Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that the other people won’t feel insecure around you.

As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

— Nelson Mandela

Nutrition

Again, beauty is and always has been about health. A healthy mind, a healthy heart, a healthy body —that is true beauty.

The “optimum level” of health is different for everyone, and is brought about by different means. Each person needs to discover it for themselves.

But we all know the basics —ease up on the sugar, caffeine, and alcohol, sleep a lot, drink lots of good water, keep ingesting those veg, get plenty of exercise, avoid stress… How easy it sounds!

It took me a long time to learn that food is not an enemy, not out to ruin my life —it is actually my friend. And good food is better than medicine. 

Here are a few other things that I have discovered about food and my own body— I speak only from my own experience, but they might be helpful for others too!

~ Spinach is brilliant!

Yes, Popeye was right! Dark greens are delicious – and work in everything, from breakfast shakes to pasta sauce. 

~ Fermented

Sauerkraut, kimchee, beet kvass, kefir, kombucha —they all do wonders for the old (and, in my case, very cranky) digestive system. And the complexion. And, like spinach, I’m pretty sure they make me feel happier too.

~ Gluten brings gloom

If I eat bread, or pasta, or even gravy with flour in it, not only do I feel sick physically (and I mean sick), my brain goes weird. I get really, really low.

I realize that this is not true for everybody. Nevertheless, many people I know experience the same thing, and there is a definite link between depression and gluten intake.

~ Sugar is poison!

I eat sugar, and the sun turns black.

Of course, I am diabetic. It’s definitely poisonous to me, but again I’m inclined to think it might be fairly poisonous for everybody else too.

It lowers the immune system, it affects nutrient absorption, it brings gloom, and it causes spots.

~ Happy food

Like many people, I cannot digest milk, eggs, or pork from supermarkets, but if they come from organic farms, I am fine. It makes sense —if a cow, chicken, or pig is kept on a grain diet, lives on cement, without much room to move, it is not going to be happy. When we eat its produce, our bodies are not going to be happy either.

Eating as much produce and vegetables from local farms and farmers’ markets is not only good for the economy and the environment, it is the best thing we can do for ourselves.

Ty’r Eithin ~ again

I think many of the pressures that trigger anorexia, bulimia, depression, etc. come from a lifestyle that is not really human.

Through thousands of years of human history, when – before now – have we been so divorced from nature?

 In our everyday urban life, how much do we see of reality —of death and birth, of the seasons and the earth and growing things? (When I eat applesauce, I rarely consider the trees that spent a whole year quietly growing my food. Or when I eat bacon, I don’t usually meditate on the pig that gave its life for my breakfast!)

We have insulated ourselves against the hardship and labour —and beauty— of a real, human life.

If I don’t know what real life is, how can I know what a real woman is? What is to stop me starving or torturing myself into some impossible shape, based on an arbitrary ideal?

If we live in an artificial world, no wonder we feel compelled to make ourselves into artificial people!

We can’t all own farms or go wwoofing. But we can all get back in touch with the earth.

As an alternative to (or at least supplement to) supermarkets, we can do urban gardening, support local farms and small businesses, attend farmers’ markets.As an alternative to consumerism, we can support charity shops, and small businesses —our creative and entrepreneurial neighbours—or hand-make items ourselves, establish swaps and barter systems. There is so much we can do! It is so exciting!

And at the very least, we can start treating ourselves as human beings —organic, good, part of the natural world.

You and I are animals. And —as any good farmer will tell you— in order to be healthy and happy, an animal must be loved, cared for, and respected, according to its nature.

It must not be battered into a shape that was never intended for it.

vanity

It took me a long time (and a straight-shooting English bloke) to see that vanity is a real vice. I used to think that being “vain” was when you loved your looks and spent hours in front of a mirror. Obviously I couldn’t be vain because—well, I’m so often down on my looks!

But really, who spends hours in front of a mirror when they love their looks? I know that when I’m feeling happy with my body, I forget about the mirror and go and have fun with friends. I spend hours in front of the mirror when I feel worst about myself.

For me, vanity is what happens when I give way to self-deprecation.

So I believe that the opposite of vanity is freedom— freedom from worry about oneself and one’s appearance— the freedom to love myself, to love my own beauty, without anxiety.

After all, we are gorgeous! 

what is our alternative?

 “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” ~ Krishnamurti

 In a brief foray into psychology in my 3^rd year of university, I investigated the media’s impact on eating disorders.

The news is that— surprise, surprise!— the media really impacts our body image! After all, on many advertising labels, there are unnaturally skinny, bronzed, hairless ladies, which often inform our ideal of feminine beauty. Billboards displaying thin lingerie models, gossip magazines ridiculing celebrities for weight-gain, unusually-thin heroines in films and television, a plethora of exercise ploys and weight-loss remedies—these things seem to announce that people’s bodies must be changed, reduced, and improved.

Media is not the sole cause of anorexia, bulimia, etc.—of course not—but it is a big factor.

It’s brilliant salesmanship of course; if women keep hoping to reach an impossible “look”, then they are going to buy a lot more hair, body, beauty products! But if we are confident and happy with ourselves, in love with our own beauty, peaceful with our scars and imperfections—how much are we going to buy?

Feminine beauty is as variable as human nature; the ideal beauty for each woman is different. However, there is one unifying factor: health.

Instead of accepting the ideals of beauty used to promote consumerism, let’s start from another perspective. How do we promote our health, both mental and physical? What can we learn about nutrition, about caring for our bodies?

What can we do—without spending money, from our own homes, from the woods and sea and fields—to promote and enhance that natural beauty?

Ty’r Eithin

Last time I was in the U.K., I stayed as a wwoofer on a beautiful biodynamic farm in the welsh hills. I slept in a little attic room up a ladder, worked on the farm, and cooked and ate with the other young people.

The farm was part of a community network of shared gardens, where many people shared the labour and helped to provide organic vegetables to families in the area. Ty’r Eithin’s gardens alone fed 60 families —a box of vegetables a week, each, for a year.

This is the best kind of food, food that is better than medicine.

In the mornings, I fed and watered the cows, and in the afternoons I worked in the gardens. I helped tether out the goats, shovelled enormous quantities of manure, helped catch a woolly and muscular ram, made music, went morris dancing, dug weeds, discussed philosophy. It was heaven.

The people whom I met there believed all sorts of things – there were vegetarians, pescetarians, and animal rights’ activists, adherents of Taoism and paganism, advocates of Rudolf Steiner, pseudo-Christians and nonconformists… They were all committed to a natural lifestyle. They were all united by a love and respect for the land.

There is something about simple farm work, I think, that can heal almost anything. At Ty’r Eithin, after a long period of mental darkness, I found the sunshine gradually seeping back into my bones.

The farm was a few hundred years old, and there was a quiet wisdom in its fields and stones.

The robust but elderly gentleman who owned it was also full of wisdom; he and his wife had decided to make it a place where young people could come and experience nature and living close to the earth.

“Most people come here looking for an escape,” he said, “—escape from all the pressures and all the damage of a consumerist society. And that’s okay, and it's important. But in the end we should not be trying to escape. We should be starting something new. We must work together, work from the bottom up, to build something that will contribute new life to the world.”

as aardvarks

“Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: 

Your body is not a lemon. 

You are not a machine. 

The Creator is not a careless mechanic. 

Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. 

Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.” 

― Ina May Gaskin

welcome!

There are so many splendid things happening these days— natural products, organic food, interest in sustainability, recycling, up-cycling, alternative and off-the-grid living, local business and community cooperation, fair trade initiatives, green living, permaculture, urban gardening, farmer’s markets, environmentally friendly movements of all kinds. 

It’s so exciting! There is no other generation I’d rather be part of!

We are finding new, creative approaches towards our lifestyles and how we treat the earth.

It’s also time for a new, creative approach to how we treat our bodies.

Like many, I struggled with depression and eating disorders in my teens and early twenties. I suppose that when you are prone to anxious, obsessive, repetitive thoughts they can take anything as a focus; for me, it was body image.

During many long, long periods, “My Problem” seemed to fill the whole universe; it dominated my thoughts, it made life unbearable.

I did it all—I forced myself to throw up, often several times a day; I starved myself; I did water purges that left my whole body aching; I cut myself with knives and razor blades; eventually I even tried to take my own life.

I hit rock bottom— and then found that there was an even lower, harder rock bottom below that. It was hell.

Perhaps the worst part of the whole thing was that I was so terribly alone throughout. I felt I could not talk to anyone. I thought that no one—especially those closest to me— could understand just how bad it was.

Those who have struggled with severe depression know that there is a certain kind of pain you simply cannot put into words.

But the truth is, we must put it into words. I was shocked to discover— when I finally did start to talk about my troubles— that many people around me were suffering too, fighting their own private wars with depression and/or eating disorders.

I had to ask —what in hell is going on? Why would these sweet, smart, beautiful women feel so rotten about themselves? Why do they feel the need to starve or otherwise harm themselves?

 

... a well-loved path...

We are right to be concerned about the damage to the earth; we should be concerned, too, with the damage to ourselves. After all, we come from the earth (our bodies are organic!), we are sustained by the earth, and eventually we rot and turn back into the earth.

Our bodies are one with the earth. We must love and honour both!

There are still rising numbers of women struggling with bulimia, anorexia, and other eating disorders, depression, and types of self harm. What causes this? How can it be remedied? 
If we are to find solutions, we must get over ourselves, past our embarrassment, past the social stigma surrounding depression and eating disorders, and share what we have learned.

I am still susceptible. I always will be. But my world has changed a lot since the days when I regularly hurt myself, and I have learned a little bit more about myself, about depression, and about hope.

It’s time to start talking about these things.

This is a little place to share the wood and sea treasures, the things that have helped me, and the things that I hope can help others too. I don’t have all the answers, but I hope that, as I continue asking questions, I will learn more. 

Thank you for joining me!