When the word “health” is referenced, it is usually thought of in the direction towards human beings. As I have explored within myself, health, I have asked myself, “does health exist beyond human beings?” “If humans ceased to exist would health still be apart of the Universe?”
I will explore two components of where health lives within and beyond humanity. These two foundational backbones of health are Order and Community. I will dissect these two words in an attempt to conclude my thoughts on “Where is Health?”
Within the Cosmos there is a Natural Order, or natural law. Planets circulate in orbit around one another. The seasons flow in a circular rhythm in and out of the next season. Upon conception the embryo begins a process of cellular growth that originates from a circulation of cellular activity around the first cell. Even the breath, when done in its origin has a roundness of circulation where the inhalation down the body merges eloquently into the exhalation out of the body, and the exhale then swiftly turn like the bristles of a paint brush on a canvas back into the inhale.
Within everything is an order that allows for the expansion and contraction of Life to begin and end. All the way back from what we can imagine as the Big Bang Theory.
Health is an evolutionary impulse behind all of Life. It is the spark of light within darkness that creates the birth of something new. Life beckons evolution and expansion. Although death is equal in health as part of the natural order of Life. The death of a Star or planet. The death of a tree or human being. The death of old cells that then birth new cells.
It is this end, this ceasing that allows for the circulating rhythm and flow of Life to carry forth the next wave of birth and creation to physical form.
Order is not linear. It does not just create and cease. It is a constant ebb and flow of expansion and contraction folding over itself layer after layer. Creation and Death do not just happen as a singular occurrence or in sequential order. Life and Death both, are happening within you right now billions of times over one another. Although creation and death can seem like polar opposites and occur at different times, at their core they are equally apart of the same moment.
Now I will turn my attention towards community and then make an attempt to connect both Community and Order together as a bridge to explore where health is.
All of Life is connected. Scientists today believe that each human being is made up of stardust from the cosmos. There is a connection within us to all that lives within the Universe.
Within humanity, I relate this connection to community. In a community, for example, in the Native American Indian culture, or many of our tribal ancestors, each person is a part of something greater than themselves. They themselves have an individual role and purpose. There is the hunter, the farmer, the care taker of the young and old, the old wise one, the clothes maker, and so forth. From the eldest to the youngest, there is a role that each individual plays, however, it is the body of them all that gives them Order. This is the community. This is health.
What is true in a tribe is also true within our bodies. The body has many parts. The heart, feet, central nervous system, spinal cord, Dura mater, neural activity, bones, fascia, consciousness, etc. Each of these anatomical parts has a role and can carry out the function even if our awareness of that part is cut off from the whole of the body. However, the cutting off of our awareness, the disembodiment, is the beginning of the cycle of death. This is Life. So when you have experience a major trauma such as a car crash and injured your shoulder. It is likely that the shoulder will contract in a very complex way, creating a sense of not feeling safe or protection, that can result as our disconnect to it to the rest of our body.