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THE TRINI BIG LIFE
Macrobiotics
When my sister introduced me to Macrobiotics (Latin for Big Life) back in the 80’s I embraced it with a fanaticism that I had not known possible for me. I loved the premise: In order to optimise our health we have to maintain a balanced connection to our immediate environment. How do we do that? By making dietary choices informed by these principles: fresh, whole food, locally grown and chemical free.

We were living in Toronto at the time and I used to joke/rationalize that the Macrobiotic diet for the big city would be cheeseburger and pizza. In retrospect, I had to justify the reality that I was never able to kick these habits. Now that we know that wheat and dairy products contain opiate-like exorphins as addictive as heroin I can forgive myself.

One of the stories of how the Macrobiotic diet came to the West bears repeating. When Michio Kushi, a Japanese young man from a wealthy family was diagnosed with Tuberculosis back in the time between the “great wars” he was sent to an expensive sanatorium out in the countryside, basically to die a slow death in pleasant surroundings. One day when he was sitting on the veranda looking out over the fields he observed the peasants going about their daily chores it occurred to him, “why is it that they are so healthy and I am so sick?” He decided to introduce himself to them and in so doing he became acquainted with the traditional rural Japanese diet and philosophy. By adopting this lifestyle he was cured of his consumption and returned home. He went to medical school specializing in lung diseases and upon graduation set up a clinic on one floor of a high-rise building on the outskirts of Nagasaki. His healing modality was to place the people who came to him on the diet. After the Americans tested their second atomic bomb on that city and the marines were sent in to investigate the consequences they found that everyone in that building was suffering from radiation sickness except the patients of Dr. Kushi.

Isn’t this phenomenal! A truly healthy human being actually radiates such energy as to act as a shield to incoming radiation! It blew me away when I first heard it.

Hippocratic oath
Around this same time I came across the original classical version of the Oath of Hippocrates, the father of Western Medicine, that modern physicians swear by. Along with the expected issues of confidentiality and refraining from inappropriate advances on patients and their families I was dumbfounded by the following:

“I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment.”
“I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.”
“I will not use the knife”

Clearly Doctors have had to do some severe editing in order to lay claim to Hippocrates’ ethical standards.

Bioregionalism
In Toronto I was a member of the Karma Co-op, my neighbourhood food co-op, and we had a magazine section that had a selection of alternative periodicals. One of the events I always looked forward to was the arrival each month of the New Catalyst Journal from Lillooit, Gabriola Island, British Columbia. I would read it from cover to cover. Every article, no matter how local the issue being addressed, embodied a perspective that resonated deeply with me. In 1988 the community that produced this journal hosted the third North American Bioregional Congress (NABC III). The proceedings from the Congress were advertised in the Journal and I sent for a copy.

Upon receiving it I was most struck by the work of the MAGIC committee. Their role in the congress was to stand in for the non-human world, rooted beings, water beings, winged beings and four legged beings, at the closing plenary sessions. I made a decision to attend the following congress in Maine in 1990.