Friends, as our world lurches from catastrophe to catastrophe (Gulf oil spill, North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, etc), I was trying to recall moments of tranquility to balance things out a bit.
I was successful to a certain extent but then the thought struck me that perhaps the most tranquil moments were when I was feeding from my mother, moments that, cruelly, my memory has denied me.
If you look carefully at the beautiful photograph you’ll notice the mother is looking at the child with such love. The child is looking at the mother as it feeds, safe in her warm embrace as it takes in the warm, life-giving milk.
It is a scene of absolute contentment, the likes of which, when breast feeding is discontinued, may never come again as the child begins to become more aware and starts to make its way in this crazy, turbulent, unsafe world.
Is this the most precious period in our lives, one, ironically, we can’t remember?
If not, what do you think is?
In Spanish–which is actually a derivative of Latin (as in “Latin America”)–”mama” means the breast of a woman or the udder of a female animal–in effect, the same thing.
What distinguishes mammals is their ability to provide milk to their newly born through the mammary gland that produces the milk. Milk is a WHOLE food for the newborn mammal, whether a cat or a rat or you yourself. The milk is transformed into muscle tissue, bone tissue, blood tissue, lymph tissue, nerve tissue–well, you get the point.
In the case of newborn humans, they lack teeth to tear and chew solid food. No need—milk makes sure that no part of the growing infant will be denied that which is needed to grow.
At some point ALL mammal babies are WEANED from milk. Milk, as food goes, is akin to the “training wheels” that we place on a little tyke’s bike to get it where it wants to go until they can come off.
When humans left orcharding and the diet core of tree crops—fruits and nuts (the genesis diet of Adam)—and pursued agriculture and the herding of animals for grains/legumes/vegetables and flesh/milk (represented by Cain/farmer and Abel/herder), they triggered a tsunami of diet-related alterations in the environment (cutting trees instead of raising them), in human-human and human-animal relationships (from co-habitation to predator-prey, indeed a strange role for non-carnivorous humans) and in health (flesh and milk come with attendant diseases and deficiencies—more on that in a minute).
Refusing to be weaned from milk as nature dictates to all mammals, the cultured human keeps animals in an unnecessary, expensive and often cruel captivity while literally sacrificing the male calf—who produces no milk nor has his sister’s reproductive apparatus—on the day of his birth (“bob veal”) or after a few short months chained virtually motionless in a darkened box to effect soft muscles and fed a low-iron gruel to effect an anemia-induced pale flesh prized by veal gourmands.
The problem with “stealing milk from a baby” doesn’t end there. As CONCENTRATED PROTEIN and SATURATED FAT are ingested via milk products, these ingredients—which assure a speedy amassment of several hundred pounds of flesh in a young bovine left to his/nature’s own devices—render the human consumer as overweight—no mammal species has the same milk formula as the others. America has become a nation of obese people, from old to the very young.
Plant protein—with few exceptions like cocoanut—contain UNSATURATED FAT and PROTEIN that is NOT CONCENTRATED. By the way, cocoanut is a great food, and it does not add cholesterol to your diet, as do all animal-derived “foods.”
SATURATED PROTEIN increases the acidity of the blood—upsetting the pH balance between acids and alkalis (don’t forget that protein is acid—as in amino acid)—and increasing the load on the kidneys to de-acidify the blood. By increasing this process, SERUM CALCIUM (we have calcium in our bones and teeth, but also in our blood to hold it all together) is lost via urination, setting up a decalcification of bone and tooth.
Yes, and ironic, too! We drive past billboards that boast of milk’s calcium content—true enough—pitched by white mustachioed celebrities (“Got Milk?”). But what they don’t tell you is that studies have shown that there is a NET DEFICIT in calcium among milk drinkers as opposed to vegans who imbibe plant-based “milks” such as nut, seed, grain and legume milks (I love almond milk—and that supports orcharding over soy or rice milks). So, MORE TOOTH DECAY when flushed serum calcium is unnaturally replaced by bone-tooth calcium, weakening the teeth.
Because trees are perennials that require no replacement planting year after year, they make the best sources of food—low or no tech and no OIL to fuel and lubricate large farm machines. To remove tree cover to increase pasturage for hay and farming for grains/legumes (70-90% going to feed animals) makes no sense and with 6 billion people doing it, it is mind-bogglingly devastating in terms of the environment, health care (there is more breast, uterine and testicular cancers among milk/flesh eaters owing to the increase of estrogen and testosterone production incited by SATURATED FAT).
Long-term scientific tests conducted with thousands of human subjects by Cornell University during the 1990’s demonstrated the virtual lack of these cancers among simple Chinese people eating a simple plant-based diet (highly dependent upon soya beans, which contain genistein, an estrogen-mimicking component that docks in the estrogen-receptor cells, thus preventing breast cancers caused by excessive amounts of induced animal estrogen production). Their Westernized, flesh-milk eating Chinese counterparts are starting to show these cancers in increasing numbers.
Deforestation leads to the eventual loss of topsoil due to the erosive effects of wind and water—something deep tree roots prevent. When topsoil exits, desertification enters. Recall the “Dust Bowl” in the 1930’s in Oklahoma and Texas. Enter the “Grapes of Wrath.”
My sister Cookie and I were born at opposite ends of 1947. When mom got pregnant with me, her mammary glands were signaled to make Ted’s milk—not yours or dad’s or mom’s or anyone else’s, but MINE—so that I could build bone, nerve, muscle, blood and lymph tissue until I had teeth and the right gastric chemistry to “eat like a man.”
Eleven months later Cookie was born. The milk in my mother’s breasts was—in very real terms—PROTO-FLESH for my sister AND FOR NO OTHER. Mom’s milk was COOKIE’S milk to produce Cookie nerves, Cookie muscle, Cookie blood, etc.
With 90% of human living in urban settings, few people have a direct relationship to their food base. As such, fewer and fewer humans produce the food for more and more people. During the Great Depression years, over 50% of Americans lived on farms. While still not Paradise for man or beast, at least under those circumstances animals were treated better than the battery hens or the veal calves of today.
Breeding with no concern for what our own inflated numbers will bring—coupled with the devastating effects of deforestation and the despoiling of the fresh water supply (wars in a few decades will NOT be fought for oil, but RATHER FOR WATER!!!) that exceeds natural supply-demand by tending annual (irrigation-thirsty) crops and animals (WAY more water per pound of flesh protein versus a pound of plant protein)—the human animal is approaching a come-uppance that won’t be pretty.
As rainforests are cleared for fast-food chain flesh, the tropical soil is quickly depleted and the “slash and burn” mania moves to the next thousand hectares over the hill. More people and less resources is never a promising formula, and the slaughter of animals—once our friends in the orchard—requires a certain numbing to the needless bloodshed, making warfare over diminishing resources less horrific somehow, especially if we use nationalism, religion and other cultic toxins to turn the “enemy” into a, well, “animal.”
Yes, mother and child moving human sustenance SIGHT UNSEEN from breast to mouth is a vision of perfect peace. What Madison Avenue has done to the milk of Ted calf and Cookie calf is “erase the face” and “replace” with dazzling colors, clever packaging, enticing slogans, etc. to the point that—voila! Now YOU think that that is YOUR milk, and friend, it just ain’t?
Each DROP of ANY milk BELONGS not to the mama mammal nor you nor I but to the INDIVIDUAL BABY MAMMAL whose conception TRIGGERED mama’s breasts into milk production.
“Got ALMOND milk?”
Maybe it’s about time.
Ted PanDeva Zagar
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David G Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
But Ted, do you think this is the most tranquil experience of a human’s life? If not, what do you think is?
Cheers.
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Ted Zagar Reply:
June 17th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
This SHOULD be a very tranquil experience because you have the act of NURTURE and BONDING that started 9 months earlier on the INNER level–literally–now continuing unbroken except in form on the OUTER level. It is an experience of comfort and safety by which all other human encounters will be measured in that child’s life. The caring mother is the penultimate GIVER of life and the baby is the epitome of being a RECIPIENT of that gift of life.
Alas, it often becomes confounded by drugs experienced by the little one in utero or at the breast by a not 100% caring mother, not to mention unnatural interferences with the process as naturally intended such as mothers forcing early weaning (or not bothering to breast feed at all) to satisfy an insensitive culture’s mania for getting people back on the job ASAP following childbirth.
Back to OTHER mammalian mothers, the cow actually CRIES for her stolen son when the dairy farmer sells the day-old to the vealers and she watches helplessly as he is trucked away to an early, unnecessary demise. There are plenty of videos showing such scenes if one has the intestinal fortitude to watch them. “Diet For a New America” featuring John Robbins–son of the founder of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire who renounced his milk-dependent inheritance–is a good one and I recommend it for its many lessons.
I truly believe in Gandhi’s statement that a society can be measured by how it treats its animals. I care for animals NOT JUST FOR THE ANIMALS (as I am often accused) but also for we humans as well. There are two ends to a chain, so the best relationship is one that places neither party in bondage. Humans must lead the way, not destroy the way.
Jeshua said, “I am not here to destroy the law, I am here to fulfill it.” I follow no religious path but there are wise things said along the way by many people in many places that we would be wise to pay some mind to. especially when it accentuates NATURAL law over the laws of Culture’s CULTISTS. BTW, I am a non-supporter of the State in its many guises and manifestations. Voting to me seems contradictory to TRUE democracy, where everyone has a voice every day about every thing and is NOT bound by majority opinion. Having a representative–almost always a rich stranger–is NOT democracy and never will be.
But I digress.
We shouldn’t even know what milk LOOKS like for the most part. When a calf is at the cow’s teat, or a kid is at the mother goat’s or the human child at his mother’s breast, the milk flows UNSEEN as if the mystery of life shrouds the eternal processes that keep it flowing across time and space.
But a capitalistic world makes commodities out of everything and anything. We see a slice of cheese or a cup of yogurt or an ice cream cone and these things make most of us experience a positive, warm response. But there is a substrate to everything phenomenal and visible and we cannot deny that these false images of milk are neither natural nor necessary. Indeed, they are setting us up for disease and destruction. So what SEEMS positive to us would turn hideous and negative were we shown the whole picture. The dairy cow or the calf offspring for whom nature intends the milk are never considered.
So if what is good for the goose is also good for the gander, why would humans who ooh and aah at the tranquility of a HUMAN baby at his/her mother’s breast not extend that same anticipation and realization of comfort and safety for and in other species?
If people enjoy their yogurts and ice creams, etc., then they should allow baby to be WEANED from real milk at the appointed time and then led into the enjoyment of healthy and humanely derived plant “milks” and their derivatives in the sphere of candies, drinks, yogurts, etc.
BTW, we are on the cusp of Gemini and Cancer, the latter governing the breasts and, thus, milk! So THAT’S where all of this discourse is coming from!!!
And cheers to you, David!
Ted PanDeva Zagar
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Breast feeding is blissful for the mother. I would imagine it is blissful for the child. It was one of the most pleasurable momories (typo, but I’ll keep it!) that I have.
However, Ted, before you blame the modern woman on being so selfish and not breast feeding.. you must consider that sometimes a woman wants to breastfeed, but there is a problem.
I was fortunately able to give my child the colostrum. That is the most nutritious food for the newborn. Everything is just right for the baby’s new needs. However, my doctor did not remove all of the placenta from my womb. This told my body that I was still pregnant and therefore I did not produce milk. I did not know this and I continued to feed a starving child at my breast. He withered at my breast. He lost 16% of his birthweight in the first two weeks. No doctor could figure it out. I kept calling them to tell them I was still bleeding and in pain and they phoned more narcotics to the pharmacy for me. 45 days later they removed the placenta – after my husband called and yelled at them. My husband also went out and got formula for our starving baby. Pathetic was that I was still trying to pump my dry breasst for milk, for hours, all day for a drip to come out. We hired a nurse to come to our house and help me and even she didn’t figure out what was the matter. My obstetritian squeezed my breast and made some comment about how I wasn’t much of a woman! That is how everyone ttreated me. I would call in becasue of pain and my doctor made a comment about my love of drugs and what a drug addict I must be!!! I was bleeding and in pain!!!
So, fuck you.
I just had to get that out.
That said. My mother had been a member of The La Leche League. A group of mothers who believe in breastfeeding for all the many reasons Ted mentioned. I grew up with that frame of mind and never expected it to be differently.
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Ted Zagar Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 2:09 am
Good grief, Grace–and that’s what everyone GAVE YOU (GRIEF), undeservedly so. Please keep in mind that when I lay out my thoughts it applies to an overarching concept grounded in NATURE but there are always exceptional situations where a person’s gotta do what he/she has gotta do. In your case colostrum, goat’s milk from a HUMANE dairy, etc. would be acceptable in my world view to keep a child alive, hoping that this baby will grow to be a person with high spiritual qualities who could bring some good into the world.
I am quite familiar with La Leche League.
A little story. I was standing in my library at work not too far from a few teachers, one who happened to be expecting a baby. They were advising her as to how and when to stop the breastfeeding and it sounded awfully short term to me–like just a month or two–and then how to switch to FORMULA (I wrote that word in caps because this seems to be a deity to some women who want to keep their breasts perky instead of feeding/bonding with the child), what kind of formula to give, etc. It was unsettling to me.
I have ALWAYS supported a MUCH LONGER leave of absence for new moms, even to the point of seeing if some of their work can be done at home–or if a nursery/child care facility can be set up at the work location. Hell, we dump trillions into war, why not set up great things for “we, the people” and our young?
I appreciate what you have gone through. We enter Cancer/breasts/milk for a month on the solstice, a mere 3-4 days away, so we are in the “cusp zone” and therefore very sensitive about these issues.
Cancer also governs the stomach and pancreas and elbows. I am a capricorn–opposite Cancer, plus I have Cancer rising in the east on the Body Line/Ascendant/1st House cusp. That greatly sensitized my stomach. I was a collicky baby by the way.
Enjoy the day, Grace.
Ted
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Ted Zagar Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 2:39 am
Grace,
I have almost 300 HERBAL HEALER columns in print, adding a new one every Thursday in the local newspaper.
The URL/webpage address below specifically responds to the search terms “Ted PanDeva Zagar milk.” Not all of the 14 columns that were retrieved deal with milk–there are a few that discuss the herb MILK thistle, for instance.
http://www.nwitimes.com/search/?l=50&sd=desc&s=start_time&f=html&q=ted+pandeva+Zagar+milk
However, in the course of my studies I have found some WONDERFUL herbs for increasing the flow of breast milk, and one plant–Moringa–has a leaf that was and still is saving infant lives in Africa because of all of the incredible nutrients packed into its leaf–which can be powdered and easily administered to babies. Read that one, plus the first entry, plus fenugreek. Some of the others like dill are also useful. Maybe you or someone you know might actually benefit from this information some day.
Ted
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Thank you, Ted. Maybe I will have grandchildren some day since my childbearing days are gone now. SInce my neck was broken by another doctor, I now have to take medicines to keep me from being bedridden which makes having another child very irresponsible. So I got “one good one.” I count my blessings rather than my curses.
I worked for eight months of my pregnancy at a health food store where I was sponsored by at least three different vitamin companies. I took the highest quality vitamins available and my son was a peaceful, quiet baby. I also took alot of calcium – as that is the cure for a colicky baby. Also milk thistle tea is full of calcium. I also took extra calcium supplements in the night to help sleep better.
Thank you for sharing such valuable information. For anyone aho may have a child one day or knows of someone expecting a baby, this is very useful knowledge. Also, trust your instincts, people. I have had to advocate for myself over and over. I am almost always right, and when I am not, it is a valuable learning experience. Be respectful, yes, but do not hesitate to know what you know and speak your truth to the doctors. The doctor who left the placenta in me – when she arrived in my room, I told her she better calm the heck down or just leave now. She was wired like she was on speed. I was birthing naturally without any epidurals. I meditated throughout the whole ordeal. Her energy was soooo disruptive I should have never let her near me or my baby. Of course, there was no accountability by her. BTW, my doctors were all from The Feminist Women’s Health Center of Berkeley, California. Not what one might expect, eh?
You’d think I’d be rich from all the lawsuits from all these professional fockers. Never sued a one of them. I was naiive and just wanted to try to get on with my life. That is now another subject.
Peace, people.
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The most tranquil experience was when I witnessed a mother white tail deer nursing her fawn. She was completely removed from civilizations view except mine. The fawn suckled and they both moved on. It made me think of how life will move on without any of us. Humans are not a necessity to the earth but a parasite upon it.
When they understand their place in the cosmos and accept it, only then can we move on to the next level of evolution. But with a certain segment of humanity deeming itself special in the eyes of an unknowable, unprovable god, we can never have true peace.
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I think what david wants to address is along the line of monism versus dualism.
There is also the line of thinking of Whitehead, who was a spiritual monist, so to say.
(‘Process and reality’. Later Hawthorne.)
Whitehead stressed that there are more ‘forces’ -or dimensions- in the world as the mechanists presume.
One is ‘Love’.
This is somehow obscured by the likes of David Chalmers, who termed the phrase ‘the hard problem’.
But must it be a problem?
It is the immediacy of some relations and impressions, and those are NOT reducible to hormonal causes!
I presume this is, what David meant.
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Groo, the intention of this post was invite readers to think about the word ‘tranquility’ and to do a reality check in their own lives to ascertain:
- had they experienced times of real tranquility and if so, when,
- and to consider whether or not the greatest time of tranquility may have occurred during the first few months of life when human memory for most is not functioning.
The hoped result of the reflection was, of course, to challenge them to try to make tranquility more a part of their lives.
Some of the comments could hardly be described as comments. They are more tracts. And in
fact there was some upset caused which destroyed the whole purpose of the post.
I would urge people to confine their comments to the topic of the post. This is not a forum for self-advertising!
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David, I am sorry. The picture is beautiful and I admired it for a while. I wanted to keep it all about the bliss I felt, however, my own son’s breastfeeding ordeal got triggered. I think he had moments of bliss along with me, as he has very positive associations with breasts -even after that!! He called them ba-ba’s (short for bottles of milk!) for many years. Now he just tells me how nice I look. : ).
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David G Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Grace, you have nothing to be sorry for. Your experience was traumatic and tragic.
I guess most of us carry scars from the past and, too often, we stifle them. Letting off steam is beneficial.
Take care of yourself!
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With all that is going on in the world today, nationally and even our personal lives I can see how it would be hard for anyone to focas on tranquility. That is a wonderful picture, enjoy the tranquil scene, it is great (the picture is worth a thousand words), oh that all could be so peaceful. As more aid ships are headed for Gaza, hundreds of thousands are forced to leave their homes in the former Soviet territory, people here and elsewhere just trying to feed their families, and the uncertanty of tomorrow. Might be just me. Love and peace to all.
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David, I was bottle fed, so I know that I never felt that kind of bliss.
I breastfed my children, however, and I know that the hormones released with the milk let-down are a natural relaxant.
Maybe my kids don’t remember the days we spent literally attached to each other, but it certainly is part of their psyche. Surely the warmth and closeness we felt shaped their lives as they developed into the wonderful human beings they are today.
I understand the frustration that Ted feels. American women are encouraged to go back to their wage slave jobs within weeks of giving birth. Breastfeeding now involves fossil fuels (as I pointed out in my Mother’s Day talk), with electric breast pumps, plastic bottles, freezers and paid help to give the baby their mother’s milk.
Not exactly the picture of bliss that you posted!!
It doesn’t always work out perfectly, apparently, as posted by both Ted and Grace.
The hormone released by nursing should stimulate the uterus, and help expel the placenta.
Then the hormones should stop ovulation, leading to births spaced 2 or more years apart.
I guess that doesn’t always happen. It worked for me, though.
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before i comment on this discussion, did we get a result about the most dangerous leader in the world?…………………..
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David G Reply:
June 19th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Netanyahu won, Coco, with Obama a close second.
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well first of all, we have to define tranquility…………….it could be different for everyone.
my ‘tranquil’ moment is after i’ve drunk a bottle of ‘periquita’ wine and a few beers………..
of course at this point, some people may say i’m pissed………you see the difference between tranquility and pissed????
so i can’t really define tranquiity……………..but i’m very tranquil when i’m asleep.
thanks for the result……………but i guess now, the most dangerous ‘leader’ (aka: ceo) is tony h. don’t you think he looks like mr. bean?????………………..
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David G Reply:
June 20th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Coco, being drunk does create a kind of tranquility but it’s hell the next morning!
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I find this website contradictory in almost every way. How can we free the Palestinians, end capitalism and impose sanctions on war mongerors if we have no power. Power is what makes the world turn around. Power does not have to be violent, it can be spiritual, emotional or sexual. We must have it if we want to change the world. You will never make the US government see that it needs to stop fighting on moral grounds because if it stops fighting, someone will destroy it. How moral is that? Why not accept that humans are competitive? Just like every other organism. We can find a way to protect those things we hold dear to us from within this system. Don’t try to change humans into something they’re not though and don’t make statements like “free the Palestinians” without the necessary political, social, economic, logistical, cultural, regional and geopolitical implications. Freedom for the pike means death to the minnow – Isiah Berlin.
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Mark, if you’d bothered to read more than one or two posts, you’d have noticed that your simplistic summary is rather silly.
Of course power is necessary but in our modern world the power is in the hands of the wrong people: the oligarchs, the military, the corporations, the politicians, the likes of Murdoch, etc.
This blog is about returning the power to the people which is how it is supposed to be in a democracy!
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