Do You Care?

There are significant, defining moments in everyone’s life when they stop and ponder or change habits of a lifetime. One for me was when a patient, an environmental consultant, came to see me. He told me about a recent job he had done, for an iron-ore mining company. They wanted to expand and needed environmental approval.

My patient could find no reason, in the current legislation, for them not to expand into the area they had targeted. But it broke his heart. The designated area was a beautiful gorge, rich in flora and fauna, peaceful and tranquil. He spend a couple of hours simply soaking it up.

From that day, I have been conscious not to buy anything unnecessary that has cost the environment. I am now content that my car is 23 years old. I seek out used goods, rather than buy new. I would rather spend money on local labour, getting something mended rather than buy a replacement.

Another such moment is more recent. Reading ‘The Elephant Whisperer’ by Lawrence Anthony was a highly emotional experience. Difficult to put down, reading well into the night, I am both utterly fascinated by this extraordinary man and overcome by my own inadequacy.

Here is a man who has done so much for conservation as a whole and who has had an enormous impact on the lives of many animals, not to mention people. It left me wondering what I have done. I silently wept at my lack of contribution to help make the world a better place.

So I may not have the where-with-all to save herds of doomed elephants or provide an independent and profitable way of life to whole villages. But I suddenly realised something important. The common link between my environmental consultant and Lawrence Anthony is that they cared. They cared enough to want to make things better.

And I realised that this is exactly the reason I studied homeopathy and became a practitioner.

I care passionately about the health of those who consult me. I want, often more than they do, to get their health back on track. I spend more time than I should, or am paid to, to find the best solutions for them.

I care passionately about the lies people are told (and believe) by big corporations who care only about their profits.

I care passionately about the corporate lobbyists who persuade governments to listen to them, rather than the people, and that our rights are being systematically eroded.

I care passionately about the continued destruction of our only home, the Earth, simply for the profit of a few.

I care passionately about the distress and anguish humans inflict on animals, because of the notion that they are less than we are and so don’t matter.

I care passionately about people power, for the people to wake up to their power, their rights, the ability to care for themselves instinctively and easily, with real food and real medicine.

Do you care? I care passionately that few people care, that the world still seems to be sliding inexorably towards destruction, that sustainability and responsibility are not on the public agenda, not part of everyone’s daily life.

Helping the world starts with helping yourself.