive) mushrooms in sunlight before eating them. Mushrooms, like our skin, create vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. And they can retain that vitamin D for up to a year! This is especially great for folks who live in less sunny climates, and are stuck with irregular access to sunshine. For a detailed and interesting explanation of how mushrooms do what they do, click the link of Paul's name.
2. Eat it with your SKIN.
According to Richard Hobday, author of The Healing Sun: Sunlight and Health In the 21st Century:
For most of human history the sun has been revered as a source of light, life and health. The ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun's healing powers and made good use of them, as did the Greeks and Romans. The citizens of Rome considered sun exposure to be so important they had right-to-sunlight legislation. In 1903, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Niels Finsen, a Danish doctor who discovered that the sun's rays could cure tuberculosis. Finsen put sunlight therapy at the forefront of medicine after centuries of neglect. In the years that followed, hospitals and sanatoria were built so patients with tuberculosis, rickets and war wounds could be exposed to the sun under medical supervision. Until about 50 years ago, health experts promoted sunbathing.
There are many impressive benefits of responsible sun exposure. Sunbathing:
- stimulates the production and absorption of Vitamin D and phosphorous
- stimulates your pineal gland
- improves skin by clearing acne, eczema and psoriasis
- is antiseptic, antibacterial and germicidal
- boosts height when an infant is exposed to mild sunlight in its first few months
- strengthens your immune system
- lowers blood pressure, which reduces risk of heart attacks and strokes
- eases mild/seasonal depression by helping your brain produce more mood-lifting melatonin and serotonin
Source
Your skin's pigmentation lets you know how much sunlight you need, and how much caution you should observe. The more pale you are, the less sunlight you need (for vitamin D sufficiency) and the greater care you should observe to avoid burning. And the darker you are, the more sunlight you need, and the more innate protection (melanin) you have from burning.
Wherever you land on the skin-color spectrum, the next time you are in daylight, please consider doing this simple experiment:
- Stop the rush-rush mind.
- Choose to be a calm and observant person for the next 3 minutes.
- Close your eyes.
- NOTICE the warmth on your skin.
- Concentrate on that warmth.
- Ask your own body: "Is this enjoyable to you? Why?"
The more we consult and trust our DIRECT + ACTUAL EXPERIENCE of a thing, the better we can assess its goodness or rightness for ourself. Very often, what is best for you will counter consensus thinking. The felt experience of warm sunlight on skin, for example -- and not just human skin, either -- it may be restorative and satisfying enough, that you end up giving yourself those 3 (at least) minutes, every day.
Sunlight has always made my skin, and everything beneath it, REJOICE! I literally feel it charge me up, with fueling energy. Sunbathing makes my cells say, "Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I pay attention to the strengthening I feel from the sun. There are so many emotional and physical boosts that sunshine freely gives. Those boosts influenced my move, and adaptation, to a tropical environment.
3. Eat it with your EYES.
I first learned of Hira Ratan Manek 10-12 years ago through an advertisement promoting a workshop he was to have at a raw food restaurant in Chicago. The thing that stood out, both as preposterous and intriguing, was his claim that he hadn't eaten... in eight years!
He attributed this weird ability to his preferred diet of solar energy. He said that his daily practice of sungazing initially reduced his appetite, and eventually removed it altogether. He claims to get all physical, mental and emotional needs met by feasting on the sun, via sungazing.
Sungazing allows safe sunlight (which shines within 1 hour of sunrise or sunset) to hit the back of your skull through your pupils. Here is a link to the process of sungazing, according to HRM.
I didn't make it to the workshop that day, but the practice of sungazing still found its way into my life. It is transformative to be filled with gold, life-giving light. It is such a natural relationship -- between humans (all of life, really) and the Sun -- that within minutes of your first gaze, you'll likely feel an incredible REUNION. A warm, kindled familiarity. I experience it as my timeless soul reconnecting with a beloved solar source. It's rapturous, to be honest.
I still enjoy food, but far less of it. And, more and more, I'm wanting simple, produce-only meals. Hey, wouldn't it be cool if this next sentence was true?
You are the wise owner and manager of your own body. Learn its signals. Honor its needs. Don't yield the power and vulnerability of your body to any procedure or practice without first researching the hell out of it for yourself. That includes, of course, this non-medically advising post. Due diligence. You're worth it! :-)
Sunset pic was taken from the flatbed of a bright yellow pickup truck that is as tough and tenacious as its owners. We raced along the upward curves of a magical hill, where meals and art and dreams are made. Bravo, @lily-da-vine!
LAVISH LISTENING, where you can be fully heard, and undisturbed.