Good Day!
I had a busy, productive day yesterday. Between writing and business meetings, I was able to get a quick pushing workout in.
I played with the clubbells (see www.circularstrength.com) coupled with bilateral and some unilateral cable pushing with flexion and rotation, as well as some Swiss ball, dumbbell bench presses.
I only had twenty minutes between appointments, but that was enough to fire up the engines of metabolism and remind my body that now is not the time to get old!
ORGANIC FARMING VS. COMMERCIAL FARMING YEILDS
In regards to my recent post about organic farming, Dan Reynen wrote in with a question as to the accuracy of my statement:
“In brief, King’s research showed that Chinese (organic) farmers, using ancient, manual technologies such as local composting, were able to produce as much as four times as much food per acre than the average American farmer. If I remember correctly, they were able to produce as much food on about 1.5 acres as a typical US farmer could produce on 40 acres of land.”
In response to Dan’s query as to how this is possible, I’ve selected a quote directly from Dr. King’s book, Farmers of 40 Centuries:
“While in the Shantung province, King visited a holding that was 12/3 acres where the farmer had 10 in his family and was maintaining one donkey and one pig, showing for his farm land and maintenance capacity of 3,840 people, 24 donkeys and 384 pigs to the square mile (comparatively); or 240 people, 24 donkeys and 24 pigs to one of our forty-acre farms which our farmers regard as too small for a single family!”
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My comment was a general statement. You can look at “production” in different ways.
Most people only look at total yield, be that in tons, bushels, pounds, kilograms, etc. This is the typical approach taken by modern agriculturalists to promote commercial farming methods (usually due to [financial] ties to the food processing and agro-chemical corporations).
This is both deceiving and inaccurate.
In my research, I’ve found that when such statistics are used, they are not informing people that the so-called “organic farms” they are comparing their yields to are often not organic farms certified by a legitimate certification body, of which I feel the “Demeter Association” is the gold standard.
Additionally, researchers have found that such commercial interests often “own the so-called organic farms they got their test or comparison values from”.
This is also how they’ve created the propaganda that organic foods are no more nutritious than commercial farms; they test their own commercial foods against their own so-called (bogus) organic foods, usually in universities they have financial ties to.
There are a variety of studies looking at nutritional values where organic is compared to commercially farmed foods. You can find great information in this regard provided by the British Soil Association.
In my observation of a wide variety of such studies, which I’ve looked at over many years, it is safe to say that real organic food produced by skilled organic and Biodynamic farmers is about 4 times more nutrient dense than commercially raised foods across the board.
TIME TO CREATE BALANCE BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
I won’t belabor this point, as I’ve made it thousands of times as I’ve traveled the world trying my very best to wake people up to the issues of food, farming, soil health, and human body-mind health and well-being.
We are at a very dangerous tipping point in man’s evolution. We’ve become so trapped in our heads, so in love with “information”, yet so dull in our senses, we now believe what’s said, or written on paper as though it were gospel.
All the while, the masses are following the so-called experts, eating their junk foods and dangerous drugs while at the same time, ignoring the fact that their health and vitality is going, going, gone!
And with the loss of our vitality and our intelligence, we have become progressively ignorant and complacent as to what the impact of being complacent has been on the soils, water, the atmosphere, and the rest of nature.
It is as though humans think the world is theirs to abuse and that the rest of nature is merely our servants.
Edward O. Wilson, David Suzuki, Rachael Carlson and many other highly reputable scientists, naturalists, and wise people have warned us over and over again; it is as though people have become deaf and dumb.
If we don’t begin immediately to support local, small farmers that are not using chemicals, and participating fully in the restoration of our soils, waters, and atmosphere, the only viable solution is what you see now – an escalation of death by diseases.
Even children are now being born with clogged arteries and many are dying as early as two years of age from heart attacks and chronic diseases thought only to afflict the elderly!
We are seeing signs that Mother Earth’s immune system is kicking in; when you get sick, don’t you alternate between hot and sweaty and cold and shivering?
Look around at the weather reports and natural disasters around the world and ask yourself, “what would it look like if Mother earth had a serious (human) parasite infection and had to turn on her immune system to maximum to get rid of the nasty, disrespectful, carnivorous parasites?”
This is a worthy meditation.
DEVELOPING PERSONALITY
In his beautiful book, The Divinity of the Human Soul, Hazrat Inayat Khan highlights the importance of developing an authentic, healthy, human personality (see pg. 33-37).
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He highlights four stages of developing our personality:
1. A person who is course, crude, thoughtless and ill mannered.
2. A man progresses to being more civilized in his/her manner, more refined, and capable of choice of action.
3. A man progresses to being not only thoughtful, but sympathetic; it is not only that he is considerate but he is kind, it is not only that he has a civilized manner but he has a natural politeness, it is not only that he is refined, but he is tender-hearted.
4. This person is now advanced such that they live on the spiritual path. They have a greater ideal than the issues of “self” to reach for.
People generally needs guides, living examples to learn how to be spiritual. Otherwise, you just get people that claim to be spiritual as they argue and fight over the same sort of issues that most so-called religious people do.
The battle between Israel and Palestine and all the politics and follies associated with it are an example of the types of things people that claim to be “spiritual” contribute to when they don’t have a higher ideal, like humanity, fairness, honesty, sharing of resources, and respect not only for human life, but for nature, our Mother!
If you want to really see exactly what I mean in regard to this issue and how it relates to “personality development”, consider all the “TV personalities” that participate in the deceptions highlighted in this most sad and shocking documentary about the Israeli – Palestine battles:
Check out the show called Off The Charts and is an overview of Alison Weir’s work.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziSTY408h6k
I’m warning you in advance, this documentary (Produced and edited by my son, Paul Chek Jr.) may bring up strong emotion, sadness, and a reminder of the four stages of personality development.
It may well cause you to question weather our governments, or we the people have any humanity left in us at all?
Are we all too busy chasing money to check to see if our own governments and corporate giants are telling lies?
Are we so complacent that we seek to have a bigger house and a nicer car without taking responsibility for the impact we have on other countries and the people so commonly and sadly displaced by the corporations who so quaintly program us to ignore real facts and seek to live out fantasies so they can rape the world and get filthy rich at the expense of other human beings?
I realize these are complex issues not easily remedied.
I suggest we start by supporting the local farmers. I’ve found that when people eat well, they learn the importance of living well.
When people learn the importance of living well, they realize the importance of having healthy relationships.
When they learn the importance of healthy relationships, they realize the importance of Love.
When we learn what Love truly is, we realize that we are all part of One World and that our choices, decisions and actions have great impact today and for years to come.
What will you do?
Love and chi,
Paul Chek