Thoughts on synergy, growing healthier, and a rare wild cat
I dreamed the other night of seeing a guiña in the woods. Silent, serenely alert, perfectly harmonized with its surroundings. It must have been on my mind because I’m about move to a town in Chile’s Valdivian forest—an almost lifelong wish of mine—which is the home of this wonderful creature. I know I may never see a guiña (also known as a kodkod) in the woods (though it’s very likely they will see me!). This animal is so elusive, apparently there are people who have devoted their careers to studying it who have never seen one in the wild.
The dream started a wondering-process in me. Why am I so captivated with wilderness, with biodiversity, with an animal that lives a life so incredibly different from mine? Why does it feel so personally important to be aware of them, and a privilege to be in their presence? It struck me that it’s my own sense of Something Missing, or I could even say my sense of So Much Missing, like a hunger, that responds to wild lives.
If this seems like an abrupt change of subject, it’s circular—stay with me.
Very often, when I start feeling I’m gravitating toward writing something health-related, I find the subject once again is rooted in the idea that to reach a better state of health, we need to change the way we think about it. If we (as individuals, and as a culture) adopt a wider-angle view, we’ll be better off. Holistically better off—our bodies, our emotional lives, our thought process itself can be more resilient, more flexible.
When human health began to decline so steeply—when chronic, degenerative types of disease became common—it’s no coincidence that we were also becoming separated from natural living conditions. Those natural conditions were actively building and protecting health in us. That’s been true for as long as living things have existed, and of course it’s still true for the living beings who live the way they’re meant to live.
We often think of elements of modern life causing health problems—being stuck indoors a lot, hours in front of screens, eating too much of the wrong stuff, taking drugs which create havoc in our bodies (whether “recreational” or “medical;” that distinction doesn’t exist for our bodies) and many other things. And it’s true. But there’s a whole other, deeper, dimension here.
We know very well that living systems are… well, systems. Ecosystems in which many, many (uncountable, actually) factors work in balance and harmony and synergy. From this perspective, things like sunlight, natural foods, plenty of clean water and air, and so on are not incidental outer factors. They were integral parts of us. In this light, most of our modern diseases can be thought of as deficiency diseases.
It seems strange, but at this point it takes learning and commitment to rebuild a natural way of living. Most of us are that far from it. Scientists announce “discoveries” with great fanfare which are actually just tiny fragments of the intuitive knowledge which until very, very recently in Earth’s history was instinctively known and lived by virtually everyone. The animals are still doing it, except in places humans have interfered too much. Perhaps that’s why so many of us are intrigued, and also feel a certain mysterious longing, when we see wild animals in wild habitats… even if only on a screen.
What are the missing pieces? How do we rebuild? Reconnect our own fragmented, interrupted inner landscapes? Can we return to being supported and protected by the synergy that a natural way of living provides? The truth is it’s not easy at this point. But to some extent, yes. Almost no matter what our current living situation is, we can move in that direction. When we begin to include these missing nutrients of all kinds in our lives, is this medicine? Or is it just living a natural life?
I understand myself just a little bit better, having dreamed of a solitary wild cat peering at me in a forest. It’s connected with the instinct toward whole health, integrated into the vast natural system of life on Earth.
