To Speak for the Trees

 

“Trees offer us the solution to nearly every problem facing humanity today, from defending against drug resistance to halting global temperature rise, and they are eager to share those answers. They do so even when we can’t or won’t hear them. We once knew how to listen. It is a skill we must remember.”

Diana Beresford-Kroeger

Gifted with an incredible memory since a very young age, soaking up the nectar of ancient Celtic wisdom, Diana grew up with a love for the natural world and an unquenchable curiosity to learn as much as she could about it.

 How can I communicate the marvel of diving into To Speak for the Trees?

 If you feel rejuvenated and cheerful when you immerse yourself in a forest, reading her words will be a unique experience, a wellspring of inspiration and an invitation to learn more about trees and the boreal forest.

 Her book illuminates our spirit with hope, but not the kind of hope based on empty words; it is the invigorating energy underpinned by scientific knowledge and creative ideas to work together to become part of the solution to the environmental crisis.

 Did you know that pine trees produce an atmospheric aerosol called pinene? The pinene molecules are easily absorbed by the skin and the lungs, and they have shown to boost the human immune system and to uplift the mood.

 “The beneficial effects of a twenty-minute pine forest walk will remain in the immune system’s memory for about thirty days.”

 

 The Druidic physicians considered the evergreen pine essential to health, and they prescribed walking in pine forests to support the health of the respiratory system. They called it “forest bathing”.

 Diana migrated to Canada from Ireland when her research prospects were limited. In Canada she endured new challenges.

 She was always motivated to learn about the natural world and to share her knowledge and research. As a courageous independent thinker, however, she was treated with derision and underestimated. Tired of the biases against her, she left the academic system in the 1980s and embarked on a new path of research.  She explains it well in these words: “I had the whole of my scientific education, a baseline of knowledge and technique against which I could measure and make sense of the things I observed. I had the freedom of being loosed from institutions, the room to be myself and chased what caught my curiosity without external interference. “

Her honest reflections resonate on many levels:

 “I had the solitude and desperation of existence on the margins, scary and sometimes painful emotions that have the power to strip you down until you’re just your raw essence and nothing more. I had my painter’s eye for beauty, which could draw me to a discovery just as surely as the orderly thinking achieved by reason. And I had the ancient knowledge of Lisheens and the view it had given me of nature as the sacred source of everything that’s needed to sustain ourselves and the planet.”

 Her love for trees led her to save several species. Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a botanist, medical biochemist, activist and author of various books. Her research and work strive to influence the way we interact with Nature.

 She had settled with her husband in Ontario, Canada, on a 160-acre area of land, where they planted trees and a vegetable garden; a place they care for in partnership with nature, without the use of pesticides.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger plays a vital role in the preservation of the boreal forest. She empowers each and every one of us to do our part to support the health of the planet and our own survival.

 “From my childhood in Lisheens, I’d been taught to freely share anything I was able to, especially my knowledge, and to always look for ways to improve the world around me.  I’d never had the money to engage in the type of philanthropy favored by the Marias of the world. Instead, I gave back through something called philanthropy of the mind, using my scientific knowledge and all the energy I could muster to advocate for any worthy cause that came through my door and to spread awareness of the issues nearest to my heart.”

   Diana’s scientific knowledge and ancient Celtic wisdom were augmented by the teachings she absorbed from the indigenous people of Canada. To Speak for the Trees unleashes the power of the mysterious world of trees.

 The first part of the book is about her childhood, youth, work and experiences interacting with Nature. The last few chapters focus on various species of trees with interesting facts about them. (Some of the trees included are elderberry, birch, blackhorn, aspen, oak and many others).

Her enthusiasm to understand the natural world is an endless endeavor that creates ripples of transformation to support the planet and our survival.

 She never gives up.

 “There is never a day spent outside that you don’t learn something. It might be something small, but that small thing might also be a key to something very big. The discovery of those small things and of the ways they connect to one another and ripple through the whole web of life—that is one of the true beauties of nature. That is what I sought to understand and cultivate.”

  If I asked you to explain a way in which trees support the health of the oceans, what would you say?

 You will probably mention that forests absorb a quarter of the amount of carbon dioxide generated by human beings. This is how forests help to curb the acidification of oceans caused by the burning of fossil fuels. After reading To Speak for the Trees, I should also tell you about a  beneficial effect of Mother Trees I had never heard of before.

 When the leaves of these trees fall in the autumn, they contain high amounts of fulvic acid. As the leaves decompose in the ground, the fulvic acid dissolves in the soil. Fulvic acid is rich in iron, and when this form of iron is flushed out into the oceans through rivers and other waterways, it helps to feed the phytoplankton, supporting the health of the ocean ecosystems.

 Everything in the planet is connected. Hence, the effects of Mother Trees extend into the oceans. This is why when those trees are cut down, fish die; ocean ecosystems are disrupted.  

 When Diana shares her childhood years, she also offers interesting information about the Celts and their history.

 The Celts were woodland people; their culture was born from the deciduous rainforests that covered much of the country in the past.  In the penal years, the British subjugated the Celts and destroyed these ancient forests with the purpose of severing the ties of the Celts with the roots of their culture and language.

“During the penal times, the Irish were not allowed to own trees or even certain seeds—they were only allowed to grow potatoes for food.”

 How can we listen to the trees?

Some people are more attuned to trees than others. Celtic cultures believed in the sentience of trees; many ancient cultures did too.

  I already wrote about ways through which trees communicate. However, I had never read anything about infrasound or silent sound from trees until I read To Speak for the Trees. These are sounds below the range of human hearing. They travel great distances, and they are also produced by elephants to communicate.

 How are trees related to these infrasounds? I wonder about it. Science does not know, but some research is emerging about sounds and plants:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7671032/

The mystery of trees… an endless exploration to observe, feel and ask questions.

 There is a documentary she made called Call of the Forest.

You can also learn more about Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s work by visiting her website.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you may welcome my writing on the following books:

The Ecological Gardener

 Finding the Mother Tree: discovering the wisdom of the forest

Butterflies: their natural history and diversity

Enjoy the offcial trailer of the documentary Call of the Forest:

Julian De La Chica's book

 

 Award-winning Colombian composer and filmmaker spent over a decade researching the facts about Agua de Dios, a small town in Colombia used as a concentration camp to confine dissidents and deprive them of their civil rights and possessions.

 At a time when leprosy was considered a divine punishment, Agua de Dios was created by the Catholic Church and the government to imprison people who were considered to have leprosy, even when they were healthy.

 Leprosy became an excuse to persecute dissidents and to force them to live in isolation in Agua de Dios, the leprosarium where “patients” were supposed to be treated and taken care of. The purpose of the site, however, was to oppress people.

 The victims of Agua de Dios became prisoners for the rest of their life.

 Torture, rape and malnutrition became part of this traumatizing place, which was established in 1871. It was closed in 1963, when the Colombian government finally passed a law abolishing the forced isolation of people.

 Julian De La Chica’s God's Punishment is a historical novel based on real life events; De La Chica interviewed several people before he crafted the novel. In the story we read Leonardo’s words, a writer who gets paid to make a documentary about leprosy in Agua de Dios.

 Leonardo explores the life of Luis Antonio, an enigmatic man who had spent the first years of his childhood in the San Ignacio orphanage in Spain. Luis Antonio is eighty-five years old, and a letter from a priest opens up the path to the secrets of Luis’s past, which are related to Agua de Dios.

Amid the darkness of his life, Luis finds a refuge in music.

The bridge shown on the book cover is the Bridge of the Sighs over the Bogota River. This was the bridge that had to be crossed to reach Agua de Dios.

Here’s a trailer of the novel. The melancholy and mystery carried in Luis’s words entice us to read the novel and learn about his story.

 

The novel explores an ominous aspect of Colombian history, and I think the merit of the novel is the unearthing of the human rights violations and the stories of suffering and injustice that have been neglected for so long to sanitize the reputation of the Church.

 The book helps to understand how the Church was complicit in the dire situation of Agua de Dios. It is an example of how religion can be used as a tool to curtail people’s freedom and serve the greed of dictators. 

Even though I empathized with Luis when he spent time in the orphanage, I could not connect emotionally with any of the characters in God’s Punishment. I also found that the female characters in the novel are stereotypical. They are limited to being helpers or appendages of men. Yet the novel kept me on tenterhooks and offered a number of twists and surprises that responded to the intrigue and suspense sparked at the beginning of the story.

 Distressing scenes are expected in a book that portrays life in a concentration camp, so be aware of this when you approach “God’s Punishment”.

Julian De La Chica did an incredible job in recounting the historical details of human rights violations in Colombia. The author clearly exposed the consequences of the abuse of power by the government and the Church. Both worked together to oppress people by taking advantage of the citizens’ prejudices and ignorance.

  I received a copy of the book from the publisher to write an honest review.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like reading my writing on the book On Account of darkness.

Eat For Life

 

“Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is for you.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

How do we live up to the promise of our highest potential?

It is common for people to believe that as we age, we become sick, have less energy and less mental clarity. This is not true. When we provide our bodies with what they need to stay resilient and strong, we are more likely to stay healthy.

  One of the essential pillars of a healthy mind and body is excellent nutrition. Sleep  and exercise are also basic components of the foundation of health, but today my post focuses on nutrition. Dr. Joel Fuhrman is a Board Certified Family Medicine physician and nutritional researcher, who has helped to improve his patients’ medical conditions by modifying their diets. He has written several books about nutrition. This is one of them.

 Eat for Life: the breakthrough nutrient-rich program for longevity, disease reversal, and sustained weight loss guides and encourages people to become the best version of themselves by educating them to make choices that supply the body with the adequate amount and balance of macronutrients and micronutrients. When the proper choices become a habit, you will find yourself craving healthful foods.

Dr. Fuhrman details the molecular mechanisms that explain how foods have an effect on the cells and tissues of the body.

 

  I did not know the term “Nutritarian” until I read Dr. Fuhrman’s book, even though I follow a nutritarian lifestyle myself. Dr. Fuhrman coined the term. The experiences and photographs of people who addressed their medical issues by following Dr. Fuhrman’s advice are also shared in this book, where you will find over a hundred recipes and various meal plans that you can adjust based on your needs, possibilities and motivations.

 I was in awe to learn about the case of Dr.Chris Miller. She is an emergency medicine physician who suffered from an autoimmune condition called Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. The disease wrecked her body and she had to stop working. She was tired, had skin rashes and pain in her joints; her kidneys were affected. She was prescribed a total of six immunosuppressive medications, but every time a new medication was added, her condition got worse.

 Despite her aggressive treatment, her disease continued to progress. The inflammation was present in multiple tissues. She explains her experience clearly: “I was on six medications. It seemed the more medications my doctors gave me, the more complications I had, and the more I needed to take. It was a terrifying cycle, and I felt depressed and hopeless.”

   When her doctor offered experimental medications, she decided to look into other options herself, and came across Dr. Fuhrman’s approach. As she learned about the pro-inflammatory nature of various foods she consumed, she understood the need to create a strict plan of nutrient dense food that would help her body heal.

 Dr. Miller followed special protocols that involved the use of vegetable juices as part of the nutritarian diet to address her specific condition. Over time, she was able to taper off her medications. Her kidney function normalized. She began to feel well and was able to return to work.

 She even ran a marathon after not doing so for eight years.

I found the following words in Dr. Chris Miller’s website: “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I’m saying it’s going to be worth it.”

  When he designed the nutritarian lifestyle, Dr. Fuhrman took into consideration the Blue Zones' dietary habits of the world, but he went beyond this approach by exploring the research  and honing these diets.

 

 The nutritarian style does not care about calories because it focuses on nutrition. He explains that “the higher the nutritional quality of your diet, the less you will desire to overconsume calories.”

 The following situation illustrates the ongoing challenges demanding attention to the science of nutrition:

                       “In 2009, a group of ophthalmologists led by Joshua Dunaif and eight other physicians specializing in macular degeneration at the Scheie Eye Institute of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (now the Perelman School of Medicine, or Penn Med), noted that several of my patients had reversed their macular degeneration using the Nutritarian diet. They contacted me because they were interested in researching these remarkable results further. They devised a research project and submitted it to the National Institutes of Health for funding. Unfortunately, the grant was turned down partly because of limits to funding nutritional research and because these physician researchers who had done much research in ophthalmology, had done none related to nutrition.”

  The foundation of the nutritarian plan can be remembered through the use of the following letters: G-BOMBS. The letters include the groups of foods you must include every day to optimize your health, support your immune system and help to prevent cancer.

G stands for greens.

B stands for beans ( legumes are in these category).

O stands for onions (include garlic, and others that belong to the Allium family).

M stands for mushrooms (always cook them).

B stands for berries (if you don’t have berries available, then remember to include other fruits in your plan).

S stands for for seeds (and remember the nuts).

Dr. Fuhrman also dares to say something that many doctors prefer to avoid telling you: even small amounts of alcohol increase the risk of cancer. 

I am sharing a conversation with Dr. Fuhrman to understand how to improve your diet and feel better. If you don’t have time to read the book, you can take the time to enjoy this presentation. It summarizes his recommendations and provides relevant information:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaudzJd89Js

I don’t have a rigid approach to his nutritarian diet, but I can say that I feel great in my body, as I incorporated many of his ideas on diet to optimize my wellbeing.

 

 Dr. Fuhrman highlights the link between a healthy soil and human health. Growing food in a way that helps to regenerate the soil, protect the quality of the water and the air and support biodiversity is essential to our future and health.

 Some of Dr. Fuhrman’s patients or followers portrayed in his book express a new appreciation for the food they eat and for the work of the farmers who grow food in sustainable, organic ways. These reasonable methods help to make the soil resilient to weather extremes and also contribute to carbon sequestration, which is part of the solution to address climate change.

I collected a list of articles that are relevant to this post:

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/785566796/malnutrition-hits-the-obese-as-well-as-the-underfed

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220727163045.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/05/diverse-farming-climate-wildfarmed-groove-arma

https://regenerationinternational.org/2022/07/15/this-antioxidant-may-provide-a-key-link-between-regenerative-agriculture-and-human-health/

 https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2021/red-meat-colorectal-cancer-genetic-signature

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/books/article/5-blue-zones-where-the-worlds-healthiest-people-live

https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-070688

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30008-5/fulltext

 I am horrified by the attack to Salman Rushdie. As a writer he endured persecution for a long time. 

 I hope he will recover soon, and I admire his courage and strength. The Satanic Verses is now in my reading list. This book has been banned in several countries.

My Writing Life stands up against hate and supports freedom of speech.

I invite you to read this brilliant article by Hadley Freeman, which was published by The Guardian today:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/14/salman-rushdie-threat-life-courage-fatwa

 

 I will publish my next post in two weeks.

 

 

 

 

Chase that Smile by Harold Cabrera

 

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less without that missing drop.”

Mother Teresa

 I love books that inspire us to work toward our goals with enthusiasm and determination; they are reminders to keep our purpose and intention at the forefront of the mind.

  Harold Cabrera is a husband, father and full-time software developer and data scientist. He works full-time from home, but he is also an athlete. He has a passion for running, swimming and biking. In 2017, a few months before turning forty years old, he decided that he would run the Paris marathon, complete an Ironman and climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

  After losing loved ones to cancer, he thought it would be a good idea to raise funds for cancer research as part of his athletic commitment.

 

 As a child, Harold had not done sports. He only biked on weekends, with his friends. He did not even have the opportunity to learn how to swim during his childhood years because he lived in a place where there were no swimming-pools nearby. Harold was an adult when he decided to participate in his first triathlon in the year 2008—and he did not even know how to swim. He managed to learn how to swim in time for that specific event.

CHASE THAT SMILE shares the path that led him to complete his goals for his fortieth birthday.  The book has a friendly, entertaining style that entrances the spirit and makes you smile. You can’t put it down. 

 

 I love what he said when he compared the art of swimming with Ikebana art. The Japanese art of putting flowers in a vase is in fact an art steeped in the philosophy of developing closeness with nature.

 “An ikebana master described himself as being on a journey where the path has no end and the main purpose is to learn and improve his art continuously.”  

 Harold applies this idea to the art of swimming. It is an ongoing process. Every day we can endeavor to tweak our skills on whatever we choose to do, accepting the learning process as an endless path.

 Harold has lived in three different countries: he was born in the Philippines and lived there until age 13, when he and his family moved to Canada. Later in life, he moved to London. I appreciate the way he threads into the narrative gripping anecdotes and experiences about his past, adding words of wisdom about facing setbacks and dealing with hurdles, and he does so with a sense of humor. By the end of the book, you will feel that you have made a new friend.

 

The climb of Mount Kilimanjaro with his wife and a group of people is another fascinating aspect of Chase that Smile. During that trip, in that intimate connection with nature, the members of the group bonded like family; I know the sense of camaraderie and friendship that thrives in that kind of setting, and Harold makes it vivid and interesting, reminiscing over the details of this unique trip filled with laughter, dance, songs and human connections.

   Harold Cabrera has travelled the world, and his experiences in different places add a unique touch to the read, opening up our eyes to broader perspectives and encouraging us to pursue our goals with optimism.  

 “Perhaps, there are many treasures hidden within ourselves, and sometimes it takes challenges to unearth these personal riches. Taking myself out of my comfort zone forces me to dig deep within myself and allows me to discover my hidden gems. I’ve done this by doing sports, travelling, being in a relationship, being a father, or just by trying to fully experience life. Seeking these treasures makes life one big adventure.”

His love for his kids and his wife Tania is the essential foundation of his journey, and I feel thankful that he shared his book to inspire this post for My Writing Life.

  I hope Chase that Smile will buoy up your spirit and brighten your days with the energy of your own goals, supporting you to keep your intention strong.

  Like the Ikebana Artist, we can all choose to embrace the endless path of learning with gratitude, as we do our best in each moment.

 

Each challenge can be approached with a curious mind.

Each challenge can be viewed as an invitation to become stronger.

 No goal is too small when we follow our path with love, motivation and optimism, and, like Harold, we can share the sparkles of this energy with others.

 You can visit the author’s website here:

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to read my writing on the following books:

Running for Good by Fiona Oakes

Marathon Man by Alan Corcoran

 

Till next time.