When some part of us or of our country is significantly out of balance, other things will inevitably be affected. As we’ve talked about in previous chapters, in our era of a rapidly changing climate, the infatuation with continuous growth affects wisdom and our connection to the divine—eventually, too much expansion of Wood will deplete the Water and weaken the Metal.
To treat the root causes of our warming planet, we must tap into the generational wisdom found within our Kidneys as well as into transcendence via our Lungs. In addition, another important part of healing our Wood excess is allowing the Qi to move to the next phase in the cycle, namely the Fire.
To maintain balance, not only do we need the cooling of Water and the controlling influence of Metal, we also need the natural movement from spring to summer. Looking again at the Five Phases cycle, the Qi naturally transitions from the Wood to the Fire if we simply let it. Just as there’s no struggle when the winds of spring become the warmth of summer, there doesn’t have to be any conflict in allowing ourselves, our country, and our culture to transition from one phase to the next. To heal our warming planet, we must allow things to follow their cycle and change naturally.
As with Water, Wood, and Metal, Fire has a well-developed set of associations. Located at the top of the cycle, Fire is associated with Yang—it is the season of summer, the climate of warmth, the sound of laughter, and the emotions of joy, love, and sadness. The stage of maturity, Fire is also associated with the color red and represents our connection to the people and the world around us. It is also our expression of who we are and is associated with two organs that have Western correlations and two that don’t: the Heart and Small Intestine, and the Pericardium and the Triple Heater.
First, let’s examine the physical aspects of Fire. The Heart pumps blood and the Small Intestine digests food, extracting nutrients and getting rid of waste. While it isn’t recognized as being distinct in Western medicine, the Pericardium is its own organ in Chinese medicine and is the sack around the Heart that also helps with circulation and the Heart’s function in general. The Triple Heater is an organ that does not have a clear Western correlation, and is responsible for the movement of fluids and warmth around the body.1
Mentally and emotionally, Chinese medicine’s appreciation of the Heart requires a more poetic understanding of the organ: the Heart feels and expresses love and joy as well as sadness. The Heart not only pumps our blood, it allows us to express to the world who we truly are. Similar to its physical functions, the Small Intestine is responsible for sorting out the pure from the impure so that the Heart is not affected by mental and emotional toxicity.2
The Pericardium protects the Heart mentally and emotionally. Our relationships to small networks and groups of people who surround us are also related to the Pericardium. The Triple Heater helps us regulate our emotional warmth as well as sense the emotional warmth of large groups, such as parties or meetings.3
As I’m writing this chapter in the first week of June, spring has yielded to summer here in northern Vermont. One of the many things that Vermont’s cold winters provide is a real appreciation for warmth and sunshine.
It is about eighty degrees Fahrenheit today—the skies are bright blue with almost no clouds, a rarity in the Green Mountain State, where the regular rain is what makes everything so lush and green. The trees and bushes outside have transitioned from the bright new green of spring to the darker, lusher green of summer. Behind our house, the early summer growth of the maples and oaks is beginning to fill the forest. The ferns that were just pushing through the still cold ground a few months ago are now several feet high and a dark mature shade of green.
Now that summer is arriving, our tomatoes and salad greens are planted in our garden. We’ve already harvested the first strawberries of the year, and the blackberry and blueberry patches in back of our house are starting to flower. The beautiful purple flowers of wild ground ivy are growing in clumps around our lawn, and dandelions all around our house have already gone from flower to seed.
With the sunshine, warmth, and growth in the woods, there’s a lot of fun to be had at this time of year. Where we live, there’s music of all kinds being performed in concert halls, on the streets, and in the fields each night. Last night, we walked around town, taking in the various sights and sounds.
As we walked between the concerts, the warmth of Fire was on full display: hundreds of people we sitting outside restaurants and cafés, having dinner, talking, and laughing. Hundreds more were strolling up and down the blocks of shops and restaurants, where there were about a dozen bands playing on the walkway.
On one block, there was an eight-piece ska band cramped onto a small outdoor stage. Down the block, a funk band with a young energetic singer played under a tent. The singer clearly relished the attention and admiration of the dozens of people listening to their music, swaying, bobbing their heads, and dancing. Farther down, you could find a fifteen-piece Latin salsa band, and even more people dancing.
Summer bonfires and barbecues are also starting now, and people head out to the lake to canoe, kayak, and sail. The parking lots at trailheads leading up local mountains fill up on the weekend. Posters have gone up all over town about summer festivals of music, yoga, and local food.
All of the plant growth, warmth, and fun this time of year are that of the Fire. Just as plants respond to the warmth and sunshine, we do too. It’s natural and healthy to go with the rhythm of summer: it’s the time to visit friends, go to parties, listen to music, be outside, and have a good time. It’s a great time to be more active physically and mentally.
When we’re in balance with the season, we allow the Yang of the season to lift our energy and our spirits, and increase our activity levels. We can feel our Qi bubbling to the surface in the summer. We feel it especially in our chest as the effects of the Fire move upward into our Heart.
But when there’s too much or too little Fire within us, what is normally the joy of summer no longer seems fun. If we have too little Fire, a party doesn’t seem worth going to, and we’re not that interested in music, bonfires, or barbecues. When we are cold internally, being around other people and having a good time might not seem interesting. It might seem like too much effort, or even impossible, to muster the energy to be outside and be around others.
If we have too much Fire, we are burning too bright and hot all of the time internally. Despite the fact that our country and culture overemphasizes the Yang, having too much Fire is not actually a sign of health. It can be difficult to take in the joy of watching people salsa dancing on a summer night when we are overstimulated. When our organs, thoughts, and emotions are overheated, there isn’t enough space for the balanced parts of Fire because the overstimulation has taken over. Even if we are able to partake in the fun of summer, the enjoyment is short lived, and we quickly need to go to the next concert or party because we can’t sustain our joy. Rather than creating joy and love, too much Fire eventually creates sadness as the Heart becomes overburdened.
Unfortunately, so many of our attempts to experience the connection that comes from Fire don’t seem to give us what we’re looking for. Many of the methods we use to communicate give us short-term stimulation rather than long-term warmth. While things like email, texts, and tweets are ways to stay in touch, they don’t replace face-to-face and person-to-person interaction. They also can’t replace actual time spent in nature—seeing a picture of a beautiful sunset is not the same as the actual experience. Real and meaningful communication is not merely words and images—it’s also an exchange of emotions and Qi. Despite what we see in advertisements for cell phones and laptops, an electronic life cannot replace an actual lived life.
The form and duration of electronic communication is, by its nature, short lived and superficial. Not only do the mediums only lend themselves to conveying small bits of information, we’ve become accustomed to receiving messages in two or three sentences or 140 characters. Some of us receive hundreds of these electronic messages each day, and anything longer than a few words seems like too much.
As we talked about earlier when discussing Metal and Wood, there’s a relationship between quantity and quality. Just as the value of things decreases if we have more than we need, our constant sending and receiving of electronic communication can affect the health of our Fire.
More communication doesn’t mean better communication. Especially in our already overstimulated world, the quality and meaning of communication is often much more important to our well-being than the sheer quantity of messages we get each day. And when we spend so much time and energy on these electronic messages, it can crowd out more meaningful interactions with people and nature.
In addition to the overstimulation caused by electronic communication, the electricity needed to power our devices also creates heat. Most of our electricity is now derived from unsustainable, planet-warming sources. Even if it is with the best of intentions, to use electricity from coal, oil, and gas is to create greenhouse gases. It’s important to recognize that electronic communication is contributing to global warming.
Heat is also created by the very devices we use. Cellphones, computers, laptops, tablets—they all create heat. In looking at the electromagnetic radiation they emit, it’s clear that they’re another source of overstimulation. Just feel the bottom of a laptop, the top of a hard drive, or the back of a cell phone after using it for a while. It’s very likely that it feels warm, even hot. With so many of us using them so frequently and in such close physical contact to the devices when we do so, it makes sense that we’re absorbing the heat they’re emitting.
The heat from our electronic devices is different from more traditional forms of warmth. Electronically derived heat is more of a buzz of stimulation than the heat that comes from a wood stove. It’s more the buzz of Yin-deficient heat than a sustainable form of warmth. There’s a frenetic energy to it, where heat and mental activity increase while our sense of peace and internal quiet decrease. The result is a sensation of overstimulation and unrooting, which is a similar dynamic to the effects of coffee that we discussed earlier.
A fundamental understanding of Chinese medicine is that we’re strongly affected by our environment. Traditionally, this spoke to the climatic influences of hot and cold and how they could cause internal disease. In our modern era, however, this also includes how the human-created environment affects us as well. From the view of Chinese medicine, when we’re in such close proximity to electronic devices that we use for many hours each day, they absolutely impact our well-being—not only in terms of the type of communication they promote or the electricity that’s used to power them, but also in the radiation they release. In addition to the stimulating nature of electronic communication, it’s likely that the devices themselves are contributing to our overstimulated internal environment.
I imagine many of us have seen the effects of an electronic life replacing a genuine one. One of the most common is to see people, both young and old, looking at their phones constantly when they’re with other people. Recently, at a burrito shop I saw a group of high school students who were all looking down at their phones. There was no talking, no laughing, and no one was eating their burritos. None of them were looking at each other and it didn’t seem like anyone was having fun. They each had a muted look on their faces as they stared at their phones. After a few minutes, they all looked up, glanced around, and started to eat, remaining as expressionless as they were while looking at their phones.
While we can’t always tell by people’s expressions what they’re feeling internally, it didn’t seem as though any of them were really enjoying themselves. All of them seemed to be in their own world, where there didn’t seem to be much interest in their surroundings or in their friends sitting next to them.
Of course, there’s nothing necessarily unhealthy about being quiet and introspective while eating burritos. But this one, small example is part of a larger pattern around the country. It now seems as though it’s more important to communicate electronically with people who are not near us rather than be with the people who are sitting right next to us. In this pattern, experiencing things electronically is more interesting than experiencing the world personally.
Real, lasting warmth and a healthy internal Fire is not sustained by communication in short electronic snippets. These short, superficial methods are both a sign of our cultural condition and a contribution to it.
As we talked about in earlier chapters, we’re so overheated and dried out that we’re overheating the whole planet and compromising its ability to cool things down. Yin-deficient heat is, not surprisingly, also surfacing in the way we communicate and relate to the world. As the Yin is our sense of satisfaction, what we often lack in the Fire phase is meaningful communication.
Remember the questions from before, and ask yourself:
• Who am I, really?
• How many heartfelt conversations have I had in the last week? The last month? The last year?
• Do I feel a real, intimate connection to nature?
For some of us, these will be easy to answer, but I imagine for many, the responses won’t come so readily. Despite the claims that our technological world is bringing us closer together, in many ways it’s moving us apart. The act of getting to know someone very well is not a quick process—it’s one that requires a physical presence with a person. Likewise, getting to know ourselves intimately and understand who we are and what we’re here to do is also not a casual process. It involves clearing out the heat and overstimulation that is a result of living in our current cultural climate. It also requires promoting inner feeling of peace—our Yin—so that we can hear and understand ourselves during a time of cultural Yin deficiency.
This is not to say that emails and texts don’t serve a purpose; they can certainly be used to stay in touch when we’re apart from our loved ones. However, without physically being with someone, hearing their voice, and seeing their expressions, it’s not likely we’ll get to know them well. There are exceptions to this, of course, where people have established meaningful relationships with letters or through email. But typically, with our modern, electronic communication, these methods don’t lend themselves well to conveying meaning accurately. The smiling and frowning icons that we attach to emails and texts to try to convey emotions are an attempt to express something through a medium that, at best, can only share feelings superficially.
Also, the more we email, text, and tweet, the more we want or even crave them. Superficial communication creates more desire for human connection because, ultimately, it doesn’t satisfy us. We then keep communicating superficially, more and more, continuing to look for real connections. But our need for meaningful communication continues to go unmet, and only keeps growing. As is common in our country, these messages claim to offer us what we want and need, rather than give us the thing we need itself—real human connection. Our Fire phase, and our Heart in particular, is fed and sustained through meaningful interactions with people and with the world. Too much superficial communication results in heat and stimulation rather than satisfaction and meaning.
With electronic communication, our belief in more and faster mirrors the Yang overemphasis we’ve discussed before. In particular, it mirrors the dynamic created by the Yin-deficient heat of consumerism, where buying things gives us a short-term sense of stimulation but little, if any, lasting satisfaction. Because so many of us are hot and lack internal coolant, the way we live doesn’t always make it easy for others to take the time to listen and get to know us well.
When we communicate, so many of us are caught up in the Yang of Fire that we lose sight of the Yin of Fire. We eschew the satisfaction, meaning, and depth of deep, sustained communication for a vast number of superficial exchanges. In essence, we’ve given up the quality of our relationships for the quantity of emails, texts, and tweets. In our era of a rapidly warming planet, this is another branch issue of the deeper causes of climate change.
The Yin of communication means we must slow down ourselves and our minds to be able to hear what someone is really saying. Rather than already thinking about what you’re going to say next or what you’re going to do after the conversation is over, we must work to be truly present with the other person. Doing so allows us the pleasure of learning about what people are doing and thinking. Such simple pleasures can be lost in our Yang-excess, overstimulated culture.
However, it is important to remember that in order to really hear someone else, we must first be able to hear ourselves. The Yin of communication with others can only come from the Yin of communication with ourselves. Our overstimulation and lack of satisfaction is contributing to another important issue, one that has reached epidemic levels—we don’t know who we are.
To truly know oneself comes from a balance of all of the organs, but it’s the Heart in particular that expresses this understanding to the world. Think again about the question: Who am I, really? The answer isn’t necessarily who we think we are or who we were in the past. It also isn’t necessarily who our family or friends think we are or what they think we should do with our lives. Instead, truly understanding ourselves and clearly expressing it comes from a clarity of the Heart. When we know ourselves, we naturally radiate this understanding out into the world through the warmth and light of our inner Fire.
To have this understanding of the self, both the Yin of the Fire and the Yin of the Heart must be present. Without the quiet, peace, and introspection that come from the Yin, it’s unlikely that we’ll really be able to know ourselves. Not knowing ourselves is ultimately an uncomfortable and unsatisfying way to live.
This discomfort and dissatisfaction might not always be palpable—we might not think about it often or might try to push it out of our thoughts when it does surface. We might feel more comfortable, at least in the short-term, by continuing to do things in the same way and ignoring bigger and deeper questions. We might even take the advice so often given in our overstimulated world: keep busy to avoid the unpleasantness.
But, by itself, the Yang of doing things won’t lead us to the Yin of understanding our lives. In fact, in our too-busy world, it often has the opposite effect. Because we lack a Yin understanding of ourselves, we’re more likely to be attracted to things that offer us a short reprieve from our discomfort—things like the consumerism of buying things we don’t need, the short-term excitement of electronic communication, or the stimulation of coffee.
In looking at climate change through the lens of the Fire phase, it is urgently clear that we need to slow down and do less so we can begin to hear who we are. That we’ve lost a clear connection to our Hearts is both a cause and a symptom of climate change. Despite the fact that the science is clear about what’s happening to our planet, we continue to live in ways that fuel climate change. Not only does this continue to cause deforestation, melting ice caps, methane plumes from the ocean, and a warming planet, it continues to overheat us internally. This overstimulation affects the meaning and connections in our lives, leaving us unsatisfied and looking for the next short-term reprieve from the effects of our internal condition.
Knowing ourselves, knowing what we are here to contribute, and knowing our connection to nature is essential medicine for treating the causes of climate change.
What is currently happening with the Fire shouldn’t be a surprise: with our often unquestioning belief in newness and growth, and our tendency toward conflict, we have been severely overemphasizing one of the five phases.
As we can see in the Five Phases circle, there’s a direct relationship between Wood and Fire. If you’re having a bonfire, a lot of wood means the fire’s flames will be large and bright. As the wood gets burned down, however, the flames start to lessen. When there’s not enough wood left to fuel the fire, it starts to go out. Similar to a bonfire, our well-being and that of our culture needs a regular, consistent supply of Wood to keep the Fire in balance. If we have too much Wood, the Fire can’t burn steadily; the flames will get too large, making the fire too hot, and the fuel will burn too quickly. If there’s not enough Wood, the Fire won’t burn bright enough, and eventually it will burn out, leading to cold and darkness. Neither of these extremes are healthy or sustainable; the place of health is in the middle.
Both individually and collectively, a notable consequence of our excess Wood is its effect on Fire. As we covered earlier, the Sheng or Nourishing cycle is what allows organs and phases to feed what comes next. While the K’o cycle creates balance by limiting and controlling things, the Sheng cycle is the relationship among the different aspects of who we are that promotes growth—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And just as this nourishing dynamic appears within us, it occurs within all of nature as well. Just as the nutrients from Metal feed Water, and the moisture of Water feeds Wood, the Wood becomes the fuel for the Fire.
Given the condition of our Wood, the fuel currently being fed to the Fire is already overstimulated and dried out. This is of real significance, as the Fire is synonymous with Yang and is hot by nature, and therefore prone toward overheating. Our desire for new things and our tendency toward conflict is rapidly fueling the Fire. All of our Wood excess—our already overheated, dried-out economic and emotional fuel—is what we’re burning to fuel our relationships with each other and with nature. Knowing this unhealthy, unbalanced fuel is what we’re currently using to feed our relationships, it’s no surprise that the Fire is burning too hot and too quickly.
This overabundance of the Yang of the Wood equates to a lack of Yin of the Wood—a lack of vision of who we are, both individually and collectively. Without clarity, we lack the right fuel—a Wood that is in balance—to maintain the health of the Fire.
How the condition of our Wood affects the Fire is even further magnified by the current state of the Water. As noted earlier, the planet’s coolant has been compromised. On an individual level, the state of our Water is seen in a lack of wisdom—especially as we continue to drill for increasingly inaccessible oil even though science makes clear the consequences. Just as the Wood feeds the Fire, the Water has the potential to control the Fire through the K’o cycle.
When things are in balance, the Yin of Water helps to limit the Yang of Fire. The Water can help keep things cool and prevent the Fire from burning too hot or getting out of control. When you’re done enjoying your bonfire, you can use water to put out the flames. But this simple and fundamental relationship between Yin and Yang, between Water and Fire, has been compromised because of how we live and how we see the world. Because we’re so focused on Yang, we’ve compromised the quality and effectiveness of our Yin—which is based in the Water phase and in our Kidneys. When our Kidneys become hot, they lose their ability to cool and control the Fire within us. Our continuous quest for new things and growth—an excess of Wood—has compromised our wisdom—the Yin of the Water—which is affecting our relationship to ourselves and others—an overstimulated Fire.
The Fire’s relationship to the Water is a critically fundamental issue. Often referred to as the Heart-Kidney axis, it’s considered by some scholars and practitioners to be the essential focus of all of Chinese medicine. The axis between Fire and Water is the alignment of who we truly are—the jing of our Kidneys—with our expression of ourselves in the world through the spirit of our Heart, called the shen.4 For some, based on thousands of years of practice and development, the purpose of Chinese medicine is to ensure the health of the Heart and Kidney as well as the communication between them. This allows us to know ourselves and express it clearly. From this viewpoint, we can’t be healthy if we don’t understand ourselves and can’t manifest it to the world.
As we talked about during the discussion of climate change science, the planet is currently experiencing Yin-deficient heat as its ability to sequester greenhouse gas emissions decreases and the climate warms. This is also partially due to the nature of oil, wherein the jing of the planet is being drilled and dug out of the ground. As we noted in chapter 5, the negative effects on our planet are mirrored in our continued use of oil even though the consequences are clear. Associated with the Kidney and the Water phase, our lack of wisdom is on clear display in how we continue to live and view the world.
The overstimulated culture we now live in is mirrored by the warming natural environment around us. The excess heat and excess Yang, as well as the lack of coolant and the lack of jing, inevitably affects the Fire. Not only does the Yin of Water help control the Yang of Fire through the K’o cycle, it is essential for us to be able to express who we are through our Heart.
Just as we lack the wisdom of jing in our own lives and in our culture, we’re converting oil—the jing of the planet—into short-term profit. It’s not surprising that the methods of communication we’ve created also mimic this dynamic, where the lack of Yin and decrease in Water create an excess stimulation of Fire. That we’ve become so accustomed to quickly sending and receiving short bits of electronic information, and that so many of us rely on it as a primary form of communication, speaks to our collective condition. And this condition comes from how we see the world and what we value.
So much of our communication is fast and superficial, and so much of our experience of the world is electronic and removed. Given the condition of our Water and that of the planet, it’s easy to understand why so many of us don’t really know who we are. Because we don’t know ourselves, we can’t express our own unique contributions to the world. Based on over ten years of clinical experience treating a wide variety of people with a vast variety of symptoms, it’s clear to me that our lack of communication between the Heart and Kidney is at epidemic levels.
Of course, if you don’t have the basic needs for survival met, it’s difficult to worry about things like who you are and what you’re here to do. Without enough food and clothing or adequate shelter and health care, these bigger and deeper questions don’t mean much because you’re just trying to survive. But if we do have enough of these things—or more than enough, as is often the case in the United States—continual acquisition of more things doesn’t create more meaning or more health. Instead, there is an inverse relationship, where more things creates less meaning. Once our basic needs are met, what truly sustains us is meaning and purpose.
If you feel like you aren’t sure if you clearly know who you are or can’t fully express yourself to the world, you’re not alone. Another way to understand the condition of the climate is that our lack of understanding of who we are individually and collectively has reached such an epidemic level that it’s affecting the whole planet. We have so lost ourselves in the mire of consumerism, newness, growth, and conflict that our planet may be at a tipping point. The dramatic changes we’re seeing globally mirror the depth of our own lack of understanding of ourselves.
With the understanding that personal symptoms or climate symptoms are messengers trying to lead us back to health, let’s talk about some of the remedies for our Fire excess. One simple remedy that we could all do is to simply unplug—shut down your computer and cell phone and disconnect from the Internet. Do it for an hour, a day, a week, or a month. Do it for even longer if you can.
With how overstimulated we are, I can imagine some of your responses. Maybe you think being offline isn’t practical because there are messages to answer or that turning off your cell phone prevents you from keeping in touch with work, family, and friends. But if we’re serious about addressing the root causes of climate change, we need to be willing to change.
Change doesn’t merely mean political changes—ones that help bring more solar panels to our rooftops and more electric cars to our roads. It isn’t just economic changes, either—ones that recognize the folly of the quest for continuous growth. True change also includes understanding that our rapidly warming climate is mirroring our rapidly warming internal environment. It also includes realizing that climate change is not only happening outside us but is happening within us as well. Being willing to unplug from hot, fast, and stimulating forms of communication is an importance part of cooling ourselves.
Another reason we’re resistant to unplugging is that it can be uncomfortable, at least in the short-term. We live in a Yin-deficient country that’s part of a Yin-deficient culture that uses Yin-deficient methods to communicate. Taking away the opportunity to constantly write emails or always answer the phone every time it rings leaves us with increased opportunities to be with ourselves. Because the way we currently live compromises our Yin—which is our sense of peace and satisfaction—it can feel unpleasant to just be. Without electronic distractions, we’re left with a clearer experience of our internal, unbalanced condition. While it might be unpleasant initially, it’s vitally important to our health and the health of the climate that we be willing to experience what’s happening within us internally.
Just as there’s no other planet to go to if we make this one unlivable, there’s no other place for us to reside other than our own bodies. If it’s uncomfortable without the stimulation of our electronic gadgets, acknowledge this. If a primary way you communicate with others is electronically, acknowledge this as well.
As is true at our clinic, where each acupuncture session and herbal formula is customized for each patient every appointment, we’re going to have to answer for ourselves how much electronic communication we use. How quickly we respond to emails and how many times we check our phones each day likely depends on responsibilities and expectations we have at home, school, and work. Just as there isn’t one set of acupuncture points or one combination of herbs that will address a particular diagnosis, the amount of time and energy we should direct toward electronic communication will also vary.
But it is of vital importance to recognize that more of the same will not create different results. Just as the climate isn’t going to cool if we continue to increase greenhouse gas emissions, we’re not going to clear our internal heat if we continue down the path so many of us are now on. Even if they can be used skillfully to spread the word about what’s happening to the climate, more emails, texts, and tweets are not the long-term remedy for what ails us or the planet. In our era of individual and cultural overstimulation, it’s likely that many of us who use electronic communication would benefit from using it far less.
With less electronic communication, there’s more time and more energy for actual, satisfying communication. More time to say hello to our neighbors and friends. More time to go hear live music. More time to be outside with plants and trees. More time to spend with ourselves. In our era of climate, less is often more.
And just as our overstimulation is affecting how we communicate with each other, it’s also affecting us at deeper levels as well. Just as climate change is impacting all parts of the planet, our levels of excess heat internally are affecting us in equally systemic ways. As we’ll talk about next, the extraordinary rates of cancer diagnoses in our country are mirroring the rapid warming and destabilizing of the planet. Again, the small picture of what is happening in our bodies is a reflection of the big picture of what is happening in the world.