During the month of April, we are exploring beauty in nature and life. The best thing about this series is that not only am I learning more, but also noticing more good stuff. Thanks for joining me. For the best reading experience and formatting, you can view this post on my website by clicking here.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Just before Mother’s Day a few years ago, I was out shopping with my friend, Ginny. We were looking at spring flowers at Pike’s Nursery, and inside they had this display of terrariums.
So cute!
So little!
So alive!
I bought one for my myself and my mom, boasting that these mini gardens would never die. We could snub them with our shriveled, brown thumbs and still they would live on!
Except they didn’t.
Mine first. Then my mom’s.
What happened?
I first learned about self-sustaining terrariums in third grade. Our class built one together. These mini ecosystems are really cool because if you do them right, they’re mainentence-free and last “forever.” However, this sealed terrarium must be able to clean, feed, and restore itself. If you think that sounds impossible, you’re right! The rules for proper terrarium care can be intimidating:
You’ ve got a checklist that includes choosing:
The right plants.
The right container.
The right light.
The right water.
The right microfauna (insects).
“Ecosystem: a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.””
What I find fascinating about terrarium building is that each one is a tiny microcosm of the world we live in. This beautiful planet, delicate and fragile, pivots on an invisible axis as the heavens blaze all around it. Miraculously, it’s exactly the right size, contains both water and air, enjoys the sun from a comfortable and safe distance, and houses all the plants and animals it needs to function efficiently. Within this extra large sphere, smaller biomes exist. Everything works together with everything else to achieve harmony and balance.
But like all things in nature, they don’t exist indefinitely unchanged. Disruption is inevitable. In addition to the wide scale destruction leveraged by mass disasters, there’s extinction, and even tinier disturbances like the famous “butterfly effect." None of you were surprised when I told you that our world is basically just an extra large terrarium. Sure. It’s one of those things you accept as fact, like the earth is round or the sky is blue.
But did you know that your body is ALSO an ecosystem?
Why is this important?
This week, I attended a Brain Health Forum hosted by Emory University’s Goizueta Center for Alzheimer’s Research. Over and over again, the researchers stressed the relationship between healthy habits and functional living. Like that terrarium that needs water and light, your body needs different kinds of energy to thrive. If you neglect one aspect, the whole body suffers. But humans are notoriously stubborn and weak and we live in denial about a lot of things. When it comes to how we care for our own bodies, we’re especially deceptive. We would prefer to cherry-pick our healthy habits by negotiating bargains like these:
I’ll exercise, but I’m not going to quit drinking alcohol.
I’ll practice good oral health, but I’m not going to get eight hours of sleep every night.
I’ll spend time learning a new skill, but I’m not going to give up fat and sugar.
Maybe you’ve told yourself that by the time your brain or heart begins to fail, science will have invented new drugs to stave off all the scary stuff. The problem is that you don’t wake up one morning, suddenly not able to remember what you did yesterday, or have a heart attack just because you sneezed really hard. These seemingly acute diseases fester over decades. And unfortunately, some drugs don’t even work if they’re started too late!
What CAN we do?
There’s a quote by author Anne Lamott that I’m applying here (slightly out of context):
What do we do during times of loss or general dread? WE DO WHAT’S POSSIBLE.
When faced with the IMPOSSIBLE, a great place to start is with this question:
What IS possible?
I came away from the forum feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information I ingested. These PhD/MD types use a lot of big words and talk really fast. But also—the body is complex, and because of the interconnectivity of the body’s systems, the medical professionals I heard from tended to focus on their hyper-specialized area of expertise.
Here’s what I took away from the day:
K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
Remember that what’s good for your heart is good for your brain.
Practice good sleep hygiene. (Make yourself a dedicated, distraction-free space that’s cool, comfortable, and devoid of light and sound pollution)
Depression and anxiety are risk factors for cognitive decline. Do not be afraid to ask for help when you need it, and stay connected socially.
Take care of your teeth. (So weird, but oral bacteria can travel to your brain and affect memory.)
It would be so easy—and no one would blame you—if you also came away from a lecture like that thinking, “It’s too hard. I can’t do all the things I need to do to stay healthy, so I might has well do nothing!”
A tiny part of you might be right. It’s true. You drop the ball on any one of these directives and your body will surely break down.
But I’m reminded of that Mother’s Day terrarium, short-lived though it was. Mine got too wet and mold started to grow. My mom placed hers too close to a sunny window and it dried out.
We did get to enjoy them for a little while. For a time, our beautiful terrariums brought so much joy and color into our homes. I may not have tended it to the degree that my gardening-loving-friend, Ginny, did hers, but I did what was possible for me.
A Lesson from Mrs. Jones, my favorite teacher ever
In third grade, I learned to appreciate the beauty of life. Through an engaging and interactive science project, I learned the importance of nurturing living things. There, my curiosity about the world was first sparked. Through practice, I became a steward of the land and gained a new understanding about the complexity of our natural world.
I have observed the power of the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight. When you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms inside of it a white rind and within that again a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight—when you can explain to me the mystery of a watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God.
William Jennings Bryan
The BIG Take-Away
The thing I’m learning most these days is that I don’t have to understand how everything works in order to appreciate my role in the ecosystems I inhabit. I want to harness my inner eight year-old, the girl who thought that collecting cool rocks, climbing trees, and making dandelion bracelets was the pinnacle of a fun afternoon.
Somewhere between those frivolous days spent outdoors cultivating curiosity, another girl emerged, a girl who became frustrated by all the things she didn’t know. Now I understand that there’s immense joy in being able to admire something and care for it and cultivate its beauty (even if you don’t fully “get” it)—not just in nature but in my marriage and in my children and in my friendships. I have a responsibility to be a faithful steward of the future. There are real consequences to neglecting the needs of organisms in the environment, the organizations we serve, and the organs in our bodies.
Knowing that my body is a complex network of nerves, blood vessels, enzymes and other tissues bound by both mind and soul actually inspires me take care of it more. Nothing stays the same, not our plants enclosed in their glass towers or our bodies wrapped in aging skin. That’s actually kind of cool. There’s always something new to explore and learn. All I really know is that I don’t want my body to break anytime soon. I’m not smart enough to fix all the things that could go wrong and paying someone else to do it will no doubt be very expensive.
That drug I mentioned earlier—the one that doesn’t even work if you start it too late—costs nearly $30,000/ year. (And nobody wants to drop that kind of cash for nothing!)