“transforming the nature of health” book review

By Lucy On May 17, 2012 · 4 Comments · In Eat/Breathe, Read/Write, Think/Pray

I don’t remember how I heard about this book. It was one of those mysteries, like the passage of time and the universe itself, simply placing itself in my path until I brought it into my home, attracted especially by the sub-title: “A Holistic Vision of Healing That Honors Our Connection to the Earth, Others, and Ourselves.”

The author, Marcey Shapiro, is a doctor of the future. The kind our children will come to expect. She is an MD, a family physician, with training in Western and Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, mind-body techniques, flower essences, homeopathy, breathing techniques, nutritional therapies and more.

Marcey lays the stage by affirming that we are not confined by our bodies alone, “we are spiritual beings engaged in a physical existence” (xiii). Although most of us believe in the idea of a spirit reality that is greater than our physical existence, we have historically agreed with a “science” that fails to acknowledge this reality.

But that’s all changing, Marcey says. We’re waking up. We’re beginning to understand the underlying unity of all being. We’re starting to notice the common thread connecting us, the creative force that’s beating our hearts and growing the trees.

“The current shift is at least as profound as the one that must have been felt in the fourth century BC when observers realized that the Earth is round rather than flat. It is as immense as that which occurred when Galileo provided astronomical evidence to support Copernicus’s observations that our planet is one of several that revolve around the sun, thus proving that Earth is not the center of the universe. Heretical as each of these notions was in its day, they were, of course, a more correct understanding of the physical Earth and celestial mechanics” (xiii).

She provides several examples of science beginning to uncover the truth of our oneness. Ecology has found that the successful systems are ones with balance, cooperation and diversity rather than competition or “survival of the fittest.” Reductionist science has been proven obsolete because we’ve established that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In medicine, rather than seeing disease as an outside force that happens to us, we are beginning to accept that it all started within us, and that “thoughts, mind, focus and consciousness are the most important determinants of health” (xvii).

Marcey extrapolates that all living beings are connected through electromagnetic impulses of the heart, conjuring up an image in my head of those heart-centered cords connecting the characters in “Donnie Darko.” She reveals what’s right under our feet but invisible to a human being’s limited senses, like the crickets. (Crickets, who only live for about two weeks, sound like singing angels when their voices are slowed down to match the average human lifespan of 75 years.)

Why do I strongly recommend reading this book? Because I am more in control of my health than ever. I have less fear surrounding dis-ease. I have more respect for insects. (Rather than flicking away the annoying fly, I let them stay, and then I politely ask them to fly away, which works quite well.) I have found an expanded awareness of our inherent oneness. I am more conscious of my language and attitudes surrounding dis-ease/bacteria/viruses because I am weary to turn any organism, big or small, into the enemy or the “other.” At last I understand why we have nothing to worry about: everything out of balance will naturally right itself (including global warming and toxic corporations). And although we only truly have power over ourselves, this is all we need to effect change. By taking care of ourselves, purifying and nurturing the landscape of our body and mind, we can heal the world, too.