Mother Nature

After one of the most mother naturely mothers I know send me this article because my babe's sick right now, I got to thinking about the term Mother Nature and how we mothers really ought to be more in turn with how our bodies and our babies bodies naturally work.

Too often we think of nature as something separate from our bodies. Nature is the trees, grass, and beautiful flowers (which sometimes, contrary to logic, make us sick with allergies). But we are part of nature too and, along with the honey bee and the rose, we have been made with incredible, natural defense mechanisms that our body uses to protect itself. I'm just beginning to understand how often pharmaceutical medicines undermine these natural defense mechanisms. Fevers are good, even protective? What? I shouldn't just give her tylenol when she gets and over 101 degree fever like my pediatrician says? Hmmm. (Check out the article.)

We mothers, who have birthed bodies from our own, have quite a responsibility to care for those little bodies in ways that keep them whole. In The Unsettling of America, Wendell Berry notes that the world health belong to a family of words including heal, whole, wholesome, hale, hallow, and holy. I think that's pretty important to remember. I want to help her little body work in the most natural way possible, the way God made it to work. I want to better listen to Mother Nature, but oh there's so many other voices to filter out.