MIND. Closing The Circle.
Food chains, assembly lines and linear systems are efficient, cost-effective and usually predictable. I (and others) would argue, also unnatural. Very infrequently do we ever see a straight line in nature. Even in the healing process, I tell my patients it’s rarely every linear. I often compare it to an upward spiral, like the Fibonacci sequence - trending in the right direction, but not necessarily straight. [Leonard Fibonacci was an Italian, by the way]
One loss in the chink of the linear chain and it does not work so well any more. And yet, industries of food and medicine continue to become more and more linear. It makes sense - I do like the logic and organization. But I often wonder about the vulnerability of the factiously infallible mega-chains we have created. As much as we want to silo the human body into parts and into parts of parts (“I know I am a gastroenterologist, but I only work with the large intestine”), and we want to silo agriculture in monoculture plots to make our systems work better, I think we have reached the point of over-optimization. It is time for less lines and to close some more circles. After all, just as our organs are connected and cross-talk for homeostasis, so do systems in soil.
Circles (and cycles and spirals) inherently have a bit more resilience built into their structure. “What goes around comes around” isn’t just a colloquial saying - it is physics. When I have a patient in front of me with symptom “X,” I ask, what is the body trying to tell us? What cycle is broken that is trying to mend? A symptom is often an indicator of an adaptation in our body. To treat it without asking, “what cycle is trying to come back into homeostasis?” is to miss the point, and perhaps, bring about bigger, more severe symptoms later on. I get to help the body figure out how to close some circles (not always as simple as it sounds).
Imagine my surprise to be standing in a garden in Tuscany hearing the director of gardening say the same thing about the plants he is working with. “The more circles I can help close, the better the health of the plants will be,” he said in a way that sounded so much more poetic just by his accent alone. “When a weed becomes persistent and pervasive, I research what it is doing in the soil. It is trying to tell me something. Then I plant edible plants in the same family to help it do its job more quickly, and then the weed goes away. I have helped to close that circle.”
Medicine explained by a wise Italian farmer.
In what ways can you close some circles in your own life? Understanding your food sourcing and system is one way to participate. Break the food chain and create your own local food cycle. You may just see some symptoms close their circle, too, as a result.
