Dear Editor:
As we near the end of December its an excellent time to reflect with the coming of the winter solstice, Christmas and the beginning of a new year. Its an opportunity to reflect on whats arguably the most important topic in our lives: our health and all that encompasses it.
Unfortunately, all too often we fail to acknowledge what it takes to be healthy.
Its not as simple as being active on a daily basis or eating a balanced diet. Plus, our spiritual health needs to be nurtured as much as our physiological health.
Now, as this time of year brings opportunity for reflection, it also has us so wrapped up in consumption that we often forget about the most essential factor to health of all living organisms. Our environment.
Without a healthy environment, how can we or other life forms live a healthy existence?
Last I checked we breathe in the air around us. I also noticed that life requires clean water as a physiological need or a habitat in which to live. And then everything we eat ultimately comes from soil or water. Yet our air, water and soil have become the largest dumping grounds for the most toxic chemicals ever produced.
We need to stop pretending the environment is some separate entity that we should address from time to time or pay lip service to.
Our environment is us. We are a part of it as its a part of us. Economics routinely neglects this. Lets not distance our health from the connection it has to the world around us.
David MacVicar
Invermere
